their judgments concerning themselves. (f) Psychic traumata
arise perhaps through a striking reaction in the emotional realm
towards external occurrences. (g) Nearly all of Risch's cases
were burdened with bad inheritance. He maintains that, above
all, these cases show instability and psychic excitability. The
entire symptom complex arises upon a basis of degeneracy.

Essential similarities run through all of Risch's cases; it is
perhaps valuable here to cite a couple of them. His Case I is
that of a soldier, who after being released from prison at 23
years had begun his military duty and in a short time attempted
suicide. He was then studied for insanity. It was found that he
gave long accounts of his experiences as a chauffeur, rendering
his story with fluent details about hairbreadth escapes and other
adventures. He also told at length of his love affair with a
young girl. These stories were discovered to be false from ``A
to Z''; he did not clearly remember them later. The evolving of
such fabrications was all along one of his chief characteristics.
Examination showed no gross intellectual defect, but there were
certain psychopathic signs which had been displayed from early
childhood: he had little endurance and was unable to stand
criticism. Emotions befitting his stories were correctly
expressed by him; there were no facial evidences of conflict or
discomfort. It was impossible to tell from his physiognomy that
he was engaged in untruths. Mentally he was well oriented and
his thoughts flowed in orderly sequence. Despite rather limited
education he demonstrated very good style in his conversation and
his letters. The train of thought was expressed coherently and
logically, so well that one could speak of him as having literary
ability. Physically he was quite normal. Investigation of