Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/404

 390 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

influence of environment, and bad example, and hereditary pre- disposition.

The cause of the difficulty must first be discovered. Atten- tion to the general health, freedom from care, change of associates are sometimes sufficient in themselves to effect a cure. In cases where something else is necessary, hypnotic suggestion may be a moral and mental tonic.

In cases of hereditary dipsomania hypnotism is perhaps the only remedy which has any chance of success.

Of nineteen dipsomaniacs treated by methods other than hypnotic, not one was permanently cured. Of sixty-five cases in which hypnotism was used, twelve were completely cured, thirty-nine temporarily cured, or greatly benefited, and in ten cases no result whatever was obtained.

LAWS AGAINST HYPNOTISM.

The governments of several countries have placed obstacles in the way of the use of hypnotism as a. curative agent. In France the practice of hypnotism and all that pertains to it is forbidden to all military physicians. In Russia it is allowed to all physicians without exceptions, on condition that two physicians assist at all the experiments. The operating physician, further- more, must make immediate report to the medical bureau of the methods he has used, the results he has obtained, or the results he has attempted to obtain, and the names of the assisting physicians. Such restrictions are equivalent to prohibition.

Packiewicz says he is convinced that hypnotism is the most innocent therapeutical agent, and is not in the slightest degree dangerous. Twelve years of experience in hypnotism, during which time he has had more than twenty thousand sittings, have brought him to this way of thinking. The fact that the contrary opinion is current is due, he thinks, to physicians who are incom- petent to practice hypnotism properly, and in bad faith preach against it. In nervous and mental diseases hypnotism is a very powerful curative agent, and no specialist ought to neglect to use it. Many competent neurologists agree with him that hypnotism in the hands of physicians is harmless. They are