836 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ON THE INFLUENCE OF SUGGESTION IN MODIFYING AND DIRECT- 

 ING MUSCULAR MOVEMENT, INDEPENDANTLY OF VOLITION. 



THE following paper on the above subject was recently read before 

 the Royal Institution, England, by Dr. Carpenter, the well-known 

 physiologist. 



Public attention has recently been so much attracted to a class of 



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phenomena which have received the very inappropriate designation of 

 Electro-Biological or simply Biological, and so much misapprehension 

 prevails regarding their true nature and import, that it becomes the 

 physiologist to make known the results of scientific investigation, 

 directed in the first place towards the determination of their genuine- 

 ness, and in the second to the elucidation of the peculiar state of the 

 nervous system on which their production depends. With regard to 

 the genuineness of the phenomena themselves, the lecturer stated that 

 he could entertain no doubt whatever ; since they had been presented 

 to himself and to other scientific enquirers, by numerous individuals, 

 on whose honesty and freedom from all tendency to deceive themselves 

 or others implicit reliance could be placed. But from the account 

 commonly given of these phenomena to the effect that the u'ill of 

 the " biologized " subject is entirely subjected to that of the operator, 

 he entirely dissented. All the phenomena of the " biologized " state 



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Avhen attentively examined, will be found to consist in the occupation 

 of the mind by the ideas which have been suggested to it, and in the 

 influence which those ideas exert upon the actions of the body. Thus, 

 the operator asserts, that the " subject " cannot rise from his chair, or open 

 his eyes, or continue to hold a stick ; and the " subject " thereby be- 

 comes so completely possessed with the fixed belief of the impossibility 

 of the act, that he is incapacitated from executing it, not because his 

 will is controlled by that of another, but because his will is in abey- 

 ance, and his muscles are entirely under the guidance of his ideas. 

 80 again, when he is made to drink a glass of water, and is assured 

 that it is coffee, or wine, or milk, that assurance, delivered in a decided 

 tone, makes a stronger impression on his mind than that which he 

 receives through his taste, smell, or sight ; and not being able to 

 judge and compare, he yields himself up to the " dominant idea." 

 The same with what has been designated as " control over the mem- 

 ory." The subject is assured that he cannot remember the most 

 familiar thing, his own name for example ; and he is prevented from 

 doing so, not by the will of the operator, but by the conviction of the 

 impossibility of the mental act, which engrosses his own mind, and by 

 the want of that voluntary control over the direction of his thoughts 

 which alone can enable him to recall the desiderated impression. The 

 same with the abolition of the sense of personal identity. Now, 

 almost every one of these peculiar phenomena 1ms its parallel in states 

 of mind whose existence is universally admitted. Thus, the com- 

 plete subjection of the muscular power to tl\e " dominant idea " is 

 precisely what is experienced in nightmare ; in which we are preven- 

 ted from moving so much as a finger, notwithstanding a strong desire 



