Part 6 (2/2)
Hallucination.--”Hallucinations,” says a medical authority, ”are very common among those who are partially insane. They occur as a result of fever and frequently accompany delirium. They result from an impoverished condition of the blood, especially if it is due to starvation, indigestion, and the use of drugs like belladonna, hyoscyarnus, stramonium, opium, chloral, cannabis indica, and many more that might be mentioned.”
Large numbers of cases of attempted cure by hypnotism, successful and unsuccessful, might be quoted. There is no doubt that in the lighter forms of partial insanity, hypnotism may help many patients, though not all; but when the disease of the brain has gone farther, especially when a well developed lesion exists in the brain, mental treatment is of little avail, even if it can be practiced at all.
A few general remarks by Dr. Bernheim will be interesting. Says he:
”The mode of suggestion should be varied and adapted to the special suggestibility of the subject. A simple word does not always suffice in impressing the idea upon the mind. It is sometimes necessary to reason, to prove, to convince; in some cases to affirm decidedly, in others to insinuate gently; for in the condition of sleep, just as in the waking condition, the moral individuality of each subject persists according to his character, his inclinations, his impressionability, etc. Hypnosis does not run all subjects into a uniform mold, and make pure and simple automatons out of them, moved solely by the will of the hypnotist; it increases cerebral docility; it makes the automatic activity preponderate over the will. But the latter persists to a certain degree; the subject thinks, reasons, discusses, accepts more readily than in the waking condition, but does not always accept, especially in the light degrees of sleep. In these cases we must know the patient's character, his particular psychical condition, in order to make an impression upon him.”
Bad Habits.--The habit of the excessive use of alcoholic drinks, morphine, tobacco, or the like, may often be decidedly helped by hypnotism, if the patient wants to be helped. The method of operation is simple. The operator hypnotizes the subject, and when he is in deep sleep suggests that on awaking he will feel a deep disgust for the article he is in the habit of taking, and if he takes it will be affected by nausea, or other unpleasant symptoms. In most cases the suggested result takes place, provided the subject can be hypnotized al all; but unless the patient is himself anxious to break the habit fixed upon him, the unpleasant effects soon wear off and he is as bad as ever.
Dr. c.o.c.ke treated a large number of cases, which he reports in detail in his book on hypnotism. In a fair proportion of the cases he was successful; in some cases completely so. In other cases he failed entirely, owing to lack of moral stamina in the patient himself. His conclusions seem to be that hypnotism may be made a very effective aid to moral suasion, but after all, character is the chief force which throws off such habits once they are fixed. The morphine habit is usually the result of a doctor's prescription at some time, and it is practiced more or less involuntarily. Such cases are often materially helped by the proper suggestions.
The same is true of bad habits in children. The weak may be strengthened by the stronger nature, and hypnotism may come in as an effective aid to moral influence. Here again character is the deciding factor.
Dr. James R. c.o.c.ke devotes a considerable part of his book on ”Hypnotism” to the use of hypnotism in medical practice, and for further interesting details the reader is referred to that able work.
CHAPTER X.
Hypnotism of Animals.--Snake Charming.
We are all familiar with the snake charmer, and the charming of birds by snakes. How much hypnotism there is in these performances it would be hard to say. It is probable that a bird is fascinated to some extent by the steady gaze of a serpent's eyes, but fear will certainly paralyze a bird as effectively as hypnotism.
Father Kircher was the first to try a familiar experiment with hens and c.o.c.ks. If you hold a hen's head with the beak upon a piece of board, and then draw a chalk line from the beak to the edge of the board, the hen when released will continue to hold her head in the same position for some time, finally walking slowly away, as if roused from a stupor.
Farmers' wives often try a sort of hypnotic experiment on hens they wish to transfer from one nest to another when sitting. They put the hen's head under her wing and gently rock her to and fro till she apparently goes to sleep, when she may be carried to another nest and will remain there afterward.
Horses are frequently managed by a steady gaze into their eyes. Dr. Moll states that a method of hypnotizing horses named after its inventor as Bala.s.siren has been introduced into Austria by law for the shoeing of horses in the army.
We have all heard of the snake charmers of India, who make the snakes imitate all their movements. Some suppose this is by hypnotization. It may be the result of training, however. Certainly real charmers of wild beasts usually end by being bitten or injured in some other way, which would seem to show that the hypnotization does not always work, or else it does not exist at all.
We have some fairly well known instances of hypnotism produced in animals. Lafontaine, the magnetizer, some thirty years ago held public exhibitions in Paris in which he reduced cats, dogs, squirrels and lions to such complete insensibility that they felt neither p.r.i.c.ks nor blows.
The Harvys or Psylles of Egypt impart to the ringed snake the appearance of a stick by pressure on the head, which induces a species of teta.n.u.s, says E. W. Lane.
The following description of serpent charming by the Aissouans of the province of Sous, Morocco, will be of interest:
”The princ.i.p.al charmer began by whirling with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity in a kind of frenzied dance around the wicker basket that contained the serpents, which were covered by a goatskin. Suddenly he stopped, plunged his naked arm into the basket, and drew out a cobra de capello, or else a haje, a fearful reptile which is able to swell its head by spreading out the scales which cover it, and which is thought to be Cleopatra's asp, the serpent of Egypt. In Morocco it is known as the buska. The charmer folded and unfolded the greenish-black viper, as if it were a piece of muslin; he rolled it like a turban round his head, and continued his dance while the serpent maintained its position, and seemed to follow every movement and wish of the dancer.
”The buska was then placed on the ground, and raising itself straight on end, in the att.i.tude it a.s.sumes on desert roads to attract travelers, began to sway from right to left, following the rhythm of the music. The Aissoua, whirling more and more rapidly in constantly narrowing circles, plunged his hand once more into the basket, and pulled out two of the most venomous reptiles of the desert of Sous; serpents thicker than a man's arm, two or three feet long, whose s.h.i.+ning scales are spotted black or yellow, and whose bite sends, as it were, a burning fire through the veins. This reptile is probably the torrida dipsas of antiquity. Europeans now call it the leffah.
”The two leffahs, more vigorous and less docile than the buska, lay half curled up, their heads on one side, ready to dart forward, and followed with glittering eyes the movements of the dancer. * * * Hindoo charmers are still more wonderful; they juggle with a dozen different species of reptiles at the same time, making them come and go, leap, dance, and lie down at the sound of the charmer's whistle, like the gentlest of tame animals. These serpents have never been known to bite their charmers.”
It is well known that some animals, like the opossum, feign death when caught. Whether this is to be compared to hypnotism is doubtful. Other animals, called hibernating, sleep for months with no other food than their fat, but this, again, can hardly be called hypnotism.
CHAPTER XI.
A Scientific Explanation of Hypnotism.--Dr. Hart's Theory.
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