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Vienna, December 1, 1925
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
Just received your letter, which I am answering immediately, because few have so much right to information about me as you. This is the way it went: In the night of the 18th to 19th of November, a severe periostitic inflammation set in (from the retarded tooth of the lower jaw on the side that was not operated on) in the course of a fresh infection from a cold, which even now disrupts my speech. The operation was done the next morning, very elegant, minimally arduous, trephination of the jaw, extraction of the tooth, which showed suppuration of the root. But the consequences of the operation have not been overcome to date. The pain didn't stop until yesterday, a piece of the mucous membrane has died off, and a little piece of bone lies free, which has yet to be knocked loose. The defect is not yet covered, recovery will certainly take weeks, and until then I can't chew and have to nourish myself with fluids. That doesn't have a good influence on my general condition, so that the pathological event which was meant as an episode has become downright significant after all. I feel the inhibition very distinctly, since it has not been possible for me to take up the revision of the essay “Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety” for printing, as I should. I had suspended my practice for a week. Now I am working again, not entirely without exertion.
Certainly more serious is what is being reported about Abraham's condition. Renewed fever, repeated attacks of pain, preparedness for an operation, stay in a sanatorium, now, again a hiatus in the fever, but complete diagnostic helplessness. I fear it will have a bad end before one learns what it is about.
Brill's threat will not cause me to change my position on lay analysis. I won't hold on to the Americans.
Groddeck was here just at my worst time. I saw him only once for an hour. Personally, I like him very much, but scientifically, he is probably not usable; he overtaxed himself