The name kleptomania excites a smile in many laymen, and they look upon it as a convenient cloak for the larcenies of the well-to-do. A learned judge is reputed to have replied to a counsel who raised this plea that he was there to cure that disease.

But medical men, especially those who have to deal with neurotic and mentally unstable patients, know that the condition constitutes a real entity, and reference to Hack Tuke's ' Dictionary of Psychological Medicine' shows that there is considerable literature on the subject. Drs. Auguste Voisin and Edgar Berillon, of Paris, have reported cases which they have successfully treated by hypnotic suggestion, and the following case affords additional evidence in support of this method of treatment:

A. Y------, aged sixteen, is a well-grown and intelligent youth. There is no history of epilepsy or insanity in the family. The patient lived at home until three years ago, when he was sent to a large public school. He was reserved with the other boys, and did not join in their sports with any ardour; but he worked well, had a good place in the school, and was well thought of by the masters and boys. For a year he got on very well, and then his character gradually underwent a change. He became morose and irritable, and when remonstrated with for his failure to learn his lessons, he replied that it was useless to try when he forgot at once what he learned.

At the same time articles of jewellery and books began to be missed, and when their disappearance was traced to him, and his boxes were searched, the lost property was found in them. He denied all knowledge of it, and became intensely excited when accused of theft. He was told that he must be flogged or expelled, and his relations were sent for. They very wisely, seeing his condition, decided that he should leave the school, and he returned to his home. He was now very different to what he had been formerly. He was then bright, frank, and affectionate; now he was sullen, irritable, and untruthful. A new school was found for him, which he attended as a day-scholar, but he had to be removed from it in six weeks,as he not only took things belonging to other boys, but also stole books from shops and bookstalls. At the same time he began to scream and gasticulate in his sleep at night, and his outbursts of passion became uncontrollable. He was taken to a well-known neurologist, who pronounced his case one of moral insanity, advised his removal from home, and his being placed under rigorous discipline.

He significantly added that he had known a similar case cured by three months' hard labour! The boy was shortly afterwards brought to me, on March 30, 1894, and I thought it a suitable case for trying hypnotism.

He was hypnotized in the usual way, and at once proved a good subject, though on the first occasion he was not somnambulistic. Suggestions were made that he should sleep quietly at night, that the nervous irritability should pass away, that his memory should improve, and that generally he should return to a normal condition. As a mental exercise and test of memory, he was told on his third visit, while in a state of trance, that he was to learn an ode of Horace that evening and write it out from memory the following morning. He carried out this suggestion then, and on a subsequent occasion, apparently of his own initiation, for he retained no recollection of my suggestion having prompted it.

He was kept under observation and hypnotized daily for a week, and was then allowed to go out alone, and was hypnotized twice a week for three months.

I did not see or hypnotize him from July 3 to October 30, but on the latter date I found him well and strong physically, and his family assure me that his former sweetness of disposition is entirely restored. His memory is good, and he no longer talks or gesticulates in his sleep.

There are several points of interest in the case: the alteration of disposition and character, the loss of memory, and the night terrors, pointed to an irritative disturbance of the highest cortical centres. His untruthfulness and denial of thefts when confronted with the evidence of them was at least partially dependent on real amnesia, and reminds one of the similar condition often observed after epileptic seizures. Though he was kept under treatment for four months, this length of time did not seem absolutely necessary, for there was almost an immediate removal of the nervous symptoms, and after the first two weeks further hypnotizing was only done as a precautionary measure.

The case was evidently one of degeneration occurring at the age of puberty; and the physiological rest of hypnosis, combined with the stimulating of the appropriate centres by suggestion, brought about a restitutio ad integrum, and imparted the needful bias towards healthy action, which tided him over the critical period of adolescence. It is particularly satisfactory to be able to cure a case of this kind speedily and pleasantly, as the method which must be adopted in default of hypnotism is an arduous and not always successful course of disciplinary training, extending, perhaps, over years.