Blue-grass blade., 1892-01-02
hYPNOTISM AND DRINK.
Experiments in tho Treatment OF Drunk
enness Without Medicine.


enness without Medicine.
Hypnotism or hypnotic suggestion is
being employed by physicians of stand
ing in England and on the continents
as a cure for drunkenness and the
opium habit. In some of the hospitals
OF P arts it has come to be quite usual
to throw patients suffering from
alcoholism and especially from de-
lirium tremens into hypnotic sleep
as the quickest and safest way of
checking their rawlings, and it has been
found that in most such cases it has
been possible to prevent the return OF
the violent symptoms by prohibition
by the will of the hypnotizer. o:.dc-
cessful have been these experiments,
and SO carefully and systematically
have the more common phenomena OF
hypnotism been studied, that regular
course of procedure has been laid out,
which is followed as carefully as would
be the case in the administration of any
accepted remedy.
Prof. Bernheim's definition of hyp-
notism is: 1.-THE induction of a PSYCHE
cal condition in which the subjects
susceptibility to suggestion and ability
to act upon it are enormously in
creased" Sometimes the subject is in
a sound sleep, sometimes in half
waking state, and often in full possess
sion of the senses and the intelli-
gence. Sometimes this state is self
induced, but more often it is produced
by some mysterious influence of anoth
err on the nervous system of the sub
ject Suggestion is familiar enough
phenomenon. The contagion of laugh
ter or tears is a common example, AMI
the acts of everybody in their roraeal
condition are guided by it to an extent
not usually realized From this con-
troll of suggestion over the acts of the
most self-possessed of individuals to
the domination of the idea impaired
to the subject deep in hypnotic sleep.
the progress is regular, for the differ
ence is of degree and not of kind
Some writers go SO far as to class all
impulse to action which comes from
without to sugge stion, and assert that
all that portion of mankind who lack
that self-reliance and self-sufficieney
which is the possession of only the few,
are all their lives led by suggestions
Men who yield easily to the tempta-
ton to drink are especially victims
Of suggestion, and as a rule hypnotic
subjects, and their cure consists in fix
ing in their minds the suggestion to alb
stain in the place of the suggestion to
indulge.
In practice the process of cure is tc
hypnotic the patient and tell him a;
firmly as possible that he has lost his
desire for stimulant, and that he must
not and cannot longer indulge in it
DIR. Bjornstrom, Swedish authority
on hypnotism, cites a number of cases
from hospitals in several European
cities and from the private practice Of
physicians where cases of dipsomanis
of long standing have been cured
Some cases were received in deliriuIu
tremens, others in bad stages of alco
holism, and others who had been vic
Tins of the habit for years, but SO fal
as known the cure in all cases was per
manent DIR. Charles l.. Tuclsey has
given in the Contemporary Review
another list of cases, some of then
very striking, which have all re
suited in permanent cures of the drirSi
habit. 1t is curious to note that i
some cases single reduction of tie