Auguste Voisin used to keep some of his patients for long periods of time in a state of altered personality; and there is no doubt but that in affecting moral reformation we do not so much create new personality as bring out traits of character which have either been forgotten or have remained undeveloped.

Liebeault describes the case of a Pole who was under his treatment for epilepsy. The man was very excitable, and had been a soldier in the Polish rebellion. After each attack he became so violent that it took six men to hold him in bed. During his violent struggles he would shout and declaim as though in the heat of a desperate engagement, and even after he had become calm and quiet he would for some minutes believe that he had been fighting in a battle, and would recite the incidents he thought he had witnessed. The vision was always the same: a desperate right against overwhelming odds, a town in flames, and the whole scene illuminated by a moon of fantastic form.*

The head-master of a boys' school tells me that he is obtaining good results in the suggestive treatment of moral disease and of mental torpor, and some of his pupils declare that when they have been hypnotized their sums ' come easier ' to them than usual. Some time since I was called upon to treat a case of moral perversity in a young girl, and she greatly improved under the influence of suggestion. From being idle and rebellious, she has, so I am told by her teachers, become docile, and has developed a decided aptitude for study. A ' chronic ' medical student, in about his tenth year, who consulted me occasionally, assured me that my treatment ' wound up' his intellectual machinery, so that he could work several hours a day after each visit. As this gentleman was only slightly hypnotizable, I do not take much credit to myself for this good effect; but I do claim for hypnotism the results achieved in another case, also that of a medical student. The patient was not only idle, but was addicted to drink and dissipation. At heart, however, he was a good fellow, and was much beloved by his friends. He came to me in despair, assuring me hypnotism was his last chance, and that if it failed he should shoot himself.

It succeeded, and he is now in good practice, with an excellent wife, and every prospect of a life of happiness and usefulness.

* ' Therapeutique Suggestive,' p. 142.

Wingfield relates the effect of hypnotism on one of his Cambridge subjects. The young man was clever and well-meaning, but an inveterate idler, and could not settle to work. In a state of profound hypnosis Dr. Wingfield 'suggested' that he should retire to his rooms every evening after dinner and settle down to steady work until midnight, that he should ' sport his oak' and deny himself to his friends, and that he should pass his forthcoming examination. The suggestions succeeded perfectly, and in six weeks the patient passed a good examination, much to his own delight and to the surprise of his friends. Wingfield's book is full of similar good stories. For instance, that of the very prosaic young man who was told to write a poem on the boat-race. This he actually did, and thought the inspiration proceeded from within. Unfortunately the verses are terrible doggerel.

Liebeault tells of a schoolboy who was hypnotized as an encouragement to his younger brother, the real patient. He proved such a good subject that it seemed a pity to waste the opportunity, and the doctor therefore 'suggested' great industry and hard work, so that he might rise to the top of his class. The boy was intelligent but idle, and the suggestion had such effect that for three weeks he worked hard and did occupy the top of his class instead of his usual place at the bottom. But he gradually deteriorated, his mother wanted to take him to Liebeault again, but the boy absolutely refused to go, for he said he didn't like that doctor, because what he did made him work too hard.

On the other hand, Vincent relates how he suggested to a history student that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1067; for several days, if asked for the date, he gave that, and stuck to it. Then there is the story of a French accountant, whose books all went wrong because he was told, when profoundly hypnotized, that two and three made six. Such an upsetting of one's experience and knowledge would not last long without repetition of the suggestion, for the mental pendulum would swing back to its normal position, as in the case of Mrs. S------and the cat (p. 77).

I have been asked to treat several children who were unsatisfactory. In one case a boy of fourteen wrote to me from a public school, asking me to hypnotize him to enable him to overcome certain bad habits and the intellectual lassitude which he supposed to be their result. The boy proved an excellent subject, and responded perfectly to the suggestions I made. He worked so well that he took a good scholarship, and afterwards became a high wrangler at Cambridge. Medical men and parents often notice that boys about the age of puberty become idle and unsatisfactory, and such cases require very careful management, as the boy's future is at stake. Hypnotic suggestion in good hands is very useful in tiding over this critical period.

It should be clearly understood that the use of hypnotic suggestion as an educational influence should be carefully restricted, and never allowed to interfere with the healthy development of individual character. It should be reserved for cases where there is inherited or acquired vicious tendency, and should even then be resorted to only when other means have been fairly tried and found ineffectual. We know that in some young persons there is a complete breakdown of the moral self, while in some others it seems entirely absent, and it is for children of this debased or deteriorated type - such children as abound in our reformatories - that this moral treatment will prove most useful. I would especially mention its power to cure the inherited craving for alcohol, which so frequently appears in the neuropathic children of drunken parents. In an article contributed to the Medical Annual for 1898 I laid great stress on the value of hypnotic suggestion as a corrector of bad heredity, and of all the uses of hypnotism I believe this to be the greatest.