Dynamometric investigations - that is, measurements of the muscular force - -have often been undertaken during hypnosis. I myself have made a number of such experiments, which for the most part agreed with the results of Beaunis. The most important part appears to me to be that in most cases the muscular force is lessened in hypnosis. I have made these investigations during the different hypnotic states, and have but rarely found an increase. However, there are variations, and I have occasionally seen the strength of one hand increase while that of the other diminished. I have also obtained different results at different times with the same person. When there were such variations they were always of small amount, and they are the less important because all dynamometrical investigations suffer from certain sources of error. In opposition to the conclusions which have been drawn from the investigations just detailed, Luys points out that in hypnosis the muscular force sometimes increases simultaneously with the loss of sensibility - the increase being at times two-fold. But it would be far-fetched to conclude from this that the increase in the muscular force is dependent on the disturbance in the sensibility. Carpenter reports that the muscular force may often be increased by suggestion.

One of Braid's patients, who had been so weak for years that he could not lift even a twenty-pound weight, was enabled, by means of suggestion, to pick up a twenty-five pound weight with his little finger and swing it easily round his head. On another occasion the same subject raised a fifty-pound weight to his knee on the last joint of his fore-finger (Bramwell).

Let me take this opportunity of discussing the muscular sense. This sense instructs us as to the position and movements of our limbs. Its existence is consequently necessary for the performance of any useful function. There could be no artistic skill without the muscular sense. Braid relates that a hypnotized girl once imitated some of the songs of the famous Jenny Lind perfectly, which she was quite incapable of doing in the waking state. Braid attributes this fact to the delicacy of hearing and of the muscular sense in the hypnotic state. Some cases of imitative speech (echolalia), which' can be cultivated to a high degree of perfection, would belong here. But whether the delicacy of the muscular sense is increased in hypnosis without suggestion is more than doubtful. Dollken, indeed, holds the contrary view. He experimented on the subject's capability of denoting the position of his (the subject's) limbs, and found the answers inexact or confused unless the hypnotic was given time for reflection. Dollken found that a short pause for reflection sufficed to produce the right answer. Those alterations in the handwriting which Dollken and others have noticed in hypnosis are perhaps referable to a diminution in the muscular sense. Anyway, the muscular sense can be influenced by hypnosis.

It is interesting to learn that absence of the muscular sense has often been observed in cases of total anaesthesia of one arm, although voluntary movement of the limb in question has been retained. We have here a condition like that met with in locomotor ataxy. Sufferers from the latter disease can perform any operation, such as writing, correctly, provided their eyes remain open, but can only do such actions imperfectly directly their eyes are closed (William James and Carnochan).

The muscular sense enables us to estimate the weight of any object placed in our hand, because we adjust the activity of the muscles called into play to the weight of the object dealt with. Bramwell and Alcock made certain experiments for the purpose of testing the muscular sense in hypnosis. They used little boxes of different weight and experimented for the purpose of ascertaining if hypnotic suggestion enabled a subject to detect minuter differences in weight than he could in the waking state. The experiments seemed to point to such a possibility; but Bramwell expresses no definite opinion on the question, and, moreover, does not appear to consider the experiments conclusive.

We may here consider the electric excitability of the muscles and nerves, to which little attention has hitherto been paid-Moritz Rosenthal finds an increase of electric sensibility in hypnosis. Tereg also found changes in one case, which, however, was investigated without the galvanometer; and Marina has done the same in the case of a person in the waking state, who, however, had often been hypnotized. I, for my part, like Heidenhain, Berger, and Rieger, have been unable to discover anything of importance in this direction. I have tried more than a hundred different experiments without finding a perceptible difference on this point between the hypnotic and waking states. I made my experiments with the galvanic and faradic current; I used Hirschmann's galvanometer, and made most of the experiments on the ulnar nerve just above the elbow. I have already said that the electric excitability is decreased in certain suggested paralyses. I may here just mention that according to Morselli and Mendelsohn the muscles contract more quickly from stimulation in hypnosis than in the waking state.

I have thoroughly discussed above the question whether new reflexes appear in hypnosis, and it consequently now remains for us to consider how the ordinary reflexes behave in that state. I have already spoken of the tendon reflexes, which are said to be increased in the lethargic stage of Charcot, and in certain paralyses by suggestion. Berger has also observed an increase of the patellar reflex. On the other hand, Vogt found, in his investigations on the influence of certain mental conditions on the knee-jerk and muscular tonus, that the knee-jerk lost in intensity. Vogt experimented on his wife, Frau Cecile Vogt. In these investigations it was found that the muscular tonus was diminished as well as the knee-jerk, and Vogt considers that his researches have thoroughly demonstrated the dependence of the strength of the knee-jerk on that of the muscular tonus. Like Berger, I have often noticed changes in the knee-jerk. But it seems that the type of hypnosis and the kind of suggestion play a great part in this respect. We are thus enabled to explain an increase of tendon reflexes in cases of suggested paralysis and when the muscles are completely relaxed, and a decrease of those reflexes in cataleptic postures.