1895.] Psychotogy. 1027 
opposite the twenty-fifth if the seventh ring of one is opposite the 
thirty-third of the other. 
(To be continued.) 
PSYCHOLOGY." 
Recent Work in Hypnotism.—With the June number the 
“ Revue de l’Hypnotisme ” completed its ninth volume and in turning 
over its pages I find several articles that are of more than merely 
technical interest. 
Liébeault of Nancy contributes two articles on the psychology of 
normal sleep and its relations to hypnotic sleep and waking life. 
The essential characteristic of waking life is the activity of attention 
and will; in sleep both faculties become quiescent; in hypnosis we 
find an anomalous “ polarisation” of attention, it being riveted on 
the idea of sleep on the one hand, whereby actual sleep is induced, 
and on the personality of the hypnotizer on the other. Will is 
quiescent, and thus the patient becomes amenable to suggestion. 
Violent passions, “ fascination,” aboulia, and all other states in which 
will power is weakened, are to be regarded as akin to sleep. 
Prof. Matias-Duval outlines a histological theory of sleep suggested 
by the Golgi-Cajal doctrines. Admitting that the ultimate nervous 
elements are functionally. related, not by actual physical continuity, 
but by mere contiguity, itis natural to suppose that the transmission 
of nervous activity would be facilitated by approximation of the ter- 
minal filaments. It is not improbable that they may be capable of 
amceba-like extension such as has been observed by Wiedersheim in 
the brain of Leptodora hyalina. It is possible that a paralysis of these 
terminal filaments may be brought about by the absence of oxygen and 
excess of carbonic acid; the transmission of nervous activity would 
thus be impeded and sleep supervene. 
Dr. Raphael Dubois contributes a paper on the physiological condi- 
tions of hibernation in the marmot. He has been unable to find traces 
in the blood of the hibernating animals of toxalbumens, toxines or 
other somniferous agents, but has found an excess of carbonie acid 
which he ascribes in part to the depression of circulation, respiration 
1 This department is edited by Dr. Wm. Romaine Newbold, University of Penn- 
sylvania. 
