Mackechnik. — A M/fsten'oas TherapeiUlc Agent. 119 



Akt. XTV. — .4 Mysterioua Therapeutic Agent. 

 By E. A. Mackechnie. 



[Read before the Aucldaml Institute, 22nd Julij, 1889.] 



Keaders of the "Nineteenth Century " niagazme will have 

 found in the number for December last a remarkable paper 

 entitled "Faith Healing as a Medical Treatment," which 

 must have created a good deal of astonishment in the minds 

 of most of them. The title of the paper strikes one as 

 being somewhat misleading ; for, instead of heahng by faith, it 

 treats of healing by suggestions made to the patient whilst in 

 the hypnotic sleep, with whicli " faith" apparently has little 

 or nothing to do. The entire process, as practised by a Dr. 

 Liebault for the last thirty years, and its results, are very 

 fully set out, and doubtless the statements made by the writer 

 are put forward after careful observation, and with a due 

 regard to their truthfulness. From his statements we gather 

 that the doctor sends his patients to sleep by telling them 

 "to shut their eyes," " that the light is failing," " that his 

 voice is becoming indistinct to them," and other signs of ap- 

 proacliing sleep, till they actually do fall into the hypnotic 

 state, and become obedient to his word. If the patients are 

 very susceptible it is sufficient to tell them to go to sleep, and 

 they drop off at once — sleep being induced more readily after 

 every visit. Whilst in this state the doctor suggests to his 

 patients that any pain they may be suffering from shall cease, 

 that aching in an}' part of the body shall disappear, and so 

 on in accordance with the nature of each complaint. This 

 treatment is repeated every morning for several days, and 

 (niirabilc dictu) all that the doctor has foretold or suggested 

 comes to pass. Appetite is restored, circulation improves, 

 and the disease (whatever it may be) is removed or cured. 



Now, it is generally, but not universally, allowed that sug- 

 gestions made to persons in a normal state of liBalth, either 

 awake or asleep, have no remedial effect whatever. Accept- 

 ing, then, the recorded statements as the result of careful 

 observation by a competent witness (a medical man, I beheve) 

 of the phenomena attending these almost incredible cures, our 

 first inquiry turns to the consideration of the means by which 

 they are effected, and we ask, what is the nature of the 

 hypnotic state, or sleep? The characteristics attending it, in 

 its various stages, are described as follows : First stage, 

 torpor of limbs, and general somnolence ; second, resembles 

 catalepsy, limbs remaining in any position, however strained, 

 they may be placed in ; third and fourth, patient becomes deaf 

 to every voice except the operator's : fifth and sixth, more 



