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Hypnotism in the Public Sphere

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The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914

Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective ((MHHP))

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Abstract

The struggle for the acceptance of medical hypnotism took place as much in the public sphere as among medical professionals. Hypnotism, particularly in its relationship to free will, became a hotly debated topic in the 1890s. Even the daily newspapers kept abreast of the issue. There was the 1889 French Gouffé (also known as Eyraud-Bompard) murder case in which hypnotism and automatic obedience were used as a defence. This came to trial in 1890 and was closely followed by the British newspapers. In 1893, there were the Dutch De Jong murders in which British journalists asked whether the main suspect should be hypnotised to extract a confession. They interviewed Charles Lloyd Tuckey for an expert opinion. The same year, the Times published a scoop after investigating the work of the Parisian neurologist Jules Luys. His version of hypnotism was indistinguishable from mesmerism and his patients were accused of simulating illness and recovery and the doctor accused of hopeless naivety. Ernest Hart became involved and suggested that all hypnotism was mesmerism and therefore highly suspect. The gentleman’s journals ran articles from doctors on both sides of the argument and many hypnotic fictions were published. The most famous of these was George du Maurier’s Trilby which is little known today but spawned international Trilbymania and featured the character of Svengali, the Jewish hypnotic manipulator.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    George Buckle, ‘Leading Article: The New Mesmerism’, Times, 11 January, 1893, p. 9.

  2. 2.

    George Kingsbury, ‘Correspondence: The New Mesmerism’, Times, 9 January 1893, p. 7.

  3. 3.

    John Bucknill and Daniel Hack Tuke, A Manual of Psychological Medicine (London: John Churchill, 1858).

  4. 4.

    John Bucknill, ‘The New Mesmerism II’, Times, 5 January, 1893, p. 6.

  5. 5.

    John Bucknill ‘The New Mesmerism III’, Times, 11 January, 1893, p. 8.

  6. 6.

    Ernest Hart, ‘Correspondence: The New Mesmerism’, Times, 10 January, 1893, p. 8.

  7. 7.

    George Kingsbury (1891) The Practice of Hypnotic Suggestion. Bristol, J. Wright p. 29; George Kingsbury, ‘Correspondence: The New Mesmerism’, Times, 9 January 1893, p. 7.

  8. 8.

    Frederick Myers, ‘Correspondence: The New Mesmerism’, Times, 14 January 1893, p. 3.

  9. 9.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey (1893) ‘A New Hypnotism: A Reply to Mr E Hart’s “The Revival of Witchcraft”.’ The Contemporary Review (1893) 63: 416–9.

  10. 10.

    Thomas Geiryn, ‘Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists’, American Sociological Review, 48 (1983) (pp. 781–95).

  11. 11.

    The American librarian William Poole developed the first systematic attempt to catalogue and index Victorian journals. Hypnotism entry in Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature 1887–92 (2nd Supplement), (Gloucester, US: Peter Smith, 1963) (p. 206); Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature 1892–97 (3rd Supplement) (Gloucester, US: Peter Smith, 1963) (p. 271).

  12. 12.

    Anon, ‘Dr Tuckey on Hypnotism’, Spectator, 68 (1892) 55–6 (p. 55).

  13. 13.

    Robert Felkin, Hypnotism or Psycho-Therapeutics (Edinburgh: Y. J. Pentland, 1890); John Milne Bramwell, Successful Treatment of Dipsomania, Insomnia, etc., and Various Diseases by Hypnotic Suggestion (London: n.p.) (1890–92) I have only found a partial reference to this book from the early 1890s and have not been able to locate a copy; Kingsbury, Hypnotic Suggestion.

  14. 14.

    Norman Kerr, Should Hypnotism Have a Recognised Place in Ordinary Therapeutics? (London: H.K. Lewis, 1890).

  15. 15.

    Inter alia St. Clair Thomson, ‘The Dangers of Hypnotism’, Westminster Review, July 1890 (pp. 624–31).

  16. 16.

    C. Theodore Ewart, ‘The Power of Suggestion’, Nineteenth Century, 28 (1890) (pp. 252–9).

  17. 17.

    Jean-Martin Charcot, ‘Magnetism and Hypnotism’, Forum, 8 (1890) (pp. 566–77); Jean-Martin Charcot, ‘Hypnotism and Crime’, Forum, 9 (1890) (pp. 159–68); Jules Luys, ‘The Latest Discoveries in Hypnotism I’, Fortnightly Review, 47 (1890) (pp. 896–921); Jules Luys, ‘The Latest Discoveries in Hypnotism II’, Fortnightly Review, 48 (1890) (pp. 168–83).

  18. 18.

    Judith Flanders, The Invention of Murder (London: Harper Press, 2011).

  19. 19.

    Anon, ‘The Gouffé Murder’, Times, 17 December, 1890, p. 5.

  20. 20.

    Robert van Plas, ‘Hysteria, Hypnosis, and Moral Sense in French 19th-century Forensic Psychiatry. The Eyraud-Bompard case’, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 21 (1998) (pp. 397–407); Steven Levingston, Little Demon in the City of Light (New York: Doubleday, 2014); Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler, The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection (Lincoln, NE: Bison, 2010).

  21. 21.

    Ruth Harris, ‘Murder Under Hypnosis in the Case of Gabrielle Bompard: Psychiatry in the Courtroom in Belle Époque Paris’ Ch 10 in The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry II, ed. by William Bynum, Roy Porter and Michael Shepherd (London: Tavistock, 1987) (pp. 197–241).

  22. 22.

    These are a fraction of the publications: ‘The Gouffé Murder’, Times; Charcot, ‘Hypnotism and Crime’; A. Taylor Innes, ‘Hypnotism in Relation to Crime and the Medical Faculty’, The Contemporary Review, 58 (1890) (pp. 555–66); George Kingsbury, ‘Hypnotism, Crime and Doctors’, Nineteenth Century, 29 (1891) (pp. 145–53).

  23. 23.

    Taylor Innes, ‘Hypnotism’, p. 555.

  24. 24.

    Kingsbury, ‘Hypnotism, Crime’, p. 148.

  25. 25.

    Jan Bondeson and Bart Droog, ‘The Dutch Jack the Ripper: New Light on Hendrik De Jong, “The Continental Suspect”’ Ripperologist, The Journal of Jack the Ripper, East End and Victorian Studies, 159 (December 2017/ January 2018) (pp. 2–25).

  26. 26.

    Anon, ‘De Zaak-De Jong’ De Tijd, 7 October, 1893 p. 4.

  27. 27.

    Anon, ‘The De Jong Case’, New York Herald, 1 November, 1893.

  28. 28.

    Tom Fielders, ‘The Maidenhead Mystery. De Jong’s antecedents. Is he “Jack the Ripper”?’, Pall Mall Gazette, 2 October, 1893, p. 3.

  29. 29.

    Anon, ‘The De Jong Case’, Times, 13 April 1894, p. 5.

  30. 30.

    Anon, ‘De Jong Case’, Illustrated London News, 14 October, 1893, p. 4.

  31. 31.

    T.H., ‘Hypnotism in Criminal Investigation’, Sketch, 4, (1894) p. 244.

  32. 32.

    Charles Lloyd Tuckey to van Eeden correspondence, 14 October 1893. Van Eeden Collection. Amsterdam, Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam.

  33. 33.

    T.H., ‘Criminal Investigation’.

  34. 34.

    T.H., ‘Criminal Investigation’.

  35. 35.

    Arthur Quiller Couch, ‘A Literary Causerie: Hypnotic Fiction’, Speaker (14 September 1895) (p. 316).

  36. 36.

    George du Maurier, Trilby, (Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2003).

  37. 37.

    Couch, ‘Hypnotic fictions’ (p. 316).

  38. 38.

    Anon, The Power of Mesmerism (Moscow: For the Nihilists, 1891).

  39. 39.

    Mary Leighton, ‘Under the Influence: Crime and Hypnotic Fictions of the Fin de Siècle’, Ch. 10 in Victorian Literary Mesmerism, ed. by Martin Willis and Catherine Wynne. (Amsterdam: Rodolphi, 2006) pp. 203–26.

  40. 40.

    Walter Besant, Herr Paulus: His Rise, His Greatness and His Fall (London: Chatto and Windus, 1888); Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, The Charlatan (London: Chatto and Windus, 1895); Ernest Clark Oliphant, The Mesmerist (London: Eden Remington, 1890).

  41. 41.

    Donald Hartman, ‘Hypnotic and Mesmeric Themes and Motifs in Selected English-Language Novels, Short Stories, Plays and Poems, 1820–1983’, Bulletin of Bibliography, 44 (1987) (pp. 156–66).

  42. 42.

    Emily Jenkins, ‘Trilby: Fads, Photographers, and “Over-Perfect Feet”’, Book History, 1 (1998) pp. 221–67 (p. 221); Edward Purcell, ‘Trilby and Trilbymania: The Beginning of the Best-Seller System’, Journal of Popular Culture, 11 (1977) (pp. 62–76); Joanna Levin, Bohemia in America, 1858–1920 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009) (p. 193).

  43. 43.

    J.B. Gilder and J.D. Gilder, Trilbyana: The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel (New York: The Critic, 1895).

  44. 44.

    L. Edward Purcell, qtd in Emily Jenkins, ‘Trilby: Fads, Photographers, and "Over-Perfect Feet"’, Book History, 1 (1998) pp. 221–67 (p. 221).

  45. 45.

    Couch, ‘Hypnotic Fiction’ (p. 316).

  46. 46.

    Gilder, Preface in ‘Trilbyana’.

  47. 47.

    Emily Jenkins, ‘Trilby: Fads’ (p. 250).

  48. 48.

    Daniel Pick, Svengali’s Web: The Alien Enchanter in Modern Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) (p. 22).

  49. 49.

    Tracy Davis, The Economics of the British Stage, 1800–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) (p. 225).

  50. 50.

    Pick, Svengali’s Web.

  51. 51.

    Daniel Pick, ‘Powers of Suggestion: Svengali and the Fin-de-Siècle’, Ch. 6 in Modernity, Culture and ‘The Jew’ ed. by Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998) pp. 105–25 (p. 119).

  52. 52.

    Margaret Sangster, ‘“Trilby” from a Woman’s Point of View’, Harpers Weekly, 38 (September 1894) (p. 883).

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    Gordon David Lyle Bates

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Bates, G.D.L. (2023). Hypnotism in the Public Sphere. In: The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914. Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42725-1_7

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