Michael J. Perley’s research while affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis and other places

This study, based upon a 6- to 8-year follow-up of 25 patients, who were diagnosed as suffering from hysteria originally, and again at follow-up, resulted in the following conclusions: 1. Hysteria, as here defined, is a distinct, recognizable syndrome which is very similar in its clinical features from patient to patient; 2. Hysteria is a chronic illness which lasts many years and which is nearly always free from significant remissions; 3. Hysteria is a multisymptomatic syndrome which can and should be distinguished from conversion reactions, which are individual symptoms found in many disorders in addition to hysteria.

A COMPLETE concept of the clinical characteristics of hysteria is of practical importance to the physician since he must often evaluate the significance of symptoms that have not been explained by physical examination and laboratory studies. The danger of haphazard and unwarranted dismissal of symptoms as manifestations of hysteria is obvious. Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little quantitative information in the literature about the clinical manifestations and prognosis of hysteria. Studies of the natural history of this disease have been limited primarily to descriptions of the isolated occurrence and prognosis of specific hysterical symptoms, such as transient blindness, paralysis and aphonia, . . .