Vol. XXII. No. 2.] 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



19 



same time some other matter of contemplation, the 

 subject seeks, even violently, to see it again. Such 

 is the case especially when the subject has been 

 made to gazn upon a human face, and when the 

 possessor of the face conceals his own eyes behind 

 some book or other sort of screen. No speaking 

 occurs during this period. 



The third period is that of lucid somnambulism. 

 The subject is awake, hears and speaks, goes about, 

 reasons, etc , but is not at all aware of the abnor- 

 mal state he is in. The most important feature of 

 this period is an extraordinary credulity. If the 

 patient is told, in a room numbering as many gen- 

 tlemen a-s ladies, that not a single gentleman is 

 present, he believes it, after some resistance, and 

 says he does not see a single one. He may be 

 also told that there is not a person in the room, 

 and believe it; that he is in the centre of a splen- 

 did garden, in a theatre, in a valley, in a church, 

 and believe it after a time. He describes all he sees 

 in imagination . When he is told that, for instance, 

 he is going to be married to any of the persons 

 present at the experiment, a quite amusing scene 

 ensues; and the result is the same when he has 

 been told that he is this or that, — a soldier, a 

 merchant, an artist, etc. : he plays the part, dis- 

 playing the features which to him are the most 

 striking. If he is told to do any particular thing, 

 he does it after more or less resistance; the most 

 curious thing is, that, if he is told repeatedly that 

 he has done or witnessed any given deed, even 

 of the most cruel sort, and the most prejudicial 

 to hira.self, and at the same time that he must 

 remember it when awake, and go and tell about it 

 to any given person or official, he obeys. M. Bern- 

 heim, in Nancy, has caused in this manner a hyp- 

 notized subject to go and accuse a given person 

 , of some atrocious murder, which he said he had 

 witnessed, giving all the details and particulars of 

 the case, and the most circumstantial evidence; he 

 also caused another subject to go to a police sta- 

 tion and deliver himself up to the master, con- 

 fessing his guilt of a crime he pretended having 

 committed in such and such circumstances. A 

 curious feature is, that if the subject is told, when 

 in a hypnotic condition, to do such and such a 

 thing at such and such a time of a given day, he 

 does it at the ordered time, impulsively, without 

 knowing why, after feeling an uncontrollable im- 

 pulse to do it. For instance, M. C. Richet told a 

 subject that she was to come and visit him a few 

 days later at three o'clock. The very day, at the 

 very hour, the lady came in a hurry to M. Richet, 

 saying, " I do not know why I came, but I wanted 

 to see you; I felt I must come." She had left his 

 parlor full of visitors, and had come directly. 



Since it is possible to influence hypnotized per- 

 sons to such a degree, it is easy to infer that this 

 method may be used for very bad as well as for 

 very good purposes. A person familiar with hyp- 

 notism may cause any subject to go and kill any 

 one he chooses, in any manner, or to perpetrate 

 any other criminal deed. On the other hand, a 

 hypnotized pei-son may be told to act in such and 

 such a manner, kindly and virtuously, and his 

 moral character may be in a great measure bettered, 

 as M. Voisin of Paris has shown. 



Another very curious fact concerning hypnotism 

 is that discovered by MM. Burot and IJourru of 

 Rochefort, — that different drugs or poisons, when 

 held in stoppered vials behind the neck of the pa- 

 tient, do, after some minutes, exert very curious 

 influences. I recently went to one of M. Luys's 

 lectures on the subject, and witnessed very strange 

 things. The patient being seated in a large arm- 

 chair, one out of a number of glass vials containing 

 different drugs and poisons wa.s inserted between 

 her neck and dress. After some time different 



symptoms came on. The first vial used contained 

 alcohol. After a few minutes she was dead drunk, 

 rolling about, with fearful vomiting efforts. The 

 vial was taken otf , and after .some time peace was 

 restored. Then a valerian vial was used. This 

 drug exerts a singular effect: the patient begins 

 scratching the earth, and believes it is picking 

 some deceased relative's bones. Water provokes 

 hydrophobic symptoms, etc. 



These experiments are certainly very curious, 

 but I must say that they are performed in such a 

 careless and unscientific manner, that I can have 

 no confidence whatever in the results. Dr. Luys, 

 who has repeated them for a year or two in Paris, 

 is certainly a very honest and scrupulous man, but 

 as a scientist he does not sufficiently perceive the 

 difficulties of experimenting, and allows himself to 

 be deceived by unscrupulous patients. It is my 

 opinion, and I find that it is also a very general one. 



The other great topic of the day is overwork, 

 — over-pressure, mental as well as physical, but 

 especially mental. Physical overwork is not ex- 

 actly scarce in France, but, in fact, it is not really 

 overwork: it is rather an absence of equilibrium 

 between receipts and expenses, the French work- 

 man being a very active and energetic man so long 

 a.s politicians have not disturbed him from his 

 every-day work, but being too often also an ill-fed 

 man, especially in towns where meat is too dear, and 

 unhealthy alcohols too cheap. The ab.sence of 

 equilibrium between the fuel given to the human 

 engine and the work it is made to give, is what 

 makes overwork; but in the case of the Frenchman 

 more work could be got, or, at any rate, the same 

 amount could be had without injury, if his 

 nourishment was better. The real overwork in 

 France is the mental one. All men living in 

 towns, and having to work for their living, belong- 

 ing to liberal professions, are more or less over- 

 worked. This is especially true of young men 

 preparing for government schools, examinations, 

 and competitions. The amount of knowledge re- 

 quired is a very great one, and one which presses 

 too much upon the memory. This, added to the 

 fact that in many professions examinations and 

 competitions are going on from eighteen to thirty 

 or thirty-five, is a great inconvenience to personal 

 and original work. In the medical school, for 

 instance, after graduation for the diplomas of 

 Bachelor in letlres and in sciences, the candidate 

 is subjected to a series of examinations, coming 

 on every six, twelve, or eighteen months, by which 

 the Faculty ascertain whether he has profited by 

 the courses. Very well: this is quite logical and 

 necessary. But then, if the student wishes to 

 emerge from the valgum pecus, he has to compete 

 for the external and internal of hospitals (two at 

 least, and generally three or four competitions), for 

 official positions in the medical school, such as Aide 

 d'Aitatomie, Prosecteur, Fellow of the Faculty, or 

 Physician to the Hospitals. When a man, wishing 

 to be among the first of his profession, has achieved 

 all this at thirty, it is quite an exception. Thirty- 

 five is the average age, and forty is not uncommon 

 at all. But the great inconvenience of the process 

 is, that, examinations and competitions requiring 

 only memory, most of these successful men are quite 

 unprepared for Original work and thought. Why 

 should they have cultivated this part of their mind ? 

 It is not required for examinations, so they do not 

 concern themselves with it; and generally, when a 

 man has never tried to do any such work, it is not 

 at thirty-five or forty that he begins to do it. The 

 con.sequence is, that the Fellows of the Faculty and 

 the physicians of the hospitals are generally very 

 learned men, but are quite unable to hold any high 

 post in professorship, owing to their lack of per- 



sonal investigation, or, when they hold them, they 

 do so in a very imperfect manner. The medical 

 schools are suffering in a high degree from this 

 cause, and it tells cruelly upon the scientific 

 value of the teaching body. An attempt is being 

 made at present to dispel this situation ; and in the 

 future competitions for Fellowships, the memory 

 part will be less developed, and original work will 

 be called for. This is very well, but the method 

 ought to be applied to the whole series of compe- 

 titions ; this must be the beginning ; and we much 

 fear that it is not so, the old routine-process being 

 so very much impressed in the minds of the whole 

 Faculty. This difiiculty in getting original workers 

 is the result of overwork during many years, which 

 incapacitates men for original thought, from its 

 long standing, and the epoch of life at which it is 

 required. 



Overwork is not less frequent in preparing for 

 government schools, especially for the locale Pobj- 

 teclinique, where so much is required — from the 

 memory stand-point — from succe.ssful candidates, 

 and whence so little proceeds as concerns original 

 work. 



Overwork is the common ailment of all young 

 ladies preparing for competition for official positions 

 in the way of teaching; and what is worse is, that 

 there are not positions enough to give them. Tliou- 

 sands of these overworked, ill-fed girls are waiting 

 foi- appointments which they will never get 



The overwork system is the prevailing one in 

 France; and its effects are all the worse because, if 

 mental hygiene is decidedly overlooked, it is even 

 more the case with physical exercise and hygiene. 

 Bodily exercises are not enough attended to in edu- 

 cational establishments, and this cause adds to the 

 dangerous consequences of mental straining. 



At a recent meeting of the Biological Society it 

 was shown that the air exhaled by tuberculous 

 patients, for instance, does not contain any mi- 

 crobes, and that the breath probably plays no 

 part in the contagion of infectious diseases. At 

 the same time, but by other persons, it has been 

 shown tliat the air expelled from the healthy human 

 lung contains peculiar matters that are certainly 

 poisonous (the carbonic acid being included, of 

 course), and that are given up by the lung itself. 



Tlie great physiologist Haller had already ex- 

 pressed the idea that such matters do exist. 



Two observers, a French and an Austrian one, 

 have recently shown the curious effect exerted upon 

 the acutenessof any given sense by the simultaneous 

 exercise of any other one. They show, for instance, 

 that hearing is improved by light, especially red or 

 yellow, and that this action is a reciprocal one, 

 and is exerted on every sense by all others. The 

 results are very curious and interesting. 



Paris, Dec. 22, 18S7. 



H. 



LOiiginal in Popular Science Jfetcs.] 

 THE LAW OF ERECTITUDE. 



BV DR. 8. F. LANDREY. 



The curiosity of travellers and the wonder of 

 reading world have often been excited by the re- 

 markable Leaning Tower of Pisa. In our common 

 schools where physiology is taught, the young peo- 

 ple will recollect the explanation given by teachers 

 of round shoulders, and the cause of a stooping fig- 

 ure, as resulting from, 1st, a pressure on the anterior 

 portions of the inter-vertebral cartilages ; 2d, partial 

 absorption of the same by a continuance of the 

 pressure till the position becomes habitual or con- 

 firmed. For the present the above two suggestions 

 will be sufficient, if the reader is in a thinking 

 mood, to furnish food for a week's reflection. 



