"SHAM RAGE" IN MAN
HERMAN WORTIS M. D.1, and
WILLIAM S. MAURER M. D.1
1 The medical service of the psychiatric division, Bellevue Hospital, New York City, and the departments of psychiatry and medicine, New York University College of Medicine.
1. The literature relative to "sham rage" is reviewed.
2. Two cases of "sham rage" in human beings are presented; one following insulin hypoglycemia, the other following carbon monoxide poisoning. In both cases, the involvement of higher centers is stressed, and the resultant "sham rage" is believed to be the result of uninhibited hypothalamic discharge.
3. The expression of emotion does not necessarily mean that the individual is experiencing that emotion.
4. There seems to be no reason for accepting the idea that the hypothalamus is the "emotional center" of the body. Affects and emotions are highly complicated psychosomatic processes, which require among other things a functioning cerebral cortex.
