James Braid (surgeon)

Family

Braid was the third son, and the seventh and youngest child, of James Braid (c1761-184?) and Anne Suttie (c.1761-?). He was born at Ryelaw House, in the parish of Portmoak, Kinross, Scotland on 19 June 1795.

On 17 November 1813, at the age of 18, Braid married Margaret Mason (1792–1869), aged 21, the daughter of Robert Mason (?-1813) and Helen Mason, née Smith. They had four children, all of whom were born at Leadhills in Lanarkshire. Two died in their infancy: James Braid (born 1816) and Charles Anderson Braid (born 1818). Two survived: Anne Daniel, née Braid (1820–1881), and James Braid (1822–1882).

Education, etc.

Braid was apprenticed to the Leith surgeons Thomas and Charles Anderson (i.e., both father and son). As part of that apprenticeship, Braid also attended the University of Edinburgh from 1812–1814, where he was also influenced by Thomas Brown, M.D. (1778—1820), who held the chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh from 1808 to 1820.

Braid obtained the diploma of the Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh, the Lic.R.C.S. (Edin), in 1815, which entitled him to refer to himself as a member of the college (rather than a fellow).

Braid was appointed surgeon to Lord Hopetoun's mines at Leadhills, Lanarkshire, in 1816; and in 1825 he set up in private practice at Dumfries. One of his Dumfries' patients, Alexander Petty (1778–1864), a Scot, employed as a traveller for Scarr, Petty and Swain, a firm of Manchester tailors, invited Braid to move his practice to Manchester, England. Braid moved to Manchester in 1828, continuing to practise from there until his death in 1860.

Braid was a member of both the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, a Corresponding Member Member of both the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh (in 1824), and the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh (in 1854), a Member of the Manchester Athenæum, and the Honorary Curator of the museum of the Manchester Natural History Society.

Surgeon

Braid was a highly skilled and very successful surgeon, educated at Edinburgh University, and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (M.R.C.S.).

"[and] though he was best known in the medical world for his theory and practice of hypnotism, he had also obtained wonderfully successful results by operation in cases of club foot and other deformities, which brought him patients from every part of the kingdom. Up to 1841 he had operated on 262 cases of talipes, 700 cases of strabismus, and 23 cases of spinal curvature."

Mesmerism

Braid first observed the operation of animal magnetism, when he attended a public performance by the travelling Swiss magnetic demonstrator Charles Lafontaine (1803–1892), at the Manchester Athenæum, on Saturday, 13 November 1841.

Braid was amongst the medical men who were invited onto the platform by Lafontaine. Braid examined the physical condition of Lafontaine's magnetised subjects (especially their eyes and their eyelids) and concluded that they were, indeed, in quite a different physical state.

Hypnotism

Braid attended two more of Lafontaine's demonstrations; and, by the third demonstration (on Saturday 20 November 1841), Braid was convinced of the veracity of some of Lafontaine's effects and phenomena.

In particular, whilst he was convinced that a transformation from, so to speak, condition₁ to condition₂, and back to condition₁ had really taken place, he was convinced that no magnetic agency of any sort (as Lafontaine claimed) was responsible for these veridical events. He also rejected outright the assertion that the transformation in question had "proceeded from, or [had been] excited into action by another [person]" (Neurypnology, p. 32).

Braid then performed his experimentum crucis. Operating on the principle of Occam's Razor (that 'entities ought not to be multiplied beyond necessity'), and recognising that he could diminish, rather than multiply entities, he made an extraordinary decision to perform a role-reversal and treat the operator-subject interaction as subject-internal, operator-guided procedure; rather than, as Lafontaine supposed, an operator-centred, subject-external procedure. Braid emphatically proved his point by his self-experimentation with his "upwards and inwards squint".

The exceptional success of Braid's use of 'self-' or 'auto-hypnotism' (rather than 'hetero-hypnotism'), entirely by himself, on himself, and within his own home, clearly demonstrated that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the 'gaze', 'charisma', or 'magnetism' of the operator; all it needed was a subject's 'fixity of vision' on an 'object of concentration' at such a height and such a distance from the bridge of their nose that the desired 'upwards and inwards squint' was achieved. And, at the same time, by using himself as a subject, Braid also conclusively proved that none of Lafontaine's phenomena were due to magnetic agency.

Braid conducted a number of experiments with self-hypnotization upon himself, and, by now convinced that he had discovered the natural psycho-physiological mechanism underlying these quite genuine effects, he performed his first act of hetero-hypnotization at his own residence, before several witnesses, including Captain Thomas Brown (1785–1862) on Monday 22 November 1841 – his first hypnotic subject was Mr. J. A. Walker. (see Neurypnology, pp.16–20.)

The following Saturday, (27 November 1841) Braid delivered his first public lecture at the Manchester Athenæum, in which, amongst other things, he was able to demonstrate that he could replicate the effects produced by Lafontaine, without the need for any sort of physical contact between the operator and the subject.

Hugh M'Neile's "Satanic Agency and Mesmerism" sermon

On the evening of Sunday, 10 April 1842, at St Jude's Church, Liverpool, the controversial cleric Hugh M'Neile preached a sermon against Mesmerism for more than ninety minutes to a capacity congregation; and, according to most critics, it was a poorly argued and unimpressive performance.

M'Neile's core argument was that scripture asserts the existence of "satanic agency"; and, in the process of delivering his sermon, he provided examples of the various instantiations that "satanic agency" might manifest (observing times, divination, necromancy, etc.), and claimed that these were all forms of "witchcraft"; and, further, he asserted that, because scripture asserts that, as "latter times" approach, more and more evidence of "satanic agency" will appear, it was, ipso facto, transparently obvious that the exhibitions of Lafontaine and Braid, in Liverpool, at that very moment, were concrete examples of those particular instantiations. He then, moved into a confusing admixture of philippic (against Braid and Lafontaine), and polemic (against animal magnetism), wherein he concluded that all mesmeric phenomena were due to "satanic agency".[72]

In particular, he attacked Braid as a man, a scientist, a philosopher, and a medical professional. He claimed that Braid and Lafontaine were one and the same kind. He also threatened Braid's professional and social position by associating him with Satan; and, in the most ill informed way, condemned Braid's important therapeutic work as having no clinical efficacy whatsoever.

The sermon was reported on at some length in the Liverpool Standard, two days later. Once Braid became fully aware of the newspaper reports of the conglomeration of matters that were reportedly raised in M'Neile's sermon, and the misrepresentations and outright errors of fact that it allegedly contained, as well as the vicious nature of the insults, and the implicit and explicit threats which were levelled against Braid's own personal, spiritual, and professional well-being by M'Neile, he sent a detailed private letter to M'Neile accompanied by a newspaper account of a lecture he had delivered on the preceding Wednesday evening (13 April) at Macclesfield, and a cordial invitation (plus a free admission ticket) for M‘Neile to attend Braid's Liverpool lecture, on Thursday, 21 April.

Yet, despite Braid’s courtesy, in raising his deeply felt concerns directly to M‘Neile, in private correspondence, M‘Neile did not acknowledge Braid’s letter nor did he attend Braid’s lecture. Further, in the face of all the evidence Braid had presented, and seemingly, without the slightest correction of its original contents, M‘Neile allowed the entire text of his original sermon, as it had been transcribed by a stenographer (more than 7,500 words), to be published on Wednesday, 4 May 1842. It was this ‘most ungentlemanly’ act of M‘Neile towards Braid, that forced Braid to publish his own response as a pamphlet; which he did on Saturday, 4 June 1842; a pamphlet which, in Crabtree's opinion is “a work of the greatest significance in the history of hypnotism, and of utmost rarity” (1988, p. 121).

British Association for the Advancement of Science

Soon after, he also wrote a report entitled "Practical Essay on the Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism", which he applied to have read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in June 1842. Despite being initially accepted for presentation, the paper was controversially rejected at the last moment; but Braid arranged for a series of Conversaziones [2] at which he presented its contents. Braid summarised and contrasted his own view with the other views prevailing at that time:

"The various theories at present entertained regarding the phenomena of mesmerism may be arranged thus:— First, those who believe them to be owing entirely to a system of collusion and delusion; and a great majority of society may be ranked under this head. Second, those who believe them to be real phenomena, but produced solely by imagination, sympathy, and imitation. Third, the animal magnetists, or those who believe in some magnetic medium set in motion as the exciting cause of the mesmeric phenomena. Fourth, those who have adopted my views, that the phenomena are solely attributable to a peculiar physiological state of the brain and the spinal cord."

Terminology

By, at least, 28 February 1842, Braid was using "Neurohypnology" (which he later shortened to "Neurypnology"); and, in a public lecture on Saturday, 12 March 1842, at the Manchester Athenæum, Braid explained his terminological developments as follows:

It is important to recognize three things; namely, that:

(1) Braid was only using the term "sleep" metaphorically; (2) Braid did not, even on a single occasion, ever use the term hypnosis; and (3) the term 'hypnosis' comes from the work of the Nancy School in the 1880s.

Although Braid was the first to use the terms hypnotism, hypnotise and hypnotist in English, the cognate terms hypnotique, hypnotisme, hypnotiste had been intentionally used by the French magnetist Baron Etienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers (1755–1841) at least as early as 1820. Braid, moreover, was the first person to use "hypnotism" in its modern sense, referring to a "psycho-physiological" theory rather than the "occult" theories of the magnetists.

In a letter written to the editor of The Lancet in 1845, Braid emphatically states that:

"I adopted the term "hypnotism" to prevent my being confounded with those who entertain those extreme notions [sc. that a mesmeriser's will has an "irresistible power… over his subjects" and that clairvoyance and other "higher phenomena" are routinely manifested by those in the mesmeric state], as well as to get rid of the erroneous theory about a magnetic fluid, or exoteric influence of any description being the cause of the sleep. I distinctly avowed that hypnotism laid no claim to produce any phenomena which were not "quite reconcilable with well-established physiological and psychological principles"; pointed out the various sources of fallacy which might have misled the mesmerists; [and] was the first to give a public explanation of the trick [by which a fraudulent subject had been able to deceive his mesmeriser]… [Further, I have never been] a supporter of the imagination theory — i.e., that the induction of [hypnosis] in the first instance is merely the result of imagination. My belief is quite the contrary. I attribute it to the induction of a habit of intense abstraction, or concentration of attention, and maintain that it is most readily induced by causing the patient to fix his thoughts and sight on an object, and suppress his respiration."

Induction

In his first publication, he had also stressed the importance of the subject concentrating both vision and thought, referring to "the continued fixation of the mental and visual eye" as a means of engaging a natural physiological mechanism that was already hard-wired into each human being:

"I shall merely add, that my experiments go to prove that it is a law in the animal economy that, by the continued fixation of the mental and visual eye on any object in itself not of an exciting nature, with absolute repose of body and general quietude, they become wearied; and, provided the patients rather favour than resist the feeling of stupor which they feel creeping over them during such experiment, a state of somnolency is induced, and that peculiar state of brain, and mobility of the nervous system, which render the patient liable to be directed so as to manifest the mesmeric phenomena. I consider it not so much the optic, as the motor and sympathetic nerves, and the mind, through which the impression is made. Such is the position I assume; and I feel so thoroughly convinced that it is a law of the animal economy, that such effects should follow such condition of mind and body, that I fear not to state, as my deliberate opinion, that this is a fact which cannot be controverted."

In 1843 he published Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism…, his first and only book-length exposition of his views. According to Bramwell (1896, p. 91) the work was popular from the outset, selling 800 copies within a few months of its publication.

Braid thought of hypnotism as producing a "nervous sleep" which differed from ordinary sleep. The most efficient way to produce it was through visual fixation on a small bright object held eighteen inches above and in front of the eyes. Braid regarded the physiological condition underlying hypnotism to be the over-exercising of the eye muscles through the straining of attention.

He completely rejected Franz Mesmer's idea that a magnetic fluid caused hypnotic phenomena, because anyone could produce them in "himself by attending strictly to the simple rules" that he had laid down. The (derogative) suggestion that Braidism be adopted as a synonym for "hypnotism" was rejected by Braid; and it was rarely used at the time of the suggestion, and is never used today.

The mono-ideo-dynamic principle

On 12 March 1852, convinced (as both a scientist and physiologist) of the genuineness of Braid's hypnotism, Braid's friend and colleague William Benjamin Carpenter presented a significant paper, "On the influence of Suggestion in Modifying and directing Muscular Movement, independently of Volition", to the Royal Institution of Great Britain (it was published later that year). Carpenter explained that the "class of phenomena" associated with Braid’s hypnotism were consequent upon a subject's concentration on a single, "dominant idea": namely, “the occupation of the mind by the ideas which have been suggested to it, and in the influence which these ideas exert upon the actions of the body”. Moreover, Carpenter said, “it is not really the will of the operator which controls the sensations of the subject; but the suggestion of the operator which excites a corresponding idea”: the suggested idea “not only [producing non-volitional] muscular movements [through this psychosomatic mechanism], but other bodily changes [as well]” (1852, p. 148).

In order to reconcile the observed hypnotic phenomena “with the known laws of nervous action” (p. 153), and without elaborating on mechanism, Carpenter identified a new psycho-physiological reflex activity — in addition to the already identified excito-motor (which was responsible for breathing, swallowing, etc.), and the sensori-motor (which was responsible for startle responses, etc.) — that of “the ideo-motor principle of action”. At the conclusion of his paper, Carpenter briefly noted that his proposed ideo-motor principle of action, specifically created to explain Braid's hypnotism, could also explain other activities involving objectively psychosomatic responses, such as the movements of divining rods:

    Thus the ideo-motor principle of action finds its appropriate place in the physiological scale, which would, indeed, be incomplete without it.

    And, when it is once recognized, it may be applied to the explanation of numerous phenomena which have been a source of perplexity to many who have been convinced of their genuineness, and who could not see any mode of reconciling them with the known laws of nervous action.
    The phenomena in question are those which have been recently set down to the action of an "Od-force", such, for example, as the movements of the "divining-rod", and the vibration of bodies suspended from the finger; both which have been clearly proved to depend on the state of expectant attention on the part of the performer, his Will being temporarily withdrawn from control over his muscles by the state of abstraction to which his mind is given up, and the anticipation of a given result being the stimulus which directly and involuntarily prompts the muscular movements that produce it. — Carpenter, 1852, p.153.

Braid immediately adopted Carpenter's ideo-motor terminology; and, in order to stress the importance (within Braid's own representation) of the single, "dominant" idea concept, Braid spoke of a "mono-ideo-motor principle of action". However, by 1855, based on suggestions that had been made to Carpenter by Daniel Noble, their friend in common — that Carpenter's innovation would be more accurately understood, and more accurately applied (viz., not just limited to divining rods and pendulums), if it were designated the "ideo-dynamic principle" — Braid was referring to a "mono-ideo-dynamic principle of action":

    [The explanation for] the power that serpents have to fascinate birds … is simply this — that when the attention of man or animal is deeply engrossed or absorbed by a given idea associated with movement, a current of nervous force is sent into the muscles which produces a corresponding motion, not only without any conscious effort of volition, but even in opposition to volition, in many instances; and hence they seem to be irresistibly drawn, or spell-bound, according to the purport of the dominant idea or impression in the mind of each at the time.

    The volition is prostrate; the individual is so completely monoideised, or under the influence of the dominant idea, as to be incapable of exerting an efficient restraining or opposing power to the dominant idea; and in the case of the bird and serpent, it is first wonder which arrests the creature's attention, and then fear causes that mono-ideo-dynamic action of the muscles which involuntarily issues in the advance and capture of the unhappy bird …
    It is this very principle of involuntary muscular action from a dominant idea which has got possession of the mind, and the suggestions conveyed to the mind by the muscular action which flows from it, which led so many to be deceived during their experiments in "table-turning," and induced them to believe that the table was drawing them, whilst all the while they were unconsciously drawing or pushing it by their own muscular force. — Braid, Physiology of Fascination, etc., (1855), pp.3-5.
…
    In order that I may do full justice to two esteemed friends, I beg to state, in connection with this term monoideo-dynamics, that, several years ago, Dr. W. B. Carpenter introduced the term ideo-motor to characterise the reflex or automatic muscular motions which arise merely from ideas associated with motion existing in the mind, without any conscious effort of volition.
    In 1853, in referring to this term, Dr. Noble said, “Ideo-dynamic would probably constitute a phraseology more appropriate, as applicable to a wider range of phenomena.”
    In this opinion I quite concurred, because I was well aware that an idea could arrest as well as excite motion automatically, not only in the muscles of voluntary motion, but also as regards the condition of every other function of the body.
    I have, therefore, adopted the term monoideo-dynamics, as still more comprehensive and characteristic as regards the true mental relations which subsist during all dynamic changes which take place, in every other function of the body, as well as in the muscles of voluntary motion. — Braid, (1855), footnote at p.10.

Death

Braid maintained an active interest in hypnotism until his death.

"I consider the hypnotic mode of treating certain disorders is a most important ascertained fact, and a real solid addition to practical therapeutics, for there is a variety of cases in which it is really most successful, and to which it is most particularly adapted; and those are the very cases in which ordinary medical means are least successful, or altogether unavailing. Still, I repudiate the notion of holding up hypnotism as a panacaea or universal remedy. As formerly remarked, I use hypnotism ALONE only in a certain class of cases, to which I consider it peculiarly adapted – and I use it in conjunction with medical treatment, in some other cases; but, in the great majority of cases, I do not use hypnotism at all, but depend entirely upon the efficacy of medical, moral, dietetic, and hygienic treatment, prescribing active medicines in such doses as are calculated to produce obvious effects" — James Braid

Just three days before his death he sent a (now lost) manuscript, that was written in English – usually referred to as On hypnotism — to the French surgeon Étienne Eugène Azam.

Braid died on 25 March 1860, in Manchester, after just a few hours of illness. According to some contemporary accounts he died from "apoplexy", and according to others he died from "heart disease". He was survived by his wife, his son James (a general practitioner, rather than a surgeon), and his daughter.

Influence

Braid's work had a strong influence on a number of important French medical figures, especially Étienne Eugène Azam (1822–1899) of Bordeaux (Braid's principal French "disciple"), the anatomist Pierre Paul Broca (1824–1880), the physiologist Joseph Pierre Durand de Gros (1826–1901), and the eminent hypnotherapist and co-founder of the Nancy School Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1823–1904).

Braid hypnotised the English Swedenborgian writer J.J.G. Wilkinson, who observed him hypnotising others several times, and began using hypnotism himself. Wilkinson soon became a passionate advocate of Braid's work and his published remarks on hypnotism were quoted enthusiastically by Braid several times in his later writings. However, Braid's legacy was maintained in Great Britain largely by John Milne Bramwell who collected all of his available works and published a biography and account of Braid's theory and practice as well as several books on hypnotism of his own.

James Braid Society

In 1997 Braid's part in developing hypnosis for therapeutic purposes was recognised and commemorated by the creation of the James Braid Society, a discussion group for those "involved or concerned in the ethical uses of hypnosis". The society meets once a month in central London, usually for a presentation on some aspect of hypnotherapy.

Works

Braid published many letters and articles in journals and newspapers; he also published several pamphlets, and a number of books (many of which were compendiums of his previously published works).

His first major publication was Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep (1843), written less than two years after his discovery of hypnotism.

He continued revising his theories and his clinical applications of hypnotism, based on his experiments and his empirical experience. Six weeks before his death, in a letter to The Medical Circular, Braid spoke of continuously having the daily experience of applying hypnotism in his practice for nineteen years; and, in a letter to The Critic, written four weeks before his death (this was his last published letter), he spoke of how his experiments and clinical experience had convinced him that all of the effects of hypnotism were generated “by influences residing entirely within, and not without, the patients own body”.

In 1851 Garth Wilkinson published a description of Braid's "hypnotism", which Braid described, two years later, as "a beautiful description of [my system of] hypnotism".

In April 2009, Robertson published a reconstructed English version, backward translated from the French, of Braid's last (lost) manuscript, On Hypnotism, addressed by Braid to the French Academy of Sciences.

Bramwell: promoter and defender of Braid's heritage

John Milne Bramwell, M.B. C.M., a talented specialist medical hypnotist and hypnotherapist himself, made a deep study of Braid's works and helped to revive and maintain Braid's legacy in Great Britain.

Bramwell had studied medicine at Edinburgh University in the same student cohort as Braid's grandson, Charles.

Consequently, due to his Edinburgh studies — especially those with John Hughes Bennett (1812–1875), author of The Mesmeric Mania of 1851, With a Physiological Explanation of the Phenomena Produced (1851) — Bramwell was very familiar with Braid and his work; and, more significantly, through Charles Braid, he also had unfettered access to those publications, records, papers, etc. of Braid that were still held by the Braid family. He was, perhaps, second only to Preyer in his wide-ranging familiarity with Braid and his works.

In 1896 Bramwell noted that, "[Braid’s name] is familiar to all students of hypnotism and is rarely mentioned by them without due credit being given to the important part he played in rescuing that science from ignorance and superstition". He found that almost all of those students believed that Braid "held many erroneous views" and that "the researches of more recent investigators [had] disproved [those erroneous views]".

Finding that "few seem to be acquainted with any of [Braid's] works except Neurypnology or with the fact that [Neurypnology] was only one of a long series on the subject of hypnotism, and that in the later ones his views completely changed", Bramwell was convinced that this ignorance of Braid, which sprang from "imperfect knowledge of his writings", was further compounded by at least three "universally adopted opinions"; viz., that Braid was English (Braid was a Scot), "believed in phrenology" (Braid did not), and "knew nothing of suggestion" (when, in fact, Braid was its strongest advocate, and, also, was first to apply the term "suggestion" to the practice).

Bramwell rejected the mistaken view — very widely promoted by Hippolyte Bernheim – that Braid knew nothing of suggestion, and that the entire 'history' of suggestive therapeutics began with the Nancy "Suggestion" School in the late 1880s, had no foundation whatsoever:

The difference between Braid and the Nancy School, with regard to suggestion, is entirely one of theory, not of practice.

Braid employed verbal suggestion in hypnosis just as intelligently as any member of the Nancy school.
This fact is denied by Bernheim, who says:
"It is strange that Braid did not think of applying suggestion in its most natural form — suggestion by speech — to bring about hypnosis and its therapeutic effects. He did not dream of explaining the curative effects of hypnotism by means of the psychical influence of suggestion, but made use of suggestion without knowing it."
This statement has its sole origin in [Bernheim’s] ignorance of Braid's later works…
[Unlike Bernheim, Braid] did not consider [verbal] suggestion as explanatory of hypnotic phenomena, but… [he] looked upon it simply as an artifice used to excite [those phenomena].
[Braid] considered that the mental phenomena were only rendered possible by previous physical changes; and, as the result of these, the operator was enabled to act like an engineer, and to direct the forces which existed in the subject's own person. (Bramwell, 1903, pp.338–339)

In 1897, Bramwell wrote on Braid's work for an important French hypnotism journal ("James Braid: son œuvre et ses écrits"). He also wrote on hypnotism and suggestion, strongly emphasizing the importance of Braid and his work ("La Valeur Therapeutique de l'Hypnotisme et de la Suggestion"). In his response, Bernheim repeated his entirely mistaken view that Braid knew nothing of suggestion (""A propos de l'étude sur James Braid par le Dr. Milne Bramwell, etc."). Bramwell’s response ("James Braid et la Suggestion, etc.") to Bernheim’s misrepresentation was emphatic: