538 B. I quote the following observations as to the improvement of muscular powers and of the senses during hypnosis from Dr. Bramwell's "Personally observed Hypnotic Phenomena" (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xii. P- 177).

Closure of the eyes is usually the first phenomenon observed in hypnosis, and as soon as this occurs other alterations in the voluntary muscles can usually be induced by suggestion. In reference to these I have nothing special to report. I, like others, have seen that voluntary muscular power can be increased or diminished to a remarkable extent.

Involuntary Muscles And Special Senses

The action of the involuntary muscles and the special senses can be influenced in hypnosis. Of this I have seen many striking instances, but will confine myself almost entirely to one case, that of a woman aged forty, in which all the experiments were checked by independent observers.

Pulse

In this subject the rapidity of the pulse could be quickly increased or diminished by simply suggesting that it should beat faster or slower. These changes, as recorded by the sphygmograph, showed corresponding alterations in tension.

Muscular Sense

Differences in weight as small as eight grains could be distinguished in the hypnotic state; this the patient was quite unable to do in the normal condition.

Thermal Sensibility

She was able to discriminate between very slight changes in temperature, such as she was unable to appreciate when awake.

Common Cutaneous Sensibility

The common cutaneous sensibility was nearly double, i.e. the patient could distinguish the points of a compass, applied to different parts of the body, at about half the normal distance. She possessed no increased power when awake.

Hearing

The range of hearing could be doubled by suggestion.

Sight

The variations in this patient's range of vision were recorded for me by Mr. Bendelack Hewetson, Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary; and, as they appear to be of considerable interest, I will give them in detail. He first saw her in 1889, long before she had been hypnotised, and reported that she was hypermetropic; that this condition was over-corrected by ciliary spasms; that she could only read the third line of Snellen's test types, and required a minus glass to enable her to read the bottom line. In hypermetropia, as many of my readers are doubtless aware, the axis of the eye is shorter than normal, and the rays of light, or a certain proportion of them, in passing through the lens, are focussed at a point behind the retina. In this case, as the result of spasm of the muscles of accommodation, the position, and possibly the curvature of the lens was altered, i.e. it was projected further forward and rendered more convex. In consequence of this, the hypermetropia, which was only slight, was not only neutralised, but over-corrected. Thus the patient was rendered virtually myopic; the axis of the eye had become longer than normal, and the rays of light were focussed at a point in front of, instead of behind, the retina.

At this time treatment by glasses failed to relieve the defect, as the patient, who suffered from other nervous affections, was unable to wear them. She was first hypnotised in March 1892, when I observed that I could apparently alter the range of vision by suggestion. In the following July she was again examined by Mr. Hewetson, who found the physical condition and range of vision identical with what it had been in 1889. Suggestions were then made in his presence, with the view of increasing the range of vision, whereupon the spasm disappeared, and the patient easily read the bottom line of Snellen's test types without a glass. After having shown that the spasm, with its accompanying defective vision, could be restored, I suggested its total disappearance. In June 1893 Mr. Hewetson again examined the patient, and reported that the range of vision was normal, and that there was no return of the spasm.

Cf. the improvement of vision during spontaneous somnambulism in the case of Dr. Dufay's patient, Mlle R. L., referred to in section 416.

Beaunis (Le Somnambulisme Provoqué, pp. 102 et seq.) found in one of his subjects that the sense of hearing was more acute in hypnosis and could then be still further heightened by suggestion. Similarly the reaction-times for touch and hearing were shortened in hypnosis and rendered shorter still by suggestion.

538 C. In the Revue de l'Hypnotisme, January 1893, Dr. Cullerre records a case of suggestion by motor images. This singular case involves recovery of the use of sight and hearing by suggestion.

Mme X., twenty-eight years old, a hystero-epileptic, suffered from a variety of fits or attacks, convulsive, delirious, and spontaneously somnambulic. Hypnotic somnambulism was easily induced, but quickly degenerated into a hysterical attack.

From the somnambulic accesses a kind of secondary state developed itself, lasting once, with a few minutes' interruption, for a month at a time. On returning to ordinary consciousness she had lost that month from memory.

Both in her primary and in her secondary condition she was from time to time troubled by a hallucinatory figure, which she called Timoleon, and which urged her to suicide. On recovering from these attacks Mme X. was in a pitiable state - blind, deaf, speechless, and unable to swallow.

The religieuse who attended her tried in many ways to recall the patient's power of sensation, but in vain, until at last she bethought herself of the following plan. She held the patient's hand, and with that hand traced the words: "You will now go to sleep, and will awake in ten seconds, able to hear, see, and speak." After many repetitions of this process, the patient succeeded in grasping the meaning of the written words from the movement of her own hand. She then instantly went to sleep, and awoke in a few seconds able to speak, but not to see or to hear. Further efforts of the same kind gradually brought all the senses back.