ABSTRACT
A BOY of eight was seen by me in the Autumn of 1911. The preceding May he had developed what his parents called hallucinations, which occurred when he was alone, for he would go on errands and play about contentedly if he knew he was in sight of any one. There were no night terrors, although the boy feared going to bed alone, and his father and mother always accompanied him upstairs. Whenever he was alone an attack would occur. As in Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner”: — Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turn’d round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.
