physical constitution of his descendants as to make them less capable
of resisting infections in the physical order, or in the moral order
of withstanding trials and temptations, and the allurement to abuse of
nervous excitement to which they may be subjected. That some acquired
pathological condition, however, as stomach trouble, or heart {123}
trouble, or affection of the liver or of the brain, should be directly
transmitted, is quite as nonsensical as that the loss of an arm should
be a subject for hereditary transmission. On investigation it will be
found that the pathological conditions of immediate ancestors are
themselves only a manifestation of family traits that have existed for
many generations. The possibility of inheritance must therefore always
be borne in mind. We are utterly unable as yet to understand how such
family traits are originally developed, since, in ordinary experience,
at least, acquired characteristics are not the subject of inheritance
or transmission, and consequently it becomes difficult to understand
how they ever became impressed upon the family constitution.
Notwithstanding this general principle with regard to heredity, there
are a number of striking observations which show that even unimportant
peculiarities may occur from generation to generation, though it is
not always easy to decide where the peculiarity originated. The
well-known example of the occurrence of six toes has already been
mentioned, and is an oft-quoted bit of evidence as regards hereditary
transmission. An extra finger on the hand, or some portion of an extra
finger, at least, comes in the same category. Not long since it was
pointed out that harelip is another of these peculiarities that
readily lends itself to hereditary transmission. Recently there was
the report of a family into which there were born four girls with
harelip and cleft palate, and three boys not showing any trace of
these deformities.
Often when in such cases there is no definite history of harelip, it
is found that in either one of the parents there is a very high arched
palate and a thin upper lip, showing that the normal occlusion of the
cleft which exists here during foetal development is not quite
perfect, and this peculiarity may be traced for several generations
back, with an occasional occurrence of harelip as an exaggerated
example of the faulty tendency not to produce sufficient tissue in
this neighbourhood for the proper closure of the embryonic cleft.
An even more striking manifestation of a physical anomaly, as a family
trait, is the condition known as hemophilia. This {124} tendency to
bleed easily, so that a slight scratch, or the pulling of a tooth, may
give rise to fatal hemorrhage, occurs, as a rule, only in males, but
is transmitted through the female line. It is in the mother's male
relatives that the history of its previous occurrence is found, and
the tendency usually can be traced through several generations, until
it is lost in vague tradition. It is no wonder, with such examples
before them as six-toedness, harelip, and hemophilia, that physicians
have been ready to accept heredity of qualities in the moral order,
traits of character and disposition, and pathological tendencies to
crime or passion or indulgence.
One of the most frequently discussed conditions of supposed
pathological inheritance of this order is dipsomania. Everyone has
heard it said, "Poor fellow, how can he help it; his father was a
drunkard before him." As we have already said, in such direct cases
inheritance is absolutely unproven. An alcoholic father may transmit a
very weak physical constitution to his children, and this may prove
inadequate to enable them to withstand the emotional strain and worry
of modern great city life, and, as a consequence, they may take to
alcohol for consolation until the habit is formed, and then the
craving for stimulants supplies the place of any hereditary influence
that may be supposed to be needed.
Of course there are cases of the drink habit in which, after a number
of generations of family history of alcoholism, an individual seems to
have the craving for stimulants born in him. In such cases it is not
unusual to find that the patient, for such he must be considered, is
able to avoid indulgence in liquor entirely, except at certain times.
Every physician of any large experience has had under his care
dipsomaniacs who had no difficulty in keeping away from liquor for
weeks, or even months, but who had regularly recurring periods,
sometimes as far apart as every three months, when they had an
irresistible craving for stimulants come over them. The regularity of
the interval in these cases is often very remarkable. Here, of course,
we may be in the presence of some as yet not well-understood
periodical law of cell life, with consequent depression, and then the
irresistible craving for stimulation. {125} As a rule, however, it
would seem that in most of these cases suggestion has great influence.
As we have said elsewhere, with regard to suicide, when a man has
constantly before his mind's eye the fact that a father, perhaps a
grandfather, or other members of the family, have committed suicide,
he is likely to be much more easily led to the thought of this way of
escaping hard conditions in life than are other individuals. The man
who knows that the fact that his father indulged too freely in
stimulants will be looked upon by many as an excuse for his deviations
in this matter is likely to be more easily led to take an occasional
drink at moments of depression, or for friendship's sake, though he
realises that it so weakens his will power over himself that he is
likely to take too much before he stops.
The passage in _Julius Caesar_ (Act. I. sc. 2) in which Cassius says:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,"
illustrates one phase of the subject. There are, of course, many other
things besides the drink habit, with regard to which men are prone to
find excuses in heredity, and to consider that somehow their ancestral
tendencies make them not quite responsible for actions commonly
considered the result of malice or passion, rather than hereditary
influence, and our great English poet, knowing men so well, has stated
the truth forcibly.
In _King Lear_ there is an often quoted passage which properly
stigmatises the opinion in this matter held by those who would find
excuses for wrong-doing in hereditary qualities:
"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick
in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behaviour,--we make guilty
of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were
villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves,
thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars,
and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and
all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on; an admirable
evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the
charge of a star!"
{126}
One phase of the question of hereditary tendencies to inebriety is
extremely interesting from a physiological and sociological point of
view. As the result of carefully gathered statistics, there seems to
be no doubt now that when children are conceived while the parents, or
either of them, is in a state of drunkenness, the offspring is very
likely to be of low-grade physical constitution and often of very
neurotic tendencies. In France, particularly in the case of a number
of insane children and idiots, histories of this nature have been
obtained in confirmation of this unfortunate factor as an element in
degeneracy. In general it may be said that about one-third of the
admissions to homes for children of low intelligence, as well as to
insane asylums, are due to this cause.
There is in this, of course, an added motive for temperance, and it
would seem that parents should be warned of the danger to which they
are subjecting their offspring by excessive indulgence in alcohol,
when it may be followed by such serious and lasting results to the
beings on whom their love and affection will be expended in the
future. This phase of alcoholic excess has never been taught as
insistently as its importance would demand, perhaps because of the
delicacy of the subjects which it involves; but it is too significant
a factor in making or marring progress in the development of the race
to allow any pusillanimous motives to prevent the spread of precious
knowledge. [Footnote 3]
[Footnote 3: The present conditions that obtain with regard to the
celebration of marriages are very prone to have a certain amount of
intoxication as their result. Perhaps, then, it is a fortunate
thing, as has often been said, that the first child is not born
until some considerable time after it might normally be expected. It
has been said more than once, however, that first children are a
little more likely to have certain degenerative defects than are
others, and a connection has been found between certain abuses of
stimulants and incidental exhaustion to account for this. One of the
most amusing things to Li Hung Chang, on his travels through our
country, was the curious publicity we give to everything connected
with marriage, while presumably our Christian ideas should rather
counsel a veiling of the mysteries, religious and physical,
connected with it. Certain it is that the present tendency towards
farewell dinners at clubs, and other festivities of various kinds,
are not at all likely to result in benefit to the presumably
hoped-for offspring.]
The only real light that has been thrown on the puzzling details of
heredity has come from work in the same field in which Mendel made his
ground-breaking observations. {127} De Vries, the professor of botany
at the University of Amsterdam, has succeeded in showing that new
species of plants may be made to arise by careful attention to certain
anomalous plants which occur from generation to generation. These
plants breed true, that is, maintain their own peculiarities. To begin
with, they are quite different from the parent plants, and the
difference is perpetuated by inbreeding.
So far the problem of the origin of species has been supposed to
depend upon the normal variation that is noticed in plants and
animals. All living things differ from one another, even though they
may belong to the same species, and differ sometimes in remarkable
degrees. This continuous variation was supposed to account for the
origin of new species when it became excessive. It has become well
recognised now, however, that such differences gradually disappear in
the course of the normal multiplication of plants and animals. The
tendency is much more towards the disappearance than the maintenance
of peculiarities.
There are certain discontinuous variations, however--sports, as they
are called--in plants which differ very markedly in some quality from
others, and these have the tendency to perpetuate themselves. Just why
these sports occur is not known, nor how. They occur in a certain
small percentage of all normal plants, but may die out, though it
takes but little encouragement to succeed in helping them to maintain
themselves. It is this that De Vries has done, and thus has succeeded
in raising what would be called new species of plants.
This same thing would seem to occur in human beings. Some definite
variation occurs as a consequence of a peculiar embryologic process.
This becomes stamped upon the genital material and appears in the
subsequent generations. It does not occur as a consequence of
pathological changes nor of mere embryonic faults; it is almost as if
it were something introduced from without. Once having found an
entrance, however, it affects the germinal material and thus
perpetuates itself.
With regard to plants, it has been suggested that the only explanation
available for the occurrence of sports is that there is a purposeful
introduction of them as the result of the laws of nature, and that it
is thus that evolution is intentionally {128} brought about. This is,
of course, a scientific reversion to teleology once more, but the
question of teleological influences has been discussed more seriously
in the last few years in biological circles than ever before.
Unfortunately for the coincident evolution argument involved in human
beings, the peculiarities introduced, which become the subject of
inheritance, do not make for the development, but rather for the
degeneracy, of the race. Even such peculiarities as six toes can
scarcely be said to add any special feature of advantage to man in his
struggle against his environment.
It is agreed by many of our best authorities in biology, zoology, and
botany, by such men as Professor Wilson of Columbia University,
Professor Thomas Hunt Morgan of Bryn Mawr, Professor Castle of Harvard
University, Professor Bailly of Cornell University, Professor Michael
Guyer of the University of Cincinnati, Professor Spillmann, who is the
Agrostologtst of the United States Government, and Professor Bateson
of the University of Cambridge, England, that these principles of
heredity enunciated by Father Mendel will undoubtedly revolutionise
the modern knowledge of the subject. In the meantime, however, all the
old theories are in abeyance. Darwin's work and Weissmann's brilliant
theories and observations must give way, while the application of
these new laws is being worked out to their fullest extent. While the
influence of heredity can not be denied, there is undoubtedly a
tendency to overestimate the influence on the physical being of the
power of hereditary transmission, and, on the other hand, to
underestimate the influence of this same force as regards disposition
and character. There is no doubt now that the physical basis
influences the exercise of the will, and that consequently
responsibility is not infrequently modified by the hampering influence
of unfortunate physical qualities. This truth makes for that larger
charity in the judgment of the actions of others which enables
physicians to realise how much men are to be pitied, while its failure
of recognition by the "unco guid" not only causes suffering, but in
the end adds to the amount of evil.
JAMES J. WALSH.
{129}
X
HYPNOTISM, SUGGESTION, AND CRIME
In recent years a quasi-unconscious state, induced by suggestion and
called the hypnotic trance, has come to occupy a very important place
in the popular mind. Hypnotism, as the general consideration of this
state is known, has attracted not a little attention, as well from
physicians as from those interested in psychology. The hypnotic
(Greek, [Greek text], sleep) trance is a condition in which voluntary
brain activity is almost completely in abeyance, though the mind is
able passively to receive many impressions from the external world.
There are very curious limitations in the effect of the hypnotic state
upon the various senses. While visual sensations, and, as a rule also,
impressions from the tactile sense, lose their significance, or are
translated according to the will of the person active in producing the
hypnotic state, or of some person present making suggestions, auditory
sensations are quite normally perceived. The patient has all the
appearance of being asleep, though motions, and even locomotion, are
often possible, and are performed as if the patient were walking in
sleep.
The hypnotic state is a partial sleep, then, of the motor side of the
nervous system and of portions of the sensory nervous system. Certain
of the higher intellectual powers, however, are entirely awake, and
capable of being impressed through the hearing, and thus hypnotic
suggestion has a place. For a time, under the influence of Charcot and
his disciples, there was a very generally accepted opinion that the
hypnotic trance was a pathological condition, somewhat allied to the
cataleptic phase of major hysteria. It is well known that persons
suffering from severe attacks of hysteria {130} may, while apparently
unconscious, yet receive suggestions through the hearing. On the other
hand, the production of cataleptic and other strained attitudes, in
the maintenance of which fatigue seems to play no part, is possible by
means of hypnotic suggestion in susceptible individuals.
Further investigation, however, seems to have shown that the hypnotic
state is rather to be considered as a quasi-physiological condition,
somewhat related to sleep, all the mystery of which is not as yet
understood. This is not surprising when we realise that such a normal
and absolutely physiological condition as healthy sleep is yet without
a satisfactory explanation on the part of physiologists. Hypnotism is
recognised now as having a certain limited power for good, though the
benefit derived from it is apt to be temporary, and the operator loses
his power after a time,--not so much failing to produce the hypnotic
condition, as failing to have his suggestions favourably accepted by
the subject While the Nancy school of hypnotism insisted that most
people were susceptible to the hypnotic trance, it is now generally
considered that something less than 40 per centum of ordinary
individuals can be brought under its influence.
Much has been said of the dangers of hypnotism. There seems no doubt
that very nervous persons are likely to be hurt by repeated recourse
to the hypnotic condition. After a time they are likely to live most
of their lives in a half-dreamy condition, in which initiative and
spontaneous activity becomes more difficult than before. Where persons
have been hypnotised by means of the flash of a bright object, or by
some other special means, it sometimes happens that accidentally some
similar object may send them into hypnotic trance. After a time, too,
auto-hypnotism becomes possible, and much of the individual's waking
time is occupied with efforts to keep himself from going into the
hypnotic trance. These are, however, very extreme cases, likely to
occur only in those who are not of strong mentality in the beginning.
Unfortunately these are the individuals who are most likely to be made
the subjects of repeated and prolonged hypnotic experimentation on the
part of unscrupulous charlatans.
For the great majority of those that are susceptible to the {131}
hypnotic condition, there is very little danger. We now have on record
the experiences of men who have seriously devoted many years to the
study of hypnotic phenomena. There is entire agreement among these men
that the possible dangers of hypnotism have been exaggerated. Indeed,
it may be as well to say at once that most of what has been written
with regard to the dangers of hypnotism has come from those who have
least practical experience with the condition. Dr. Milne Bramwell,
who, for a quarter of a century, has had a very extensive experience
with hypnotism in its many phases, in his recent book on hypnotism,
deliberately speaks of the "so-called dangers" of hypnotism. He has
never seen any evil effects, though he has been practising hypnotism
very freely on all kinds of patients for over twenty years.
It is on the experience of such serious, disinterested observers that
we must rely for our ultimate conclusions as to hypnotism, rather than
on the claims of pseudo-experts who like to magnify their own powers,
or on popular magazine articles, or still less the Sunday newspapers,
the writers for which are mainly interested in producing a sensation.
It seems probable that in the next few years hypnotism will occupy a
less prominent place in popular interest than it has in the recent
past. Interest in hypnotism runs in cycles, reaching a maximum about
once a generation, and we are on the downward swing of the last wave
of popular attention to this subject.
A subject that has attracted much attention, whenever hypnotism has
been under discussion, has been the possibility of crime being
committed under the influence of hypnotic suggestion. The best
authorities in hypnotism seem to be agreed that subjects can not be
brought by hypnotic influence to perform actions that are directly
contrary to their own feeling of right and wrong. The supposed
exceptions to this rule are rather newspaper sensations than real
compelled crimes. There is no doubt, however, that a tendency to the
performance of certain wrong actions, so that the normal
disinclination to their performance becomes much less than before, may
be cultivated by a series of hypnotic as well as by waking
suggestions. Where the individual influenced is {132} already
characterised by weakness of will in certain directions, the added
weight of the motives furnished by hypnotic suggestion may prove
sufficient to turn the scale of responsibility. It is probably because
of such influence that a recent case in France has attracted
world-wide attention.
In general, however, it may be said that normal individuals can not be
brought to the commission of crime by hypnotic suggestion, and the
plea of irresponsibility, for this reason, is not worthy of
consideration. There are phases of this important problem, however,
which require further careful study. Undoubtedly some of the so-called
inherited tendencies to the commission of crime are really instances
of the influence of auto-suggestion that has kept the possibility of
some criminal act constantly before the mind. Some of the cases of
hereditary dipsomania are almost surely of this character. Persons
whose parents have been the subject of inebriety lose something of
their own will power to keep away from intoxicating drink by the
reflection that it is hopeless for them to struggle against an
inherited tendency.
A series of cases have been reported in which suicide has occurred in
successive generations in the same family at about the same time of
life. There seems no doubt that suggestion must have great influence
in such cases. In one well-authenticated report, mentioned in the
chapter on suicides, the members of the family were officers in the
German army, and the eldest son, the family representative, committed
suicide within the same five years of life, in four successive
generations. The last member of the family had refused to marry,
because of this doom hanging over the house, and had often referred to
the possibility of suicide in his own case. In his early years he
seemed to have the idea that he might escape the family fate, but
after middle life he settled down irretrievably to the persuasion that
he would inevitably go like the others.
Here, in America, a rather striking example of this has recently been
the subject of sensational newspaper reports. A notorious gambler,
whose career had seen many ups and downs, finally found himself in a
condition where, strange as it may seem, legal restriction made it
impossible for him to {133} continue his usually lucrative profession.
Three members of his immediate family, two brothers and his mother,
had committed suicide. To friends he had sometimes spoken of this sad
history of family self-murder, but always with a calm rationality
which seemed to indicate that he hoped to avoid any such fate. When
well on in years, however, with his means of livelihood taken from
him, he, too, took the family path out of difficulties and shot
himself at the door of the man who had been most instrumental in
taking away from him his occupation. It seems not unlikely, from the
circumstances of the case, that a double crime, homicide, as well as
suicide would have been reported, only for the fortuitous circumstance
that the other man was not in at a time when usually he was to be
found at his office.
In such cases as these it seems reasonably clear that long-continued
familiarity with a given idea produces an auto-suggestion which
finally overcomes the natural abhorrence even of suicide. Something
can be done for such unfortunates by suggestion in the opposite
direction, and by taking care that as far as possible they are not
allowed to brood over the fate they consider impending. At times of
stress and emotional strain, relatives and friends must be
particularly careful in their watch over them. It is never advisable
that they should take up such professions as those of broker or
politician, or speculator, since the emotional states connected with
such occupations are likely to prove too much for their mental
equilibrium.