The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-03 00:00:00

MISS bIARIINEAU AND MESMERISM.

Atheneeum contains a long communicate .n from
Nliss Martineau, detailing the particulars of a wonderful
cure which, she says, has been e Erected by mesmerism,
after a serbus illness of five years and a half. Of the
character of the disease under which she suffered, she
thus speaks :—" This is not the place in which to give
any details of disease. It will be sufficient to explain
briefly, in order to render my story intelligible, that the
internal disease under which I suffered appears to have
been Coming on for many years; that, after warnings of
failing health, which I carelessly overlooked, I broke
down. while travelling abroad, in June 1839 ; that I sank
lower and lower for three years after my return, and re-
mained nearly Stationary for two more preceding last
June. During these five years I never felt Wholly at ease
for one single hour. I seldom hai severe pain, but never
entire comfort. A besetting sicken ss, almost disabling
me from taking food for two sears, brought me very low,
and, together with other evils, it confined me to a condi-
tion of almost entire stillness—to a life passed between
my bed and my sofa. It was not till after many attempts
at gentle exercise that my friends agreed-with me that the
cost was too great for any advantage gained ; and at length
it was clear that even going down one flight of stairs was
imprudent. From that time I lay still, and by means of
this undisturbed quiet, and such an increase of opiates as
kept down my most urgent di-comforts, I passed the last
two years with less suffering than the three preceding.
There was, however, no favourable change in the disease.
Everything was done for me that the best medical skill
and science could suggest, and the most indefatigable
humanity and -amily affection devi-e, but nothing could
avail beyond mere alleviation. My dependence on opiates
was desperate. My kind and vigilant medical friend—the
most sanguine man I know, and the most bent upon* keep-
ing his patient hopeful—avowed to me last Christmas,
and twice afterwards. that he found himself compelled to
give up all hope of affecting the disease—of doing more
than keeping me up, in collateral respects, to the highest
practicable point. This was no surprise to me, for when
arty specific medicine is taken for above two years without
affecting the disease, there is no more ground for hope in
reason than in feeling. In June last I suffered more than
usual, and new measures of alleviation were resorted to.
As to all the essential Points of the disease I was never
lower than immediately before I made trial of mesmer-
ism." Miss aihrritieau then gives the following narra-
tive :—" On Saturday, June 22, Mr. Spencer Hall and
my medical friend came, as arranged, at my worst hour
of the day, bitween the expiration of one opiate and the
taking of another. By an accident, the gentlemen were
rather in a hurry—a circumstance unfavoitrable to a first
experiment. But result enough was obtained to encou-
rage a further trial, though it was of a nature entirely
unanticipated by me. I had no other idea than that I
should either drop asleep or feel nothing. I did not drop
asleep, and I did feel something very strange. Various
passes were tried by Mr. Hall ; the first that appeared
effectual. arid the most so for some time after, were passes
over the head made from behind, passes from the forehead
to the bacit of the head, and a little way down the spine.
t very short time after these were tried, and 20 minutes
from the hernuing of the seance, I became sensible of an
extraordinary appearance, most unexpected, and wholly
()Mike anything I had ever conceived of. Something
seemed to diffuse itself through the atmosphere—not like
smoke, nor steam, nor haze—but most like a clear twi-
ligh closing in from the windows and down from the
ceiling, and in which one object after another melted
away till scarcely anything was left visible before my
wide-open. eye First the outl ne of all objects was
blurred: then a bust, standing on a pedestal hi a strong
light, melted quite away; then the opposite bust; then
the table with its eay cover; then the floor, and the ceil-
ing, till one small picture, high up on the opposite wall,
only remained visible, like a patch of phosphoric light.
I feared to move my eyes, lest the singular appearance
should vanish ; and I cried out, 0! deepen it ! deepen
it !' supposing this the precur,or of the sleep. It could
not be deepened, however ; and when I glanced aside
from the luminous point I found that I need not fear the
return of objects to their ordinary appearance while the
passes were continued. The busts re-appeared, ghost-
like, in the dim atmosphere, like faint shadows, except
that their outlines, and the parts in the highest relief,
burned with the same phosphoric light. The features of
one, an Isis with bent head, seemed to he illumined by a
fire on the floor, though this bust has its back to the win-
dows. Wherever I glanced all outlines were dressed in
this beautPul light ; and so they have been, at every
séance, without exception, to this day ; though the ap-
pearance has rather given way to drowsiness since I left
off opiates entirely. This appearance continued during
the remaining 20 minutes before the gentlemen were
obliged to leave me. The other effects produced were,
first, heat, oppression, and sickness, and, for a few hours
after, disorde,ed stomach. followed, in the course of the
evening, by a feeling of lightness arid relief in which I
thought I could hardly be mistaken."
The second application of mesmerism was made by
Miss Martineau's maid. " Mr. Hall," says Miss Mar-
tineau, " was prevented by illness from coming over, too
late to let me know. Unwilling to take my opiate while
in expectation of his arrival, and too wretched to do
without some resource, I rang for my maid, and asked
whether she had any objection to attempt what she saw
Mr. Hall do the day before. With the greatest alacrity
she complied. Within one minute the twilight and phos-
phoric lights appeared ; and in two or three more a deli-
cious sensation of ease spread through me—a cool corn-
'fort, before which all pain and distress gave way, oozing
out, as it were, at the soles of my feet. During that hour,
and almost the whole evening, I could no more help ex-
claiming with pleasure than a person in torture crying
out with pain. I became hungry, and ate with relish, fur
the first time for five years. There was no heat, oppres-
sion, or sickness during the seivice. nor any disorder af-
terwards. During the whole evening, ins,ead of the lazy
hot ease of opiates, under which pain is felt to lie in wait,
I experienced something of the indescriblble sensation of
heal h. which I had quite lost and forgotten. I walked
about my ro ;Ins, and was gay and talkative. Something
of this relief retrained till the next morning; and then
there was no reaction. I was no worse than usual ; and
perhaps rather better.

_
" Nothing is to me more unquestionable and more
striking about this influence than the absence of all re-
action. Its highest exhilaration is followed, not by de-
pression or exhaustion? but by a further renovation.
From the first hour to the present, I have never fallen
back a single step. Every point gained has been steadily
herd. Improved composure of nerve and spirits has fol-
lowed upon every mesmeric exhilaration. I have been
spared all the weaknesses of convalescence, and carried
through all the usually formidable enterprises of return
from deep disease to health with a steadiness and tran-
quillity astonishing to all witnesses. At this time, before
venturing to speak of my health as established, I believe
myself more firm in nerve, more calm and steady in mind
and spirits, than at any time of my life before. So much
in consideration of the natural and common fear of the
mesmeric influence as pernicious excitement—as a kind
of intoxication."

Miss Martineau mentions several incidents. "Another
striking incident occurred in one of the earliest of my
walks. My mesmerist and I bad reached a headland
nearly half a mile from home, and were resting there,
when she proposed to mesmerize me a little—partly to
refresh me for our return, and partly to see whether any
effect would be produced in a new place and while a fresh
breeze wai blowing. She merely laid her hand on my
forehead, and in a minute or two the usual appearances
came, assuming a strange air of novel'y from the scene in
which I was. After the blurring of the outlines, which
made all objects more dim than the dull gray day had
already made them, the phosphoric lights appeared, glo-
rifying every rock and headland, the horizon, and all the
vessels in sight. One of the dirtiest and meanest of the

steam tugs in the port was passing at the time, and it was
all dressed in heavenly radiance—the last object thit any
imagination would select as an element of a vision. Then,
and often before and since, did it occur to me that if I
had been a pious and very ignorant Catholic, I could nor
have escaped the persuasion that I had seen heavenly vi-
sions. Every glorified object before my open eyes would
have been a revelation, and my mesmerist, with the white
halo round her head, and the illuminated profile, would
have been a saint or an angel."