hypnotism was on all lips, and the list of its accomplishments grew longer day by day. Many books were published, and a number of men, some of them of great ability, devoted themselves exclusively to that branch of practice. Their experience has certainly been of the greatest value, and many of the same men are still working and publishing on the old lines. On the whole, however, there has been, I think, a clearer recognition of the fact that one cannot deal satisfactorily with "suggestion" until a great deal more has been learned of the nature of the diseases in the treatment of which "suggestion" sometimes proves a partial aid, and of late years the pathogenesis of "insistent ideas,” of "multiple personalities," of hysteria, and of the hysteroid forms of epilepsy and neurasthenia, has been studied as never before.

These studies have taken the form of clinical researches of the most minute and searching kind. Through analytic case-histories, patiently recorded, it has been sought to picture the mental history of sufferers from such disorders as those enumerated, with the same sort of fidelity as is displayed in the descriptions of the anatomists.

These researches have already placed mental therapeutics upon a far more rational footing, and as time goes on their effects are sure to be more and more apparent.

The neurologist of the future will seek to treat his patients upon the basis of a broader and more intelligent study of their individual experiences and of the influences to which they have, severally, been exposed. He will try to leave each one better able to understand himself, less inclined to waste his strength in aimless self-reproaching, or to yield to paralyzing fears, and more inclined to engage hopefully and with interest in the task of successfully asserting his intelligence, his conscience, and his will. And these results will not have been attained, or at any rate it will not be sought to attain them, by appeals to superstition or ig

norance, but by methods which reflect the true spirit of scientific research.

No attempt need be made to draw a sharply dividing line between physical and mental therapeutic agents. It is desirable, on clinical grounds, to recognize that a kinship exists between the influence that improves the nutrition of the brain by increasing the harmony and efficiency of its functions, and that which reaches the same end by improving the quality of its nutrient fluids or the mode of their distribution. With this principle borne in mind, the physician will be more apt to treat his patients from various points of view simultaneously, and not to neglect one for the other.

It seems impossible, in this brief communication, to refer by name to the men who have placed this branch of medical science on its present footing, or to refer to the attempts in the way of treatment with which I have become personally familiar. I must, however, in justice mention that the work of a number of our colleagues in Boston has contributed materially to the building up of this new branch of medicine, and has justified the placing of their names alongside of those which are so familiar to all students of the foreign literature with relation to this topic. Nor can I forget that it is owing mainly to the devotion and the skill

of

my friend and associate, Dr. George A. Waterman, that the winter's work at the Massachusetts General Hospital, in the Out Patient Department and in the neurological ward, has been fruitful during this past season as never before.

ARTICLE XLI.

THE PRESENT STATUS OF HYDROTHERAPY AND OTHER FORMS OF PHYSICAL THERAPEUTICS.

BY JOSEPH H. PRATT, M.D.

OF BOSTON.

READ JUNE 8, 1904.