Case 2. A Lawyer, Fifty-Five Years Of Age

Family history good. He did not use alcohol and had no other vice. He was a railroad attorney, and transacted business for a large number of wealthy corporations. He was kindly and gentle. He possessed a splendid physique. For eight or ten years he worked from eight o'clock in the morning to twelve at night. The year before I was consulted his family complained that he was growing irritable. This increased, and he redoubled his work. He became so excitable that he was insolent and unbearable to his clerks and business associates. Things that would not have ordinarily annoyed him produced in him a violent fit of anger. His food began to distress him, and he greatly restricted his diet. Finally, owing to severe headaches, he consulted a celebrated New York physician. His medical adviser gave him medicine, and told him that unless he desisted from his work he would break down entirely. He took the medicine but did not desist from work. Insomnia came on, and the depression and nervous irritability steadily increased. Finally he made one or two blunders in business, from lack of concentration, and then went abroad for his health. Although he could reason clearly he was so nervous and irritable that his family found it necessary to confide him to the care of nurses.

He committed assaults on several of them at different times. Then afterwards, weeping like a child, told them that it was his nervous state, and that he had no intention of acting in that way. Consulting a physician in this city he was sent to me for massage, rest, and forced feeding. Rooms were secured in a private house, and the treatment begun. The following incident illustrates the very sad condition of his nerves.

His attendant was called away one evening and I happened in in his absence. There in his room, sitting in a chair, I found this wreck of a man, crying bitterly, and looking between whiles at two objects which he held in his hands. Strange as it may seem, these were simply two night-shirts, and this once intellectual, strong man, was actually weeping because he could not decide which of the nightshirts to put on. I remonstrated with him gently, and he immediately became enraged and ran around the room like a madman. I took him kindly but firmly by the shoulders and sat him down on a chair and commanded him to put on a night-shirt, and handed him one. He reluctantly obeyed. I then led him to the bed as I would a spoiled child. Then it occurred to me to hypnotize him. I took a bright coin from my pocket and went through the usual process. In five minutes he was hypnotized. I induced the so-called somnambulic state, and made suggestions pertinent to his condition, telling him that he would sleep, that his massage would rest him, and that his irritability of temper would leave him. The next day found him much better. He was hypnotized twice a day for fourteen days. Hypnotism relieved the irritability and in a measure restored the power of consecutive thought.

Massage, rest, and a large amount of food again renewed his physical vigor. After ten weeks of this treatment he was sent to the mountains for a month, then to the seaside for a month, and then gradually he returned to his business cares.

The description given by Stevenson of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hydp does not begin to compare in force with the difference between this patient ill and the same patient well.

Intellectual, noble, hospitable, kindly, and calm of demeanor when well, this same man, when suffering from nervous exhaustion, was ill-tempered, perverse, brutal, coarse, and selfish to such a degree that it would be impossible for any but a medical man who is conversant with this condition, to believe.

I have cited two extreme cases. There are all gradations of them, and hypnotism, or suggestion without hypnotism, will benefit most of the symptoms; and if rest, hygiene, suitable occupation, and diet are used at the same time, if there is any power of recuperation left in such a patient they may again restore him to health. Of course, in many cases there are underlying organic diseases which may require medical or surgical treatment for their relief; but from a large experience I am convinced that minor diseases are regarded erroneously as the causes of this interestingly complex state, when they only play a subordinate part in the condition, and sometimes are not responsible for it at all.

It is curious, however, that neurasthenia may sometimes be relieved or cured by a slight surgical operation, or by some insignificant remedial agency. "Suggestion did it," most physicians will say; then, bless suggestion, say I, or anything else that will relieve this class of patients.

There are many symptoms of brain-exhaustion. Many more of the absence of cerebral balance.

I do not design this for a text-book upon medicine, but merely to show the application of hypnotism to disease. Many forms of depression are curable by suggestion. I do not know that they can be classified and differentiated from those forms of depression which cannot be cured by hypnotism. I think more depends upon the temperament of the person who is being treated. There is an innate susceptibility to hypnosis. Some people are much more easily hypnotized, some can be benefited, and some cannot. Why this is true I cannot say, and in a considerable search of the literature I have failed to find a rational explanation of it.

To say that one man is susceptible and one man is not so, is simply to state a fact. The constitution of the human mind, its infinitely variable qualities, can never be understood until its essential essence is discovered. We know that consciousness cannot manifest itself without a nervous system. We know also that the higher the type of the cerebral developments, the greater the intellectual capacity. Within certain limits it has been fairly well established that certain parts of the brain preside over, or, better, are associated with, certain sensory and motor manifestations.