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36
HYPNO TISM.
emanating from another. My first experiments on this
point were instituted in the presence of some friends on the
first day of May, 1843, and following days. I believe they
were the first experiments of the kind which had ever been
tried, and they have succeeded in every case in which I
have operated."
"Observation, having thus shown what the simple hypnotic
sugrestion can perform in the healthy condition, it
was natural to ap ily these qualities to pathological states,
and to make use of the nervous activity concentrated by
means of suggestion, in neutralizing morblid phenomena.
It was natural to say to oneself-if, in a hypnotized
subject, anaethesia, constructure, movements, pains, can
be produced at will by an analogous mechanism, it ought
to be possible in some cases to suppress anaethesia, contracture,
or paralysis caused by disease, to increase the
weakened muscular force, to modify favorably, or to restore
the functional force perverted or diminished by the pathological
condition, as far, of course, as the organic condition
permits this restoration."
"It would seem that an i ea so simple as this would
have forced itself upon the attention of the first physicians
who learned to recognize suggestion. But it has been a
long time coming to the front. As long as magnetic
phenomena were considered the effect of a fluid acting
upon the organism, it was to this fluid action that the
cures were attributed. Magnetism, by its mysterious
influence upon the vital principle, reestablished functional
harmony; it was beneficial like warmth, light, and
electricity."
Since Braid's time, the hypothesis of a magnetic fluid
has had few adherents, hyponotic suggestion has replaced