A patient who has recently received a severe shock, the effects of which alone represent the real trouble, without the disturbance of any antecedent experience, might quite well be relieved by hypnotic suggestion from sleeplessness, pain, or amnesia; and in some cases this removal of the acute symptoms which determine the persistence of the shock effects may lead to complete recovery. A single and sudden wholly irrelevant experience, such as the bursting of a shell, which has no relationship whatever to the patient’s past experience, and produces effects by its vividness and its recency, might quite well be neutralised by another kind of wholly irrelevant intrusion, such as hypnotic suggestion. This argument may perhaps be made more intelligible by a homely analogy. A temperate man walking along the street might be thrown temporarily into a condition of faintness or collapse by seeing some ghastly accident, but by taking a “brandy and soda,” which to such a man would be a wholly irrelevant experience, the physiological expressions of his emotions might be controlled and he might be able to proceed on his way, and to overcome completely the effects of the transitory occurrence. But in the case of a man who, for example, had been greatly worried by monetary troubles for a number of years, the “brandy and soda” would not produce anything more than a temporary alleviation of his troubles. The latter illustration represents the chronic psychosis which, as Déjerine has so admirably explained, is quite unsuitable for hypnotic treatment. But the distinguished French neurologist’s statements do not seem to apply to the former type of case, due to a vivid recent shock, in the symptomatology of which troubles before the shock play no part. In such cases the results of hypnotic suggestion are often brilliant, if erratic, as is the “brandy and soda cure” for the man who is overcome by a sudden terrible experience in the street. There are, however, patients who have not sufficient will-power or intelligence to be properly re-educated, to whom a certain amount of suggestion may be of some use. Those who have used hypnosis in civil practice are aware that in certain individual cases of long-standing trouble, such, for example, as chronic alcoholism, hypnotic treatment is of unquestionable value. Among soldiers suffering from the long-standing effects of shell-shock, hypnosis may be able in some cases to help in the restoration of health with an effectiveness that no other method can rival.