LITERARY NOTICES. 



847 



circlet of magnetized iron was placed that 

 had been around the head of a person sub- 

 ject to hallucinations of persecution and of 

 black misery ; the patient's features became 

 haggard, his expression melancholic, and he 

 struggled, with evident horror and fright, to 

 escape from imaginary persecutors ; the re- 

 moval of the circlet restored him to calm- 

 ness. These ideas had remained stored in 

 the circlet, as Dr. Luys informed his audi- 

 ence, for six months, and were apparently 

 by no means exhausted notwithstanding fre- 

 quent use. Small sealed tubes containing 

 various medicinal substances applied to the 

 necks of these hypnotized individuals pro- 

 duced symptoms similar to those caused by 

 the administration of the substances inter- 

 nally. Another series of phenomena was 

 produced by having the hypnotized person 

 hold a glass of water or a wax doll in the 

 hands, and their sensation was transferred 

 to the object held so that if the glass of 

 water or the doll was stroked, pinched, 

 pricked, or tortured at a distance, and pre- 

 sumably where the subject could not see 

 what was done, the sensation was transferred 

 from the object to the person, who would ex- 

 press emotions conforming to what was done 

 to the supposed sensitized object. 



Mr. Hart found that Dr. Luys was un- 

 willing to allow him to make certain tests 

 that would control these experiments and 

 determine whether the "subject" was dis- 

 sembling or unconscious. Accordingly, he 

 made arrangements to have Dr. Luys's " sub- 

 jects " come to his chambers, where he had 

 a nonmagnetic bar resembling the magnet- 

 ized bar that Luys had used, a demagnetized 

 magnet, a set of needles variously and in- 

 versely magnetized, sealed tubes containing 

 the medicinal substances used by Luys as 

 well as some containing water, two similar 

 glasses of water and two similar wax dolls. 

 In the presence of a number of credible wit- 

 nesses he repeated Luys's experiments, and 

 the " subjects " were delighted with the 

 north pole, although there was no current 

 turned on, and false phenomena were ob- 

 tained with all the magnets employed. The 

 doll or glass of water to which sensation 

 had been transferred from a " subject " 

 was surreptitiously exchanged for the un- 

 sensitized glass of water or doll, but that 

 made no difference in the phenomena elicited 



by the stroking, pinching, etc. The sealed 

 glass tubes containing water produced the 

 tipsy scenes that arose when Luys applied to 

 the neck the tube containing brandy, while 

 one containing the latter produced any symp- 

 tom that was expected to be obtained from 

 whatever substance was mentioned. In 

 other words the " subjects " were artful and 

 efficient impostors and Dr. Luys was their 

 dupe, as one of the " subjects " herself stated. 



We believe that this brief review of the 

 scope of the experiments justifies Mr. Hart's 

 assertion that Luys's experiments were con- 

 ducted with culpable looseness in his meth- 

 ods, and that there were incredible extrava- 

 gance and error in the deductions that he 

 allowed himself to make from the false phe- 

 nomena to which his mode of experimenta- 

 tion inevitably led. 



Mr. Hart believes that the alleged advan- 

 tages of the therapeutic employment of hyp- 

 notism in certain neuroses, in alcoholism, and 

 in the cases of backward or naughty chil- 

 dren, are untenable, and that the effect of its 

 emplovment is to weaken the will power that 

 it is desirable to strengthen. In fact, com- 

 pared with the hypnotist faith-curer of the 

 hospital ward, the balance is in favor of the 

 faith-curer of the chapel and the grotto. 

 The latter strengthens the weaker individual- 

 ity by playing upon the theme of auto-sug- 

 gestion ; the patient is told to believe that 

 he will be cured, to wish it fervently and he 

 shall be cured. And his cure is quite as 

 real and likely to be quite as lasting as if he 

 had become the puppet of a hypnotizer. 



The method in which the subject is pre- 

 sented serves to convince the reader that the 

 phenomena of hypnotism do not transcend 

 the confines of explicable fact, and that 

 those that believe that it contains much that 

 is occult are but the dupes of their own 

 credulity. The volume is written in a style 

 that will enable the lay reader to understand 

 the topic, and it is to be hoped that its wide 

 circulation will correct many of the popular 

 impressions regarding the possibilities as 

 well as the facts of hypnotism. 



Electrical Experiments. By G. E. Box- 

 sey. London : Whittaker & Co. Pp. 252. 

 Price, *75 cents. 



This book has been prepared, Mr. Bon- 

 ney informs us in his preface, for the in- 



