Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory

 

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18 HYPNOTISM.

About 188o many investigators in Germany—particularly Weinhold, Opitz, and Riihlmann in Chemnitz, Heidenhain and Berger in Breslau—occupied themselves with the question; and Rosenbach, moreover, pointed out the psychical character of the phenomena of hypnosis at about the same date. Other contemporary investigators to be mentioned are :—Mobius, Benedikt, Eulenburg, Senator, Adamkiewicz, Burner, Meyersohn, Baumler. The investigation of hypnosis in animals, publisaed by Czzrmak in 1872, and after him by Preyer, aroused no lasting interest. The movement of 188o also soon ceased, although Preyer often pointed out the importance of hypnotism.

Many opinions of early investigators in the field of hypnotism have been refuted in later times. Of some authors scarcely a single conclusion has been left standing. Even Charcot must be reckoned among these. Nevertheless, I consider we owe thanks to all the serious early investigators of hypnotism, on account of the attention they drew to the matter, even if all their conclusions are refuted. It is much easier to push on a work which is already well advanced than to lay the first stones on which the structure must be erected. Among the investigators who, in my opinion, deserve enduring gratitude, although a greater part or nearly all their results are surpassed by later workers, must be reckoned Charcot and Heidenhain. It will, I am sure, be admitted, that recent investigators have a right to demand exemption from spiteful attack and calumny on the part of those of their forerunners whose opinions they have refuted. Benedikt, for example, though an early inquirer into the phenomena of hypnosis, has offended in this respect ever since his views were upset by the Nancy school of investigators.

The researches of Charcot likewise had little effect.upon the further pursuit of the inquiry—as little as had the book of Prosper Despine on somnambulism, which appeared in 1880. It is true that in some hospitals investigations were undertaken, particularly by Dumontpallier in Paris, by Pitres in Bordeaux, also by Ladame in Geneva, and later by Binswanger in Jena. These researches were, however, sporadic.

Only when a second medical school in France—that of Nancy—approached the subject did the interest become more general. Professor Bernheim, of Nancy, who, incited by Dumont, had studied the question with Liebeault, and had accepted the latter's views, published a book, De la Suggestion, etc., in 1886. He gave

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