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HYPNOTISM
51
hypnotic condition, the sleep can be induced by mere suggestion and no change in the nervous system is necessary, no physical touch is even necessary. If the change is produced by suggestion, that is sufficient. But the other school says that suggestion is not an important factor in producing sleep; the only thing that is necessary to produce that condition is to change the nervous or physiological state of the body; if that can be done by the touch or in some other way that is sufficient. There is truth in all these schools, but they still quarrel over words. We know that headache is a disease and miay be the result of many causes. There may be headache on account of dyspepsia, on account of fever, on account of some nervous derangement. The result may be the same, but the causes are different, and the result, although in naine the same, may have different natures and therefore the method of cure must be different. Its nature, its cause, its influence on the human system, must all be taken into account. The idea at first of the hypnotic school was simply to cure diseases, but Mesmer reached a further result, producing a condition higher than the ordinary state, in which there was more knowledge, more perception, more powers. Such results have been also attained in the hypnotic condition. I will say first of all, that so far as mesmerism is concerned we know the theory on which it is based, the passing of the magnetic fluid from the operator to the patient. We must first see whether there is any ground for the belief that a
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