A few years ago I was asked as a matter of charity to try the effect of hypnotism on a poor elderly lady afflicted with disseminated spinal sclerosis. She was brought to my house and laid on a couch every day, while for half an hour I practised the various hypnogenic methods upon her. But all my efforts were in vain, and after a few sittings I gave her up. About a year afterwards I heard through a friend that this patient was giving thanks to Providence for having saved her from my wiles, and she attributed her deliverance to having repeated prayers to herself during the process I adopted. She had consented to see me to oblige her friends, but had taken good care to render my efforts nugatory.

Even if hypnotizable, the patient may refuse to accept suggestion. For instance, Mr. B------, the son of a nobleman, was made to come to me to be treated for chronic alcoholism. He was of the ' weak-waster ' type, and was a surly and disagreeable patient. However, I induced Liebeault's third degree, and he became cataleptic. But he told his father that, though I might make him unable to move his arms when hypnotized, he was damned if I should prevent him drinking brandy when he wanted to. In such cases there is nothing to work upon, and I only saw him two or three times. He drifts from one inebriate retreat to another, and it is unfortunate for his family that alcohol is only such a slow poison. I now refuse to undertake such cases. A recent experience is that of Mrs. A------, wife of a good and hardworking army officer. A lady of thirty, well born and educated, and nice-looking, with one child, she only came by compulsion, assured me that she hated the idea of treatment, looked upon teetotalism as low and allied to socialism, and that she often drank in order to annoy her husband, who was a ' bigoted teetotaler.' When disinclined to drink, she said, she achieved this amiable purpose by washing her mouth out with whisky.

Conviction of sin in moral cases, and real desire for health in chronic invalidism, are, I am sure, the states of mind requisite to success. To obtain these the co-operation of a wise and good clergyman is often invaluable, and the two professions can often work hand in hand, as in the Emmanuel Church Movement at Boston, U.S.A.

The late Dr. Auguste Voisin's practice requires a few words of explanation. Many observers contend that, as hypnotic suggestion is essentially a psychical treatment, and dependent for its success on healthful stimulation of the brain centres, it is inapplicable when the central organ is diseased. It is certainly most difficult to hypnotize the mentally affected, whether the condition be mania, dementia, melancholia, or idiocy. Nevertheless, Voisin found he succeeded in about 10 per cent, of cases. But his physical strength, enthusiasm, and patience enabled him to do what few men would care to try. He used to spend an hour a day attempting to hypnotize one patient, and felt amply rewarded if after twenty operations he achieved an alleviation or cure. When he read his paper before the British Medical Association at Leeds, in 1889, his listeners could only express astonishment at his method and its results. Voisin has done much good work in other branches of medical science, and practised with such openness and publicity at the Salpetriere that no one can fail to be impressed by his testimony.

Dr. Paul Farez, of Paris, speaks enthusiastically of Dr. Voisin's work, and emulates him in the time and energy he devotes to mental cases.

Personally, I have succeeded in somewhat benefiting melancholia in five or six cases, and in removing slight but troublesome and long-standing delusions in several instances. In many cases of retarded brain development in children considerable improvement is observable; but in mental diseases generally I have, as a rule, failed to produce the slightest hypnotic influence.

Van Eeden considers that hypnotic suggestion will remove delusions in their early stage, while the patient is still aware of their falsity; but that when they have become established and a part of the personality, hypnotism, even if induced, can be expected to do but little good. This exactly coincides with my own experience, though in one case - that of a medical man who believed himself to be under the mesmeric control of a number of persons - I succeeded in greatly mitigating the symptom. I told him that I should be able to render him insusceptible to hypnotic influences other than my own, and my suggestions being thus more or less in a line with his thoughts, he was capable of grasping them. He came to me in a very depressed condition, but about twelve operations served to greatly modify the trouble. Though he still, from time to time, heard voices, he no longer dreaded them, and felt he was able to laugh at the threats they conveyed. He has been enabled to resume his practice, and has greatly improved in bodily health and in capacity for work.

A curious and typical case of this kind was that of a retired tradesman who consulted me in 1896, and asked me if I could free him from the mesmeric control of H.R.H. Princess X------. He said he was a stanch republican. About two years before he was visiting Windsor Park, and was sitting on a bench when the royal lady passed. She looked at him, but he did not rise or raise his hat, an omission which he said caused her to look angrily at him. He immediately felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and he had been subject to this ever since. He was quite convinced the Princess had thrown a spell over him, which she exercised from time to time to punish him for his want of courtesy. I thought I might succeed in removing the idea, but failed to do so. When I tried to hypnotize him, he said the lady put forth extra power, and neutralized my efforts; probably he will die with that delusion still dominant.