“A stage operator was demonstrating in the local theater. One of the audience, a dignified member of the community and a deacon in his church, turned out to be a very good subject. The hypnotist had him stand on his head, bark around the stage on all fours, take off a goodly portion of his clothes and give, in general, a very humiliating exhibition. He then awakened his subject who just as promptly knocked him down.”

“Binet and Fere succeeded in producing hypnosis by fatiguing the sense of smell with the odor of musk.”

“In order to find subjects for experiment, Liebeault took advantage of the parsimonious character of the French peasant. His patients had absolute confidence in him, but they had been accustomed to be treated in the ordinary manner. He therefore said to them, ‘If you want drugs I will give you them, but you will have to pay me as usual. On the other hand, if you will allow me to hypnotize you I will do it for nothing.’ He soon had so many patients that he was unable to find time for necessary rest or study. In 1864 he gave up general practice and settled in Nancy. He had managed to save enough to live quietly, and devoted himself to hypnotic research and to the gratuitous practice of hypnotism among the poor. For two years he worked hard at his book, ‘Du Sommeil, et des Etats analogues,’ but of this one copy alone was sold. His colleagues regarded him as a madman, the poor as their providence, calling him ‘the good father Liebeault.’”