Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/232

 FURTHER PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. (l.) 219 liis having made the slightest allusion to her absence from the promenade, informed him that about 3 o'clock she had been suddenly seized by an irresistible inclination to go to sleep, though she never slept in the day- time. It was all she could do to walk into another room, where she fell on a sofa, and was afterwards found by a servant, cold and motionless, comme tnorte. The servant shook Mme. D. vigorously, but could not make her do more than open her eyes. All that Mme. D. remembered experiencing at this time was a violent headache, which disappeared towards 5 o'clock, the hour when M. Hericourt willed the undoing of his work. This experiment was the first of a series, during which a number of per- sons had the opportunity of arranging the conditions and testing the re- sults. The hypothesis of expectant attention was doubly excluded ; for if M. Hericourt gave Mine. D. notice of his intention to entrance her, but actually willed that she should remain awake, she retained her normal condition, and imagined that he had failed. (3) The next case, contributed by Dr. E. Gley, of 37 Hue Claude Bernard, Paris, is a record of some observations of his friend, Dr. Dusart, published in the Tribune Mtfdicale, in May, 1875. The * subject ' was a hysterical girl of 14, whom Dr. Dusart found very susceptible to hypnotism. He early remarked that his passes were ineffective if his attention was not .strongly directed to the desired result ; and this suggested to him to try the effect of purely mental suggestion. One day, before the usual hour for wak- ing the patient had arrived, he gave her the mental command to awake. The effect was instantaneous : the patient woke, and again, in accordance with his will, began her hysterical screaming. He took a seat with his l^ack to her, and conversed with other persons, without appearing to pay any attention to her ; but on his silently giving her the mental suggestion to fall again into the trance, his will was again obeyed. More than 100 -experiments of the sort were made under various conditions, and with uniform success. On one occasion Dr. Dusart left without giving his usual order to the patient to sleep till a particular hour next morning. Remem- bering the omission, he gave the order mentally, when at a distance of 700 metres from the house. On arriving next morning at 7'30, he found the patient asleep, and asked her the reason. She replied that she was obey- ing his order. He said : " You are wrong ; 1 left without giving' you any order ". " True," she said, " but five minutes afterwards I clearly heard you tell me to sleep till eight o'clock." Dr. Dusart then told the patient to sleep till she received the command to wake, and directed her parents to mark the exact hour of her waking. At 2 P.M. he gave the order men- tally, at a distance of 7 kilometres, and found that it had been punctually obeyed. This experiment was successfully repeated several times, at diffe- rent hours. After a time Dr. Dusart discontinued his visits, and the girl's father- used to hypnotise her instead. Nearly a fortnight after this change, it occurred to Dr. Dusart, when at a distance of 10 kilometres, to try whether he still retained his power, and he willed that the patient should not allow herself to be entranced ; then after half-an-hour, thinking that the effect might be bad for her, he removed the prohibition. Early next morning he was surprised to receive a letter from the father, stating that on the previous day he had only succeeded in hypnotising his daughter after a prolonged and painful struggle ; and that, when entranced, she had declared that her resistance had been due to Dr. Dusart's command, and that she had only succumbed when he permitted her. (4) M. Ch. Eichet has quite recently communicated to me privately a