their nullity or their absurdity causes them gradually to
disappear. But they are usually replaced by other absurdities.

=Suggestive Action in Sexual Anomalies.=--In very suggestible persons
the sexual appetite may be easily led astray by sensory impressions
created by perverse images. In this way the erotic imagination of a
very suggestible boy, excited indirectly by another boy, may even make
the latter the object of his sexual desire. This is how homosexual
inclinations may be formed by suggestion and maintained by mutual
masturbation, pederasty, etc. The duration of a perversion of this
kind often depends on the power of the erotic image which suggested
sexual desire. This is also the case with onanism, sodomy, etc.; and
in the inverse direction with impotence.

These facts explain at the same time why and how suggestion may cure
or ameliorate the anomalies of sexual life. Just as suggestion may
excite or pervert the sexual appetite, so may it calm it and put it in
the right direction, unless there is a deeply rooted hereditary
perversion. We can nearly always considerably attenuate too-frequent
emissions, masturbation and perversions by suggestion, and often
entirely cure their acquired forms.

I must here point out that when we have succeeded in removing by
suggestion a perversion based in whole or in part on organic or
hereditary causes, this result is always more or less precarious, and
does not give the physician the right to give his sanction to
marriage. The following case shows us what prudence on the part of the
hypnotizer can do with patients of this kind:

A young girl, of good education, was troubled with intense
sexual desire. She was incapable of resisting masturbation and
dreamed at night that men and animals were in contact with her
vulva. These dreams caused intense excitement and were
accompanied by orgasms. The treatment of a patient of this kind
by suggestion was no easy matter. However, with the aid of a
local sedative, the action of which it is needless to say was
purely suggestive and was combined with appropriate verbal
suggestions, I succeeded not only in suppressing the onanism,
but also in almost completely curing the nervous exhaustion of
this young girl, so that she was afterwards able to resume work.

I may add that the patient was hypnotized in the presence of others,
which can always be done in such cases with a little tact. This is a