After many periods
of remission and exasperation, continued many years; after having tested
the inadequacy of the advice of her relatives and friends, as well as her
own reason, she decides to come to Paris in Nov., 1830. Isolation,
the care of strangers, and the efforts which she makes to conceal her disease,
sensibly ameliorate her condition, but her sorrow in consequence of having
left her relatives, and her desire to see them, determine her at the expiration
of two months to return to her family. There, by degrees, all
her disquietude and madness return. After some months, she
voluntarily leaves the residence of her parents, to reside in the family
of a skillful physician. Her apprehensions again, for
the most part leave her, and also her strange habits. A year
has hardly passed, when the same disquietudes are renewed, as well
as the same precautions. The paroxysm lasts for eighteen months.
After a year's remission, another paroxysm recurs, and she comes to commit
herself to my care at the close of the year 1834. During eighteen
months, scarcely were the movements of her hands or fingers perceived,
nor any of those other precautions which she had been accustomed to take.
For the last six months however, (June, 1837), the phenomena have returned
with still greater intensity, and increased from day to day.