Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/780

760 grave, and the patient may kneel as if to pray. Catalepsy may be converted into lethargy by simply closing the patient's eyelids.

The third stage of Charcot's hypnotic series is somnambulism. Somnambulism can be primarily induced by fixation, or may be developed out of the lethargic or cataleptic stages by light friction on the top of the subject's head. The sensitiveness of the subject to suggestions is very greatly increased. The neuro-muscular hyperexcitability is not present, and contractions can not be produced by excitation of the nerves or muscles. Light breathing upon the skin, however, gives rise to a special form of contraction which, it is said, can only be counteracted by similarly stimulating antagonistic groups of muscles. These three phases Charcot has been pleased to group under the title of the "grand hypnose," for what reason it is difficult to say, unless, indeed, it is because the description originated in Paris.

Thus it happens that, at the present day, the Paris school and the school of Liébault are the principal exponents of hypnotism. Upon many of the most essential questions these two schools stand in opposition. According to Charcot, hypnotism is a pathological condition observed chiefly in hysterical patients, which can be divided into the three sharply defined phases just spoken of. According to Bernheim, who is at present the chief representative of the Nancy school, the hypnotic state is not a neurosis, but a condition closely allied to ordinary sleep, which can be brought about in a very large proportion of perfectly healthy persons. The peculiar physical conditions described by Charcot as invariable concomitants of hypnotism, Bernheim considers the result of suggestion, and the three typical states he regards as the artificial effects of similar influences.

From a careful examination of a large number of hypnotized persons, I am forced to the conclusion that these views of Bernheim's are correct, and that the school of the Salpêtrière is in serious error. Before reviewing the facts which have led me to this conclusion, let us inquire a little more carefully into the nature of the hypnotic phenomena manifested by healthy individuals. This will greatly facilitate an understanding of the principal objections to Charcot's views.

First, as to the proper method of inducing the hypnosis or artificial sleep. This is very simple, and it is always well to assure the subject that you do not intend to make use of any supernatural means, and that there is no magnetism of any kind about your procedure. Where persons are very skeptical of your ability to put them to sleep, it is a good plan to hypnotize a few patients in their presence, as an evidence of what you are able to do. Having thus obtained the subject's confidence, the physician asks him to look him intently in the eye, and to think of nothing