sleeplessness, constipation, diarrhœa, and certain manifestations of hysteria. Still, I do not wish to imply that hypnotic suggestion is of use in all forms of functional disease. In a large number of trials of the influence of hypnotism upon the insane, Forel found that the insanities supposed to be unaccompanied by anatomical changes in the brain were as little benefited as those which are known to be the result of actual brain-disease.
The majority of the insane are difficult or impossible to hypnotize. Yet, with insistance, it is possible to influence a small proportion of cases, and to even temporarily abolish hallucinations; but in general the results are unsatisfactory. In a series of experiments made to determine the effect of suggestion upon the fixed delusions of the form of insanity popularly known as monomania, it was found that the delusions could occasionally be driven away for an instant during sleep—that is, the patient could be made to renounce them; but in every instance they were present to their fullest extent as soon as the hypnotic influence wore off.
Chronic alcoholism is one of the conditions in which the most gratifying effects have been obtained by therapeutic suggestion. In several instances the habit of drinking was permanently broken, and all desire for alcohol destroyed by means of energetic suggestions against its use. The habitual use of morphine, chloral, and cocaine has been similarly overcome. The constant surveillance of such patients, afforded by an asylum, is of course an important auxiliary feature in determining such cures. One must not speak with too great certainty as to the permanency of these cures, for the cases have not been under observation long enough to preclude the possibility of relapse.
In a few cases, certain bad habits in children have been broken through suggestion, and I am confident that hypnotism has an important application here.
The frequency and duration of the hypnotic sittings, as employed for the cure of disease, vary with the character of the ailments. In chronic alcoholic disease, for example, the patient should be hypnotized every day for at least half an hour, and it is generally many weeks before much benefit can be obtained. On the other hand, attacks of neuralgia or migraine may sometimes be cured at a single sitting, I recently saw a case of spontaneous somnambulism in a young girl cured in this way. The patient was in the habit of walking in her sleep, and had been under treatment by physicians for a long time, but none of them had succeeded in doing anything to improve her condition. Finally, she was brought to Prof. Forel, was hypnotized and treated with energetic suggestion, directed against her sleep-walking. Six months have elapsed, and the somnambulism has not once reappeared.
