The Uses of Hypnotism.

Evening Star, Volume 8505, Issue 8505, 2 May 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Uses of Hypnotism.

A representative of the 4 Pall Mall Gazette ’ recently interviewed Dr A, Vows, a medical hypnotist, and among other inquiries was the following:— 44 What is the object of putting a patient into this lethargic state?”— 44 You can perform operations on the patient—draw teeth, etc., without administering an anaesthetic, and without causing pain. You know that it is dangerous to give chloroform or gas to people with a*weak or diseased heart. This danger is avoided by hypnotising a person.” 44 The next stage of hypnotic sleep,” continued Dr Vores, 44 is the cataleptic state. A patient is put into it if, after putting her into the lethargic sleep, the hypnotiser opens her eyes. She does not awake, but the light that falls into her eyes brings about the cataleptic state, during which the body becomes perfectly stiff. You can then make the patient pope just as you like. If you make him stand up, put his arms and feet and body in any position you like, fix his eyes on any point in the ceiling or room, he will remain for hours just as you place him, never moving, and not once blinking or turning his eyes from the point on which you told him to fix them.”

44 This is perfectly horrible. What is the good of it ? ” — 44 There is as yet no direct benefit to be obtained to sufferers from this state, and it is chiefly useful as bringing about the next, or somnambulistic state. I touch a certain point above tha patient’s left temple ” (my fingers itch to let out the scientific name of the exact spot, but I am a lay interviewer, and to my untutored ears the word used by Dr Votes sounded exactly like 44 broker’s lobe,” a term which called forth a number of curious speculations connected rather with the science of keeping out of the Bankruptcy Court than with hypnotism), “and to all appearance he awakes, and is himself again. With this difference, he has absolutely no will power, and my will rules him entirely. If the sun is shining brilliantly, and I say 4 How it pours with rain,’ he will turn to the window and say in a perfectly natural tone: 4 Yes, it does rain,’ and so forth. It is in this somnambulistic state that crimes are committed and deeds done which are utterly opposed to the patient’s own inclinations when in his natural state. In the lethargic state you can make people do small things by your will power over them, but if you should suggest anything naturally repulsive or opposed to their own inclinations they would wake up and refuse to do it.” 44 Bat, I must ask again, what is the use of all this I”—“ The cataleptic and somnambulistic states are so far of little practical use; but you can easily see that they are important for the further development of the new science. The lethargic state, however, is directly useful in the art of healing. At the Charity we have a number of mediums or transfers. These are persons of either sex who come to us every morning at the hospital, and whom we know to be easily put into hypnotic sleep. A patient is put into a chair, and opposite him the transfer sits down, holding the patient’s right hand in his right hand, and the left with the left, so as to form the figure eight. Both are put to sleep in the usual way, and then the disease of the patient passes into the body of the transfer by the hypnotiser passing his hand over them.” 44 In fact, it is somewhat like casting out devils, and making them enter a herd of swine? But what of the poor transfer? Does he cast himself into the sea or the Seine No, no. The disease leaves the transfer as soon as he is awakened from the hypnotic sleep.” “And then, I suppose, it goes and drowns itself in the Seine without the assistance of either patient or transfer. Surely you don’t expect any sane person to believe all this ? ’’ —“ The cure is not completed in a day, but the patient begins to improve at once, and keeps on improving till he is cured. We had a Greek gentleman at the Charity. He had been paralysed twenty-three years, and his body was all drawn up. In four months’ time he could walk about and go about his business, and he had tried everything before. The transfer assumed the exact attitude of the poor trembling Greek when I had put them both to sleep and passed my hands over them both, but when he awoke he recovered at once.”

“ Does this apply to organic diseases as well ? ” —“ To some extent. The best cures we have had are of paralysis arising from the lesion of the brain, paralysis agitans, chorea, locomotor ataxia, epilepsy, and kindred diseases. Dipsomaniacs and people addicted to morphia habits have also been cured, although in the latter two cases I have often noticed that if I allow my thoughts for one moment to wander from the patient—especially if he is a patient against his own will—he will turn round on me, and tell me he is not going to do anything I may suggest to him." “ Then the will power plays a great part in hypnotism It does, and when patients first come to ns it is often difficult to manage them. But after putting them to sleep for two or three times the communication between hypnotiser and patient becomes much easier, and when I want one of the transfers 1 need only lift np my hand, without even looking in bis or her direction, and the right person comes to me at onoe.”