So far I have only attempted to treat one case of hyperidrosis by suggestion. The patient was a young lady who came under treatment in 1899 for severe and almost continuous frontal headache. This was speedily cured by suggestion, though it had for a long time resisted all the usual remedies, and she was only slightly hypnotizable. She then told me of her other trouble - excessive perspiration of the brows and nose, brought on especially by any mental emotion, and a source of endless distress and annoyance to her.

Probably a profound degree of hypnosis is necessary before suggestion has sufficient influence over the central nervous system to control such a local condition. I never could get more than a slight torpor and drowsiness with this patient, and the condition underwent no change.

The medical world is familiar with instances where a treatment which has been highly praised in some quarters has failed to produce good results when tried elsewhere. Apostoli's method of applying electricity in uterine fibroids, and Charcot's suspension treatment for locomotor ataxy, are cases in point. Neglect of apparently trivial technicalities may explain some of these discrepancies.

Practitioners of the Nancy school all over the world are agreed as to the efficacy of hypnotic suggestion, and of the absolute importance of observing points of detail. Bernheim asserts, and Forel agrees with him, that no one is entitled to speak with authority on the subject until he succeeds in hypnotizing at least So per cent, of the hospital patients on whom he tries the treatment. Hypnotic suggestion is a psychical treatment, and to use it successfully demands tact, judgment, medical knowledge, and knowledge of one's patient, or, in the words of Dr. Felkin, a firm will, unlimited patience, and a calm temperament. To these Forel adds enthusiasm and resourcefulness.

Note. - The experience of a scientific and critical friend, Dr. B------, whom I have frequently hypnotized, is interesting. He is a healthy man of forty-five, of dark complexion and lymphatic temperament, somewhat hypochondriacal, and a clever and successful practitioner. He is a good subject, and is sometimes affected to the third, and sometimes only to the first, degree of hypnosis. For Liebeault's 'stages,' see 289.

When told that he cannot open his eyes, he makes no attempt to do so unless strongly urged to try, when he proceeds in the ineffectual manner already described. With much effort he is generally able to move his arm, in spite of my prohibition, but the force employed is evidently entirely out of proportion to the result achieved. In the hypnotic state he feels absolutely tranquil and at rest, and when exhorted to exert himself he reflects: ' Of course I can do any of these things if I only try, but I am not going to disturb myself by trying.' When told that he will open his eyes and be wide awake when I count fifteen, he makes up his mind not to comply, and yet when I reach fifteen he cannot help becoming wide awake. After removing a real pain, such as occipital neuralgia, I have frequently, in the same subject, induced a pain localized by suggestion - e.g., in the eye or forefinger. Dr. B------frequently feels a sensation of numbness, heaviness, and ' pins and needles' in a limb for some minutes after I have told him it is fixed and immovable. It is interesting to note that having been frequently hypnotized does not prevent him from successfully operating on others; and he is beginning to use the Nancy method in his practice.

In this case and all others I find the patient's co-operation is absolutely necessary to success, and I have always failed to produce any effect upon him and others when I have either asked them to resist, or when there has been some disturbing emotional element present. This is an important fact in face of the statement sometimes advanced - that after being hypnotized the patient is unable to resist subsequent attempts. I speak here only of medical hypnotism. Though I have failed to find the inhalation of chloroform of much use in inducing hypnosis in the twenty or thirty intractable cases where I have tried it, such has not been the experience of some other observers. Dr. Abdon Sanchez Herrero, Professor of Clinical Medicine in the University of Valladolid, contributed to the congress a paper on 'Forced Hypnotization' (Comptes Rendus, p. 212). He, following up the experiments of Dr. Rifat, of Salonica, found that there is a short period during the inhalation of chloroform when the subject is as open to outside suggestion as in somnambulism, and this stage is, he says, at the end of the period of nervous excitement, and before that of delirium - a space of very short duration, sometimes only of a few-seconds. Dr. Herrero experimented on six patients, whom he had previously found to be absolutely insusceptible to hypnotism after repeated and long-continued attempts.

He failed in the first two cases owing, as he thinks, to allowing the favourable moment to pass; but in the other four he was successful in hitting upon the exact period of 'suggestibility.' To the first he suggested ready susceptibility to ordinary hypnotism the following day, and as a result the hitherto intractable patient was hypnotized by a few minutes' simple fixation of the eyes the next morning. He suggested to the other three patients daily increasing susceptibility to the action of chloroform, and finally the production of anaesthesia and unconsciousness without the drug. In each case he was successful within a week in reducing the quantity of chloroform to the vanishing-point, and in inducing what was practically hypnotic somnambulism by simple suggestion. Dr. Herrero has continued his researches, and feels himself justified in asserting that in chloroform we have an aid to hypnosis which will enable us to hypnotize the most intractable cases, and he proposes it as an alternative to the terribly fatiguing and somewhat repulsive method pursued by Dr. A. Voisin, at the Salpetriere, in cases of insanity.

This paper throws a light on the induction of anaesthesia in Mr. Braine's case (quoted on p. 11), and also on Bernheim's assertion that he finds the action of chloroform greatly reinforced by suggestions made whilst administering the anaesthetic. On the other hand, Dr. Milne Bramwell says (op. cit., p. 68) that he has not found chloroform or other anaesthetics helpful in inducing hypnosis.