course and assure the patient, even after the first treatment which might have been a slight success, that he saw from definite symptoms that hypnosis had set in. That will greatly smooth the way for real hypnotic effects the next time. The best method of hypnotizing is the one which relies essentially on the spoken word, awakening through speech the idea of the approach of sleep. If the hypnotizer assures the subject in monotonous words that a feeling of fatigue is setting in, that he is feeling a tiredness creeping over his shoulders and arms and legs, that his memories are fading away and that he is now hypnotized, for not a few all is done that is needed. The hypnotic state will come and will hold until the verbal suggestion takes it off again. Perhaps the hypnotizer says that he will count three and at three the subject is to open his eyes and feel perfectly comfortable. It is wise to tell the patient beforehand that he will not lose consciousness and that he will remember afterward whatever happens as many people believe that loss of memory belongs to the hypnotic state, and that they were not hypnotized if they can remember what happened. Such a skeptical after-attitude can seriously interfere with the success of the treatment. Yet in most cases, it will be safer not to rely on words only but to supplement them by manipulations which all converge towards the effect of increasing the suggestibility and thus of overcoming the resistance to the suggestions introduced. It is well known that for this purpose it is advisable to begin the influence with some slight fatiguing stimulations. The effect is most easily reached when the patient fixates perhaps a shining button held over his eyes or listens to monotonous sounds. A particularly strong effect belongs again to very slight touch stimuli. If the subject with his eyes closed is touched perhaps by two pencils at various and unexpected points of the face and hands, a skillful playing on his tactual senses soon produces a half-dozing state of hypnoid character. In the same group belong those so-called passes which evidently have a reflex influence in the blood-vessel system. It is advisable to combine the various elements in such a way that at first physical stimuli upon eye or skin produce an over-suggestible state and that only as soon as this state is reached the verbal suggestion sets in, perhaps with the words, "I shall hypnotize you now." Under such conditions every subject may soon be brought to that degree of hypnotization which is accessible to him. Yet more than one treatment is usually necessary for the higher degrees. Much less importance for therapeutic purposes belongs to that hypnoid state which is reached without the idea of sleep where the subject comes with open eyes into a kind of fascination, produced perhaps by a sudden flash of light or by the firm eye of the hypnotizer. It is a state which can lead to a strong submission of will and which has its legal importance.