CHARCOT MIRROR

a device used by Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893), French neurologist and psychiatrist, in the effort to hypnotize people. Charcot believed that one could hypnotize a patient by fixing their attention on something. Charcot used a device that consisted of three mirrors mounted on a stand that slowly rotated. The patient was made to watch the spinning mirrors until he was in a hypnotic trance. Sometimes, a strong light was flashed in the patient's eyes or a loud noise was made to suddenly break the patient's attention, which supposedly induced the hypnotized state more rapidly.