HYPNOTIC DIAGNOSIS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2722, 16 May 1906, Page 49

HYPNOTIC DIAGNOSIS.

EXTRAORDINARY INVESTIGATION.

Special importance attaches to a report which has just been drawn up by a doctor of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, who is a professor at the School of Psychology, on a very peculiar case. A young woman dwelling in a provincial town had (writes the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph), after having been hypnotised by her father and her brother, received patients, diagnosed their maladies, and dictated prescriptions which had been signed by a physician. The local doctors, having taken legal proceedings against the whole party on the ground that it was going in for illicit practice of medicine, the expert referred to was deputed by the magistrate who is investigating the affair to examine the professing somnambulist, and thi6 is the gist of the opinion at which he has arrived. He saw the young woman in the magistrate's office, several authorities being present, as well as other persons, and he states that there was no sham as regards the hypnotic slumber. She was put into that condition by her father and by himself, but he adds that there was nothing extraordinary in this, as she is a hysterical subject. When, however, the claim is brought forward that she can do while in this state what she could not accomplish under normal circumstances, this is a very different matter. A hypnotised person does not acquire through the mere fact that he sleeps the talent of producing a portrait if he does not know how to draw or to paint ; in a word, he will not through the fact of slumber be able to execute an act which he would not be capable of realising when he is awake. He could not acquire the power of making diagnostics or of instituting reasoned treatments — things which are all very difficult to undertake even after protracted theoretical and practical study. This is clear, and to the point. As for the prescriptions, the expert considered that they were harmless, that they could not complicate any illness, or, again, affect a healthy individual. They did not appear to show that any case had been completely diagnosed, but where the mischief came in was in their preventing a treatment which might be of extreme importance if the patient required to be seriously taken in hand. This high authority had been asked to be present at some of the consultations, but he had declined from motives of delicacy, which he enumerated, besides which, "as he explained, the somnambulist might, once in a way, have made a successful guess ; or, again, have known something of the cases beforehand, it having been proposed that the experiments should take place in a local hospital. Another very interesting question was asked. As science stands now, could it be admitted that a somnambulist might know the condition of a sick person whom she had not beheld, and prescribe the correct remedies without having had any medical training? Quite impossible, the expert replied, and he added that neither Charcot nor Brouardel nor -tDumontpallier, who had observed a great number of somnambuluts and hysterical subjects, bad ever noticed anything which could lead them to believe in the reality of the phenomena which were represented as existing in the young woman. "On the other hand, this belief in the lucidity of somnambulists is accepted as an article of faith by a great number of persons who, moreover, are quite incompetent to pronounce on" the question. Whoever is aware of the big part played b^ the imagination perceives absolutely nothing of an extiaordinary character in the cures or appearances of cures obtained by somnambulists. It is the eternal story of the faith that heals."

The last question put to the expert was rather delicate. Was the young woman in the full enjoyment of her intellectual faculties? He replied that she submitted to hypnotic experiments with her consent, but that " the seances of hypnotism might in the long run have the most pernicious effect on iier constitution," ana that if nervous trouble occurred later on her father and brother would have " a notable responsibility" on their shoulders. Such is the drift of a report which is confidently expected to create a sensation in the medical world, not to epeak of the hypnotisers, magnetisers, and somnambulists. As this great expert has declined the experiment in the local hospital, the defendant's counsel has applied for one to be held in a Paris, Lille, or Nancy hospital, adding that they are prepared to defray all the expenses. Here the case stands to-day, and the sequel will be awaited with considerable interest.