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even a brief experiment would certainly ease Miss R.’s fears, and might even prove of some assistance in quieting her nervous illness. As I had long suspected, she was, once she had brought herself to the point, a willing and cooperative subject, and in a very short space of time I had subdued her into a light hypnotic slumber.
    When she was breathing easily and quietly, her hands and face relaxed, and her feet resting comfortably upon a small footstool, I was agreeably surprised at her appearance of pleasant, intelligent comeliness and reflected at the time that very possibly Miss R.’s nervous constraints stretched even farther than headaches and sleeplessness, and threw over her whole personality an air of timidity and stupidity; I recall that I even wondered briefly if Miss R. might not be a gay and merry companion under her mask of illness. Marveling at the relaxation in her face, which for the first time seemed to me pretty, I asked her quietly, “What is your name.”
    â€œElizabeth R.”—without hesitation.
    â€œWhere do you live?”
    She named her street and city address.
    â€œWho am I?”
    â€œYou are Doctor Wright.”
    â€œAnd are you afraid of me, Miss R.?”
    â€œOf course not.”—smiling slightly.
    It was most gratifying to see that, just as the anxious lines upon Miss R.’s face smoothed out under hypnosis, just as the tightness of her mouth relaxed and her voice lost its reluctance, so her funds of information were ready-tapped, as it were, and she answered my questions readily and without hesitation, although I had before heard from her only the briefest of replies and those spoken falteringly and with much hesitation; I foresaw, what I had believed all along, that with the priceless assistance of Miss R.’s own mind, freed of its pressure of constraint, we might easily and without terror soon have her as free from nervous ailments as the best of us.
    At this first attempt, I was most unwilling to rouse Miss R. from her happy sleep, but, mindful of my promise to keep her in trance for only a minute or two, I emphasized in her mind (in the form of what is called
post-hypnotic suggestion,
a most compelling influence) the conviction that she would sleep soundly and dreamlessly that night, and awaken the next morning refreshed (concluding that, once we had Miss R.’s insomnia under control, we might be strengthened to attack the headache and backaches, which I half believed to be little more than the result of fatigue) and awakened her. Immediately she became the Miss R. of my previous acquaintance, sullen, silent, looking anywhere but at me as she asked immediately, “What did I say?”
    Silently I passed her my notes across the desk, and she glanced at them hastily and then said in great astonishment, “Is this all?”
    â€œEvery word,” I told her truthfully, although, needless to add, I had prudently kept back my own words which were to instill in her the suggestion of a night’s dreamless sleep.
    â€œWhy did you ask me if I was afraid of you?”
    â€œBecause naturally a doctor’s first duty is to establish trust between himself and his patient,” I said glibly, and, no doubt still marveling at my tremendous restraint when she was—as I have no doubt she thought of it vividly—in my power, she arose shortly afterward and took her leave.
    My treatment, as generally planned at that time, was simple enough for the most untutored layman to understand. Shorn of technicalities, my intentions were thus: through the use of hypnosis, under which I suspected Miss R. might speak and act far more freely than in a waking state, to discover and eliminate whatever strain was causing her deliberately to confine herself in an iron cage of uncommunicativeness and fear. I was positive that at some time lost to conscious memory, Miss R. had forsaken herself as she was meant to be, and imposed upon herself the