Pantaphobia

There is a manifestation of morbid fear which is not uncommon, and to which we might perhaps give the term pantaphobia, or fear of everything; all responsibility, every attempt to make a change of movement being the result of dread and alarm.

Not only the intercurrent episodes, but even sleeplessness, pantaphobia, vanity, a strange mingling of the somatic symptoms of the psycho-neuroses, with the psychical phenomena of paranoia, color this picture with such liveliness that the opinion expressed by this celebrated ethnographer, that “savages resemble the melancholic and nervous types,” appears most appropriate.

Even the attribution of psychopathic constitution is often too loosely made; as for instance in the case of chronic pantaphobia which I presented some years ago before this Association. In spite of a heavily charged heredity this man remained free of psychopathy and fear after twelve years of the most strenuous life.

In the meantime the doctor makes arrangements with a young test pilot, who has romantic leanings towards the young lady, to help him keep her there. This is done by means of a fake case of pantaphobia.