Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1913 — Hypnotized Witnesses. [ARTICLE]

Hypnotized Witnesses.

The medico-legal relations involved by the practice of hypnotism have several times been discussed in the courts of the United States of America. Quite recently in the case The State vs. Locum, it has been decided that the statement by a witness on cross-examination that she had been thrice hypnotized by the prisoner is admissible as affecting the credibility of her evidence. What counsel sought to prove was that she was then and there the subject of a post-hypnotic suggestion. It is admitted that proof of such a mental condition must be very difficult for, the judge, whose function it is to decide the competency of a witness, would have to consider many pertinent facts. Once, however, the state of post-hypnotic suggestion Is established, there can be little doubt that a witness so obessed should be ruled unable to' testify on behalf of the party responsible for that condition. It must he remembered that possible actions of the victims of suggestlonp a longue echeance are still hotly debated in the. French schools of hypnotism; at the Salpetriere they hold that the educated moral sense is not annulled by a criminal suggestion; at Nancy they have several practical, if reprehensible, illustrations that when hypnotized the mind does hot revolt at a suggestion which leads practically to the performance of a misdemeanor or a crime.—London Lancet