A large amount of public attention has been directed at one time and another to some “hypnotic” experiments connected with La Charite Hospital, Paris, of which Dr Luys is the physician. Dr Luys himself first put these theories before English readers in two articles in the Fortnightly Review for June and August 1890, entitled, “The Recent Discoveries in Hypnotism.” By this curious method the patient himself is not sent to sleep, but another is hypnotised, and then by means of a magnet the disease is “transferred” from the patient who is awake to the hypnotised subject who before she is awakened is freed by suggestion from the effects. This idea is by no means a “discovery,” for, many years ago, something very similar was a favourite doctrine of the mesmerists, who found, according to their accounts, that, when the patients were mesmerised, their pains were experienced for a time by the mesmerist.
The influence of the magnet in the curing of disease was firmly believed in by many of the ancients. Hippocrates strongly advocated its use, and there are tomes of mediaeval lore concerning the magnetic virtues (Vide Kircher, Maxwell, and others). In 1815, Reichenbach published an elaborate account of the action of magnets on the human organism; so that, altogether, Dr Luys“discoveries” were somewhat ancient.
However, despite the fact that the main theory of Dr Luys is almost as old as the hills, it may be well to examine his experiments.
Luys tells us that “This new method of therapeutics consists in the transference of the nervous state of .a diseased subject, to a subject hypnotised, by means of a magnetic rod.” (A is the patient wide awake,) “A lays his hands on those of the sleeping subject, and an assistant, holding a big magnetised rod with three branches, moves it for a minute or two in front of the arms of the two persons placed before him. He follows the lines of the limbs, forming thus a circuit of continuous magnetisation, and, at the same time, he takes good care only to work with the north pole (this is of vital importance) when he stops at the painful places pointed out by the patient.”
Not only will the hypnotised subject take the disease of the patient, but also the personality, so that when a female subject is sitting for a male patient she will assume a masculine voice and carriage, and will complain of the beard being pulled if her face be touched. A few facts concerning these strange methods may serve to show the probable explanation.
1. The subjects are all hysterical.
2. The same set of subjects are in daily attendance at the laboratory.
3. They are paid by the patients whose ailments they are supposed to take, and they attend solely for the sake of these gratuities.
4. They are always about the laboratory, so that they can see exactly what is expected of them by seeing the other transfer operations.
5. All these subjects regularly read the history of the cases as published in the clinical reports of the hospital.
6. The ailment is seen to be adopted by the subject if it be an apparent one, such as paralysis; it is assumed to be transferred if it be not a visible complaint, such as heart-disease.
I. The patient, in many cases, does not appear to be any better when his transfer is effected. Thus a patient suffering from “paralysis agitans” may have his affection “transferred” to the subject, who will adopt the most violent palsy; but all this time the patient is suffering still.
It is plain from these facts that the suffering of the subject is due to the suggestion made that he should suffer, whilst in the cases where the patient is really benefited the cause clearly lies in the effect which the sight of the subject undergoing his or her suffering would necessarily have on a person of impressionable temperament and vivid imagination. Another of Luys’ theories is that the magnet can produce emotional effects. The argument is, that as the north pole of a magnet. attracts the needle, while the south repels it, so in human beings similar emotions are excited.
“If you present the north pole of a magnetic rod to a subject in a state of lethargy, you arouse in him movements of joy and expansion of feeling; and if you connect him with the south pole, movements of repulsion appear.”
There might be some test in these experiments, since the subject, we might think, would be ignorant as to which was the north pole and which the south, and thus suggestion would be eliminated. Unfortunately, however, a large “N,” almost an inch high, written in blue ink, was placed on the north pole.
The subjects are also supposed to see flames issuing from the magnet, of a beautiful yellow light from the north pole, and a blue light from the south pole.
Reichenbach’s subjects found that the colours of the “odylic light” at the worth pole were blue, and yellow at the south.
Many other experiments of Luys might be described, such, for instance, as the influence of drugs in sealed tubes, where by contact alone the appropriate reactions are brought about, brandy producing intoxication, etc., etc; the explanation in all these cases is the same.
Transference of Sensation.- One class of experiments in La Charité have provided a great deal of “copy,” of a cheap kind, for several newspapers. This consists in taking a glass of water or a doll, and then transferring the sensation of the subject to the water or the doll. In consequence of this “transference,” if the water be touched or the doll pinched, the subject experiences the most acute agony, and groans until the water or the doll, as the case may be, is left alone. Here again suggestion is the explanation. The writer gave a demonstration of the fallacies of these experiments, and the following was the report:-”The subject was now introduced, and being thrown into the hypnotic state, the experiment was tried with complete success. Whenever the water was touched, and the subject was aware of the fact, he shuddered and writhed until the features became distorted as if _ with excessive pain. When, however, the water was touched and the patient was kept in ignorance of the fact, there was no effect whatever upon him.” From time to time some one new to the subject is deceived, and a few dayssensation results; the indication of the fallacies in these experiments may be useful in showing the methods of examination necessary in similar cases.
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