Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-06
THURSDAY MORNING. MAY 6. 1ss
Thursday horning, May 6, 1880.
HYPNOTIsM IN GERMAN.

Mr. Hansen, a Danish 'tmagnstizsr," has | succeeded in making quite stir in Germany. A few months ago he gave series of public exhibitions in Breslau, which lasted several
 weeks and were largely attended. At these exhibitions well known citizens, young and
 old, after looking fxsdly at bright glass but
 ton, which they themselves held some eight inches from and above their eyes, became in- sensible to pins thrust into thsir hands, inni- tated unconsciously and involuntarily every motion and sound made before them and, in short, performed very many strange and ab- surd antics, of which, on waking, they
 were sometimes entirely unconscious and in
 credulous. These performances attracted 50
 much attention that the city fathers thought science ought to have something to say about it, and Professor Heidenham was invited to
 press forward with some experiments he had
 already begun, and to follow Hansen upon the
 same platform, repeating and explaining in &
 rational way the experiments of the latter.
 Heidenham has had remarkable success, and
 declares that he has repeated every one of
 Hansen's performances. Many of his col
 leagues in the medical faculty are pushing on
 special investigation in the same line, and in
 hospitals, laboratories and private parlors
 many similar experiments have been made.
 A correspondent of the Nation, who went to
 Bresiau to see Professor Heidenham operate,
 gives an interesting account of what
 he saw and heard. The professor
 was able to induce the hypnotic
 state in. various persons. In this state he
 found that symptoms of some of the most
 obscure nervons disorders could bs produced
 at the will of the operator, who, by placing his
 finger in the region of particular vertsbrae,
 could act upon the patients nerves in any de- sired way. He was also able to hypnotizs
 one-half of the brain and body, the other
 half remaining normal. One half the face
 was made to smile while the other remained in the catsleptio state. One arm and leg could be moved at will, the other not. One eye saw distinctly and the other imperfectly or not at all It is worthy of note that Pro- lessor Heidenham's experiments have been entirely on men, and have been successful with about one s'subject' in twelve. With all the first time is the hardest, and while many grow so sensitive that very slight in fuence makes them immediately unconscious, others after awhile grow unsuscsptibls again and finally loss entirely the power of being affected Some, it is found, acquire the fac ulty of hypnotizing themselves, and others, when told to remember that at certain hour they are requested or influenced to sleep, do so without any of the ordinary means and without oven the presence of another person. Authorizations are readily caused if few verbal hints arc given. Rheumatic patients often make movements with their limbs which seem impossible in their ordinary state. Far sighted persons always see much nearer than usual. The handwriting in this condi- tion is extremely bad, and some patients, un- der certain conditions, begin at once to write backward
 These phenomena are su thought to be ex- plicahle on the familiar physiological hypoth- esis of reflex action and inhibition. Further experiments arc now being made to determine whether bIood-vssssls in the affected parts are expanded, or, as is considersd less probable, contracted. Professor Heidsnham's expsri- ments are called by the correspondent the most deadly blow which modern spiritualism has yet received, though it is difficult to see why, unless the mysteries of spiritualisM are to be looksd upon as the outcome of some abnornsl condition of the nervous system akin to hypnotism. But it is, et least good thing to have hypnotism made scientific.