MIRACLE CURES IN THE ARMY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15768, 8 December 1916, Page 9

MIRACLE CURES IN THE ARMY.

♦ WAR-BROKEN MEN MADE FIT AGAIN BY HYPNOTISM. Hypnotism is being used with remarkable succcss in tlio Army, and Captain J. Bennett Tomblcson, R.A.M.C.. in the "Lancet" for October, gives a chart of sixty case-s, nearly all of which are "completo cures, for tho time being at all events. ' Most of the cases were of nervous breakdown due to the shock of war, and the most wonderful of the cures is that of a gunner, aged thirty-eight, whose neurasthenia was of fifteen years' standing, dating from the South African. War. After eight days' treatment he was passed as cured, and returned to duty. A private, suffering not only from ] neurasthenia but also from the effects of being gassed at Ypres nine months previously, was cured and passed for duty after sixteen days' treatment. An aeroplane bomb caused some artillery horses to stampede, and one of them knocked a gunner down. For eight weeks ho suffered from complete loss of speech, but eight days' treatment- was sufficient to restore his speech and make him lit for duty. After live vear e of epilepsy, during which lie had one fit every two months, a young man aged twenty enlisted, and then had fits more often. He was treated for thirty-three days, and then was considered sufficiently relieved to be returned to duty. Two remarkable cures of leg trouble due to accidents .show that the efficacy . of tho hypnotic treatment is not confined to nervous disorders. A "private fell down a holo in the Balkans, and for two months was tinable to straighten his right leg or walk ■without severe pain. At the end of thirty-eight days' treatment he was able "to straighten his leg and walk ■with little pain. Contraction from an old fracture caused a rifleman to be unable to put his heel to the ground or walk without crutches. The result of forty-one days' treatment was that he could walk well and with little pain. A lieutenant, aged forty-three, had been a victim of psoriasis for thirty years. He was treated for sixty days, and his record is "cured apparently." Even writers cramp yields to the treatment, for an Army clerk who f«r six weeks was unable to write was ; cured by twenty-eight days' treatment, and returned to duty.