It will be my purpose again in this chapter, for the sake of clearness, and for the benefit of the general reader, to divest the subject, as far as possible, both of technical terms, and of theoretical considerations. The latter, in fact, would not prove, in the light of our present knowledge, much of a loss even to the medical men.

I shall quote a number of cases from the well-known Dr. Bernheim, and as they are perhaps more remarkable than my own experience, I shall introduce him to my readers.

Dr. Bernheim, the author of the book, "Suggestive Therapeutics," which has been translated by Christian A. Herter, M. D., was a Professor of Medicine in the faculty at Nancy.

His work has won for him well deserved renown everywhere, and his honesty and truthfulness would not he questioned by any reliable medical authority in the civilized world. Many may differ from him in regard to his theories. He, like other men, may at times have been deceived in his results. What he writes is indeed difficult to believe by the practitioner who is wedded to drugs, and to the coarser ideas. Of a very sceptical nature myself, many of his statements sound like miracles in some ancient oriental work. The phenomena he claims to have obtained through hypnotism, are to me more miraculous than any claim ever put forth for the cure of disease by any system of religion now extant.

As far as space will permit I shall cite briefly some few of his cases, practically without comment, merely using my own language sufficiently to make the otherwise technically difficult descriptions of this author clear.

For more extended information I refer the readers to his book, "Suggestive Therapeutics," as before mentioned.

The book is, in my judgment, the best medical work on hypnotism and therapeutic suggestion which has ever been written in any language, and my acquaintance with this class of literature has been a very large one.

Method Of Application

Suggestions are made to patients either during or after hypnosis. The theory is that hypnotism increases the susceptibility of the patient to suggestion. If the reader understands that, he understands more than I do. To say that the man gets well because he is told to, gives no explanation whatever of the ultimate cause of the experiment, for our old conceptions of disease, which are inherent in the very idea of disease itself, teach us that disease may effectually do away with the normal obedience, of the body or the mind to environment, at least its relations to such are disturbed. Say that it stimulates the will if you please. How? Mothers have been cured of serious functional diseases by one or two hypnotic treatments, when their children were growing up around them, and feeling sadly the neglect of their daily care. Their homes, which should have been made bright by their love, were dark and desolate for the want of woman's thoughtfulness. Ought not these to be more powerful stimulants of the will, than could be a suggestion made to them in a particular state of the nervous system? Again, invalids lie imprisoned on their backs in one room for years at a time, and, strange as it may seem, recover after one or two hypnotic treatments.

Does it not seem reasonable to suppose that all nature would have charms for these men and women greater than the power of hypnotic suggestion?

We are told it is faith. What is faith? It has made martyrs. It has made villains. It has made saints (?) as well. It must precede every positive act of human life. True, of its essence we know nothing. A certain medico-religious sect, calling themselves Christian Scientists, tell us that we have no bodies, that there is no matter, that disease is not a reality at all. If this be true, then the other necessities of life are only delusions. Now I have found from my observations of these people that they eat and drink, live in houses, wear clothing, and avoid bail weather, and, except for their peculiar ideas upon this one topic, act much like other folk. They effect cures, apparently, upon the same class of persons, and it is a large one, as those benefited by hypnotic suggestion and simple suggestion. Prayers have at different times apparently given the same result. Shrines and statues have done likewise.

In the face of such an accumulation and variety of evidence as history offers, one cannot doubt the result, whatever may be his or her opinion of the causes which lead to it.

Every one who has practised medicine for a little time and heard the stories told by rnany chronic invalids who have tried faith healing, Christian Science, etc., will realize keenly the fact that these methods, like the regular practice of medicine, all fail egregiously. They give us as little reason for success or failure as does the regular practitioner of medicine in such cases. His drug will make one man sleep, and the same dose will make another violently delirious, and it will nauseate a third, and provoke a violent skin eruption on the fourth. I know of one man who assures me that a severe neuralgia was cured by prayer. Many others assure me that they have been made better or cured of various diseases through the agency of Christian Science. Another assures me that he was very nearly killed by Christian Science, while his nest-door neighbor says it is the one grand truth in the world. What the difference is, or why such diverse results are obtained, I shall leave to the ingenuity and greater intelligence of my readers.

Paracelsus, who lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, recognized the power of faith and said of it: "Whether the object of your faith be false or real you will nevertheless obtain the same effects. Thus if I believed in St. Peter's statue as I would have believed in St. Peter himself, I would obtain the same effects that I would have obtained from St. Peter; - but that is superstition. Faith, however, produces miracles; whether it be false or true faith, it will always produce the same wonders."