The feeling of warmth is a characteristic and important symptom, and Liebeault was invariably confident of doing good to the patient in whom he could produce it, if the malady were a tractable one. * It is likened by some and if the questions he may put fail to elicit any response, it will be evident that the subject is en rapport with the operator only, and other tests may be used, such as tickling the nostrils with a feather to demonstrate that anaesthesia exists, and prove the depth of somnambulism. Finally, if all these tests point to decided somnambulism, post-hypnotic suggestions may be made. The patient may, for instance, be told to sit on a certain chair, to open some book at a particular page, or to write a sentence leaving out a specified letter. Negative hallucinations, delusions of the senses, etc., can also be suggested. I need hardly insist that such tests and experiments are quite inadmissible without the previous consent of the patient and the presence of his friends.

* This response to suggestion of local warmth is an excellent test of vital force and reaction, and it varies with the health of the patient. For instance, it is slow to develop and slight in intensity in enfeebled subjects. As they improve in health and tone the reaction increases. It is a much better test than the fanciful and costly instruments devised by Dr. Joire of Lille and others. They assert that the movesubjects to a sudden flush, and by others to the application of a hot poultice. Magnetizers naturally attribute this sensation to the passage of the magnetic fluid from the operator to his patient, but it seems to arise from stimulation by suggestion of the vaso-motor centres, and from a transmission to the part of increased nerve and blood supply. A sensation of cold can often be substituted by suggestion for one of warmth, as I have seen in cases of gastric ulcer and of congestive headache; in such a case the physiological process is perhaps reversed. Suggestion without contact would probably suffice to produce this local action; and there is no doubt that friction with a book or other small article has generally the same effect as hand-friction.

On a second visit, the patient will usually enter the hypnotic state more rapidly, and its degree will very likely be found intensified. Therapeutic suggestions may now be made, or, if it is desired, the extent of hypnotic influence may be tested. This is generally done by first raising the arm at an angle to the body, and telling the patient to keep it there. If the cataleptic state has been reached, it becomes stiff and rigid in that position, and will remain in it for an indefinite time, corresponding to the subject's muscular development. If the arm shows no tendency to drop, a rotary motion may be given to it, and the patient told to continue this movement. If the third degree is reached, he will do so until he is ordered to desist. The tests of somnambulism may now be applied. The first of these is to speak to the patient and get him to reply. Another person is then told to address him, ments of a quill balanced on a point and fixed in a glass dome depend upon the ' exteriorilization of nerve force,' and measure the vitality of the experimenter holding his hand near it. My friend Sir W. Barrett, F.R.S., tells me there is nothing new in this device, and that the effect is produced by the heat of the hand.

The approach of a hot-water bottle would, he thinks, give rise to a greater range of movement than that of the strongest man or profoundest thinker. Dr. Joire claims to have eliminated the action of heat in his experiments, but this is not borne out by investigators (Annals of Psychical Science, November and December, 1906). Dr. Joire calls his instrument a sthenometer.

The patients who attended Liebeault's clinique were desirous and eager for the treatment, and he and Professor Bernheim had the advantage of possessing their faith and co-operation. It is, I believe, essential to have the patient's confidence, and the time spent in acquiring this previous to commencing operations is well employed. Failure in obtaining the patient's good-will may not only prevent success, but may even cause the process to produce an aggravation of the symptoms. I have had the opportunity of noticing this on several occasions, and now never attempt to hypnotize without having the free consent of the person most interested. Neglect of this precaution led to some trouble in one of my early cases. A physician asked me to hypnotize a patient for him, a young lady suffering from chorea. She expressed a dislike to the treatment, and only gave an unwilling consent to it being tried after a great deal of argument. She was susceptible to a certain extent, but her sleep was irregular in character and very disturbed. When she awoke, the choreic movements were decidedly worse. On each subsequent occasion a similar process had to be gone through, and no good result ever followed.

When left alone she got well without treatment in a few weeks, and then took her revenge on me and hypnotism by writing letters about it to the papers ! In these she stated that she had struggled with might and main, and with partial success, to retain consciousness, as she disliked the process, and did not believe in its utility; thus showing that the very first conditions of success were wanting in her case. Of course, I refer to the Nancy method of hypnotizing by ' persuasion,' as it is well called. There is another method employed by many of the platform operators and by some medical men under special circumstances - hypnotism by fright or compulsion. The state thus induced is akin to that produced in animals and in man by sudden fright or shock. It resembles hypnosis, and may pass into it. Preyer calls it cataplexy. Charcot's cataleptic state, produced by the sound of a gong or by the flashing of a brilliant light, corresponds to this state, and resembles the condition of a person surprised by a train at a railway-crossing, or transfixed with terror by an appalling sight - e.g., the Head of Medusa in the shield of Perseus. *