the earth and the sun, and concludes with a theory of universal gravitation.

It is claimed that the threshold of sensation is raised by hypnosis, that sight and hearing are more acute. This has not been personally demonstrated.

Post-hypnotic amnesia usually occurs without suggestion, but it can be either increased or diminished, by telling the patient that he will either remember or forget the events that transpire during his sleep.

Post-hypnotic suggestion is a very striking phenom

enon.

You suggest complete amnesia on waking. Then tell the patient that when you take out your pocket-handkerchief he will immediately get up and leave the room. When he wakes it is well to have one of the observers determine that amnesia is complete.

No matter what the subject may be doing, when you inadvertently give the signal he responds like a machine, and is entirely ignorant of the cause of his action. On a subsequent hypnosis, however, he would be able to tell you all about it.

This is the most effective way of reviving subconscious memories. Long forgotten happenings of childhood can be brought out. This has been utilized in discovering the causes of hallucinations and psychoses. So many experiments in the posthypnotic appreciation of time have been made by many different observers, that we are forced to conclude that the power greatly transcends that of the

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normal waking consciousness. A very simple way to test this is to suggest that the post-hypnotic suggestion shall be carried out at a certain time, instead of at some stated signal. My own experiments in this line have not been very extensive, but sufficient to convince me of the truth of the claim.

In one instance it was suggested that half an hour after waking, the subject, who was one of a company of professional friends, should become aware that his right shoe was hurting him; that it would feel like a stone or nail in his shoe, and that the discomfort would become so great that he would be compelled to take off his shoe and rub his foot.

After he waked, he remained seated with his back to the clock, and the half-dozen people present were listening to something which I was reading aloud. In exactly twenty-seven minutes, he was seen to look at his foot and move it uneasily in the shoe. The right leg was then raised and thrown across the other and the shoe moved with the hand. In about a minute he interrupted my reading by remarking aloud, "I never knew that shoe to hurt me before." Paying no attention to the remark, I continued reading, when he interrupted again by saying, “I wonder what it is." With some impatience I said, "I wish you would not interrupt me." "I haven't heard a word you have read," was the reply.

Some one suggested, " Perhaps you have a nail in your shoe." "I don't wear nailed shoes," was the

impatient reply. At this there was such a general laugh that he said: "Ah, I know, it is a suggestion, you want me to take my shoe off. Well, I won't do it."

He lighted a fresh cigar and smoked very vigorously for a few minutes, but while the company roared with laughter he took off his shoe and rubbed his foot. On being questioned afterward he said that he could have resisted, but he realized that he should be uncomfortable till he did it, and therefore obeyed.

This absolute obedience has been termed automatism, which is a subject demanding careful consideration, because of its important bearing on the possibility of criminal suggestions. It was formerly believed that once the subject succumbed to the operator he became his slave, absolutely unable to refuse any command. This belief is quite universal in the lay mind, and, I am sorry to say, is quite generally shared by the medical profession.

Bramwell has made most exhaustive experiments on this line, which have, I believe, conclusively shown that quite the reverse is true. He has adopted the very rational method of questioning the patient under hypnosis concerning his motives for action and refusing to act.

In the first place, it should be understood that good subjects frequently refuse suggestions from mere caprice. Numerous instances of this are on record. I do not refer to criminal suggestions, but

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actions which are absolutely harmless. Bramwell mentions the case of a young girl who had many times carried out post-hypnotic suggestions. On this occasion he directed that on waking she should go to the sideboard and pour for herself a glass of Much to his surprise, the suggestion was not carried out. She was rehypnotized and asked why she had refused to obey. She said that she did not feel sufficiently acquainted with him to take such a liberty.

water.

In my patient the impulse to take off the shoe would undoubtedly have been overcome had there been ladies present.

At a college society meeting I suggested to one of the company whom I had hypnotized that at a certain signal, after waking, he should go to the punch-bowl and take a drink out of the ladle. He took up the ladle full of punch, raised it as if to drink, then hesitated for several seconds, finally poured it into a glass and drank from it. No comment was made, but it was evident that the impropriety of the act prevented its execution.

The classic experiment of telling a subject that a lump of sugar is arsenic and that he is to poison his friend has been assumed to prove criminal suggestion. It will usually be carried out. The patient will also stab his friend with an imaginary dagger. But further questioning reveals the fact that the subject appreciates the distinction between these experiments and the real things.

Bramwell tells of an instance of a caretaker who had shown his pluck by shooting at some genuine burglars. He was afterwards hypnotized and was made to believe that some friends in an adjoining room were breaking and entering. The ball-cartridges had been secretly replaced by blanks, but he supposed the revolver still loaded. Instead of carrying out the suggestion, he very carefully laid the revolver away.

Popular literature furnishes innumerable instances of belief in this fallacy. Nearly all hypnotists of the present generation have believed it till experience has demonstrated the contrary. Bernheim formerly held this view quite strongly, but latterly admits that not more than four or five per cent.of his patients will accept criminal suggestion. Is it unreasonable to suppose that this percentage is normally criminally inclined?

As far as I am able to judge, the great majority agree with Bramwell, who says: "I have never seen a suggestion accepted in hypnosis which would have been refused in the normal state. I have frequently noticed increased refinement in hypnosis, subjects have refused suggestions which they would have accepted in the normal condition."

This may depend on the early education of the subconscious, the development of a finer sensibility than the later volitional years had been able to live up to. Probably all of us have had the experience