that to receive a suggestion, which is to be carried out even to an act, necessitates a previous deep unconsciousness, is erroneous in many respects. The patient has entered into the receptive state by what is explained as an inhibition of the cerebral cortex, and a potent force has taken possession of him by directing both the mental and physical functions.”

The success of this method depends entirely upon the receptivity of the patient, and upon his intellectuality. He must certainly be above the average intelligence or have unlimited confidence in his physician to make it effective. The majority of chronic cases are dominated by preconceived ideas, which they are unable to suppress, and which the operator is unable to overcome. In this emergency there is needed some means of increasing the susceptibility to healthful suggestions, and of counteracting harmful ones. Whatever may be one's view as to the exact nature of hypnotism, it is universally admitted that it increases the patient's suggestibility.

Pyschics has taken quite a hold of our Boston mind, and the intelligent patient has seen enough cures by other than medicinal means to be already convinced of a mental control of body functions. So that often it is only necessary to explain to him the reflex action of the lower brain, and tell him that by properly conducted treatments you can increase his subconscious control of the various somatic functions which make for health. He is then put in a comfortable chair, the head resting, eyes closed,

and told to banish from his mind all extraneous thoughts, to make himself passive, so as to receive any suggestions you have to offer.

You then talk to him in a quiet but reassuring way, accompanied by passes over the affected part, expatiating upon the profoundness of mental control, if he only put himself in the receptive state. This is manifestly a-hypnotic treatment. If stronger effects are desired, hypnosis should be induced by any of the methods previously mentioned. In this state the suggestions should be direct, in the form of commands.

Granted this fact of the subconscious control of functions and bodily states, granted that hypnosis lays the subconscious under the operator's control, what could be more logical than that healthful suggestions could be thus made which would be effectively carried out?

Every one who has given attention to this subject has found that he can make auto-suggestions, which are helpful or harmful as he wills. This refers not alone to mental states, but to physical health. Is it not possible that the coming man will become so proficient in marshalling the resources of his subliminal consciousness that he will become his own physician, exercise an increased power of resistance, and ward off many diseases? Hypnosis to-day furnishes a means of aiding the subconscious mind of the patient, thus working out practical cures, and in it there would seem to be great possibilities.

Without attempting to define the limitations of psychotherapeutics, it is generally admitted that its special sphere of usefulness is with functional and nervous diseases. The writer reported before the Boston Homeopathic Medical Society some years ago1 a case of subconscious memory of pain in the eyes, which yielded to a very few hypnotic treatments after glasses and remedies had failed.

Sidis has reported some interesting cases of epilepsy, which upon hypnosis proved to be of psychic origin. The patients no longer remembered the cause of the first attack, but under hypnosis the whole history was obtained. Counter suggestions in this state entirely eradicated the abnormal influence, and the seizures ceased. Along this same line is the work being done by Prof. James J. Putnam, of Harvard, in the treatment of hysteria by "Freud's Method of Psycho-Analysis." "

Insomnia is one of the very intractable symptoms of many diseases and is also idiopathic. Wetterstrand says: "I sincerely believe there is no better remedy for insomnia than hypnosis, and that it is absolutely harmful to prescribe soporifics, because they only strengthen the invalid's belief that he cannot go to sleep without the accustomed dose." He reports eight failures in forty-two cases treated.

In neuralgias he says: "The remedy has seldom been a failure when the patient slept soundly."

'N. E. Medical Gazette, June, 1899.

2

Journal of Abnormal Psychology, April, 1906.

Cures from epilepsy and chorea are reported by Wetterstrand.

In stammering Wetterstrand cured fifteen, fortyeight treated. Neurasthenias are difficult cases to treat, as they are hard to hypnotize. The same applies to hysteria. Morphinism has been dealt with very successfully.

Doctor Quackenboss, New York, has reported great successes in breaking up the cigarette habit and other forms of intemperance. There was published in a New York paper a report of an interview with Doctor Quackenboss concerning his reviving a moribund patient, who had been calling for him previous to sinking into the comatose state.

The work of Dr. Paul Dubois, professor of neuropathology at the University of Berne, has, during the present year (1906), been brought to the attention of English readers thru the translation of the French edition of his "Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders." Accepting the Bernheim doctrine of suggestion, and believing that every one is suggestible, he ignores all subtle and subconscious methods, and treats these cases "in the open " by open" what he calls the "reeducation of the reason." After showing his patient that his nervous affection is the result of his misconceptions, he proceeds to reason with him. First of all he teaches him the philosophy of life, adapting the lesson to the patient's mental status. Then he elucidates the power of the mind over somatic functions, and builds up the

patient's confidence, by seizing upon and emphasizing every evidence of success in the relief of distressing symptoms.

There is something almost naïve in the absolute candor with which he treats his patient, and as one turns the pages of his book he is conscious of a feeling of chagrin in discovering that the laborious and roundabout methods of our ordinary use of psychotherapy are usually superfluous.

Upon special occasions, he has recourse to hypnotism and a-hypnotic suggestion of the Bernheim type.

While he believes that nervous diseases are essentially mental in origin, and should therefore be treated by mental means, he nevertheless uses drugs for special emergencies.

Isolation of the patient from family and friends and the almost routine use of the Weir Mitchell rest treatment are very important factors of his success, but "the only thing that will assure the future of the patient is a rational moralizing psychotherapy which will change the psychopathic mentality which has determined his symptoms."

Doctor Anderson, medical director of Yale gymnasium, has constructed a table finely balanced, on which the student lies down upon his back. The center of gravity is determined and then some problem is given him to solve. That blood rushes to the head is proved by a rise in the center of gravity toward the head. If, on the other hand, he is