HYPNOTIC BLISTERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 102, 23 January 1918, Page 4

HYPNOTIC BLISTERS

NAVAL SURGEON'S ACCOUNT OF EXPERIMENTS. That blisters can actually be produced on the skin by moans of hypnotic suggestion alone is the claim mado by Air. J. Arthur Hadfield, temporary surgeon, R.N.. describing somo experiments in a recent issuo of the "l.an- | cet." I Getting tho consent of a seaman patient at the Royal Naval Hospital, : Chatham, to try the experiment, Mr. Hadfield hypnotised the man and then suggested to him that his arm was being touched with a red-hot iron and that a blister would form on tho spot. The arm was then covered with a bandage pinned on with a safety-pin, nnd the pin was sealed on with sealing-wax to make certain that the arm could r.ot be interfered with in any way. The patient was watched continuously by nurses till next morning, when, in the presence of three surgoons, including the deputy surgeon-general, the seal was broken and the bandage removed, showing a small blister on tho chosen spot. This gradually developed during the day to form "a large bleb with nil area of inflammation around.

In two other experiments the skin was actually touched with a red-hot iron. In the first instance the surgeon suggested that thero would Kb no pain, and in the second that thero would be the usual pain of a blister. The lirst blister was perfectly painless, had practically no area of inflammation around it,_ and healed very rapidly. The second blister was painful from the first, was surrounded by a reddened area, and took longer to heal.

From tho fact that tho blister which was rendered painless by hypnotism healed bo quickly, Mr. Hadfield suggests that hypnosis, by rendering wounds and certain painful conditions such as pleurisy less painful might with advantage bo made part of the treatment of such conditions.