Omaha daily bee., 1895-11-14
POWER OF MIND OVER MIND
DR.. De Laitre Tails Of Father sohlatter's
Pretended Cures.
LITTLE IN IT THAT CAN BENEFIT THE SICK
Simply n Case of H~ypnotism where
the CrcduIity of the Human
Race II Aroused TO a
High Pitch.

DR.. Jean a. De Laitre, now a guest in this
city, has but recently returned from Denver,
where he made some slight investigation
Il Father Schlatter and his methods. DR..
De Laitre is a resident physician Of Paris,
travelling for a short time in this country.
lie happened to be in Denver just at the
.lme when Schlatter was almost at the zenith
II his healing glory.
In conversation DR.. De Lal.re made some gem
oral remarks on faith cure, hypnotism, mind
reading, and modern medicine.
Eyes, there is something strange, even
uncanny, about the whole affair." he said.
1T is strange that Schlatter is able to per-
form cures; It is also strange that he does
perform them without apparen. effort on his
part. am afraid that If | undertake to
tell much about the work I shall be under
The difficulty Of either not being understood
or of being misunderstood; and besides
what | say may offend some people, hurt the
feelings of others, and make many feel that
modern medicine 10 at best but the fine art
Of quackery. However, | trust l may not
be so badly mistaken by my fellow practi-
TONERS, even though | may be by the
laity.
L IN THEIR MINDS.
Father Schlatter is not the only man who
Das wrought WOnueT1ul cures, tndTCOt anu
the leaders of the Nancy school Of hyp-
notists have done the same thing to a greater
or a lesser degree. The great difference in
their methods accounts for the greater re-
suits of Father Schlatter. People may re-
pudiate this idea, but none the less it will
be confirmed by any physician who would
honestly, could honestly, admit the truth
at least one-third, perhaps one-half of the
chronic cases he is called to attend are cases
OF nervous diseases.
I'm the cure Of snch diSpaspc n has hnap
demonstrated that there Is no more potent
factor than hypnotism, and the other thing
OF which we know so ~little-thought trans
ference. What either OF these are we do not
positively know. We may have cur theories
hat hypnotism Is the concentration OF at
tention' as Theodore Ribot maintains, or that
It is something which passes from one in
1ividual to another. The latter idea is pos
lively discarded by men of science, except
as a working hypothesis for mind reading.
Now, If it is possible to concentrate a
mans attention to such a degree that lie
loses all power Of will, except at the com
mand OF another; If it Is possible to give him
water and have him drink it as wine, to burn
him with an icicle; to draw a lead pencil
across his flesh and leave a blister, il is also
possible to do other things. | have repeatedly
seen drunkards cured by hypnotism. have
seen a man scalded with cold water, and have
seen a hypodermic injection of pure water
work the results Of a hypodermic injection
Of morphine.
ONLf TEMPORARY, AT BEST.
THESE things open the way to a half, not
a whole explanation Of the cures wrought in
Denver. They are cures, to be sure. but
they are not permanent cures. They will
last from three to six months, and then the
patient Will be as bad or worse than ever.
| saw a young man who was deaf go into
the Inns and return hearing. You could have
made him hear had he been hypnotized.
1T is said that the discharge stopped
flowing from his ears. l have seen hypnotic
suggestion make a mans hand as power
less as though it had been withered. Now
in those cases we restored the part to its
normal functions by dehypnotizing it.
How either result was performed we do
not know, more than we know how the
grass grows. Let, then, a given individual.
as | suppose, be afflicted with a nervous
disease and 20 to Father Schlatter with full
ialth in his powers and be told, Throw
away your clutches and walk he will do
SO. but in a shcrt time the disease will re-
turn to him as Of old.
II spoke of concentration of attention
and to that theory | hold. 1t is thus when
Illustrated:
you imagine there is something the
matter with your right leg. 1t does not work
quite right. YOU will worry about il. think
about it, study about ii, and the ailment will
be manifest In all Of its symptoms. Finally
you VIII decide that you cannot walk and
you VIII get crutches and walk on them.
This looks extremely nonsensical, but it is
not. 1t is a cold fact. l remember one in
StahIC just IKE lnIs. n young woman came
to our clinic one day, otherwise rugged in
health to all appearances, but unable to
walk. She had given every evidence of the
truth OF her statement and we had about
decided that sue had had an apoplectic
stroke. Unfortunately for her. even while
we were making an examination the fire
alarm was sounded in the building and in
the consequent hustle she became Violently
excited and ran down the stairs with the
rest OF us. We were told by herself and had
certificates from physicians that she had not
to their knowledge walked for two years,
except with the aid Of clutches.
These things are not new to physicians.
They are nearly common talk around nerv-
Gus clinics. Now, had this young woman
imagined that Schlatter could have cured
her, he would have been able to. But. as
have stated. the cure would probably not
have been permanent. This young woman
became more possessed by the fear Of death
than she was with the conviction that her
leg was paralyzed, and hence she ran. Had
she remained with us. we would have been
led to hypnotic her by making her look
steadily at a bright object for five or ten
minutes, and then we would have had her
walking, wakened her up walking and given
her the suggestion that she could walk. It
would have been a cure. but would moi
have lasted for any great length of time. for
she had a bodily ailment which was the
cause of her hysteria.
MUCH LIKE FAITH CURE.
you speak Of mind reading. What of
that?
Il know nothing OF II only that il Is posi-
lively possessed by some individuals. No
man | have ever met could explain il; he
can only say, i don't know what mind is
and until | do | cannot tell how ideas can
be transferred from ore person to another !
l know of no man of science VINO has the
audacity to propose a solution for the strange
fests performed by the Yogi of India. They
have the power Of making a man see any
thing, apparently, that they want to.
we are fast coming to all the reSultS NJ |
faith cure, but we, as physicians, realize one
thing that Christian scientists do not. 1t
q. is not The faith exercised outside an in
Gividual which works a cure, but the faith
which he himself has. From this Il follows
that the Christian scientists cannot raise
the dead, And again we realize that those
diseases which we call acute, such as scarlet
fever diphtheria, smallpox, assesses. tuber-
%culosis, or those LESSONS called traumatic,
broken bones and wounds. cannot be con-