Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/467

* HYPNOTICS. 4U5 HYPNOTISM. objections. A very important one is the tendency to the formation of a habit. Another is the diflerence in susceptibility to its action. Chloral hydrate is a powerful cardiac depressant, and in cases of heart disease or heart weakness from any cause, it should be used with great caution, if at all. A small dose has caused death, al- though fifty and sixty grains have been given in other cases without harm. (5) Bromides. These are not very j)overful hypnotics, but are often used as adjuvants to others. Potassium bromide is the most useful, but sodium bromide, though less active, is not as depressing to the circulation. <(j) Monobrated camphor. A feeble hypnotic. (7) Paraldehyde, a polymeric modification of acetic aldehyde. This is an cthoient hypnotic, producing sleep, as a rule, in half an hour. As regards its nervous effects, it is almost a pure hypnotic, and it causes but slight depression of the heart and respiration. It leaves no after effects except the odor of the breath, which is often very marked. It may cause nausea or vomiting if the stomach is very irritable. Like all hypnotics, it sometimes fails. (8) Hulfonal. This is an efficient but slow-acting hypnotic. The dose is given one or two hours before the expected sleeping-time. (9) (10) Trional and Tetronal are similar drugs, with more rapid and powerful action. The three last named may produce poisoning if used for any length of time or in too large doses. (11) Urethane, ethyl, C'.HjCOjXIL. has a bitter, disagreeable taste. This is an efficient hypnotic, leaving no disagree- able after effects. In large doses it may cause vomiting, but is otherwise a pure hypnotic. Tt has no depressing action on the heart or respira- tion. (12) Amyleiie hydrate. A colorless fluid with a sharp taste and smell. This is an efficient hypnotic, causing sleep in fifteen to forty-five minutes. The sleep is natural, and there are no bad after eficcts. It has no depressing effects on the heart or respiration. It has caused in a few cases a delirium resembling that of alco- holic intoxication, but followed by refreshing sleep. (13) Amylene chloral, or dormiol, is sim- ilar in action. Most of the drugs named are considered in spciial articles under their names. HYPNOTISM, or HYPNO'SIS (from Gk. Cn-iiof, hypnos, sleep). The general names for a group of abnormal phenomena, physical and psychical, which show a close outward resem- blance to the phenomena of normal sleep and of sleep-walking. The symptoms of the hypnotic state differ considerably among different subjects, and the marking off of distinct stages within this state is rather a matter of theorj- than of actual observation. The artificial sleep is con- tinuous and progressive, beginning with a lan- guor and drowsiness not unlike those of a man suddenly waked from sound sleep, or arousing from a too protracted morning's nap after a disturbed night. .s the state. 'vances, the sub- ject becomes partially anaesthei i. insensitive to pin-pricks, pinching or the skin, etc.: his sense- organs are closed to most of. the impressions from his surroundings that would normally excite them ; if awakened before the sleep has grown more profound, he remembers hazily what has occurred during hypnosis. He is extremely sug- gestible at the hands of those who. as he thuiks, have induced the sleep, and will execute n'o>i'- nients that the experimenter prescribes to him. The voluntarv muscular svstem evinces a curious rigidity and fixity; the subject will remain in any position in which he is placed. This feature has given the name of 'catalepsy' (seizure) to the stage in question. As the sleep is continued the subject becomes still more auiesthetie, until consciousness seems to lapse altogether; on waking, he has no memory whatsoever of the hypnotic period. The name of 'somnambulism' is given to a stage of profound hypnosis in which illusions are produced at the experimenter's sug- gestion: the subject takes ink for wine, a pillow for a baby, steps carefully over an imaginary book, etc., etc. These phenomena of sleep or trance, mixed with much that is simply charlatanrj', have been discussed and exploited from time immemorial. The medicine-men of primitive and savage tribes, the magicians of Egj'pt and Chald;ea, the Hindu ascetics, the monks of Mount Athos, the quack physicians of all ages, have made use of hypno- tism to enhance their personal prestige, to cure the sick, or to induce states of religious ecstasy. The modern histfiry of hypnotism begins with F. A. Mesnier (1733-1815), a German physician who practiced hypnotic therapeutics at Paris from 1778, causing so great a stir in scientific circles that his pretensions were made a matter of inquirj' by a royal commission (1785). The report of the commission was unfavorable; but 'mesmerism' still fiourished. In England valu- able works we»e published in the early forties by J. Braid, a Manchester surgeon (c. 17!t5-I8l!0) ; but their sanity and importance have but recently been fully recognized. Braid coined the word 'neurohypnotism.' or nerve sleep, from which comes the modem word hypnotism. During the last third of the nineteenth century the facts of hypnosis were thoroughly investigated by physiologists and psychologists. Heidenhain and Prcyer in Germany, Richet, Charcot, Licbault, and Bernheim in France, Delboeuf in Belgium, confirmed and e.xtended Braid's results. The French investigators split into two distinct •schools' : that of Charcot and his followers at the Paris Hospital of the Salpetri&re, and that of Bernheim and his followers at Xancy. The Sal- pOtri&re .school maintains that hypnotism is a pathological phenomenon, akin to hysteria, and characterized by three well-marked stages; the school of Xancy asserts that it can be set up in the normal individual, that it is a unitarj- and progressive stage, and that the key to its under- standing is given with the facts of suggestion. The latter views have found general acceptance; but the controversy undoubtedly hindered the advance of knowledge and threw discredit upon the whole subject. It need hardly be said that the doctrines known as animal magnetism, elec- tro-biology, odism or odylism, mesmeric clair- voyance, etc.. arc one and all — .save in so far as they cover the facts of hypnotism proper — fanci- ful and unerounded hypotheses. In considering the psychology of the hypnotic state, we have first to notice that its sole and essential condition is an exaggerated state of passive attention to some object or person. (See Attention.) In popular phraseologj- there is a 'total surrender of the will' of the subject, either to a sense-impression or to the experi- menter's personality. The condition of h^-pnosis thus lies — and this fact is of extreme importance — in the mind of the subject himself: the ex- lerimenter or 'operator has no power, except as