HYPNOTISM:

NZ Truth, Issue 58, 28 July 1906, Page 7

HYPNOTISM :

HAS IT A GUR&TIVE VALUE?

Doctors Discuss and Differ*

Surgeon Hart Declares it Worthless—' The Folly of Hypnotic Tooth-. \ Drawing— Hypnotism and the Insape — Hypnotism, Hysteria and Humbug;

(To the Editor of "Truth."} Sir,— ln a work on "Hypnotism and .1" —*- gestion,"-by R. 0. Mason, M.A., M.D., soma unique cures are recorded by the aforesaid methods. For instance, one case which haa been verified by F. W. H. Myers, who, up tot the time of his death, was secretary of thes Society for Psychical Research, is well worth: recording. It is the case of a criminal lunatic. A young woman of deplorable type, filthy in habits and violent in demeanor, and with- a lifelong history of impurity and theffc, was hypnotised at a time when sha was so violent she had to be kept in a*, straight-jacket. In ten minutes she waa sunder control, and in her, waking hours, owing to commands impressed upon her in. her trance, she expressed regret for her pa^fe life, and made good resolutions for the fu-». ture, which she carried out, and the inarkejJ6-^_ improvement in her conduct and character! waa permanent. Two years later she be* - came a nurso in a Paris Hospital, and hen conduct remained irreproachable. . This, bear in mind, is not the statement of a charlatan, but of a fully-qualified medical man of repute, and is only one of hundreds of cases he cites. The question is, how is ib that these methods are not tried by competent and trustworthy persons, on the inebrit ates and others in our gaols and insane asy* lums. — Yours, etc., "NEUROTIC." Our correspondent's letter is worthy oft careful and unbiassed consideration. At" tho ~ same time, it would be erroneous to believq that the medical profession are unanimously) of opinion that hypnotism is of great thera* peutic value. It is " BY NO MEANS THE CASE that scientific men, generally, regard hypnp* , tism as of greater .value for curative purposes than the therapeutic aids of whicli medical practitioners ordinarily avail them* selves. As for Dr. Mason, he is not particu* larly well known. He is, possibly, soma^ American practitioner, and may, or may nob, be of good standing in his profession. Onej would like to know at what university he obtained his diploma — there are so many bogujf universities in the United States— and whe«. ther he hits much, and good, hospital experi-c ence. We have had some medical men in! Australia who practised hypnotism, butj their efforts have not been strikingly suet cessful, . The fact is that hypnotism, having beeit neglected for many years after its exists ence and reality had been demonstrated^ more than HALF A CENTURY AGO. by the English surgeon James Braid, waa taken up a few years ago by Moll, and . others, and written of as dogmatically, an* as credulously, as eminent and intellectual men once wrote of witchcraft. The latten superstition was, in the days of that infernal scoundrel, the witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, firmly believed in by some of the most luminous lights of intellectuality of that time. Yet who now believes in witchcraft ? Ifc is not that hypnotism is not a. fact-* although Charles Dai-win, . termed by Pro*fessor Lombroso, the sanest man of genius of modern times, did not believe ifc >io ba anything but humbug— but far mpro>sp^-~ pears to be claimed for it than seems ip bo justified by facts. Most of the writers \vii© have made all sorts of • , ' PREPOSTEROUS AND UNWARRANTED claims for hypnotism have been indebted fco Moll's book on the subject; but this work is. condemned by Professor Ludwig Buchner (the famous author of "Matter and Force") as peculiarly unscientific. This condeiy nation appears in "Last Words on Materialism." . A really good work on hypnotism, ona which is thoroughly scientific, and which while avoiding cant and humbug, yet admits the genuineness of hypnotism, is Sur* geon Ernest Hart's "Hypnotist.. Mesmerisir.,, and the New Witchcraft*." Ernes'-. Hart'a name is very highly respected in scientifia circles in England. He was formerly Surgeon to the West London Hospital, and Opthalmic Surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital* London. . He excited the admiration of the scientific world, in 1892, by his complete, ' ' CONVINCING EXPOSURE of the manner in which the Parisian hypnotist, Dr. Luys, was duped by hysterica who pretended to be hypnotised by him. With regard to what our correspondent says as to the curative value of hypnotism, the following extracts from the work by Surgeon Hart to which we have referred should be bonne in mind: — The final question of the clinical physician and the medical practitioner is the practical* demand for the definition of tha position "of hypnotism in its relation to therapeutics. I may, I think, take it as proved beyond all reasonable, doubt that the hypnotic condition is a real and admitted clinical fact. . . . M. Magnum authorises the statement that experiments made on the treatment of "insanity by hypnotism at the Bureau de I* Admission during three years had given no appreciable result, while M. Bernheim himself recognises that the domain OF MENTAL ALIENATION i is the most rebellious to suggestion. Dr* A * Forel of Zurich is less positive in his con-i 4B plosions. He says: — "Insane idoqs have _■■ never been modified in any patient. . „ I never succeeded in influencing the course of true melancholia (I do not speak of hysteric melancholia, by suggestion." . . * So far as hypnotism is good for anything as a curative agent, its sphere in, as wa have ,soen, limited by Charcot,- Fere, Babinski, and all the most trustworthy medical observers in Paris to the relief of functional disorders and symptoms in hysterical patients. . . As to the use of suggestion as an anaesthetic substitute for chloroform for operation purposes . . * it has been given up and fallen into disjisa* BECAUSE OF ITS UNRELIABILITY and. limited application. It is now soriously proposed to use hypnotism for* "tooth-drawing," for the treatment ofi drunkards, and of school children. Tha proposition is self-condemned. To enable a dentist to draw a tooth painlessly, tha average man or woman is, by a series of sittings, to be reduced to the state of a trained automaton; which happily is only? possible in the case of a very small proportion. The criminal courts have seen enough of hypnotic dentists. ... Moreover, for drunkenness it is, so far as my in* quiries go, a disappointing failure. Ernest Hart's book is in the Public Library, and should be perused by every inquire" wha wishes to know the truth as to hypnotism.