If medical men will employ the Nancy method of treatment in their ordinary practice, they will find it a very useful auxiliary in many trying, painful, and tedious cases.

For instance, in two cases of myxcedema I have used hypnotism to assist specific treatment by thyroid gland extract. The result was most satisfactory, for the symptoms, especially the mental ones, were speedily controlled by suggestion, while the medicine was working on the cause.

Dr. Douglas Bryan, of Leicester, recently published some notes on interesting cases occurring in his practice. He concludes his article with these words: 'To those medical men who have not given hypnotic suggestion a trial the above cases will read almost like fiction; yet it is open to all medical men to give hypnotism a fair trial, and I am confident that, if such be the case, they will very soon be able to quote cases quite as interesting and as satisfactory as the two I have described.' *

By expressing this opinion I have aroused some opposition; for there are those who think that, besides damaging the patient's health, the practice of hypnotism would ruin the doctor's pocket and reputation, since he might become the prey of designing adventurers and the victim of all kinds of charges and blackmail. I don't suppose that the most enthusiastic hypnotist would advise the practitioner to hypnotize his patients recklessly and promiscuously; on the contrary, the more experienced he is, the greater caution will he exercise. But probably every medical man has many patients who would very much prefer twenty minutes' somnolence in an easy chair as treatment for neuralgia to a course of medicine, and others on whom the resources of ordinary treatment have been employed in vain. †

* General Practitioner, December 15, 1906.

† The experience of capable general practitioners on this subject is convincing. For instance, Dr. Haydn Brown's first case at Caterham more, used to say: ' Il faut dominer vos malades.' This domination may be induced by love or fear, gentleness or brusqueness, and it applies not only to the use of hypnotism, but to all our relationship with patients. The fantastic and nasty theory of some Freudians that the patient falls in love with the hypnotizer is only referred to here to be scouted. Some of the best results I have heard of have been obtained by women doctors practising on elderly members of their own sex. A very strong case is, it appears to me, weakened and made offensive by such a misuse of language. The subject is temperately dealt with in this volume by Dr. Constance Long, Chapter XL

It is well to understand that the Nancy method of hypnotization acts on the central nervous system as a brain calmative, and that its object is the production of a state analogous to natural sleep by imitation of natural processes, and is thus a wooing of repose. The condition obtained is characterized by increased suggestibility, and it is through this the treatment works. The method adopted by Charcot and his imitators to obtain catalepsy by causing a violent and sudden sensory impression - by sounding a gong or flashing a bright light - acts in a totally different way, and induces a state analogous to that produced in waking moments by sudden fright or shock, which paralyze and transfix with terror. It is the difference in method shown by two nurses, one of whom quiets her charge by gentle persuasion, while the other prevents her from crying by threats of the policeman. Both children are kept quiet, but how different will be the after-effect of the two methods!

Liebeault, whose wisdom I learn to appreciate more and was a healthy-looking servant in a house where I visited. She suffered from most obstinate constipation, for which Dr. Brown prescribed larger and larger doses of strong aperients, with only temporary effect, and he was at his wits' end. I advised him to try hypnotic suggestion, and he had the courage to do so. The girl proved a somnambule, and Dr. Brown suggested that her bowels should be moved on her return home. She had to walk two miles, and had to hurry over the last part as the call became urgent. She was cured from that time. Dubois considers hypnotism unnecessary, and thinks any physician worth his salt should be able to cure simple constipation by reasoning with the patient. I should like to have seen him tackle that case. Of course, hypnotism has to be used cautiously, and I always impress on my medical friends that they should not press it on unwilling patients, but rather use it as a favour.

Sometimes the effect will be found astonishing, as in a case reported by Dr. Betts Taplin. He recommended a patient to undergo the operation of gastrotomy for symptoms attributed to cancer of the stomach. The diagnosis was verified by an exploratory operation, and the eminent surgeon in charge pronounced the case as hopeless and sewed up the wound. Dr. Taplin continued the treatment fur relief of symptoms, and to everyone's astonishment the patient got quite well and continued so. Dr. Taplin frankly says that the diagnosis of cancer was not absolutely verified, but the ulcerating tumour which the operation disclosed was certainly killing the patient, and he would have died.

The patient's mood may vary with consequent change of effect. For instance, I treated Miss C------in 1905 for neurasthenia with characteristic symptoms, including constipation, insomnia, headache, mental depression, and irritability, etc. A month's treatment worked wonders. She went abroad, married, and had a son. Domestic worries and other causes brought on a return of the disease, and in 1011 her friends induced her to consult me again. I could see that she was antagonistic and hopeless, and, though she was as hypnotizable as before - first degree - she got no better, and after two or three weeks I gave her up. She went in for all sorts of treatment without result, and at last, in 1913, wrote to me asking me to take her in hand once more, and saying that this time, as in 1905, she would, she was sure, respond to my suggestions. So we tried again, and though she was very much worse than before - being reduced to almost a skeleton, and completely sleepless without large doses of bromides or veronal - she rapidly improved, appetite and natural sleep were regained, and she put on ten pounds weight in three weeks.