In subsequent pages I shall detail some experiments to show how greatly the will acting through suggestion is able to modify the action of the heart in hypnosis, but such modifying influence is not necessarily confined to the hypnotic state. As a rule we are unable to exert any decided influence over the vegetative organs by simple ideation, but Professor Tarchanoff has recorded the case of a student who had the power of accelerating his heart's action by no less than thirty-five beats in a minute. Tarchanoff has very fully investigated and described the case, and he supposes that the acceleration does not depend upon deficiency in the controlling power of the vagus, but rather on increased control over the accelerators, which the student was able to exercise through the accelerator centres in the cord being connected with a will centre higher up.*

Hack Tuke gives an instance of death itself being produced by suggestion. A Frenchman of rank was condemned to death for some crime, and his friends, willing to avoid the scandal of a public execution, allowed him to be made the subject of an experiment. He was told that he must be bled to death. His eyes were bandaged, and his arm having been lightly pricked, a stream of warm water was made to trickle down it and fall into a basin, while the assistants kept up a running commentary on his supposed condition. 'He is getting faint; the heart's action is becoming feebler; his pulse is almost gone,' and other remarks of the sort. In a short time the miserable man died with the actual symptoms of cardiac syncope from haemorrhage, without having lost a drop of blood. (Vide note in Appendix, p. 378.)

* Quoted by Professor Hamilton, 'Text-Book of Physiology,' p. 569 (London, S. I). On the other hand, Brown-Sequard relates how a student in his class was able at will to bring about an arrest of the heart's action (Rev. Hebdominaire, 1882, p. 36). A few years ago we made a series of experiments on hypnotized subjects at the rooms of the Society for Psychical Research. The effect of suggestion on the pulse-rate was very remarkable, but we found that Mr. Podmore's pulse was almost as much affected as the subject's by getting him to imagine himself running to catch a train. He realized the action very thoroughly, though sitting in a chair, and soon the heart responded to repeated urgent suggestion by quickening at least twenty beats in the minute. There was no question, of course, of hypnotism. It was simply a control-experiment.

There are some authenticated cases of apparent death being produced by auto-suggestion. We hear of this being accomplished by Indian fakirs and other religious enthusiasts in Eastern countries. Braid cites a remarkable and, he believes, thoroughly well-authenticated instance of a distinguished holy man, who, to convince the Maharajah Runjeet Singh * that he possessed this power over himself, apparently died, and was laid in a sealed coffin within a vault, the entrance to which was also sealed and guarded by soldiers. After six weeks, the time appointed by himself, he was taken out of the tomb in the presence of the Rajah and of several credible witnesses, English as well as native, and found to display every appearance of death. Having been gradually revived by his own servant, the still ghastly-looking, corpselike creature sat up and spoke, his first words being addressed to the doubting Rajah: 'Do you believe me now?'

As sickness, and perhaps even death, may be produced by suggestion, so may be, and very often is, produced the cure of sickness. Towards this, however, auto-suggestion, though it might do much, does actually little or nothing, the natural reason being that the mind of a sick person, when left to itself, is prone rather to suggest morbid than health-inducing ideas, and so operates for mischief rather than in the direction of cure. Sir Thomas Clouston, in his article on mind cures in the Quarterly Review for

* This case is related in medical detail by Dr. McGregor in his 'History of the Sikhs,' p. 227. He was an eye-witness of the disinterment. There are other cases of a similar character, apparently well authenticated. The late Sir Richard Burton wrote to me on the subject, stating that he had investigated cases of vivi-sepulture, and was convinced of their genuineness.

The starting-point of the movements of the heart is the excitation produced by the pressure of the blood on the sensory or centripetal nerve fibres of the endocardium. If the contact of the blood with the endocardium be prevented, the heart ceases its pulsation, the physiological cause of the reflex action having been removed. If the chest, and consequently the heart, be compressed by a series of forced expirations and by holding the breath, so as completely to empty the lungs, and bring the muscular walls of the heart into close contact, we may succeed in stopping its beating. The performance of this January, 1913, tells how a patient under his care conceived the idea that he must die, and die he did in spite of ail that could be done for him. He became extremely emaciated, though he took plenty of food. He goes on to say: 'It is certain that in time, through brain and mental influences, some diseases now regarded as incurable will be cured. Such influences largely control nutrition, and many organic diseases result from malnutrition.' Sir W. Osier once said: ' Hope and nux vomica will cure most curable diseases.' Every physician knows how, by determined hopefulness and cheerfulness, a sufferer from functional, and even from curable organic, disease may facilitate the work of healing, and materially hasten his recovery.

In all ages wonderful cures, real amid a multitude of shams, have been wrought at holy places dedicated to various saints of various cults. Among the throngs of pilgrims to Mecca, to the sacred rivers and temples of India, to the shrines of Buddhist hagiology, there are some who, having made the outward journey wearily and painfully, do indeed turn homeward with the gift of health. A proportion of those who have limped or been carried to Lourdes and to a hundred other holy places of the Catholic Church, do leave behind them crutches that they no longer require. Some of the sufferers who worshipped the Holy Coat at Treves did truly receive in restored health the reward of their faith. Some wearers of relics and amulets are really the better for possessing them. The cheered, uplifted, and convinced mind works, sometimes with startling rapidity, on the diseased body. *