himself in a perfectly natural, matter-of-fact manner. While an ignorant subject may be sometimes overawed by Svengali attitudes, your intelligent patient will be disgusted, and you will forfeit his respect and confidence. Public hypnotists often assume these airs of his Satanic majesty. Perhaps this is not so much to impress the patient as a play to the gallery. · One should not feel nor exhibit any discouragement if the first attempt be unsuccessful. Infinite patience may be required, as success may crown one's efforts after fifty failures. In obstinate cases it may be necessary to resort to mild anesthesia. Some operators administer a hypnotic drug to induce drowsiness. Doctor Quackenboss informs me that he invariably commences with a dose of paraldehyde. There is no way of determining susceptibility except the initial effort.

SUSCEPTIBILITY

The late Doctor Charcot claimed that hypnosis is a morbid condition, which can be induced only in the hysterical. The insufficiency of the data upon which this statement rests must be apparent from the admission that "only a dozen cases of true hypnosis have occurred in Salpêtrière in ten years, and that a very large proportion of the experiments were conducted on one subject, who had long been an inmate of that hospital."

The fact is just the reverse: hysterical subjects are very difficult to hypnotize. Hypnosis is a physio

HYPNOTISM — SUSCEPTIBILITY

79

logical function. "Some years ago Bernheim had already attempted to hypnotize ten thousand hospital patients with over ninety per cent. of successes, while Wetterstrand recently reported 6,500 cases with 105 failures. International statistics published in 1892 gave 8,500 cases, from fifteen observers in different countries, with six per cent. of failures.

"Mr. Wingfield, demonstrator of physiology at Cambridge, Eng., attempted to hypnotize 170 individuals, all but eighteen being undergraduates. In eighty per cent. hypnosis was induced at the first attempt, but as no second trial was made with the unsuccessful cases, these results undoubtedly understate the susceptibility. Liébeault found soldiers and sailors particularly easy to influence.

"Grossman, of Berlin, recently asserted that the hard-headed North Germans were almost universally susceptible. Bramwell, of England, observed that healthy Yorkshire farm laborers made remarkably good subjects.

"Professor Forel hypnotized nearly all his asylum warders. He states that he himself selected these men for this important position, and that he did not choose them from the ranks of the hysterical. Forel claims that every mentally healthy man is naturally hypnotizable."

I

Moll says: "If we take a pathological condition of the organism as necessary to hypnosis, we shall be obliged to conclude that nearly everybody is not 1 Bramwell: Hypnotism,

quite right in his head. The mentally unsound, particularly idiots, are much more difficult to hypnotize than the healthy. Intelligent people and those with strong wills are more easily hypnotizable than the dull, the stupid, or the weak-willed." I

'Bramwell: Hypnotism.

CHAPTER VI

Hypnosis. Phenomena.

SUMMARY

Classification, difficult and somewhat arbitrary. - Mild, catalepsy, conclusive evidence of hypnosis. - Deep, somnambulism, hallucinations accepted. - Catalepsy unwise to exceed at first attempt; sufficient for slight analgesia; sufficient for therapeutic suggestions. Anesthesia not practicable for general surgery, because not absolute in more than ten per cent. Character and frequency of pulse may be controlled. -Suggestibility increased, raise of threshold.— Amnesia the rule, but subject to suggestion. The alert stage, seemingly inconsistent with sleep. - Hallucinations: positive, negative; en rapport with operator, but others may be introduced. Subject reasons deductively, but not inductively. Post-hypnotic suggestions; appreciation of time.Automatism, not absolute, subject may refuse harmless suggestion. - Criminal suggestions, popular literature responsible for belief in; mistaken deductions from paper dagger experiment. Refinement of moral sense. - The higher self: avoid being deceived. Precautions in conducting experiments : avoid self-deception.

THE hypnotic state varies in intensity in different individuals, or in the same individual at different times, from a slight drowsiness to almost complete coma. Many attempts have been made to classify these stages by the phenomena exhibited, but it should be understood that these are but arbitrary divisions.

Drowsiness, being almost wholly a subjective symp

tom, can hardly be considered hypnosis. Until catalepsy is produced the patient is not hypnotized. Inability to open the eyes is a catalepsy of the orbicularis muscle. After this, rigidity of legs or arms in awkward positions follows the suggestion of the operator. The patient may be perfectly conscious, indeed may really be amused at his helplessness. While many other phases may now appear, yet for purposes of definition, the cataleptic stage signifies a certain well-recognized condition.

With certain restrictions, which will be fully considered later when speaking of automatism, the succeeding manifestations appear as suggested. Somnambulism has come by general consent to mean a state in which hallucinations are accepted, of which the patient has no recollection on waking. When this stage is reached analgesia and anesthesia are easily effected, and the patient is sure to be en rapport with the operator. He is oblivious to all other persons until they are introduced to him.

It is therefore well to keep clearly in mind these two stages, catalepsy and somnambulism, as distinguishing mild and deep hypnosis.

It is usually unwise to carry the patient deeper than catalepsy at the first sitting, as there is something uncanny in feeling one's self in the power of another. As a matter of fact, unless the person has considerable knowledge of the subject, most operators simply talk to him for the first visit, explaining what is to be expected. He may be asked to close his