December 3, 1886.] 



SCIEJ^CE. 



521 



of mankind " and the " notion that there is some- 

 thing unrefined in the undisguised enjoyment of 

 a meal." The cure for the first is a right educa- 

 tion ; the second is a rehc of asceticism shown at 

 its worst in the superstition that it is exquisitely 

 refined and feminine for a girl to have no appe- 

 tite. Epicures are healthy because they 'live on 

 the quintessence of food ' by constantly breathing 

 through the nose. The epicure's habit of retain- 

 ing this pleasure as long as possible leads to slow 

 eating and complete mastication. Odors stimu- 

 late the flow of saliva and the other alimentary 

 juices, and thus a gastronomist will never be a 

 dyspeptic. Epicureanism is not gluttony : it is the 

 ability to get pleasure out of commonplace foods. 

 He may prefer "canvas-back duck to roast 

 goose," but "he alone knows what an oriental 

 rose-garden of magic perfumes may be found in 

 the simplest crust of whole-meal or graham bread 

 and butter." 



In this strain Mr. Fincks develops the science of 

 eating and of cooking, and applies its principles 

 to several important classes of food-stuffs. He 

 even proposes a new industry ; namely, of so 

 feeding poultry and other animals as to produce 

 a special brand of meat with original nuances of 

 flavor. And finally he promises us that the rec- 

 ognition of the royal position of smell in the gas- 

 tronomic hierarchy would bring about an increase 

 of twenty per cent or more in the average health 

 and happiness of the community. 



The notorious Jaeger holds that the scul is a 

 smell : we have now been given reasons for be- 

 lieving that smell is at the least the breath of life. 

 J. J. 



A RECENT CONTRIBUTION TO THE DIS- 

 CUSSION OF HYPNOTISM. 



The French psychologists seem to be making 

 their own the study of whole gi'oups of mental 

 phenomena. Of late years, almost all the valua- 

 ble contributions to the subject of hypnotism, and 

 all phenomena, have come from them. In fact, 

 they have discovered so many new and striking 

 facts, that almost all the old generalizations have 

 L been overthrown, and the multiplicity of facts 

 has hardly as yet been digested into any new 

 theory. One of the most interesting of recent dis- 

 cussions is that of Burgson in the November num- 

 ber of the Revue pMlosophique. It is valuable not 

 only for the new light thrown upon some of the 

 most mysterious phenomena of hypnotism, but 

 for the suggestions which it offers to a study of 

 the whole complex field of ' thought -transfer- 

 rence.' 



From time to time there have been reports of 

 hypnotic persons who could see through opaque 



objects, tell what was going on at a distance, etc. 

 The case of some boys who could tell the title of 

 the chapter at the head of a page, or the number of 

 the page, when a book was opened but was held 

 with its cover towards them, was reported to 

 Burgson. Upon trying it, he found that one of 

 the boys told correctly at least every other time 

 what was required. Some experimenters would 

 have stopped short with this, and would have 

 heralded abroad a remarkable case of telepathic 

 action. But Burgson continued experimenting. 

 He noticed three things. When the hypnotized 

 subject was asked how he knew, for example, the 

 figures of a page, he replied that he saw them ; 

 and when he was asked to touch the back of the 

 book, instead of touching the cover, he put his 

 hand under and touched the open page. Another 

 fact was, that, when the boy did not guess right 

 the first time, he would often correct it, if the 

 book were moved a few inches nearer or farther 

 from the eye of the operator. The third thing 

 was, that the figures were often read reversed, as 

 213 for 312. This suggested to the operator that 

 the patient seemed to be reading as if in a n)irror, 

 and he began to wonder if it were possible that 

 the latter read the figures or word as reflected in 

 the cornea of himself, the operator. Simple ex- 

 periments revealed, that, if the operator's eyes 

 were closed as soon as the figure had been seen, 

 the patient was rarely successful ; that the atti- 

 tude which gave the best chance for the forma- 

 tion of a distinct image was that in which the 

 guess was most uniformly successful ; and that 

 the correctness of the guess decreased as the light 

 was changed so as to obscure the reflection. The 

 image in the cornea could not be, however, more 

 than .1 mm. in size. In spite of the well-attested 

 hyperaesthesia of organs in hypnotic subjects, 

 there might be some doubt of an ability to see 

 any thing so small. Experiments were then tried 

 with a view to deciding this point. The most 

 satisfactory consisted in giving the subject a pre- 

 pared section of an orchid the cells of whose tissue 

 were only .06 mm. in diameter, and telling him to 

 draw the same. With microscopic fineness of 

 vision this was done. 



It only remained to see if the hypnotic patient's 

 power of forming conclusions from very subtle 

 and ordinarily imperceptible signs was confined 

 to cornea-reading. It was easily proved that it 

 was not. The operator hypnotized the subject 

 sitting before him, and then made the latter be- 

 lieve that he was one with the operator, so that 

 whatever affected him would also affect the sub- 

 ject. Then a third person, standing behind the 

 operator, pricked some part of the latter, gener- 

 ally a part of his band held behind his back. The 



