The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-05 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

SIR,—If, in your next publication, you should have space which
could be devoted to this subject without excluding more important
matter, I shall feel obliged by the insertion of a few remarks.

It appears to me that nothing which stands in connection with mes-
merism or the magnetizers is more obvious than the fact that one
of the leading features of the business is stage display and effect ;
and that the travelling professors who favour us with their visits
would seem to think that they cannot in any other way so corn-'
pletely convince their auditors of any assertion they may please to
make as by producing some extraordinary or shocking exhibitio❑
in connection with it, apparently thinking that .the truth of their
systems can only be demonstrated by the miracles they themselves
are able to work.

Opinions have been offered respecting the moral or non-moral
tendency of animal magnetism. On this subject, however, I would

rather be silent, having seen but few of such exhibitions. Those 1
have witnessed would not induce me to think that the mesmeric
stage was better than any other.

Mesmerism appears to have met with much ill luck in Liverpool
of late, which may, perhaps, be partly attributed to want of power
in the miracle workers who now introduce it,—they do not seem
to go sufficiently far; for those who have attended to the literature
of the subject, even as far as its teaching in Liverpool is concerned,
must be aware that they are little better than the shadows of their
predecessors in the last century. As a proof of the great difference
between that which is done now and the things done before, we
may introduce the following extract, which is the title-page'of a
book, printed for the author, and entered in Stationer's Hall in
1792 :

"Tin.;
GENERAL AND nutTicuLAri, PRINCIPLES

ANIMAL ELECTRICITY
AND

MAGNETISM, &c.,
in which are found Dr. Bell's Secrets and Practice, as delivered to
his pupils, in Paris, London, Dublin, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester,
Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Chester, Liverpool,
Manchester, &c. &c.

showing how to magnetize and cure different diseases, to pro-
duce crises, as well as somnambulism, or sleep-walking; and in
that state of sleep to make a person eat, drink, walk, sing, arid play
any instruments they are used to, &c. ; to make apparatus, and
other accessaries to produce magnetical facts ; also to magnetize
rivers, rooms,.trees, and other Oodles, animate and inanimate; to
raise the arms or legs of a person awake, and to make him rise
from his chair ; to raise the arm of a person absent from one room
to another; also to treat him at a distance. All the new experi-
ments and phenomena are explained

MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR BELA"
, PROFESSOR OF THAT SCIENCE,
and member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society in Paris, Fellow
Correspondent of M. le Court de Gebliu's Museum ; and the only
person authorised by patent from the first noblemen in France to
teach and practise that science in England, Ireland, &c."
On the next page is found the " certificate" granted to Dr. Bell,
in Paris, in 1785, showing how he was admitted as a corresponding
member. and authorised to established "corresponding societies"
in Great Britain.
After looking carefully over the pamphlet of Dr. Bell, I think it
not improbable that Monsieurile Docteur, as he is pleased to call
himself on the title-page, had more important, and, perhaps, more
profitable business than magnetizing groves, or astonishing fish-
ponds, for, on the last page of the book we find the following :
" From these few experiments it is easy to conceive that any ani-
mate or inanimate body may be electrified or magnetized, which
you may please to .call it; that is to say, to increase an action
which it had not before. All these are upon the principles of the
learne 1 Dr. Mesmer, the first inventor as to the theory; any inge•
nious mind may make one of his own (vide my new system of the
world) as to the effects which were known ten years ago. Never-
theless the pretended improvements made in this kingdom by some
modem practitioners are very wonderful, such as, by fixing your
eyes (with attention, abstraction, intention, &c.) upon the heart of
a man, a horse, or a dog, you may kill them instantly by stopping
the circulation of the blood according to Van Helmont ; and to sink
a ship at sea; this would be an excellent thing for an admiral, and
to magnetize a sword which would kill his enemies a mile off, or
through a wall six feet thick, If I knew these improvements, I
would carry a magnetized sword to Mons. de la Fayette, as a mem-
ber of the Harmonic Society, but that lie may do more execution
with his own is my sincerest wish."
Whether Dr. Bell played any tragical, magnetical, or concealed
part in the French revolution or not is probably known to diplo-
matists, but he appears to have had very great undertakings.
He dedicates his book "To the ladies and gentlemen pupils of
my different classes," and afterwards remarks very wisely, "You
daily hear ignorance condemn what it cannot comprehend ; and
those half-leained beings, who laugh at ) ou and me, and call them
impositions, because they do not strike their ideas ; neither will
they take the trouble of informing themselves of the truth. A
liberal-minded man—superior to prejudice—should investigate
matters before he passes condemnation ; but you, ladies and gen-
tlemen, who walk in a more enlightened path of life, and whose
education and birth place you high above vulyar prejudices, doubts,
and suspicious despise them, I hope, as you are convinced of their
futility and uncharitable attempts." In short, the whole tenor of
the production is such as to render it a very valuable text-book for
any " compagnie ambulante" of magnetizers.
Dr. Bell appears to have thought that the art of curing diseases
by animal magnetism was known in very early times, and deplores
the fact of its having been lost during so long a period. He says,
" I have myself been looked upon by many ignorant people in
France, England, and Ireland, as a magician, by putting several
ladies and gentlemen into somnambulism, or sleep-walking, and in
that state, having made them eat and drink, sing, and play upon
the harpsichord, or any other instrument they were used to, by
telling an unknown person their diseases, and prescribing for
them, &c." He adds, "It would be too long to recite the names of
the ancients who have written on this subject I shall only mention
Mud, the Mosaical Philosophy,•Tentagelinus ' • the art of curing by
sympathy; Paracelsns, so much known by his alkahestical tinc-
ture, &c., Digby, Friend, Maxwell, Musgrave, Lord Bacon, and
many more who have treated on that subject. Among the many
who arc supposed to have pet-formed cures by touching- was
P,yrrhus. King of Macedon, and Epirus. who used to touch his pa-
tients with his toe; the Emperor Vespasian, who performed many
cures by touching ; Edward the Confessor and Queen Anne used to
touch for the scrofula, since their time called the King's evil.
Several kings iq Europe have had that gift. Louis XVI., when
crowned, touched several patients, saying, the king toncheth thee,
God may cure thee. It is since Philip the First, king of France,
that his successors have practised it. Valentine Greatrak, from
the county of Waterford, so much known, and called by Boyle the
" Stroker," cured many by touching, particularly the Duke of
Buckingham, and several of the first people in England. Dr.
Gasper, at Ratisbone, in 1774 made several cures."
This doctor did well to guard his pupils against credulity, while
he was engaged as.their teacher, still better when he endeavoured
to show how easy it is for men to do supernatural things.
The pamphlet in question contains many other indications of
want of development in the animal magnetism of the present day;
and as one item in the history of medicine, like many others, it
shows how great is the analogy found to have prevailed—and the
varying medical fashions of all time—for, amongst professors of
the art of healing, as in theology, nothing, it would seem, appears
to have been, now and then, too monstrous to assert; experience
has been despised, and learning, at times, regarded as contempti-
ble, and vagaries as remarkable as those we now see existed in
Rome with the sectarians of Celsus, and in England were known
when our forefathers admired the practical acumen of Sydenham,
and could boast the erudition of Mead. As far as the chronological
view of the matter is concerned, the greatest prejudice, supersti-
tion, and credulity marching onward with the most acute observa-
tion and extensive acquirements; but in the flitting varieties of
scene, which this medical history presents to our notice, we may
always find some trace of the features of one class of men, whether
in ancient times they were called followers of YEsculapius,
or sons of Podalirius, and Madson, whether adherents of
Empedocles, or Dernocritus,— if to pass over in any like Greatraks,
they cure by touching, or if as on the magnetism of our days,'
the hands and eyes were together employed, whether they have
been called magnetists, allopathists, homeopathists, hydrophathists,
' it matters not, they have been, and they are, those who while they
Promise to cure the diseases of mem' bodies, only treat the weakness
of their minds, for no sooner as any one of these systems of folly,
destroyed, than Phcenix. like a something more glaring arises from
the ashes of its destruction.
Had I not been afraid of rendering this communication more
tedious than useful,—a few more details on the subject of Dr.
Bell's Pamphlet might have been given, for it is equally curious
and amusing;—they may hosiever be reserved for another occasion,
when I may also have an opportunity to state the result of my
own observations on individuals " magnetized" in public as wel
as on those not previously prepared fur exhibition.
Whether mesmerism be true, or whether it be not,—whether the,
peculiar nervous excitement of delicate and hysterical patients,
indications of disease, as one set of
supplying phcenomena. said to be the result of the operation of a
general " law of the animal economy," is not taking the exception
regarding to the notice of thin credulous.
—oft Lett
d the curious—an assemblage of the human
the wondering, an
frailties,—calling them by the mistaken name of powers, which-
tf°llre thfeeatruurlees,
be correct, I have no hesitation in. affirming that—the
ever may
subject is ill fitted for public for stage exhibi • hen, and is of all
others the last one could fairly have supposed would have been
introduced to the indiscriminate notice of men women and children
yet I am disposed think we need not fear that the thing will
make much progress in this war, as the cost of admission wit
presently teed to blunt the general curiosity, and make speculator,