The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-07 00:00:00

EVENING SUN•

ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
(From the Medical Gazette.)
We hare attended one of the exhibitions by M. La-
fontaine, at the Hanover-square Booms, and should
have given reports of his proceedings, had net that task
been already performed by those for whose pages things
having but little connection with science are better
suited—we mean, the newspapers. Through their
medium the magnetism of M. Lafontaine has already
become a matter of notoriety ; and in the Times, the
accounts, though written with more respect for the
marvellous than one accustomed to observe in medicine.
would have shown, are so correct, that we can refer our
readers to them for the apparent facts of the proceedings.
We shall only say that the impression conveyed to our
minds was, that M. Lafontaine is but a poor magnetizer,
or rather that his patients are of an inferior class. The
phenomena which they exhibit are of the most ordinary
fund ; they are merely thrown either into a state like
that of a natural somnambulist, or into a deep cataleptic
sleep, in which they are insensible to such impressions
as the pricking of pins, or a slight galvanic shock, and
in which some of their limbs are rigidly fixed. Blit
there is neither clairvoyance nor prevoyaree, nor the de-
velopment of any extraordinary power of the muscles, or
of the imagination, or of the invention. The phenomena
are far less striking than those produced in the patients
of either Dr. Etliotson or the Baron Dupotet, and of
course far less marvellous than those to which we re-
cently referred as forming the staple of the modern
magnetizers in France. There is nothing, therefore, in
these exhibitions, from which any member of our pro-
fession would derive either instruction or surprise ; he
would find in them no phenomena with whose existence
he is not familiar, nor anr that would give him a deeper
insight into the nature of the influence called magnetic,
than he probably already possesses.
With the public, however, the case is different ; to
them the phenomena are striking, and being novel, are
of course thought to be the results of some marvellous
and newly-discovered influence. Nor would it be easy,
till more stirring events than are now occurring engage
their attention, to convince them of the contrary, or to
prevent their being, for a time, cheated out of their com-
mon sense. Till some more diverting amusement is in-
vented for the loungers about town (of whom the great
majority of M. ontaine's spectators are composed),
till Parliament meets, or till some fearful murder iscom-
mitted, or some new genius in music or in acting ap-
pears, animal magnetism will, in all probability, be the
leading topic of the day ; and will be discussed with all
the curiosity and all the credulity for which unemployed
Englishmen have ever been remarkable.
To make that part of the public by whom such exhi-
bitions are frequented judge rightly in a matter of
science, or to make them believe anything to be fess
marvellous than it seems, when their discernment is flat-
tered if they disbelieve the truth, is what no reasonable
man would undertake. If it were desirable, it would
not be difficult to show the fallacy which lies at the foun-
dation of a belief in animal magnetism—that is, in the
possession by any person of a power, peculiar and else
unknown, by which he can produce in others conditions
in which their senses aro displaced, or any of their
faculties m2rvellously exalted. We believe that every
rational man, accustomed to observe diseases, finds in the
real facts of magnetism no more than the results of dis-
sedconditions, whose natural occurrence iewell known,
though rare, and which are produced in those who are
unfortunately subject enough to such influences, by vari-
ous impressions on the mind.
The question so incessantly put, "Is there any thing
in animal magnetism ?" cannot be answered so indefi-
nitely as it is asked. If it be meant to ask whether, in
the exercise of animal magnetism, there be employed
any force different from those which are in operation
every day, or deserving to be called by any other name
than the force of imagination, or of imitation, or of fear,
or of some commonly employed impression on the mind,
no one need hesitate to answer, No. There are in the facts
of animal magnetism no other things than were known
before it was invented ; no others than have been Often
seen, both before and since, in diseases over which no
pretended magnetic influence had ever been 'exercised ;
no others than exist in the ordinary phenomena of cata-
lepsy and somnambulism, as they occur in those diseased
from natural causes.

On this too much stress cannot be laid,—the facts of
animal magnetism are not new, nor pecOar to it ; and
the novel effects to which it pretends to give rise, the
seeing without eyes, the discernment of internal diseases
in the patients themselves, or in others, the power of pro-
phesying deaths and ocher events, the peculiar discern-
ment of metals, the magnetizing of inanimate objects, the
cure of organic diseases—all thse, and all like them, are
fallacies. For those who believe or profess them, there is
no alternative but to regard them as either gross deceivers
or themselves deceivece; of folly or dishonesty, each in
its highest degree, they, by the very fact of their pro-
fession, convict themselves ; for the effects, in which
they declare their belief, have repeatedly, and spite of
them, failed of being produced before competent wit-
messes, To adduce but one example—the great make.
rity of magnetisers believe that patients can see by othe-s
means than eye-sight ; yet though M. Burdin has, for
the last two years, offered a handsome premium to any
one who will bring him a somnambulist that can read
after her eyes are blindfolded, to, his and others' satisfac-
tion, none of the many who have tried to gain the re-
ward have ever sueceeeded. In every case the failure
has been signal, and has manifestly been due, not to an
zeridental defect of magnetic power, or any such thing,
but to the difficulty of accomplishing the trick of dis-
placing the bandage from over the eyes, when all the
movements necessary for that purpose were accurately
watched. These facts admit of no dispute ; and if, after
knowing them, any person can still put faith in the as-
sertions of these extraordinary results being produced
by magnetic influence, he must surely be insane in the
love of error.
But if the same question, " Is there anything in ani-
mal magnetism ?" only means, " Do the persons pro-
fessing to magnetise possess any power of throwing others
into states of sleep, or catalepsy, or somnambulism ?" it
would be unwise to answer it with an unconditional ne-
gative. There are unoubtedly some unfortunate persons,
weak and excitable girls especially, in whom these condi-
tions may be produced by any thing that strongly affects
their minds, and more particularly by anything which
they have known to produce the same effects in others or
in themselves before. Such a patient once affected by
what she has deemed an extraordinary or even a super-
natural influence, is afterwards completely in the power
of her magnetiser ; each time that she is acted on, the
mind becomes weaker and less capable of resistance, if
there be any desire to make it ; till at last the phe-
nomena of the fit may even surpass, though they will
not differ in kind from, those known in the strongest
natural catalepsy or somnambulism. Yet in all this there
is no new power employed or engendered : in all ages
effects similar in kind have been produced confessedly by
mental excitement, and none know better than the mag-
netisers themselves that their manipulations are only
essential, because the patients believe them to be so, and
regard them as the sources of the strange influence.
The influence of impressions on the mind, as the sole
and sufficient means by which are produced all the mag-
netic effects that are true, is abundantly proved. In the
times which the magnetisers speak of as the earliest
of the practice of their art, these were the only agents
employed, and they produced effects which modern
manipulations hare not surpassed ; the history of fana-
ticism has facts far more marvellous than M. Lafontaine's.
By the first Commission of the Academy of Sciences in
Paris also, the energetic influence of the imagination
was proved beyond a doubt ; patients exhibited the
same effects whether they were magnetised or not, pro-
vided they believed they were so. In subsequent years,
and especially by M. Bertrand, himself for a long time a
believer in magnetism, the same influence has been re-
peatedly shown ; and if there be any change in the cha-
racter of modern magnetism, it is only that now there
is much more intentional deception. The late proceedings
in France have sufficiently proved the readineseof magnet-
isers there to resort to any attempt at a juggle, when their
experiments are in danger of failing ; and although we
fully admit the possibility of phenomena, such as insen-
sibility, somnambulism, and so on, being produced at
will in certain persons, we should not, without close in-
quiry and examination, believe in the genuineness of
even these ordinary phenomena, in persons influenced by
any professor of the art, who came without good creden-
tials of his respectability.
It is a very bad sign of the character of any thing that
pretends to be a science, when its professors call upon
the public-to-be judges of it ;—to a man with no- more
caution than is essential to one looking after truth, such
a proceeding is at once sufficient to brand it with a
strong suspicion of imposture. And this suspicion is
increased almost to certainty when any professed science
has been repeatedly before the public, and repeatedly
examined and discussed by competenqudges, and has yet
made no permanent progress either in, the certainty of
its evidence or in the number and importance of its sup-
porters. This want of progress has been peculiarly tie
lot of animal magnetism ; nor would a person e".
ordi-
nary discernment in such matters, needore than the
knowledge of its history to convince
he some great fallacy in it. It
than in the time of 3lesmer .gas fewer
disciples now
that there must
; and among them there are
fewer than ever of in:
who can lay any pretension to
the possession of
sound judgment : the facts in its favour
are not more. .inmerous nor more cogent : it has led to
12° gener..l rides, no useful applications : it has been
found to exercise no more general influence, and to have
no more connection with any other science, than it was
suppoaed to have at its first invention. In a word, as
sClenr,e, it has not made in the last sixty years one step.
liow it is ridiculous to refer this to the incredulity of
the public, or to the bigotry of men of men of science,
or the prejudices of the interested. In the same period
during which animal magnetism has made no progress,
nearl:; every true science has had its field enlarged more
o.6in in any preceding period of double the extent, and
those only hare not made such progress which before
ivere nearly perfected. In the same period, chemistry
And electricity, and magnetism proper, have risen from
being hardly more than collections of strange facts to the
rank of certain sciences ; and why, if there be any truth
in it, has animal magnetism alone stood still? As for the
prejudices of the public, has not the, same period of years
just passed seen more customs willingly abolished, more
improvements, more reforms, more applications of science
to the every day affairs of life, than ten times the num-
ber of years in any preceding age? For the willingness
of medical men to admit improvements during the same
period, need we do more than point to the establishment
of vaccination after a few years' partial opposition ; to
the use of the stethoscope, now so general; to a thorough
and repeated reformation of nearly every part of physio-
logy? There can be no doubt that the predominant cha-
racter of the last half century has been the love of no-
velty, the avidity for discovery; no period could be ima-
gined better for the promulgation of a new science ; for
nothing but inherent error, and that of the most obvious
kind, can in these times long hinder the acceptance of a
new doctrine.
It is as absurd, therefore as it is impudent, for inn-
netiser3 to rank thezeselves, with the persecuted, and to
peace themselves in
Gali-
lee. and Jenner; the o same list with Hervey, and Gali-
PPosttio that these met with was

speedily beaten down, and served only to demonstrate
the force of their troth. If magnetisers dare to assimi-
late themselves to these great men in being opposed, why
have they not long since, with every advantage of mo-
dern times and circumstances, proved themselves yet
more like them in triumphing? For this simple reason—
that in animal magnetism there is no new discovery to be
made, no fact of which the like has not been long known,
no force which has not been long exerted. It is now
earnestly to be hoped that its practice having passed into
the hands of those who make money by the public ex-
hibition of its unfortunate victims, it will soon cease
even to pretend to be a science. It may then be turned
to the only use of which it is capable ; its facts, if they
can be winnowed from its falsehoods, will afford an in-
teresting volume of evidence on the effects of impression
on the mind.