8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



few only of those who can be mesmerized can be made to pass into a 

 condition of complete anjesthesia. It is possible, however, that this 

 may be due to the passes which give rise to inhibitory impulses not 

 being continued long enough. Dr. Esdaile, who in India was accus- 

 tomed to mesmerize his patients before performing surgical operations 

 upon them, used to continue the passes for one to two hours, and often 

 to repeat this for several days in succession. 



In different people the order in which different centers are inhibited 

 varies, as we should expect, from the unequal development of different 

 centers in different people. This is no doubt of influence in determin- 

 ing whether the general state is cataleptic, somnambulistic, or lethargic, 

 and here probably the method used to mesmerize is also of considerable 

 importance ; it would seem that the cataleptic condition is more likely 

 to be developed when the process of mesmerization involves a strain on 

 the eyes of the subject than when he is mesmerized by passes. Not 

 much attention, however, has as yet been directed to this point. 



There can, I think, be no doubt that mesmerism may help, and 

 sometimes cure, persons suffering from certain diseases of the nervous 

 system. It is not in our power to make any accurate statement of the 

 way in which this is brought about ; but, since disease may be the re- 

 sult of either an over-activity or of an under-activity of any part of 

 the central nervous system, it is reasonable to suppose that a beneficial 

 effect will follow the employment of a method which allows us to di- 

 minish or increase these activities as we will. This is a side of the ques- 

 tion which is of the greatest interest both to physicians and to physi- 

 ologists — to physiologists, since it bears directly upon the problem of 

 the influence of the nervous system on nutrition. There is good rea- 

 son to believe that, by directing attention strongly to any particular 

 part of the body, the nutritive state of that part of the body may be 

 altered. The determination of the actual way in which this is brought 

 about is full of difficulties, but the following way is at least theoreti- 

 cally possible : It may be that the nerve-centers connected with the 

 tissue in question are made unusually active, and that they send out 

 nerve-impulses of a trophic nature, that is, impulses which directly 

 control the nutrition of the tissue. The alteration in the tissue caused 

 by its changed nutritive state — its changed metabolism — may conceiv- 

 ably be either beneficial or detrimental to the whole organism ; it may 

 give rise to a diseased state, or get rid of an existing one. 



The modern miracles of healing, wrought in persons in a state of re- 

 ligious enthusiasm, offer a field for investigating this problem ; the field, 

 however, is a particularly bad one, and chiefly because so many people 

 concerned regard any careful examination of the subject as impious. 

 But in mesmerized persons it seems probable that such investigations 

 could be made on a fairly satisfactory basis. Men when mesmerized 

 gradually lose remembrance of those things which they remember 

 when they are awake, but not infrequently other things are remem- 



