es; at least, they seem strange to those
unacquainted with psychometry and the literature of the past century
relating to this subject. Two physicians in Rochefort, Professors
Bourru and Burot, in treating a hystero-epileptic person, found that
gold, even when at a distance of fifteen centimeters, produced in him
a feeling of unbearable heat. They continued these experiments with
great care, and, after a number of trials, came to this
conclusion--that in some persons certain substances, even when
carefully separated from them by long distance, exercise exactly the
same physiological influence as if introduced into their organism. In
order to explain these phenomena, they refer to the radiating force of
Barety, an explanation neither satisfactory to themselves nor to
others. Lately the distinguished Parisian physician, Dr. Luys, has
confirmed by his experiments the existence of these phenomena, but he
thinks the explanation referable to hyper-sensitiveness of the
"_regions emotives et intellectuelles de l'encephale_" yet even he has
not reached the kernel of the difficulty.

In close connection with action at a distance is the question of
distant production of hypnotic sleep. For an answer to this problem,
they are experimenting in both France and England; and Frederick W.H.
Myers has thrown an entirely new light upon the subject by the
investigations he is making upon a purely experimental basis. In Italy
they have limited themselves to the study of isolated cases of
hystero-hypnotism, except as the phenomena of magnetic fascination
investigated by Donato have given rise to further research; but all
the books I have seen upon this subject, as well as many by French
authors, suffer from ignorance of the latest English discoveries.

With this I think that I have given a slight outline of the history of
hypnotic investigation to the end of the year 1886. I shall attempt a
criticism of this whole movement at some other time, as space is not
afforded to me here; but I should like to make this statement now,
that two of the characteristic indications of this period are of the
gravest import--first the method ("Our work," says Richet, "is that of
strictly scientific _testing_, _observation_, and _arrangement_");
and, secondly, the result. Hypnotism has been received into the realm
of scientific investigation, and with this the foundation of a true
experimental psychology has been laid.

MAX DESSOIR.

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