Psycho-Therapeutics. I have shown in the foregoing that, apart from the practical uses to which it may be put, hypnotism has become of importance to medicine, inasmuch as it has shed light on many branches of theoretical medicine. But this does not exhaust its importance in medicine. It has, on the contrary, acquired an almost fundamental significance in a certain direction by bringing into prominence a new branch of the healing art - viz., psycho-therapeutics, and although this branch has not yet attained full development its progress has been so great that its extraordinary importance is recognized. In this respect hypnosis has become of much greater importance to medical practice than its direct application would justify. We must carefully distinguish between psycho-therapeutics and hypnotic treatment, for the latter is but a small part of the former. But hypnotism has given us the key to psycho-therapeutics by showing us how powerfully mental influences may operate on human beings. Appreciable light was first shed on the importance of mental influence by hypnotic experiments; for until susceptibility to such influence had been demonstrated in the case of hypnotic suggestion, it was not understood that many forms of suggestion prove effective even without hypnosis.

General suggestive therapeutics was thus evolved from the method of treatment by means of hypnotic suggestion. But it was gradually recognized that so far from suggestion exhausting the possibilities of psycho-therapeutic influence there are other mental remedies to be considered. The psycho-therapeutics of to-day is a development of suggestive therapeutics just as the latter is of hypnotism.

It may, perhaps, be here objected that able practitioners employed many and various forms of mental influence long before modern hypnotism was known, and that the latter is therefore of no such great importance in psycho-therapeutics. But to this we may reply that modern psycho-therapeutics, which is based on hypnotism, has made us acquainted with a whole series of mental influences of which even capable practitioners of former days had hardly any knowledge. Apart from this, modern psycho-therapeutics would not have the employment of mental influence confined to a few specialists, but is more concerned to see it made the common property of all practitioners. Finally, it must be added, many practitioners who formerly used psycho-therapeutic methods did not really understand what they were employing. They assumed a chemical or physical action in the case of many remedies where the cure was really due to mental influence. Other cases we read of belong more to the domain of the marvellous, as, for instance, that in which a doctor used a thermometer and the patient very soon declared himself cured, because he believed the thermometer was the remedy.

At all events there is a considerable difference between the occasional use of a mental remedy and the scientific investigation of psychotherapeutics.

Nevertheless, we must admit that theoretically, at least, psycho-therapeutics was by no means entirely ignored in the past There are intimations of it in the works of Hippocrates, Celsus and Galen. We find advice of a psycho-therapeutic nature in Seneca, and as a general rule in the Stoics; also in the writings of many other philosophers of antiquity. The teaching of the old Stoics that physical ailments should be combated by the soul, in particular, presents ideas that connect it with psycho-therapeutics. Later philosophers, also, of whom I may mention Descartes - I shall come back to Kant later on - recognized the importance of mental processes in the cure of disease; so also many theological authors. Similarly, the Arabian and Jewish doctors of the Middle Ages, and also the school of Salerno, often took psycho-therapeutics into account in their works. Coming to later times, I may mention in addition to Boerhaave in the beginning of the eighteenth century, Alberti, who taught forensic medicine in Halle. In several dissertations for the doctor's degree, which emanated from his school, and which were for the most part written by himself, divers branches of psycho-therapeutics are discussed.

I may mention Papai's dissertation De Therapia morbum morali^ which appeared in 1714; and also Siissenbach's De Therapia imaginaria, and Moosdorfs De Valetudinariis imaginariis, both of which were published in 1721. Several works of a similar nature also appeared about that time, written by Hilscher of Jena; for instance, De Strategematibus medicis, 1738, and De Animi Laboribus, egregio sanitatis praeside, 1742. Mention must also be made of a dissertation by Lemmer of Langguth's School at Wittenberg, De Animo sanitatis praeside atque custode optimo, 1758; likewise of a work by Gaub, De Reginime mentis quod medicorum est, 1763. In spite of the growth of natural philosophy, the end of the eighteenth century produced many investigators in the domain of empirical psychology. Both medical men and philosophers did much at that time to promote psycho-therapeutic investigations. I may mention C. W. Hufeland and Kant. The lalter in his well-known work, Von der Macht des Gemiiths, etc., which appeared at the end of the eighteenth century, showed that he was not merely a speculative philosopher. The Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde, which was published by Karl Philipp Moritz, is a treasury of information on individual psycho-therapeutic observations.

The psychic treatment of mental diseases, which began to be recommended towards the end of the eighteenth century, shows that psycho-therapeutics was by no means entirely unknown at that time, and those investigators who took up the inquiry into animal magnetism about the year 1800 were evidently acquainted with the value of the power of the imagination. Bailly, for instance, in 1784, ascribed Deslon's phenomena to the power of the imagination, and about the same time John Hunter expressed similar views on animal magnetism. Even many believers in animal magnetism, such as Kluge and Eschenmayer, were acquainted with the effect produced by the imagination.