Multiple Ego Several Persons in One. 963 



idea "on his mind," such as that he must wake at five o'clock, or when 

 called by a particular signal. Mr. Grurney thought the operator pos- 

 sesses a special hold upon the subject consequent upon his particular 

 nervous organization fitting into that of the subject and creating a pe- 

 culiar rapport between them. No doubt this conies to be the case after 

 the habit of controlling the subject has gone on for a considerable time, 

 and mutual adaptations have been established, as in the case of Dr. 

 Dusart and his subject, mentioned in chapter 79 ; but this hypothesis 

 does not appear to be necessary to account for the essential facts. 

 After the inhibition is complete in the alert stage, except as to the av- 

 enue reaching to the operator, the suggestions of the operator admitted 

 thereat proceed to remove the inhibition of those organs, which in the 

 normal state they would naturally associate with or antagonize, without 

 disturbing the rest. This results in the contradictory and phantastic 

 performances of a double personality, in which the two are turned loose 

 at the same time, the small fraction of the normal organs that are 

 awake, constituting one person, and the suggestions of the operator, 

 the other. In the deep stage, few or none of the organs of the normal 

 state are aroused, and the second person, the creature of the operator, 

 alone remains in activity. 



A remarkable possibility in hypnotism is the inhibition of sensibility. 

 For example, a lady with a painful abscess on her thigh as big as a hen's 

 egg, which she cannot allow to be touched, is Irypnotized, and told that 

 when she wakes up the doctor will empty the abscess, and that it will 

 not hurt her the least bit. She is then brought back to the normal con- 

 dition, and the doctor proceeds leisurely to squeeze out the abscess, the 

 lady looking on smilingly, without a particle of pain. Delusions usu- 

 ally contain elements of inhibited sensibility, in some form or other. 

 The subject does not see, hear, or feel what he is told he cannot. This 

 undoubtedly implies that sensibility is a sequel of nervous action, which 

 is inhibited like other nervous action when its blood supply is cut off. 

 This is nothing new, however, for we have all along had plenty of evi- 

 dence that consciousness depends on the nutrition contained in the 

 blood. We have also had plenty of evidence of an activity of . the 

 brain organs, which includes all their functions except sensibility or con- 

 sciousness. In normal states the failure of sensibility is due to the 

 failure of blood at a particular place, from various causes, often by 

 its simple withdrawal to other parts, as when one part monopolizes it at 

 the expense of the rest, as in reverie and abstraction ; also when the 

 blood becomes impoverished by hunger, &c. (see page 737); or in spe- 

 cial parts when benumbed with extreme cold, when the circulation is 

 greatly reduced. In hypnotism, while the immediate cause of the loss 

 of sensibility is still the same, that is, deficiency of blood, the cause of 



