For instance, a young lady, aged twenty-two, was brought to me in 1894. She had developed epileptic fits at the age of puberty, and they were only kept in check by large and continuous doses of bromides. Her mental condition had undergone great impairment, and she was always in a dreamy state. She kept a book in which she made a note of each attack, and altogether she lived in an atmosphere of depression and morbid suggestion. But the symptom which caused most embarrassment, and which cut her off from social life, was the unfortunate delusion which always prevailed when she came out of the fit, that she was going to bed, and she would proceed to undress herself wherever she might be. The fits were always ushered in by an aura starting from her right hand. I found her a good subject, like most epileptics, and responsive to suggestion. I suggested that when she felt the tingling in the hand going up the arm she should be able to prevent the fit by tightly clasping the hands together, and that she should, even if a fit occurred, always come out of it quietly, and know where she was.

The bromides were entirely left off, and the dismal diary was thrown away. The girl improved wonderfully in general and mental health, but the fits still occured about twice a week. On several occasions she was able to avert them by the pressure as I had suggested, thus establishing an inhibitory influence over the nervous discharge. But the case was too far gone to admit of cure, and we never got beyond a certain point. However, she has never since committed any social solecism in the post-epileptic state, and is able to go a little into society.

I have had recently under treatment a medical student aged twenty - one. He is bright and intelligent, and able to judge his own case very well. He has had the opportunity of trying many treatments at the hands of some of our best physicians, and has come to the conclusion that hypnotic suggestion does him more good than anything else. It certainly has diminished the number and severity of the fits, and his general health has improved with the giving up of strong drugs.

In one case I thought cure was effected, for the patient, a City clerk, aged nineteen, went for a year without a fit. Previous to treatment he used to have a bad one about once a week. I believe the young man would have been permanently cured had he taken care of himself and led a rational life. But when he got better he used to drink, frequent heated music-halls, and dissipate generally, so that no treatment had much chance, and he is now, I believe, a hopeless case.

Wetterstrand of Stockholm had considerable success in the treatment of epilepsy by prolonged hypnosis. In some cases he kept the patient asleep as long as six weeks at a time. He renewed the suggestions daily, and the patient used to eat and perform the usual functions in response to suggestion.

The physiological indications in favour of this treatment are strong. During hypnosis the higher cortical centres in which the nerve storm has its origin are kept in a state of rest, morbid association and periodicity are interrupted, and time given for the weakened and impoverished cortical cells to recuperate and become healthy.

It may here be mentioned that Auguste Voisin thus treated at the Salpetriere several cases of periodic attacks of mania occurring in women. He succeeded in curing some of them by the ingenious device of hypnotizing them before the period was expected, and keeping up the hypnosis during the critical time.

I have only had the opportunity of trying this treatment in two cases. Both subjects were hysterical girls, and I found the prolonged sleep beneficial. In one case I kept it up for three, and in the other for four, days.

Dr. Barwise quotes a case in which a lady was quite cured of confirmed epilepsy, and is now the healthy mother of a healthy family. He himself has treated four cases - two of congenital epileptic imbecility which were unaffected, and two the nature of which he does not mention. One is completely cured, and the other has a fit about once in three months, as compared with one or two seizures a week.*

Dr. Barwise has kindly supplied me with the following further particulars about these cases (May, 1891):

'The girl, aged about eighteen, began having fits when menstruation appeared. I saw her in Birmingham about a year ago, and she had had no recurrence. Before trying hynotism I had given her bromides and the usual routine remedies. In the case of the woman patient there was no history of injury, but the attacks were preceded by a feeling of numbness and powerlessness of the left hand.'

* Op. at., p. 20.

Berillon treated twenty cases of epilepsy in 1889 and the first half of 1890. He found hypnotism curative in only four cases.

In six other cases the treatment was beneficial in reducing the number of the attacks, diminishing their severity, and improving the general health, the memory and mental condition being notably ameliorated. In the ten other cases the results were negative.

Dr. Outterson Wood tells me he has effected a great improvement, which seems likely to be permanent, in a case of undoubted epilepsy of long standing.

Van Renterghem and Van Eeden treated seven cases of epilepsy during 1887-88. and their results are not encouraging. In two cases no effect was produced, and in four only slight or temporary benefit followed the treatment. In a case of hystero-epilepsy in a medical student, brought on apparently by the malpraxis of a travelling magnetizer, they were successful, as already mentioned, in stopping the attacks.

Liebeault considers that epilepsy may frequently be cured by hynotism when it does not depend on gross organic lesion. He counsels perseverance in the treatment, and cites the case of an unmarried woman, aged thirty-nine, affected with epileptic vertigo from her birth. He continued the treatment assiduously for four years, and at the end of that time the patient was cured, and has continued so. *