HYPNOTISM IN DISEASE AND CRIME. 767 



may be profitable to consider this subject, which is indeed entitled to 

 further development. 



Somnambulist subjects often display a kind of attraction for the 

 experimenter who has hypnotized them by touching the scalp. As 

 soon as the experimenter has pressed upon the scalp with his hand, or 

 has breathed upon the subject with his mouth, the latter is attracted 

 toward the experimenter ; if the experimenter withdraws to a distance, 

 the subject displays uneasiness and discomfort ; he sometimes follows 

 the experimenter with a sigh, and can only rest beside him. It is 

 probable that the phenomena of electivity have their origin in the 

 experimenter's contact with his subject. Bain, in his work on the 

 emotions, remarks that animal contact and the pleasure of an embrace 

 are the beginning and end of all the tender emotions. 



The dangers of this attraction with respect to morality were pointed 

 out in the secret report presented to the King of France in 1784, by a 

 commission which had been appointed to investigate the practice of 

 magnetism by Deslon, Mesmer's chief pupil. The following is ex- 

 tracted from this report : 



Women are always magnetized by men ; the established relations are doubt- 

 less those of a patient to the physician, but this physician is a man, and what- 

 ever the illness may be, it does not deprive us of our sex, it does not entirely 

 withdraw us from the power of the other sex ; illness may weaken impressions 

 without destroying them. Moreover, most of the women who present them- 

 selves to be magnetized are not really ill ; many come out of idleness, or for 

 amusement; others, if not perfectly well, retain their freshness and their force, 

 their senses are unimpaired, and they have all the sensitiveness of youth; their 

 charms are such as to affect the physician, and their health is such as to make tliera 

 liable to be affected by him, so that the danger is reciprocal. The long-continued 

 proximity, the necessary contact, the communication of individual heat, the inter- 

 change of looks, are ways and means by which it is well known that nature ever 

 effects the communication of the sensations and the affections. 



The magnetic treatment must necessarily be dangerous to morality. "While 

 proposing to cure diseases which require prolonged treatment, pleasing and pre- 

 cious emotions are excited — emotions to which we look back with regret and 

 seek to revive, since they possess a natural charm for us, and contribute to our 

 physical happiness. But morally they must be condemned, and they are the 

 more dangerous as it becomes more easy for them to become habitual. A con- 

 dition into which a woman enters in public, amid other women who apparently 

 have the same experience, does not seem to offer any danger ; she continues in 

 it, she returns to it, and discovers her peril when it is too late. Strong women 

 flee from this danger when they find themselves exposed to it ; the morals and 

 health of the weak may be impaired. 



It is possible to suggest to a subject in a state of somnambulism 

 fixed ideas, irresistible impulses, which he will obey on awaking with 

 mathematical precision. The subject may be induced to write down 

 promises, recognitions of debt, admissions and confessions, by which 

 he may be grievously wronged. If arms are given to him, he may 

 also be induced to commit any crime which is prompted by the experi- 



