REMARKABLE HYPNOTISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8300, 5 July 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

REMARKABLE HYPNOTISM.

Thk Paris correspondent of the Daily Graphic sends an account of the hypnotic experiment of Dr. buys, director of the Revue do Ifypnologie, who reduces his patients to immobility by the means employed by lark-catchers in snaring their birds. In the middle of a group of patients, which may be as large or as small as the operator may determine, is set up on a stand and on a level with the eyes a revolving ap pnratus of bits of coloured glass. The patients are instructed to fix their eyes upon it. Tlio effect of the revolving glasses," says Dr. Luys, "is exactly the same on men as it is on the birds. On men the rotation of brilliant surfaces produces in predisposed subjects a particular state of the retina, and subsequently of the whole nervous system, accompanied with ana:sthesia, immobility of muscles, ' suggestion-ability,' in r;hort — the anSemitic, of phenomena constituting 'fascination.'" It usually takes the full period of half an hour to master an average crowd ; some succumb earlier, some later, but the average aro mastered in that time. Rut in the meantime what pitiful struggles hero and there ! This one laughs, he is not, going to resign his will to that glittering toy. That one blinks and blinks, and would have the rest believe it is a natural sleep that harasses him. Rut little by little silence comes to the agitated crowd. One by one they dropoff into immobility. Some appear as if actually asleep, others have the wide-open staring eyes of somnambulists ; but in cither case the fascination of the subject is complete. None of his patients, adds the correspondent, has ever under fascination been required to perform antics of buffoonery for the delectation of visitors. There has been published in the Revue de llypnologie a long list, of cases of successful operations performed on patients under the fascination of the lark mirror.