HYPNOTISM IX DISEASE AND CRIME. 763 



in each Committee of the "Whole. He must see that the various bills 

 are in the public interest — not in the interest of cliques ; that they are 

 in harmony with the Constitution ; and also that the various sections 

 of each bill are in harmony with each other. This is a sort of drudg- 

 ery which the new country member, chosen because of conspicuous 

 personal worth, accepts as part of his duty, but which the " smart " 

 lawyer shuns, because his mission at the capital is above that of being 

 a " legislative drudge." The time for him to study legal phraseology 

 and the adaptation of laws to their purpose is when he is paid for it. 

 As to legislation in behalf of morals, he has generally no faith in it, 

 his idea being that morals should take care of themselves, or be left 

 to preachers and Sunday-schools. 



Public sentiment is ripe for leadership in this reform, and it will 

 come sooner or later, whether lawyers acquiesce or not. Honorable 

 lawyers ought to see that their interests center in the conservation only 

 of what is useful, and not in ignoring or defying public impatience 

 until it finds vent in revolutionary measures. The principle of the 

 greatest good to the greatest number is what needs recognition — not 

 protection to a remnant of the feudal ages. 



HYPNOTISM m DISEASE AIS'D CPJMK* 



Bt a. BI2sET and C. FEKE. 



WHAT we have said of hypnotism, and particularly of suggestion, 

 may lead the reader to understand the virtue of medicine for 

 the imagination, of which the importance has already been intimated 

 by earlier writers. Deslon asked why, if medicine for the imagination 

 was the most effective, it should not be employed. 



We must be permitted to dwell for a moment on this medicine for 

 the imagination, which is entitled to the name of suggestive thera- 

 peutics. The process is as follows : Influenced by a persistent idea, 

 suggested by external circumstances, a paralysis is developed. The 

 physician makes use of his authority to suggest the idea of an inevi- 

 table, incontestable cure, and the paralysis is cured accordingly. This 

 cure, as well as the development of functional disturbance, was directly 

 effected by an idea. An idea may, therefore, be, according to circum- 

 stances, a pathogenic and a therapeutic agent. This notion is not new, 

 but, since it was misinterpreted, it has remained unfruitful. 



The most important of the organic disturbances produced by an 

 idea is an experiment on vesication, performed by Focachon, a chemist 

 at Charmes. He applied some postage-stamps to the left shoulder of 



* Abridged from "Animal Magnetism," by Alfred Binet and Charles Fere. "Inter- 

 national Scientific Series," vol. lix. D. Appleton & Co., 1888. 



