534 D. Dr. Hamilton Osgood reports four cases of eczema cured by hypnotic suggestion {Revue de l'Hypnotisme, 1895, p. 300), and it seems probable that in the following extraordinary case of the cure of sycosis menti, the cure was effected by essentially similar means. The sufferer was a privat docent at the university of Moscow. During the nine months which his disease lasted he consulted the most eminent dermatologists of Germany, Austria, and Russia. They unanimously diagnosed sycosis. No treatment brought him any help. He at last consulted a "wise woman," who declared that his disease could be cured by prayer. He accompanied her to a church, where she prayed for three or four minutes; the same process was repeated in the evening and on the two following days. Amelioration had set in almost instantly; on the third day he was so well that he was able to be shayed.

For a discussion of the case from various points of view see Bérillon, Revue de l' Hypnotisme, January 1896, p. 195; Delboeuf, Revue de I'Hypno-tisme, February 1896, p. 225; Durand (de Gros), Revue de l'Hypnotisme, 1896, p. 37. It was also quoted in the British Medical Journal for November 16th, 1895.

534 E. The use of hypnotic analgesia in accouchements was well known to the early mesmerists. A typical instance will be found in the Zoist, vol. x. p. 91. Fahnestock also practised it (see Statuvolism, p. 315). Among recent cases I may mention that of a girl of about fifteen, recorded by Dr. G. C. Kingsbury in the British Medical Journal, 1891, p. 460. Others have been recorded from time to time in the Revue de I'Hypno-tisme, e.g. by Mesnet (August 1887); by Fanton (November 1890); by Delboeuf (April 1891), the patient being "J.," the subject referred to in 534 A, and this being her first confinement; by Dumontpallier (December 1891); in this case the patient was awake and fully conscious during the last period of the confinement, but the pain was entirely averted by suggestion; by Voisin (June 1896). In the same Revue (June 1892), Bourdon reported a case in which by hypnotic suggestion he had arrested contractions which had begun and postponed the confinement for a week.

Joire and Bourdon have applied with success a method of waking suggestion which, they contend, can be used at a moment's notice, without specially training the subject. See Revue de l'Hypnotisme, account by Joire (August 1898, pp. 39-59); by Bourdon (December 1899, pp. 176-181).

535 A. The following cases (quoted from the Journal S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 209, March 1894) indicate that the pain suppressed by anaesthetics may under some circumstances be remembered afterwards.

(1) On November 3rd, 1893, a middle-aged woman was operated on for a bony tumour of the upper jaw. She was, of course, under an anaesthetic. When she awoke, after completion of the operation, she said she had no recollection whatever of what had occurred. When I called on her, on November 7th, she said she had had severe neuralgia during the night in the situation of the operation. During the continuance of this pain, and while half awake and half asleep, she thought she could follow each step of the operation of November 3rd.

She described the cutting and slipping of the steel chisel, the blows of the mallet, and scraping back of the gum - in fact, it seemed to her that she underwent the whole operation again.

(2) A lady to whom I told the above said she once took "gas " for a tooth extraction. This was quite successful, for she "felt nothing." But on an occasion subsequent to this she had a return of toothache - some- time in the night. She declared that she could then feel all the symptoms of becoming unconscious while inhaling the gas; then came the digging of the forceps to get a grip on the tooth, the wrench, and awful pain - every detail was " felt" now, although her waking consciousness had been quite unaware of any pain during the actual extraction.

(3) I have many times noted that people while anaesthetised, who do not feel pain in the ordinary sense, and who on coming to themselves declare that they did feel no pain during the operation, have struggled, groaned, spoken, or given some other evidence that some stratum of their consciousness was awake during the anaesthesia, and was being impressed by the pain of the operation.

The above appears to show that the subliminal consciousness does take note of what is going on, while the work-a-day self is oblivious to all external stimuli when under the influence of an anaesthetic; and that the memory of this sub. liminal self may be brought to the surface by some appropriate stimulus, such as the neuralgia, which, we may note, occurred between sleeping and waking that is, at a time when the subliminal is more active than the supraliminal stratum of our conscious personality....

Note To Case I

The patient did not see the operator's instruments at all, nor was she told after the operation how it was done, but merely that the tumour had been cut away entirely and successfully. No one was present at the operation except the patient, operator, and myself. The operation was described by the patient as accurately as a non-medical person was likely to do. It may be thought that she was enabled to describe the operation by her vivid imagination; but under the circumstances I should regard this "vivid imagination " as only another name for her subliminal memory.

With regard to Case II., as I was not present during the extraction of the teeth, I know none of the details.

In each of these two cases I was, of course, careful not to suggest to the patient the details of the operation - such as "Did you feel this or that?" I merely asked them twice over to tell me what they felt. Both the patients were thoroughly under the influence of the anaesthetic - chloroform in the first case, and nitrous oxide gas in the second. C Theodore Green, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., London.

See also Laurent's Des Etats Seconds (p. 37), where the details of an operation under chloroform were recovered in a dream.