THE INEBRIATES' HOME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12989, 2 June 1904, Page 3

THE INEBRIATES' HOME.

'to THE EDITOR. Sip.,—ln your leader of 26th May on tho above home, you conclude your remarks by saying: " Some particulars as to the recently reported successful hypnotic cures might also be obtained, and everything possible (lone to remove any' foundation for 1 the charge made by Mr Laurenson that the place, as at present conducted, is a mockery and a disgracc."

Before this matter was brought before the public by Mr Laureuson I had appliod to Colonel Pitt, the Acting-Minister in charge of Asylums, for information as to whether tho Government would consider a proposal by me to treal the inmates of tho Inebriates' Home by hypnotic suggestion, payment to be dependent on results. The reply I received was brief and to the point—"The Government has no intention of treating patients in Inebriates' Home by hypnotio suggestion." I gather from this that the individual members of tho Government are not aware of the results obtained at Home, on tho Continent, and in America by the use of hypnotism. In America it is universally used for the euro of inebriates, and those addicted to tho cigarette, morphine*, or cocaine habits, and so on, down to stammering and finger-nail biting. Without doubt it makes a permanent euro of all these habits.

From Professor Sage's well-known liook, " Hypnotism as It is," I extract the following, "We might write volumes of descriptions of cases of cigavetto and morphine habits that we havo broken up. Hypnotism is undoubtedly the best of agents for the euro of habits; it not only puts a man in the condition he was before ho contracted the habit, I>ut it prejudices him against the thing ho formerly liked to such an oxtent that he abhors it, he loathes it. Parties giving pubh'o exhibitions throughout the country annually cure hundreds of people of smoking cigarettes, and many are the families that they havo made happy by curing some drunken father, and many aro the mothers into whoso homes they have poured sunshino by breaking up the habits of some reckless child."

From tho same book I quote, a case in point, and Professor Sage's concluding remarks are worth careful attention,—" July 20, 1896. Mr G. ll—, ag«t 54, lawyer. A continual drinker for the past 20 years. His friends said they could truthfully say that ho had not drawn a sober breath for fiver years. He has had two attacks of delirium tremens, and when ho was presented for treatment was in a very nervous condition. He was put into tho somnambulistic state, and suggestions and impressions were made in a similar manner as in tho preceding case, and with similar results." (The case referred to was a perfect success.) "The patient remained ivell for ono year, when I lost track'of the oase." One of tho worst effects of drink is an enervation arid destruction of the will-power, and here hypnotism has an important use. After a careful review of medical-literature , on tho subject of drunkenness, I find that tho most immediate and indisputable results have been otbained by the aid or ueo of hypnotio suggestion. On this all authors aro agreed who have had any experience at all with suggestion and tho treatment of these hab;!:."

Professor Sage was formerly professor in, Pierce College, Philadelphia, Pa., and professor in Central College, Scdalia, Mo., and is an undoubted authority on the subject. Sufficient has, I think,, been said to prove the efficacy of this treatment, and tho Government'should at anyrate make some inquiries on the subject before dismissing it altogether. Hypnotic suggestion is, without doubt, one of the most powerful therapeutic agents known to man to-day, nor aro its benefits confined to breaking up ■habits; it is equally effective in the euro ot nervous and functional and many orgauic diseases by the influence of the mind over tho body. Some pcoplo say tho cures aro all imagination. If such persons understood the human body and the action of the mind upon it they would never be guilty of making themselves ridioulous by such statements. I am, etc., Thos. M. Baldwin. . Musselburgh, May 30.