Hypnotism and hynotic suggestion : a treatise on the uses and possibilities of hynotism, suggestion and allied phenomena / by twenty authors. Edited by E. Virgil Neal and Charles S. Clark.
- Neal, E. Virgil
- Date:
- [1900]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Hypnotism and hynotic suggestion : a treatise on the uses and possibilities of hynotism, suggestion and allied phenomena / by twenty authors. Edited by E. Virgil Neal and Charles S. Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![HISTORY OF HYPNOTISM. By MAX DESSOIR, M. D., Ph. D., Professor of Philosophy, Universe/ of Be;'iin. About fifteen years ago—I was then a student eighteen years of age—I began to think seriously about hypnotism. At that time the extensiveness and significance of hypnotism had not been accepted in Germany, particularly not in Berlin; conse- quently the main task for myself and my friends consisted in establishing; a fit position for the fact itself. By means of demonstrations in the Society for Experimental Psychology, just founded at that time, and which is now known as Psy- chologische Gesellschaft, by means of demonstration in medical societies, for which Dr. Moll deserves much credit and by means of many popidar essays, we slowly approached the accomplish- ment of our aim. This rather necessary task of vulgarizing was frequently met by a somewhat humiliating treatment on the part of our younger searchers. The gentlemen forget that their re- searches (although perhaps of a far greater scientific value) would have been practically impossible if at that very time facts of hypnosis had not been introduced into the general knowledge, viz., into the rank of recognized phenomena. [ am inclined to think that the progress of explaining hyp- notic phenomena is not as great as younger scientists are inclined to suppose. Even to this day a number of problems are quite as vague as they were ten and fifteen years ago. As for instance, the problem of the relationship of sleep to hypnosis. Other problems again are solved to-day, just as they were solved in former days. Some things, however, have actually changed, and these are principally the two following: First, that we find discussions on the subject in scientific journals which have even been taken up by the Royal Bavarian Academy of Science: there was a time when this would have been deemed impossible, but it is a o-]orious result of the movement that took place in Germany in the eighties. Second, the terminology is much changed.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21012271_0168.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
