I feel perfectly convinced that hypnotic suggestion is the ideal treatment for curing morbid habits in children. If the child is a good subject, as most children are, the effects of bad heredity can be neutralized by it.*

In incipient melancholia, and in depression of spirits short of this, I have found it of service; but hitherto I have failed to notice much effect from it when the condition was of long standing. On several occasions I have succeeded in removing false ideas, as in the case of a gentleman who was afraid to enter a dark room in consequence of having been frightened by ghost-stories when a child. One frequently finds morbid fixed ideas depend upon a suggestion made in early life, and these are well met by a course of counter-suggestion.

* A great deal is written nowadays about eugenics and heredity, and while acknowledging their importance, I confess to thinking environment and education are still greater factors in human progress. I once asked a friend much engaged in philanthropic work among working boys whether he would feel most hopeful dealing with a dozen lads - sons, say, of bishops - brought up in slums under the worst conditions, or with an equal number of sons of convicted criminals brought up under perfect conditions. He unhesitatingly replied that most of the former would turn out badly, and most of the latter would do well. Of course, the ideal is to combine good heredity with good upbringing.

I was once consulted as to the case of a young professional man, who was afflicted with bulimia, a form of morbid craving which is, I believe, uncommon. He has periodical attacks of irresistible craving for food, analogous to the desire for alcohol felt by dipsomaniacs. He feels these attacks coming on, and begs his friends to look after him, and take care of his money and jewellery, lest he should pawn them for food. But, in spite of everything, he finds means of raising money, and with it buys food to an enormous amount. This he secretes, and gorges himself with until he can eat no more. For instance, on one occasion he bought and devoured within a few hours a quartern loaf, two pounds of cheese, a tinned tongue, a quantity of pastry, a pot of jam, and a large assortment of sweets. The bout is followed by violent sickness and a bilious attack, which lasts for some days. Hypnotism offers the best hope of cure in such a case; but, as illustrating the prejudice against the remedy in some quarters, the patient's friends have persuaded him not to try it, but to live as a voluntary boarder in a lunatic asylum!

This is only one case of several where the fear of hypnotism has been so great as to make the patient refuse to submit to it, though his condition was desperate. I was recently consulted about a young lady whose health and safety were gravely menaced by her habit of sleep-walking; so bad had this become that she used to get herself tied into bed at night. Yet she refused to let me try hypnotism, as she had been warned against it by an elderly doctor whom she trusted. This was particularly unfortunate, because spontaneous somnambulism is one of those troubles which hypnotism cures with the greatest certainty. I cured the only three cases I have treated, and Sir F. Cruise tells me he has had similar results. It appears to me that the doctor allowing a patient's life and happiness to be wrecked by such ignorance and prejudice incurs a terrible responsibility.

I have notes of a remarkable case of this kind. The patient, a young Irishwoman, was sent to me by the late Sir Francis Cruise in 1910. She was a hard-working, bright, tractable girl during the day, but nearly every night became a dangerous maniac, striking those about her and breaking furniture. Dr. Haydn Brown kindly took her into his house at Caterham and treated her by hypnotic suggestion. He watched by her bedside the first two nights. The first night she seemed to awake after a few minutes' sleep, stared wildly about her, and leaped out of bed. Though her hands were tied, she drew the heavy bedstead across the room, and was quite maniacal. Dr. Brown had hypnotized her the previous day, and now he had only to speak forcibly and put his hand on her head and she went back quietly to bed. The following night there was less disturbance, and afterwards none at all. The patient returned home cured, and was married soon afterwards.

Hypnotism introduces one to curious histories. I undertook with some confidence the case of a gentleman, aged fifty, who for three years had suffered from a curious antipathy, apparently half mental and half physical. He was unable to remain in the room with his youngest son, a bright, intelligent boy of twelve, on account of the feeling of restlessness which used to come over him, followed by flushing of the face, noises in the ears, confusion of thought, and palpitation of the heart. He was perfectly sane, held an important financial position, and there was absolutely no cause to account for the sensation. The feeling was confined to this particular boy. At first I found it impossible to influence him sufficiently to master this idee fixe, but later on he developed into a fairly good subject.

In December, 1889, the gentleman came to see me, not as a patient, but as escort to a lady who wished to be hypnotized. The lady was nervous, and Mr. X-----offered to let me demonstrate the process on him. To our mutual surprise, he yielded to the soporific influence, and fell into the second stage of hypnotic sleep, after looking at a bright disc held above his eyes for a couple of minutes, and I was at once able to make suggestions combating his delusion. He experienced less discomfort than usual from his son's presence that evening, and there was no difficulty in hypnotizing him subsequently. The morbid idea was of three years' persistence, was steadily increasing in intensity up to the time of his being first hypnotized, and was a cause of serious distress and worry to him. I had endeavoured to influence him no less than ten times previously with absolutely no effect, and I attribute my ultimate success to the fact that his mind was taken off its guard; and the nervousness and unconscious resistance, which had prevented any hypnotic effect when he came as a patient, were no longer existent when he returned merely as a spectator.

Readers of fiction will remember that Oliver Wendell Holmes learnedly discusses a somewhat similar train of symptoms, upon which he founds his novel, 'A Mortal Antipathy.'