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Title The Arc de Siècle: Functional neurological disorders during the ‘forgotten’ years of the twentieth century Authors Max Fend 1 , Louise Williams 2 , Alan J Carson 1 , Jon Stone 1 Affiliations: 1. Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, Chancellors Building, University of Edinburgh, UK, EH16 4TJ 2. Lothian Health Services Archive, Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, The University of Edinburgh, George Square, Edinburgh, UK, EH8 9LJ Corresponding author: Prof Jon Stone Dept Clinical Neurosciences University of Edinburgh Western General Hospital Edinburgh EH4 2XU [email protected] 0131 537 1167 Word count: Keywords: Hysteria; Functional Neurological Disorders; Psychogenic; Neurology; Diagnosis; Conversion Disorder 1

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Page 1: €¦  · Web viewA condition with its own catalogue of signs, symptoms and treatment, like any other; but one that eluded the pathologist’s gaze. ‘Hysteria’ was a standard

Title

The Arc de Siècle: Functional neurological disorders during the ‘forgotten’ years of the

twentieth century

Authors

Max Fend1, Louise Williams2, Alan J Carson1, Jon Stone1

Affiliations:

1. Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, Chancellors Building, University of Edinburgh, UK, EH16 4TJ

2. Lothian Health Services Archive, Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, The

University of Edinburgh, George Square, Edinburgh, UK, EH8 9LJ

Corresponding author:Prof Jon StoneDept Clinical NeurosciencesUniversity of EdinburghWestern General HospitalEdinburgh EH4 2XU

[email protected] 537 1167

Word count:

Keywords: Hysteria; Functional Neurological Disorders; Psychogenic; Neurology; Diagnosis;

Conversion Disorder

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The dark ages of ‘hysteria’

In 1900, functional neurological disorder, then known as ‘hysteria’, was a key topic of neurological

research. A condition with its own catalogue of signs, symptoms and treatment, like any other; but

one that eluded the pathologist’s gaze. ‘Hysteria’ was a standard part of the neurological curriculum

for neurologists of the period, from Charcot to Babinski in Paris, and Gowers to Henry Head in the

UK(Stone, 2016). This is well trodden ground for medical historians. However, a combination of

factors led to a steep decline in neurological interest in ‘hysteria’ after the first world war: the shell

shock epidemic and subsequent home office enquiry, the rise of the clinicopathological method and

increasing popularity of Freudian explanatory concepts of conversion disorder which were alien to

clinical neurologists, who were only too happy to leave talking cures to psychiatrists(Stone, 2016).

Although its presentation in neurology clinics appears to have remained relatively constant, twentieth-

century neurology textbooks increasingly failed to address the topic of functional neurological

disorders, until by 1970 it had almost completely disappeared from view(Stone et al., 2008). In recent

years there has been a resurgence of neurological interest in functional disorders and once again they

are edging their way back into the neurology curriculum(Hallett et al., 2016).

Diagnostic practice, and especially attitudes, are often handed down from one generation of clinicians

to the next via face to face contact. In an average neurology department, the oldest consultant was

likely trained in the 1970s or 1980s, by someone who themselves trained in the 1950s. For the student

of functional neurological disorders, it is hard to know exactly what was happening in the mid-

twentieth century, because of the relative lack of interest by neurologists. Historians and writers such

as Terry Eagleton love the idea that ‘hysteria’ was a common ailment among these women while

Charcot was alive, but ceased to be common once he died. The hysterics, so to speak, now had

nobody to perform for’. But as Jan van Gijn, Emeritus Professor of Neurology at Utrecht replied, this

contention ‘makes it clear that Eagleton is not a neurologist’(van Gijn, 2007). A more plausible

explanation might be that patients with functional neurological disorders remained common but, like

stroke and dementia, were not of much interest to the few neurologists practising at that time. If the

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patients were still there (though somehow less visible), how were neurologists diagnosing,

investigating, and treating them in these “dark ages” for ‘hysteria’? Ted Reynolds, one of very few

neurologists at Kings College Hospitals, recalled that in Queen Square in the 1960s and 1970s they

were ‘shunted’ off to psychological services because ‘none of the neurologists were interested’(Stone,

2016). If we can understand better what was happening to the condition over the arc of the 20th

century, then perhaps we can also appreciate the reasons why functional neurological disorders were,

in comparison to their apparent illumination at the ‘fin de siècle’ of the 19th century, in their own

‘dark ages’ for so long. To explore these questions, we have examined the new Norman Dott archive

in Edinburgh, and neurological textbooks and papers from the twentieth century. We also conducted

semi-structured interviews with retired British neurologists, who all practiced in the period between

Dott’s retirement in 1960 and the millennium. Neurologists Alastair Compston, Pauline Monro, Ted

Reynolds, Charles Warlow, and Roger Cull provided oral histories on their interactions with this

cohort during their careers, from education about the condition to subsequent management.

The Norman Dott Archive

Professor Norman Dott CBE (1897-1973) was an apprentice engineer, whose motorcycle accident and

subsequent treatment in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh inspired a distinguished medical career.

Dott was trainee and frequent correspondent of Harvey Cushing in Harvard (Figure 1), held the first

chair of Neurosurgery in Edinburgh, pioneered intracranial aneurysm surgery, CBE, and was (most

importantly for our purposes) a meticulous record keeper(Rush and Shaw, 1990). Not only did he

retain his own patients case notes, but also those of his multidisciplinary team. His entourage included

two neurologists, William Sneddon-Watson and Kate Hermann, the latter a German Jew fleeing the

Nazis who became the first female neurology consultant in Scotland in 1938(The Scotsman, 2007).

Consequently, Dott’s case files offer a rare window not only into the practice of a renowned

neurosurgeon, but also the department built around him. The Lothian Health Services Archive

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(LHSA) holds 28,213 case files of patients seen by Dott and the doctors he trained, during the period

from 1930-70, each case tagged according to the conditions mentioned in them.

Cases containing the keywords ‘hysteria’ or ‘hypochondriasis’ were identified and examined in the

Centre for Research Collections at the University of Edinburgh Library, with particular attention paid

to the method by which the diagnosis was made, any evidence of particular attitudes towards the

condition, and the subsequent management or lack thereof. All case quotes were given a five-year

period denomination to preserve anonymity.

Figure 1. Norman Dott (top right) during his one year fellowship with Harvey Cushing (lower

middle) in New York in 1923-4, reprinted from (Rush and Shaw, 1990)

Of the 209 cases retrieved, 31 were considered not related to functional neurological disorders. In the

remaining 178 cases, there were 138 civilian cases, (92 female and 46 male) and 40 military cases (38

male and 2 female). The median age of patients at the time of most recent consultation was 36 for

men and 43 for women. Of the 100 people who were diagnosed with ‘hysteria’, 67 were based on

positive findings such as inconsistency in limb weakness. The diagnosis and management of these

100 patients is shown in Figure 2:

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Figure 2. Diagnoses and referral pathways for patients with ‘hysteria’

Perhaps the most striking statistic is that from 28,213 cases, only 100 were diagnosed with ‘hysteria’

over the period from 1930 to 1970, indicating a prevalence in Dott’s department of less than 0.4%.

Recent studies suggest that the presentation rate of FND in general neurology clinics has remained

relatively constant at around 8%- however it is acknowledged that numerical data in this period is

‘sparse’, and certainly this sample contradicts that figure. The reader may observe that the primary

author of the case files was a neurosurgeon and therefore a lower prevalence might be expected,

however many of his trainees were neurologists, and FND can commonly present to neurosurgeons

first. Consequently, whilst biased towards neurosurgical assessment, we would still expect to see

patients with FND presenting in the Dott archive. It should also be noted that some patients were

likely diagnosed with a functional neurological disorder, not a searchable keyword in the database,

and missed as a result, but this may indicate a lower threshold for making the diagnosis at this time.

‘I took occasion to observe her walking down the street…’-Diagnosis and Attitude

DSM-5, published in 2013, bases the diagnosis of functional neurological symptom disorder (also

called conversion disorder), on the presence of typical positive features of the condition. For example,

Hoover’s sign for hip extensor weakness, or the tremor entrainment test. Common to many of the

positive signs is internal inconsistency. Evidence of this principle is buried in small sections from 5

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mid-twentieth century textbooks, but what occurred in practice? One of Dott’s earliest cases provides

an example.

‘…She staggered from side to side in such an exaggerated…yet deliberate manner that I formed the

opinion that her staggering was… (due)…to a hysterical belief that she was unable to walk…certain

exercises with the hands and arms…occupied her attention. In these circumstances she could stand

quite steadily’. Dott, 1935-39

‘All movements against resistance are weaker on the left…but the patient was well able to carry

out all ordinary movements for getting dressed’. Hermann, 1940-44

‘She also failed to recognise objects placed in the hand when this was done as a deliberate test but

recognised them and used them when this was done casually’. Lowe, 1950-54

‘He walked… fairly well when he thought that he was not being observed’. Huang, 1955-59

The cases quoted above are written by different doctors at different times, yet omnipresent is an

ability to recognise positive signs of a functional neurological disorder. As previously mentioned, the

contemporary neurological literature skirted the topic, therefore where did this diagnostic capability

come from? None of our interviewees recalled receiving formalised teaching on the topic, as

undergraduates or doctors. Alastair Compston, Emeritus Professor of Neurology at Cambridge,

remembers ‘hysteria’ being thought of ‘as somewhat of an intrusion into diseases of the nervous

system as understood and accepted at Queen Square’. However, they all mentioned receiving informal

advice, as Emeritus Professor of Neurology at Edinburgh Charles Warlow put it: ‘They’d show you

the tricks of how to diagnose it’. Whilst not immediately apparent from the literature, it therefore

appears that both Dott’s department and others were perfectly able to elicit a functional neurological

disorder diagnosis. However, many examples in the letters are consistent with a medical approach

that did little to separate genuinely experienced functional neurological disorders from wilful

exaggeration:

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‘The patient walked for me with a distinct limp…I took occasion to observe her walking down the

street on leaving my house, and she then walked…naturally with no trace of disability.’ Dott, 1935-

39).

Dott’s department by no means depended solely on physical signs, and often made character

judgements that led them to the diagnosis:

‘I had no doubt at all that there was a very considerable hysterical element in the case’-Dott, 1940-

44

‘This girl is a gross hysteric whatever she is’- Paterson, 1940-44

‘On admission she was found to be hysterical and no definite abnormal neurological signs

detected’-Block, 1950-54

‘We would…consider him basically an inadequate psychopath with gross hysterical trends’-

Watson, 1955-59

The excerpts above show the term hysterical being applied to a patient, yet in none of these cases was

there written evidence for inconsistent or non-anatomical symptoms. What is often present in these

instances, is suggestion of a personality disorder:

‘Her gross walking difficulties have a hysterical aetiology…she has a tendency to convert any

current frustrations into physical disabilities’- Watson, 1945-49

‘This lady exhibits a very marked reaction to her pain…few signs are forthcoming and her whole

attitude displays many features of a hysterical reaction’- Wilson, 1945-49

‘There would seem to have been further deterioration in a personality of poor quality so that there

is hysterical motivation in his disabilities’- Watson, 1955-59

The term hysteria is therefore being used in two ways. Firstly, as a disorder doctors were willing and

able to diagnose using positive signs, and secondly as a hysterical trait, a label applied in judgement

of personality. This duality echoed psychoanalytic thinking of the time. ‘Hysteria’ was originally used

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to describe what would now be called a functional neurological symptom, but then morphed into

describing underlying character traits believed to be aetiologically significant. As theories developed

in the early twentieth century, it followed that one could have ‘hysteria’ on the basis of character traits

alone, and the presence of neurological symptoms became inessential. Such oscillations between

physical symptom and underlying character traits were not unique to psychoanalytic theory and have

been repeated throughout the history of the disorder. This observation must also be placed in the

context of contemporary medical practice, in which character judgements were more common across

all disorders. Such an approach was also specifically promoted in medical texts. Russell Brain’s

Diseases of the Nervous System from 1955, one of the few textbooks that allowed hysteria into its

contents page, integrated the two uses of hysterical and the aetiology of the condition is described

thus:

‘In hysteria the… reaction exhibited by the patient is determined by the peculiar tendency of the

hysterical personality to mental dissociation’.

Another well-known textbook of the period (Practical Neurology by Brian Matthews) warns in the

treatment of hysteria that ‘Although the patients can be persuaded to abandon that particular

symptom, they do not thereby lose their immature personality’. Many other textbooks had no section

on functional neurological disorders, including Kinnier Wilson’s textbook Neurology from 1940,

although perhaps would have done had he lived to complete it.

Eliot Slater, psychiatrist to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in Queen Square, argued in

1965 that most patients with so-called ‘hysteria’, were actually suffering from undiagnosed organic

disease, missed by his neurological colleagues(Slater, 1965). This incurred a scathing riposte from

equally eminent neurologist Sir Francis Walshe, describing Slater as a demolitionist, who was merely

frustrated at failing to cure the condition(Walshe, 1965). Alastair Compston commented that Slater’s

theory received some credence, as ‘some patients with symptoms not obviously explained by organic

disease were indulged with extensive investigation, to make sure the Slater issue wasn’t present.’

However, putting aside their different views on misdiagnosis, Slater and Walshe agreed on the

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presence of the hysterical temperament. Slater commented that it was ‘arguable that the so-called

“hysterical” traits of personality are not misnamed’, whilst Walshe observed in the reply, “Perhaps the

French view on this- namely that exaggeration and lying are but one expression of the hysterical

personality, is nearer the mark”.

Clearly then, prevailing mid-twentieth century teaching endorsed a hysterical personality as part of

the patient’s diagnostic make-up, and it would appear in some cases this perception elicited a certain

attitude from the consultant:

‘She probably suffers from true epileptic attacks and is at the same time an inadequate and

psychopathic person. She seemed to be a very inadequate personality covered up with a thin

camouflage of aggressiveness’- Dott, 1940-44

‘The patient is vague, exceedingly dull-witted, and quite unable to give an accurate account of her

symptoms’- Lowe, 1950-54

‘We found this woman very resentful indeed’- Dott, 1950-54

However, this negativity is more notable by its absence overall, and there are many instances of

positive feelings towards patients with functional neurological disorders, for example someone with

‘patently functional’ forearm weakness is described as ‘very co-operative…good witness, intelligent’-

Maslowski, 1950-54. This negative attitude then, may not specifically refer to patients with ‘hysteria,

but merely evidence the greater freedom afforded to neurologists 70 years ago, as equally scathing

comments are directed at those with other diagnoses:

' I really do not feel very convinced…she is far too fat to begin with'- Dott, 1930-34

‘She is the daughter of a brewer and his harassed, unintelligent wife’- Dott, 1940-44

‘There is no doubt about her extremely neurotic and egotistical temperament…she makes herself and

other people unnecessarily miserable’- Dott, 1940-44

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In summary, although ‘hysteria’ was diagnosed on positive findings of inconsistency, neurologists of

this period also saw it as divergent, through its second definition as a state of being or of personality,

rather than a specific condition. Much of the language describing patients with ‘hysteria’ was by

modern standards, offensive, but that probably relates as much to the medical culture of the time as an

attitude towards ‘hysteria’.

‘Prescribe “the mixture” and never let her know what actual drugs you give her’- Management

So, once Dott’s department decided a patient had ‘hysteria’, or was simply a hysteric, what next? The

first decision would be communicating the diagnosis to the patient, and it seems in Edinburgh the

tendency was to remain tactfully reticent.

‘we explained to the patient that her condition was not…serious…and we advised her to try to pay

less attention to these symptoms’-Dott, 1940-44

‘It would be a mistake to …try to persuade her that it does not exist’-Dott, 1940-44

'Unwise to tell the patient that there is nothing wrong, that she must pull herself together etc. I find it

works much better to show some degree of credence…sympathise with it, say that symptoms are due

to rheumatism in the head or anything else that may appeal…and give benign and harmless

treatment'-Dott, 1930-34.

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Figure 3. Norman Dott pictured in the 1960s (reprinted from (Rush and Shaw, 1990)

Certainly, there is no mention of ‘hysteria’, conversion, or functional being uttered, and likewise the

neurologists we spoke to would avoid confronting the patient with a formal diagnosis. Instead,

symptoms were put down to ‘stress’(Cull) or ‘emotion’ (Reynolds). Alastair Compston used the

phrase ‘the nerves are not broken but the messages just aren’t getting through’, and emphasised the

importance of avoiding confronting the patient with the diagnosis and ‘maintaining the charade’.

However, it was also vital to ‘resist investigation and discourage eternal rounds of referral in search of

the elusive diagnosis’. Charles Warlow comments that in the latter part of his career he would

diagnose a ‘functional’ problem, and use a stopped clock analogy, which has run out of battery, rather

than being structurally compromised. Pauline Monro described an individually tailored explanation,

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usually involving ‘reassurance that the nervous system was intact, but that the problem lay in how it

was being driven. This could be affected by emotion, stress, anxiety, being in an unacceptable

situation etc.’ Her approach to treatment emphasised ‘an acceptable route to recovery without losing

face, whether it be by physiotherapy, changing the situation or dealing with the emotion. Crucially,

the concept of ’face-saving’ appears to have been a key component of the treatment approach, in both

our archival and oral research. Face-saving is arguably something that would not be so associated

with recognised neurological conditions. It tends to suggest a disorder associated with shame or one in

which difficult aspects of management need to be covered up.

Frank and potentially inflammatory discussions avoided, it is striking that the Dott archive often

recorded attempts made to help or treat the patient, in contrast to the quite common practice, even

today, of excluding organic disease and discharging the patient(Friedman and LaFrance, 2010). In the

following example of the ‘benign and harmless treatment’ hypothesized above, Dott instructs the GP

of a middle-aged woman with recurrent left-sided arm and facial pains:

‘I told her we would inform you of the “special medicines” that would help her kind of pain most…

prescribe “the mixture” and never let her know what actual drugs you give her. I think aspirin-

suitably flavoured and in moderate dosage- might well be your mainstay’-Dott, 1955-59

This is the only instance of such an explicit placebo-based approach in the archive, something that is

discouraged by most contemporary authors on the topic(Rommelfanger, 2016). More commonly,

prognostic discussions would be based on reassurance rather than trickery:

‘It has been impressed on (X) very strongly that there is no abnormality present and that the pain

will die away’- Watson, 1945-49

‘She should be firmly told that she is now a very healthy woman and that no untoward symptoms are

expected’- Hermann, 1955-59

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‘when the patient left she said “so, you have nothing else to suggest but that I wait for another

haemorrhage”, and indeed I had nothing more to suggest, but…that she would have to wait a very

long time indeed’- Dott, 1950-54

For 48% of the cases examined, this was the outcome. Reassurance that there was nothing

neurological wrong, certainly nothing operable, and that the symptoms would pass. However, 42%

were referred to psychiatry, showing a more constructive approach with genuine hope for, and

importance placed upon, the success of psychiatric methods:

‘No treatment… should be carried out without expert psychiatric opinion and guidance’- Sedzimir,

1945-49

‘Any improvement that can be achieved for her will be along psycho-therapeutic lines’- Dott, 1940-

44

‘I should think that the psychiatric management of this patient is far more important than the

treatment of her epilepsy’-Dott, 1940-44

‘Even if there is an organic aspect to this case, I believe she would be best treated in the mental

hospital’- Hermann, 1955-59

. The Dott archive doesn’t provide much information on the nature of the psychiatric treatment

offered. Patients were seen at the psychiatric hospital and not apparently within Dott’s unit. Referrals

were often made to Professor (later Sir) David Kennedy Henderson, later president of the Royal

College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and co-director of a brain injury unit with Dott in Bangour near

Edinburgh during the Second World War(Pentland, 2015). We did not find evidence describing

Henderson's approach to the problem, although he was known to be heavily influenced by Adolf

Meyer's biopsychosocial theories. However, he was also an early adopter of practical approaches, in

particular occupational therapy to treatment in general. Some referrals went to Ronald Fairbairn, the

founder of object relations theory, who viewed hysteria as a consequence of internalising problems

within interpersonal relationships. An BMJ review article on ‘hysteria’ from the 1953 by Batchelor

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from Edinburgh indicates treatment with mixed methods including medication, psychoanalysis and

behavioural advice. Although the management of functional neurological disorder may not have

resided in the neurologist’s clinic, we can see here a conferment of respect towards it. Further

evidence of this exists in Dott’s files from the Bangour military hospital during World War II, just

outside Edinburgh. Of the 27 ‘hysteria’ patients his team saw during this period, 9 were discharged

from the armed forces, and 11 were sent to psychiatric hospitals. We found no evidence of the use of

physical rehabilitation techniques, which in recent years have found popularity again, and an evidence

base, for functional motor disorders(Nielsen et al., 2017).

Our interviewees approach to management was varied. While they were practising, both Roger Cull

and Ted Reynolds saw the treatment of functional neurological disorders, as psychiatry’s

responsibility. Cull describes his method as follows: ‘if they didn't have an organic illness, we did try

to offload them to the psychiatry service as much as possible…my first line was mainly to the liaison

psychiatrists, who might then refer them onto the clinical psychologists.’ Reynolds commented: ‘the

patients were shunted out of neurological beds, either back to their original referral centre…or

transferred to the department of psychological medicine…there were several well-trained

neuropsychiatrists to whom I could turn.’ Alastair Compston and Charles Warlow took another view,

Compston believing that ‘neurology has a better understanding of the complex dynamic of

personality, circumstance, function, structure and therapy.’ If he encountered a patient distraught by

their situation and who “appeared to want a way out but could not do this”, then he would admit them

away from the place where the problem had arisen so that they could get better but maintain dignity,

gently coaxing them forwards on a daily basis with sympathetic physiotherapy (if they had movement

disorder or paralysis) by encouragement and maintaining a trajectory of daily improvement”. Charles

Warlow pointed out that ‘there was no point referring to psychiatry’, as it was ‘extremely common’

for them to be sent back, psychiatric pathology excluded. Interestingly, Pauline Monro remarked ‘I

think the psychiatrists trusted me to have already looked for organic brain disease before I referred

them so no, no one ever referred back to me’. Ultimately though, she would not refer to psychiatry

unless ‘the patient agreed and felt they needed psychiatric input.’

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Perhaps this inconsistency is inevitable. Firstly, psychiatry was undergoing considerable change as

predominantly psychoanalytic theories gave way to operationalization of disease, and the rise of

social psychiatry. The sub-specialty of liaison psychiatry had its infancy during this period, and

neurologists with positive experiences were referring to departments pioneering modern consultation-

liaison psychiatry. Secondly, our study of contemporaneous neurological textbooks shows even less

guidance for treatment than diagnosis. From three mid-twentieth-century neurology textbooks (out of

seven examined) with a section on hysteria, only one had a subheading for management (Brain’s

Diseases of the Nervous System, 1955), simply advising that the ‘patient may be assured…that it is

due to a faulty mental habit.’ Psychological methods are remarked upon only in so far as they ‘are

often rendered difficult by lack of intelligence or by resistance in the patient.’ This futility was seldom

seen in the Dott case files (shown below), where there appeared greater willingness to treat it as a

condition.

‘I suggested…a visit to the castle…the ideal treatment would be psychotherapeutic…can one

change the leopard's spots? Certainly not in the case of a confirmed hypochondriacal leopardess of

(X) years. I would not advise attempting it.’- Dott, 1955-59

‘No psychotherapy has been offered; this, however, is the only treatment the patient should have

though one is doubtful of the benefit it can offer’- Hermann, 1960-64

Our analysis is, inevitably, only a snapshot of one service. We didn’t have access to psychiatric

records or to clinical practice elsewhere including in the USA. The management of ‘hysteria’ in the

mid-twentieth century was simply not seen as the role of a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Dott’s

department however, show that despite negative attitudes one might infer from the quotes, patients

were not always discarded as having a ‘faulty mental habit’, and were often referred to a department

that it was felt would have more success. Ultimately the referral rate of 42% to psychiatry, is higher

than it is today for similar patients in most neurological settings.

Conclusion

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These raw quotes, never designed for public consumption, make some of the attitudinal changes

medicine has undergone in the last 70 years painfully clear. It is hoped that doctors of today are less

willingly negative about patients with functional neurological disorders, but even if they are, they are

unlikely to be so openly brazen in their judgement of their patients. Negative attitudes do persist

towards patients with these disorder, most visibly in anonymous online forums for doctors (Tolchin et

al., 2016). The direct and more judgemental approach of the past, however, does have the scholarly

advantage of providing the reader with a more complete picture of doctors’ attitudes to their patients,

which might be lacking in modern correspondence.

Although the ambivalence that today’s doctors still show towards patients with a functional

neurological disorder was undoubtedly present in Dott’s department, the high proportion of

psychiatric referrals suggests legitimacy and a pragmatic approach to the condition, and an

interdisciplinary approach that arguably is in many places still insufficiently adopted by today’s

clinicians. The professional ownership of functional neurological disorders has been the topic of much

debate, even within this paper, and whilst both neurologists and psychiatrists have undertaken its

management, patients have often ‘fallen between the cracks’ of both specialties. A recent renaissance

of interest, typified by the Functional Neurological Disorder Society (www.fndsociety.org) promotes

an international and multidisciplinary approach. But it is perhaps chastising to consider how little has

improved in many quarters for patients with FND.

Acknowledgements. We are grateful to Alastair Compston, Pauline Monro, Ted Reynolds, Charles

Warlow, and Roger Cull for giving their time to be interviewed for this article. We also thank all

those in the Lothian Health Services Archive and Wellcome Trust for cataloguing the Dott archive

https://collections.ed.ac.uk/lhsacasenotes/people.

The authors report no competing interests.

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