Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/672

 HYPNOTISM

606

HYPNOTISM

and foretell the future. Superstition and quackery put an end to uU honest scientific researcli. Neverthe- less, the ideas of the Abb6 Faria were not abandoned, they had been collected and clarified by a number of experts, and they soon found in James Braid (1795- 1860), an intelligent and prudent commentator.

Resuming the old experiments, tliis plain Manches- ter doctor set himself to destroy completely the Mes- merian edifice; he only succeeded in developing it. No doubt he absolutely rejects the transmission of any magnetic or vital fluid, but he recognizes that the magnetic sleep is mainly of a nervous kind. Most authors have thought — and on all sides repeated — that he attributes this sleep to suggestion alone; this is a grave misapprehension against which Braid protested energetically. He is generally considered the founder of hypnotism, and that splendid title is sufficient for his fame. His contemporaries disre- garded him and did not appreciate his doctrine as they should. They refused to see in nervous and sensory concentration the cause of the sleep, and they maintained that, like Faria and Bertrand, the Man- chester surgeon acted only on the imagination of his subjects. Braid's decisive answer to his detractors was: "Faria and Bertrand act, or pretend to act, by the aid of a moral impression; their means is of the mental order; mine is purely physical, and consists in fatiguing the eyes and, by the fatigue of the eyes, producing that of the brain." In fact, as Dr. Durand de Gros has justly remarked, Braid was an ingenious discoverer who did not know how to make his dis- covery appreciated at its true worth: he brought to the art of Mesmer and of Faria its necessary com- plement, its superb capstone, and thus in very truth transformed it. He recognized that the act of gazing fixedly at one point for a certain length of time in- duces not only sleep, as physiologists before him had observed, but "a profound modification of our whole being which renders it apt to receive the magnetic influence and mental suggestion". From Braid to our own days hypnotism has grown and developed without interruption. The partisans of magnetism, momentarily discomfited, have not laid down their arms, and, while accepting the new theories of nervous fatigue and suggestion, have continued to maintain the existence of a fluid. The theories of Grimes on electro-biology (1S4S), and of Dr. Philipps (pseu- donym of Dr. Durand de Gros) on vital electro- dynamism (1S5.5) deserve to be recalled in this connexion. But theoretical schemes have little attrac- tion for the masses, and the greater number of writers have established themselves on the ground of experi- ment and clinical practice, multiplying experiments in order to reconnoitre the vast field of hypnosis. We may mention, from amongst these, Dr. Li(5- beault of Nancy, Dr. Azam of Bordeaux, Professor Charcot of Paris, Dr. Bcrnheim of Nancy. Theo- retical discussions could not, however, remain forever apart on their own ground, since every effect demands a cause; they naturally followed the discovery of facts and soon brought on a notable division of opinions. Two clear-cut schools, as is known, divided the world of science: the school of Nancy, and the Salpetri^re, or Paris, school. The former, represented by Drs. Li<'>beault, Bcrnheim, Beaunis, and others, recognizes, under different forms, Init one cau.se of hypnosis, and deliberately pronounces it to be suggestion. The latter, of which Charcot was the renowned chief, be- lieves in a physical cause, and not a moral. It at- tributes hypnosis to a nervous or cerebral modifica- tion of the subject, which modification it attributes to a malady of tlie nervous system — hysteria.

Both of these doctrines are supported by argu- ments and facts the force antl value of which it would be vain to contest in citlier case. But, if both views are equally worthy of consideration, they are too {absolutely opposed and mutually exclusive to be both

completely true. Suggestion does not explain all the phenomena of hypnosis, any more than does neurosis account for them. The nervous sleep, with the strange and manifold phenomena which accompany it, is beyond comprehension in the light of our actual knowledge. The intimate nature of that cerebral and nervous modification which Charcot regards as a necessary condition is not known, and there is nothing to prevent its reconciliation with the hypothesis of the nervous or magnetic fluid. As to the theory of sug- gestion, so dear to the Nancy school, it belongs to the psychical order, and is manifestly insufficient to account for the physiological disturbances of the nervous sleep. Professor Beaunis himself does not hesitate to confess its weakness. All this being so, it would seem opportune to inquire if the two hostile — or, rather, rival — schools of Paris and Nancy, either of them singly incapable of explaining hypnosis, might not find additional light and a welcome means of reconciliation in that hypothesis of animal mag- netism which science in its earlier days too readily abandoned. The problem is only indicated here; its solution belongs to the future.

Hypnotism, we have said, is an artificial nervous sleep. It is brought on in many ways: by fixity of look, by visual concentration upon a brilliant object, by convergence of the axes of vision, by a sustained and monotonous sensation, by a vivid sensory impression such as that produced by the soimd of a gong, by a brilliant light, etc. All these means produce the effect only upon one vitally important psychic con- dition — the consent of the subject, the surrender of his will to the hypnotist. No one can be hypnotized against his will; but once a person has given himself up to an operator, and gone through the exercises by which the effect is obtained, the operator can put him to sleep at pleasure, and even without the subject's knowledge. More than this, hypnosis can be induced without warning during natural sleep, though the feat is rare and is performed only with predisposed subjects. Not all persons are equally hypnotizable. Most per- sons who are sound in body and mind resist hyp- nosis or are affected only very superficially. Idiots and limatics are absolutely refractory. Neuropaths and hysterical persons, on the other hand, are very susceptible aTid make ideal subjects. It is through their failure to make this capital distinction that writers come to such widely different conclusions. Dr. Li<''l)eault estimates the proport ion of hypnotizable persons at 9.5 per cent; other scientists are content with a smaller proportion, 50 to 60 per cent; Dr. Bottey admits for women a proportion of only 30 per cent. In short, the Nancy experts have greatly ex- aggerated the figures by including in their statistics all cases, both the slightly marked and the complete. The sleep induced may last for a long period — for some hours — but ordinarily is of rather short dura- tion. Some hypnotized persons awake spontane- ously, others at the departure of the operator, or at some noise. Most often the return to the waking state is brought about by a command or by blowing lightly on the subject's eyes. Once hypnotized, the subject may pass through three distinct phases: catalepsy, lethargy, somnambulism. On this point there have been lively debates between the Paris .school and the Nancy school. The latter contends that these three states do not exist, and that suggestion suffices to explain all the phenomena; in this it is gravely mistaken. But the Paris school, too, has been wrong in maintaining, contrary to observed facts, that every hj-pnotized suliject passes succes- sively, and always in the .same order, from catalepsy into lethargy, and from lethargj- into .somnambulism. This order is not always followed; some hypnotized persons fall directly into somnambulism, or into leth- argy, without passing through cataleiwy. We will consider the three states separately.