Von Sehrenck has taken up this question during the last few years.1

Von Sehrenck divides the forensic cases, as I too have done, into -

1. Crimes on hypnotized persons.

2. Crimes which are committed with the assistance of hypnotized persons.

3. He adds a third category: criminal acts, induced by suggestion during the waking condition. I regard this category merely as a variety of the second, as will be gathered from my conception of suggestion (and also Vogt's).

Suggested evidence and self-accusation should figure instead as the third category.

To the first category a number of cases belong in which a markedly lethargic, deep, hysterical hypnosis was abused for sexual assaults. As a rule, the culprit was discovered and punished.

The following is a short resume which von Sehrenck gives of the most important cases:

"A certain patient writes in his autobiography that he rendered a young woman, who was tied to a decrepit old man, deeply somnambulic, and commanded her during this condition to perform certain onanistic manipulations with his genital organs. This she did, hut did not remember anything about it after awakening. The sexual intercourse was continued for three months, and was not discovered. The lady, however, possessed a passionate disposition, and loved her seducer. He would in all probability have been able to possess her in the waking condition as well. He chose this peculiar hypnotic way, as he feared detection."

"Miss von B., daughter of a superior officer, was hypnotized by a clergyman, and raped while in the condition of somnambulism, and the sexual abuse was repeatedly carried out in this way. After nine months a child was born. The criminal prosecution of the eulprit was not proceeded with, in order to avoid publicity. Later on, when Miss von B. had become engaged, her lover used the susceptibility which still remained from the past experiments in his fiancee for fresh hypnotic experiments; drew from her confessions about all sorts of details of her inmost self, and dictated his will to her by means of suggestion during the condition of deep hypnosis, when they had any difference of opinion. This mischief was only got rid of after my medical aid had been called upon, and an energetic hypnotherapeutie treatment had been instituted."

1 Von Sehrenck, "The Medico-Forensic Aspect of Suggestion," (Archiv fur Criminal-Anthropologie und Criminalistik, August, 1900.)

"Czynski [see above] had hypnotized the Baroness for medical reasons, and having got her in such a deep hypnotic condition that she was no longer capable of evincing her own will, he suggested his love for her, with the assistance of kisses and caresses. After six or eight hypnoses of this kind, be succeeded in getting her to yield herself to him, in spite of the fact that she did not return bis love. Her resistance had been artificially broken down by hypnotic means, love suggestions in connection with actual touching of her body, as well as by influencing her phantasy during waking. Czynski had therefore obtained the acceptation of his love proposals with the help of easily carried out suggestion. The jury acquitted the accused in respect to this part of the charge (offense against morality), probably on account of the legal interpretation of the act, or possibly because the Baroness later yielded herself voluntarily to her seducer. But in spite of this, there can be no doubt about the crime of the accused, and therefore about the criminal use which he made of the hypnotic condition by means of intentional suggestions. In this instructive case, therefore, the decision of the hypnotic specialist will differ from that of the lawyer."

"Laurent reports a case of this kind in which a medical student hypnotized a cousin of his, whom be had put in the family way, and suggested to her the symptoms of abortion for a definite time (suggestion a echeance). The abortion set in at the required time."

"Johann Berchthold, triple murderer. Since the mysterious uncertainty which attached to the deed was not cleared up after the discovery of the murder, a portion of the Munchen daily press began a kind of preliminary examination. Notices appeared daily in the most-read journals about the murder for nearly a month, as well as critical remarks about the unsatisfactory arrangements for public safety and of the police arrangements of the Isar town. Besides, the Government offered a reward of 1,000 marks for the detection of the murderer. Furthermore, the Munchener Neueste Nachrichten invited any one who knew anything of the matter to report it to the editorial staff, promising the strictest confidence. The material gained in this way formed matter for publication, and satisfied the cravings for sensational news. After several persons had brought forward matters relating to the occurrence, this journal declared at the time, before the magistrates had completed their preliminary investigations, 'that there was practically no doubt that Berchthold was the murderer.' The result of this behavior of the press was that numerous persons offered themselves as witnesses, and gave evidence on oath, making statements which represented the most obvious contradictions. Apart from this, the photograph of Berchthold, which had been published in the papers, caused several persons to have undoubted reactionary falsification of memory. Several female persons swore that this man - or some person bearing a striking resemblance to him - had attempted to gain admission into their houses, in the same way as admission had been gained into the houses of the murdered persons. Added to this, there was the evidence of undoubtedly hysterical persons and the adventurous relations of doubtful and repeatedly convicted individuals, and the only argument for the trustworthiness of this evidence was that it was given on oath. The suggestion exercised by the press in favor of the guilt of the accused had therefore not failed in its action. The defense assumed this standpoint, with the result that the magistrates had to desist from calling a number of witnesses for the prosecution. But the proof independent of the evidence of witnesses, the past life of Berchthold, his insufficient attempt to prove an alibi, his whole behavior - all were so much against him that the jury would have found him guilty even without taking into consideration the 'psychical epidemic' produced by the press. The difficult duty of the experts (Grashey and von Schrenck-Notzing) lay in discovering the source of error of the memory, and in reporting on the mental condition of a number of witnesses in respect to the trustworthiness of their evidence.