THE RELATIONS OF MINDS TO OTHER THINGS. 203 



plored, become completely insensible without the other vital 

 functions becoming gravely disturbed. 



These hysterical anaesthesias can be made to disappear 

 more or less completely by various odd processes. It has 

 been recently found that magnets, ]3lates of metal, or the 

 electrodes of a battery, placed against the skin, have this 

 peculiar power. And when one side is relieved in this way, 

 the anaesthesia is often found to have transferred itself to 

 the opjjosite side, which until then was well. Whether these 

 strange effects of magnets and metals be due to their direct 

 physiological action, or to a prior effect on the patient's 

 mind (' expectant attention' or ' suggestion') is still a 

 mooted question. A still better awakener of sensibility is 

 the hyjjnotic trance, into which many of these patients can 

 be very easily placed, and in which their lost sensibility not 

 infrequently becomes entirely restored. Such returns of 

 sensibility succeed the times of insensibility and alternate 

 with them. But Messrs. Pierre Janet * and A. Binet f have 

 shown that during the times of anaesthesia, and coexisting 

 with it, sensibility to the anaesthetic parts is also there, in the 

 form of a secondary consciousness entirely cut off from the 

 primary or normal one, but susceptible of being tapped and 

 made to testify to its existence in various odd ways. 



Chief amongst these is what M. Janet calls ' the method 

 of distraction.'' These hysterics are apt to possess a very 

 narrow field of attention, and to be unable to think of more 

 than one thing at a time. When talking with any person 

 they forget everything else. " When Lucie talked directly 

 with any one," saysM. Janet, "she ceased to be able to hear 

 any other person. You may stand behind her, call her by 

 name, shout abuse into her ears, without making her turn 

 round ; or place yourself before her, show her objects, 

 touch her, etc., without attracting her notice. When finally 

 she becomes aware of you, she thinks you have just come 

 into the room again, and greets you accordingly. This 

 singular forgetfulness makes her liable to tell all her secrets 

 aloud, unrestrained by the presence of unsuitable auditors." 



* L'Automatisme Psychologique, Paris, 1889, passim. 

 f See his articles iu the Chicago Open Court, for July, August and 

 November, 1889. Also iu the Revue Philosophique for 1889 and '90. 



