ulation.--Professional Subjects.--How Dr. Luys of the Charity Hospital at Paris Was Deceived.--I

t is a curious fact that deception seems to be an inherent element in nearly all such characters. Expert doctors have been thoroughly deceived. And again, persons who have been trying to expose frauds have also been deceived by the positive statements of such pers

constitute half the existence, that seems to destroy the faculty for distinguishing between

we will give some cases illustrating the fact that persons may learn by practice to do seemingly impossible things, such as holding themselves

ty which shows itself in deceiving. The newspapers record similar cases from time to time

en who sympathized with the supposed victim. The maid was condemned to death; but a second trial was granted, at which it was conclusively proved

and transported the property to his own premises. Being caught in the very act of the theft, he seemed at first to be flurried and bewildered. When arrested and taken to the lock-up, he seemed to be in a state of abstraction; when spoken to he made no repl

o, and she did not sell or even use the things she took, she had made a regular business of stealing whenever she could. She had begun it about seven months before by taking a lace handkerchief, which she slipped under her shawl: Soon after she accomplishe

leptomania could

hysterical cases, becomes far more formidable in such studies as we are now occupied with. It is

The writer knows of the case of a man who has such control over his heart and lungs that he can actually throw himself into a profound sleep in which the breathing is so absolutely stopped for an hour that a mirror i

ions did not follow the subject was in a hypnotic trance; but it is well known that persons may easily train themselves to hold out the arms for any length of time without increasing the respiration by one breath

famous scientists have been deceived, there is no doubt. They know it themselves. A case which will serve as an illustration is that of Dr. Luys, some of whose operations were "exposed" by Dr. Ernest Hart, an English

hrough their different contortions and attitudes to exercise themselves in them. And then, again, in the present day, has not the designation of an 'hypnotical subject' become almost a social position? To be fed, to be paid, admired, exhibited in public, run after, and all the rest of it--all this is enough to make the most impartial looker-on skeptical. But is it enough to enable us to produce an a priori negation? Certainly not; but it is sufficient to justify legitimate doubt. And when we come to moral phenomena, where we have to put

te Mr. Hart's

d thus in the London Pall Mall Gazette, issue of December 2: "Dr. Luys then showed us how a similar artificial state of suffering could be created without suggestion--in fact, by the mere proximity of certain substances. A pinch of coal dust, for example, corked and sealed in a small phial and p

about the south pole; while by means of a magnet it was said that the symptoms of illness of a sick patient might be transferred to a well person also in the hypnotic state, but of course on awaking the well person at once threw off sic

ve plexuses. The effect on Marguerite was very rapid and marked; she began to move her lips and to swallow; the expression of her face changed, and she asked, 'What have you been giving me to drink? I am quite giddy.' At first she had a stupid and troubled look; then she began to get gay. 'I am ashamed of

himself transformed into a cat when a small co

rsation he gave the patient no clue to exactly what drug he was using, in order that if the patient was simulating he would

' and so on through the whole performance of a not ungraceful giserie, which we stopped at that stage, for I was loth to have the degrading performance of drunkenness carried to the extreme I had seen her go through at the Charite. I now applied a tube of alcohol, asking the assistant, howe

d be called, in the language of La Charite, the south pole. Then she fell into an attitude, of repulsion and horror, with clenched fists, and as it approached her she fell backward into the arms of M. Cremiere, and was carried, still showing all the signs of terror and repulsion, back to her chair. The bar was again turned until what should have been the north pole was presented to her. She again resumed the same attitudes of attraction, and tears bedewed her cheeks. 'Ah,' she said

f experiments, with the same results, a practical proof that Dr. Luys had be

pnotic condition. Even if Dr. Luys's experiments were genuine this would be the

e is insensible to pain; but as we shall see in a latter chapter, this insensibility also may be simulated, for by long training some persons learn to control their facial expressions perfectly. We have a

al hypnotic subject. This person, whom he calls L., he brought to his house, where some experiments were tried in the presence of a

avy man to sit on his stomach; it seemed to me, however, that he was here within a 'straw' or two of the limit of his endurance. The 'blister trick,' spoken of by Truth as having deceived some medical men, was done by rapidly biting and suck

and which to most people would have caused intense pain. L. allowed no sign of suffering or discomfort to appear; he did not set his teeth or wince; his pulse was not quickened, and the pupil of his eye did not dilate as physiologists tell us it does when pain passes a certain limit. It may be said that this merely shows that in L. the limit of endurance was beyond the norm

sh war wounded Turks often astonished English doctors by undergoing the most formidable amputations with no other anaesthetic than a cigarette. Hysterical women will inflict very severe pain on themselves--merely for wantonnes

udgment in every possible way. In the case of fresh subjects, or persons well known, of course there is little possibility of deception. And the fact that deception exists does not in any way invalidate the truth of hypnotism as a scientific phenomenon. We cite it merely as one of the physiological peculiarities connected with the mental condition of which it is