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Every untrained automatism must be domesticated, and every striated muscle capable of direct muscular control must be dominated by volition. Thus tensions and incipient contractures that drain off energy can be relaxed by fiat.

During these 'complex involuntary movements, the muscles of the calf became hard and rigid. The act of walking was accomplished with considerable difficulty, on account of contractures, and because the feet were not exactly under the control of the will. The unnatural movements of the hands corresponded to those of the lower extremities, though they were more constant and active.

Similarly mono-symptomatic hysteria is characteristic of oases occurring in the uneducated or peasant class. In children, hysterical pain, hysterical contractures or palsies, mutism, and aphonia are the most usual symptoms. Hysterical deafness, blindness, and dysphagia are manifestations of great rarity in childhood. In time of sickness the management of the nervous child becomes very difficult.

As far as my observations go, it seems to me that there is a special disposition to sleep walking in the descendants of alcoholics and epileptics, of individuals with a distinctively sadistic character, finally of hysterics, whose motor activity is strongly affected, who also suffer with convulsions, tremor, paralyses or contractures.