HYPNOTISM AND ITS PHENOMENA. 75 



opened, the impression, produced, we must assume, by light induces some 

 new condition by which that side of the body of the patient is thrown 

 into a cataleptic state. Now before inquiring what this change is, 

 it may be well for us to try and explain the pathological condition 

 present in a catalepsy which may attack persons without their first 

 passing into the hypnotized state. At the outset we must confess 

 to the unsatisfactory information which most of our authors give lis 

 on the subject. All that even Bristow says is, " that in cataleptics 

 we have a class of cases difficult to classify, and difficult to attach to 

 specific lesions or specific conditions of the nervous system." We 

 do find, however, in M. Jaccoud already quoted from something 

 which really does aid us. 



He says :— " Catalepsy is a spasmodic paroxysm and is constituted 

 of two elements: (1) the suspension of cerebral operations, or their 

 external manifestations ; (2) the increase of the spontaneous and 

 reflex tonicity (innervation de stabilitd) in the muscles of animal 

 life. The abolition of cerebral action presents itself under two forms 

 (rather degrees) which imply different organic localizations : in one 



(a) there is total loss of consciousness, viz., of sensation, perception, 

 ideaism and its consecutive acts, and this can be interpreted only by 

 the inertia of the grey substance of the hemispheres ; in the other 



(b) consciousness is not suspended, perception and ideasim are com- 

 plete, but lack the last link of the chain, i. e., the motor intuition 

 cannot be communicated to the motor apparatus. Here it is clear the 

 cortical substance is normal, but the inertia is in the conductive fibres 

 which bind together the organizing apparatus and the performing appa- 

 ratus. Nevertheless the result is the same ; tonic spasm is present, 

 keeping various sets of muscles in whatever position placed. And this 

 tonic spasm (spasmes du tonics) is a lasting tension. Here we have 

 a most noticeable fact in the marked increase in the innervation of 

 of stability. The tension keeping up this stable condition of the 

 muscles must be looked upon as a reflex phenomenon, provoked by 

 the molecular change (elongation or shortening) which the communi- 

 cative movements cause the muscles to undergo. It is this molecular 

 change which is the centi'ipetal excitation necessary to all reflex 

 movements ; and this stimulus repeats itself every time that the 

 muscle is moved. One difficulty exists in the constant relation 

 which binds the quantity of tension to that of passive movement in 

 such a way that tlie reflex spasm produced by this latter is always 



