H. F------, aged forty-seven, a valet, came under treatment in March. He was pale, anaemic, and emaciated, and had an expression and appearance of great depression. His family history was good. He had never drunk to excess or had syphilis, and was married and had a healthy family. In 1870 he was a soldier in the German army, and was wounded severely in the leg, but made a good recovery. In 1884 he had an attack of what he calls blood-poisoning, but what appears to have been typhoid fever, on the Continent, and he has never been really well since. In 1888 he noticed some failure of sight, and at the same time a numbness of parts of the skin of the back and chest became apparent. His bowels became constipated and only moved by the aid of purgatives, which, however, caused so much colicky pain that the action was always accompanied by vomiting and followed by prostration, which kept him confined to bed for the following twenty-four hours. He suffered from frequent sharp ' lightning' pains down the arms, and especially the legs, and from neuralgia in the chest and back. His tongue was dry and coated; he had no appetite, and there was great mental depression. In twelve months he had lost 2 stone in weight, was unable to walk more than half a mile, and always felt tired.

The pupils were contracted and almost insensible to light, and there was almost complete atrophy of the right optic nerve, with partial atrophy of the left. The reflexes were absent, but there was nothing ataxic in his gait. Extensive patches of local anaesthesia occupied almost the whole of the left chest and back, and also the skin of the upper lip and nose. He was hypnotized, and fell into the third state.

* This case is published in the Comptes Rendus of the first International Congress on Hypnotism.

Suggestions were made as to regular and painless action of the bowels, absence of pain, etc. The next day he had a slight motion (the first natural one for three months) without much pain, and felt better generally. Improvement was steady and constant, and in two weeks he was able to walk two or three miles without fatigue, was free from pain and discomfort, and the bowels were regular.

With the exception of a slight relapse, following a bad chill in 1892, he continued fairly well and comfortable until I lost sight of him in 1897. The disease progressed, but slowly and painlessly. On finding such great success followed suggestions, I was induced to try if they had any influence on his sight, and one morning suggested increased warmth and circulation, followed by improved vision, keeping my fingers over the eyes for three or four minutes. The effect was somewhat surprising, for the following day he was able to read ordinary print at a distance of 6 inches with his left eye, and to distinguish the hands of the clock at 2 feet with his right - a wonderful improvement on his performance the previous day, when he could barely make out large type (D = 4) with the left eye, and could not distinguish the nature of any object with the right. But the improvement was only temporary, and in spite of repeated suggestions his sight had relapsed to nearly its former condition within a week. He told me a somewhat similar result followed some months previously the administration of strong doses of strychnine by hypodermic injection.

Still, he invariably saw more clearly and dis tinctly after being hypnotized than before, and whereas his sight was steadily deteriorating previous to this treatment, it afterwards remained stationary for years.*

Probably the explanation of the sudden improvement is that suggestion had powerfully stimulated the healthy nerve elements to abnormal activity, which, however, could not be maintained. I may add that suggestion did little or nothing for the local anaesthesia, but that symptom was greatly modified by a course of suspension under Dr. de Watteville.

This patient was conscious of what went on around him, and by an effort of attention could follow the conversation and repeat its purport; but voices sounded indistinct and far off, and he felt very disinclined for exertion. It is the stage of automatic continuative movement, as shown by a simple experiment. If I gave his arms or hands a few turns and told him to go on with the movement, he was unable to stop it, but continued the action indefinitely. He answered questions addressed to him, not only by me, but by bystanders, and he awoke spontaneously in about fifteen minutes. If told to awake at the end of a certain number of minutes, he used to do so almost to a second.

* This incident throws some light on cases of ' miraculous' recovery of sight which one reads about as occurring at Salvation Army gatherings, etc. In purely hysterical cases no doubt permanent cure is sometimes brought about by suggestion, aided by expectant attention, when the nervous system is thrown off its balance by enthusiasm and by the impressiveness of the surroundings - is, in fact, in a condition analogous to hypnosis. One knows that many of such cases relapse in a very short time when the effect of excessive nervous stimulation subsides.