It is desirable to set forth clearly the genesis of the present revival of psycho-therapeutics, lest, as sometimes happens, unassuming merit be deprived of the honour due to it, and other claims arise to obscure those of the real founders of the system.

Perhaps the most unfounded claim is that of the mag-netizers, who assert that they have kept the subject before the public by their experiments and entertainments. This contention is easily answered, for, in the first place, the method practised by Dr. Liebeault,* and described in these pages, differs in nearly every respect from that employed by such persons; and, secondly, their performances have never done anything else but degrade this branch or medical science, and turn the medical profession against it. Their method is unchanged since the beginning of the last century, and they have hardly even added a new trick to their stock-in-trade.

So low had the estimate of the scientific value of induced sleep fallen, that in 1874 the French medical dictionaries threw doubts on its existence, except as a pathological curiosity, and the English encyclopaedists followed much the same course.

* Dr. Liebeault was born at Ferrieres, September 16, 1823. He took his M.D. degree at the University of Strasburg, and after a few years spent in general practice in the country settled in Nancy, where he practised hypnotism for many years. He died at Nancy, February 18, 1904.

Since the year 1875 - when Dr. Charles Richet began to write on the subject of hypnotism - there has been no lack of scientific investigators on the Continent. Among the most distinguished of these are Charcot in Paris, and Heidenhain * at Breslau, and they have demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt the genuineness of the phenomena of induced somnambulism. But long ere this - in 1860 - Dr. Liebeault had opened his public dispensary at Nancy, and had elaborated his system, which he caused to be known as Treatment by Suggestion.

In 1866 he published a book on the subject, in which he gave to the world a full description of the means used by him, and an account of cases successfully treated. † But little notice was taken of it at the time, and even in Nancy, where Dr. Liebeault lived a retired life, devoted to the poor among whom he practised, he was regarded as, at the best, an amiable but mistaken enthusiast. In 1882, Professor Bernheim, of the Faculty of Medicine at Nancy, began to investigate the system, quite as a sceptic, so he tells us, and, being soon convinced of its value, introduced it into his hospital cliniquc. In 1884 he brought out his classical work on suggestion. ‡

Dr. Bernheim was well known in the medical world, and his book attracted general attention on the Continent. Physicians began to practise hypnotism in many of the larger cities, and flourishing cliniques sprang up in all directions. Among the first and most notable of these are those of Drs. Van Renterghem, of Amsterdam; Wetterstrand, of Stockholm; Yon Schrenk-Notzing, of Munich; Moll, of Berlin; and Berillon, of Paris.

* 'Hypnotism; or, Animal Magnetism,' second edition, London, 1888.

† 'Du Sommeil et des Etats Analogues, consideres surtout au Point de Vue de 1 Action du Morale sur le Physique,' Paris, 1866; second edition, 1889.

‡ 'De la Suggestion, et de ses Applications a la Therapeutique,' second edition, Paris, 1887.

This book does not profess to give a literary history of the movement, and a glance at the catalogue * given by Dr. Max Dessoir of recent publications on hypnotism is enough to deter any but the most determined student from approaching the subject. During the two years 1888, 1889, there appeared nearly 400 books, pamphlets, and articles on hypnotism. A large proportion of these are by medical men, and are written in the French language. But among the pioneer writers on hypnotism must be named Professors Beaunis † and Liegeois, ‡ of Nancy, who have treated the matter from the standpoint of their special departments, physiology and jurisprudence. Professors Delboeuf, of Liege; Fontan and Segard, of Toulon; Preyer and Max Dessoir, of Berlin; Krafft-Ebing, of Vienna; Forel, of Zurich; Wetterstrand, of Stockholm; Van Renterghem and Van Eeden, have given us thoroughly practical books describing their practice, and Dr. Albert Moll's book is as well known in England as in Germany. On the eve of his retirement from practice, Dr. Liebeault issued a new volume containing the results of his thirty years' experience, and this book will be in the hands of every student of the Nancy treatment.

In 1889 I wrote that, as far as I knew, there was no literature in English on the subject, and Dr. A. T. Myers, commenting in the Practitioner § on the backwardness shown by the profession in this country in investigating hypnotism, cited the references to the treatment in the medical journals of the world during the year 1888. He found only seven notices in English journals, against sixty-one in those of France, thirty-five in Germany, twenty-two in Italy, and sixteen in those of the United States.

* 'Erster Nachtrag zur Bibliographic des Modernen Hypnotismus,' Berlin, 1890.

† ' Du Somnambulisme Provoque,' Paris, 1886.

‡ ' De la Suggestion et du Somnambulisme dans leur Rapports avec la Jurisprudence et la Medecine Legale,' Paris, 1888.

§ Vol. i., 1890, p. 201.

But during the last few years a great change has come over the scene, and there are allusions to hypnotism in almost every issue of our medical journals. Drs. Kingsbury, Bramwell, Woods, Crichton Miller, and others, have published cases, and the question is now well before the profession. Dr. Felkin wrote a masterly exposition of hypnotism in the Edinburgh Medical Journal (vol. xxxv.), which is republished in book form ('Hypnotism, or Psycho-Therapeutics,' Edinburgh, 1891); and Dr. Hamilton Osgood, of Boston, contributed to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1890) an extremely interesting article illustrated by cases. Dr. Kingsbury has published a valuable practical handbook, and the English translations of the works of Bernheim, Moll, Wetterstrand, and Forel have had a very large circulation. An excellent exposition of the subject is published by Dr. Ralph Vincent as a volume of the International Scientific Series. There is, therefore, no longer any need to lament the want of literature on hypnotism in the English tongue. Dr. Milne Bramwell's important book,' Hypnotism: its History, Practice, and Theory,' was first published in 1903. It is a very complete handbook to the whole subject.

Sir George Savage in his Harveian Oration, 1909, by his commendatory and hopeful allusions to hypnotism gave great impetus to its study.