SUGGESTION IN THERAPEUTICS. 349 



of the left hand. A few minutes after being awakened she in 

 fact had a haemorrhage, or rather a bloody sweat, on the palm of 

 the left hand. The phenomenon took place under our eyes with- 

 out M. Artigalas leaving the patient and without any possibility 

 of fraud. The skin was absolutely sound on the surface at the 

 point which bled ; the blood seemed to exude in the creases much 

 as a profuse sweat would have done ; one could not detect upon 

 trial any appreciable modification of the integument. The haemor- 

 rhage ceased upon washing the hand in cold water." The palmar 

 haemorrhages were then checked by suggestion. 



Drs. Bourru, Burot, and Mabille have got even more curious 

 phenomena in the case of their famous hysterical patient, Louis 



V . They produced bleeding by suggestion from the nose, 



from designated points on the skin, and even fixed beforehand 

 the hours at which the bleeding was to take place. On one occa- 

 sion they heard him give himself, while in a secondary state, simi- 

 lar suggestions, and the blood appeared punctually on the spot 

 indicated. Nothing could better demonstrate the subjective char- 

 acter of the agency that produces these inexplicable results. 



These cases are precisely parallel to those of the so-called " stig- 

 matics" — "saints" who bore upon their persons the marks of cru- 

 cifixion. The hagiology of the Roman Catholic Church is full of 

 them, and not a few have been observed in recent years. I will 

 quote the case of one : Marie de Moerl, of Kaldern, in the Tyrol, 

 became subject to ecstasy in 1832, she being then about twenty 

 years of age. Generally the subject of her meditation was the 

 passion of Jesus. " In the autumn of the same year her confessor 

 perceived that the palms of her hands, where subsequently the 

 marks of the crucifixion appeared, sank in, as if under the pres- 

 sure of a body in half relief. At the same time the part became 

 painful and frequently cramped. On the 2d of February, 1834:, 

 at the Feast of the Purification, he observed her wipe the middle 

 of her hands with a towel and exhibit a childlike alarm at the 

 blood which she perceived there. These marks soon showed 

 themselves on her feet and her heart. They were nearly round, 

 spreading a little in length, three or four lines in diameter, and 

 seeming to pass through both hands and both feet. On Thursday 

 night and Friday all these wounds shed drops of blood, ordi- 

 narily clear. On other evenings they were covered with a crust 

 of dried blood."* 



The well-known case of Louise Lateau was precisely similar. 

 At the present time, according to newspaper accounts, a certain 

 Mrs. Stuckenborg, of Louisville, Ky., presents the phenomena of 



* Brierre de Boismont, Hallucinations, Case 100. English translation, Philadelphia, 

 1853. 



