534 A. In some articles in the Revue Philosophique, published in 1886 and 1887, Delboeuf described some experiments with two maid-servants of his own, whom he calls M. and J. Both were strong healthy peasant girls who had frequently been hypnotised and were good somnambules (see also 551 B). The following experiment was made with J. After explaining what he proposed to do and obtaining her consent in the waking state, Delbceuf hypnotised her, extended her arms on a table, and suggested that the right arm should be insensible to pain. Each arm was then burnt with a red-hot bar of iron, 8 mm. in diameter, the extent and duration of its application being the same in both, but pain being felt in the left arm alone. The burns were bandaged and J. was sent to bed. During the night the pain in the left arm continued, and next morning there was a wound on it, 3 cm. in diameter, with an outer circle of inflamed blisters. On the right there was only a defined eschar, the exact size of the iron and without inflammation or redness. The day following the left arm was still more painful and inflamed; analgesia was then successfully suggested, when the wound soon dried and the inflammation disappeared.

Thus in the originally painless wound there was at first much less inflammation and a more rapid healing than in the painful one.

534 B. DelbceuPs experiment suggests that in many of the remarkable hypnotic cures recorded in the Zoist (as well as in modern cases) the removal of pain was probably an important element in the cure; see e.g. cures of inflammation (Zoist, vol. x. p. 347); of neuralgia and chronic rheumatism (vol. ix. pp. 74-79); of abdominal pains (vol. ix. p. 155); of tic douloureux (vol. viii. p. 185); of severe headaches (vol. x. p. 369); of eczema impetiginodes (vol. x. p. 96).

The general subject of hypnotic analgesia is strikingly illustrated by Esdaile's well-known work in the Indian hospitals; see his books, Mesmerism in India (London, 1846); The Introduction of Mesmerism with Sanction of Government into the Public Hospitals of India (2nd edit. London, 1856); Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance (London, 1852); and constant references to him in the Zoist. Braid also made extensive use of it.

After their period, the subject sank into oblivion, until the hypnotic revival of the last twenty years, but it is now too well recognised to need discussion. As an instance I may refer to Dr. Bramwell's demonstration in 1890 to the leading doctors and dentists of Leeds of the use of hypnotism as an anaesthetic in extracting the stumps of sixteen teeth at one operation, and in the surgical dressing of a large, deep-seated abscess in the cheek. To some patients who had been often hypnotised, it was sufficient to send a command by letter that they should go to sleep at once and obey the dentist's order during an operation, which was consequently painless. (See British Medical Journal, April 5, 1890, p. 801.) Later, Dr. Bramwell showed a case in which Mr. H. Bendelack Hewetson had performed the surgical operation for correcting a squint under the anaesthesia of hypnotism only; and Mr. Hewetson stated that he had found such anaesthesia complete in many other surgical operations on the eye. (See British Medical Journal, February 28, 1891, pp. 460-468).

Many instances of the use of hypnotism in the relief of pains arising from a variety of causes are given in van Renterghem and van Eeden's Psycho-thérapie, pp. 262-280.

534 C. The following case reported by Delboeuf in the Revue de l'Hypnotisme, November 1891, p. 132, shows that suggestion in the normal waking state may be sufficient to suppress pain.

Mr. J., an old man of eighty, had been suffering from facial neuralgia for twenty years. He had had most of his teeth extracted, and besides half an inch of the superorbicular nerve removed. He applied in the last resort to Delboeuf. The Liége professor did not at first wish to hypnotise so old a man, who might have died suddenly in his chair in the absence of any doctor. Some days later, however, Delboeuf, accompanied by a medical friend, visits J. They find him all huddled up in his arm-chair, suffering intensely. J. had a plentiful beard and thick eyebrows. Merely to touch the hairs of his beard and eyebrows caused him intense suffering. J. tells of his martyrdom in detail. Suddenly Delboeuf, turning towards the doctor, says: "You see this man. Well! all his sufferings are about to cease." Then looking steadily into J.'s eyes, Delboeuf lays violently hold of his beard and pulls it, crying: "You don't feel any more pain; nor will you in future!" J. felt no pain. Delboeuf pulls J.'s moustache and eyebrows, presses his fingers upon J.'s paralysed cheek. No sign of suffering. Delboeuf requests the doctor to do the same, with the same result.

The neuralgic pains never returned.

See also a paper by Mr. C. M. Barrows, entitled "Suggestion without Hypnotism: an account of experiments in preventing or suppressing pain" in the Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 21. Fahnestock at an earlier date showed that pain may sometimes be entirely suppressed by self-suggestion.