Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Reading Pathological Society, on September 3rd, 1890, on hypnotism, its nature & its cause / by R.C. Shettle.

  • Shettle, Richard Charles.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Reading Pathological Society, on September 3rd, 1890, on hypnotism, its nature & its cause / by R.C. Shettle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    9/18 (page 5)
    We know that two at least of the organs of sense are constructed for the purpose of receiving vibrations, viz., the eye and the ear; and that the retina is specially adapted to detect vibrations of light, for light may be perceived in the closed eye when subjected to an electric current, or even to a blow. Again, these sensations are special evidences of the sensitiveness of certain parts of the human mechanism to external impressions; and all the senses are most intimately associated with some changes in the molecular, probably in the atomic condition of matter. If eye and ear thus respond to influence from without, may there not be some special arrangement yet to be recognised, upon which what we call Will may play or act with results somewhat analogous to light and sound; not however confined to things of so-called sense? (II.) The physical nature of the action of the Will of one individual upon the Will of another. Every explanation of the phenomena of Hypnotism refers them to action upon, or of, the nervous system. The chief points for discussion are as to the nature of the action whether reflex or direct, and as to the centres whence either catalepsy or susceptibility to suggestion arises. We naturally ask how fear is produced in one person by the mere appearance of another? How a feeling of confidence or pleasure is experienced when another person appears or is present ? In such cases an old experience maj' be recalled, memory may be exercised. Thus, or in a somewhat similar way, may some of the results of personal influence be fairly explained. But in the case of catalepsy, no such explanation is valid. Memory cannot act, for no experience of such phenomena has ever fallen to the lot of many a hypnotised person. And, if we regard the rigid condition as akin to what is sometimes produced by a dreadful sight, a position of extreme danger, or of aught else, yet no such paralysing circumstances attend the presence of a hypnotiser, or any of his manifestations. Must not the cause be more physical than psychical ? If so, what force more subtle or all-pervading than that of Magne-