Hypnotic therapeutics : illustrated by cases : with an appendix on table-moving and spirit-rapping / by James Braid.

  • James Braid
Date:
[1853]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hypnotic therapeutics : illustrated by cases : with an appendix on table-moving and spirit-rapping / by James Braid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    daced upon the sensation and drculation of his lower extremities by my process. He protested that he could not believe this. I then requested him to try how he could stand now, when he candidly admitted that he felt much less pain in the feet and legs, but still he persisted that it was impossible the improvement could have resulted from what I had done. Two days thereafter I called again, and found the feet much relieved, but both knees were extremely painful. I hypnotised him once more, extending his extremities. It was with great difficulty he held them up at first from the acute pain in the knees, but by degrees tliey got easier, and became slightly cata- leptic. On again arousing him, he contended he had not been affected at all, but, to his great astonishment, he found his knees so much better that he could walk across the floor. Next operation, the day after, enabled liim before I left the house to walk to the door, and, with all his scepticism, he had the satisfaction of getting quite well by these three simple processes, and he has continued well ever since, and very gi-ateful for what hypnotism achieved for him. About nine years ago, I was consulted in the case of a youUg gentleman who had been given up as a hopeless cripple, resulting from an attack of rheumatic fever. He had been attended from the first seizure by an eminent physician, and also by an eminent and experienced surgeon. After exhausting all their resources, he was sent to the sea-side, where he had the benefit of being attended by one of the most respectable and intellig-ent and experienced surgeons in the kingdom. The whole ordinary resources of medical and surgical science consequently had been brought to bear on this case'; ancl the patient was then abandoned as totally incru-able, his legs being fixed nearly at right angles with the thighs, and incapable of extension even when subjected to strong pressure from straps sm-- rounding them when laid upon a board, whilst they were surrounded by warm vapour. He had been for a length of time crawlin c about the room on his knees and elbows, ^?ach of Avhich was providecf with a patent leather shield, and such was expected to be- his fate for life, when he came under the hypnotic treatment. Notwithstanding the extreme rigidity of the flexors of the legs, during the first hypnotic operation.l'Avas enabled to extend them considerably, and still more so at the second, as also to infiise strength into other muscles which seemed to have been almost entirely paralysed ])reviously, so that after the second operationnhe manifested a degree of poAver which surprised myself as well as his friends. !■ weait^ioni 'dtiily with my hypnrrtic operations, without any other means being tried, and he gradually gained more aaad more power. I always made him exert his volition to the utitaost when he was a^leep^urtd dveiy decided advance he made was Ymt^'T manifested during the hypnotic state, and then in a lesser degi'ee the improvement was niiinifested after lie was aroused from it. Without entering into tediouH details, suffiee It to say that at length he acquiredi the* power of walkiJig ivith the