Hypnotism has proved very beneficial in the acute delirium attending many fevers, and the best method of using it is by holding the attention of the subject, by means previously described, until the surplus activity of the brain is subdued. A rather large experience with it in this field has convinced me that whenever feasible the attention should be held by touch, sight and hearing, sometimes a difficult task. Also the suggestion may be suited to any delusion in the mind of the patient which is made apparent by his speech.

One man was suffering from what is termed a "busy delirium," and was in the second week of typhoid, and constantly spoke of an unpaid bill, and of certain debts which were due him, and of a contract which he should sign but could not. Holding his right hand in mine with my left a document was held before his eyes and he was commanded to look steadily at it. He was told that this paper would give me the power to settle his affairs, and he was commantled to sleep. The patient, being delirious for fourteen hours, was made by this means to sleep four and one-half hours.

Another person suffering from a form of religious delirium, after several futile attempts to hypnotize him, was finally hypnotized by having a portion of the Episcopal prayer-ljook read to him. Many more instances could be quoted. Out of nearly one hundred delirious patients I never failed to obtain a greater or less degree of hypnosis. They are frequently more susceptible to it than when they are well.

Probably the effects of opiates are many times the results of suggestion rather than from the narcosis induced by the physiological action of the drug.

Hypnotism can be used to train the attention of persons habitually inattentive.

It probably would not, however, prove of service in permanently reducing high pulse-rates which frequently attend both disturbed mental and febrile states. 6