Bernheim contends that 'the brain controls all the organs and every function, and that each part of the organism has its ultimate representation in a brain cell, which is its primum movens. † Each movement is realized by a cortical motor centre, and each tactile, visceral, and muscular sensation by a cortical sensory cell.'

He considers that all the organs and functions are subordinate to psychical states, and that by determining these states we can influence function. ‡ In the earlier part of this work I have quoted numerous instances showing the connection between psychical states and organic functions, but in these the psychical influence has for the most part been accidental and undirected, and the resulting reaction has not infrequently been more harmful than beneficial. Hypnotism enables us in many cases to control this influence and direct it into proper channels. I would compare the effect of emotional states to the conduct of the master of a large establishment. As long as everything goes on well his interference with minutiae is not required, and would probably be harmful. Every foreman and servant knows his place, and the work is regulated as it were by clockwork. But let some grave source of danger or difficulty arise, and we shall find that the master's hand is needed to control his subordinates and to prevent confusion and damage arising. Suppose that, instead of orderly and necessary interference, his conduct is guided by passion or dictated by panic, and what do we find? Instead of his action being beneficial, it is injurious, and even disastrous.

Action of the incompetent or panic-stricken master is comparable to the misdirected and haphazard influence of the higher centres on the general health and functions in emotional states; while the beneficial influence exerted by a cool-headed and capable one is paralleled by the influence the higher centres can be made to exercise over the lower by means of hypnotism.

* ' Fisiopsicologia dell' ipnotismo,' p. 24.

† ' Hypnotisme, Suggestion, psycho-therapies,' p. 449.

‡ Ibid., p. 46.

Sir Lauder Brunton quotes a case which he considers strongly corroborative of his view that the highest layer of the cortical cells controls the functioning of the lower centres, and that it has an influence even over reflex actions. A patient under the care of Sir J. (then Dr.) Crichton Browne was attacked with facial erysipelas, which spread by metastasis to the brain. The man showed symptoms of cortical irritation, and examination showed that the reflexes were abolished. The disease progressed, and he became unconscious, and it was then found that the reflexes had returned. The patient died, and the autopsy revealed degenerative changes in the cortex.

Lauder Brunton, therefore, supposes that nerve currents set in motion by irritation of the brain, or some of its convolutions transmitted down the cord, may inhibit reflex action. * Dr Mercier † and other writers on insanity point out how disease of the highest centres is nearly always accompanied by disorder of nutrition. This is especially seen in the alteration which takes place in the nails and hair, the former becoming brittle and ill-shapen, and the latter coarse and refractory. Dr. Van Eeden once showed me a little girl under treatment by suggestion for infantile paralysis. The little patient was gradually regaining the use of her legs, and a great improvement in general nutrition was apparent. In no direction was this more marked than in the toenails. For three years there had been no growth in these, and they had never required cutting; but a month after the treatment was commenced they had grown so long as to necessitate the use of the scissors, and from that time they required trimming every four or five weeks.

* ' On Inhibition,' West Riding Reports, 1874. † ' Sanity and Insanity,' p. 135.

A few words on the foundations of consciousness will enable us to comprehend better its impairment or abrogation in the advanced stages of hypnosis. Its physical basis depends, first, on the connection of the highest layers of the cortex with the other parts of the nervous system; and, secondly, on the connection of the highest centres with each other. So that, as Professor Sir Michael Foster says, * consciousness, volition, and other psychical processes are not the functions of the cortex, but functions of its connection with other parts of the nervous system. He asks what would happen if, while the cortex remained healthy, afferent impulses were no longer conveyed to it? and he answers that lethargy with suspension of all psychical processes would be the result. He supports this theory by citing a remarkable case - that of a man, who, being deaf, and blind of one eye, became, in addition, affected with complete tactile and general anaesthesia, and anosmia. His only connection with ' the life of relation ' was through the one sense which remained in functional activity, and when the eye was kept closed he soon passed into a condition of lethargy.

Dr. Macfarlane in his recent work, ' Insomnia and its Therapeutics,' quotes a somewhat similar case - that of a girl, aged sixteen, whose skin and mucous membrane became completely anaesthetic, so that she failed to perceive the application of violent stimuli to them. At the same time she lost the muscular sense and became entirely dependent on her sight and hearing for her relationship with the outer world. Here again it happened that closing these two avenues of sense resulted in the rapid production of sleep. She could be aroused from this by stimuli acting on these senses, and she also used to awake spontaneously after a time if left to herself. These cases form an interesting antithesis to that of Laura Bridgman, who not only possessed one sense (that of touch) very abnormally developed, but also enjoyed an unimpaired coenthesis, so that the cortex of her brain was being constantly acted upon by healthy impulses.

* 'Physiology', vol. iii., p. 117.

She did not, therefore, fall into lethargy when the tactile sense was not in use, but slept in the same way as ordinary persons.