Latah
This is the concluding section of H. A. O’Brien’s paper on Latah, published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 12 (1883), pp. 283–285.
Summary
O’Brien argues that Latah is a distinct anomaly and not a form of mental disease. He reports that the two Chinese patients he observed who displayed imitative behaviour were microcephalic and one died insane, leading him to conclude that the Chinese have no share in Latah as it occurs among Malays (p. 284). He notes that Latah is not progressive, that afflicted individuals are never called orang gila (mad), and that the condition persists from puberty without deterioration (p. 285).
He closes by warning against the “unscientific” tendency to classify Latah alongside recognised mental disorders — comparing the imitative Malay with the microcephalic idiot, the snake-seer with the alcoholic, and the Malay girl-sufferer with the nymphomaniac — and calls for a future pathologist to determine what Latah really is (p. 285).