So I put myself under this man's hand. He was a hypnotist. He felt
able to restore speech with a hypnotic sleep and the proper
hypnotic suggestion while I was in the trance. But like all the
fake fol-de-rol with which I had come in contact, he did not even
make an impression.

I will say in behalf of this hypnotic stammer doctor, however,
that he was following distinguished precedent in attempting to
cure stammering by hypnotism. German professors in particular have
been especially zealous in following out this line of endeavor and
many of them have written volumes on the subject only to end up
with the conclusion (in their own minds, at least) that it is a
failure. Hypnotism may be said to be a condition where the will of
the subject is entirely dormant and his every act and thought
controlled by the mind of the hypnotist. I do not know, not having
been conscious at the time, but it is not improbable that while in
the hypnotic state, I was able to talk without stammering, since
my words were directed by the mind of the professor, and not my
own mind. But inasmuch as I couldn't have the professor carried
around with me through the rest of my lifetime in order to use his
mind, the treatment could not benefit me.

I next got in touch with an honest-looking old man with a beard
like one of the prophets, who assured me with a great deal of
professional dignity, that stammering was a mere trifle for a
magnetic healer like himself and that he could cure it entirely in
ten treatments. So I planked down the specified amount for ten
treatments, and went to him regularly three times a week for
almost a month, when he explained to me, again with a plenitude of