MENTAL THERAPEUTICS. 33 



sufficient" I say finally, to gain a result. I may have to repeat the 

 words given above though this is usually effective. 



It is not true that the person hypnotized becomes the slave or is 

 completely in the power of the hypnotizer. The oft repeated state- 

 ment that the subject loses all power of control so that if he be 

 ordered to commit a crime he must do so, is not well substantiated. 

 The moral nature of the subject has never yet been successfully con- 

 trolled by hypnosis. The stories told on this subject are not well 

 authenticated. The hypnotized subject, however, usually continues 

 amenable to suggestion until with a clap of the hands he is ordered to 

 awaken, when he does so as if from sleep. He may be put to sleep, 

 with instruction to awaken at some hour in the future. He will im- 

 mediately pass into a sound slumber, but will awaken and be normal 

 at the hour specified. 



Scoff at Hypnotism. It is still popular in many quarters to 

 scoff at hypnotism. But no modern scientist who has investigated its 

 wonders, scoffs, nor indeed doubts, any longer. The evidences of its 

 power are too plentiful and too well authenticated to deny its supreme 

 usefulness as an aid to medical skill and to allay suffering, and we are 

 just beginning to discover its practical application in mitigating the 

 sum total of human ills. 



Healing by Mental Suggestion. Prof. Thomson J. Hudson, 

 of Boston, author of " The Laws of Psychic Phenomena," and other 

 books, relates the case of a man who had suffered for years with in- 

 flammatory rheumatism and nervous attacks, his sufferings being so 

 intense that one of his hips had been drawn out of joint, leaving one 

 leg some two inches shorter than the other. Through friends it was 

 decided to treat him by mental treatment administered during sleep. 

 The treatment began May 15, 1890. Only two friends knew of the 

 proposed experiments, and they were requested to note the time when 

 the experiments began. Some months later one of these two met 

 the invalid and was surprised to find him well. Asked when he began 

 to improve, he answered, "About the middle of May." After that he has 

 remained well and been able to attend to his business of journalism. 

 " Were this a single instance," Prof. Hudson adds, " it might be con- 

 sidered a mere coincidence'. But more than a hundred experiments 

 have been, made by this process by myself and two other persons, and 

 not a single failure has thus far been experienced." 



Method Of Treatment. Prof. Hudson, by long experimenting 

 and reasoning, arrived at the conclusion that the " best possible condi- 

 tion for the conveyance of therapeutic suggestions from the healer to 

 the patient is attained when both are in a state of natural sleep; and 

 that such suggestions can be so communicated by an effort of the will 

 on the part of the healer just before going to sleep" The theory is 

 that the conscious mind being at rest during slumber, the natural 

 mind, sometimes called the " subjective " mind, which controls the in 

 voluntary actions of the bodily organs, can be, and is, influenced by 



