Table 3.
Other Documents Describing Schneiderian Symptoms 1852–1918
| Author | Country | Year | Title | Description of the Symptoms | Form(s) of Specific Symptom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friedrich Krauß46,93 | Germany | 1852 | Cry of distress by a victim of magnetic poisoning | [At night] the murderous morons [the “gang”], raid-like, drive blazing heat up from the foot soles and these frissons of heat keep coming all night long…. They always keep track of my thoughts, besiege my ideas, seek to influence them and are on guard like a cat watching a mouse. They use my thoughts, persecute them, deride them, thereby stoke their rage so that they can properly enjoy it, and punish me with increased smoldering…. These rippers have their magnetizing apparatus in my bed or next to it, else they could not coil along con amore at their fancy and pleasure, and further drive in the ether. (See ref. 46, p. 32) | Somatic passivity Passivity of unknown type |
| Ireland94 | UK | 1886 | The blot upon the brain | The insane are quick to catch at new scientific notions to explain their delusions. Complaints of being electrified and being magnetized against their will have long been common; and, since the invention of the telephone, they have said that there are telephones in their rooms, or that people use this instrument to torment them. (p. 344) | Passivity of unknown type |
| Kandinsky95,96 | Russia | 1890 | About pseudohallucinations: critical clinical study | Kandinsky [a psychiatrist who suffered from psychotic illness] described [in this autobiographical book] numerous and varied psychopathological symptoms, such as delusions of persecution together with grandiosity, and delusions of influence which he experienced during the acute phase. He illustrated in detail all the symptoms included in “mental automatism” (telepathy, reading and broadcasting thought, enforced speaking and enforced motor movements). (See ref. 96, p. 106) | Thought broadcasting Made actions Passivity of unknown type |
| Schreber74,97 | Germany | 1903 (1955) |
Memoirs of my nervous illness | [With] “the head-compressing machine” in consequence of the many flights of rays, there appeared in my skull a deep cleft or rent…. (p. 138). Miracles aimed at scattering my thoughts act on my nerves … the lower God starts the bellowing miracle until I am so breathless. (p. 176). They are tearing and pulling pains and are caused by the attempt of rays, tied-to-celestial bodies, to withdraw from me my soul-voluptuousness. (p. 201). When I hear individual words from well-known phrases, the “automatic remembering thought”—as this phenomenon is known in the soul-language, causes my nerves to vibrate till the sentence is finished. (p. 226) | Somatic passivity Thought insertion |
| Tausk98 | Germany | Presented 1918 Published 1933 |
On the origin of the “influencing machine” in schizophrenia | The influencing machine … produces, as well as removes, thoughts and feelings by means of waves or rays or mysterious forces … its function consists in the transmission or “draining off” of thoughts and feelings by one or several persecutors…. It produces motor phenomena in the body, erections and seminal emissions … accomplished either by means of suggestion or by air-currents, electricity, magnetism, or X-rays…. (p. 521). [In one specific patient, Miss Natalija A.] those who handle the machine produce a slimy substance in her nose, disgusting smells, dreams, thoughts, feelings, that disturb her while she is thinking, reading or writing. Sexual sensations were produced in her through manipulation of the genitalia of the machine…. (p. 529) | Thought withdrawal Made feelings Somatic passivity Thought insertion |