Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/611

Rh this nutriment these suggestions given under the hypnotic influence come into play.

Before closing this portion of the essay I should like to say that I believe hypnotism is not an occult power, but is a simple, natural physiological process. And again, anybody can use the power just as any one can become a good piano player, or student or business man by training. Yet it is only those with the natural tendency toward personal power who will make the greatest success.

It would indeed be pleasing to me to cite a number of wonderful cases where hypnotism has been used experimentally in order to show the great influence of the mind over the body—how a horse can be ridden over the outstretched body of a man in a cataleptic state, how illusions and hallucinations can be produced, how we may even obtain negative hallucinations, how we can turn an adult into a child, how we can conjure before the mind's eye vistas grand and superb, panoramas gorgeous and elegant, how the commonest man may become an orator, a saint, an assassin perhaps. But all these things would be far beyond the scope of this essay. However, one case seems to be of especial interest as it shows how far hypnotism may be used in the cure of various inflammations.

The experiment is on a nurse 28 years old, who is not at all hysterical. She is a daughter of plain country people, and has been for a long time an attendant in the Zurich Lunatic Asylum, which Forel directs. He thinks her a capable honest person, in no way inclined to deceit. The experiments were as follows: A gummed label was fixed upon her chest on either side; the paper was square. In no case was an irritating gum used. At mid-day Forel suggested that a blister had been put on the left side; and at six o'clock in the evening a moist spot had appeared in that place; the skin was swollen and red around it, and a little inflammation also appeared on the right side, but much less. Forel then did away with the suggestion. On the next day there was a scab on the left side. Forel had not watched the nurse between noon and six o'clock, but had suggested that she could not scratch herself. The other nurses said that the subject could not raise her hand to her chest, but made vain attempts to scratch. Forel repeated the experiment later; he put on the paper at 11:45 a. m. and ordered the formation of blisters in two and one half hours. Little pain was suggested, and the nurse therefore complained but little. At two o'clock Forel looked at the paper on the left side, for which the suggestion had been made, and saw around it a large swelling and reddening of the skin. The paper could with difficulty be removed. A moist surface of epidermis was then visible, exactly square like the paper. There was nothing particular under the paper on the right side. Forel then suggested the disappearance of the pain, inflammation, etc.

In time everything disappeared.

Many investigators have been able to bring about a change in blood supply and other visceral changes of a similar kind. Changes in temperature have been made as much as three degrees centigrade. Bernheim found that by suggestion he could induce local reddening of the skin. This is undoubtedly a vaso-motor change. These local red