222 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 30 r 



at prominent points along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and 

 on the principal rivers and the Great Lakes. The results of these 

 observations are now being plotted graphically upon charts by the 

 Fish Commission, and will be published in an early report. It is 

 expected that they will prove of great importance in explaining the 

 distribution and movements of the fishes. 



Altogether the result of the Fish Commission's work has been 

 very satisfactory. Much of the scientific study and digestion of 

 material collected during the summer, of course, still remains to be 

 done, and this will be pushed forward in Washington during the 

 months when, as a rule, field-work is impracticable. 



MENTAL SCIENCE. 



Notes on Hypnotism. 



The Paris and Nancy Schools of Hypiiotism. — Dr. Bernheim, 

 the leader of the Nancy school, whose classic work we are soon 

 to have in English, contributes to the Revue de VHypnotisme, 

 May, 1888, a platform of beliefs. These can be summarized as fol- 

 lows : I. They do not obtain Charcot's three phases — lethargy, cata- 

 lepsy, and somnambulism — by any physical manipulation ; nor do 

 they find, as Charcot claims, that opening the eyes or rubbing the 

 vertex will cause the patient to pass from one of these stages to 

 another. They do not get the phenomena of transfert (of an affec- 

 tion of one side of the body passing to the other) nor the localiza- 

 tion of function by pressing different portions of the cranium, nor 

 any purely physiological result. On the other hand, they easily get 

 all these results by a slight suggestion. If the subject has heard 

 of or witnessed the expected results, it is sufficient. Again : the 

 unconsciousness of lethargy is apparent only, the subject being 

 open to suggestions at any stage. 2. /« hysteria magna the hyp- 

 notic phenomena are the same as in normal subjects, the three 

 stages, etc., being equally illusory. 3. Hysterical subjects are not 

 good for the study of hypnotism. They introduce neurotic and 

 other foreign symptoms, and vitiate the purity of the results. 4. 

 The hypnotic state is not a neurotic one. The phenomena are 

 natural, are of a psychological origin, and can be developed from 

 natural sleep. 5. Neurotic patients are not more ready subjects 

 than others, the wards of hospitals representing all types of dis- 

 eases, furnishing an equal number of good subjects. 6. Not all 

 subjects are purely automata played upon by the operator : more 

 or less resistance is frequent, and the individuality partially remains. 

 7. All methods of hypnotization depend upon suggestion. Physi- 

 cal methods, especially hypnogenetic zones, do not exist except as 

 the results of suggestion. 8. Suggestion is the key to all the phe- 

 nomena, and careful study with new subjects will prove it so. 

 Moreover, the large percentage (eighty) of subjects among normal 

 persons found at Nancy is not due to a mental contagion, but to a 

 skill in applying the suggestion. This position is rapidly gaining 

 adherence above that of Charcot and the Paris school, which it op- 

 poses on all the above points. 



A New Hypnotic Phenomefion. — M. Liegois contributes to the 

 August number of the same periodical an article describing a 

 new hypnotic phenomenon, in the field of a ' negative hallucination.' 

 This term describes a state in which the suggestion that a certain 

 person, a certain object in the field of vision, remains unseen, has 

 been obeyed. The state is explained as an annihilation of the per- 

 ception as it reaches consciousness. The impression is received, 

 but ignored. Having a third party to suggest to one of his subjects 

 that he will be invisible to her, it is found that she does not hear 

 him, see him, or even feel the prick of a pin when he holds the pin, 

 re-acting normally to all other persons. If, however, M. Liegois 

 calls out impersonally, "Camille feels thirsty, Camille will drink a 

 glass of water," she hears and obeys the command ; if similarly 

 told to stand at his side, she does so ; and so on for every sense. 

 While she does not hear him, she none the less really can hear him. 

 There is a sort of dual personality, one half of which obeys the 

 negative suggestion, while the other is automatically regulated, and 

 obeys any suggestion not directly in conflict with a previous one. 

 The further development of this study promises interesting results. 



Hygienic Aspects of Hypnotism. — Upon the hygienic side 

 we find the discussion of the prohibition of public hypnotic per- 

 formances. The Academy of Medicine of Belgium held a long dis- 



cussion upon the question, and finally voted to recommend a law- 

 abolishing it. The chief advocate in favor of the exhibitions was- 

 M. Delboeuf. Belgium thus follows the action of Austria, Italy, 

 Denmark, Germany, and most of the Swiss cantons. The people 

 have been strongly impressed with the dangers of an unskilled use 

 of hypnotism, and a healthy sentiment to have it restricted to ex- 

 perts prevails. At the last session of the French Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, M. Berillon introduced a similar 

 measure, and it was voted as the sentiment of the section of hygiene 

 and public medicine that all public exhibitions of hypnotism should 

 be legally prohibited in France. 



Miscellajieous. — Considerable space is taken up in the same 

 periodical with the discussion of phenomena whose genuineness is 

 not recognized, particularly with Dr. Luy's experiments upon the 

 action of drugs at a distance. A committee of the Academy of 

 Medicine was appointed to examine the correctness of Dr. Luy's 

 conclusions, and they find unconscious suggestion to be at the basis 

 of it all. When the contents of the vials containing the drugs were 

 unknown to those present, the subject also failed to be appropriateljr 

 affected by them. So, again, these pretended mysteries fall to the 

 ground, and exemplify the pitfalls of the subject as well as the un- 

 critical nature of methods often adopted by eminent scientists. 

 Mention should also be made of the fact that the Church has re- 

 cently entered into relations with hypnotism by a letter from the 

 Bishop of Madrid, warning his brethren against the evils of the new 

 movement, and'placing it in line with the forbidden treatment of 

 miracles. 



Abnormal Sense-Perceptions. 



Sound-Blindness. — Recent observations have emphasized the 

 fact that many persons are defective in the distinctness of their per- 

 ceptions, while others form peculiar links between perceptions of 

 different senses. An illustration of the former is what has been 

 rather falsely termed ' sound-blindness.' This condition refers to- 

 the defective hearing of sounds ; so that, in the same way as the 

 color-blind fail to distinguish between to us utterly distinct impres- 

 sions, the sound-blind fail to make distinctions perfectly evident to 

 ordinary ears. A Boston lady, Sara E. Wiltse, has recently tested 

 the powers of Boston school-children in this direction {American 

 Jour?ial of Psychology, "Ho. 4). Standing on the teacher's plat- 

 form, shcjrepeated the following words as distinctly as possible ta 

 259 boys of the Latin School, aged from twelve to twenty years : ' ul- 

 tramarine,' 'altruistic,' 'frustrate,' 'ultimatum,' 'ululate,' ' Alcibi- 

 ades,' ' unaugmented.' The words were repeated as often as re- 

 quired, some as often as five times, and ample time was given for 

 the writing of the words. 84 of the boys made mistakes in the 

 vowel-sounds, such as ' ultruistic,' ' frostrate,' ' altimatum,' ' elulate,' 

 ' olulate,' ' alulate,' ' unolmented.' That these 84 were really defec- 

 tive, was shown by the further test, in which the following words 

 were read to them but once ; viz., ' fan,' ' log,' ' long,' ' pen,' ' dog,' 

 ' pod,' ' land,' ' few,' ' cat : ' for only 4 of the 84 spelled these mono- 

 syllables correctly. For ' fan,' there appeared ' than,' ' thank,' 

 ' fanned,' ' clam,' ' thang,' and ' fam ; ' for ' log,' ' glove,' ' clog,' ' lug,' 

 ' love,' ' land,' ' long,' ' knob ;' for' long,' ' lung,' ' lown,'' lone,' ' lawn,' 

 'land,' 'log,' 'loud,' 'lamp;' for 'pen,' 'penned,' 'pan,' 'paint,' 

 ' hen,' ' ten ; ' for ' dog,' ' dove,' ' dug,' 'dot ; ' for ' pod,' ' hour,' ' heart, ' 

 ' hog,' ' hod,' ' hard,' ' fod,' ' thod,' ' fog,' ' bog,' ' pug,' ' part,' ' plot,' 

 ' pard,' ' long,' ' bog ; ' for ' land,' ' lamb,' ' lend,' ' lamp,' ' lambed,' 

 ' blend,' ' hen,' ' can ; ' for ' few,' ' frew,' ' fuse,' ' pew,' ' pen.' ' Cat ' 

 was correctly understood in every case. Of the 80, only 2 were 

 found to be hard of hearing, suggesting that the others were more 

 or less 'sound-blind.' So, again, of 223 boys of the English High 

 School at Boston, 105 misspelled one or more of the polysyllables. 

 In the Comins Grammar School, where the pupils were between the 

 ages of eight and fourteen, only 34 of the 530 spelled all the mono- 

 syllables correctly. These pupils were tested under good condi- 

 tions, and five were found to be deaf to the sound of a tuning-fork, 

 though the teacher was unaware of the defect. For ' fan,' 7 differ- 

 ent words and 2 blanks were given (a blank indicating an entire 

 failure to understand the word), the total number of mishearings 

 being 17 ; for ' log,' 17 different words and 10 blanks, involving 86 

 mishearings, the word being understood as 'love '65 times; for 

 'long,' 14 words and 11 blanks, with 22 errors; for 'pen,' 18 words 

 and 12 blanks, with 135 errors, of which 48 made the word ' hen,' 



