Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/582

568 foot what Professor Ongston has called a canoe-shape. The success of any treatment of the deformity depends largely upon the age and extent of the affliction and the ability of the patient to conform to the surgeon's directions. It includes prolonged rest, the avoidance of standing still, the exhibition of tonics, the adaptation of boots to the requirements of the case, with the application of devices to raise and support the arch or bring the other parts of the foot into proper position, with, sometimes, surgical operations. Professor Ongston, availing himself of the advantages of Listerism, has ventured, with success, upon the bold operation of rearranging the bones of the foot in their proper position and plugging them together with ivory pegs.

The True and False in Mesmerism.—The physiologist, says the "Saturday Review," holds that some of the phenomena of mesmerism are genuine and comparable to certain natural states, but that none exist to justify the supposition of any unknown force or effluence, most mesmeric manifestations of a certain sort being entirely due to individual or collusive fraud. For most of the facts alleged are of such a nature that it is infinitely more probable that all connected with them, both actors and reporters, are deliberate impostors, than that they themselves should be true. The careful study of the alleged phenomena by those who are alone qualified to report on them has over and over again negatived all shadow of evidence that a person in the state called hypnotism, somnambulism, or mesmerism, has any power whatever of being influenced in any way by another to perform specific actions, all possibility of previous hints or impressions being excluded, while demonstrably apart from all methods of communication by the senses. That in many cases the mind may act abnormally most are aware, and spontaneous counterparts are found in disease to the real phenomena of hypnotism. Artificial somnambulism, indeed, is practically undistinguishable from the somnambulism which is called disease; and it is mainly true to regard the psychological fields of these phenomena as identical. In this state the brain acts, as it were, fitfully; some of its functions sleep while others wake, and in various combinations the actions of the senses are heightened or lowered, or apparently for a time abolished. But in no instance of this artificial somnambulism that has been admitted to be genuine has there been any justification for supposing a special effluence from the operator; and innumerable counter-experiments have been made on hypnotic subjects who have promptly fallen into this condition from merely believing that some force was being exerted. Every hypnotic phenomenon can be more or less obviously referred to morbid conditions of the nervous system and to abnormal reaction or response to suggestions and other stimuli from without. Illustrations of this are not far to seek. We know that lunatics, out of harmony as they are with their own environment, often imagine themselves to be other people, especially kings and queens. So do the subjects of hypnotism at the suggestion of external surroundings; in the one case the morbid condition is temporary, in the other often permanent. The explanation, then, of the phenomena in question, is to be sought not in the person of the mesmerizer or operator, or in any unknown force, but in the subject "mesmerized." The common element of mesmerism and spiritualism, and it is indeed a large one, is really fraud and fraud alone. Of what remains, the genuine fact of hypnotism, it must be repeated, that it is amply recognized by scientific observers.

Nickel-Plating in the United States.—"Nickel-plating," says Mr. William H. Wahl, in a paper read before the Chemical Section of the Franklin Institute last November, "is an American industry, in the sense that it was first practiced on a commercial scale in the United States, and here received that practical demonstration of its usefulness that has since made it the most successful and most widely practiced branch of the art of electro-plating." It first came into prominence about ten years ago, and has developed into an industry of great magnitude, and acquired a popularity which is easily accounted for by any one acquainted with the use and the excellence of nickel-plated articles. Its growth has been favored