Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/147

 trust and submission which leads to the effectiveness of such incitement.'

On the effects of treatment by suggestion, Dr. Claye Shaw writes:

'It is with such conditions as chronic inebriety, opium, or the drug habit, that suggestion is most powerful; with acute insanity I have not seen it successful, and, though it has been fairly tested in asylum practice, it has not obtained general recognition as a therapeutic agent.'

A considerable number of medical men, alienists and others, took part in the discussion which followed the reading of the paper.

Dr. Bramwell cited many well-authenticated cases where a cure or marked amelioration had followed treatment by suggestion in cases of this kind which had resisted all other treatment. Among these were instances of neurasthenia ('la grande hystérie'), claustrophobia, morphomania, tendency to suicide, a morbid fear of cats. Dr. Seymour Tuke said that he had found 'suggestive treatment marvellously effective in cases of inebriety in which the will was under some sort of control,' but that he was 'unable to make encouraging report of the use of hypnotism and suggestion amongst insane patients.' [A useful and discriminating testimony.] Dr.