72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
most prominent isa remarkable condition of general hyperaesthesia 
of the spinal system of nerves. But we must beware of making 
this a too distinctive phenomenon of hypnotism, since we know that 
not only are different individuals very differently susceptible to 
external influences while asleep, but also that the same person at. 
different times sleeps with varying degrees of sensibility to external 
impressions. 
We have now to notice the condition into which the system is 
thrown during the somnabulistic state. Necessarily it is one in 
which cerebral force is wholly in abeyance. A most interesting 
illustration of this is seen in some of M. Charcot’s experiments. 
For instance, a patient whom we mavy call Marie, is hypnotized ; her 
eyes are opened by the operator, and she is told to look carefully at 
the bystander, that he is Ernestine, a friend of hers. Her eyes are 
again closed and her friend Ernestine is brought forward, and in the 
same manner Marie is told that Ernestine is the bystander. The 
operator now puffs upon her face and Marie awakes and treats 
the bystander as Ernestine, and Ernestine as the bystander. This 
delusion persists a long time unless she is again hypnotized, and the 
hallucination resolved. As we know, destruction of the cerebrum 
in frogs not only does not destroy, but seems to augment reflex spinal 
movements ; and since, as we have seen, a hyperaesthesia is more or 
less constantly present in, at least, plaques or parts of the bodies of 
hypnotic patients, we naturally expect them while asleep to be peeu- 
liarly susceptible of external influences. Others again exhibit, what 
may be deemed truly wonderful, sensibility even while awake to exter- 
nal impressions. A Dr. Cowan, relates in the London Lancet, that a 
patient of his was so sensitive to external impressions, that the flying 
of a bird past a window with drawn curtains, and with the bed. 
curtains also drawn, produced in her a sudden jerking of the spinal 
muscles, extending, if violent, to the hands and legs, and all this 
without any conscious mental emotion, The same person heard, and 
was affected by sounds not appreciable to other persons, these sounds 
producing similar reflex movements to those of sight. Besides such 
examples we have many other examples of reflex spinal acts, as 
nausea and vomiting from bad sights or odours, quite apart it may 
be from any mental emotion. What, however, is most to be 
remarked in all these cases of undue reflex spinal acts, in these 
functional maladies at anyrate, is that their force is exactly im 
