The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-12 00:00:00

MESMERIC INFIRMARY.

A meeting of noblemen, Members of Parliament,
clergymen, physicians, surgeons, and gentlemen distin-
guished for their services in the advancement of science
and philanthropy, was recently held at the mansion of
the Earl of Ducie, No. 23, Belgrave-square, for the
purpose of taking measures to establish an institution,
by means of which the benefit of mesmerism, in the cure
of diseases, and the prevention of pain under surgical
operations, should be more widely extended to the poorer
classes, than they could be by individual exertion. The
meeting, " being convinced of the vast benefits derived
from mesmerism," came to the following resolutions:—
" 1. That a Mesmeric Infirmary shall be established
by voluntary contribution, for the cure of diseases, and
the prevention of pain in surgical operations.
" 2. That this infirmary shall be under the manage-
ment of a president, vice-presidents, trustees, a treasurer,
secretary, and committee."

The Right Hon. the Earl of Ducie was elected presi•
dent; the Baron de Goldsmid, Viscount MorpEth, M.P.,
R. Monckton Milnes, Esq., MT , J. H. Langston, Esq.,
M.P., the Rev. J. Sanby, jun., and the Rev. T. Robert-
son, vice-presidents ; Mr. Briggs, treasurer ; and Drs.
Ashburner, Buxton, and Elliotson; Surgeons Clarke,
Chandler, Flintoff, J. Hands, D. Hands, F. G. Johnston,
and Symes ; the Rev. Dr. Dickson, Major Buckley,
Captain James, Messrs. Blyth, Fradelle, Kingdom, and
Topham, were appointed as the committee.

A sum, amcunting to several hundred pounds, was
subscribed ; to which the Earl of Ducie, the Baron de
Goldsmid, Lord Morpeth, and Mr. Langston con-
tributed 100/. each ; Mr. T. Lamle Murray, George-
street, Hanover-square, and Dr. Elliotson, 501. each ;
Mr. Kingdom, Wrstbourne terrace, Hyde Park, 21/.,
with 51. ss. annual subscription. The other donations
and subscriptions varied from ten guineas to one.
The immediate cause of this infirmary being founded
under such high patronage, may perhaps be found in
the letter addressed in April last, by the Treasurer of the
new charity, Mr. Briggs, to the Secretary of the Mid-
dlesex Hospital, and published in the last number o: the
" Zoist," with a narrative of the cases referred to, and of
the subsequent treatment experienced by that benevolent
gentleman, at the hands of the pseudo-magnates of the
medical profession, who, in his instance, surpassed their
ordinary displays of presuming ignorance and dogmatic
insolence. Mr. Briggs having received, as a governor
of the Middlesex Hospital, the usual invitation to attend
the annual dinner, declined to do so in a courteous, but
very earnest letter, in which he referred to particular
cases of happy cure effected through mesmeric agency at
his expense, and evidently with the knowledge of the
anti-mesmeric savans in that hospital, in whose hands
the Ditients so rescued by his zeal and charity
had ling(red for years in torture and despair, under
the severest physicing administered without hope, and
amputation executaf:(as the event proved) without
cause. lie recommended that mesmerism, which had
effected so much in those cases, should be tried upon
some others which he proposed. He was answered that
" mesmerism was not orthodox." He referred to the
many undoubted operations lately performed without
pain. (Those performed at Cherbourg, Leicester, Not-
tingham, and various places in America and the West
Indies, are too well authenticated for any reasonable
man to doubt.) He referred especially to the cases of
Dr. Esdaile, of the East India Government's civil staff,
which have occurred, and been presented to the world
under such circumstances and with such authority, that Dr.
Esdaile, on his departure from Hooghley, left after him
a MESMERIC STAFF, paid by the Government. When
the engagements with the Sikhs threw 3,000 men on the
army surgeons, the civil surgeons were ordered to join
the army, and 1)r. Esdaile was called away. But he
had in the previous eight months performed seventy-three
severe operations without pain, and with healing results;
such as rarely (if ever) are found to follow similar opera-
tions performed in a non-mesmeric state. This success
was rightly viewed by the authorities of India as too
important and encouraging not to be followed up. Life
is too valuable in their service to be sported with for the
sneers of a fashionable, but unbred and unread "doctor,"
or the jests of a witty surgeon, who tests the sensibility
of a patient by tearing the skin from her hand with his
nails. The example of India will shortly be followed
up at home. One of Dr. Esdaile's cases was the re-
moval of a scrotal tumour, weighing forty pounds.
During the operation the man remained as motionless
as a corpse 1

Mr. BRIGGS had evinced his good will to the Middle-
sex Hospital by subscribing to it for many years, and
inserting in his will a handsome legacy to it ; but as he
could not afford to subscribe to that, and, at the same
time, pay for mesmerising the poor, he was compelled
to make a choice between the two.

It was the conduct of the managers of the public hos-
pitals on this and similar occasions, which seems to have
convinced the founders of the Mesmeric Infirmary, that
it was necessary to delay no longer the establishment of
such an institution.

PETERSBURGII AND Moscow; A Visit to the Court
of the Czar. By Richard Southwell Bourke, Esq. 2 vols.,
small Bvo.—The above work is published this day by Mr.
Colburn, and may now be had of all booksellers. The
following are also now ready :-2. Vol. IX. of Agnes Strick-
land's Lives of the Queens of England, comprising Mary of
Modena, Consort of James 11. 3. Lady Morgan's celebrated
romance, " The Wild Irish Girl," forminff the new volume
of " Colburn's Standard Novels," 6s. bound. 4. Hochelaga ;
or, England in the New World, edited by Eliot Warburton,
Esq., author of " The Crescent and the Cross " 2 vols., small
Bvo. 5. The Modern Orlando, in seven dantos, price 6s.
6. Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George the
Second, edited by the late Lord Holland, now printed for the
first time in the Bvo. form, in 3 vols., with Portraits, 365.
bound.

THE BOTANISTS.—At the Police Correctionelle in
Paris, a few days ago, two young naturalists, of the tender
ages of fifty and fifty-two, named Flacon and Rozeleur, made
their appearance on a charge of garden robbery. Being
questioned as to their being found in a certain locality,
Flacon informed the President that they were returning
from botanising in the forest of Bondy. The President—
" Botanising at three o'clock in the afternoon, in the height
of the dog-days ! That's not usual. You each had a large
sack." Rozeleur—"When one hasn't got a box, one must
get something to put the suly'ects in that one finds." The
President—But when your sacks were opened, they were
found full of beans, 'peas, and onions." Rozeleur—"Add also
asparagus, new potatoes, and carrots. We have demon-
strated that the potato is free from disease this year, and the
carrots we found were in remarkably fine condition." The
President—" But all these things are useful productions of
the earth, according to the code." Flacon—" At that rate,
one must leave off botanising, for everything in nature is
useful ; besides, what fault was it of ours if the subject of
the lecture chanced to be vegetables ?" Rozeleur—" In
botany, the lecture is suited to the season. You may ask at
the Jardin des Plants, of M. Pacquet, M. Noisette, or any-
body you please; they will tell you that it is the season of
vegetables." In spite of this definition, the unhappy victims
of science were sent to prison, to make up a hortus siccus at
leisure.
ROYAL BOTANIC SOClETY.—Yesterday the annual
meeting of this society was held at the gardens, Regent's Park ; Sir
George Cockburn in the chair. The report was read, from which it
appeared that the society is in a flourishing state, there having been
numerous additions to the list of Fellows, and also large contribu-
firms to the fund for building the conservatory, and a great increase
in the proceeds of exhibitions. During the past year the council
have executed works of great extent, and great progress has been
made in tha building of the conservatory, an erection positively ne-
cessary for the purposes contemplated by the society, and specified
in the charter, and the early completion of which two years ago
would have been looked on as impossible ; the completed part, how-
ever, is but a fragment of what it will be when completed. The
plants already placed there consist chiefly of donations. The sum
of 3,0001. was contributed by 247 out of 1,050 Fellows, and the total
amount received by the Curator towards the sum of 6,0001., which
it is expected will be subscribed, 15 4,0001. Tho.revort was received
•^'