ABSTRACT
CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS Hysterical Amnesia A central concern in these earlier studies of mental functioning was the fact of hysterical amnesia. Recognized by clinicians from the beginning of the 19th
century onward, it was most fully explored and described by Janet in the 1880s and 1890s. Typical of the patients he studied was Madame D. Janet (1904) tells us:
On the 28th of August, 1891, while in perfect health, she was the victim of a lamentable practical joke, which completely upset her mental equilibrium and produced a most remarkable psychological illness. While sitting alone in her house working at her sewing machine, she saw the door suddenly open. A stranger approached and said abruptly. “ Get a bed ready, Madame D. They are carrying your husband home quite dead.” When Madame D. failed to move but sat quietly sobbing, her head resting on her machine, he tapped her on the shoulder and added, “ Stop crying so much and go upstairs to get a bed ready.” Then he departed, leaving her to her despair.
