The experiments were made on a nurse, twenty-three years old, who was not in the least hysterical. She was the daughter of plain country people, and had been for a long time an attendant in the Zurich Lunatic Asylum which Forel directs. Forel considers she was a capable, honest person, in no way inclined to deceit.

A gummed label was fixed upon her chest above each breast; its shape was square, and in no case was an irritating gum used. At midday Forel suggested that a blister had been put on the left side; and at six o'clock in the evening a moist spot appeared at this place; the skin was swollen and reddened around it, and a little inflammation appeared also on the right side, but much less. Forel then did away with the suggestion. On the next day there was a scab on the left side. Forel had not watched the nurse from midday till six o'clock, but had suggested that she could not scratch herself. The other nurses said that the subject could not raise her hand to her breast, but made vain attempts to scratch. Forel repeated the experiment later; he put on the paper at 11.45 a.m., and ordered the formation of blisters in two and a half hours. Little pain was suggested, and therefore the nurse complained but little. At two o'clock Forel observed that the paper on the left side, which had been used for the experiment, was surrounded by a large red swelling. The paper could only be removed with difficulty. A moist surface of the epidermis was then visible, exactly square like the paper. Nothing particular appeared under the paper on the right side.

Forel then suggested the immediate disappearance of pain, inflammation, etc. Nevertheless the place wept and suppurated for a week, and the scab lasted for some time. Even when Prof. Forel related this to me, seven weeks later, the place was still brownish. The nurse was a little annoyed and uneasy about the experiment, and she was not strictly watched while it lasted.

A few days after this experiment Forel drew two very light crosses with the point of a blunt knife on the same person. They did not bleed. Another cross (Fig. 1) was made on the inner side of each fore-arm. Several doctors were present.

Fig. I.

Fig. II.

Forel suggested the appearance of blisters on the right side. Even at the end of five minutes, during which Forel watched the subject, a considerable reddish swelling of the skin appeared (Fig. II., a). A wheal, b, had formed itself round the cross, c, somewhat in the shape of a cross. On the left side nothing was to be seen but the cross that had been drawn, unaltered, as in Fig. I. The wheal on the right side resembled a vaccination pustule, in the form of a cross: but it was simply a dry papular swelling, as in nettle-rash. Forel then suggested the disappearance of the swelling and the wheal, and, further, the appearance of a drop of blood at the end of an hour. At the end of this time a very small drop of blood was to be seen; but the wheal, redness, and swelling had disappeared. But as Forel had not watched the subject during this hour, he attached no importance to the drop of blood, which might have been caused by the prick of a needle. Later on it was only possible to cause a slight reddening of the skin. Forel only lays weight on the experiment in which the papular swelling was produced, but even that he does not consider absolutely conclusive. Still, the fact that the wheals only appeared on one side tells against the theory of mechanical irritation.

Of course it may be objected that both sides were not scratched alike; but, as Forel points out, the nurse was not one of those persons who get a wheal whenever their skin is slightly stimulated. Except when bitten by gnats she never showed any wheals. When her skin was scraped it showed a disposition to redden, but wheals never formed. She had, besides, often been scratched by insane patients, but no remarkable result had ever been observed.

It should be added that there are people who develop wheals under mental excitement without hypnosis. A trustworthy observer told me of the case of a person who was so frightened of thunderstorms that he showed wheals with a red border whenever one was approaching. D. Weiss tells of a case in which fright invariably caused an attack of herpes labialis from which he concludes that structural changes in the tissues may be brought about by suggestion. At the same time he considers that the subjects should be carefully watched before drawing any conclusion.

Naturally, all these experiments must be received with a certain amount of reserve; not that we have a right to deny that anatomical changes can be produced by suggestion, but because the evidence of such changes having taken place must be unimpeachable before we can accept it. Otherwise we should show ourselves as incapable of conducting a critical investigation as the quacks who pretend in their advertisements to be able to cure any and every organic disease by magnetism or some other universal specific. We must also participate in Schrenck-Notzing's scepticism as to the conclusiveness of the experiments described above. Most of the objections raised by the sceptics are to the point, especially those which refer to inefficient supervision of the subjects experimented on. But Lcewenfeld thinks that Schrenck-Notzing has carried his scepticism too far, because Charcot did prove in one of his experiments that trophical processes can be influenced by suggestion. On five consecutive days he suggested to a hysterical patient, in hypnosis, that his right hand should swell and become larger than the left; that it should turn bluish red in colour, and, further, become hard and also colder. The suggestion is said to have resulted in the right hand swelling to twice the size of the left.