In another case, which has since turned out most successful, the gentleman had a relapse at the end of a week, in consequence of being insufficiently guarded from special temptation. He at once told me of his fault, and explained how difficult he had found it to act against hypnotic suggestion and take the first glass of spirits. It was a real battle, so he said, with his new conscience, in which conscience nearly won the day. After a month's hypnotic treatment he seemed positively proof against temptation, and I could trust him anywhere alone. It is now some years since the treatment was commenced, and he has remained a consistent abstainer, though he has paid me four or five visits for renewal and reinforcement of the anti-alcoholic suggestions.

If the contention of many of Charcot's school and others were correct, and if hypnosis were the induction of a morbid state which takes the place of the disease, I should still consider its exhibition justified in the treatment of confirmed drunkenness; and I look forward to a time when it will be used as a matter of routine treatment in our retreats, greatly to the increased utility of those excellent institutions. Of course, many cases will resist hypnotic treatment, as they resist everything else. Such cases are, I believe, absolutely hopeless, and it will be a good thing when the law allows us to keep them under permanent restraint.

My experience is very much the same as that of other physicians who have practised hypnotism all over the world - Liebeault, Bernheim, Berillon, Forel, Schrenk-Notzing, Tokarsky, Wetterstrand, Hamilton, Osgood, Neilson, Bramwell, Cruise, Wingfield, Astley Cooper, Crichton Miller, Woods, and many others. Berillon has contributed several papers of great interest on the subject to the Revue de Psychotherapie, which entirely corroborate the above remarks.

Dr. Tokarsky of Moscow contributed an important paper to the International Congress on Hypnotism held in Paris in 1901. He states that in thirteen years he has hypnotized 700 persons for the cure of drunkenness, and that he has had 80 per cent, of successes in cases where the patients came to him desirous of cure. They included all classes of society, from University professors to working men and peasants. He reckons no one as cured until at least a year has elapsed since the beginning of the treatment. Hypnotism has taken a firm hold in Russia, and is practised by able physicians in every large town. For many years it was held under suspicion by the authorities, and could only be employed even by medical men under stringent conditions. For instance, two doctors had to be present at each sitting. These restrictions have lately been withdrawn, and hypnotism is treated like other medical procedures. Public dispensaries have been opened under official patronage in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Ekaterino-slaff, and other large cities, for the treatment of drunkenness by hypnotism. A very large number of patients avail themselves of the treatment; often over sixty a day, for instance, at Ekaterinoslaff, and the results are said to be most encouraging.

A Russian Medical Society of Hypnology was founded in Moscow in 1902, and is very active and flourishing.

Russia is stated to be the most drunken country in the world, and therefore offers a very extended field for experiment and cure. Numerous articles on the subject have appeared in the Revue de Psychotherapie during the last few years, written in such a critical and impartial spirit by Russian physicians on the spot that they must carry conviction. We shall soon, therefore, have overwhelming evidence of an official character on this very important question.

One of the best articles I have read is that by Dr. Oscar Wiasemsky of Saratow (May, 1905). He had treated 319 cases up to a certain date (twelve months) before his paper was written, and he carefully describes his treatment and tabulates his results. He divides his cases into two classes, habitual and periodic drinkers (142 of the former, 174 of the latter, 3 being unclassed), and he finds the latter most amenable. He will not undertake a case unless the patient expresses the wish to be cured, and even with that proviso he found 197, over 60 per cent., refused to follow the treatment for more than a month. Of these, many were cured, some benefited, and only ten were registered as complete failures. Eighty-one patients continued under treatment for from one to six months; eleven of these are reported as failures. The remaining thirty-eight patients continued under treatment for from six months to a year, and of these only four relapsed, and are reckoned as failures. So his figures come out about the same as Tokarsky's - viz., 80 per cent, of successes - when his conditions are observed. Dr. Wiasemsky's patients were, like Tokarsky's, drawn from all classes of the community, from University professors to peasants.

He only failed to hypnotize one person out of the 319 patients at the first sitting. He required the patient to abstain from alcohol at least twenty-four hours before hypnotizing him, and he gave up the treatment if he drank within the first week.

He considers a year's treatment, comprising about twenty-five sittings, necessary in confirmed cases to restore the damaged brain and other organs, and he states very emphatically that he has invariably found hypnotic treatment conducive to rapid recovery of mind, body, and morale. Dr. Wingfield is very successful in the treatment of alcoholism, and gives some striking examples in his excellent book. He tells me he rarely fails to get profound hypnosis in these cases, and many of his patients have been cured for over twenty years.

In the treatment of morphinomania a different course must be adopted to that pursued in managing drunkenness. In the latter the supply of alcohol had better be cut off at once, but this course would be highly dangerous in the morphia habit, even with the aid of hypnotism. The quantity may be gradually decreased, until at the end of a week the drug should be discontinued altogether. This step is followed by a gastric crisis, during which the patient should be frequently hypnotized, and be kept up by nourishing foods and stimulants.