Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-29
HYPNOTISM IS A FAD.
The Usual Phenomena Capable of
Reproduction in Other Ways.
DEDUCTIONS OF DIR. RICHARDSON.
Drinking Water is by No Means Made Pure
by the Boiling Process.
A PIANO WITH A CHANGEABLE KEY
rrRErARrp FOR THE D1spArcH.,

81
DR.. B. w. Richardson, in an exhaustive
article on ''The Hypnotic Epidemic" ad-
vances the opinion that hypnotism is simply,
as was mesmerism in former days, a craze.
which will secure not more than passing
recognition at the hands of the medical pro-
fession. Several Of the phenomena usually
associated with hypnotism, he asserts, are
quite capable of being exhibited indepen-
IDENTIFY. He relates that early in his medical
life one of the most widely known mesmer-
lists of the time was accustomed to bring be-
fore his audiences man called Jordan,
whom he would mesmerize and then stick
needles into in free and promiscuous man.
ner. On one occasion 10 needles were buried
up to their eyes in Jordan's muscles, and so
firmly were they imbedded that they could
not have been Withdrawn if there had not
been thread to pull at, yet Jordan gave
no sign whatever of pain.
DR.. Richardson says: "This would almost
have converted me, but it so happened that
a tailor, who looked the very picture of
nervousness, put me out of belief next day
by showing the same experiment on himself,
and by actually passing a threaded needle
through his cheek, drawing the thread after
it. Later in life found that this needle
experiment was easily learned, and, if 1
wished, could go at this moment to one of
my learned colleagues of the Royal Society,
who is also distinguished member of the
House of Comhons, and see him perform
the burying needle in his muscles without
winking or offering a sign of pain"
Mr.. Richardson also mentions two curious
L., Al
were exhibited with unusual results. He
had on one occasion made part OF the body
of man so dead with ether spray that he
was afraid of having carried the local death
too far. 1t was incredible that the patient
could feel anything In the denseIy frozen
tissues, yet when the surgeons knife
divided them the cries of the man were
heartrending and continued SO until the
close of the operation. On the following
day the patient wrote a warm letter of
thanks to the Doctor, saying that from the
beginning to the end OF the operation he was
unconscious of the slightest suffering. Being
asked afterward why he cried so much he re-
piled: SIT was sheer fright. AS soon as I
knife 1 began to scream, and for the life of
me could NOT stop; the more 1 tried the
worse got, but positively I never felt a
touch OF pain"
On another occasion patient passed
through an operation under ether spray not
only without showing signs of pain, but
saying at that moment that it was "quite
delightful to be so entirely free from suffer-
ing of any kind" and still that same patient
the next day declared that the agony was
fearful, and that to save her life she would
not 60 through the same ordeal again.
DR.. Richardson gives illustrations of
phenomena apparently hypnotic which are
produced by other means. Narcotic drugs
and vapors frequently have this effect, and
he once made vaporisable compound after
lnhaling whichs persons would be brought
into a state of dream or unconsciousness,
and would do anything requested of them,
carrying on conversation, etc., without any
after recollection of what had occurred.
The administration of haschish is followed
by the same results. DR.. Richardson's ultl-
matum is that, judging by past experience,
for the temporary annihilation OF pain the
hypnotic method will never become serious
rival of the physical anasthesia, local and
general, produced by ether and other vola-
tile substances, and that probabilities point
to the extinction of hypnotism rather than
to its advancement.