CHAPTER IX.
Hypnotism in Medicine.--Anesthesia.--Restoring the Use
of Muscles.--Hallucination.--Bad Habits.
Anaesthesia--It is well known that hypnotism may be
used to render subjects insensible to pain. Thus numerous startling
experiments are performed in public, such as running hatpins through the
cheeks or arms, sewing the tongue to the ear, etc. The curious part of it
is that the insensibility may be confined to one spot only. Even persons
who are not wholly under hypnotic influence may have an arm or a leg, or
any smaller part rendered insensible by suggestion, so that no pain will
be felt. This has suggested the use of hypnotism in surgery in the place
of chloroform, ether, etc.
About the year 1860 some of the medical profession
hoped that hypnotism might come into general use for producing
insensibility during surgical operations. Dr. Guerineau in Paris reported
the following successful operation: The thigh of a patient was amputated.
"After the operation," says the doctor, "I spoke to the patient and asked
him how he felt. He replied that he felt as if he were in heaven, and he
seized hold of my hand and kissed it. Turning to a medical student, he
added: 'I was aware of all that was being done to me, and the proof is
that I knew my thigh was cut off at the moment when you asked me if I felt
any pain.'"
The writer who records this case continues: "This,
however, was but a transitory stage. It was soon recognized that a
considerable time and a good deal of preparation were necessary to induce
the patients to sleep, and medical men had recourse to a more rapid and
certain method; that is, chloroform. Thus the year 1860 saw the rise and
fall of Braidism as a means of surgical anaesthesia."
One of the most detailed cases of successful use of
hypnotism as an anaesthetic was presented to the Hypnotic Congress which
met in 1889, by Dr. Fort, professor of anatomy:
"On the 21st of October, 1887, a young Italian
tradesman, aged twenty, Jean M--. came to me and asked me to take off a
wen he had on his forehead, a little above the right eyebrow. The tumor
was about the size of a walnut.
"I was reluctant to make use of chloroform, although
the patient wished it, and I tried a short hypnotic experiment. Finding
that my patient was easily hypnotizable, I promised to extract the tumor
in a painless manner and without the use of chloroform.
"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.
"She had been in this state of absolute immobility for
seven months and I had vainly tried every therapeutic remedy usual in such
cases. My intention was first to restore the general constitution of the
subject, who was greatly weakened by her protracted stay in bed, and then,
at the end of a certain time, to have recourse to hypnotism, and at the
opportune moment suggest to her the idea of walking.
"The patient was hypnotized every morning, and the
first degree (that of lethargy), then the cataleptic, and finally the
somnambulistic states were produced. After a certain period of
somnambulism she began to move, and unconsciously took a few steps across
the ward. Soon after it was suggested--the locomotor powers having
recovered their physical functions--that she should walk when awake. This
she was able to do, and in some weeks the cure was complete. In this case,
however, we had the ingenious idea of changing her personality at the
moment when we induced her to walk. The patient fancied she was somebody
else, and as such, and in this roundabout manner, we satisfactorily
attained the object proposed."
The following is Professor Delboeuf's account of Dr.
Bernheim's mode of suggestion at the hospital at Nancy. A robust old man
of about seventy- five years of age, paralyzed by sciatica, which caused
him intense pain, was brought in. "He could not put a foot to the ground
without screaming with pain. 'Lie down, my poor friend; I will soon
relieve you.' Dr. Bernheim says. 'That is impossible, doctor.' 'You will
see.' 'Yes, we shall see, but I tell you, we shall see nothing!' On
hearing this answer I thought suggestion will be of no use in this case.
The old man looked sullen and stubborn. Strangely enough, he soon went off
to sleep, fell into a state of catalepsy, and was insensible when pricked.
But when Monsieur Bernheim said to him, 'Now you can walk, he replied,
'No, I cannot; you are telling me to do an impossible thing.' Although
Monsieur Bernheim failed in this instance, I could not but admire his
skill. After using every means of persuasion, insinuation and coaxing, he
suddenly took up an imperative tone, and in a sharp, abrupt voice that did
not admit a refusal, said: 'I tell you you can walk; get up.' 'Very well,'
replied the old follow; 'I must if you insist upon it.' And he got out of
bed. No sooner, however, had his foot touched the floor than he screamed
even louder than before. Monsieur Bernheim ordered him to step out. 'You
tell me to do what is impossible,' he again replied, and he did not move.
He had to be allowed to go to bed again, and the whole time the experiment
lasted he maintained an obstinate and ill-tempered air."
These two cases give an admirable picture of the cases
that can be and those that cannot be cured by hypnotism, or any other
method of mental suggestion.
Hallucination.--"Hallucinations," says a medical
authority, "are very common among those who are partially insane. They
occur as a result of fever and frequently accompany delirium. They result
from an impoverished condition of the blood, especially if it is due to
starvation, indigestion, and the use of drugs like belladonna, hyoscyarnus,
stramonium, opium, chloral, cannabis indica, and many more that might be
mentioned."
Large numbers of cases of attempted cure by hypnotism,
successful and unsuccessful, might be quoted. There is no doubt that in
the lighter forms of partial insanity, hypnotism may help many patients,
though not all; but when the disease of the brain has gone farther,
especially when a well developed lesion exists in the brain, mental
treatment is of little avail, even if it can be practiced at all.
A few general remarks by Dr. Bernheim will be
interesting. Says he:
"The mode of suggestion should be varied and adapted to
the special suggestibility of the subject. A simple word does not always
suffice in impressing the idea upon the mind. It is sometimes necessary to
reason, to prove, to convince; in some cases to affirm decidedly, in
others to insinuate gently; for in the condition of sleep, just as in the
waking condition, the moral individuality of each subject persists
according to his character, his inclinations, his impressionability, etc.
Hypnosis does not run all subjects into a uniform mold, and make pure and
simple automatons out of them, moved solely by the will of the hypnotist;
it increases cerebral docility; it makes the automatic activity
preponderate over the will. But the latter persists to a certain degree;
the subject thinks, reasons, discusses, accepts more readily than in the
waking condition, but does not always accept, especially in the light
degrees of sleep. In these cases we must know the patient's character, his
particular psychical condition, in order to make an impression upon him."
Bad Habits.--The habit of the excessive use of
alcoholic drinks, morphine, tobacco, or the like, may often be decidedly
helped by hypnotism, if the patient wants to be helped. The method of
operation is simple. The operator hypnotizes the subject, and when he is
in deep sleep suggests that on awaking he will feel a deep disgust for the
article he is in the habit of taking, and if he takes it will be affected
by nausea, or other unpleasant symptoms. In most cases the suggested
result takes place, provided the subject can be hypnotized al all; but
unless the patient is himself anxious to break the habit fixed upon him,
the unpleasant effects soon wear off and he is as bad as ever.
Dr. Cocke treated a large number of cases, which he
reports in detail in his book on hypnotism. In a fair proportion of the
cases he was successful; in some cases completely so. In other cases he
failed entirely, owing to lack of moral stamina in the patient himself.
His conclusions seem to be that hypnotism may be made a very effective aid
to moral suasion, but after all, character is the chief force which throws
off such habits once they are fixed. The morphine habit is usually the
result of a doctor's prescription at some time, and it is practiced more
or less involuntarily. Such cases are often materially helped by the
proper suggestions.
The same is true of bad habits in children. The weak
may be strengthened by the stronger nature, and hypnotism may come in as
an effective aid to moral influence. Here again character is the deciding
factor.
Dr. James R. Cocke devotes a considerable part of his
book on "Hypnotism" to the use of hypnotism in medical practice, and for
further interesting details the reader is referred to that able work. |
