Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/116

 102 CRITICAL NOTICES: sequence that begins in a fixed idea due to exhaustion of the cerebral centres. " De plus en plus 1'hysterie est la grande simulatrice, comme le disait si souvent Charcot " (p. 291). In chapter viii. these " contractures, paralysies, spasmes des muscles du tronc chez les hysteriques " are made the subject of yet more minute functional dissection, and the leading concept of dissociation is again shown to run everywhere. The physiological methods are objective and the results can be verified by any other observer. In particular, the value of respiration and spasm of muscle-groups as indicating psycho-neural changes is made abundantly manifest by exact tracings (pp. 328-340). In the remaining chapters of volume i., we return to the more strictly psychological order of analysis. In chapter ix. " insomnie par idee fixe subconsciente " a somewhat strikeing instance is given of insomnia due to a persistent dream, which is absolutely forgotten immediately on awaking. The sequence of tests that revealed the origin of this insomnia has all the charm of a romance. The insomnia, which no ordinary form of treatment could touch, is found to be only a secondary phenomenon (p. 372) being but the conclusion of a terrifying dream. Not all hysterical insomnias are susceptible of this interpretation ; but, in the particular cases, once the fixed idea was discovered, or, rather, recovered, in the hypnotic state, it was dealt with, disintegrated and dissipated ; the result being frequently restoration to normal habits of sleep. The effect of submerged dreams, the nature of sleep, the relation of amnesia to insomnia, and other similar matters are here discussed with much acuteness. In chapter x., we have an account of a case of " possession and modern exorcism ". Objectively, the sequence of phenomena appears to be a case of ordinary saturnine mania, with delusions and suicidal tendency. After investigation for weeks, the sequence was revealed as remorse following on some moral lapse, consequent shame, silence, hallucinations of punish- ment, death, and possession by the devil all in an unstable nervous constitution. The way that Dr. Janet succeeded in establishing actual correspondence with this " devil " a specimen of the writing is given and the way he ultimately exorcised him, reducing him, indeed, to mere dissociation and fixed idea, read more like a well-concerted effect by Cagliostro than like sober science ; but the analysis falls strictly within his method and the functioning of disordered mind is correlated in detail with the normal. An account of subconscious hallucinations and divination by mirrors is given in a separate chapter. The volume ends with a most important chapter on " the influence of somnambulism and the need, or desire (besoin), of direction" (p. 423- 480). In this, the ethical as well as the psychological relations of hypnotism and the susceptibilities of hypnotised persons are carefully canvassed. The chapter is, in some sort, a focussing of the leading principles of the whole volume : rapport, suggestion, influence somnambulique, passion somnambulique, pensee persistante de