The experiments of Delbceuf, who worked in common with Winiwarter and Henrijean, also belong to the class of organic lesions. Delbceuf produced symmetrical burns, and made one of the wounds painless by suggestion. It was observed in this case that the painless wound showed a much greater tendency to heal, and, in particular, that the inflammation showed no tendency to spread. As, however, there were some slight anomalies, the experiments are not fully convincing.

Jendrassik and Krafft-Ebing obtained marks like burns on one of their subjects by means of suggestion. If some object, such as a match-box, a pair of scissors, a snuff-box, a linen stamp, etc., was pressed upon the skin "in the morning, and the subject was at the same time told that his skin was being burned, a blister in the form of the object resulted in the afternoon. The marks remained a long time visible. If the object was pressed on the left side of a patient who was anaesthetic on the right, the burn appeared symmetrically on the right almost as if reflected in a glass, as could be especially seen if letters were used. Jendrassik maintains that deception was absolutely excluded in these cases of suggested burns; and a dermatologist, Lipp, at one of the experiments, declared that it would be impossible to cause the suggested lesion by any artificial means, either mechanical or chemical. Burns by suggestion have often been observed in the Salpetriere. Pierre Janet experi-mented on a patient who showed wounds like those of Christ. Schrenck-Notzing also observed that a wound which this same patient had in the cardiac region bled on Good Friday. In one case Janet suggested stigmatization of the right instep; the skin turned red at the spot suggested, and a blister followed which healed by scabbing.

During the experiment the patient was very carefully watched, the foot being enclosed in a sheet of copper having an aperture in which a watch-glass was inserted, so that the changes which the skin might undergo at the spot suggested could be observed (Schrenck-Notzing). Ryvalkin and Wetterstrand have also seen burns induced by suggestion, and Podiapolsky states that he succeeded in producing blisters in the case of a peasant-girl, aged eighteen. The girl was thrown into hypnotic sleep at half-past nine one evening, and the suggestion made that she should be affected by a blister like that produced by a burn; at a quarter past twelve the next day there was a blister filled with serous fluid; but the details given do not suffice to show that the experiment was properly controlled.

The experiments made by Schrenck-Notzing on one patient belong to this category. Flach, of Aschaffenburg, experimented on a girl of twenty, and succeeded in producing erythema by suggesting that the cold key held to her skin was red-hot. The erythema was visible three weeks after the experiment was made, and healed by superficial exfoliation. Wheals have often been produced by contact with a solid substance, although the subject experimented on had never previously suffered from any spontaneous form of nettle-rash. Flach, who first of all experimented in conjunction with Offner, tested the same patient by some experiments which he made with Parish's assistance for the purpose of ascertaining whether severe pain, followed by itching and the formation of blisters, could be induced by suggestion, without the skin being directly stimulated. As a matter of fact, a watery blister appeared the next morning. In further experiments in which it was suggested that a burn was caused by the thermo-cautery, erythema and blisters of various sizes were produced which could hardly have been caused by artificial means, as the spots selected were covered with wadding and plaster and sealed up. An experiment was made in Munich in the presence of a number of specialists.

The subject was watched constantly, and the possibility of any mechanical injury obviated by means of a bandage. In this case it was suggested that a particular spot on the back of the fore-arm had been burned by the thermo-cautery, but when the bandage was removed the injury was found to be in front. As, however, the bandage had been pierced in several places and a hair-pin was found in it, it was suspected that the injury was self-inflicted. To avoid any possibility of doubt, another experiment was made in which a plaster-of-paris bandage was used; when the bandage was taken off it was found that nothing had happened to the skin.

The fact that the results in this case diminished in direct proportion to the precautions taken is not an off-hand proof that suggestion produced no effect. It is very possible that the extraordinarily strict precautions taken so affected the subject's mind that any reaction to suggestion was excluded. On the other hand, the case does not conclusively prove that organic lesions can be induced by suggestion.

I now come to some experiments in which the hypnotic was told that a blister had been applied to him, which blister was only an ordinary piece of paper. As Binet and Fere inform us, this experiment was made as long ago as 1840 by an Italian doctor, Prejalmini, and Du Prel tells us that in 1819 a sloughing of the skin was obtained by an ordinary piece of linen in the case of a somnambule who had been magnetized by Celicurre de l'Aupepin. Focachon, an apothecary of Charmes, has recently repeated the experiment. Sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with the Nancy investigators, he applied pieces of paper, suggesting they were blisters. He is said to have often produced blistering. Beaunis has published an exact report of some experiments of this kind.

After the experiment had lasted for twenty-one hours the paper was taken off, and it was found that the skin was thickened, dead, and of a yellowish tint; later, perhaps as a result of the pressure of the clothes, several small blisters appeared. The reverse experiment has also been successfully made by the Nancy investigators, who were able to counteract the effect of a real blister by suggestion. Meunier has published an account of such an experiment made at Nancy. Forel, also, often tried to produce organic changes by suggestion. In one attempt to produce blisters little pustules of acne appeared. Besides this, Prof. Forel has made some other experiments, the results of which he has kindly allowed me to publish.