Hypnotism

At St. Luke's Hospital, Chicago, Dr. Alfred P. Solomon, neurologist, last week, hypnotized a young woman. During the hour she lay so, Dr. Harold G. Jones of Chicago opened her abdomen and removed several bothersome adhesions. She felt no pain and, upon awakening, experienced none of the nauseating after-effects of usual anesthetics. Such operations upon hypnotized patients are rare in the U. S. In Europe (notably in France and Germany) they are frequent. Europeans esteem the uses of hypnotism. They used it for surgical operations 100 years ago. The discovery in 1848 of chloroform's anesthetic properties curtailed the practice somewhat. But, notably at Nancy, France, hypnotism continued in operating rooms./-

U. S. mountebanks and spiritualists caused fear and contempt of hypnotism in the U. S. and brought about its practical divorce from medicine. Almost anyone can hypnotize another person, if the other is willing. Skilled and tactful hypnotists can put nine out of ten subjects into that deep pseudo-sleep. (Hypnosis is closely related to but not the same as sleep.) Automatic handwriting, mediumistic speech and the like phenomena of spiritualism can be rationally explained as exhibits of hypnotism. Stage magicians put their victims through all sorts of antics for the laughter and admiration of audiences.** Consequently U. S. people, even though they might know the value of hypnotism in sickness, fear causing the ridiculous or mischievous while under the suggestor's spell. They fear also that the skillful will to which they might submit themselves might make them perform unwonted acts after they awoke. Neither of these fears has authority. The physician using hypnotism makes no sport with his patients. Even in hypnosis a patient only most reluctantly performs against his inherent moral nature. Awake he does practically nothing of the sort. Hypnotism does, however, permit the operator to penetrate so deeply into the personality of his patient that no one dares play with the art. It is not yet a sharply denned science.

Technique. After a person has consented to hypnotization (and consent is practically always essential) the simplest procedure is to put him in an easy posture. An easy-chair is excellent, a bed less so because it takes practice to be at ease while in bed and with a relative stranger present. The patient fixes his eyes steadily upon an object placed so that he must strain his sight slightly. A monotonous sound, as from a metronome, drum or chant aids in putting him into somnolescence. The physician may pass his hands slowly and regularly before the staring eyes. But that is unessential. Mesmerists used to believe that waving fingers diffused a sort of magnetism into the patient. No one has proved that theory.

Aftereffects. A person once hypnotized can usually be hypnotized again, with greater ease as the procedures are repeated. But his will is not weakened, nor is he apt to fall spontaneously into hypnosis. Unless he is predisposed, perhaps in deep subconsciousness, to improper acts, he will not follow the will of an unscrupulous operator.

/- At Nancy recently practiced the late Emile Cone, whose "better & better" was a form of light hypnosis.

**Howard Thurston, famed stage magician, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famed believer in spiritualism, last week conducted a little dispute. "Prof." Thurston had said Sir Arthur was easy to fool. Sir Arthur wrote back: "Apparently he [Mr. Thurston] thinks it easy to fool his audience, but he certainly never fooled me." Mr. Thurston eagerly replied : "Harry Houdini had himself locked in a box on the stage, a canopy was thrown over the box and Houdini appeared outside. Sir Arthur made the remark that in the presence and hearing of about 300 magicians that Houdini had disintegrated his body, slipped through the keyhole or some cracks and then had reassembled himself, all in the space of about ten seconds. Such a statement is too ridiculous for even a schoolboy to make!"