The methods employed to bring the system into this state are such as are calculated to fix the attention on some one object for a considerable time, so as to abstract the mind from all its other functions, which are thus depressed from the absence of their usual excitants, and fall into a sort of imperfect sleep; while the function in exercise becomes enfeebled by fatigue, and in its turn assumes the same condition. The eyes are closed, the body falls back apparently senseless and motionless, the hands usually become cool and moist, and sleep seems to have been induced. But special sensibility and perception are not lost; and, in the absence of any internal but involuntary impression which may serve as an impulse to movement, nothing but a suggestion from without is wanting to guide the whole sensorial faculties into any desired direction; and it is remarkable that, in this direction, the sensorial functions often evince a high and unusual degree of activity, particularly those of the memory and the special senses.

The manipulations employed to induce the condition, the downward passes with the hands from the head along the body and limbs, the pressure of the hands, and the steady gaze of the operator, are too well known to require minute description. But these special manipulations are not necessary; the great point being to fix the attention and absorb the faculties in one particular direction. Mr. James Braid, surgeon, of Manchester, England, has shown that the same end can be accomplished by fixing the eye, and concentrating the thoughts, as much as possible, upon some one object, especially if this be somewhat above the level of the eye, so as to render an unusual effort necessary to maintain the proper line of vision. I have seen the effect produced by a mere steady look of the operator; and some have the faculty of inducing this condition in themselves by a mental effort.

As a remedy, this agency has often been found useful in promoting sleep in the wakeful; in suppressing the multitudinous nervous disorders of hysteria; in relaxing painful spasm; in subduing neuralgic pains, and those of nervous rheumatism and gout; in curing nervous headache; and in relieving spinal irritation, palpitations of the heart, chorea, hooping-cough, and spasmodic asthma. in producing these effects it probably operates by depressing the nervous centres, thus removing any irritation existing in them, and rendering them insensible to irritant influence from elsewhere; in other words, it acts as a pure nervous sedative. it appears also, that the chain of nervous or mental association which had before sustained, perhaps for a long time, the morbid condition, having been broken, is not always joined again; so that the patient is permanently cured; especially when the process is more or less frequently renewed, as returns of the affection call for it.

Another important therapeutic advantage of this measure is, according to Dr. Braid, the opportunity it affords the practitioner of bringing the whole force of the patient's mind, through the principle of suggestion, to bear upon the desired pathological modification, or therapeutic effect, and thus to add the well-known and long-recognized influence of the imagination to that of the remedy. (See Ed. Month. Journ. of Med. Sci., June, 1851, p. 511, and July, 1853, p. 14.) it was at one time supposed that hypnotism might take the place of ether and chloroform, as anaesthetic agents, in surgical operations. The measure was tried in Paris, and failed {Lancet, Dec. 1859, p. 668), as might have been anticipated; for there is a large number of persons who cannot be brought under this influence by any means hitherto used; and, when produced, the degree and duration of the insensibility are so variable, and the patient often so easily aroused out of the condition, as altogether to unfit it, as a general rule, for the purposes of the surgeon.