SUGGESTION IN THERAPEUTICS. 347 



'Why, Maria, what is the matter with your arm ? Have you hurt 

 it ? What mark is this ? Let me see ; pull up your sleeve.' She 

 did so with a slightly sulky, ashamed air. * Why, it looks like a 

 cross ; where did you get this ? ' 'I don't know, sir.' ' How long 

 has this been on your arm ? ' ' More than a month, sir.' * Have 

 you felt anything ? ' ' ISTo, sir ; only at one time I had a great 

 deal of itching and burning, and a few days afterward this mark 

 came out on my arm.' After this we frequently spoke to Maria 

 about the cross, and when requested to she would roll up her 

 sleeve and show it to visitors, although she always seemed re- 

 luctant to do so. Many months afterward she left our service, 

 and in about two weeks she made her appearance at my office in 

 town, asking me to remove the cross from her arm, as it attracted 

 the notice of the family with whom she was now living, and she 

 was much annoyed by the many questions asked her. I magnet- 

 ized her, and then told her that the cross would disappear in a 

 few days, and she would be no more troubled with it. I saw her 

 a few days afterward at Salto ; the cross had disappeared." 



In another case Dr. Biggs caused a cross to appear every Friday 

 on the chest for a period of nearly six months. These cases are 

 not sufficiently well authenticated to make them of much value 

 taken by themselves, but, in conjunction with the results got by 

 other experimenters, they are worthy of consideration. 



For example, Prof. Pierre Janet suggested to his hysterical 

 patient Rose that he would put a mustard plaster upon her ab- 

 domen to relieve hysterical contractures of the stomach. " I 

 found, some hours later," he says,* " a swollen mark, dark red in 

 color, in the form of an elongated rectangle, but — odd detail — none 

 of its angles were clearly marked, for they seemed neatly cut off. 

 I remarked that the burn had an odd shape. ' Don't you know,' 

 said she, ' that the corners of the Rigollot plasters are always cut 

 off so that they won't hurt ? ' " Following up this hint. Prof. 

 Janet suggested putting on a plaster shaped like a six-pointed 

 star, and he got the corresponding burn. On the chest of another 

 patient he produced an S in the same way. Prof, von Krafft- 

 Ebing has done the same with his famous patient lima Szandor.f 



Prof. Charcot's case of suggested oedema is even more curious, 

 as it involved not merely vasomotor changes, but also a fall of 

 temperature, and probably modified nutrition as well. It is re- 

 ported by Dr. Levaillain.J "M. Charcot had presented two cases 



* L'Automatisme Psychologique, p. 166. 



f Eine experimentelle Studie auf dem G&biet des Hypnotismus. Stuttgart, 1889. Eng- 

 lish translation by C. G. Chaddock, M. D., New York, 1889. 



t Revue de rHyjmotisme, vol. iv, p. 354, June, 1890. Cf, also Mr. Myers, o/i. cit., 

 p. 337. 



