Volume 2

Hypnotism and the doctors / [Richard Harte].

  • Harte, Richard.
Date:
1902-1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Hypnotism and the doctors / [Richard Harte]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    yet unites them. The heart does not cause the circulation by its muscular power, which for this purpose it is calculated would require a force of fifty tons—a palpable absurdity:— “The heart does not circulate the blood at all; nor, on the other hand, does the blood cause the heart to throb. The heart and lunjrs both receive their actions from the cerebellum, which is the fountain and origin of organic life and involuntary motion. Hence the involuntary nerves from the cerebellum throb the heart and heave the lungs, and the electricity contained in the air they inspire circulates the blood and supplies the brain with nervous fluid.” H is theory of disease is much the same as Mesmer’s :— “ I contend that there is one great cause for all diseases, and this is the disturbing of the vital force of the body. There is in every human being a certain amount of electricity. This is, as I have said, the most subtile and fine material in the body; is the power, as has been shown, that moves the blood ; and is the agent by which the mind, through the nerves, contracts the muscles, and produces motion. And as all the convulsions and operations in nature and in man invariably begin in the invisible and finest substance in being, and end in the most gross, so electricity, in the human system, is the cause of all the effects there produced, whether salutary or otherwise. When this electricity is equalised throughout the nervous system, the blood will also be equalised in its circulation, and the natural result is health. But when it is thrown out of balance the blood will, in like manner, be also disturbed, and the natural result is disease.” Although Dods speaks of the involuntary powers of the mind, he did not imagine a distinct “ sub- conscious personality,” working through the ganglionic or sympathetic nerve system, which “ subliminal self” is the distinct feature of recent hypnotism. He says:— “ We have two distinct brains — the cerebrum with its two hemispheres and six lobes, and the cerebellum. . . . The cerebrum is the great fountain of the voluntary nerves, throu gh