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Latah. a Mental Madady of the Malays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

W. Gilmore Ellis*
Affiliation:
Government Asylum, Singapore

Extract

The only papers dealing with latah, with which I am acquainted, are a brochure by Mr. H. O. O'Brien, of the Straits Settlements Civil Service, published some years ago in the Asiatic Journal, and a short notice by Dr. A. M. Browne, of Sydney, published in the Provincial Medical Journal, 1887; though the Miryachit of the Siberians and Lapps, the jumping disease of America, and the Bah-tschi of the Siamese, diseases allied to, if not identical with, that which forms the subject of this essay, have been all fully described. Quite recently, and since I had begun to put these notes together, Dr. Van Brero has written a paper on the subject; and Mr. F. A. Swettenham, the British Resident of Perak, has published a book called “Malay Sketches” in which there is a chapter on latah, dwelling principally on the humorous side of the question as it appears to bystanders. Mr. Swettenham likens latah to cases of hypnotism shown him in one of the Paris hospitals.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1897 

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References

Read at the General Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association, November, 1895. For discussion see Journal of Mental Science, January, 1896, page 209.Google Scholar

Journal of Mental Science, July, 1895, page 537.Google Scholar

Dr. van Brero states that young women suffer more than the older ones, but this has not been my experience.Google Scholar

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