FATIGUE AND SLEEP HYPNOSIS 951 



business it is to work with his hands or brain, requires his full tale of 

 eight hours' sleep, but not usually more. The dry and exhilarating air 

 of some of the inland portions of North America, and perhaps the plains 

 of Victoria and New South Wales, incites, and possibly enables a new- 

 comer to live for a considerable period with less than his ordinary 

 amount of sleep. Idiosyncrasy, and perhaps to a still greater extent 

 habit, have also a marked influence. The great Napoleon, in his 

 heyday, never slept more than four or five hours in the twenty-four. 

 Five or six hours or less was the usual allowance of Frederick of Prussia 

 throughout the greater part of his long and active life. 



Hypnosis is a condition in some respects allied to natural slumber; 

 but instead of the activity of the whole brain or perhaps we should 

 rather say, the whole activity of the brain being in abeyance, the 

 susceptibility to external impressions remains as great as in waking life, 

 or may be even increased, while the critical faculty, which normally 

 sits in judgment on them, is lulled to sleep. The condition can be 

 induced in many ways by asking the subject to look fixedly at a bright 

 object, by closing his eyes, by occupying his attention, by a sudden loud 

 sound or a flash of light, etc. The essential condition is that the person 

 should have the idea of going to sleep, and that he should surrender his 

 will to the operator. In the hypnotic condition the subject is extremely 

 open to suggestions made by the operator with whom he is en rapport. 

 He adopts and acts upon them without criticism. If, for example, the 

 hypnotizer raises the subject's arm above his head, and suggests that he 

 cannot bring it down again, it stays fixed in that position for a long time 

 without any appearance of fatigue ; or the whole body may be thrown, 

 on a mere hint, into some unnatural pose, in which it remains rigid 

 as a statue. Suggested hemiplegia or hemianacsthesia, or paralysis of 

 motion and sensation together or apart in limited areas, can also be 

 realized; and surgical operations have been actually performed on 

 hypnotized persons without any appearance of suffering. If, on the 

 other hand, the operator suggests that the subject is undergoing intense 

 pain, he will instantly take his cue, writhing his body, pressing his hands 

 upon his head or breast, and in all respects behaving as if the suggestion 

 were in accord with the facts. If he is told that he is blind or deaf, he 

 will act as if this were the case. If it is suggested that a person actually 

 present is in Timbuctoo, the subject will entirely ignore him, will leave 

 him out if told to count the persons in the room, or try to walk through 

 him if asked to move in that direction. What is even more curious is 

 that the organic functions of the body are also liable to be influenced by 

 suggestion. A postage-stamp was placed on the skin of a hypnotized 

 person, and it was suggested that it would raise a blister. Next day a 

 blister was actually found beneath it. The letter K, embroidered on a 

 piece of cloth, was suggested to be red-hot. The left shoulder was then 

 ' branded ' with it, and on the right shoulder appeared a facsimile of the 

 K as if burnt with a hot iron. The secretions can be increased or 

 diminished, subcutaneous haemorrhages, veritable stigmata,* can be 

 caused, and many of the ' miracles ' of Lourdes and other shrines, ancient 

 and modern, repeated or surpassed by the aid of hypnotic suggestion. 

 Hypnotism has also been practically employed in the treatment of 

 various diseases, and particularly in functional derangements of the 



* I.e., bleeding spots on the skin generally corresponding to the wounds 

 of Christ. In the well-known case of Louise Latour, which excited great 

 interest in France in 1868, blisters first appeared; they burst, and then there 

 was bleeding from the true skin. The probable explanation is that she con- 

 centrated her attention on these parts of her body and so influenced them, 

 perhaps by causing congestion through the vaso-motor centre. 



