Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/674

 HYPNOTISM

608

HYPNOTISM

for many weeks or months after the subject's awaken- ing. "I give an order to L. like this: 'At the third stroke your hands will be raised, at the fifth they will be lowered, at the sixth the thumb of one hand will be applied to the tip of your nose, and the four fingers extended {un pied de nez), at the ninth you will walk into the room, at the sixteenth you will fall asleep in an arm-chair.' There is no memory of all this, when the awakening takes place, but all the acts are per- formed in the order desired " (Janet). The idea of the act suggested remains buried in the memory and re- vives only at the period assigned and upon the given signal; and when the subject then acts he knows nothing about the origin of the impulse, but thinks he is following his own initiative; he is, without knowing it, the puppet of a brain function. Retro- active suggestions are no less curious. A subject can be made to believe that at such and such a time he has seen a certain event take place, heard a sermon, or performed some action, and the illusory memory becomes so firmly fixed in his mind as to pass for truth and carry conviction with it; he is persuaded when he awakes that he really has seen and heard these things — in one word, that the things have taken place.

Are all suggestions possible and realizable? Can a suggestion once given be resisted? The answer is nowadays no longer in doubt; but for a long time the quacks fostered a belief that they abso- lutely controlled their subjects, and that there was no such thing as an impossible suggestion. This is an error. Whenever a thing is displeasing or re- pugnant to him, the hypnotized person yields slowly and with difficulty; if the act proposed is a forbidden or a culpable one in the sight of his conscience, he refuses point blank. An honest woman in the hys- terical condition will not permit the least trespass on decency. Of course perverted subjects show no respect for good morals, nor do those who in their normal state are victims of evil habits and jaeld to the lowest instincts. Nevertheless, there is a certain danger that the clever, powerful hj-pnotist, who is also unscrupulous, may obtain his ends if he presents reprehensible acts to his subject as innocent and per- missible; the will, in hypnosis, is so weak and so un- stable that the idea of duty based upon good habits may not always counterbalance the operator's action, and the repetition of alluring suggestions may at last result in drawing the subject into evil. Such cases are not purely hypothetical; we shall come back to their consideration in connexion with the dangers of hypnosis. Fanatical partisans of the suggestion method do not see its dangers, while they vaunt its merits and its practical applications. Has it the therapeutic virtues with which the Nancy school credits it? With the leaders of the Paris school and with Professor Grasset of Montpellier, we decidedly question this. That hj-pnosis easily conquers hys- teria, especially the more localized and circumscribed manifestations of it, no one can deny. The con- nexion between these two abnormal states has been established, and it is so intimate that Gilles de la Tourette could say: "Hypnotism is only an induced paroxysm of hysteria." It is not wonderful that symptoms of monoplegia and of limited anaesthesia should be made to disappear by suggestion, but the cure cannot be counted on in any given ease, nor is it enduring when it does result. As to neurasthenia, B^rillon and Bernheim affirm that just as good re- sults have been obtained in it as in hysteria, but Pitres, Terrien, and other hypnotists strongly ques- tion this.

Writers also note the curative action of hypnosis in a certain number of more or less localized nervous states (St. Vitus's dance, fie, incontinence of urine, sea-sickness, vertigo, menstrual troubles, constipa- tion, warts, etc.), but this action is in fact observed

only in hysterical cases, and it is not constant. Is hypnotism applicable to the treatment of psychosis — of the divers forms of mental alienation — in a word, of madness? Forel, Pitres, Terrien, Lloyd, Tuckey, all agree in confessing its impotence. Auguste Voisin alone believed in its power, and he was obliged to admit that only ten per cent of the mentally deranged were hypnotizable. Kveu this was too much to say; for mama is characterized by the lo.ss of volition, and we know that hypnosis is producetl by a fixing of the attention. Against the wide.spread vices of alco- hohsra, morphinism, the ether habit, etc., hypnotism has been successfully employed, but it has not pre- vented speedy and fatal relapses. Still, when all other means have failed, this method could not be altogether ignored. It may be doubted whether organic maladies are amenable to hypnotic treat- ment. Bernheim claims to have remedied nervous and spinal affections. Wetterstrand declares that he has cured or relieved patients afflicted with "rheu- matism, haemorrhages, pulmonary phthisis, maladies of the heart, Bright's disease", etc. As to Liebeault, he knows no malady that has resisted its suggestions. It is needless to remark that these marvellous cures have not been demonstrated, and that physicians refuse to believe in them. The beneficiaries of the hypnotic method are nervous and hysterical sufferers, and permanency of cure is not assured in their cases. Besides, it is incontestable that hypnotists have forced the note and outrageously exaggerated their successes.

The applications of hypnosis in surgery, as a means of inducing anaesthesia, have not been frequent, but the cases are remarkable. As early as the year 1S29, Cloquet amputated the breast of a h\pnofized wo- man. At Cherbourg, in 1845, Dr. Loy.sel performed the amputation of a leg; at Poitiers, in 1847, Dr. Riliaud took out a very large tumor of the jaw; Broca, in 18.59, opened an abscess on the border of the anus. It was Guerineau who amputated a thigh; and, later, Tillaux performed with hypnosis a serious operation of colporrhaphy. Hj^jnotism began to be applied in obstetrics less than thirty years ago. Pritzel performed an accouchement in this way in 1S8.5. Dr. Dumontpallier had less success with a first childbirth, but secured complete painlessness for his patient in the earlier stages of labour. Liebeault, Mesnet, Auvard and Secheyron, Fanton, Dobrov- olsky, Le Menant des Chesnais, Voisin, Bonjour, Joire, and Bourdon have published observations which leave no doubt as to the reality of the anses- thesia produced by hypnosis. But here, as in surgery, it is an exception, a mere object of curiosity. No one dreams of setting up a comparison between hypnosis and chloroform, or of substituting the one for the other. Besides, hj-pnosis is successful only with nerv- ous and hysterical subjects, and that not uniformly.

Hypnotism has not only been cried up as a thera- peutic resource, it has also been applied in petliatry and in pedagogy. Durand (of (!ros) is the true initiator of this method, but it is Berillon who has claimed a place for it in science, failing to distinguish between pediatry, which is related to medicine, and pedagogy, which is the province of the directors of free and conscious education. Suggestion woul<l be in place for serious perversions or inveterate vices — klepto- maniac impulses, impulses to lying, debauchery, sloth, indecency, indocility, onanism, etc. Without going so far as Berillon, Lif^beault and Li^'geois of Nancy claim to have reformed vicious and depraved children in this way and to have made excellent persons of them. They have cited some cures, but have not stated how long the good effects lasted. Education by hypnosis alone is not to be taken seriou.'ily ; it does not correspond to the es-sential demands of education, which is the joint work of two — an intelligent, volun- tary, effective collaboration of pupil and teacher.