Late Nineteenth into Twentieth Century 321suggested that the metals effected a dynamic transfer of a
functional lesion responsible for the anesthesia from one
hemisphere of the brain to the other. These findings stimu-
lated further research by Alfred Binet, Charles Féré, Joseph
Babinski, and others, and led to Charcot’s interest in hypnosis.
Jean Marie Charcot
Charcot undertook research in the use of hypnosis with a
selected group of hysterical female patients. They were typi-
cally put in the first stage of hypnosis, a cataleptic trance, by
the use of a bright light or a sudden noise. The second stage,
lethargy, was induced by having the patients shut their eyes,
and the third stage, somnambulism, by instructing the patient
to move about. Charcot believed that hysteria was caused
by a morbid organization of the nervous system, and he de-
scribed the hysterical crisis as comprised of four stages: the
epileptoid phase, the large movements phase, the passionate
attitudes phase, and the termination stage of delirium and
muscular resolution. The similarity between symptoms of
hysteria and those that can be induced by hypnotic suggestion
led Charcot to theorize that hypnosis is a form of experimen-
tal hysteria, and that susceptibility to hypnotic suggestion can
only be found in hysterical patients. He conjectured that the
hysterical symptoms are a consequence of autosuggestions
generated within a region of the patient’s mind isolated from
waking consciousness.
Charcot repeatedly performed experiments on dozens of
hypnotically susceptible patients, some of whom were paid a
fee and maintained for this purpose in the hospital. One day a
week, his clinic, with lectures on and demonstrations of
hysterical patients, was open to the general public. His clinic
became a highly fashionable event attracting a variety of
socialites, actors, authors, and others who came to observe
patients presenting dramatic portrayals of the “classical”
states of lethargy, catalepsy, somnambulism, and seizures.
Charcot was criticized for exploiting sick patients; con-
versely, Charcot faced charges that the patients learned their
symptoms as they were rehearsed repeatedly in the sorts of
responses he expected, because their welfare depended on
their displaying the behaviors he sought to validate his theo-
ries. His patients have been described as vying with each
other to produce the classical symptoms to make themselves
more interesting.
One patient, Blanche Wittmann, nicknamed the Queen of
Hysterics because of her talent in reproducing the three stages
of hypnosis with a grand finale of a hysterical “crisis,” is said
to have confessed to Jules Janet, a brother of Pierre Janet, that
even during the throes of a hypnotic trance she was aware of
her “act.” It was said that Charcot’s interns and other assis-
tants organized the experiments and demonstrations, pre-
pared the patients, and conducted the hypnotic sessions, and
that, because Charcot failed to check the conduct of the ex-
periments, he was unaware of their inadequacies. Sigmund
Freud studied with Charcot for six months in 1889. Other stu-
dents of Charcot to achieve fame include Pierre Janet, Gilles
de La Tourette, and Joseph Babinski (Harrington, 1987).Bernheim and the Nancy SchoolAbout 1885, criticisms against metalloscopy research by
Hippolyte Bernheim (1840–1919), a physician in Nancy,
France, led to its being discredited, and further investigations
were abandoned. At about the same time Bernheim learned
that A. A. Liébault, a country doctor, was successfully
using hypnosis to cure patients. Bernheim was impressed by
Liébault’s success in curing a case of sciatica by direct
hypnotic suggestion—a case that had failed to respond to
his conventional treatment. In 1882, they opened a clinic,
known as the Nancy School. In a textbook published in 1884,
Bernheim stated that susceptibility to hypnosis does not re-
flect a pathological functioning of a morbid nervous system;
it has a mental etiology. He suggested that Charcot’s “clas-
sic” three stages of hypnosis were artifacts of specific sug-
gestions made to the patient and that Charcot’s identification
of hypnosis with hysteria was mistaken.
Bernheim believed that the phenomena of hypnotism can
only be explained ideogenically; the hypnotist’s suggestions
to the hypnotized subject cause hypnotic phenomena and
reflect normal psychological processes in a state of increased
passivity-receptivity engendered by the suggestions. Hence
hypnosis cures when the patient—in a state of increased sug-
gestibility induced by the hypnotist—uncritically accepts
new attitudes and beliefs. Statistics were compiled at the
Nancy School to demonstrate the lack of marked difference
in the proportion of men and of women susceptible to hypno-
sis, that young children are hypnotizable, and that all subjects
are more or less influenced by hypnotic procedures, with only
about 10% of persons showing no influence at all. Freud
spent several weeks with Bernheim and Liébault in 1889 in
order to perfect his hypnotic techniques. He also translated
Bernheim’s textbook into German.Pierre Marie Félix JanetNeurologist and psychologist Pierre Marie Félix Janet
(1859–1947) was known for his studies of hysteria and neu-
roses and for his application of psychological theory to the
clinical treatment of hysteria. He collaborated with Charcot
at the Salpêtrière in demonstrating that no signs of actual