BS 
and the theories of Helmholz, Hensen, Ziehen and Waller were 
explained and dismissed. The most likely theory yet advanced 
was the “ telephone theory ” of Rutherford according to which the 
ear transforms vibrations into nerve-impulses of the same period 
and related amplitude. 
Friday, May 6th, 1903. Mr. E. S. Payne in the chair. 
Dr. T. Milne Bramwell, M.B., C.M., gave a lecture entitled 
*« Secondary and Multiple Personalities, with special reference 
. to Personally Observed Hypnotic Phenomena.’’ The lecturer 
said it would perhaps have been better if he had said that his remarks 
would be on alternating states of consciousness, and left it to later on 
to say whether those states could be called different personalities. 
He would first draw their attention to the case of a hypnotic 
subject who, while in a condition of hypnosis, was able to perform 
mental work such as she could not perform in her ordinary state. 
She first came under his notice as a patient, with a grave and long- 
standing disease, from which she eventually recovered. He found 
that she would carry out certain simple suggestions, and when 
she recovered he obtained the consent of her mother to carry out 
a number of more complicated suggestions. The chief form of 
experiment was to suggest to her that she should write down the 
time of the clock without looking at the clock, and after the expir- 
ation of a certain complicated time, such as 40,845 minutes. In 
her ordinary state—she was a girl of little education—she would 
have been quite incapable of working that out; but out of fifty- 
five experiments of a similar kind forty-five were carried out 
with absolute accuracy. The other ten were relatively correct, 
five minutes being the largest variation she made. When she 
awoke from the hypnotic state her normal self could recall nothing 
of what had just passed. He would next call their attention to 
a very curious case of what he might call automatic writing. 
He got one subject, a man, to write down some verses which he 
knew. Afterwards he gave him something to read, and while he 
was reading he suddenly said ‘‘Sleep” and put the man, who 
was a good subject, into a hypnotic state immediately. While 
he was in that state he suggested to him that he should write down 
how many times a certain letter occurred in the verses which he 
had written. He then aroused him from the hypnotic state, placed 
paper and pencil near him, and then told him to continue reading. ~ 
He did so, and, while he was reading, worked out how many times 
_ the certain letter occurred in the verses which he had previously 
written down, and wrote down the number correctly. This he 
_ did quite unconsciously, and when he (the lecturer) asked him 
_ what he had been scribbling about he did not know. In that 
