The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-17 00:00:00

DR. COLLYER'S LECTURES ON MESMERISM

Last Tuesday evening, at,t he Royal Assembly Rooms,
Great George-street, Dr. Collyer introduced the Daub.
agitated subject by some peitisient and striking remarks,
to a select though riot numerous audience. We cannot
give any lengthened account of the ,arious details of the
novel science included in his general survey, but shall
content ourselves with noticing some of the more promi-
nent features of his eloquent and impressive discourse.

After a review of the vneral character of the so-called
Mesmeric phenomena, Dr. C. proceeded to allude to that
modification of the process of manipulation introduced
by Mr. Braid, wherein by an exhaustion of the sense of
vision, nerve sleep can be produced, followed by the cata-
leptic stage, somnambulism, &c. Dr. C. asserted that the
facts of this neurohypnological condition furnished the
strongest arguments for the proposition maintained by
Dr. C., viz., that these phenomena are the result of the
transference of the will of the operator. Dr. C. lays
great stress upon this will operation, and is opposed to
the idea that it is a physiological state merely, i. e. a state
of the body superinduced by organic and material causes:
in other and simple words, Dr. C. believes these pheno-
mena to depend upon the operation of mind upon mind,
or upon mind and matters conjoined. Mr. B.'s idea is
that they are caused by the agency of matter upon mat-
ter. One may be said to be a metaphysical. the other a
physical doctrine. This sublimation of the subject by
Dr. C. by resolving the effects into will-agency, stands
opposed as much to the original proposition of Mesmer
and Du Potet, as to that of Braid and the disciples of his
school. The former, accounted the agent, that of an as-
sumed imponderable matter—magnetism, the latter a
conditional function of the nervous system, a natural
state of the animal body independent of will, or the super-
natural. We have tried to convey to our readers a per-
ception of the difference between the three dogmas, under
which the students of this extraordinary re-discovered
science range themselves, if we rightly apprehend the
lecturer and his views. If our analysis proves mistaken,
it will be a pity that a subject so complex cannot be at
least approached under some such simplified ideas as we
have endeavoured to embody herein, as the scope of the
various explanations of the magnetic nerve-sleep, (near°.
hypnological), and will-transferred—(psychographical)
schools.

Dr. C. alluded to the verdict of the French commission
of inquiry, appointed in 1785, and to Dr. Franklin's re-
porting of the want of analogy with electricity and terres-
trial magnetism. He remarked that the class of pheno-
mena were dependant on the persons themselves.
Dr. C., in referring to the manifestations of the cent-
Ural organs during the mesmeric sleep, or phreno-mes-
merism, stated that he was the first in America to turn at-
tention to the facts. First he looked upon it as amuse-
ment, then traced its important relations, and he con-
cludes that where there is no knowledge of phrenology in
the patient, there is no respondence to the manipulations
(pericranial). The Zoixt, a new magazine, em' racing
these subjects, asserts Dr. C.'s priority of discovery of
phreno-mesmerism. He touched upon the medical
fact of revived memory in fever cases, which corre-
sponds to the extraordinary memory of the mesmerised,
which appears as photographically inscribed.. Dr. C.
avers that the will of the operatsr is the sole law of the
patient when the sleep is complete.
Dr. C. appears to entertain his convictions on this re-
vived science with an enthusiasm which carries others
away with him, and still further with an honesty which
does credit to the cause as advocated by an ingenuous
mind; corresponding with which we find (an invariable
counterpart,) that he gives credit to others who may dif-
fer from him for maintaining their various opinions with a
tone alike truth-seeking and honest. He thinks it neces-
sary to success, for the subject (patie,tt) to be mentally,
morally, and pliysically calm, or there will be no conges-
tion of brain; therefore he refused to operate on any of
the audience.

In Exp. 1, he fixed the feet of the young woman whew
he had only seen tor two days past, viz. since his arrival
in Liverpool from America. This was a mental condition
he said, and not a corporeal one, as the general impression
would be.

Exp. 2. Ha fixed the jaw—mouth open—remarking
further upon the w►ll cf the operator as sule law for un-
conscious subject.
Exp. 3. To prove that mental hallucination could be
induced by operator, he took the young woman--only
semi-mesmerised, and, placing a jug in her hands which
previously she had recognised to be a jug ; by a few
passes of his hand, she began to stroke it h s a pet cat,
which she declared was such ; and, on her being de-
mesmerised, her own surprise at her mistake was pictured
by a look and expression of shame before the audience
which could not be feigned. Again her mind was taken
in tow, and she saw a large fish at her side, from which
she endeavoured to escape, with every gesture of horror,
until rectified as before.

Exp. 4. A young man and the young woman (both per-
fect strangers to Dr. C., except during one or two re-
hearsals) were placed in the cataleptic condition, or rigid
spasm of the muscles of the arms and limbs. . .

Dr. C. stated that he knew of two operations having
been performed in America during mesmeric condition,
viz., extirpation of cancer from the foot, and adjustment
of a compound-fractured fore-arm. In the latter, por-
tions of bone were removed, in order to set the limb,'—
a very painful operation—and to all this the patient was
insensible.

Exp. 5. The young man so mesmerised as, on attempt-
ing to walk, to reel as if drunk,—a state described by an
old tutor of ours as if a man had business on both sides
the way at once.

Eli. 6. Hand fixed on table, and immovable, though
patient made great efforts—table could be wi;hdrawn
from hand, except when Dr. C. placed his own hand un.
derneath the table, when the table was pulled over by
patient as by forcible adhesion ; yet this was in the mind
of the patient, and not in the muscles, Dr. C. says.
Exp 7. Coin placed in the hand—dropped—because
"felt as if it were a red-hot poker"—(a mental state.)
Exp, 8. Similar trial with water—rejected as " scald-
ing." bcciuse the lecturer blew into it a moment.
- C. mentioned that nostalgia—a disease called love

Dr
of home'—could be cured by exciting the patient mesme-
rically, and then stimulating the brain antipodically, and
leaving this as the last mental phase before restoring them
to ordinary consciousness.

Dr. C. does not appear to be one crediting the transla-
tion of senses named by the French clairvoyance. He
explains it as, where manifested, to coneist in a mental
transfer from operator to patient, and not a transfer of
one sense to another.

LECTURE II

•FRIDAY

Dr. Collyer commenced this evening his analysis of
mesmerism by remarking that the conditions most im-
pressionable were found in those temperaments which are
called sanguine and nervous, and their combination the
nervo-sanguine. He described the vital powers as elec-
tricity vitalised by assimilation in the lungs—a term we
conceive to be ambiguously expressing lifein other terms.
Dr. C. mentioned Beclard as authorizing by his fame
in medical science the notion of an imponderable fluid in
the nerves.

infancy requires to learn the habitual control of them-
selves by the will, and to economise the supeifluous will.
Several interesting remarks on this subject were intro-
duced, which we cannot detail.
The facts of the electrical lady reported in Professor
Sillirnan's journal, and that of a niece of the American
Charge d'Affaires, who was magnetised by electrical ma-
chine, were interesting to a general audience.
Fakers mesmerised by means of narcotic fumes.
Shaking Quaker's ecstacv and consequent exhaustion
manifested by lying down collapsed and faint. An in-
stance of mesmerism produced through a giddy and exci-
ting dance, which developes a cataleptic trance sometimes
for two or three days.
Three modes of producing mesmeric condition :-
I.—Narcotising.
2.—Muscular exertion.
3.—Transfer of will. _ _ _ .

Fevers charmed by mesmerism. Like La Fontaine,
he holds that if the operator is fatigued, little or no effect
is produced. After excitement in battle mesmeric col-
lapse, likewise in drunkenness wounds not felt, because
nervous force is taken away by mental excitement.

Suttee—Hindoo widow, when burnt on the funeral pile
of her husband, does not feel, because excited—explains
Scoevola's case of arm thrust into the fire under stimulus
of mind. Some explanations followed, wherein cayenne
pepper and aloes were mistaken for sweet things by pa-
tients. Allusion to excitement in a crowd being conta-
gious. One patient conscious, and not having the mes-
meric sleep developed, could no: see his foot at all, be-
cause it was cut bff as it were by a few passes of Dr. C's
hand.