I must request the reader to consider the process of the cure of an idiopathic neuralgia or of a functional paralysis.

One sees it taking place miraculously immediately on applying the remedy, or advancing by stages, sitting after sitting, no matter whether this cure he effected by electric treatment (and, according to the theory of each electrotherapeutist, by the most contradictory forms of current and of application of the same),1 hydrotherapy, massage, metallotherapy, antipyrine, quinine, tincture of valerian, and the like, taken internally; stretching of nerves, blisters, blood-letting, inhalation of amyl nitrite, fright, the laying on of hands, homoeopathy, secret remedies of all kinds, vegetarianism, the so-called "natural methods," prayer, herbs (prepared by a somnambulist or some such fortune-teller), the holy water of Lourdes, persuasion according to Dubois, ... or suggestion. No remedy acts in all eases, but each of the remedies named actually acts in a large number. The remedy which has once acted in a certain person is likely to act in recurrences, especially if the patient continues to have faith in it. I wish to call especial attention to the following: Each of these remedies acts especially well in the hands of those doctors, quacks, priests, midwives, or old women who believe in the action themselves, and the other remedies generally fail in their action when applied by them. This is the reason why there are so many contradictory opinions on this subject. It is useless to laugh and to meet my argument with the statement that this is based on humbugging or faulty observation. Both of these may occasionally play a part, hut the law is much too constant to be explained in this way. There is no doubt about it, and the practitioner who believes that valerian is the only effective remedy for neuralgia obtains the best results with this drug, just as the one who believes the same of a certain application of a constant current will celebrate bis victories with this method. But one must, of course, accept everything with a grain of salt, since not only the belief of the practitioner, but also that of the patient, comes into play, as do other circumstances, especially the narcotic and similar actions which the medicaments temporarily produce.

1 Sperling of Berlin, for example, achieved surprisingly marked curative results with extremely weak currents alone, and Julius Heller of Lucerne, on the other hand, did the same wit h the exclusive use of very powerful currents and extensive contact of the electrodes.

What should one deduce from these facta? That these cures possess for certain some common cause, that they are induced by a common mechanism, which can, it is true, be stimulated in totally different ways, but which nevertheless acts in the same regular way in inducing the cure. The matter becomes more apparent when one remembers that the same remedy often removes entirely opposite symptoms, such as convulsions and paralyses, anaesthesia and hyperesthesia, etc. The same currents, the same cold-water douches, the same prayers, the same baths (irrespective of whether the spring contains one one-hundred per cent. more or less lithium), often act equally well or badly in both cases. They frequently even do harm if the patient autosuggests this to himself, which is by no means an uncommon occurrence.

These facts show quite clearly that the common factor in the cure, which one has to surmise and to seek, lies in the body of the patient, and, further, that it can only lie in his nervous system. No other tissue of the body is capable of starting such an equable machinery by so many means. If we take into consideration the part played by the belief which the practitioner passes on to the patient, it becomes apparent that all these cures are produced unconsciously by the dynamic action of perceptions - i.e., by suggestion. One must admit, after carefully considering the circumstances, that there is no possibility of a direct specific action of these remedies taking place in the majority of cases, for the absolutely incongruous contradictions on the one hand and the confirmations on the other could not bo reconciled by such an assumption. The matter can be explained simply and naturally by suggestion, understood in the sense in which I have hitherto used the term.

Bernheim has expressed his opinion repeatedly and unreservedly on the suggestive action of a considerable number of medicaments and other therapeutic procedures. This was done notably in 1889 in Paris, on the occasion of the Congress on Hypnotism. I elucidated the train of thought sketched above before the meeting of German scientists in Bremen in 1890, in discussion against Dr. Klenke. The latter openly related his own contradictory and startling results with electrotherapeutic treatment, and tried to explain the action as being due to vasomotor forces, while he doubted whether there was any specific action in the current itself. The vasomotor nerves, naturally being a part of the mechanism subjected to the control of our cerebrum, do take a part in the action. However, the action of suggested currents, in conjunction with an interruption of real currents, proves that the regulation emanates from the conception, which is associated with the local interference.

Dr. Naegeli, of Ermatingen, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland, has discovered a new curative treatment - "the treatment of neuralgias and neuroses by manipulations." At first every one laughed at this new method, but later on it was recognized by the scientific medical world, especially since he published the method in an illustrated book in the medical press. But when Naegeli terminated his explanatory remarks on his method before the Swiss Central Society with the words, "Suggestion is excluded," a smile stole over the faces of every one present. As a matter of fact, Naegeli's head, hand, and other manipulations are pure forms of suggestion. Instead of recognizing this, an attempt was made to carry out absurd experiments by means of which the matter would be explained by mechanical vasomotor processes.