t after all, character is the chief force which
throws off such habits once they are fixed. The morphine habit is
usually the result of a doctor's prescription at some time, and it is
practiced more or less involuntarily. Such cases are often materially
helped by the proper suggestions.

The same is true of bad habits in children. The weak may be strengthened
by the stronger nature, and hypnotism may come in as an effective aid to
moral influence. Here again character is the deciding factor.

Dr. James R. Cocke devotes a considerable part of his book on
"Hypnotism" to the use of hypnotism in medical practice, and for further
interesting details the reader is referred to that able work.

CHAPTER X.

Hypnotism of Animals.--Snake Charming.

We are all familiar with the snake charmer, and the charming of birds by
snakes. How much hypnotism there is in these performances it would be
hard to say. It is probable that a bird is fascinated to some extent by
the steady gaze of a serpent's eyes, but fear will certainly paralyze a
bird as effectively as hypnotism.

Father Kircher was the first to try a familiar experiment with hens and
cocks. If you hold a hen's head with the beak upon a piece of board, and
then draw a chalk line from the beak to the edge of the board, the hen
when released will continue to hold her head in the same position for
some time, finally walking slowly away, as if roused from a stupor.
Farmers' wives often try a sort of hypnotic experiment on hens they wish
to transfer from one nest to another when sitting. They put the hen's
head under her wing and gently rock her to and fro till she apparently
goes to sleep, when she may be carried to another nest and will remain
there afterward.

Horses are frequently managed by a steady gaze into their eyes. Dr. Moll
states that a method of hypnotizing horses named after its inventor as
Balassiren has been introduced into Austria by law for the shoeing of
horses in the army.

We have all heard of the snake charmers of India, who make the snakes
imitate all their movements. Some suppose this is by hypnotization. It
may be the result of training, however. Certainly real charmers of wild
beasts usually end by being bitten or injured in some other way, which
would seem to show that the hypnotization does not always work, or else
it does not exist at all.

We have some fairly well known instances of hypnotism produced in
animals. Lafontaine, the magnetizer,