ON CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF HYPNOTISM. 103 



scruples were overcome, and she soon says, " If it must be done, 



I will do it." On awaking she looked at Y with a perfidious 



smile, looked about her, and suddenly struck him with the 

 supposed dagger. How often in real life have crimes been 

 committed at the suggestion of a strong-minded person controlling 

 a weaker one, precisely as the poor hypnotised patient of La 

 Salpetriere was driven to commit her imaginary murder ! 



One exception to this rule of obedience is mentioned, and one 

 only. A young girl, still deeply attached to a young man who 

 had cruelly used her, resisted every suggestion that she should do 

 her lover an injury; she showed signs of the greatest distress, and 

 tried to escape, yet she remained inflexible. On every other point 

 her obedience was automatic. 



The actions of a frog or fish, deprived of its cerebral lobes, 

 resemble the automatic actions of a hypnotised person. I need 

 hardly say that the frog or fish, if untouched, remains perfectly 

 quiescent, and would remain so till it died. But the frog, if 

 thrown into the water, will continue to swim till it is exhausted ; 

 if it is placed on the palm of the hand, and the hand is gently 

 turned, it will adjust its movements with the utmost nicety till it 

 finally rests on the back of the hand. In the same manner a 

 pigeon similarly treated, will fly when thrown in the air, and will 

 continue to fly, and will eat and drink when food and drink are 

 presented to it. A subject to whom soap is given will go on 

 washing his hands indefinitely, and on one occasion, says Regnard, 

 the operation was protracted for two hours. If a woman is 

 putting on her boot she will go on doing up and undoing the laces 

 for an indefinite period, and if a piece of crochet work is given 

 her she will make a long chain of loop-stitch without attaching it 

 to the rest of the work. In short, the action goes on as long as 

 contact with the object which suggested the action is continued. 



I have, myself, often noticed the automatic way in which 

 occupations are carried on by patients suffering from melan- 

 choHa or dementia. If work were put in their arms ^they 

 would go on working in a machine-hke manner for hours, some- 

 times executing some beautiful piece of embroidery, yet not 

 capable of drawing the work to them if it was at a little distance, 

 and if a thimble dropped, not attempting to pick it up again. 



