368 HYPNOTISM. 



An inhibitory suggestion may also affect, not a movement 

 or group of movements, but a whole limb. Thus if a " sub- 

 ject " be told he cannot move his right arm, he loses power 

 over it. 



Such suggestive paralyses, and also those described just 

 above, present the closest analogies to hysterical and other 

 functional paralyses of movement. 



A curious circumstance is that an imperative or inhibitory 

 suggestion of movement occasionally persists ; i.e. cannot 

 be immediately removed by a contrary suggestion. Thus 

 if a " subject " be told he cannot bend his arm, he finds 

 he cannot do so ; on beinp- told he now can, he generally 

 can do so immediately, but occasionally some little time 

 elapses before this is possible. Or, again, if told to twist 

 his hands one round the other, and then to stop, he does not 

 always immediately do so. These facts are paralleled by 

 many interesting occurrences in health and disease. 



Involuntary muscidar system. — In normal life, with rare 

 exceptions, the muscular system of the heart and blood- 

 vessels cannot be acted on by direct volitional effort, though 

 they are delicately responsive to those mental phenomena 

 which have a marked emotional character. 



During hypnosis, however, it is otherwise ; thus, by 

 direct suggestion, the rate of the heart's beat can be in- 

 creased or decreased. It was at first thought, on the dis- 

 covery of this, that the result was indirect — due to some 

 emotion ; but inasmuch as not the slightest change occurs 

 in the respiration, it appears to be the direct result of 

 suggestion. (It need hardly be said that experiments of 

 this kind should not rashly be repeated.) Similarly, by 

 direct suggestion, a local pallor or blush may be brought 

 about. Further, the following remarkable results have been 

 observed in France, in the course of experimenting on very 



