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Summary: A girl of almost 16 years, of attractive and innocent appearance, alleged that she had been leading an immoral life and frequenting houses of assignation. She told the story to the people of her church, who were naturally horrified and demanded a thorough investigation of the social vice problems involved. This was undertaken by the police authorities, but they failed to get any satisfactory evidence from the girl. It was later found that the story was all a myth and the girl had not been in the least immoral. Her first statements followed directly after her attendance at an emotional revival meeting where these topics had been preached about. Afterward this girl was in court many times for various reasons. She is a mild psychoneurotic type, exhibiting under stress unusual mental phenomena. She and her family have created an astonishing amount of trouble in law courts as both defendants and complainants, because their peculiar unreliabilities have not been understood.
This case has long been under observation and we have much information concerning it. It was found difficult to understand by pastors and others who had given considerable attention to various aspects of it. Annie F. was first seen by us when under custody because of her own statement that she had been leading an immoral life. We have seen her and members of her family many times since. The account of the case can best be given, not by commencing with the cross-section study as obtained at first, but by going at once into its whole connections and evolution. At first it was merely learned that we had to do with an unstable, adolescent girl who had engaged for apparently no purpose whatever in false self-accusations which would naturally blight her career.
On the physical side we found a rather slight girl, however, of normal development. Weight 102 lbs.; height 5 ft. 3 in. No organic defect was ever discovered. Neurological examination showed as follows: No tremors. Tendon reflexes normal. Conjunctival and palatal reflexes absent. The sense of pain to pin pricks was almost nil on the arms, and diminished on the face. Strength poor in the arms even when there was evidently great effort made. (Several of these functional findings, however, have varied from time to time in the ensuing years.) Hearing normal. Ocular examination showed hypermetropia 1.5 D. R. and L. with marked astigmatism. Fields and color vision normal. Left pupil about twice the size of the right. (A competent oculist could find no evidence of organic affection of the nervous system correlated with this.) Shape of head normal. Bowels regular. Appetite capricious. When first seen was anemic, but later color was very good. Temperature was taken regularly, but no significant observations made. Petite, pretty features, and unusually beautiful eyes. Complaint of frontal dull headaches, soreness of scalp, cold hands and pain “about the heart.” Menstruated at 15 years, then much irregularity for two years. Several badly carious teeth and great crowding in a narrow upper dental arch.
This girl was several times observed during a period of about 5 years. She developed into an unusually attractive young woman, showing at times various mild nervous disturbances as well as character difficulties. Only occasionally has she worn the glasses which corrected her errors of refraction. During this time she has not been severely ill. She has a palpable thyroid which has hardly increased in size. When last seen she was notable for a very clear skin, good color, and bright eyes. Conjunctival and corneal reflexes much diminished. Palatopharyngeal reflexes quite absent. The headaches are said to have persisted during all the time we have known her.
We have repeatedly attempted to summarize the mental status and functionings of this young woman, but our findings on tests and otherwise have been irregular and diverse. She reached 6th grade at 14 years, but had been absent much on account of sickness. When first seen we found that she was already fond of Lytton, Scott, and Dickens, and that she was a great reader of the daily newspapers, dwelling much on accidents and tragedies. What we say about her ability must be based upon the best that she has demonstrated. Often when seen she has been in some mental state which has prevented her from doing, or being willing to do, the best that is in her. She writes a good hand, does long division promptly, and reads well. Her association and memory processes have been proved normal, but given a task to do she is prone to show inhibitory pauses and other phenomena which interfere much with a satisfactory result. She has some little reputation of being able to give long, almost verbatim accounts of sermons which she has heard, but the accuracy of her report we have not been able to verify. She gave the antonyms of twenty words in average time of 1.4”, which is a good record. There was one failure, but that was quite typical. At the end of 20”, which is beyond the time of failure, she gave “unhappy” as the opposite of “happy,” adding that she had thought of that before, only she did not speak it out. Her tests for psychomotor control were miserably done. She was rapid in movement, but absolutely inaccurate and did not follow instructions. However, we felt that even this did not indicate her full ability, for she had capably held a position in a millinery establishment where she was required to show manipulative dexterity. Perhaps the best statement of her performances is that she demonstrated great irregularities from time to time, and even at the same examination in her work on different tests.
On account of her peculiar testimony against herself, her memory processes and especially her performance on the “Aussage” test the case seemed of great interest. We found, as we stated above, in various ways that her abilities to remember, when at her best, were normal, but using the “Aussage” picture we obtained only 6 details in free recital; she was sure that was all she saw in the picture. Then on cross-questioning she mentioned 9 more items correctly, and gave 8 others much altered from the truth. No other item was added, but her report on these was almost illusional in its incorrectness. Of 5 suggestions offered she accepted 2 of the least important, refusing the others entirely. This was a remarkably poor result for a girl of her age, but may not be indicative of her best abilities even on this type of work. Our final opinion was that she was not clearly subnormal in native ability.
Annie has grown somewhat more stable as the years have gone on. Following our first acquaintance with her we have known this girl to make serious false accusations against others (vide infra) and to again damage her own reputation by alleging herself to be pregnant when she was not. Her word in other matters all along has been found somewhat unreliable, but there has been no extensive weaving of romances such as those indulged in by typical pathological liars. Our original diagnosis of this as a case of pathological accusation upon the basis of mild hysteria we have seen no reason to change. Both Annie and other members of her family are representatives of a most important type for court officials and all other social workers to understand. A great deal of trouble has been caused in several religious congregations by the unusual character of the behavior of these people. Also the number of times they have been in courts for various reasons is astonishing.
The history of physical and mental development merges closely with the story of evolution in the moral sphere, and all can be given together. On account of the mother having long been dead and the father being the peculiar man that he is there is some question about the truth of some of the details which have been given us, but we have reason to believe that the main facts are true because they have been held to be the truth in the family circle generally and were not merely given to us. Verification of details would be very difficult because the family are distributed between Europe and America, and no relatives outside the immediate family are at hand. The mother was in excessively poor condition at the birth of Annie. She had miscarriages preceding and following. It is stated that the diagnosis of malaria was made and that the mother had convulsions both before and after confinement. At the birth the prolonged labor and instrumentation were not known to have done any damage. As an infant Annie is said to have been frail, but not to have had any definite sickness or any convulsions.
However, at about Annie's fifth year there began a long list of illnesses. She had scarlet fever severely and also a number of other children's diseases. At 8 years she had an attack of muscular jerking, and then had a number of successive attacks until she was 14 years. At one time she was in a public hospital for three weeks on account of this. It was stated that this was chorea, but of course we can not be sure on this point. Annie was always regarded as a very nervous child; she was frequently a somnambulist until she was about 12. She is very nervous before the onset of menstruation. Of recent years she has been an excessive user of tea-- at times before we first saw her she is said to have had 12 cups of tea in a day. At times she was then suffering from sleeplessness, and was wont to feel tired in the morning. As a young child she had severe night fears, seeing terrifying shadows upon the wall.
On account of her illnesses and her general nervous condition, Annie was very irregular in her school attendance. However, she reached 6th grade. As to the family opinion of her mentality we hear that they have regarded her as being an odd type, not lazy, but irritable, hateful, and moody by spells. Her memory is said to be most irregular, sometimes exceedingly good. The other children find it difficult to get along with her because she slaps them so much. At times she swears. At the time of the revival meeting, shortly before we saw her, she is said to have come home from church in an hysterical state. When in custody she was in rather a dazed condition. Where she was detained they say she acted as if she were stunned. Her memory did not seem at all clear, nor has it ever seemed other than confused about the events immediately surrounding the main episode of her career. She maintained she could not remember just exactly what she had said, and her account of it contradicted that of her father.
As we afterwards learned from the church people, it is undoubtedly a fact that her notions of self-accusation came from a Sunday School session in which her teacher repeated what had been talked about in the revival meeting concerning the scarlet woman. A day or two afterward the girl told that she herself was “a scarlet woman.” She told it first to the teacher, was then taken to the pastor, when she reiterated the story, and the police authorities were called in. Of course her story implied lack of home guardianship and consequently the whole affair was handled for some days by the police alone, after the girl had given a very detailed description of her immoral life. By the time we saw the father it had been ascertained that this girl had never been away from home a single night in her life and probably had never been in the least immoral sexually.
It is necessary to have knowledge of the heredity and environmental background to understand this case. Almost nothing is known of the maternal family. After losing his first wife, the father was twice remarried, and even the third wife has divorced him. He had a brother who, after going insane and killing two laborers, committed suicide. His grandmother, and probably also a cousin, were insane. Two of his sisters were of a nervous and hysterical type and said to have attacks of aphonia. A child by his second wife is epileptic. This man gives us a long account of his own defective heredity and of his own physical ailments. He does not recognize the fact, however, that he also is mentally below par. We have seen him on numerous occasions and known of his great activity in the courts, and have attempted to size him up. He is undoubtedly a constitutional inferior, in poor general physical condition and subject to episodic mental states. One would be inclined to call him a semi-responsible individual with mild delusions, defective reasoning ability, great energy in self-assertion, and of combative disposition. This latter shows itself in his voluble emphasis on the alleged ill treatment of himself and family, even by his wives. He is never physically violent. On account of false accusations, whether delusional or not, he got at least one pastor into a peck of trouble, and, strangely enough, his wives have been involved in some other church embroilments when his own character was called severely into question. On one occasion we were interested to enumerate an astonishing list of people and organizations which, he stated, had treated him and his family unfairly. It seemed to us that during the last two or three years he must largely have lived in the courts to carry on his transactions there. His concern for his daughter seemed genuine and her delinquency led him to seek the law more than ever. Some of the good people who have become interested in his affairs tell us that his is the strangest story they have ever heard. His veracity is often in question. On more than one occasion with us he has dwelled on his nervous states, and on the fact that he is subject to times of mental confusion, but he defends his own judgment and actions on all occasions with great vigor.
This most erratic father has nearly always sided with Annie and offered excuses for her under all circumstances. However, she has stated that he was most difficult to live with on account of his quarreling at home and general bad management of the household. We know that at times he has been a seeker of newspaper notoriety. From his conversations with us and with others we know that his mind dwells much on sex affairs and these things are frequently discussed in the home. There has been much turmoil and quarreling in the family circle, at least with the last two wives. On several occasions the family have had to appeal for aid from the charities because none of them succeeded in making a living. Annie alleged she was taught shop-lifting by the second wife--we regard this as being possibly true on account of the woman's general reputation, the fact that they were desperately poor, and that she drank at times.
The father has the ability to make a very good presentation of himself, to use the best of language and he has had musical training enough to be able to give lessons. Annie herself has taken many lessons in music.
The after-history of this case is instructive. Almost none of our suggestions were taken when our first diagnosis was made. Two years after we first saw Annie she was placed in an institution for delinquents, then having run away from home, “picked up” a man on the street and stayed all night in a hotel with him. At the institution the girl became very nervous and behaved badly and the authorities decided it was a poor place for her. The father, who at first wanted her placed there, very soon decided that she should be removed. It is very likely his attitude had something to do with her behavior there.
About this time Annie worked in a millinery shop where she proved herself quick and skilful. There she told stories again defaming herself. She said she had had a baby and went into complete details, such as giving the name of the nurse who had taken care of her, and so on. On account of this she was discharged. Later she told us she related these stories to get even with her father, for if there was ever a hell on earth it was living with him.
About three years after our first study of Annie, the father himself brought a complaint against her of untruthfulness and general unreliability. This was at one of the times when he was complaining bitterly of other people. It seems he had lately tried to restrain her from leaving the house and she had cut his head open with an umbrella. It was evident she had started downhill again, and she was placed in a Rescue Home. She now repeatedly told people she was pregnant and made charges against some man, but these soon fell through because a little detective work showed she was corresponding with a boy and had very likely been immoral with him and others. She was then making an attempt to lead a dual life, maintaining she wanted to save some of the unfortunates with whom she was placed, while at the same time entering into various escapades with them and others. At this period a suicidal attempt was reported, but we never had satisfactory proof of the genuineness of this. Annie was now regarded as being excessively delinquent.
A few months afterwards, when the young woman was in one of her better moods and wished to do well, we made a few vocational tests on her. We found her quite unfit for the position of telephone operator which had been suggested for her. Psychomotor control appeared then decidedly defective. However, there was great improvement on work done on intellectual tests two or three years previously. Although she had developed physically (she now was a particularly good looking young woman) we felt she was quite unfit for work which demanded steady effort. One trouble all along was the fact that she did not wear her glasses. We advised then, as we had advised at first, a quiet country life for Annie and the other members of the family. The constant stimulus of city conditions was too much for them.
Again our advice was not taken and some months later the father came to us with the story of extreme poverty, some recent attacks of unconsciousness on his part, separation from his third wife, and the information that Annie was about to become a chorus girl.
Even a final consideration of the general diagnosis in this case which has been so long observed by us does not seem to justify our including it among our border-line mental types. Application of the term constitutional inferiority seems a priori warranted by the family history and yet we have no proof that her physical and mental conditions as enumerated above are not the result of her many early illnesses and the excessively erratic environmental conditions, rather than of causes which existed at birth.
On account of the peculiar inhibitory phases which arose nearly always during observation, we never relied merely on the results of laboratory tests for our judgment, and her success in some social situations has proved the wisdom of this. Our earliest feeling that we had to do with a temporary and mild psychosis was perhaps justified, but further observation of her has led us to see clearly that she is not to be considered as a deeply aberrational type. Could she ever have been free from the extraordinarily upsetting home conditions one could have gauged much more accurately her mental capabilities. As time went on, the moral difficulties, which were largely induced by family conditions, led to mental as well as moral upsets which could be considered as little else than normal reactions to the situation. Her conduct lapses, under the circumstances, are no indication of any mental breakdown. On the contrary, it is clear by our own examinations and the accounts of other observers that she gradually has showed greater mental stability.
(Since writing the above, we have had, by chance, the opportunity of getting some important information about this case from an entirely new source. A person who knew the family many years ago corroborates the father's remarkable story of antecedents. The father himself remains in about the same state of social incapacity. Annie, now married to a young man with a long criminal record, has a child. Her word has recently been found absolutely unreliable, and testimony lately given by her in court concerning her husband was grossly false when it would seem that her interests and welfare demanded her testifying the truth concerning his non-support.)
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Mentality: Psychoneurotic. Case 20.
Heredity: Extremely defective. Girl, age 16.
Developmental conditions: Defective antenatal
conditions. Difficult birth. Earlier neurosis.
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