612 PSTCEOLOQY. 



Changes in the nutrition of the tissims may be produced by 

 suggestion. These effects lead into therapeutics — a subject 

 which I do not propose to treat of here. But I may say 

 that there seems no reasonable ground for doubting that in 

 certain chosen subjects the suggestion of a congestion, a 

 burn, a blister, a raised papule, or a bleeding from the nose 

 or skin, may produce the effect. Messrs. Beaunis, Berjon, 

 Bernheim, Bourru, Burot, Charcot, Delboeuf, Dumontpal- 

 Her, Focachon, Forel, Jendrassik, Krafft-Ebing, Liebaulfc, 

 Liegeois, Lipp, Mabille, and others have recently vouched 

 for one or other of these effects. Messrs. Delboeuf and 

 Liegeois have annulled by suggestion, one the effects of a 

 burn, the other of a blister. Delboeuf was led to his exj)eri- 

 ments after seeing a burn on the skin produced by suggestion, 

 at the Salpetriere, by reasoning that if the idea of a pain 

 could produce inflammation it must be because pain was 

 itself an inflammatory irritant, and that the abolition of it 

 from a real burn ought therefore to entail the absence of 

 inflammation. He applied the actual cautery (as well as vesi- 

 cants) to symmetrical places on the skin, affirming that no 

 pain should be felt on one of the sides. The result was a 

 dry scorch on that side, with (as he assures me) no after- 

 mark, but on the other side a regular blister with suppura- 

 tion and a subsequent scar. This explains the innocuity of 

 certain assaults made on subjects during trance. To test 

 simulation, recourse is often had to sticking pins under their 

 finger-nails or through their tongue, to inhalations of strong 

 ammonia, and the like. These irritations, when not felt by 

 the subject, seem to leave no after-consequences. One is 

 reminded of the reported non-inflammatory character of the 

 wounds made on themselves by dervishes in their pious or- 

 gies. On the other hand, the reddenings and bleedings of the 

 skin along certain lines, suggested by tracing lines or press- 

 ing objects thereupon, put the accounts handed down to iis of 

 the stigmata of the cross appearing on the hands, feet, sides, 

 and forehead of certain Catholic mystics in a new light. 

 As so often happens, a fact is denied until a welcome inter- 

 pretation comes with it. Then it is admitted readily enough; 

 and evidence judged quite insufticieut to back a claim, so 

 long as the church had an interest in making it, proves to 



