symptoms is
always possible, and just with alcoholism the danger lies near unless
beneficial influences remain in power. Certainly no one has a right to
neglect such psychotherapeutic aid simply because relapses are possible.
Even a temporary relief can be a great blessing. Moreover, the temporary
relief is the safest basis to work towards the prevention of a
recurrence of the evil. Only in two directions is further restriction
needed. Psychotherapeutic methods are in my opinion of very small avail
in cases of periodic drinkers. Such periodic attacks of patients who
have not even a desire for alcohol in intervals between the attacks,
intervals which may last a quarter of a year, are related to epilepsy.
It seems that constant hypnotic influence during the interval has a
certain power to reduce the periodic impulse. I personally have not
seen any special improvement from it. The second restriction would be
that the drinker has to be under constant supervision during the first
days of hypnotic treatment. No patient, not even the morphinist, is so
skillful in deceiving his friends and even the physician. Even the most
emphatic gestures of sincerity ought to be distrusted.

Only a short time ago I dealt with a young man whom his parents and
a chauffeur had accompanied to Boston, exclusively for the purpose
of watching him constantly while I was to attempt to cure him from
excessive whiskey drinking. The chauffeur accompanied him from his
room in the Boston hotel to the threshold of my laboratory. All
through the day he was with his parents, and at the hotel the
management had given the strictest orders not to sell any drink to
the young spendthrift. He was an earlier student of mine and had
attached himself to me with such an apparent sincerity as removed
every possible doubt of his pledge. Intentionally I had not even
asked him for a pledge not to drink but only for a pledge to
confess to me the next day if he ever should take any alcohol. In a
tentative way I suggested to him in a half hypnotic state on the
first day that he would feel disgust for whiskey. I did not expect
much of an improvement before at least three or four treatments. I
was therefore most surprised when he most solemnly assured me the
next day that he awoke in the morning with an assured feeling that
he should never touch whiskey again and that he had not the