Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism: How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and UseAlpheus, A.
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Complete Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism: How to Hypnotize: Being an Exhaustive and Practical System of Method, Application, and Use
Alpheus, A.
Hypnotism; Mesmerism; Spiritualism; Telepathy
“The next day I placed him in a chair and induced sleep, by a fixed
gaze, in less than a minute. Two Italian physicians, Drs. Triani and
Colombo who were present during the operation, declared that the
subject lost all sensibility and that his muscles retained all the
different positions in which they were put exactly as in the cataleptic
state. The patient saw nothing, felt nothing, and heard nothing, his
brain remaining in communication only with me.
“As soon as we had ascertained that the patient was completely under
the influence of the hypnotic slumber, I said to him: ‘You will sleep
for a quarter of an hour,’ knowing that the operation would not last
longer than that; and he remained seated and perfectly motionless.
“I made a transversal incision two and a half inches long and removed
the tumor, which I took out whole. I then pinched the blood vessels
with a pair of Dr. Pean’s hemostatic pincers, washed the wound and
applied a dressing, without making a single ligature. The patient was
still sleeping. To maintain the dressing in proper position, I fastened
a bandage around his head. While going through the operation I said to
the patient, ‘Lower your head, raise your head, turn to the right, to
the left,’ etc., and he obeyed like an automaton. When everything was
finished, I said to him, ‘Now, wake up.’
“He then awoke, declared that he had felt nothing and did not suffer,
and he went away on foot, as if nothing had been done to him.
“Five days after the dressing was removed and the cicatrix was found
completely healed.”
Hypnotism has been tried extensively for painless dentistry, but with
many cases of failure, which got into the courts and thoroughly
discredited the attempt except in very special cases.
Restoring the Use of Muscles.—There is no doubt that hypnotism may be
extremely useful in curing many disorders that are essentially nervous,
especially such cases as those in which a patient has a fixed idea that
something is the matter with him when he is not really affected. Cases
of that description are often extremely obstinate, and entirely
unaffected by the ordinary therapeutic means. Ordinary doctors abandon
the cases in despair, but some person who understands “mental
suggestion” (for instance, the Christian Science doctors) easily
effects a cure. If the regular physician were a student of hypnotism he
would know how to manage cases like that.
By way of illustration, we quote reports of two cases, one successful
and one unsuccessful. The following is from a report by one of the
physicians of the Charity hospital in Paris:
“Gabrielle C——— became a patient of mine toward the end of 1886. She
entered the Charity hospital to be under treatment for some accident
arising from pulmonary congestion, and while there was suddenly seized
with violent attacks of hystero-epilepsy, which first contracted both
legs, and finally reduced them to complete immobility.
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