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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Sept. 25. 1962
Hypnosis May Cure Asthma Sufferers
NEW YORK—(UPI) —The medical science controversy over whether hypnotism can make asthmatic people less asthmatic has been put to the only scientifically acceptable test for the first time. This is the "controlled" long-term experiment.
The experimental answer was that hypnotism at least works better than anti-spasmodic drugs. This will give hope to many victims of this common and chronic disease for which there is little promise of cure. It is easier to get hypnotized than to grab pills when the wheezes come on.
THE EXPERIMENT WAS organized and directed by English chest physicians and psychiatrists — G. P. Maher-Loughnan, A. A. Mason, N. Macdonald and Lionel Fry. It was conducted in three hospitals and lasted for six months.
The subjects suffered from asthma and had for a number of years. But their asthma was uncomplicated. In each hospital a given number was assigned to hypnotic treatment and a similar number was assigned to treatment with an anti-spasmodic drug. There were 28 of these "controls" in all, against 27 who took the hypnosis route.
The "controls" took an anti-spasmodic whenever the wheezes came on. The others were hypnotized once a week for two weeks, every other week for eight weeks, and once every month for three months.
While under hypnosis they were told they were not going to have any asthmatic symptoms, such as wheezing. It was all simple "suggestion."
No effort was made to deal in psychological matters while the patients were under hypnosis, although in some instances asthma has strong psychological components.
DURING the six months each asthmatic kept a diary of his asthma symptoms or lack of them. At the
German Author To Speak Friday To KU Classes
Charlotte Luetkens, German sociologist and author, will visit the University of Kansas Friday. She will be a guest of the home economics, sociology and anthropology departments.
Mrs. Luetkens will speak in classes taught by Lawrence Bee, professor of home economics and sociology, and Muriel Johnson, associate professor of home economics. Noon and evening meals will be held in her honor.
Mrs. Luetkens received her doctorate from the University of Heidelberg. Her thesis on the changing social structure of Great Britain after World War I was published as her first book. Among her other books are "State and Society of the United States" and "Women and a New Society."
Mrs. Luetkens has lived in the Balkans, Italy, Latvia, and the United States.
In Bonn, where she now lives, Mrs. Luetkens is a member of the city council. She is also active in the German and international councils of European movement, the German associations of sociology and political science, and several women's organizations.
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end of the experimental period, the scientists got the diaries together and compared them by statistical techniques.
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The hypnotic patients had been freer of symptoms and had, therefore, used their symptom-relieving drugs much less than they had before. But the "controls" had had their usual number of attacks and had used their drugs at the usual rate.
One medical oddity developed. At all three hospitals chest physicians were in medical charge but at one the patients were sent to psychiatrists for the actual hypnotizing. The patients who were hypnotized by chest physicians did better than those hypnotized by psychiatrists.
ASTHMATIC ATTACKS have three "triggers" — emotional, allergic and infective. The scientists noted that the hypnotized asthmatics who did best were those whose disease had the emotional "trigger," although the others did well, too.
In reporting to the British Medical Association, they considered hypnosis an excellent treatment when it works. It is better than drugs which are only symptom-relievers, too. Asthmatic must take drugs periodically over many years. The accumulation of some drugs eventually could result in harm, they said.
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