THE DOCTOR HYPNOTIZED HER.
By T.
A DIVORCE has just been granted in this city that should have more than passing notice. The wife's own confession of the history of the case is to the effect that she was called some time since to the bedside of her sick mother in a distant State. The doctor that was in attendance upon her mother hypnotized her and thus brought her under his influence so that she could not resist him. The result of it was the violation of her marriage vows. She said that she knew the bad deeds that the doctor was leading her into, but she had no power to resist him. When she came home, she made a confession of the whole matter to her husband, and said that she was thoroughly sorry and penitent. Her husband thought best to file a divorce suit, and the woman did not resist him, but told the same story in the court that she had told to her husband. Much has been said in favor of the great value of hypnotism in the medical profession. But, as we pointed out in an article some time ago, a thing can not be good that can be so readily prostituted to the purposes of evil. If any one will stop to think of it calmly, he must see that hypnotism can not come from a good source, and it is to be avoided as you would avoid the bubonic plague. Both are a curse —an unmitigated evil. No person should ever submit his will to the hypnotist, for as soon as he does so he places himself in the hands of a power that will lead him he knows not where. Neither should any one be deceived by the notion that it is impossible for any one who desires to do so to resist the power of the hypnotist. Every one who says that in the strength of God he will not come under any such thing as hypnotism, has nothing whatever to fear from it. It can have no possible power over him, and he should know it every minute. The workings of hypnotism are but just begun, and it can scarcely be realized now what we will have to meet from this quarter as time goes on.