‘Suggestion is the insinuation of a belief or impulse into the mind of a subject by any means, or by words or questions, usually by emphatic declaration; also the impulse of trust and submission which leads to the effectiveness of such incitement.’
On the effects of treatment by suggestion, Dr. Claye Shaw writes:
‘It is with such conditions as chronic inebriety, opium, or the drug habit, that suggestion is most powerful; with acute insanity I have not seen it successful, and, though it has been fairly tested in asylum practice, it has not obtained general recognition as a therapeutic agent.’
A considerable number of medical men, alienists and others, took part in the discussion which followed the reading of the paper.
Dr. Bramwell cited many well-authenticated cases where a cure or marked amelioration had followed treatment by suggestion in cases of this kind which had resisted all other treatment. Among these were instances of neurasthenia (‘la grande hystérie’), claustrophobia, morphomania, tendency to suicide, a morbid fear of cats. Dr. Seymour Tuke said that he had found ‘suggestive treatment marvellously effective in cases of inebriety in which the will was under some sort of control,’ but that he was ‘unable to make encouraging report of the use of hypnotism and suggestion amongst insane patients.’ [A useful and discriminating testimony.] Dr. Lloyd Tuckey had cured ‘many cases of genuine dipsomania, which could not be reached by drugs, by hypnotism—as well as other intractable conditions, such as three cases of Menière’s disease.’ Dr. R. H. Cole said that, twenty years ago, when he was a House Physician, he first tried to hypnotise patients. Later, he went to Paris and attended the ‘Salpétrière and Bernheim’s cliniques, but was greatly disappointed in what he saw. . . . In his experience of mental diseases he had only seen it do good in one insane patient. It had never had any effect in his experience upon people with fixed delusions, but it would cure dipsomania.’ Dr. T. F. Woods had treated 4000 cases, and he described a few of them in which he had obtained remarkable results. One was that of a woman, with severe asthma and delusions that she was going to be cut in pieces, who was cured by suggestion at one sitting, and had kept well ever since. Another case of severe sciatica, which had resisted every line of treatment for eight months, was also cured rapidly. He did not find it necessary to induce hypnotic sleep. Dr. E. A. Ash thought that ‘genuine hypnotism (the state of somnambulism) was unsatisfactory in practice. Only a small proportion of cases could be hypnotised, and these in his experience did no better than those treated by simple suggestion. He quoted two cases of nocturnal enuresis, one of which he had failed to cure by hypnotism, whilst the other was cured by suggestion, and a case of blepharospasm, which had been cured by suggestion, with light massage on the eyelids, although a similar case treated only by suggestion had not been relieved.’ Dr. W. H. Blake described ‘a series of cases in which he had used hypnotism with the utmost benefit. . . . His most remarkable cures had been effected in a case of asthma, for which the patient was accustomed to drench himself unavailingly with drugs, and in a severe case of dipsomania.’
Here we have grouped together the expression of the opinions of trained minds of responsible medical men. The differences are comparatively slight. The agreement is remarkable. Not one of them (though in one case as many as 4000 records are in his hands) claims to have cured what are usually called organic conditions. The whole question is as to the best way in which suggestion can be brought to bear on patients whose lives are in many cases rendered miserable by persistent, but none the less ‘functional,’ ailments.
Moreover, we observe that the result of years of patient clinical investigation is to lead them to treat every variety of psychic therapeutics as a form of ‘suggestion.’ In no case is there so much as a hint that a new force, viz. ‘spiritual healing,’ has appeared, different in kind not only from other varieties of suggestion but from the countless cults of spiritual healing, which have flourished and disappeared in the past or the relics of which still survive in many continental and eastern shrines.
Now, with regard to ‘spiritual healing’ in its present manifestation in our own country the general attitude of medical science is well described in an article which appeared in the British Medical Journal of January 9, 1909. The article begins by describing some meetings of different societies, in some cases mutually antagonistic, but all existing for the purpose of advancing the claims of healing by ‘spiritual’ means. It goes on to say:
‘If all or any of them can show that they have discovered a new force, or a new method of applying one already known, to the cure of disease, rational medicine will welcome a new weapon. As we have often said, the wise physician understands the action of the mind or the spirit on the body, and uses it for the benefit of his patient. A man who firmly believes in his doctor’s skill, or in the efficacy of the treatment to which he is subjected, is in the best possible condition for the operation of curative forces. On the other hand, a patient who believes that nothing can cure him helps to seal his own doom. Avicenna well said, Plus interdum prodesse fiduciam in medicum quam ipsam medicinam. The “lady of the highest rank,” who is reported to have said that she would rather die under the care of Sir Henry Halford than recover under that of any other physician, must have been a living tribute to his skill.
‘The fact cannot be too much insisted upon that there is nothing in the least new about faith healing. It is as old as medicine and religion, which in the beginning were one, as they still are among many savage tribes. Faith can move mountains, and it matters little on what it is based or how it is excited. As John Hunter has told us, the touch of a dead man’s hand has charmed away a tumour. But there are limits to its action, and while willing to accept faith as an adjuvant, no one who knows anything about disease will admit that by itself it can heal any but ailments the origin of which lies hid in the unknown recesses of the nervous system. By all means let us know the full power of the spirit over the body. Only let us have facts that can be fairly and fully tested. A scientifically trained doctor takes nothing on trust, and there can be no useful co-operation between medicine and spiritual healing unless the facts of each case are fully disclosed. That is the point where science and faith part company; the former is as importunate as Arthur Clennam at the Circumlocution Office, and the wonder workers are as painfully surprised at this as the youthful Barnacle was at the persistence of “the fella that wanted to know, you know.” ’