Hippolyte Bernheim

Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919) was a French physician and neurologist; born at Mülhausen, Alsace. He received his education in his native town and at the University of Strasbourg, whence he was graduated as doctor of medicine in 1867. The same year he became a lecturer at the university and established himself as physician in the city.

When, in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian war, Strasburg passed to Germany, Bernheim removed to Nancy (where he met and later collaborated with Dr. Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault), in the university of which town he became clinical professor.

When the medical faculty took up hypnotism, about 1880, Bernheim was very enthusiastic, and soon became one of the leaders of the investigation. He became a well-known authority in this new field of medicine. Albert Moll (1862–1939), an active promoter of hypnotism in Germany, went to Nancy and studied with Bernheim. Bernheim also had an influence on Sigmund Freud, who had visited Bernheim in 1889, and witnessed some of his experiments.

Bernheim is also known as an antagonist of his contemporary and fellow neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (Freud was a student of Charcot).

Bernheim wrote many works, of which the following may be mentioned here:


 * "Des Fièvres Typhiques en Général," Strasburg, 1868;
 * "Leçon de Clinique Médicale," Paris, 1877;
 * "De la Suggestion dans l'État Hypnotique et dans l'État de Veille," Paris, 1884;
 * "De la Suggestion et de son Application à la Thérapeutique," Paris, 1887.

English translations:
 * Bernheim, H., (Herter, C.A. trans.), Suggestive Therapeutics: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism, (De la Suggestion et de son Application à la Thérapeutique, [Second Edition], 1887), G.P. Putnam's Sons, (New York), 1889.
 * Bernheim H., New Studies in Hypnotism, [Trans. by Sandor R.S, of Bernheim's French (1891) Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychothérapie: Études Nouvelles], International University's Press, (New York), 1980.