526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hypnotism is good for anything as a ciirative agent, its sphere is 

 limited, by Charcot, Fere", Babinski, and all the most trustworthy 

 medical observers of Paris, to the relief of functional disorder and 

 symptoms in hysterical patients. The Nancy school put their 

 pretensions higher ; but any one who will analyze for himself, or 

 who will study Babinski's able analysis of the Nancy reputed 

 cases of cure, will easily satisfy himself that such claims are not 

 valid. As to the use of "suggestion" as an anaesthetic substitute 

 of chloroform for operation purposes, that " sugges ion " dates 

 back now beyond the ages of Esdaile and of Elliotson. It has 

 been given up and fallen into disuse because of its unreliability 

 and limited application. It is now sagely proposed to use hyp- 

 notism for " tooth-drawing," for the treatment of drunkards and 

 of school children. The proposition is self -condemned. To enable 

 a dentist to draw a tooth painlessly, the average man or woman 

 is, by a series of sittings, to be reduced to the state of a trained 

 automaton ; but happily only a very small proportion can be. 

 The criminal courts have seen enough of hypnotic dentists. As 

 to the " suggestion " cure of drunkards or the " suggestion " treat- 

 ment of backward or naughty children, systematic and intelli- 

 gent suggestion is what every clergyman, every doctor, and every 

 schoolmaster tries to carry out in such cases and often does suc- 

 cessfully — and in a better form than the degrading shape of hyp- 

 notism. Moreover, for drunkenness it is, so far as my inquiries 

 go, a failure. 



If a striking effect is to be produced by an apparatus destined 

 powerfully to affect the imagination, the faith-curer of the grotto 

 has this advantage over the endormeur of the platform or the 

 hospital. He does not intrude his own personality and train his 

 patient to subject his mental ego to that of his " operator." The 

 " mesmerizer " seeks to dominate his subject ; he weakens the will 

 power, which it is desirable to strengthen. He aims at becoming 

 the master of a slave. I do not need to emphasize the dangers of 

 this practice. I need not even relate them. I have briefly quoted 

 the warnings of one of its apostles, or at least so much of them as 

 it is seemly here to relate. 



The faith-curer of the grotto strengthens the weaker individ- 

 uality. He plays upon the spring of self-suggestion. The patient 

 is told to believe that he will be cured, to wish it fervently, and 

 he shall be cured. So far as he is cured, he returns perhaps a 

 better and a stronger man, and his cure is quite as real and likely 

 to be quite as lasting as if he had become the puppet of a hyp- 

 notizer. The experiments of the Salpetriere have served to en- 

 able us to analyze more clearly the nature of faith-cures gen- 

 erally, and they have thrown a ray of light on a series of phe- 

 nomena of human automatism never before studied so clearly or 



