nslation from the German.

HYPNOTISM AND EDUCATION.

BY EDGAR BERILLON.

[Translated from the German in _Sphinx_, for the JOURNAL OF
MAN.]

The careful study which the school of the medical faculty of
Nancy has devoted to the phenomena of suggestion, and their
actual progress in that department, present the question
whether the time has not arrived for teachers to participate
in this scientific movement.

The numerous observations by Dr. August Voisin of the
Salpetriere have positively proved in his own practice not
only the curability of mental diseases, but the great
assistance which may be given to moral culture, so that we
might successfully introduce hypnotism in educational schools.
Dr. Voisin with great ease cured his first patient in the
trial of hypnotic suggestion--a girl by the name of Johanna
Schaaf, who was not only a thief, but dissolute, lazy, and
unclean. He transformed her into an honest industrious, neat,
and obedient person. For several years she could not be
induced to read a line. Under the control of Dr. Voisin she
was made to read several pages of a moral work, which she
repeated before the class. Then with great facility he roused
her feelings of sympathy, which appeared to have become
extinct. This cure was so thorough that she has since been
appointed a nurse in the hospital, and has given complete
satisfaction, showing herself quite conscientious.

Many other experiments were made quite satisfactorily, and
similar results were produced in his city practice. In one
case, by hypnotic suggestion treatment Dr. Voisin transformed
the character of a quarrelsome woman, making her a mild
affectionate wife to her husband. Voisin's experiments related
principally to adults, but Dr. Liebeault of Nancy made
experiments with children, of which he has mentioned two
cases. Once a child was brought to his clinic with great
suffering from a nervous affection, but would not submit to a
hypnotic treatment till her little brother present offered
himself, not being afraid. When he was put to sleep his mother
told the physician that the boy in school was always in the
lower grades, without making any progress. While in the sleep
he was strongly impressed for diligence and zeal, and the
subsequent result was perfect; within six weeks he became a