Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Reading Pathological Society, on September 3rd, 1890, on hypnotism, its nature & its cause / by R.C. Shettle.

  • Shettle, Richard Charles.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Reading Pathological Society, on September 3rd, 1890, on hypnotism, its nature & its cause / by R.C. Shettle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    6/18 (page 2)
    more to show what Hypnotism really is, more to explain its deeply seated origin and that of its phenomena, than to discuss its application in therapeutics or social life. Hypnotism, as a somewhat old subject under a compara- tively new name, has of late awakened considerable attention; and I venture to think that any endeavour to explain its phenomena will be of interest to the Medical profession, more especially if it tends to remove mystery, and to show how the phenomena are nothing more than manifestations of a very natural and universal force, directed and controlled by a differing, individual exercise of will. The Hypnotic condition and its production open up a vast field for experimental investigation. My plan for this evening's address is to prove:—(I.) The physical nature of the force by which animal life is maintained. (II.) The physical nature of the action of the will of one individual upon the will of another. (III.) That a wise and practical recognition of these great truths must be of enormous value to the human race. (I.) To prove the physical nature of the force by which animal life is maintained. This has been with me a subject of research for more than 25 years; but, although I had published various papers in The Lancet, The Medico-Ghirurgical Beview, and elsewhere, the first decided advance was some experiments which I conducted upon the differences in the magnetic states of the arterial and venous blood. The results were published in the Proceedings of the Boyal Society for 1875. Unquestionably, the researches of Dr. Joule upon the mechanical equivalent of heat have been of great practical value in proving that in animals (in common with all other forms of matter) rise of temperature is in proportion to the molecular motion which is estabhshed under the circulation of the blood; but as there can be no doubt as to that circulation being dependent upon nerve energy, the great cause of motion may thus be ultimately traced to the differences of magnetic condition in the venous and arterial states of the blood.