sist it, is indeed brought into safety if
suggestion liberates him from such desires. The same holds true for
every other diet and for any medical regime of life which does not
harmonize with the natural instincts of the patient. For not a few
sufferers, reenforcement of the interdict against coffee and tea or
alcohol and tobacco is more important than any medicine. Hypnotic
suggestion can easily create dislike of the prohibited material and can
build up new desires and inclinations. In the same way it is indirectly
most important to stir up, for instance, the sensations and feelings of
appetite and thus to make normal nutrition possible. Also in cases of
anaemia or tuberculosis, such indirect assistance can produce some
beneficial consequences.

The same holds true of the power of the psychotherapist to secure sleep.
The fight against insomnia which we discussed referred only to that
sleeplessness which is itself an expression of the disease. But as a
matter of course, the loss of sleep can accompany most different
diseases, as an almost accidental result. To secure sleep means then not
to treat the symptoms of the disease but a by-product; and yet every
physician knows how much is gained if the lost energies are restituted
by a sound sleep. And finally we have the indirect help towards the cure
by the suggestive removal of pain. We have no right to say that it is a
pure advantage for the treatment of the disease if the pain is centrally
inhibited. Pain surely has its great biological significance and is in
itself to a certain degree helpful towards the cure, inasmuch as it
indicates clearly the seat and character of the trouble and warns
against the misuse of the damaged organ which needs rest and protection.
To annihilate pain may mean to remove the warning signal and thus to
increase the chance for an injury. If we had no pain, our body would be
much more rapidly destroyed in the struggle for existence. But that does
not contradict the other fact that pain is exhausting and that the fight
against the pain decreases the resistance of the organism. As soon as
the disease is well recognized through the medium of pain and the
correct treatment is inaugurated, not only the subjective comfort of the
patient but the objective interest of his cure makes a removal of pain
most desirable. While it would be absurd to say that hypnotism can cure
tuberculosis or cancer, it is fully justifiable to say that hypnotic
treatment in t