366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



common people. We have only to tell a person who has been recently 

 hypnotized that he will go to sleep at a certain hour, or in a certain 

 place, or while doing a certain thing, for the phenomenon to be pro- 

 duced naturally. 



The subject may be made to repeat words spoken before him, by 

 pressing on the nape of his neck. Pressure between the fourth and 

 seventh vertebrae of the neck makes him groan ; when applied at the 

 side of the last vertebra, it induces him to draw his leg back ; and if 

 made alternately on each side of this vertebra, will cause him to walk 

 backward. Reflex local movements are provoked by the excitation 

 of determinate points of the trunk : raising of the arms over the 

 head, by irritation of the skin of the dorsal region of the pectoral ver- 

 tebra3 ; turning of the arm backward, by excitation of the skin over the 

 middle vertebrae. If we a2:)ply a hearing-trumpet to the nape or the 

 stomach of a hypnotic, he, although he may have been insensible to 

 words pronounced in his ear, will comprehend articulate sounds and 

 repeat them, even though they be in a language that is unknown to 

 him. Hallucinations are produced only if the provoked sleep is light. 

 The hypnotic symptoms may be dissipated by suddenly changing the 

 excitation. If the magnetic state has been produced by passes before 

 the chin, it can be made to disappear by reversing them. The con- 

 traction of the arm caused by rubbing the inside of the thumb ceases 

 when the direction of the current is changed. A new sensation dissi- 

 pates the effect of a previous excitation. It is not, then, a matter of 

 indifference whether we change the direction of the passes : we should 

 persevere in the one which was adopted in the beginning. Rigidity, if 

 it is not intense, ceases on the application of a cold body ; a piece of 

 money, a bit of glass, is enough to dispel it. If we touch the forehead 

 or eyes of a hypnotic with a small piece of glass, he will open his eyes 

 and mouth while sleep continues. 



It has been asked if w^e can not obtain semilateral hypnotic phe- 

 nomena by acting on half the face or head. In fact, by pressing along 

 one side of the forehead or the crown of the head, we may diminish or 

 suspend the influence of the will on the extremities of the opposite 

 side. Light pressures on the left side of the head have produced im- 

 mobility of the right arm and leg. A shock on the left arm caused 

 this half-paralysis to disappear. The fixed limbs kept indefinitely the 

 position which had been given them, and were found to be in a state 

 of cataleptic suppleness. There appeared at the same time an impos- 

 sibility to pronounce a word a condition of ataxic aphasia. Passes 

 on the right side of the head caused the same symptoms, less the apha- 

 sia, to appear on the left. Simultaneous passes on both sides of the 

 head developed the cataleptic condition on both sides, aside from the 

 disorder of speech and the facial movements. In all these experiments 

 consciousness was preserved, w^ithout the accompaniment of any pain- 

 ful subjective impression. Lateral passes on the skin of the thigh pro- 



