A NEW HYPNOTIC STORY OF THE HEART.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR?'] SIR,—You think it almost incredible that a mere suggestion% of age can make a hypnotised youth suddenly look old, to the extent of his face-muscles "falling in," and the "hue of age " overspreading it. Well, I am not sure even as to that. Take the case of a great actor simulating sudden and mortal terror.. Do his cheeks really fall in, and does their colour actually change, or do they only seem to do so P Whatever the answer is, I suppose that it applies equally to the marvellous acting. which the stupidest of men constantly exhibit under the hands of some hypnotist whom they have never before seen. But with regard to this "J'. M." and his muscles, I have a more remarkable story to tell.
After putting him through what I have already narrated, Dr. H. E. Lewis turned to us and said : "Now, this is a very sensitive subject, and I am going to try upon him a rare and rather risky experiment. I am going to stop the beating of his heart. Doctor, will you put your finger upon his left pulse, while I keep mine. upon his right ?" He addressed a rising physician of the town, who had known "J. M." from child- hood. Dr. — was sceptical and hostile, but at our instance he consented. Keeping one hand on the lad's wrist, Lewis. laid the other gently over his heart. Within a minute or two, "M." lost his rich and vivid colour, and Lewis counted the decreasing strokes till he announced that they were scarcely recognisable. "Is that not so, Doctor ?" he asked. Dr. — was extremely unwilling to speak ; but, under the urgency of some of us Who stood by, he at last said in so many words that the pulse had sunk to almost nothing. The boy stood, a ghastly statue, for a minute longer, when Lewis, saying hurriedly, "The pulse is now imperceptible ; we must protract this no longer," took away his hand' from the breast, to the evident relief of his improvised colleague. But it was to the evident relief, too, of their common patient.
remember distinctly to this day the ashen hue even of his lips, and the wonderful gradations through which the b/ood found its way back into them and into the whole young face,—a face still asleep, but now glowing as if it had travelled a long way from the margin of the grave. I shall only add that Dr. — is still living, and is now the chief citizen of the same town, where he has all along had the leading practice.
I know nothing of medicine, but I suppose that this is unusual behaviour on the part of that involuntary muscle which we call the heart. And if you ask why I did not tell this.
story in this month's Contemporary Review, I reply that, while I am sure it is exactly true as here narrated, I could not ask others to build upon a story forty years old, told by an unpro- fessional man. My argument in the magazine is founded, not on unusual and exceptional incidents like this, but on the mass of those continually and easily repeated experiments which all over Europe make the common basis of hypnotism. That is the region which I suggest that British medicine is called upon to possess, and to possess in the name of science. For science should command the allegiance of that great pro- fession in its own right, without our adding bribes, whether of wonderful incident, or of spiritualistic suggestion, or even of therapeutic promise.—I am, Sir, &c., -
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