72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



most prominent is a remarkable condition of general hyperaesthesia 



of the spinal system of nerves. But we must beware of making 



this a too distinctive phenomenon of hypnotism, since we know that 



not only are different individuals very differently susceptible to* 



external influences while asleep, but also that the same person at 



different times sleeps with varying degrees of sensibility to external 



impressions. 



• 



We have now to notice the condition into which the svstem is 

 thrown during the sonmabulistic state. Necessarily it is one in 

 which cerebral force is wholly in abeyance. A most interesting 

 illustration of this is seen in some of M. Charcot's experiments. 

 For instance, a patient whom we may call Marie, is hypnotized ; her 

 eyes are opened by the operator, and she is told to look carefully at 

 the bystander, that he is Ernestine, a friend of hers. Her eyes are 

 again closed and her friend Ernestine is bixnight forward, and in the 

 same manner Marie is told that Ernestine is the bystander. The 

 operator now puffs upon her face and Marie awakes and treats 

 the bystander as Ernestine, and Ernestine as the bystander. This 

 delusion persists a long time unless she is again hypnotized, and the 

 hallucination resolved. As we know, destruction of the cerebrum 

 in frogs not only does not destroy, but seems to augment reflex spinal 

 movements ; and since, as we have seen, a hyperaesthesia is more or 

 less constantly present in, at least, plaques or parts of the bodies of 

 hypnotic patients, we naturally expect them while asleep to be pecu- 

 liarly susceptible of external influences. Others again exhibit, what 

 may be deemed truly wonderful, sensibility even while awake to exter- 

 nal impressions. A Dr. (Jowan, relates in the London Lancet, that a 

 patient of his was so sensitive to external impressions, that the flying 

 of a bird past a window with drawn curtains, and with the bed. 

 curtains also drawn, produced in her a sudden jerking of the spinal 

 muscles, extending, if violent, to the hands and legs, and all this 

 without any conscious mental emotion. The same person heard, and 

 was affected by sounds not appreciable to other persons,, these sounds, 

 producing similar reflex movements to those of sight. Besides such 

 examples we have many other examples of reflex spinal acts, as 

 nausea and vomiting from bad sights or odours, quite apart it may 

 be from any mental emotion. What, however, is most to be 

 remarked in all these cases of undue reflex spinal acts, in these 

 functional maladies at anyrate, is that their force is exactly in 



