PEDIATRICS Vol. 62 No. 2 August 1978, pp. 265-266
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Mesmerism, magic, and medicine

John E. Schowalter M.D.1

1 Yale University Child Study Center 333 Cedar Street New Haven, CT 06510

The appearance of Olness and Gardner's article, "Some Guidelines for Uses of Hypnotherapy in Pediatrics" (p. 228), must strike many readers as something far out, while for some others there is relief that Pediatrics has finally recognized a phenomenon that is a fact of everyday life.

Hypnosis is not easy to define. It need not produce a trance, but is a state in which the subject is extremely suggestible to the wishes of the hypnotist and in which there is a heightening of the powers of concentration.

The use of the hypnotic state dates back to early in the history of the individual and of medicine.