The underlying cause of this dream was afterwards explained by an old nurse, who related that she had charge of the lady when an infant of about a year old, and left her asleep in a cradle in a room opening on to a garden. One day a strange white dog had dashed into the room, upset the cradle, and awakened the sleeping infant. No great harm had been done, but the impression made on the undeveloped cortical cells had never been eradicated. Suggestion, if the patient were a good hypnotic subject, would almost certainly remove the idea. The researches of Freud throw much light on these cases, and show how careful we must be to guard children from evil influences. Not only ' every word a man shall utter,' but every word a child shall hear, seems stored up in the brain, and may come up for judgment.

1 conjunction with chloroform, and finds that his patients take the anaesthetic better, and require a much smaller quantity, than when it is administered silently in the usual ay. This is the experience of many anaesthetists, and the question was discussed in a recent debate (1910) at the loyal Society of Medicine, in the section of Anaesthetists, uch of the success of certain operators was attributed to their gentle and tactful administration. I know of no lore promising field for hypnotism than its use after perations - to relieve pain, neutralize shock, induce sleep, and remove restlessness and malaise. I have had but mited experience in this field, but such as it is it has been most encouraging.

Some years ago I hypnotized a woman for a dentist instead of giving her gas, and a very bad tooth was pain-ssly extracted. The patient not only felt no pain at the me, but there was no discomfort afterwards. This entist tells me that he now often uses hypnotism as an naesthetic in his practice, and finds it extremely useful, 3 not only does the patient feel no pain, but he is able to ssist the operator by holding his mouth open without a ag, and spitting when told to. If he finds the patient is ot hypnotizable, no harm is done, and he gives gas in the usual way.

Suggestion may be usefully employed instead of nar-otics in temporarily relieving acute pain, by inducing leep which will not be followed by the deleterious conse-uences of drugs. It is also used in cases where the leep itself is remedial, as in threatening congestion of the rain, delirium tremens, and in insomnia, when this exists san independent condition, and not merely as a symptom f disease.

But it is in the so-called 'neuroses' that suggestion obtains its most brilliant successes - in functional epilepsy, it. Vitus's dance, asthma, palpitation, nervous headache, pinal irritation, neurasthenia, ovarian pain, and the many forms of dyspepsia. Nervous disease is, unfortunately, over on the increase, and the study of its symptoms, its cure and prevention, must increase to keep pace with it. As civilization advances, humanity develops 'nerves,' which in this sense may be said to have no existence in the savage and barbarous states. The vices and virtues of civilization tend alike to increase our sensitiveness. Drink, narcotics, the abuse of tobacco, social excitements, intellectual culture, the ever-spreading desire to be or do something remarkable - these and many other stimulating influences are perpetually at work to promote nerve disease among us. In large cities, especially, where men live under artificial conditions and at high pressure, we find in all classes of the community affections presenting subjective symptoms quite out of proportion to the objective signs. It would be interesting to ascertain what proportion neurotic affections bear to organic diseases in a busy doctor's day's work. Probably one half at least.

Many of us when fresh from the hospital are vexed and surprised to find how much of our practice is made up of such cases. They are really among the most painful and difficult complaints a physician is called upon to treat, for they generally indicate a weak and depressed state of vitality, in which the slightest suffering is felt with intensified force. Take the medical nomenclature ending in algia: cardialgia, cephalalgia, gastralgia, myalgia, neuralgia - what visions of suffering do these words call up! Most of it is curable, or at least relievable, by suggestion.*

Hysteria, and many other neuroses, are popularly supposed to be essentially the diseases of the rich and idle, but Savill has shown that a considerable proportion of the cases in workhouse infirmaries are of this nature.* This is what the physiologist would expect. Probably nothing is so fruitful a predisposing cause of neurotic ailments as intemperance in the parents, and the children of slum-dwellers are sent into the world with such unstable nervous systems that those who manage to survive infancy are the special prey of all varieties of neuroses, and become the permanent tenants of workhouses and infirmaries. I have not been much impressed by the results of hypnotic treatment in a large proportion of these cases, and I have attributed its failure to the fact that there is a total absence of material to work upon. There is no reserve of nerve energy, as Dr. MacFarlane says of some cases of neurasthenia.

* Pain, of course, is a variable quantity, and its appreciation depends upon the nervous temperament of the individual. There is, so far as I know, no 'algometer' yet invented, though I have heard of a physician who told a suffering patient to hold her tongue, as he knew better than she the pains afflicting her. I once expressed great sympathy with Lady A------because of the intolerable anguish she said an aching tooth was giving her. Her daughter was not much moved, and told me she had always discounted her mother's complaints since she had witnessed the effect following the sting of a gnat. Suggestion in the hypnotic state not only relieves or cures pain, but often helps the sufferer to bear that and the other ills of life with more patience and philosophy.