In the event of a criminal action being committed through hypnotic suggestion, expert evidence will be forthcoming to completely establish the case.

I think, however, a false plea of having acted under hypnotic compulsion is a much more probable event than the perpetration of crime through such agency. It is not unlikely that we shall have persons demanding blackmail for alleged felonious hypnotization, as we have had from time to time similar accusations of administering chloroform.*

* It looks as if the plea of having acted under hypnotic suggestion is to become a matter of course in French causes celebres. The papers have been filled with the reports of a sensational trial in Algeria. A Madame Weiss was found guilty of attempting to poison her husband, and she pleaded that she had acted under the control of her lover, who had hypnotized her, and whose suggestions she was unable to resist. The woman was thoroughly degraded, and her accomplice to open up the possibility of a man or woman being reduced to a state of complete mental and moral slavery.* I believe such dependence can only be possible in cases where the hypnotist has dominated the same subject a

The alleged dangers of hypnotism may be ranged, then, under three heads: As they affect the morals, pocket, and health of the subject.

First, those to which the patient is liable while actually in the hypnotic trance. These embrace crimes of violence, and especially indecent assault or violation. The use of chloroform is attended with the same risk, and criminal reports show that there is real danger of this abuse. I venture to think that there is less danger on this score from hypnotism than from drugs, on account of the comparatively small number of persons who are susceptible to such a degree as to become ansesthetic and amnesic.

The second danger is a much more serious one, and if the allegations made against the abuse of mesmerism were true, they went far to justify the attitude the profession adopted towards it fifty years ago. It was alleged that persons became absolutely under the control of the mesmerist, and that such control could be, and on many occasions was, exercised, not only during the mesmeric sleep, but subsequently, for purposes of immorality and to extort money. It was even believed that this power could be exercised at a distance, and against the will of the subject.

More evidence of the possibility of the operator being able to influence the subject at a distance is still wanted, but the experiments of Professor Pierre Janet, of Havre, and Professor Liegeois, of Nancy, seem to show that under special circumstances and in rare instances a subject who has been hypnotized a great number of times by the same operator may be sent to sleep by the hypnotizer exerting his will from a distance. I have come to this conclusion with extreme unwillingness, for it seems was an unscrupulous villain; but the whole affair was a commonplace crime enough, and easily explicable without calling in the aid of hypnotism. For how many crimes, seductions, and accidents is alcohol responsible ! It is right, therefore, to educate the public on the subject, as is now being done in many schools.

* Examples of this are given in the works of Liegeois, Liebeault, and Bourru and Burot. Liebeault describes a series of experiments with Camille, a very hysterical subject well known to those who have visited Nancy. Camille, unconscious of the experiment, was in Dr. Liebeault's garden, and Dr. Liegeois in the dispensary. The distance between them was 29 metres, and subject and operator were concealed from one another by a thick hedge. Dr. Liegeois simply fixed his mind on the idea of making Camille sleep. In eight minutes she was actually asleep, and it was found that she was en rapport with the Professor and with no one else. He had hypnotized this subject a great number of times, and the experiment failed when Dr. Neilson endeavoured to repeat it under the same conditions. Dr. Beaunis, however, who had also frequently hypnotized her, was also able to send her to sleep from a distance (Liebeault, op. tit., P. 275).

Drs. Gibert and Janet experimented on Mde. B------, at Havre, in the presence of several competent witnesses. They succeeded in sending her to sleep by mental suggestion when she was some kilometres from them, and ignorant of what was going on. But they failed to influence her to commit definite acts. They could also awaken her by mental suggestion from a distance (Bourru et Burot, 'La Suggestion Mentale,' p. 160).

I have several times made a similar experiment on two or three of my most susceptible subjects, and have tried to hypnotize them by directing my thoughts on the purpose in view at various distances, but I have never noticed any effect. While, therefore, admitting its possibility, I feel convinced that the phenomenon is very rare. Hypnotism here, as in other directions, merely intensifies existing states. The researches of the Society for Psychical Research have completely proved the reality of telepathic influence; and hypnotism, by withdrawing the mind from the life of relation, intensifies the sensitiveness of those few persons who are susceptible to telepathic impressions.

It is a very common error to suppose that all persons in hypnotic somnambulism are mediumistic and have extraordinary powers. I have found people who are dull and phlegmatic in the waiting state, are at least equally so when hypnotized, and the people who are imaginative in the normal state, become more so when hypnotized. Camille, for instance, thought herself clairvoyant when hypnotized, and would answer questions as to the future, diagnose disease, and suggest remedies. Dr. Liebeault used to humour her in that way, and I have seen her make shrewd guesses and absurd mistakes. Such is also the experience of Forel, who is professedly sceptical about things occult. He tells, for instance, of a patient he attended who was a professional medium, and was worn out by her work. He tested her powers in various ways, and found she was guided entirely by her very great number of times, and then only in very exceptional cases. We have the consolatory legal maxim. de minimis non curat lex, but I think attention should be drawn to the possibility of such a thing with a view to averting its occurrence.

The Nancy theory of the all-powerfulness of posthypnotic suggestion introduces an additional element of danger into the practice of hypnotism, and if Liegeois's ideas were justified, they would, I think, afford a very grave argument against the popularization of the treatment. But most observers regard these ideas as exaggerated and somewhat fanciful, and the dangers opened up by them as chimerical. Still, the fact remains that there are a few persons in every thousand who are so influenced by suggestion as to be incapable of resisting the orders of the hypnotist even after long intervals of time; and who can be made to execute these orders as of their own initiative, and without being conscious of their source.

Occupying a somewhat middle ground between these two dangers is the risk of a person being made to sign cheques, forge documents, make promises, etc., while in a state of lucid somnambulism. Thus, Dr. de Watteville easily persuaded the ' Soho sleeper' to sign an I.O.U. But this danger does not appear to me at all so serious as that arising from post-hypnotic suggestion, for the subject would be able on waking to recognize the fact that he had been fraudulently dealt with, and to offer opposition subsequently. Moreover, the danger of such fraudulent proceedings is not confined to hypnotism, for signatures and promises have been extracted from persons through the instrumentality of intoxicating and stupefying drugs, and the law knows how to deal with such abuses.

The third alleged danger is happily non-existent. When visual and other impressions, which were generally quite faulty. She began to get better under hypnotic treatment, but her husband became alarmed and took her away, fearing interference with her ' medium-ship,' and consequent loss of income hypnotism is carefully employed for therapeutic purposes, injury to the subject's physical, moral, or mental health is never caused. That careless and ignorant tampering with hypnotism is dangerous has been sufficiently shown by the cases I have cited, in which grave nervous disturbances have been proved to follow its illegitimate employment (vide p. 123). There is still another danger attending its popularization which medical men will do well to be on their guard against, viz., blackmailing and false accusations, for they may be accused of improper conduct in respect to hypnotism, just as they are with regard to chloroform.

It is to be hoped that this possibility, while making them very careful, will not prevent them recommending the use of hypnotism when the patient's condition is such as to benefit from it.