The method I usually adopt to produce the hypnotic state is that practised by Liebeault, and is undoubtedly the easiest and most rapid. The treatment is psychical, and attention to detail is absolutely necessary to success. The existence in the patient of any opposing idea, as of fear, or of a spirit of ridicule, or of decided hostility, or a consciousness of bodily discomfort, will render futile all attempts to hypnotize him - at least, at the first trial. * His mind must be at rest, his position comfortable, and the environment should be such as would favour the advent of ordinary sleep. It is sometimes helpful to hypnotize one or two patients in the presence of a new-comer, so as to arouse his imitative faculty and dissipate any nervous feeling he may have. And some friend should always be at hand during the entire operation.

I suppose most medical men have noticed a characteristic symptom of many neurotic patients - their inability to relax their muscles. If you hold up such a person's arm, and tell him to let it fall dead when you release it, you will find that it either remains suspended or is dropped with violence. This state of tension often explains the nervous exhaustion from which the patient suffers, for it means constant waste of nervous energy. The first thing to teach such a patient is to relax, and until he learns this he will be difficult to hypnotize.*

* Not necessarily so. One of my best subjects was Dr. C------, a prosperous G.P., J.P., and Mayor of his town. I was asked to meet him at a friend's house and tell him about hypnotism. I soon found that he was very sceptical, and that the party were in league to draw me out and laugh at me. After a little while I told Dr. C------that I was sure he would prove a good hypnotic subject, and he consented to let me try. He passed into a state of somnambulism almost at once, and to prove this I applied various tests. Among others, I told him he had a sharp pain in his right knee, and could hardly walk. On awaking, he complained of his knee, and attributed the discomfort to having sat in a draught and getting rheumatism. After a few minutes I hypnotized him again, and suggested away the pain. The laugh was turned against Dr. C------, who no longer scoffs at the unknown.

Dr. Wingfield relates some similar experiences at Cambridge, as, for instance, when he got a rather conceited undergraduate to assert that only mentally-defective people could be hypnotized, and then promptly threw him into a state of somnambulism. No doubt there is at the back of such persons' minds a feeling akin to fear that there is something in it.

The patient reclines on a couch or in an easy-chair, and I stand or sit beside him, and hold the first two fingers of one hand at a distance of about twelve inches from his eyes, at such an angle that his gaze shall be directed upwards in a strained manner. I direct him to look steadily at the tips of those fingers, and to make his mind as nearly blank as possible. After he has stared fixedly for about half a minute, his expression will undergo a change - a far-away look coming into his face. His pupils will contract and dilate several times, and his eyelids will twitch spasmodically. These signs indicate a commencing induction of the desired psychical condition. If the eyelids do not close spontaneously, I shut them gently, and the progress of sleep is generally helped by verbal suggestions, such as: ' Your eyes are becoming heavy; they are getting more and more heavy; my fingers seem indistinct to you' (this when the pupils are observed to dilate or contract); ' a numbness is stealing over your limbs; you will be fast asleep in a few minutes; now sleep.' It is sometimes an assistance to lay one's hand gently but firmly on the forehead.

In ordinary cases, the operator will find that the hypnotic condition has by this method been induced in from one to three minutes, and he may now ascertain what degree has been arrived at. This depends chiefly, if not entirely, on the temperament of the subject, and I consider it impossible to foretell with any certainty what stage of hypnotism will be reached by any person who has never yet been hypnotized. I do not, as a rule, make many suggestions at a first sitting, but I gently rub the epigastrium and suggest a feeling of warmth in that part of the body, a general sensation of comfort and well-being, and an agreeable awakening. I add that my suggestions will recur to his subconscious mind, and act curatively during his normal sleep. I find it greatly impresses the patient, and serves as a first rung of suggestion's ladder, to rub the skin over the parotid and submaxillary glands, and so stimulate the secretion of saliva. The salivary are the most easily stimulated of all glands; the mouth becomes full of saliva, which the patient has to swallow repeatedly to get rid of.

The increased secretion of saliva is probably followed by similar action on the gastric glands, and even those of the intestines, and explains the improvement of appetite and digestion resulting from hypnotic treatment. After a few minutes I tell the patient that he has rested long enough, and that he can open his eyes and arouse himself. He generally obeys at once, and says that he feels refreshed and comfortable. I ask him what he remembers of his few minutes' rest, and he generally tells me that he has heard every word I said to him, and also any other sound that there may have been, but he adds that he felt a great disinclination to move or speak until he was told to open his eyes. He finds the feeling of warmth, induced by suggestion, and by gentle friction of the abdomen, very marked, and this sensation will probably continue for several hours. He is perfectly awake and quite himself before he leaves the house.

* Miss Anna Call, of Waltham, Boston, U.S.A., has developed this relaxation idea into a system of treatment, and her book on the subject, ' Power by Repose,' is well worth reading.