Though I have completely failed to find these three stages in any of my somnambulic subjects, and though the experience of most observers is of an equally negative character, I am not prepared to say that they do not occur in a few hysterical subjects without suggestion. Dr. Grazzini, of Florence, and Dr. Barwise, of Blackburn, tell me that they have elicited them spontaneously.

Liebeault, Bernheim, Beaunis, and others of the Nancy school, deny the existence of these three stages. They assert that their experience in treating hypnotically a vast number of patients leads them to the conclusion that nothing resembling them has been or can be evoked spontaneously. They consider, in fact, that Charcot introduced a new hysterical condition into the Salpetriere, and that this became, as it were, an institution of the place which every new-comer hastened to comply with. The) support this assertion by showing that when they in their Nancy practice explained to hysterical patients the effects produced by Charcot, the three stages, never before mani fested, were forthcoming. Bernheim has well said ' Mefiez-vous de la suggestion'; and an English physician has given an equally sage warning: 'Take care, or you will find what you are looking for.' * Charcot thus entered

* Braid was at one time misled into supposing that by touching the phrenological ' bumps' he produced corresponding effects. For instance, if he touched the 'bump' of Destructiveness, the subject immediately proceeded to hit out and to destroy whatever was within his reach; if that of Benevolence, he would give away his watch purse, etc., to any bystander. • The fact is, that the sense of sigh (under the apparently closed eyelids), that of hearing, etc., are s abnormally acute in somnambulists, that the slightest hint of expres sion, voice, or touch, is sufficient to evoke from them the desire' response. Some of us remember the flourish of trumpets which heralded the introduction of treatment by suspension for locomoto ataxy and other spinal diseases. Elaborate theories were put forward to explain the results, but Bernheim early in the day attributed then the field weighted with a theory which he seemed unable to shake off. If one of his school is shown a broad-shouldered navvy or a sun-dried old soldier in a state of profound hypnotic sleep, and is asked whether this looks like a hysterical subject, he will reply that appearances are deceptive, and that the very process of hypnotizing has developed a latent condition of hysteria, or one analogous to it. * The discoveries of Charcot in physiology and pathology fully entitle him to the world-wide reputation which he enjoys; but the attitude he chose to adopt towards hypnotism is unfortunate.

By attaching undue importance to le grand hypnotisme, as seen in his subjects at the Salpetriere, and by ignoring what his school calls le petit hypnotisme, and confining his researches to hysterical cases, he has retarded the progress of rational hypnotism. Of the considerable number of medical men I have met who have attended Charcot's demonstrations, not one has looked upon hypnotism as more than a toy, and not one has adopted it for the treatment of disease; whereas nearly all those I have met who have studied the subject at the cliniques at Nancy have been thoroughly convinced of the value of the treatment, and have adopted it into their practice, † To my mind, the great merit of Liebeault was entirely to suggestion, and demonstrated the efficacy of the apparatus when the patient had it applied lying down without any nerve-stretching. Every hospital and every neurologist's consulting-room was fitted with the apparatus. But who hears of it now? It has gone the way of Perkins' tractors.

* The fanciful method adopted by Charcot to produce the hypnotic state may give rise to unexpected results. Some of his highly 'educated' subjects fall into a state of catalepsy if a bright light is suddenly turned full on their eyes, and by the action of this excitant a hysterical patient of his was lately taken in flagrante delicto. She had stolen into a room, gone to a chest of drawers, and actually placed her hand on a coveted photograph which she intended to abstract, when a bright ray of light shot through a chink direct into her eyes, and she remained entranced and motionless until she was discovered (Revue de l'Hypnotisme, October, 1889). I have never heard of the hypnotic condition being thus involuntarily and spontaneously induced when the Nancy method has been employed.

† Perhaps here I may be allowed to say that my own experience in this matter is a very pleasant one. It has been my privilege to that he approached the subject with only one end in view - the relief of disease. If the theories he had deduced from observed facts (for every man who is not a mere empiric must hold theories) did not, after closer observation, continue to correspond with them, the theories were thrown over, and not the facts, as too often happens. The Nancy school may therefore be called practical and therapeutic, in distinction from Charcot's, which is theoretical and experimental.

The following table, taken from Professor Beaunis's work, proves what a mistake it is to suppose that only hysterical persons are influenced by the treatment.

Patients submitted to hypnotization by Dr. Liebeault in 1880 (1,014):

Beaunis shows in the table on p. 63 the percentage of the different stages of hypnotism at different ages.

These statistics refer, of course, to Nancy, and, as has been already pointed out, that town is pervaded by an atmosphere of hypnotism and suggestion. But Dr. Van Eeden assures me that at Amsterdam he finds the prodemonstrate the Nancy treatment to a large number of medical men, and not only have they been kind enough to express appreciation of what they had seen, but they have practically shown it by at once' trying the methods in their own practices. Doctors are naturally only too pleased to adopt a new treatment which has been proved useful and which will help them to deal with many troublesome cases; but it requires to be presented to them in a manner free from mysticism and exaggeration. The enthusiasm the good Dr. Liebeault showed was a part of his character, and lent a great charm to his advocacy of hypnotism; but discretion is the better part for his followers, and 1 think they fully realize this.