A  mistake  is  rarely  made  except  by  those  unfamiliar  with  the  mimetic  charac-
teristic of  hysteria,  or  whose  judgment  is  clouded  by  sorrow  and  alarm.
Much  more  frequent  is  the  converse  error ;  the  symptoms  of  a  tumor  are
ascribed  to  hysteria.  Sometimes  this  is  done  without  a  shadow  of  excuse,
merely  because  the  patient  is  of  the  female  sex.    More  often  the  fact  that  indi-

*  Compare  "  Med.  Oph.,''  plate  viii,  Fig.  2.
900  BRAIN.
cations  of  hysteria  are  present  is  allowed  to  dominate  the  diagnosis.  In  young
women,  organic  disease  of  every  kind  is  apt  to  excite  hysterical  disturbance,
especially  convulsion,  and  this  is  eminently  true  of  cerebral  tumor.  Error
in  diagnosis  is  readily  avoided  by  attention  to  the  simple  rule,  which,  men-
tioned already  more  than  once,  cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  that  present
symptoms  of  hysteria  should  never  be  allowed  to  influence  the  diagnosis
until  all  indications  of  organic  disease  have  been  sought  for  and  excluded.
In  cerebral  tumor  such  symptoms  are  never  absent.
