THE POSSIBLE ROLE OF HYPNOSIS IN HOMOGRAFT RETENTION: A PRELIMINARY REPORT.

Hypnosis was used to alter body image in an attempt to enable a woman to retain a skin homograft from an unrelated male donor. The man also acted as a nonhypnotized control by receiving a homograft from the hypnotized woman. Oneinch square full-thickness skin homografts were exchanged between the upper arms of the two volunteers. The homograft on the arm of the woman is still viable after eight months; the homograft on the man was rejected within two weeks. A second experiment in which the same subject was told under hypnosis to reject the homograft failed to produce rejection.Definite conclusions are not yet justified. Among factors to be considered in the present case are an unusual compatibility, schizophrenia as an inhibitor of the rejection mechanism, hypnotically induced irreversible acceptance, or other unknown mechanisms.