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But she quickly lapsed again into the dull state. Next day it was noted that she was more stuporous, and she remained so for two weeks, now showing a decided tendency to catalepsy and more resistance than before, though not marked, except in the jaw.
The only response obtained was “I don’t know.” In December, 1911, she was transferred to another hospital as a case of deteriorated dementia præcox. To Recapitulate: We have here a young woman who for a year had indefinite mental symptoms and suddenly developed a stupor. This was atypical in that she sang and wrote when otherwise apparently deeply stuporous.
Then she became more markedly stuporous, drooling saliva, very stiff, often lying with head half raised, gazing stolidly, never answering, soiling. Later, after a month, this was less consistent. She now and then went to the closet, sometimes she smiled, ate some fruit brought to her, spoke a little. Repeatedly when people came she clung to them, wanted to go home, again was seen to weep silently.
At least this seems to be a definite tendency. A similar tendency may be seen later: On November 4, while generally stuporous, this suddenly lifted for a short time, and with feeble voice she uttered some depressive ideas. She said she wanted to go to a convent, that it would be better if she were dead, that she could not do anything right.
As early as four weeks after admission she had begun to giggle or laugh, often in an empty fashion, and a transition from the more constrained stuporous state, with interruptions of laughter, to an indifferent silly, muttering to herself was gradual. In 1909 she was described as not talking, standing around, showing no interest in anything, muttering.
Hence, while the visit of a husband is likely to produce nothing but vituperation or blows from a manic wife, the stuporous woman may greet him affectionately and regain thereby some contact with the world. So many cases begin recovery in this manner that it cannot be mere chance. One patient’s improvement, for instance, dated definitely from the day a nurse persuaded her to write a letter home.
Here one might quote Laura A. once more, whose resistiveness when stuporous was intense but who in her manic spells expressed her negativism in a definite idea, “I don’t want my face washed.” To summarize, then, we may say that negativism is apparently the result of a desire to be left alone, and that muscular resistiveness is a larval exhibition of the same tendency.
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