HYPNOTIC BLISTERS.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14622, 29 January 1918, Page 2

HYPNOTIC BLISTERS.

NAVAL SURGEON'S ACCOUNT.1 OF EXPERIMENTS.

That "blisters cau actually "be produced on the skin by means of hypnotic suggestion alone is the claim made by Mr J. Arthur Hadfield, temporary surgeon, R.N.j describing some recent experiments in the "Lancet" for the first week of November. Getting the consent of a seaman patient at the Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham,, to try the experiment, Mr Hadfield hypnotised the man and then suggested £o him that his arm was being touched with . a red hot iron and that a blister would form, on the spot. The arm was then covered with a bandagt; pinucd on Avith a safety-pin, and the pin was sealed with sealingwax to make certain that the arm could not be interfered with in any way. The patient was watched continuously by nurses' till next morning;, .when, in the presence of three surgeons, including tho deputy surgeon-general, the seal Was broken and the bandage removed, showing a".small blister on the chosen spot. This gradually developed during the day to form a large blob with an area of inflammation around. In two other experiments the skin was actually touched- with a red-hot iron. la the first instance the surgeon ; suggested that there would be no pain, and in the second that there would be I the usual pain of a blister. The first blister was perfectly painless, had practically no area of inflammation around .it, and healed very rapidly. The second .blister was painful from the first/was '.surrounded by a reddened area, and ;took Jouger to heal. | From the fact that the blister which, was rendered painless by hypnotism healed so quickly, M r iWfiekl'.suggests .that hypnosis, by rendering wounds j and certain painful conditions such as i pleurisy less painful, might with advan-1 .tage be made part of the treatment of such conditionsi