170 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



his descriptions as imaginary or possibly manufactured. Hys- 

 teria was the soil on which Charcot experimented, and when 

 experiments are made upon another soil, the results may be 

 very different frem those recorded by him, being no longer 

 stamped with the hysteric seal. 



No man was more opposed to quackery, and to him is due 

 the credit of helping to rescue artificial somnambulism from the 

 illegitimate embrace of the charlatan. His scorn of the frauds 

 and follies which sprang up in a credulous circle outside his own 

 school, was only equalled by that which he manifested for the 

 incredulous ignoramuses of his own profession who sneered at 

 phenomena which they could not understand, but in which he 

 recognized a rich source of neurological and psychological 

 knowledge. 



Although the illustrious Professor has gone from us, he 

 has left able successors imbued with his teaching and familiar 

 with the nature and signs of hypnosis. More than this, he has 

 left behind the solid and lasting results of his investigations in 

 not only confirming, but extending, the conclusions at which 

 Braid arrived ; in reducing to something like order the multi- 

 form phenomena of artificial sleep, and in bringing within the 

 range of medical science and the laws of physiology, abnormal 

 states ot the nervous system, regarded by the vulgar as miracu- 

 lous, and formerly by many medical men as fraudulent.* 



*The following letter from the Nestor of Cincinnati physicians, 

 explains itself. 



Cincinnati, Nov. 13, 1893. 



My Dear Prof. Herrick : You have reminded me that in 

 past conversations with you I have frequently alluded to the late Prof. 

 J. M. Charcot as one of my instructors \n clinical medicine in 'La 

 Charite Hospital, Paris, and now you ask me to write briefly my no- 

 tions of him. 



Forty-two years ago M. Charcot was kind enough to receive me 

 as a private pupil in his service in La Charite, where he was Chef de 

 Clinique and therefore, able to offer very large facilities to foreign stu- 

 dents who went to Paris for clinical study. 



