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(a) German Editions:
1888 In Handwörterbuch der gesamten Medizin, ed. A. Villaret, Stuttgart, 1, 886-92.
1953 Psyche, 7 (9), 486-500.
The present translation, by James Strachey, seems to be the first into English.
In two of Freud's letters to Fliess published in the Anfänge (1950a), of May 28 (Letter 4) and August 29 (Letter 5) both of 1888-and, by implication, in a third, of November 24, 1887 (Letter 1)-he speaks of his contributions to Villaret's encyclopaedia, a work published in two volumes (1888 and 1891). Since the articles in Villaret are unsigned, it is not possible to be completely sure of their authorship. Freud himself specifies only one of them in these letters-that on cerebral anatomy-and complains that it has been very much cut down; but in his Autobiographical Study (1925d) he further mentions an article on aphasia, Standard Ed., 20, 18. The editors of the Anfänge suggest in addition that articles on infantile palsies and on paralyses might be attributed to him, and, with more conviction, include as probably by Freud the one on hysteria which follows below.1
The 1953 reprint of this article in Psyche, the Stuttgart periodical, is preceded by a short paper by Professor Paul Vogel which gives an admirable and convincing summary of the arguments for believing that the article is in fact by Freud. No one who reads it in relation with Freud's contemporary writings can feel doubt as to its authorship.2 Apart from a whole series of duplications of views expressed by Freud elsewhere in his signed works, there is one particular point which seems conclusive. This is a passage towards the end in which the cathartic method of treatment is explicitly described and is attributed to