HYPNOTISM 



2897 



HYPNOTISM 



tagion, the expectation of benefit all contrib- 

 uted to the effect. In his later stages he relied 

 entirely upon his personal administrations and 

 claimed to magnetize a glass of water, or a 

 tree, which in turn ' produced the curative ef- 

 fects, all of which were ascribed to animal 

 magnetism. 



Mesmer held to the medical theory of crises 

 or turning points in a disease; his procedure 

 was accordingly a means of evoking crises, and 

 thus drawing the symptoms out of the patient. 

 The more violent patients fell into convul- 

 sions; some shouted, cried, laughed and moved 

 about; others perspired, groaned, coughed, had 

 spasms, and then went into stages of languor 

 and exhaustion. As the crises passed off, after 

 a few or many treatments, the patients were 

 dismissed as cured. Both the scenes in the 

 "Hall of Crises" and the nature of the cures, 

 as described by medical men and the patients 

 themselves, strongly suggest the presence of 

 hysterical maladies and the operation of a men- 

 tal prestige; while equally the dispute over the 

 reality of the cure, the frequent relapses, the 

 more than occasional deaths under his hands, 

 show how often the alleged cures were jalse, or 

 of but temporary relief or due to self-delusion. 



The excitement created by Mesmer's popu- 

 larity and his personal ambition led to a chal- 

 lenge of the medical profession and the appoint- 

 ment of a commission (one of several) to 

 examine his pretensions. On this commission 

 served such di'stinguished men as Lavoisier, the 

 chemist, and Benjamin Franklin, then repre- 

 senting the new American republic in Paris. 

 Some of the tests were made in Franklin's gar- 

 den; it was shown that patients went to the 

 wrong tree and had their convulsions, if they 

 regarded it as the tree which the magnetizer 

 (one of Mesmer's pupils) had magnetized. 

 From such experiments ingeniously varied, the 

 commission concluded that the actual effect 

 was due to a stimulated imagination, and that 

 there was not a vestige of proof that the al- 

 leged fluid or the other fanciful procedures had 

 any existence or significance other than the 

 mental one. The report counteracted Mes- 

 mer's growing notoriety, but led to many con- 

 troversies, medical men taking issue for and 

 against him, while the French Revolution put 

 an end to Mesmer's Parisian career. 



Though hypnotism grew out of the interest 

 in animal magnetism, Mesmer had no part in 

 the discovery of hypnosis; his attachment to 

 "animal magnetism" blinded him to the signifi- 

 cance of what \vas s actually going on. It was 

 182 



the Marquis de Puysegur one of Mesmer's 

 pupils who observed that one of the magnet- 

 ized subjects could hear only what the mag- 

 netizer said, was oblivious to all else, and when 

 awakened had forgotten all that happened 

 while under the influence. He called this con- 

 dition artificial somnambulism. He observed, 

 further, that the subject would execute com- 

 mands while in this condition, would answer 

 questions, and seemed more intelligent. The 

 condition was no sooner recognized than a false 

 direction was given to the important discovery. 

 The somnambules were used to prescribe in the 

 trance for their fellow patients; they were 

 credited with a second sight; they were sup- 

 posed to see directly into the condition of the 

 internal organs, and thus diagnosed, prescribed 

 and predicted the issue of the treatment. Un- 

 der such encouragement somnambules were 

 used for public exhibitions and read sealed mes- 

 sages, saw through sheets of paper, read fine 

 print, suffered needles to enter the skin, etc. 

 With this period of the discovery of hypnosis 

 should be associated the use of the state as 

 an anesthetic; for severe operations were per- 

 formed upon patients in this condition (this 

 was before the discovery of ether) in France, 

 England and India, and thus proved the genu- 

 ineness of the condition. 



The religious, the magnetic and other magical 

 procedures represent the first stage ; while "arti- 

 ficial somnambulism" represents the second 

 stage of hypnotism. The third was inaugurated 

 by James Braid (in the period 1840-1850), who 

 recognized the trance-state as genuine and ab- 

 normal. He at once dismissed the notion of 

 any fluid or physical force and also the notion 

 that any peculiar power resided in the operator. 

 Everything was referred to the susceptible nerv- 

 ous disposition of the subject under the influ- 

 ence of an exalted suggestibility. It was most 

 unfortunate that Braid added to the bad repu- 

 tation of "mesmerism" (which interfered with 

 its recognition by the medical profession) by 

 using the hypnotic state to which Braid gave 

 the present name to demonstrate the reality 

 of the phrenological functions (see PHRE- 

 NOLOGY). Thus Mesmer was convinced of the 

 fluid, Puysegur of the second sight of his som- 

 nambules, and Braid (for a time) of the reality 

 of the phrenological locations, by the suggesti- 

 bility of the subjects, who shrewdly enacted. the 

 results which the theories of the hypnotizers 

 expected. 



The fourth stage in the recognition of hypno- 

 tism began about 1870 through the work of 



