Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/823

Rh. But apart from this the fundamental features are the same, whether a man or a frog be mesmerized. The primary point is, as I have said, the paralysis of the will—that is, the inhibition of a certain activity of the nerve-cells of the cortex of the cerebrum.

The great majority of people can not be mesmerized unless they consent to fix their attention on some particular object. This fixing of the attention, speaking generally, seems to be a voluntary exclusion of exciting impulses, leaving thus the inhibitory ones an open field. Idiots, who, on account of the lack of co-ordination of their nerve-centers, can not fix their attention for any length of time on any one object, can not as far as I know be mesmerized. Now this, now that part of the brain becomes active, and exciting impulses are sent out which overpower the inhibitory ones. Inhibition from impulses arising in the cortex itself are rare unless the patient has been previously mesmerized. Some such cases, however, do occur. But in people who have been previously mesmerized inhibition in this manner is of not unfrequent occurrence; within limits, the more often the changes in the cells accompanying inhibition have been produced, the easier they are to reproduce. Those who have often been mesmerized may fall again into this condition at any moment, if the idea crosses their minds that they are expected to be mesmerized.

Thus, if a sensitive subject be told that the day after to-morrow at half-past nine he will be mesmerized, nothing more need be done; the day after to-morrow at half-past nine he will remember it, and in so doing will mesmerize himself.

An instance sent by M. Richer to Dr. Hake Tuke, presents, it seems to me, an example of inhibition from the cortex which is of a somewhat different class, and more allied to that which occurs in birds and lower mammals. A patient was suspected of stealing some photographs from the hospital, a charge which she indignantly denied. One morning M. Richer found this patient with her hand in the drawer containing the photographs, having already transferred some of them to her pocket. There she remained motionless. She had been mesmerized by the sound of a gong struck in an adjoining ward. Here, probably, the changes in the cortex accompanying the emotion which was aroused by the sudden sound at the moment when she was committing the theft produced a wide-spread inhibition—she was instantaneously mesmerized.

I will show you the method of mesmerizing which is, perhaps, on the whole, most effective; it is very nearly that described by Braid. I have not time to attempt a mesmeric experiment to-night; it is the method only which I wish to show you. With one hand a bright object, such as this faceted piece of glass, is held thus, eight to twelve