MAGNETISM, ANIMAL.

THE term Animal Magnetism has been employed to denote an agency or influence to which certain singular phenomena, occurring, or said to occur, in the economy of particular individuals, have been supposed to be attributable. The phenomena which;this agency has been conceived to produce in those to whom it is applied, may be comprehended under two distinct classes; those which occur whilst the person operated upon remains awake, and those which take place whilst the patient is in a state of sleep, or in a state resembling it. To the former class of effects belong, first, various sensations, more or less painful, experienced particularly in those parts of the body that are the seat of disease, and which enable the practitioner to detect what that seat actually is; secondly, convulsive and other nervous affections, which have been regarded by the advocates of animal magnetism as salutary crises; and, thirdly, the removal of any diseases with which the persons magnetised may be affected, the magnetic influence proving in this respect an universal curative of disease and preservative of health. Under the latter class of effects, or those occurring whilst the persons magnetised are in the state of magnetic sleep, may be included the power they acquire of carrying on a continued conversation with their magnetiser, without being at all sensible of the presence or conversation of others, and sometimes in a language, and upon matters, with which they are little if at all acquainted; the power of discovering the secret thoughts of others; the power of receiving, through the medium of the epigastrium, or other parts of the circumference of the body, those impressions of external objects which, in ordinary circumstances, are received only through the peculiar organs or, external sensation, or that power which, in the technical language of magnetism, is shortly termed the transference of the senses; the power of detecting the internal alterations which have been produced by disease in their own bodies, or in those of others with whom they may be placed, in the relation of animal magnetism; the power of foretelling the nature of the changes which are to occur in their own maladies, or in the maladies of others; the power of instinctively suggesting the remedies by which these changes-may be best promoted, and the cure of the diseases accomplished; together with various other extraordinary, or, as they have usually been deemed where they have been supposed to occur, preternatural powers of a similar kind.’

These two classes of phenomena belong to different periods of the history of animal magnetism. To those of the first class chiefly the early practitioners of this mysterious art confined their pretensions; and it was only at a later period that the magnetisers laid claim to the power of producing the wonderful manifestations included under the second class. In the following article we purpose briefly to trace the history of the opinions entertained respecting the occurrence of the first class of phenomena, and the nature of the powers, agencies, or dispositions, to which they ought to be ascribed; reserving the consideration of the phenomena of the second class for the article Somnambulism.

The history of animal magnetism is interesting, from the illustration it affords of some of the peculiar difficulties, arising out of the complex nature of the human economy, and the various agencies, physical, vital, and mental, by which it may be influenced, which present themselves to the medical inquirer, in his endeavours to ascertain the real nature and the specific operations of remedial agents. It is interesting, also, from the light it seems to throw upon that disposition in human nature which has led man, in all ages and nations of the world, to believe in the existence and agency of marvellous, magical, and supernatural powers. But of the various effects which have been supposed to result from the operation of such powers, none has obtained a more universal or lasting belief than that of the cure of diseases, by influences or agencies altogether different, in their nature and mode of operation, from those ordinary remedial means, in the use of which the experience and studies of medical men have taught them to place all their hopes of success in the practice of their art. There seems reason to believe, however, that the existence and operation of those spontaneous processes by which the animal economy is in a great number of instances restored from a morbid to a healthy condition, have at all times mainly contributed to produce and to foster such beliefs. The public in general, and perhaps [7:14:2]even the medical profession itself, have very inaccurate notions what share in those changes on which the restoration of health depends, is attributable to the remedies employed, and what share to circumstances occurring in the economy independently of medical aid; and consequently no very great address has ever been required on the part of pretenders to extraordinary powers in the cure of diseases, to persuade both the learned and the unlearned, that the means which they have administered or recommended were entitled to the whole merit of the cures that ensued.

The remarkable property which the loadstone or magnet possesses, of attracting iron, appears to have very early excited the attention of philosophers. Aristotle informs us that Thales, who lived six hundred years before our era, ascribed this property of the magnet to its being endowed with a soul, without which, he conceived, no motion of any kind could take place. It does not seem surprising, that a substance manifesting such singular physical properties as those which the magnet possesses, should by analogy have been conceived to be capable of exerting some special influence upon the human economy; and accordingly we find that various remarkable, but at the same time very opposite properties, were ascribed to it by the old authors, one regarding it as a substance capable of acting upon the moral, and another upon the physical part of the economy; some looking upon it as possessing decidedly noxious and morbific qualities, and others considering it as an agent endowed with highly salutary medicinal powers. Thus the loadstone was superstitiously believed to have the power of exciting love, of detecting adultery, and of re-establishing conjugal fidelity and happiness. Its use was resorted to by some under the belief that it ¼'as capable of prolonging the period of youth, whilst, by others, properties directly deleterious were ascribed to it. Hence, in several medical works, we find it ranged in the list of poisons, and its antidotes duly pointed out. Hippocrates, in his Essay on Internal Diseases, recommends the use of the magnesian or loadstone as a purgative; and Dioscorides and Galen inform us that the natural magnet was in their time employed in a pulverized state as an evacuant, particularly in cases of melancholy and dropsy. By more modern authors, and especially by Rattray, Reuss, Zwinger, and other physicians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the internal use of the powdered loadstone was extended to the treatment of a number of other diseases, such as catarrhs, diarrhoeas, haemorrhagies, burns, erysipelas, quartan fevers, cancer, worms, nervous affections, and various diseases of the eye, spleen, and uterus.

But besides being administered as an internal remedy, the loadstone in a pulverized state was likewise employed as an external application. Pliny says that the powder of the magnet is useful in diseases of the eyes, and for the cure of burns and scalds; and Serapion, a medical author of the ninth century, mentions that powder as an ingredient in a plaster which he had applied to poisoned wounds, evidently in the belief that by its attractive power it would be instrumental in extracting from these wounds the poisons with which they might happen to be impregnated. Platearius, in the thirteenth century, recommended the application of the loadstone to wounds, both in the form of a simple powder, and as an ingredient in an attractive vulnerary plaster. This magnetic, or divine plaster, as it was sometimes termed, appears to have been very generally used in the surgery of those times. Boet de Boet speaks of it as a remedy adapted for the cure of all kinds of wounds, as calculated to purify them from all malignity, to favour the generation of new flesh, and to avert all those accidents with which wounds are liable to become complicated during the progress of their treatment. Paracelsus imagined that the pulverized magnet, formed into a plaster, was capable of attracting any particles of iron which might happen to be lodged in wounds inflicted with steel weapons; and accordingly it was employed for that purpose by several of his followers, and applied also as an attractive plaster in gout and in mania, and as an alexipharmic remedy in the plague.

Dr Gilbert of Colchester, in his excellent Experimental Treatise on the Magnet, published in 1600, first distinctly stated that the loadstone has its magnetic properties completely destroyed by being reduced to the state of a powder, and consequently that in this state it could act on the animal economy only as a ferruginous substance. Yet, notwithstanding the knowledge of this precise and incontrovertible fact, the pulverized magnet continued to be Used by various medical practitioners, both as an internal expulsive remedy, and as an external attractive application, up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Since that period the employment of the powdered loadstone appears to have been entirely abandoned, both in medicine and in surgery; and it is now, in the retrospect, singular, and indeed somewhat humiliating, to remark how many delusive and groundless fancies existed amongst well-informed medical men regarding the peculiar action and virtues of that substance, and in what decided language many respectable authors have spoken both of its noxious and salutary effects; knowing, as we now do, that it was physically impossible it could possess any of the properties attributed to it, or indeed exercise any physiological or therapeutical powers beyond those which depended on its containing a portion of iron in its composition. In the strange medley of superstitious beliefs and practices which have been enumerated, we have a remarkable and instructive example of that sort of knowledge which has not unfrequently been denominated medical experience. The history of the materia medica furnishes but too many examples of remedies which have enjoyed, in the confidence of the public, and of the medical profession, an equally high and undeserved place with the magnet, and which are now wholly discarded from the pharmacopoeia. How many of those much-vaunted remedies that are still in popular repute, and in use even with medical men, are destined, in the progress of therapeutical science, to undergo the same fate, time only can reveal.

A slight account of the virtues attributed to the action of the magnet in its entire state, upon the human economy, will be found to be not less illustrative of the difficulties which occur in judging between the real and the supposed effects of therapeutic agents, and particularly between the operation of physical and mental influences in the relief and cure of diseases, than that which has just now been given of the supposed virtues of the magnet employed in a pulverized form. Aetius appears to have been the first Greek author who mentioned the use, in medicine, of the magnet in its natural or unpulverized state. He says, that when held in the hand of the patient, it had been reported to prove beneficial in allaying the pains of gout, and in curing convulsions. The employment of the magnet in this form, and for nearly the same purposes, is alluded to by other Greek, and by some Arabian physicians; but the author who first brought the virtues of the entire magnet most prominently into repute, was the celebrated Paracelsus. In his works, published at Basel in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, this author has made the medicinal virtues of the magnet, in all its forms and preparations, but particularly in its entire state, the subject of much theoretical and mystical explanation, not to add exaggerated panegyric. He attributes to it the property of dislodging and attracting towards itself all material diseases; and in this list he includes uterine discharges, fluxes of the belly, jaundice, dropsy, hernia, ulcers, hysteria, epilepsy, spasms.
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tetanus, convulsions of pregnant women, defluxions of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and external parts, cancers, fistulae, and congestions of blood. To this copious list of diseases said by Paracelsus to be susceptible of being relieved or cured by the magnet in its entire state, a considerable number was added by his more immediate followers, and by several medical authors of the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries; more especially by Van Helmont, Borel, Reichel, Klarich, and Kircher. The use of this remedy was extended by these authors to the treatment of mania, palsy, palpitations, &c.; and its employment in convulsions, and in painful affections, particularly in toothach and rheumatism, was highly recommended.

The belief in the efficacy of the magnet, whether administered internally or applied externally, in curing diseases, seems, with most of those who adopted it, to have constituted only a part, of a great ∙ system, in which they recognised magnetism as a general power or principle, pervading the whole universe, and establishing particular connections between all its various parts. To these mutual relations of the different parts of the universe, material and animated, they gave the names, sometimes of attraction and repulsion, and sometimes of sympathy and antipathy. Gilbert, to whose work upon the magnet reference has already been made, conceived that the earth is a great magnet, which acts and is acted upon by the other planets in the universe; and that this planetary influence operates upon all the bodies, animate and inanimate, which exist upon the surface of our globe. Fludd, in his Philosophia Moysaica, published in 1638, developed a theory of the universe, in which its phenomena were mainly accounted for by the attractive or magnetic virtue, and the antipathy of bodies. Man, considered as the microcosm, he held to be endowed with a magnetic virtue, subject to the same laws as that of the great world; having his poles like the earth, and his favourable and contrary winds. He describes the circumstances which produce negative or positive magnetism between different persons; and states, that when the latter subsists, not only the diseases and particular affections, but even the moral affections, are communicated from the one person to the other. Kircher, in his work on the magnet, published at Rome in 1641, describes the influence of magnetism, not only as it is universally diffused throughout the planetary system, but also as acting upon and existing in minerals, plants, and animals. He seems to have been the first author who made the distinction between, and employed the terms of, mineral, vegetable, and animal magnetism. Similar ideas are to be found in the Nova Medicina Spirituum ofWirdig, published in 1673; in the Medicina Magnetica of Alexander Maxwell, a Scotch physician, published in 1679; and in the Philosophia Recondita, sive Magicae Magneticae Mu-mialis Scientiae Explanatio of Santanelli, published in ⅛723.^[1. For a full view of the opinions of authors respecting the agency of magnetism in the system of the universe in general, and of the animal economy in particular, we may refer to Thouret’s Recherches et Doutes sur le Magnétisme Animal; and to the article Aimant in the hucyclopcdie Méthodique. ] It was, it may be remarked, upon this general doctrine of the sympathy pervading all parts of the universe, that the sympathetic treatment of wounds and diseases practised by Paracelsus, Sir Kenelm Digby, and others, was founded.

The medicinal virtues of the loadstone in its entire state continued occasionally to engage the attention of medical men up to the middle of the eighteenth century, when, in consequence of the great improvements that had been made in forming artificial magnets possessing stronger attractive powers than the natural loadstone, and admitting of a much more ready application in the treatment of diseases (from their being of comparatively small size, and capable of being adapted to all parts of the body), these were substituted instead of the loadstone. Numerous reports were soon published in medical journals, and in separate publications, of the great efficacy and success of these instruments. One of those who distinguished themselves the most in the formation and use of artificial magnets, was Μ. le Noble, a French abbé, who obtained for the magnets which he had manufactured the approbation of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. In applying his magnets to different parts of the body, Μ. le Noble employed them sometimes temporarily, and of great size and power; but, for more general and permanent use, he had them formed into different pieces of ornamental or useful dress, such as caps or bandeaux for the head, necklaces, crosses, bracelets, girdles, and garters. By numerous and frequent trials, he convinced himself, and satisfied many of his patients, that his magnetic dresses and ornaments were often speedy and effectual means of cure in a great variety of diseases. After having been engaged for a number of years in forming artificial magnets, and in adapting them to the different parts of the body, Μ. le Noble was, in 1777, induced to apply to the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris, and to request that they would appoint a committee of their body to make an experimental trial of the medicinal virtues of his magnets. The society, in compliance with his wishes, appointed two of its members, Messieurs Andry and Thouret, to undertake this task, and to report to them the result of their investigations. These gentlemen appear to have bestowed unwearied diligence and taken uncommon pains in their trials of Μ. le Noble’s magnets and ornamental dresses, in the treatment of the diseases of no fewer than forty-eight patients, whom they selected for the purpose. We learn by the very full and circumstantial report which they drew up of these cases (read to the Royal Society of Medicine on the 29th August 1780, and afterwards published in its Memoirs), that they were fully convinced, by the trials which they themselves had made, as well as from the previous records of medicine, that the magnet is capable o producing a great variety of salutary effects upon the human economy in different states of disease, “The diseases,” MM. Thouret and Andry remark, “in which w¢ have employed the magnet, have been, first, different kinds of painful affections, as those of the teeth, nervous pains in the head and of the kidneys, rheumatic pains, and that particular affection of the face known under the name of tic-douloureux; and, secondly, spasmodic affections, such as spasms of the stomach, convulsive hiccough, cramps of tin extremities, and palpitations, different kinds of tremblings convulsions, epilepsy, and vertigo.” The experimenters were convinced of the medicinal efficacy of the magnet first, by their observing that in most instances its application was either immediately or in a short time followed by the total cessation, or great alleviation, of the diseased affections for which it was employed; secondly by the sudden return of these affections when the magnet was withdrawn or accidentally displaced; and, thirdly, by their frequently observing the great relief which many of their patients experienced in having their magnetic dresses renewed when their influence had been exhausted or had become effete. Besides the salutary effects which resulted in painful and spasmodic affections, from the use of the magnets and of magnetic dresses, MM. Andry and Thouret mention also a variety of other physiological phenomena which they had observed in their experiments; such [7:14:4]for instance, as the sudden excitement of anomalous and remarkable sensations of heat or cold, of itchiness or pricking pains in the parts to which the magnet was applied, and sometimes even the aggravation instead of the alleviation of the old pains, or the production of pains entirely new; together with the sudden and considerable increase of different secretions, such as those of perspiration, the urine, and other alvine excretions. In one instance the use of magnetised water was observed to be constantly followed by an evacuation of the bowels. It is mentioned by Andry and Thouret that several of their patients affirmed that they saw the skin dart forward to the magnet when it was brought near to their bodies; and that that instrument produced its curative effects when it was kept at some distance from the body, as well as when it was brought into contact with the diseased parts. MM. Andry and Thouret acknowledge, that in a variety of instances they had failed in procuring relief for their patients by magnetism, and this they ascribe partly to the magnet’s having been too weak, or applied for too short a period of time, and partly also to the incurable nature of the diseases with which some of their patients were affected.

In reviewing this laborious and most minute investigation of the numerous and greatly varied effects which were observed to occur after the application of artificial magnets, we cannot but feel some degree of surprise that no suspicion should have arisen in the minds of the experimenters, that some of these effects might be the result of those spontaneous operations of the economy itself, which, from the earliest periods of medical science, have been known under the appellation of the Vires Conservatrices et Médicatrices Natures ; that others were the effect of a proper and stricter attention perhaps to clothing, diet, and regimen than had been previously employed; and that the greater part of the sudden cures were probably the result of hope, engendered by belief in the efficacy of the remedy and confidence in those who applied it, or of other mental impressions, the influence of which in producing remarkable and sudden effects upon the corporeal and mental functions of the human economy, and in promoting the operation of remedial agents, has long been recognised by medical men under the general, but not always accurately defined, term of the power of imagination.

Notwithstanding the very favourable nature of the report of MM. Andry and Thouret, the use of the magnet as a therapeutical agent does not appear to have been promoted by it in France; a circumstance which must in a great measure be ascribed to the public attention having been at that time particularly engaged by the more ostentatious pretensions and splendid apparatus of certain other curative processes, which will be presently noticed. Since that period, however, several French authors have alluded in their writings to its use. Professor Alibert, in his work on Therapeutics, speaks of its action on the human economy as incontestable. The late Μ. Laennce, in his excellent treatise on Diseases of the Chest, states that he had in his own practice employed with marked success magnetised steel plates applied to the chest in asthma or painful affections of the lungs, and in angina pectoris, or painful affections of the heart. MM. Mérat and Lens, in their dictionary of Materia Medica (1829), seem inclined to concede to the magnet a certain degree of medicinal action, and cite several distinguished Parisian physicians of the present day (MM. Recamier, Cayol, and ChomeD as having observed facts corroborative of those mentioned by MM. Andry and Thouret. We are even assured that the application of strong magnets was extensively employed at Vienna by Drs Becker and Schmidt, in the treatment of cholera during its epidemic prevalence in that city, and with most beneficial effects; and lately one of these gentlemen (Dr Schmidt) has endeavoured to call the attention of English practitioners to its use as a medicinal agent, in a paper published in the London Medical and Surgical Journal for November 1835.

As nearly allied to the magnet in their mode of application and operation, and in the effects described as arising from their employment for the cure of diseases, may be noticed here the instruments invented by Mr Perkins of Connecticut in North America, towards the end of last century, and denominated by him metallic tractors. These instruments, which were all fashioned after one particular pattern, consisted of an alloy of different metals. They had a semi-globular shape at one end, and at the other terminated in a sharp, sword-like point. In employing the tractors, Mr Perkins directed that the diseased and neighbouring parts should be slightly rubbed or touched with the sharp point, for a longer or shorter time, according to circumstances; and in some cases the instruments were ordered to be drawn over the affected part in one particular direction, and in other cases in a different direction. Mr Perkins, from numerous experiments which he made with his instruments, was convinced that their employment had proved beneficial in a great number of diseases, as in different kinds of inflammation, in diseases of the nerves, bums, contusions, envenomed wounds, ophthalmia, erysipelas, herpes, rheumatism, gout, headach, toothach, pain of the breast, and other topical diseases. The state of Connecticut, in consideration of the value of Mr Perkins’ discovery, granted him a patent for the manufacture of his instruments. Soon afterwards his son came over to England, and practised for some time the medicinal employment of the tractors with great fame and success in London. At the same time, their use was introduced into Denmark, and other parts of the continent of Europe, by different individuals; and several pamphlets were published, both abroad and in this country, containing accounts of their wonderful efficacy.

In 1799, being the year subsequent to that in which the younger Perkins came to England, and when the employment and effects of the metallic tractors were exciting in a very great degree the attention of the English public, both professional and non-professional, the late Dr Haygarth of Bath determined to perform some experiments with a view of putting to the test the accuracy of the effects attributed to these instruments, and of endeavouring to trace the nature and cause of their effects. The first suggestion of the experiments that were performed for this purpose was originally communicated by that gentleman to Dr Falconer. “The tractors,” he observed, “have obtained such high reputation at Bath, even among persons of rank and understanding, as to require the particular attention of physicians. Let their merit be impartially investigated, in order to support their fame, if it be well founded, or to correct the public opinion, if merely formed upon delusion. Such a trial may be accomplished in the most satisfactory manner, and ought to be performed without any prejudice. Prepare a pair of false exactly to resemble the true tractors. Let the secret be kept inviolable, not only from the patient, but every other person. Let the efficacy of both be impartially tried, beginning always with the false tractors. The cases should be accurately stated, and the reports of the effects produced by the true and false tractors be fully given in the words of the patients.” Experiments of the kind suggested by Dr Haygarth were made on a number of persons affected with the diseases in which the metallic tractors had been represented to prove beneficial,—at Bath by Drs Haygarth and Falconer, at Bristol by Mr Smith, and in Germany by Schumacher; and the results which were obtained, particularly as regards the removal of uneasy sensations, and the production of various feelings not previously experienced, were not less wonderful than those [7:14:5]which the advocates of the genuine tractors had recorded. We shall content ourselves with quoting, from the very valuable reports furnished to Dr Ηaygarth by Mr Smith, the notes of two cases in which the spurious tractors were employed; the one illustrating the disappearance of pain and stiffness in a joint, and the other the appearance of intense pain and other symptoms, during, and to all appearance in consequence of, the employment of these instruments.

“Robert Thomas, aged forty-three, who had been for some time under the care of Dr Lovell in the Bristol infirmary,-with a rheumatic affection of the shoulder, which rendered his arm perfectly useless, was pointed out as a proper object of trial by Mr T. W. Dyer, apothecary to the house. Tuesday, April 19th, having everything in readiness, I passed through the ward, and, in a way that he might suspect nothing, questioned him respecting his complaint. I then told him that I had an instrument in my pocket which had been very serviceable to many in his state; and when I had explained to him how simple it was, he consented to undergo the operation. In six minutes no other effect was produced than a warmth upon the skin; and I feared that this coup d’essai had failed. The next day, however, he told me that ‘he had received so much benefit that it had enabled him to lift his hand from his knee, which he had in vain several times attempted on the Monday evening, as the whole ward witnessed.’ The tractors I used being made of lead, I thought it advisable to lay them aside, lest, being metallic points, the proof against this fraud might be less complete. Thus much, however, was proved, that the patent tractors possessed no specific power independent of simple metals. Two pieces of wood, properly shaped and painted, were next made use of; and, in order to add solemnity to the farce, Mr Barton held in his hand a stop-watch, whilst Mr Lax minuted the effects produced. In four minutes the man raised his hand several inches, and he had lost also the pain in his shoulder usually experienced when attempting to lift any thing. He continued to undergo the operation daily, and with progressive good effect; for on the 25th he could touch the mantel-piece. On the 27th, in the presence of Dr Lovell and Mr J. P. Noble, two common iron nails, disguised with sealing-wax, were substituted for the pieces of mahogany before used. In three minutes ‘ he felt something moving from his arm to his hand,’ and soon after he touched the board of rules, which hung a foot above the fire-place. This patient at length so far recovered that he could carry coals, <fcc. and use his arm sufficiently to assist the nurse; yet previous to the use of the spurious tractors, ‘ he could no more lift his hand from his knee than if a hundredweight were upon it, or a nail driven through it;’ as he declared in the presence of several gentlemen, whose names I shall have frequent occasion to mention. The fame of this case brought applications in abundance; indeed, it must be confessed, that it was more than sufficient to act upon weak minds, and induce a belief that these pieces of wood and iron were endowed with some peculiar virtues.”

“April 20th, I requested Mr Barton to operate upon Peter Seward, aged thirty-two, who had, for four years, been troubled with pains and weakness in his right arm. From the minutes taken by Mr Lax, I learned that he had experienced a good deal of pain during the operation. The next day I was assisted by Mr Bernard and Mr Lowe jun.; and as the case is rather curious, I shall copy verbatim the notes written upon the spot. In one minute, ‘ feels the pain coming on at the same place as yesterday; the limbs feel warm; pain higher up and sharper ;’ in two minutes, ‘ pain increases ;’ in three and a half, ‘ very acute, darting towards the collar-bone, and begins to give him so much uneasiness that he will not have it done any longer ;’ perspires profusely, and is gone to bed.

“It was fortunate for me that the above gentlemen could bear witness to the remarkable effects of the imagination; it was, notwithstanding, I believe, generally thought in the house that the account was exaggerated. On the 25th, however, in the presence of Messrs Jolliffe, Barton, Gaisford, Emery, and Wylde, Dr Lovell made use of one bit of mahogany, whilst I gently drew down the man’s arm with the point of the other. When he sat down he was ‘ perfectly easy.’ In a few seconds ‘ the pain commenced as before ;’ in two minutes it was very acute at the elbow and collar-bone; in four he became very uneasy, looked very red in the face, and begged the operation might be discontinued. This request was complied with, and he immediately went to bed with a pulse at 120°. Three quarters of an hour after, being still in bed, I asked him how he felt himself. He replied that he was in more pain than when the surgeon took five pieces of bone from his leg, in a compound fracture which he unfortunately met with in Wales. It may, perhaps, be thought that he feigned all this. I cannot assert that he did not; but he could have no point to gain by such a conduct, and he certainly must have been a very excellent mimic to deceive so many people. This case excited much curiosity; and, on the second of May, Dr Moncrieffe, Messrs Noble, Greatman, Clayfield, Probert, Notcutt, Lax, and Jolliffe, were assembled to view the effects produced by those two wonder-working pieces of wood. The man dreaded the operation so much, that he requested to have it done in bed. Mr Clayfield and myself used the tractors. In a few seconds, a spasm was evident upon the biceps flexor cubiti ; in two minutes, pain in the arm and collar-bone; in three, increased in the hand and armpit, and he continued in pain some time after the operation, which had considerably accelerated his pulse. This patient could scarcely be prevailed upon to submit any longer to their use, although he confessed that upon the whole he had received much benefit.”

The nature of the facts elicited by the experiments of Dr Haygarth, Mr Smith, and others, was such as to prove to the satisfaction of every one that the metallic tractors of Mr Perkins did not produce their effects upon the human system by any action peculiar to themselves, but by some influence or agency altogether independent of the particular materials of which the instruments were composed, and common to them with every other substance mineral and vegetable, that was employed in the same manner. Dr Haygarth himself had no hesitation in ascribing these effects to the influence of the imagination. “I have long been aware,” says he, “of the great importance of medical faith. Daily experience has constantly confirmed and increased my opinion of its efficacy. On numerous occasions I have declared that I never wished to have a patient who did not possess a sufficient portion of it. The trials with the false tractors place its efficacy in a very conspicuous point of view, and must even astonish persons who have particularly attended to this subject; they clearly prove what wonderful effects the passions of hope and faith, excited by mere imagination, can produce upon diseases. On this principle we may account for the marvellous recoveries frequently ascribed to empirical remedies, which are commonly inert drugs, and generally applied by the ignorant patient in disorders totally different from what the quack himself pretends that they can cure. Magnificent and unqualified promises inspire weak minds with implicit confidence.”

These experiments are worthy of being recalled to the attention of the public, and of being kept in mind by those who are at present endeavouring to revive the use of natural or artificial magnets as therapeutic agents; the more so that it does not appear to have occurred to MM. Andry and Thouret, nor to those who have since employed the magnet, to put the results which they obtained from [7:14:6] the use of that agent to the test, by a comparative series or trials of the description suggested by Dr Haygarth.

After this slight sketch of the various fates of the mineral magnet as a therapeutical agent, we come now to consider those practices which have usually been comprehended under the name of animal magnetism, or which might perhaps be more properly denominated Mesmerism. These practices were invented and brought into full operation and high repute by Mesmer, a German physician, whose claims to original, wonderful, and useful discovery have been, and still continue to be, so differently estimated. The character and procedure of this remarkable person arc, we conceive, so intimately interwoven with the credibility of his discoveries, as to render his personal history a leading and most essential consideration, in any view that can be taken of animal magnetism.

Mesmer appears to have been, from the commencement of his medical career, strongly inclined to the study of the occult and astrological sciences. On taking his degree in physic at Vienna, in 1766, he chose for the subject of his inaugural dissertation, the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body; a choice which indicated the natural bias of his mind, and which could not fail to determine in some degree the course of his future speculations and pursuits. Me have not had an opportunity of seeing that dissertation, but, from the account given of its contents by Mesmer himself in his subsequent writings, it would appear that in it he had endeavoured to prove that the planets not only act upon one another through the medium of a fluid universally diffused, but that they likewise exercise an unceasing influence, by means of this fluid, over the nervous systems of animated beings. That property of the animal economy which renders it susceptible of the action of this principle, Mesmer informs us he denominated animal magnetism. He conceived that the intension and remission of this magnetic fluid produces in the animal economy a flux and reflux similar to that which the sea exhibits in the ebbing and flowing of its tides; and he attributed to this flux and reflux the periodical changes which appear in the economy of the female sex, and, in general, those periodicities which physicians of all times and of all countries have observed to occur in the course of diseases. To this train of investigation Mesmer informs us that he was led by a persuasion which he had early adopted, that there arc few of the opinions which have been very generally entertained by mankind, however erroneous or absurd they may appear to us, which have not had some foundation in nature, and consequently which do not contain in them something true and useful.,

After taking his degree in physic, Mesmer settled as a physician ⅛ Vienna. He is said to have made an advantageous marriage; and he himself alludes, in one of his writings {Précis Historique, p. 67), to his being easy or independent in his circumstances. The first public account that was given of Mesmer’s discovery of animal magnetism as a remedial agent is to be found in a letter of date 5th January 1775, addressed by him to Dr Unzer of Altona, which was printed in the Nouveau Mercure Savant of that city, and which he appears to have soon afterwards circulated extensively amongst the different learned societies and academies of Europe. From the statement contained in this letter, it appears that, during the two preceding years, Mesmer had had living in his house, under medical treatment, Mademoiselle Oestcrline, a lady twenty-nine years of age, who was suffering from a very complicated nervous disorder, consisting, as he informs us, of repeated attacks of an hysterical fever, conjoined at intervals with obstinate vomitings, inflammations of the different viscera, retentions of urine, violent toothachs and ear-achs, melancholic and maniacal delirium, opisthotonos, faintings, blindness, suffocations, palsies of several days’ duration, and other symptoms. In the progress of this case, Mesmer found, that though he succeeded, by great attention, and by the employment of the usual remedies, in obtaining a temporary abatement or cessation of the symptoms, these recurred from time to time. But he came at last to be able to foresee these relapses, their progress, duration, and declension; and was led, as he informs us, to conceive the idea of establishing in the body of his patient a kind of artificial tide, by means of the magnet. This project he communicated to Father Hell, astronomer to their imperial majesties, who approved of it, and offered his assistance. Father Hell caused some pieces of the magnetic steel to be constructed, which, says Mesmer, he had invented fourteen years before, and had these artificial magnets made of such shapes that they fitted conveniently to the different parts of the body. The following is the account which Mesmer gives, in the document referred to, of the results of his experiments with Father Hell’s magnets.

“The patient having suffered a relapse in the month of July last, 1774, I attached to her feet two concave magnets, and placed another of a heart-shape upon her chest. She immediately experienced a burning and lancinating pain, which mounted from the feet to the crest of the ossa ilii; there it became united with a similar pain, that descended on one side from the place where the magnet was attached to the chest, and mounted on the other side up to the head, where it terminated on the crown. This pain, in dissipating, left in all the joints a burning heat like fire. The magnetic vapour appeared sometimes to break and disperse in different parts, sometimes to reunite with impetuosity. The patient and the assistants were frightened at this phenomenon, and wished the experiment to be put a stop to. But I insisted on its being continued, and applied additional magnets to the lower parte. She then felt the pains which had tormented the upper parts of the body descend impetuously. This transportation of the pain continued the whole night, and was accompanied with abundant perspiration on the side which had been paralysed since the previous attack. At length all the symptoms gradually disappeared, and the patient having become insensible to the action of the magnet, was cured of that attack. She has since had some relapses, which have been easily and promptly cured. I attribute these relapses to her extreme debility, and to the disease being of so long standing.” In concluding his account of this case, Mesmer states, that he advised his patient constantly to wear some magnets, and that subsequently to her doing this, she had recovered and was in good health.

It is of some importance, as we shall afterwards find, to attend to the fact, that at the time of his letter to Unzer, Mesmer seems to have had no doubt that the beneficial effects which he had been able to produce in Mademoiselle Oesterlinc, and in other patients, depended upon the employment of the magnets. “I had occasion,” says he, “in the treatment of this disease, to make several very curious experiments. I discovered the rules which determine in what cases, on what parts, in what quantity, for how long a time, and with what precautions, the magnet must be applied. I communicated these rules to Father Hell, and to some physicians. Of the great number of very astonishing observations which I made,” he continues, “I shall here relate some, which have been established in presence of Father Hell, and of other respectable persons. I have observed, that the magnetic matter is almost the same thing as the electric fluid, and that it is propagated, like it, through the medium of other bodies. Steel is not the only substance susceptible of it; I have rendered magnetic, paper, bread, wool, silk, leather, stones, glass, water, different •metals, wood, men, dogs, in a word, every thing that I touched, to such a degree, that these substances produced on the patient the same effects as the magnet.” This, it [7:14:7]may be remarked, is the only proof which Mesmer adduces of these substances having had magnetism communicated to them.

The account of-Mademoiselle Oesterlinc s case, given by Mesmer in a subsequent publication, viz. his Memoir on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism, published at Paris in 1779, differs from that contained in his letter to Unzer in several respects. It differs to a considerable degree in the detail of her symptoms, and in the statement of the effects produced upon her by the application of the magnets; but it differs in a still greater degree in the view that it gives of the effects which this case produced upon the progress of his own opinions. In the memoir, instead of boasting how much he had added to the knowledge of magnetism,· he states, that his observation of the effects produced in this 3ase, combined with his ideas of the general system of the universe, threw a new light on his views. “In confirming,” says he, “my previous ideas on the influence of the general agent, it taught me that another principle caused the magnet to act, it being of itself incapable of this action upon the nerves; and showed me that I had only some steps to make to arrive at the imitative theory which formed the object of my researches.” {Méìnoire, p. 17, 18.) It may be proper to notice, that the other principle alluded to by Mesmer, is one of which he does not himself appear ever to have given any distinct explanation, constituting apparently the secret which he repeatedly professes to retain in his own hand. By some of his followers this principle has been supposed to consist in the influence of volition.

Again, in speaking of the communication which he received from the academy of Berlin, in answer to the copy of his letter to Unzer which he had transmitted to that body, Mesmer says that the academy confounded the properties of animal magnetism which he announced, with those of the magnet, of which he spoke only as a conductor, “It has not,” he adds, “been this academy alone which has fallen into the error of confounding animal with mineral magnetism, though I have constantly persisted, in my writings, in maintaining, that the use of the magnet, though serviceable, was always imperfect without the assistance of the theory of animal magnetism. The philosophers and physicians with whom I have been in correspondence, or who have endeavoured to discover my secret (à me pénétrer), in order to usurp this discovery, have pretended and affected to say, some that the magnet was the only agent which I employed, others that I joined electricity to it, and that because they knew I had made use of these two means. Most of them have been undeceived by their own experience; but instead of acknowledging the truth which I announced, they have concluded from their not themselves obtaining success from the use of these two agents, that the cures which I professed to have obtained were supposititious, and that my theory was illusory. The desire of setting aside for ever such errors, and of completely establishing the truth, has made me resolve, since 1776, no longer to make any use of electricity, or of the magnet.” {Mémoire, p. 30-2.)

In comparing these statements, it seems impossible to doubt, that, subsequently to the date of his letter to Unzer, Mesmer’s views with regard to the use of the magnet underwent a great change; for in that letter there is no hint of the magnet being merely a conductor, and of secondary importance only in the cures which he had effected. It appears from the memoir, that the friendly relations which seem to have existed between him and Father Hell at the date of the letter were soon broken off. He represents Father Hell as claiming for his own magnets the power of curing diseases of the nerves, and as alleging that Mesmer’s cures, to which he referred in confirmation of the truth of this power, had been undertaken at his suggestion. It appears to have been, in part at least, for the purpose of overturning this pretension on the part of Father Hell, that Mesmer broached the doctrine of animal magnetism being totally distinct from and independent of the magnet. {Mémoire, p. 19.) Both parties seem to have appealed to the public in support of their respective pretensions; but Mesmer complains that the scientific reputation of his opponent procured for Father Hell, on this occasion, undeserved credit from the public.

Another circumstance, which could not fail to make it desirable for Mesmer to establish a distinction between common magnetism and the agent by which he professed to effect his cures, was the strong opinion expressed by the Berlin Academy of Sciences, as to the erroneous nature of the discoveries which he pretended to have made in magnetism; for a careful perusal of the judgment pronounced by that body completely satisfies us of the truth of Μ. Bertrand’s observation {Du Magnétisme- Animal en France, p. 25), that the members to whom the consideration of Mesmer’s letter was referred could not possibly have deceived themselves so grossly as Mesmer endeavours to insinuate, respecting the nature of the discovery to which he laid claim in that document.

It deserves also to be remarked, that the period at which Mesmer first became aware of the independence of animal magnetism upon the magnet, is not the only circumstance in the early history of his discoveries respecting which there exists a discrepancy of statement. Two different accounts, at least, have been given to the public, of the manner in which he first became aware that he himself possessed a magnetic quality. One of these is contained in a discourse of Μ. Mesmer’s, published in the Recueil des Effets Salutaires de l’ Aimant dans les Maladies. Geneva, 1782. “One day,” says he, “being near a person who was being bled, I perceived that, as I approached or receded, the course of the blood varied in a remarkable manner; and having repeated this experiment in other circumstances, with the same phenomena, I concluded that I possessed a magnetic quality, which was not perhaps so striking in others, but which they might possess in a greater or less degree.” The other account of his discovery of his possessing a magnetic quality in his own person, is related by a pupil and admirer of his, Μ. Picher-Grandchamp of Lyons. “It has been said,” observes this gentleman, “that Newton derived the first idea of his system of gravitation, since so learnedly developed, from perceiving an apple fall from a tree. Dr Mesmer had the first idea of his system from observing, that every time when, at table or elsewhere, a servant or person of his acquaintance placed themselves behind him, by a particular sensation, and without perceiving them by sight, he was able to announce that it was such or such a person who procured him this observation. Born very sensitive, and naturally a great observer, it is from these first effects, and from these first causes, that he has drawn and built his system, established his doctrine, and applied them to the cure of diseases. He has several times repeated this anecdote to me.” Which of these is the genuine statement, we profess ourselves unable to determine; nor does it appear at what time the discovery of these extraordinary powers had actually been made, who ther previously to, subsequently to, or during the progress of, his magnetic experiments on Mademoiselle Oesterline. v The dispute in which Mesmer had become involved with Father FIell was soon followed by another with Dr Ingenhousz, who was established under the imperial patronage as an inoculator for small pox at Vienna. Mesmer informs us, that a few days before the publication of his letter to Unzcr, he learned that Dr Ingenhousz had spoken of his operations as chimerical, and that he even came to his house to persuade him to suppress their publication. “I told him,” says Mesmer, “that he had not enough of information on the* subject to give me this advice, and that [7:14:8]I should be happy to convince him of this on the first proper opportunity. This occurred two days after. Mademoiselle Oesterline experienced a fright and a cold, which occasioned a sudden suppression of her periodical return. She fell into her usual convulsions. I invited Dr Ingenhousz to come to my house, and he came, accompanied by a young physician. The patient was then in a faint, accompanied with convulsions. I informed him that this was a favourable occasion for him to convince himself of the existence of the principle which I had announced to him, and of the property which he himself possessed of communicating it. I made him go near the patient, from whom I retired, desiring him to touch her; he did so; she did not move. I called him back, and taking him by the hand, communicated to him the animal magnetism; I then made him go again near the patient, keeping myself always at a distance, and desired him to touch her a second time, the result of which was, her being thrown into convulsive motions. I made him repeat this touch several times, which he did with the point of his finger, varying its direction each time; and, to his great astonishment, he produced always a convulsive effect in the part that he touched. At the termination of these operations he told me he was convinced. I proposed to him a second trial. We retired from the patient, so as not to be perceived by her even if she should recover her consciousness. I presented to Dr Ingenhousz six porcelain cups, and begged him to point out the one to which he wished me to communicate the magnetic virtue. I touched that which he chose, and made him apply successively the six cups to the hand of the patient; when he came to that which I had touched, her hand moved, and she appeared to feel pain. Dr Ingenhousz having repeated the experiment with the six cups, the same effects were produced. I then put back the cups into the place from which they had been taken, and after a short time taking hold of one of his hands, I desired him to touch with the other any of the cups which he pleased; he did this, and the cups being brought into contact with the patient, the same effects as before took place. The communicability of the principle having been established to the satisfaction of Ingenhousz, I proposed to him a third experiment, in order to make him acquainted with its action at a distance, and its penetrating virtue. I directed my finger towards the patient at the distance of eight paces; a moment after, her body became convulsed, so as to raise it upon her bed with the appearances of pain. I continued in the same position to direct my finger towards the patient, placing at the same time Ingenhousz between her and me. She experienced the same sensations. These trials being repeated at the pleasure of Ingenhousz, I asked him if he was satisfied with them, and convinced of the wonderful properties I had announced to him, offering, if he was not, to repeat our trials. His answer was, that he had nothing more to desire, and that he was convinced; but he exhorted me, by the regard which he had for me, not to communicate any thing relative to this matter to the public, in order to avoid exposing myself to its incredulity. We separated; 1 went back to my patient to continue the treatment. It had the most happy result. I succeeded the same day in re-establishing the ordinary course of nature, and by this put a stop to all the symptoms which the suppression had occasioned. Two days afterwards, I learned with astonishment that Μ. Ingenhousz used in public, language very different from what he had held at my house; that he denied the success of the different experiments which he had witnessed, affected to confound animal magnetism with the magnet, and endeavoured to tarnish my reputation, by spreading a report, that, with the aid of some magnetised pieces, with which he had provided himself, he had succeeded in unmasking me, and in establishing that it was only a ridiculous and preconcerted trick.” It is deserving of notice, that in these experiments performed upon Mademoiselle (Esterline in Dr Ingenhousz’s presence, Mesmer makes no mention of his having used Father Hell’s magnets.

Mesmer alludes (Alémoire, p. 29, note) to a letter upon animal magnetism and the electrophorus, addressed by Klinkosch, professor of medicine at Prague, to Μ. le Comte de Kinszky, and inserted in the Actes des Savans de Boheme, for the year 1776 (tom. ii.), as containing Ingenhousz’s representation of these transactions. This letter we have not had an opportunity of seeing. It would not, however, be difficult to suggest various considerations likely to occur to Ingenhousz, in reflecting upon the scene in which he had performed a part at Μ. Mesmer’s house, and to excite in him the suspicion of a deception having been attempted to be practised upon him. To believe that the phenomena he had witnessed depended upon the causes to which Mesmer attributed them, it would have been necessary for Ingenhousz to admit that Mesmer not only possessed this remarkable virtue himself, and was capable of exercising it at a considerable distance, but also that he was able to transfer a limited portion of it to another individual, and even to a piece of earthen ware, either by immediate contact, or through the medium of another person’s body. Had Ingenhousz been convinced of the validity of Mesmer’s discovery of a new and unknown agent, and of his power of employing this agent in producing such extraordinary phenomena as those which he had been called to witness in Mademoiselle Oesterline, is it possible to conceive that he would not have felt an irresistible inclination to return to Mesmer’s house, to see the same effects reproduced in Mademoiselle Oesterline, or the same influence exerted on some others of the patients who were under Mesmer’s care? Is it possible to conceive that he would not have wished himself to be possessed of such a. power, or that the knowledge of it should, for the benefit of all ranks, be communicated to others? Such a perversity of disposition as that attributed to Ingenhousz never existed, we believe, in any rational or sane mind, and is totally inconsistent with his philosophical curiosity and habits, and with the respectable character which he held in society.

In finding himself thus in open hostility with two such formidable antagonists as Father Hell and Dr Ingenhousz, Mesmer became desirous to obtain the countenance of Baron Stoerck, president of the Faculty of Medicine at Vienna, and first physician to her majesty the empress queen, and who, in that capacity, was in some sort minister for medical affairs in Austria. Baron Stoerck was a countryman of his own, and Mesmer says he was particularly acquainted with him. Mesmer represents Baron Stoerck as having manifested great fickleness in their intercourse on the subject of animal magnetism. “Being attached to him, I offered to communicate to him all my means of operation, without any reserve, urging him to satisfy himself of the truth with his own eyes. This physician, too timid for the place which he occupies, has never been able to take a decided part. He has always vacillated according to the circumstances of the moment. Sometimes he was afraid of compromising himself, or of my compromising the faculty; sometimes he agreed to my demonstrating the utility of my principles in an hospital; then he had not the courage to make a report be presented to him of the effects which I there produced. He constantly refused me a commission of the faculty, which I asked for, and appeared himself at the head of a deputation, for which I did not ask. On that occasion he loudly joined his suffrages to those of the public, assuring me, in presence of witnesses, how much he regretted having so long delayed to favour with his avowal the importance of mv observations; and [7:14:9]yet he never had courage to avow or defend this at times when it might have been serviceable. Lastly, I have letters from him, in which he acknowledges his opinion: I have an order from him, in which he taxes me with trickery.” (Précis Historique, p. 14, 15.)

Beginning to despair (Mémoire, p. 32) of success in his magnetical practice at Vienna, Mesmer made a journey, in 1775, through Suabia, Bavaria, and Switzerland, and performed a number of cures, publicly as well as privately, in these countries. His success, indeed, was such as to encourage him to repeat his journey in 1776. In visiting Ratisbon, he had occasion to observe the performance of cures there, without the aid of medicines or of magnets, which were not less wonderful than his own. These cures were performed by Gassner, an ecclesiastic, who had long enjoyed a great reputation for his success in curing diseases, particularly those occasioned by demoniacal possession. This person, after having been settled as a parish priest, near to Coire in Switzerland, his native country, became afflicted with a disorder which resisted all the ordinary powers of medicine, and produced a state resembling melancholic mania. In reflecting upon his disorder, he was led to believe that a great portion of the diseases to which human nature is liable is produced by the agency of the devil; and conceiving that his own ailments might have that origin, he was led, by the study of books upon exorcism, and by his reflection on the powers which had been communicated to him by the church in his ordination as a priest, to believe in the possibility of his being able to eject the devil, and to cure himself, simply by adjurations and commands given in the name of Jesus Christ. The employment of this curative process was followed with complete success; and Gassner was encouraged to extend to those in his neighbourhood afflicted with the same species of disorder, the benefit of the means which he had found so successful in his own case. The reputation of his cures and the number of his patients increased rapidly; so that whilst he remained in the district of Coire, many hundreds of patients flocked to him annually from all the surrounding countries. But neither Gassner’s mode of conducting himself as a parish priest, nor his exorcismal cures, being quite to the satisfaction of the bishop of the diocese, he was dismissed from his charge. Sprengel informs us (Hist, de la Médecine, vi. 89), that “Gassner went, in the month of June 1774, to Moersburg, the residence of the Prince Bishop of Kostnitz, but he practised his miraculous cures there only for a few weeks; for the cunning which he employed was soon discovered, and the wise bishop expelled him from his diocese in the month of August, stating, as the chief ground of complaint against him, that in his exorcisms he did not conform to the ritual of the Roman church. At the same time he wrote to the Bishop of Coire, to request him to recall his priest. His desire was accomplished; but Gassner remained only two months in his diocese, for the Bishop of Ratisbon expressed a wish to see him at Ellwangen. He consequently went there in the month of November 1774, and this town became for some time the theatre of his miraculous performances. The Bishop of Ratisbon gave him the titles of chaplain of the court, and ecclesiastical councillor; and several thousand patients, and persons supposed to be possessed with the devil, were seen to flock to him, all of whom he threw into the most frightful convulsions, by the abuse which he made of the name of God and of Jesus Christ.” From Ellwangen he was brought to Ratisbon, where Mesmer saw him. In his “Mémoire,” Mesmer alludes to Gassner in the followir⅛g terms: “It was from the year 1774 to 1775 that an ecclesiastic, a man of good faith, but of an excessive zeal, performed in the diocese of Ratisbon, upon different patients of a nervous constitution, effects which appeared supernatural in the eyes of the least prejudiced and most enlightened men of that country. His reputation extended to Vienna, where the public was divided into two parties; one treated these effects as impostures and trickery, whilst the other regarded them as miracles wrought by divine power. Both, however, were in error; and my experience had by that time taught me that this man was merely in this matter the instrument of nature. It was only because his profession, seconded by chance, determined near him certain natural combinations, that he renewed the periodic symptoms of diseases, without knowing the cause of this. The end of these paroxysms was regarded as real cures; time alone could disabuse the public.” (Mémoire, p. 32-3.) And in a later work Mesmer remarks, “I have said in one of my writings, in reference to Μ. le Curé Gassner, that he produced real effects, but that he was ignorant of the cause of them. I repeat the same here.” (Precis Historique, p. 125.)

Several circumstances seem to have contributed at this period, in Austria, to create doubts in the minds of the medical practitioners of that country, and of the government, with regard to the existence and frequent occurrence of diseases depending on witchcraft, or on demoniacal possession; and also with regard to the pretensions of those who affected to cure diseases by exorcismal or supernatural powers. Amongst these may be mentioned, first, the great increase of demoniacal diseases, which seemed to take place in consequence of the success of Gassner’s practice; and, secondly, the results of the clinical observations of Dr de Haen, who had been engaged for a long series of years in detecting and exposing feigned diseases, and particularly those attributed to demoniacal possession, in patients who were placed under his inspection at the desire of the Empress Maria Theresa, and her son the Emperor Joseph II. De Haen was satisfied, from the authority of Scripture, of the possible occurrence of magical and miraculous events; but in no one of the patients sent to him by the authority of the government, pretending or said to be affected with demoniacal diseases, could he discover the slightest evidence of such a disease. In all of them the symptoms were feigned, and that not unfrequently in deceitful collusion with others. It seems to have been the results of his own personal observation, his knowledge of Gassner’s miraculous cures, and perhaps the more recent pretensions to similar powers upon the part of Mesmer, that called De Haen’s attention, in a particular manner, to the investigation of feigned and demoniacal diseases at this period, and which gave rise to two remarkable essays which he composed; the first in defence of the existence of magic, as described in Scripture, dedicated to Cardinal Eugenius, in October 1774; and the second upon Miracles, dedicated to the same person, dated Vienna, February 1776.

It is curious to observe how very generally the object and tendency of these writings of De Haen have been misunderstood and misrepresented. In the essay on Miracles, he seems to have had for his particular object the determination of the criteria or conditions by which true miracles are and must be characterised, and infallibly distinguished from those that are pretended and spurious. By these conditions he examined, in a most minute and circumstantial manner, the miraculous cures of Gassner, and demonstrated undeniably the total groundlessness and absurdity of these and of all similar pretensions. The whole of this essay is in every respect worthy of its learned and distinguished author. The fifth and last chapter, in particular, contains an accredited statement of Gassner’s exorcismal cures, derived from the most authentic sources; from a great number of publications, some by Gassner himself, and from a protocol of a regular examination of these cures, instituted by the authority of the Archbishop of Ratisbon, which was sent to the empress of Austria, and by her transmitted for De Haen’s [7:14:10]inspection and judgment. In this chapter, De Haen states, Is/, that Gassner’s miraculous cures were, and had been for a long time, by their number, continuance, and surprising nature, the admiration of Austria, and of surrounding countries: 2<∕, that Gassncr, in consequence of his discovery, that a great number of diseases were the work of the devil, distinguished diseases into demoniacal, natural, and mixed: 3d , that Gassner admitted that his cures were confined to demoniacal diseases, and to the diabolical part of mixed diseases; and affirmed that they were accomplished solely by his using the sacred name of Jesus Christ, and by the faith of his patients in that name: 4∕A, that by his use of, and faith in, that name, he could make the devil reproduce diseases which were absent or latent at the time, in one, two, or more paroxysms, according to his pleasure: 5th, that he had made the devil excite in his patients the states of laughing, howling, anger, rage, and fury, and even the appearance of death, and could repeat in the same day the same phenomena, without any injury to the health of even the most delicate females: Gth, that he frequently questioned the devil in the same person for several days, two or three hours at a time, and convicted him of lies, though he sometimes had an opportunity of praising him for speaking truth: 7th, that Gassner ascertained, from tEe same competent authority, that instead of a legion, there might be some thousands or millions of demons in the same person: 8th, that he seldom cured any one possessed by demons at once, but usually after repeated exorcisms: 9zΛ, that he had contracted a great familiarity with the devil, and frequently conversed with him audibly, and usually in the Latin language, about matters quite foreign to his patients or their diseases: 10i∕z, that after making the devil produce convulsions, excite rage, or utter blasphemies, he could immediately bring back his patients to a sound state of mind and body: 1 1/ä, that he could transfer to others the power which he had received from his ordination as a priest, of casting out devils, and that even to laics, and his ordinary patients: 12/ā, that, amongst other wonders, he could produce any kind of pulse in his patients, great, small, or intermittent, which the medical men attending his more wealthy patients might desire him to produce: 1 3th, that in performing his cures, he always held a crucifix in his right hand, wore a red cloak bound round his loins with a black girdle, and had a chain hung from his neck, to which was attached a cross, containing a small portion of the true cross: 14√∕i, that he sent his patients, after he had cured them, to the apothecary’s shop at Ellwangen, in order to purchase there some article which he had blessed, and to the use of which they might confidently resort for a cure in the event of a return of their disorder: 5th, that his miracles were worked, first, to show the power of faith in the name of Jesus Christ; secondly, the services which, from the confessions of the devil, the society of Jesuits had rendered to the church for two centuries; and, thirdly, the disadvantages that were likely to accrue from the suppression of that order, which had been decreed by the see of Rome a short time before the regular examination and protocol of Gassner’s cures had been commenced. “A very remarkable circumstance,” says Sprengel, “is, that the devil, in speaking by the mouth of possessed persons, always painted the Jesuits as his irreconcileable enemies. Accordingly it was they who most cried up to the skies the miracles of Gassner, pretending that not to believe in them was a sufficient proof of want of religion.”

The various purposes, personal and ecclesiastical, to which Gassner rendered his pretensions subservient, leave it doubtful whether he ought to be regarded more as the dupe of his own enthusiasm, or as a knave. But his proceedings were put a stop to by an order from his superior,, for his being shut up in a fraternity of priests at Ponton, in the neighbourhood of Ratisbon, where no one was allowed to see him or to be cured by him, without an express permission to that effect obtained from the bishop. Sprengel states, that the Archbishop of Prague issued an order to the bishops and curates under his jurisdiction, exposing to them the malpractices of Gassner, and warning them against falling into similar errors. Subsequently to this, his miraculous power completely ceased; “and of the deluge of publications,” adds Sprengel, “almost all detestable, to which this devilry had given rise, there remains now nothing but the titles preserved in the archives of literature.”

It would appear that Μ. le Roux, who subsequently accompanied Mesmer to Paris, was also his companion in his journey to Bavaria, and transmitted some account of his proceedings at Munich and Augsburg, in a letter to the editor of the Gazette d ’ Agriculture, in 1777. (Anti-Magnétisme, p. 126.) This letter, however, we have not seen. Mesmer mentions, that he performed, at Munich and Ratisbon, a number of experiments in the presence of Mr Elliot, envoy from England to the diet of Ratisbon, and communicated to him, at his request, a summary of his doctrines, which was transmitted, in 1776, to the Royal Society of London. (Mémoire, p. 54, note.)

On returning to Vienna, -after his second journey to Bavaria, in 1776, Mesmer tells us that he refused till the end of that year to undertake the magnetical treatment of any patients. At length, however, he yielded to the solicitation of his friends, and to the hope of being able, by some striking cure, to establish, in a triumphant manner, the truth of his doctrines. Amongst other patients'whose cure he undertook at that time, was one whose case gave rise to much unpleasant discussion, and led him, according to his own statement, to resolve definitively on quitting Vienna. This was Mademoiselle Paradis, a musical girl, eighteen years of age, who had been blind from her infancy with a complete amaurosis, accompanied with convulsions, which made her eyes start out from their sockets. This girl, who was a pensioner of the empress, was boarded with Mesmer in the beginning of the year 1777. Nothing can be more contradictory than the accounts that are given by Mesmer and by his opponents, of the state of this patient’s vision, and of the degree of improvement that took place in it whilst she was under his treatment. A most violent altercation took place between Mesmer and the girl’s father, the former insisting on retaining her in his house till her cure should be completed, the latter demanding that she should be restored to her family. It was upon this occasion that Baron Stoerck issued the order alluded to in the passage formerly quoted from Mesmer. “I received, in fact,” says Mesmer, “through Μ. Ost, physician to the court, an order in the writing of Μ. Stoerck, in his quality of first physician, dated Schoenbrunn (the imperial palace), 2d May 1777, which enjoined me to put an end to that trickery (supercherie'), and to restore Mademoiselle Paradis to her family, if I thought it could be done without danger.” It was alleged by Mesmer’s opponents that he received a communication also from the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Migazzi, intimating to him that he would do well to go elsewhere to play his pantomimes. Mesmer speaks of the allegation of his having been enjoined by the authorities to quit Vienna, as a useless calumny, alleging in disproof of it that he was recommended to the Austrian ambassador in France, by the minister of foreign, affairs at Vienna, and that his excellency never disavowed him.

Another account of the circumstances under which Mesmer left Vienna is given by Sprengel (Sendschreiben über Thicrischen Magnetismum mit Zusatzen, Halle, 1788, p. 104), on the authority of a work entitled Magnetist, published by C. L. Hoffmann, at Frankfort, in 1787. That [7:14:11]author states that a commission was named by the Empress Maria Theresa, for the investigation of magnetism, and particularly of the cure said to have been effected on the girl Paradis. Before an assemblage of more than 300 persons, medical men and others, the girl was called on to distinguish bright colours, and she made the distinction quite correctly. Some of the commissioners, however, remarked, that Mesmer was giving his patient certain signs, and he was requested to withdraw. After many protestations, he reluctantly complied, and now the girl was unable to distinguish any one of the colours that were laid before her. On the gentlemen of the commission declaring to her that she could see nothing, she with tears protested that she had supposed seeing to consist in the recognition of the signs that had been given her. When the commissioners had made their report to the empress, it is added, that Mesmer received an imperial order to leave Vienna within twenty-four hours. We are unable to say how much of these statements is correct. But certain it is that Mesmer actually left Vienna early in 1778, and proceeded to Paris, where he arrived in the month of February of that year.

In Paris, Mesmer might reasonably expect to find a theatre infinitely more favourable for the exhibition of his new discoveries, peculiar modes of practice, and wonderful cures, than by long and persevering trials he had found Vienna to be. The lively imagination of the French people, their love of novelty, the power of fashion, of which Paris was at that time the centre, and the influence of court favour, if it could be obtained, were all of them circumstances likely to prove powerful auxiliaries to the promotion of his views. He has given an account of his proceedings, subsequently to his removal to Paris, in his Mémoire sur la Découverte du Magnétisme Animal, published in 1779; and in bis Précis Historique des faits relatifs au Magnétisme Animal, published in 1781. In these works he represents himself as having arrived in Paris without any determinate object beyond that of spending a few months there; and as having been induced to engage in expounding the principles of animal magnetism, and illustrating their application to the treatment of diseases, rather in compliance with the solicitations of others, than from any views of his own. Μ. le Roi, director, and Μ. le Comte Maillebois, member of the Academy of Sciences, seem, from his own account, to have been the persons in Paris from whom his doctrines first met with a favourable reception. In the course of a few months, he had also become acquainted with Messrs Mauduit, Andry, Desperneres, and the Abbé Tessier, all members of the Royal Society of Medicine. In their presence he seems to have performed various detached experiments with a view to establish the existence of the magnetic principle; and he at length consented, for their satisfaction, to undertake the performance of a series of cures by means of this agent. Besides engaging that he should not enter on the treatment of any patients till their state had been previously ascertained by physicians of the Faculty of Paris (in order that a correct judgment might be formed of the success of his practice from an inspection of the patients after their treatment should be concluded), he agreed, he says, to make every patient that he was to treat be presented in succession to the Society of Medicine, in order that it might satisfy itself of the solidity and truth of the certificates; and he agreed also to place the reports, certificates, and attestations of the faculty, in the hands of the Society of Medicine. In proceeding, however, to carry these preliminary arrangements into effect, discord arose. On the first patient being submitted to Messrs Mauduit and Andry, they declared themselves not to be satisfied with the evidence adduced respecting her malady, and wished to take measures for satisfying themselves in regard to it. To these, Mesmer says, her relations objected. He undertook the charge of her on his own responsibility, and sent, he tells us, no more patients to be examined by these gentlemen. Mesmer represents himself as having entered into communication with the above-named members of the Society of Medicine as private individuals, and not in any official capacity. However this may have been, the society looked upon the matter in a different light; for on the 6th May, the secretary, Μ. Vicq d’Azyr, addressed a letter to Mesmer, stating that he was desired by the society to return him, unopened, the certificates which had been transmitted to it on his account. “The commissioners whom it has named, agreeably to your request,” continues Μ. Vicq d’Azyr, “to follow your experiments, cannot and ought not to give any opinion without having previously ascertained the state of the patients by careful examination. As your letter announces that this examination and the necessary visits do not enter into your plan, and that, instead of these, it is in your opinion sufficient for us to have the word of honour of your patients and certificates, the society announces to you that it has withdrawn the commission with which it had charged some of its members on your business. It is the duty of the society not to pronounce any judgment on matters of which it is not placed in a position to obtain a full and entire knowledge, particularly when it is called upon to consider novel assertions. This circumspection, which it owes to itself, it always has observed, and always will.” In recording this letter, Mesmer protests that he had made no application to the society for a commission, but, on the contrary, when the members of that body with whom he was in communication had proposed such a step, that he had formally and repeatedly rejected it.

Having collected a sufficient number of patients for his experiments, Mesmer, in the course of the month of May, retired with them to the village of Créteuil, two leagues distant from Paris, where they remained under treatment for a period of from three to four months. On the 20th and 22d of August, he addressed letters to Μ. Vicq d’Azyr for the Society of Medicine, and to Μ. le Roi for the Academy of Sciences, inviting the two bodies to examine into the actual condition of his patients, and to compare that condition with the certificates of their state at the time of their coming under his treatment. The Society of Medicine simply replied, that having no knowledge of the previous condition of the patients whom he had had under treatment, they could pronounce no judgment upon the matter; and, according to Mesmer’s statement, the reading of his letter to the Academy of Sciences was interrupted at the instigation of Messrs d’Aubenton and Vicq d’Azyr, who formally opposed its interfering in the matter.

Subsequently to this correspondence, Mesmer returned to Paris; and though he describes his patients as having made wonderful improvement under his charge, he represents himself as being, if possible, still further removed than he had been before the commencement of his experiments, from the prospect of obtaining a fair judgment of his pretensions. About this time, however, in the month of September 1778, he had the good fortune to form an acquaintance with Μ. d’Eslon, doctor regent of the faculty of medicine, and physician to the Count d’Artois, the brother of the king. This acquaintance speedily ripened into an intimate friendship, which exercised, whilst it lasted, and even after it had ceased,'a most important influence over the fame and success of Mesmer in Paris; at first by assisting him to procure the patronage of the great and powerful, and afterwards by its leading to those measures which enabled him to realize the fortune with which he retired from that capital.

In witnessing the surprising effects of the magnetic treatment, Μ. d’Eslon became a sincere convert to Mesmer’s opinions, and extremely desirous to assist in communicating[7:14:12] a knowledge of these, and of the benefits of animal magnetism, to the medical profession and to the public. With this view he endeavoured to interest the faculty of medicine in Mesmer’s discoveries; but failing in this, he persuaded twelve members of that body to come to his house and hear Mesmer read an account of his doctrines. Three only of that number, however, could be induced to observe and to follow out the new practice at the magnetic institution which Mesmer had opened, viz. MM. Bertrand. Malloet, and Sollier. This they did for a period of seven months; but at the end of this time, the results of their observation did not incline them to adopt Mesmer’s opinions, nor to believe in the efficacy of his magnetic treatment.

In the course of the year 1779, Mesmer published his memoir relative to his discovery of animal magnetism, in which, besides a narrative of the difficulties he had experienced in Germany, he stated his peculiar doctrines in the form of twenty-seven distinct propositions. This memoir gave rise to some controversy at the time of its first appearance, and was made the subject of a strict critical examination four years afterwards by Μ. Thouret.

In the month of July 1780, Μ. d’Eslon published his observations on animal magnetism, in which he gave an account of a number of surprising cures that he had seen effected by the magnetic processes which Mesmer employed, and defended himself against various attacks that bad been made upon him in consequence of his connection with Mesmer. This publication, and the avowal of his adoption of Mesmer’s opinions, incurred in a high degree the displeasure of his colleagues in the medical faculty. A meeting of that body was held on the 18th of September of the same year, when one of its members, Μ. Vauzêmes, accused Μ. d’Eslon of being associated with Mesmer in his magnetical practices, and of having become the defender of his doctrines. In reply, D’Eslon temperately but firndy expressed his conviction of the importance of Mesmer’s discoveries, recommended to the faculty an examination of them, and proposed, in the name of Mesmer, that the faculty, in making this examination, should, Is/, solicit the intervention of the government; 2J, that twenty-four patients should be selected, twelve of whom should be treated by Mesmer, and the other twelve by members of the medical faculty; and, 3d, t in order to avoid all suspicion of party spirit, that the persons appointed by the government as judges of the comparative effects of the magnetical and usual modes of treatment, should not belong to the medical profession. After having read these proposals on the part of Mesmer, and placed a copy of them on the table, D’Eslon retired to allow the faculty time to deliberate upon them. When he was called back, it was announced to him that the faculty had resolved, Is/, to enjoin him to be more circumspect for the future; 2<7, to suspend him for a year from a deliberative voice in its meetings; 3<7, that unless, at the end of a year, he should have disavowed his opinions on animal magnetism, his name should be erased from the list of its members; and, 4√7z, to reject Mesmer’s proposals. These measures on the part of the faculty of medicine were considered, by a great portion of the public, as the effects merely of professional jealousy, and served to promote rather than to injure the popularity of Mesmer’s magnetic treatment.

When this rupture took place with the Faculty of Medicine, Mesmer felt, he tells us, the necessity of addressing himself at length directly to the government. Appearances seemed to promise success; but when he wished to place himself in personal communication with those in authority, he found, he says, the avenues blocked up in such a way as to obstruct his progress. Suddenly he learned that Μ. de Lassonne, first physician to their majesties, from whom, upon his first arrival in Paris, he had met with an unfavourable reception, had expressed himself very decidedly as being convinced of the existence and utility of his dis« covery; and Μ. d’Eslon received encouragement to address himself to that gentleman, as being instructed to draw up a plan for effecting an arrangement between Mesmer and the government. Accordingly, Μ. d’Eslon laid before Μ. de Lassonne a memorial, stating the conditions on which Mesmer was Willing to treat. He proposed that commissioners should be named by the government, not to witness any new cures performed, but to collect and authenticate those which had been performed upon previous occasions. At the same time, Mesmer says, he instructed Μ. d’Eslon to say verbally, that, though unwilling to come under any formal engagement to perform experiments before the royal commissioners, they would find him ready to give all reasonable satisfaction in this respect. Some difficulties as to the powers of the commissioners to be appointed having been arranged, eight persons were agreed upon as suitable for the duty, and everything seemed in the way of being adjusted, when Μ. de Lassonne announced to Μ. d’Eslon that the persons named declined the commission. On this point Mesmer states that he ascertained that the persons proposed as commissioners never had been spoken to on the subject.

“I now,” says Mesmer, “no longer hesitated to announce to my patients, that as I was to quit France immediately, my practice would be terminated on the 15th of April following (1781). This intelligence naturally displeased persons who had lost all confidence in ordinary medicine, and no longer placed any except in mine. Their alarms penetrated to the foot of the throne. Her majesty the queen was pleased to charge a person in her confidence to say to me that she considered the abandonment of my patients as contrary to humanity, and that she thought I ought not to leave France in this way. I replied in substance that my long sojourn in France could leave her majesty no doubt of the desire I had to prefer her dominions to all others excepting my native country; but that despairing, for many reasons, of seeing in France a conclusion of the important affair which had brought me there, I had resolved to take advantage of the new season to commence operations, which I had, to my great regret, long put off; and that, besides, I beseeched her majesty to consider that there was sufficient time before the 15th of April for the government to come to a determination, if the necessity of adopting one was at length acknowledged.” A few days after this, Μ. d’Eslon and he were requested to wait upon a person of rank, having authority to treat with them; and after a long conference, Mesmer agreed (14th March) to subscribe a series of propositions, the principal of which were, that the government should name five commissioners, two of whom only should belong to the medical profession, to make the final inquiries that might be judged necessary in order to leave no doubt as to the existence and the utility of the discovery of animal magnetism; that if the report of these commissioners should be favourable to the discovery, the government should, ]s∕, by a ministerial letter, declare that Μ. Mesmer had made a useful discovery. 2dly, That to recompense Μ. Mesmer, and to engage him to establish and propagate his doctrine in France, the king should give him, in free gift, an establishment, suitable for the treatment of patients in the most advantageous manner, and for communicating his knowledge to medical men. On the margin of this proposition was written the name of a particular chateau and estate, which Mesmer preferred to every other, ⅜dly i That in order to fix Μ. Mesmer in France, and to reward his services, a yearly pension of 20,000 livres should be granted to him. ⅛thly i That his majesty would require of Μ. Mesmer that he should remain in France till he had completely established his doctrine and practice, and that he should not quit it without [7:14:13]the permission of the king. These arrangements were to be binding on Mesmer only upon condition of their being carried into effect by the 15th of April.

A few days after they were signed (28th March), he was sent for by a minister of state, and told that the king, being informed of his repugnance to be examined by commissioners, would dispense with this formality, and at once grant him a pension of 20,000 livres, and pay, besides, an annual rent of 10,000 livres for the house which he should consider most suitable for forming pupils, of whom three were to be named by the government, he being left to take such an additional number for his own behoof as he might judge advisable. These proposals Mesmer declined to accept. For this refusal he has assigned a number of reasons, in some of which he endeavours to make it appear that he was actuated by regard to his own dignity. It is impossible, however, we should think, for his most zealous partisans to doubt that the true reason of his refusal was his being dissatisfied with the pecuniary arrangements. Indeed, in professing regret at having signed the propositions of the 14th of March, he declares his willingness still to act up to them, if the free gift of a territorial possession suitable for the establishment he projected, which was obviously meant to be of a very costly description, was added to the pension of 20,000 livres. “If I have rigorously abstained,” says he, “during my residence in France, from bringing into question my personal remuneration, I have never a single instant doubted that it should be worthy of the French nation, and of the greatness of the monarch who governs it.” “It is a territorial possession, and not money that I demand.” “I know very well that the terms which I demand form a considerable sum; but I also know very well that my discovery is above all price.”

On his return from his interview with the minister, Mesmer addressed a letter to the queen, full of expressions of respect and devotion, in which, in declaring that he renounces all hope of arrangement with the French government, he postpones his departure from France to the 18th of September, the anniversary of the meeting of the Faculty of Medicine, at which his propositions had been rejected. With this letter to the queen, Mesmer concludes his Précis Historique. In the account we have given of his proceedings up to this period, we have followed very closely his own statements. Trusting to these, it would be necessary to believe, that, both in Vienna and in Paris, all with whom he came into contact, however eminent their situation, or respectable the character which they held in society, had entered into a universal combination to thwart and deceive him; and that he alone pursued an open, honest, and consistent course. This, however, would be a greater stretch of confidence than any individual can hope to receive from an impartial public; and it would, we believe, be easy to show, from an examination of Mesmer’s proceedings, particularly as regards his love of concealment, and his desire for pecuniary reward, that it would be a much higher compliment to his candour and integrity than is merited by him.

Before quitting France definitively, Mesmer went to Spa, partly, it was said, on account of his own health, and partly that he might complete the cures of some of his patients. Whilst there, he learnt that Μ. d’Eslon, on being summoned before the Medical Faculty to make his recantation, or have his name erased from the list of its members, so far from renouncing animal magnetism, had professed himself a practitioner of that art. The faculty, upon this declaration, deprived Μ. d’Eslon of his title of doctor regent, and afterwards adopted most injudicious andeven discreditable proceedings against a considerable number of its own body, who, on witnessing the effects of Μ. d’Eslon’s magnctical treatment, had become convinced of the efficacy of that mode of practice. On hearing of D’Eslon’s resolution, and the success of his practice in an institution which he had established for that purpose, Mesmer became greatly alarmed and depressed in spiyts, and was often heard to exclaim that he was a ruined man; that he had been cruelly used by those who had betrayed his confidence, and who wished to deprive him of the reward that was due to him for his discoveries. Several of his patients, who believed that they owed to him relief from disease and suffering, sympathized with him in his distress, and became anxious that some means should be devised and adopted to secure the continuance of the benefits of magnetism, and to reward its discoverer. After various deliberations on this subject, it was at last suggested (in 1783, according to Foissac) by Μ. Bergasse, a member of the Faculty of Advocates, who believed himself much indebted to Mesmer for the improvement of his own health, that a subscription should be entered into by a hundred persons, of one hundred louis d’ors each, for the purpose of raising a sum of money to render Mesmer independent in his circumstances, and to enable him to communicate to the public, without injury to himself, the benefits of animal magnetism. This subscription was filled up chiefly by men of rank and fashion, and by a few members of the medical profession from Lyons and from other parts of France. Mesmer, who had in the mean time returned to Paris, and opened a magnetic institution, seems to have commenced his lectures and course of clinical instruction about the beginning of April 1784, and to have continued it for a period of nearly two months, to the general satisfaction of the public and the high gratification of his pupils. To this there appears to have been only one exception in Μ. Berthollet, afterwards so distinguished as a chemical philosopher, and who, at that time, was physician to the Duke of Orleans, at whose desire he became a subscriber to, and attendant upon Mesmer’s instructions. In about a month after the commencement of the course, Μ. Berthollet gave up attendance, and laid upon Mesmer’s table a declaration to the following effect:—

“After having attended more than the half of Μ. Mesmer’s course, of the month of April 1784; after having been admitted into the wards of cures and crises, where I have been occupied in making observations and experiments; I declare that I have not recognised the existence of the agent named animal magnetism by Μ. Mesmer; that I have considered the doctrine which has been taught us, during the course, as being contrary to the best established truths relative to the system of the world, and to the animal economy in particular; and that I have perceived nothing in the convulsions, spasms, and crises, which are said to be produced by the magnetic processes (when the symptoms actually occurred), which ought not to be altogether attributed to the imagination, to the mechanical effect of the frictions upon very nervous parts, and to that law, long ago recognised, according to which an animal has a tendency to imitate, and to place itself, even involuntarily, in the same position in which it sees another animal, a law on which convulsive diseases so frequently depend. Lastly, I declare that I regard the doctrine of animal magnetism, and the practice to which it leads, as perfectly chimerical; and I consent to any use being henceforward made of this declaration. (Signed) Berthollet. 1sZ May 1784.”

The following circumstances respecting Mesmer’s lectures on animal magnetism are mentioneíl by Μ. Picher-Grandchamp of Lyons, in a letter prefixed to his edition of the Mémoire de F. A. Mesmer sur ses Découvertes, Paris, 182G, and seem worthy of being noticed. The letter is addressed to Μ. Bourdois de la Motte, who was named, in 1825, president of a commission charged by the Royal Academy[7:14:14] of Medicine to examine into animal magnetism. “Courses of that doctrine being announced, and the number of pupils or auditors fixed, MM. Faissole, Orelut, Bonnefoi, and myself, all physicians of Lyons, from the curiosity natural to our profession, set out for Paris, wishing principally, if possible, to augment or correct our medical knowledge. We were, during more than fifteen days, rigorously examined on our attainments in physics, on our capacity and our morality, and admitted as pupils, or adepts if you will, with reciprocal conditions written and signed. We were, if I remember rightly, forty or fifty in number, amongst whom there were physicians, surgeons, advocates, savans, counsellors of parliament, intendants, and persons of high rank. I have lost the printed list which I possessed of all these gentlemen; but my memory recalls the following :— Monseigneur le Duc de Coigni, MM. de Montesquiou, de Lafayette, de Puysegur, de Chatelux, Bergasse, the first commissary of police, Μ. Judel (formerly a deputy, now physician at Versailles), the late Prince de Condé, the present Duc de Bourbon, and others. The course lasted two months, and a treatment, established in the saloons and chambers of crises, as they were called, joined at the same time practice to theory. I have never yet heard that any member of that brilliant and honourable assembly has not remained perfectly convinced of the reality of an active principle, and of the great utility of the discovery. Some select medical men, of whom I had the honour to be one, were alone permitted to enter into the crises chambers, and take the direction of them. This exclusive arrangement did not aftect their serene highnesses Monseigneurs de Condé and de Bourbon. There, agitations, sweats, crises by all the emunctories, weeping, sleeps, respecting which, for particular reasons, we had not yet been instructed, excited our meditations. Tn the midst of a second course, which we followed with, if possible, still more ardour and assiduity, along with a part of the company who attended the first course, and a new one composed of the same class of persons, it was proposed that these courses, and the doctrine in general, should be printed. A decided and successfill opposition was made to this proposition, particularly on the part of some savans and gentlemen of the court, resting on the following considerations: ‘ Medicine,’ they said, ‘ has lost much of its consideration, of the kind of reverence which surrounded its existence and decrees, of the public esteem and confidence with which it was honoured, since the art of printing has revealed the whole science, its maxims, its fundamental truths, its faults, its errors, and even its occult and mysterious practices. All this is now in the hands of the whole world. Ignorance and avarice there unceasingly search for maxims which they travesty, as well as tor receipts and remedies called secret; hence a general and fearful empiricism. The educated physician has continually to contend against the prejudices, the errors, the preventions, and the obstinacy of patients, in consequence of this vulgar publicity; and science loses its true lustre and its value, seeing itself, too, every day turned into ridicule upon the stage, and that even by writers of note.’ Cette sortie fut frappante. It was determined, that without regard to the expense, all the elements, principles, and applications of this new science should be carefully engraved; that in order to preserve to them a suitable and merited dignity, only one copy should be delivered to those who should be collectively authorized to establish a magnetical institution and courses of instruction, in some towns that were fixed upon. We (the physicians of Lyons) acquired one of these copies, secured against an indiscreet publicity by the precaution of having the essential and technical words expressed by figures or signs, of which we were furnished with the key. Hence the reasons why a sort of mystery has surrounded that science and its practice, which undoubtedly would have been always very useful in the exercise of ordinary medicine. As survivor, I possess this engraved work in all its integrity.” “I have the honour to offer to you, and to the commission over which you are to preside, this engraved work in all its purity and integrity; and at the same time to deliver to you the key. It contains the whole system, the whole doctrine, the processes, and the other elements of which this science consists.”

We are not aware that this mysterious volume has yet seen the light. It appears, however, that Mesmer dictated to his pupils a series of propositions, exhibiting a general view of his system and practice, upon which he commented in his lectures. These were published at Paris in the course of the same year (1784), by Μ. Caullet de Veau-morel, under the title of Aphorismes de Μ. Mesmer.

Towards the conclusion of these courses, a quarrel arose between Mesmer and his pupils, who had formed themselves into a society, under the name of the Society of Harmony. The pupils conceived that they had acquired a right to diffuse the knowledge of animal magnetism, and wished for that purpose to institute a public course of instruction for those who were desirous to be initiated in its doctrines and practices; whilst Mesmer maintained that they had come under an obligation of secrecy to him, and though they might practise animal magnetism in isolated cases, from motives of benevolence, that they were bound by their engagements not to communicate a knowledge of his discoveries to others without his consent and approbation. Those who are curious will find an account of this quarrel in Bertrand’s History of Animal Magnetism It may be mentioned, however, that Μ. Bergasse, the originator of the subscription, published a memoir in justification of the Society of Harmony. The issue of the quarrel was, that Mesmer endeavoured, though without success, to raise subscriptions for courses of instruction throughout several towns in France, at half the price that had been paid for his instructions in Paris; whilst the Society of Harmony patronised a public course on animal magnetism, given by Μ. Desprémenil, one of their own members, and opened establishments to the number of thirty, for the practice of animal magnetism in various towns of France, and in other parts of the Continent.

We have already hinted at the considerations on which Mesmer, in removing to Paris, might have rested his hopes of success in that quarter; and the circumstances we have mentioned show that such anticipations, if formed, did not fail to be realised. It has been justly observed by a late author on animal magnetism, that “the progress of animal magnetism in Paris was greatly accelerated in consequence of the successful magnetic treatment of some patients from amongst the more respectable classes of society, who published accounts of their cures; and, being astonished at the result of the means employed, took occasion to bestow the most extravagant panegyrics upon Mesmer and his remedial art.” “It is a very great mistake to suppose that all learned and intelligent men were opposed to the doctrine of Mesmer. On the contrary, he had a considerable number of adherents amongst the most respectable and best-educated classes of society Μ. de Segur the elder, formerly ambassador from France at the court of St Petersburg, in his amusing publication entitled Mémoires, informs us that he himself was one of the most zealous disciples of Mesmer, as were also MM. de Gebelin, Olavides, Desprémenil, de Jaucourt, de Chas-tellux, de Choiseul Gouffier, de Lafayette, and many others, all enlightened and talented men.” It has not been in the case of Mesmer alone that the higher classes of society have shown a discreditable facility in listening to those who have pretended to possess extraordinary powers in curing diseases. The following anecdote, related by Madame Campan in her Journal, whilst it throws some [7:14:15]light on Mesmer’s proceedings, reminds us in a lively manner that the importance of testimony in matters of this kind, is not in all cases to be estimated by the rank, nor even by the general intelligence, of the person by whom it is given. “At the time,” says she, “when Mesmer made so much noise at Paris with his magnetism, Μ. Campan was his partisan, like every person who moved in high life; to be magnetised was-then a fashion. In the drawing-room nothing was talked of but the new discovery; people’s heads were turned, and their imaginations heated to the highest degree. To accomplish this object, it was necessary to bewilder the understanding; and Mesmer with his singular language produced that effect. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand difficulty, and it was proposed to have the secret purchased by the court. Mesmer fixed his claims at a very extravagant rate; however, he was offered fifty thousand crowns. By a singular chance, I was one day led into the midst of the persons under magnetic influence. Such was the enthusiasm of the numerous spectators, that in most of them I could observe a wild rolling of the eye, and a convulsed movement of the countenance. A stranger might have fancied himself amidst the unfortunate patients of Charenton (a lunatic asylum in the neighbourhood of Paris). Surprised and shocked at seeing so many people almost in a state of delirium, I withdrew full of reflections on the scene I had just witnessed. It happened that about this time my husband was attacked with a pulmonary disorder, and he desired that he might be conveyed to Mesmer’s house. Being introduced into the apartment occupied by Μ. Campan, I asked the worker of miracles what treatment he proposed to adopt. He very coolly replied, that to insure a speedy and perfect cure, it would be necessary to lay in the bed of the invalid, at his left side, one of three things; namely, a young woman of brown complexion, a black hen, or an empty bottle, ‘ Sir,’ said I, ‘ if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray try the empty bottle.’ Μ. Campan’s side grew worse, he experienced a difficulty of breathing and a pain in his chest; all the magnetic remedies that were employed produced no effect. Perceiving his failure, Mesmer took advantage of the period of my absence, to bleed and blister the patient. Mesmer asked for a certificate to prove that the patient had been cured by means of magnetism only, and Μ. Campan gave it. Here was a trait of enthusiasm; truth was no longer respected. When I next presented myself to the queen, their majesties asked what I thought of Mesmer’s discovery. I informed them of what had taken place, earnestly expressing my indignation at the conduct of the bare-faced quack. It was immediately determined to have nothing more to do with him.”

It was in this divided and uncertain state of the public mind, and when the subscription for Mesmer’s first course of lectures was in progress, that commissioners to investigate the nature and effects of animal magnetism were appointed by the government. On the 12th of March 1784, the king named four members of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, MM. Sallin, d’Arect, Guillotin, and Majault, to enter into the examination, and to lay before him an account of animal magnetism as practised by Μ. d’Eslon; and, on the petition of these physicians, his majesty associated with them in this examination five members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, MM. Franklin, le Roi, Bailly, de Bory, and Lavoisier. On the 5th of April following, MM. Poissonnier, Caille, Mauduit, Andry, and Jussieu, were named by the Baron de Brĕteuil, agreeably to the orders of the king, as a commission of the Royal Society of Medicine, likewise to follow Μ. d’Eslon’s practice in the application of animal magnetism to the treatment of diseases, and to report upon it. The medical men in these two commissions have been represented by some as persons who were prejudiced against animal magnetism, and all those who practised it; but we have not been able to discover any proofs of their having yielded to such prejudices, either in the trials to which they subjected animal magnetism, or in the accounts which they gave of these trials. Of the members of the Academy of Sciences who were conjoined with the first commission, three of them at least, MM. Bailly, Lavoisier, and Benjamin Franklin, must be allowed to have been no incompetent judges in matters of science, observation, or common sense; and they cannot be suspected of having been influenced in the judgment which their examination led them to form of the nature and merits of Mesmer’s discoveries, by any feelings of professional jealousy. In the introduction to an English translation of the report of the joint commission of the Faculty of Medicine and Academy of Sciences, published at London in 1785, it is stated (p. xv.) that “Μ. Mesmer refused to have any communication with these gentlemen (the commissioners); but Μ. d’Eslon, the most considerable of his pupils, consented to disclose to them his principles, and assist them in their inquiries.” How far this statement is correct, we are unable to say; but certain it is that the commissions, as issued, were for the examination of animal magnetism as practised by D’Eslon. On the same day on which the royal commission to the Faculty of Medicine is dated, Μ. Thouret was desired by the Royal Society of Medicine to draw up and communicate to them a history of animal magnetism, a subject on which he was known to have been for a long time engaged.

These commissions occasioned the production of no fewer than five separate reports. The first, that of Μ. Thourct, was given in to the Royal Society of Medicine on the 9th July 1784; the second, a report to the government, for publication, by the joint commission of the members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and of the Faculty of Medicine, was dated the 4th of August following; the third, a private report, by the same commissioners, to the king, of the same date, treated of some particular effects of animal magnetism; the fourth, the report of the Royal Society of Medicine to the government, was dated 16th of August; and the fifth, a separate report by Jussieu, one of the commissioners of that society, who held some opinions peculiar to himself, was dated 12th of September. These reports exercised a most important influence on the opinions of a great portion of the public, and on the manner in which magnetism was afterwards practised in the different countries of Europe; and we shall therefore endeavour, as briefly as possible, to make our readers acquainted with their contents.

The report of the commissioners of the Faculty of Medicine and Academy of Sciences, whom we shall in future designate as the joint commissioners, is understood to have been drawn up by Μ. Bailly, whose various writings, particularly those relating to astronomy, sufficiently establish his claims to the character of a philosopher; as his conduct during the progress of the French Revolution, up to the period when he became the victim of its barbarities, justly entitle him to the appellation of a virtuous patriot. The more popular style of this report, and the greater celebrity of some of those from whom it proceeded, have thrown comparatively into the shade the report presented by the commission of the Society of Medicine. Yet it is impossible to read the latter document without coming to the conviction that it is the production of men thoroughly versed both in theoretical and practical medicine.

Die title of Μ. 1 houret’s report, Researches and Doubts on Animal Magnetism, indicates the two objects which the author had in view in its composition^ In the historical part, or researches, Μ. Thouret undertakes to prove that the doctrine of animal magnetism announced by Mesmer as an entirely new discovery, had prevailed very generally, [7:14:16]under the same name, during a century at least, having been adopted by a great number of partisans, and made the subject of numerous dissertations and writings. By passing successively in review the several propositions to which Mesmer had reduced his system, Μ. Thouret endeavours to show that there existed not only a general similarity of doctrine between Mesmer and former writers on magnetic medicine, particularly Kircher, Maxwell, and Santanelli, but also the strictest conformity between them in matters of detail. A similar and not less able review of Mesmer’s propositions is to be found in an anonymous work, entitled Anti-Magnétisme, ou Origine·, Progrès, Decadence, Renouvellement, et Refutation du Magnétisme Animal, à Londres, 1784. In the critical part of his report, or the doubts which he suggests regarding the correctness of Mesmer’s views, Μ. Thouret briefly illustrates the sources of fallacy to which we are exposed in attributing the effects which manifested themselves, during the operations of the magnetisers, to the agency of a single and peculiar principle, and points out distinctly various ways in which these effects might be accounted for, independently of such an agent. “Ces details,” says he towards the conclusion of his work, “paroitront peut-être bien rigoureux, mais ils m’ont semblé nécessaires. Ils font naitre au moins une réflexion qu’il est en général utile de présenter. C’est que pour déterminer la confiance dans une doctrine, il ne suffit pas de répéter qu’il y a des faits en sa faveur. N’en a-t-on pas cité à l’appui de toutes les impostures ?” “On parle toujours de faits, on parle sans cesse d’observer. Mais il y a peut-être autant de fausses observations, qu’on a fait des faux raisonnemens. Tout dépend d’une chose dans ces deux objets, de la manière d’y procéder. Il est aussi commun, aussi possible d’observer mal, que de mal raisonner. Ce n’est done ni à l’apparence ni à la multitude des faits qu’ on doit s’arrêter; mais à leur qualité, à leur nature particulière. C’est ici la discussion qui doit terminer, et non la première apparence. On a été tant de fois séduit par des tentatives du même genre, qu’on a droit d’exiger de la sévérité dans l’examen, et de mettre de la reserve dans sa croyance.”

The doubts which it was the province of Μ. Thouret merely to suggest, or at most to illustrate from the previous records of medicine, the other commissioners were called upon, by the nature of their appointment, to bring to the test of practical observation and experiment. But before noticing the judgments which the commissioners have expressed respecting animal magnetism, we shall quote from the reports their accounts of the practices which they saw employed for its administration, and of the effects which they saw to result from their employment.

With regard to the arrangements of the apartments in which the magnetic practices were conducted, the commissioners of the Iloyal Society of Medicine mention the following particulars: “Is/, A vessel of wood, closed above, very large, of an oval form, about twenty-four inches in height, which has been called the bucket (baquet), occupies the middle of the apartment. The lid which covers the bucket is pierced on its borders, and throughout its whole circumference, with holes, whence there arise rods of polished iron, of the thickness of the finger, terminating in a rounded point, bent, and alternately a long and a short one. ¶he extremities of the rods can at pleasure be plunged into the bucket, drawn back, or entirely removed. At the base of the rods are attached long cords, nearly of the same thickness as the rods themselves. 2d , The patients are placed around the bucket; they are seated on chairs, each separately, and form, according to their number, one, two, or three rows. Each patient directs the extremity of one of the iron rods towards the part which is regarded as the seat of his ailment, and applies it to that part. They at the same time make several coils of the cord attached to the rod round the parts in which they usually experience pains, or which they believe to be affected with disease. The bucket is regarded by the persons who employ animal magnetism, as being suited for collecting and concentrating the fluid or agent the existence of which they assume; being, according to them, as it were, a reservoir. The iron rods and the cords are considered as conductors. It is important to mention, that we have not observed any proof of these assertions, nor been furnished with any. The bucket accordingly is not considered as essential, but only as accessory. 3d , The doors and windows of the apartment are kept closed; curtains prevent the entrance of more than a soft and feeble light; silence is observed, the only conversation being in a low tone; all noise and tumult are forbidden. From these precautions it results, first, that the atmosphere becomes heated, and the patients respire a heavy and vitiated air, such as is met with in all close places in which a great number of people are assembled; and, second, that the appearance of the apartment predisposes to reflection and meditation; the spectacle before their eyes is in general that of persons in suffering, and who have a melancholy aspect; the only distraction from this picture is the manipulations practised by the magnetisers, or the agitation and movements of the magnetised, who fall into convulsions; the quiet which prevails is interrupted only by yawnings, sighs, sobbings, lamentations, sometimes cries, in short, by the different expressions of exhaustion or pain. In some apartments there is a pianoforte, on which a number of airs are performed, particularly towards the termination of the sittings. Mlι, Servants supply the patients, when they ask for drink, with water in which cream of tartar has been dissolved.”

As to the mode in which the magnetic fluid or influence is transmitted to the person or persons to be magnetised, the same commissioners mention that “there are two ways of magnetising; by immediate contact, and by the direction of a finger, or of a conductor at some distance. Is/, The most ordinary process, in magnetising by contact, consists in applying the hands to the hypochondria, the extremities of the fingers being directed towards the umbilicus. Frequently the thumbs, or the extremities of the two fore-fingers, are applied to the epigastrium. It is likewise common to place the hands upon the region of the kidneys, particularly in magnetising women. The other parts that are touched are determined by the seat of the disease; but whatever be the part operated on, besides simple contact, frictions are performed over a larger or smaller extent of surface, and with more or less force, and these are practised particularly upon the umbilical and epigastric regions. 2d , In magnetising at a certain distance, the finger or a conductor is presented under the nostrils, at the mouth or eyes, at the bottom of the neck, and, behind, between the shoulders. The finger or conductor is presented also on the crown of the head, forehead, and behind the head. They are carried likewise in the direction of the arms, along the sides of the body, and upon the thighs and legs; sometimes the straight or elongated fingers are brought near to, but not in contact with, one another, and the hands are shaken as if the operator were making hasty sprinklings of the fluid, which is supposed to emanate from the fingers that are shaken. When the patients have fallen into convulsions, the magnetising is usually continued by contact with one hand, and at a certain distance by means of the other. Whilst this latter operation is continued, the patients have, at intervals, remissions and fresh paroxysms of convulsions.”

Of the perceptible effects produced upon those who are magnetised, the joint commission of the Faculty of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences has given the following account: “The patients present a very varied spectacle, [7:14:17]from the difference of their conditions. Some of them are calm, tranquil, and unconscious of an effect; others cough, spit, feel some slight pain, a local or a universal heat, and are thrown into perspiration; others are agitated and tormented by convulsions. These convulsions are extraordinary, from their number, their duration, and their violence. As soon as one convulsion commences, several others succeed. The commissioners have seen some last for more than three hours; they are accompanied with the expectoration of a turbid and viscid water, brought away by the violence of the efforts. Sometimes streaks of blood are to be seen in the expectoration, and, amongst other cases, they saw a young man wdio frequently brought up blood in considerable quantity. The convulsions are characterised by rapid involuntary motions of all the extremities, and of the whole body, by a sense of suffocation, by subsultusof the hypochondria and epigastrium, by distraction and wildness of the eyes, by piercing cries, weeping, hiccoughing, and immoderate laughter. They are preceded or followed by a state of languor or reverie, by a sort of dejection, and even drowsiness. The smallest unexpected noise occasions startings, and it has been remarked, that changing the key and the time of the airs played on the pianoforte had an effect on the patients, so that they became still more agitated with a quicker motion, and the vivacity of their convulsions was renewed. Nothing,” add the commissioners, “can be more astonishing than the sight of these convulsions. Without having seen it, it is impossible to form an idea of it; and in beholding it, one is equally surprised by the profound repose of one portion of these patients, and by the agitation manifested by the others, by the repetition of the various phenomena, and by the sympathies that are developed. Patients are seen seeking each other exclusively, and in precipitating themselves towards one another, smiling, conversing affectionately, and mutually soothing each other’s crises. All are under the authority of the magnétiser; and though they may appear to be in a state of extreme drowsiness, his voice, or a look or sign from him, rouses them from it. It is impossible not to recognise, in these constant effects, a great power which agitates the patients, and obtains the mastery over them, and of which the magnétiser appears to be the depositary.”

With regard to the persons who fall into those convulsive movements that have been called crises, the commissioners of the Society of Medicine make the following importantstatements: “1st, That this occurs only to persons who, whether from constitution or from the effect of disease, are exceedingly sensitive: 2d , That persons do not fall into convulsions till after having been submitted for a longer or shorter time to the processes of animal magnetism by immediate contact; it being so rare to meet with persons in whom this state is produced by the simple direction of the finger, or of a conductor, that scarcely any examples of it are referred to: 3d , That persons, even though very sensitive, who are magnetised separately, with difficulty, and very seldom, experience convulsions, whilst, when the same persons are magnetised in a place where a number of patients are collected together, they are sooner and more frequently thrown into convulsions: 4√A, That there are much fewer men than women susceptible of convulsions, and more women in affluent than in indigent circumstances: and, 5th, That it is not till after having remained for some length of time in the place where the magnetising is carried on, that the persons who fall into convulsions become thus affected.”

We shall next state, in distinct propositions, what appear to have been the results of the experimental investigations instituted upon this occasion, and illustrate each of them by a few examples. On most points there is a perfect agreement in the statements contained in the several reports.

I. It is established in all of them, that the magnetic fluid, if it exists, is incapable of being recognised by any sensible or physical properties. The joint commissioners inform us, that the first object to which they directed their attention, was to determine how far the existence of magnetism was capable of being demonstrated. They soon satisfied themselves, that if it exists in us and around us, it is in an absolutely insensible manner; it cannot be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, nor touched. Some, indeed, of those who have been magnetised, have said that they have seen it passing out at the extremities of the fingers of the magnétiser, which served as its conductors, or felt its passage when his fingers were moved about before the face or upon the hand; and some, that they had been able to smell the fluid. These observations, the commissioners were convinced, were erroneous, and they have endeavoured to give an explanation of some of the sources of fallacy from which the mistakes had originated. Μ. d’Eslon himself admitted to them, that the only way in which he could demonstrate the existence of the magnetic fluid, was by the changes it produces on animated beings. Similar and corresponding statements on this point are made by the commissioners of the Society of Medicine, and by Μ. Jussieu.

II. It is admitted in all the reports, that many persons who were operated upon exhibited none of the magnetic phenomena. In comparing the results of their experiments, the joint commissioners found, that of fourteen sick persons operated on by them, five only appeared to experience any effect, whilst nine experienced none whatsoever. Of the first-mentioned five, in two the effects were not of a nature to require or admit the supposition of their depending on magnetic influence, so that there were in fact only three out of the fourteen cases in which the agency of magnetism could be supposed to have operated. These three persons were of the lower class of society, and the commissioners were strongly disposed to believe that moral circumstances had had a very principal share in producing the sensations they professed to experience; and the more so, as they found that no effect was produced by the operation of magnetising upon children. To the same purpose the commissioners of the Society of Medicine mention the case of a young lady, sixteen years of age, whose intellectual faculties were impaired, and who was subject to attacks of epilepsy that recurred every three or four days. “On being submitted to the different processes of animal magnetism for sixty-five minutes, this girl did not experience any effect from it; at least she did not make her governess, who is accustomed to judge of her feelings, aware of any, and she had no attack of epilepsy, as, the partisans of magnetism say, should usually happen to those who are subject to it.” Jussieu likewise enumerates a considerable number of instances of persons who were subjected to magnetism, without any effect being produced upon them; and from the number of cases of this kind with which he was acquainted, he expresses his conviction that the magnetic fluid, if it exists, has not, on most meh, whether in a state of health or of disease, an action that can manifest itself by sensible signs.

III. It is distinctly stated in all the reports, that many persons who were led to believe that they were under magnetic operation, when they were not actually so, exhibited precisely the same phenomena as those who were magnetised. The commissioners of the Society of Medicine give an account of two persons whom they had been magnetising, after having blindfolded them, and on whom they ceased to operate without their being aware of it. “Thinking,” they say, “that we were continuing the process of magnetism, they have, during that interruption, which has been of long duration, declared that they experienced sensations in different parts. We have several times,” they add, “repeated and varied, in different persons[7:14:18], in health and in sickness, these experiments, and the results have always been the same.” One of the best ,illustrations that have been given of the production of the so-called magnetic phenomena, independently of magnetic operations, is the following experiment, which is related in the report of the joint commissioners. “When a tree has been touched,” they remark, “according to the principles and method of magnetism, every person who stops under it ought to experience, in a greater or less degree, the effects of this agent; there have been some in this situation who have swooned, or experienced convulsions. We communicated our purpose respecting the following experiment to Μ. d’EsIon, who replied that it ought to succeed, provided the subject operated on were extremely susceptible; and it was agreed with him that it should be performed at Passy, in the presence of Dr Franklin. The necessity that the subject should be susceptible, suggested to the commissioners, that to render the experiment decisive and unanswerable, it was necessary it should be made upon a person chosen by Μ. d’Eslon, and whose susceptibility to the operation of magnetism he had already put to the proof. Μ. d’Eslon, therefore, brought with him a boy of about twelve years of age; an aprico-tree was fixed upon in the orchard of Dr Franklin’s garden, considerably distant from any other tree, and consequently calculated to retain the magnetical power which might be impressed upon it. Μ. d’Eslon was led thither alone to magnetise the tree, the boy in the mean time remaining in the house, and another person along with him. The commissioners could have wished that Μ. d’Eslon had not been present at the subsequent part of the experiment, but he declared that it might fail if he did not direct his cane and his countenance towards the tree, in order to augment the action of the magnetism. It was therefore resolved that Μ. d’Eslon should be placed at the greatest possible distance, and that some of the commissioners should stand between him and the boy, so as to satisfy themselves of the impracticability of any signals being made by Μ. d’Eslon, or of any intelligence being maintained between them. The boy was then brought into the orchard with his eyes covered with the bandage, and presented successively to four trees upon which the operation had not been performed, and caused to embrace each of them for the space of two minutes, agreeably to what had been directed by Μ. d’Eslon himself. Μ. d’Eslon, present, and at a considerable distance, directed his cane towards the tree which was really magnetised. At the first tree, the boy, being interrogated at the end of a minute, declared that he perspired in large drops; he coughed, spat, and complained of a slight pain in his head; his distance from the magnetised tree was about twenty-seven feet. At the second tree he felt stupified, and the pain in his head continued; the distance was thirty-six feet. At the third tree the stupefaction and headach increased considerably; he said that he believed he was approaching to the tree which had been magnetised; he was then about thirty-eight feet from it. Lastly, at the fourth unmagnetised tree, and at the distance of about twenty-four feet from the tree which had been magnetised, the boy fell into a crisis; he fainted away, his limbs stiffened, and he was carried to a neighbouring grass plot, where Μ. d’Eslon hastened to his assistance and recovered him. This experiment,” the commissioners remark, “is entirely conclusive: the boy knew that he was about to be led to a tree upon which the magnetical operation had been performed; his imagination was struck, it was exalted by the successive steps of the operation, and at the fourth tree it was raised to the height necessary to produce the crisis.”

IV. It is established by all the reports, that many persons who were subjected to magnetic operation without their being aware of it, did not exhibit the usual phenomena, even though these same persons had on former trials been found to be very susceptible of magnetic influence. The commissioners of the Society of Medicine mention the case of a woman who complained of oppression and uneasiness whenever she saw the finger of a magnétiser or his conductor directed towards her in front, or perceived that they were presented to her behind; she entreated that the action upon her might be discontinued, as she was about to become sick. “One of us having fixed her looks upon some object, and in this way arrested her attention, another presented his finger behind her for ten minutes without her perceiving it, and without her having said that she had experienced any sensation.” As illustrative of the dependence of the production of the magnetic phenomena on the belief the person entertains of being operated upon, the joint commissioners relate the following very conclusive experiment. Having made choice of two rooms contiguous to each other, and united by a door of communication, they caused the door to be taken away, and a frame of wood substituted in its place, covered with two folds of paper. In one of these rooms was placed a commissioner to make minutes of what might occur, and a lady, who was given out to be just arrived from the country, and to have linen which she wished to be made up. Madlle. B. a sempstress by profession, who had been already employed in the experiments at Passy, and whose sensibility to the magnetism was well known, was sent for. Everything was arranged before her arrival, in such a manner that there was but one seat upon which she could place herself, and that seat stood in the recess of the door of communication, so that she was as if in a niche. The commissioners were in the other room, and one of them, a physician, who had upon former occasions performed the magnetical operation with success, was charged with the magnetising of Madlle. B. through the paper partition. It is a principle in the theory of animal magnetism, that this agent passes through wooden doors, walls, &c. A partition of paper could therefore be no obstacle; besides, Μ. d’Eslon had positively declared that the magnetism passes through paper. Madlle. B. was accordingly magnetised during half an hour, at the distance of a foot and a half. During the operation, she conversed with much gaiety; and, in answer to an inquiry concerning her health, she readily replied that she was perfectly well. At Passy she had fallen into a crisis in the course of three minutes: on the present occasion, when ignorant of the magnetism being applied, she underwent the operation without any effect for thirty minutes. Only one objection, the commissioners conceive, can be suggested to this experiment; that Madlle. B. might at that particular time be indisposed to receive the magnetic fluid, and less susceptible to its operation than usual. The commissioners, foreseeing this objection, made the following experiment. As soon as they had ceased to magnetise the patient through the paper partition, the same commissioner passed into the other room, where he found no difficulty in engaging Madlle. B. to submit to the magnetical operation. It was accordingly repeated in precisely the same manner as in the former experiment, at the same distance of a foot and a half, and by the intervention of gestures only, together with the employment of the right finger and the rod of iron. In three minutes she felt a sensation of uneasiness and suffocation; to these succeeded an interrupted hiccough, a chattering of the teeth, a pressure at the throat, and an extreme pain in her head; she was restless in her chair; she complained of a pain in her loins; now and then she struck her foot with extreme quickness on the floor; afterwards she stretched her arms behind her, twisting them extremely, as she had done at Passy; in a word, the convulsive crisis was complete, and perfectly characterised. All these symptoms appeared in twelve minutes, though the same process employed for [7:14:19]thirty minutes, a little before, had not produced any effects whatever. The commissioner who magnetised her having said aloud ‘ that it was time to have done,’ at the same time continued his magnetic operation in the mode he had practised it through the whole of this experiment; no actual alteration therefore had been made, and the same process being continued, the same impressions ought also to have continued. But the declared intention of the operator was sufficient to put a stop to the crisis; her heat and the pain in lier head ceased. i The magnetist pursued the malady from place to place, announcing at the same time that it was going to disappear. In this way the contraction of the throat ceased, and then successively the affections of the breast, of the stomach, and of the arms. The whole required only three minutes, after which Madile. B. declared that she no longer felt any sensation, but was perfectly restored to her usual state.

V. It is distinctly shown in all the reports, that mistakes analogous to those mentioned in the two last articles were committed by many persons as to the seat in which they experienced magnetic sensations; that is, from misconception as to the proceedings of the magnétiser, these persons experienced sensations in parts not operated on, and none in parts against which the magnetic conductor was directed. The joint commissioners mention the case of a woman, who, on being magnetised on the forehead, but without touching her, said that she felt a sensation of heat. Μ. Jumelin, the magnétiser, moving about his hand, and presenting the five extremities of his fingers over the whole of her face, she said that she felt as if a flame were moving from place to place. On being magnetised upon the stomach, she said that she felt heat there; when magnetised on the back, she said she felt the same heat there; she likewise declared that she felt hot in every part of her body, and that her head ached. But when this woman was blindfolded and magnetised, the phenomena no longer corresponded to the places against which the magnetism was directed. Being magnetised successively on the stomach and on the back, she felt only heat in the head, pain in the right eye, and in the left eye and ear. Her eyes being unbandaged, and Μ. Jumelin having applied his hands upon her hypochondria, she said she felt heat there; and some minutes afterwards she said she was becoming sick, and this was found actually to be the case. On her recovery, her eyes were again bound, Μ. Jumelin was removed, silence ordered, and the woman made to believe that she was again magnetised. The effects were the same, though she was not acted upon either near or at a distance; she experienced the same heat, the same pain in the eyes and ears; and she also felt heat in the back and in the kidneys. After a quarter of an hour had elapsed, a sign was made to Μ. Jnmelin to magnetise her on the stomach; she felt nothing of it; and when magnetised on the back, was actually insensible to it. The sensations diminished instead of increasing; the pains of the head continued; the heat in the back and in the kidneys ceased. “Two men,” say the commissioners of the Society of Medicine, “one of them still young, and from birth very sensitive and irritable, the other older, and in a state of bad health, both declared that they experienced sensations in the parts against which the finger or a conductor was directed. Their sensations appeared to correspond to the different movements that were executed. We bandaged their eyes, and during all the time that we kept them deprived of light, the sensations which these two men declared they experienced no longer corresponded regularly with the different movements which we executed. They frequently named a part as the scat of a sensation whilst we were operating on a very distant part, in which they said they felt nothing.”

VI. From the results of the experiments which they witnessed, the joint commissioners of the Faculty of Medicine and Academy of Sciences, and the commissioners of the Society of Medicine, with the exception of Μ. Jussieu, considered themselves as authorized to conclude that the effects upon the human economy attributed by Mesmer and his followers to the influence of animal magnetism, ought to be ascribed to other causes, and particularly to the handlings and frictions practised by the operators, to the influence of imagination, and to the principle of instinctive imitation or sympathy. Μ. Jussieu, whilst he allowed that a large portion of the phenomena that were observed in the course of the investigation ought to be accounted for upon these principles, conceived that in a small number of instances the phenomena could not be so explained, and that, for the explanation of these, some other principle must be had recourse to. Of such instances he has mentioned only four, the two most specious of which we shall now lay before our readers, to enable them to judge of the character of the facts that made Jussieu conceive it necessary to admit the agency of a principle different from those which his brother commissioners w ere disposed to recognise, as producing the extraordinary phenomena that presented themselves during the so-called magnetic processes. We may here remark, however, that Jussieu did not think it necessary to admit, with Mesmer, the existence or agency of the magnetic, or, as he terms it, an undemonstrated universal fluid; but that he attributed the influence which, from the facts alluded to, he supposed one individual to be capable of exerting over another, to the animal heat existing in bodies, which, he says, emanates from them continually, is conveyed to a considerable distance, and may pass from one body to another.

“Having placed myself,” says Μ. Jussieu, “on one side of the bucket, opposite to a woman whose blindness, occasioned by two very thick specks, had been a month before ascertained by the commissioners, I saw her during a whole quarter of an hour very tranquil, appearing more occupied with the iron rod of the bucket directed upon her eyes thanΛvith the conversation of the other patients. At a time when the noise of voices was suflicient to put her hearing at fault, I directed, at the distance of six feet, a rod upon her stomach, which I knew to be very sensitive. At the end of three minutes she appeared restless and agitated; she turned about on her chair, and declared that some one placed behind or alongside of her was magnetising her, though I had previously taken the precaution to remove all persons who might have rendered the experiment doubtful. Her restlessness ceased almost immediately after my movements were discontinued, and she became tranquil as before, particularly when she was assured that there was neither patient nor medical man behind her. Fifteen minutes afterwards, taking advantage of the same circumstances, I renewed the trial, which afforded exactly the same result.”

“The crisis of another female patient was a general spasm, accompanied with a transient loss of the senses, without any violent motion. The head was carried forwards, the eyes were shut, the arms thrown backwards and extended along the sides, the hands open, the fingers much separated. When my finger was placed upon her forehead, between the eyes, it appeared to soothe her a little. If I drew it gently away, the head, though no longer in contact, followed it mechanically in all sorts of directions, till it came again to rest upon it. If, after having thus directed lier head to one side, I presented my other hand at the distance of an inch from her opposite hand, she drew it back precipitately, with marks of a smart impression. These movements have been repeated three or four times in ten minutes; but at the end of this time the spasm diminishing, the sensibility to the impression of the finger was no longer the same. When she recovered from this state, the patient was ignorant of what had taken place. I have made this [7:14:20]trial a single time. Its completeness was owing to my having observed the same phenomena a month before, in watching the same crisis produced by another physician. It is proper to add, that this patient had returned to the treatment that same day, after having been in the country for three weeks, during which she said she had experienced no crisis.”

It is impossible, we conceive, to read these narratives of Μ. Jussieu, without feeling that the consideration to which they arc entitled is most materially diminished by the circumstance of no mention being made of any persons by whom the experiments were witnessed. If the other commissioners were present when these experiments were performed, it must be inferred, from their silence respecting them, that they were not satisfied of their accuracy. If, again, they were made in the absence of his colleagues in the commission, and rest solely upon Μ. Jussieu’s authority, then, with perfect confidence in his veracity, and every disposition to give him credit for sagacity and accuracy of observation, it is obvious that the very nomination of a commission implies the importance of several persons being present at an investigation of this kind, to secure against deception on the one hand, or mistake upon the other. The perusal of the cases suggests, too, the observation, that it is not on the credibility of Μ. Jussieu, but on that of the subjects of his experiments, that their value depends; for Μ. Jussieu seems to have taken the good faith of these persons for granted, without enforcing those prudent precautions which, as is well observed in the report of the joint commissioners, “in an experiment that ought to be authentic, are indispensable without being offensive.”

In regard to the first of the cases we have quoted, Μ. Jussieu states, in general terms, that none of the precautions possible on such an occasion had been neglected; that he was satisfied that the patient had derived no other advantage from the treatment she had undergone, than an obscure and confused perception of certain objects at a distance of three or four inches; that the light fell laterally upon her and upon himself; that he could not suspect collusion on the part either of the patients, who were occupied with some totally different object, or of the medical men recently admitted to follow the treatment, and who sought only to see the effects; and, lastly, that one of the chefs de la salle was present, but always by his side, observing silence, and allowing him to operate at his pleasure. Now, it must be apparent to every one that these were not all the precautions possible or desirable in a matter of this kind. If the specks allowed of a slight degree of vision at a distance of three or four inches, we know no reason why they should prevent such a degree of vision at the distance of six feet, as would advertise her of the presence of Μ. Jussieu and his magnetic rod. It would have been satisfactory, therefore, that the eyes of this woman had been covered with a bandage, as was done by the joint commissioners in experimenting upon a woman who had specks upon her eyes. 1 his suggests the inquiry whether the same person was the subject of the experiments of the commissioners and of Μ. Jussieu. The woman operated on by the commissioners afforded ample proof how much she was under the influence of the imagination, and how necessary was the precaution of the application of the bandage. It is to be regretted, too, that Μ. Jussieu had not taken the precaution to remove all bystanders whose services he did not require, and in whom he could not place unlimited confidence.

In the second case, also, those precautions seem to have been omitted which would have been essential to the validity of the experiment. Μ. Jussieu assumed that the patient did not perceive the motions of his hand, because there was transient loss of the senses, and her eyes were shut; and because, on recovering from the state of insensibility, she declared that she was ignorant of what had taken place. Μ. Bertrand conceives that all the difficulties of this case are got rid of by assuming that the patient was in a state bordering upon somnambulism. To us, we confess, the symptoms of the crisis during which Μ. Jussieu’s experiments were performed, seem to bear a striking resemblance to those which are frequently observed in a paroxysm of ordinary hysteria, in the course of which the patient, though presenting the appearance of insensibility, is often quite aware of the conversation and actions of those by whom∙ she is surrounded. Μ. Jussieu does not attempt to determine whether the motions of the head in this case are to be attributed to a physical attraction exerted over it by the magnetising finger, or to an instinctive motion of the muscles, calculated, if not intended, to retain to the head that soothing influence which it seemed to experience from the finger being brought into contact with it. Nor does he seem to have endeavoured to ascertain whether any other part of the body, besides the head, as the hand or foot, for example, would have undergone similar motions in similar circumstances. In mentioning, indeed, that painful and diseased organs not unfrequentlŷ experience a smart impression, or even a burning heat, from the contact of the finger or rod, Μ. Jussieu adds, that sometimes the tumour, when thus heated, advances and rolls under the finger, and appears for an instant to increase in size. These two effects, he says, he had several times produced. Similar effects, it may be remarked, are alluded to by Thourct, as having occurred in his experiments with artificial magnets. But to establish the reality of such a phenomenon would require a kind of evidence more extensive and precise than that by which this extraordinary fact has hitherto been attested. This fact, however, of the movement of parts of the body to which magnets or magnetic rods are applied, towards these substances, must either be admitted to be true, or be regarded, as we suspect it well may, as a fallacy engendered in the imagination of the observers.

Upon the whole, then, we cannot but concur with Μ. Bertrand, in the judgments which he has pronounced both with regard to the particular facts on which Μ. Jussieu has grounded his difference of opinion from his colleagues, and on the general tendency of his report. Of the first, Bertrand remarks, that “these facts, which would be so important if they were established in a way to leave no doubt, are unquestionably too few in number to produce conviction.” “It is very unfortunate that Μ. Jussieu, in the course of five months, during which he attended very assiduously at the public treatments, has not been able, out of a very great number of patients, to collect more than this small number of facts in favour of the hypothesis of a particular agent.” Respecting the general tendency of Μ. Jussieu’s report, Μ. Bertrand observes, that it “contains all that a judicious, well-informed, and impartial observer, aided besides with all imaginable facilities for the examination of animal magnetism, could find in the way of arguments in its favour. Yet this report, made in such friendly intentions, but made by a man who placed the interest of truth before everything else, was much more opposed than favourable to the pretensions of the magnetisers.”

VII. With regard to the consideration of the curative influence of animal magnetism, the two commissions proceeded differently, each, however, pursuing the mode of investigation best suited to his habits of study and experience. The joint commissioners remark, that “there are two different ways in which the action of magnetism upon animated bodies may be observed; fi ∣ sl, by its curative effects, when pursued for a length of time, in the treatment of diseases; or, second, by its more speedy effects [7:14:21]upon the animal economy, and the observable changes which it produces upon that economy.” Μ. d’Eslon insisted that the first of these methods sìioiild be principally and almost exclusively followed in their examination; but this the joint commissioners declined, from the consideration of the uncertainty that in all cases exists, even when recovery takes place during the use of particular remedies, how much of the cure is attributable to the efforts of nature, and how much to the action of the remedies employed. “The treatment of diseases,” they observe, “can furnish only results that are always uncertain and often deceptive; nor could this uncertainty be dissipated, and every cause of fallacy obviated, but by an infinity of cures, and perhaps by the experience of several ages. The object and the importance of the commission require prompter means of decision. The commissioners felt it incumbent upon them, therefore, to confine themselves to proofs purely physical, that is to say, to the instantaneous effects of the fluid upon the animal body, excluding from these effects all the fallacies that might mix with them, and satisfying themselves that they could proceed from no other cause than animal magnetism.”

But whilst the joint commissioners confined their observations to the immediate effects produced on those who are magnetised, the commissioners of the Society of Medicine, agreeably with their instructions, extended their observations to the employment and effects of magnetism in the treatment of diseases. In communicating the results of their observations as to the effects of magnetism considered as a therapeutic agent, they divide the classes of cases in which they saw it employed, under three heads: Isř, Patients whose affections were evident, and had a known cause; t Hdly, those whose slight ailments consisted in indefinite affections, without any determinate cause; and, Qdly, melancholics. Of the patients of the first class, those whose affections were evident and had a known cause, they state that they had seen none cured or manifestly relieved, though they had followed the magnetical treatment of them during four months, and learned that some of them had been under treatment for more than a year. They remark, however, that even though there had been, as they were assured, some patients of that class cured before the appointment of the commission, no conclusion should be deduced from this, because the examples that could be cited must be few in number, and because, of a multitude of patients brought together at hazard, nature cures some, and that often in a shorter space of time than is employed in the treatment by animal magnetism. As to the patients of the second class, those having slight and indefinite ailments, the commissioners state that they have seen several who assured them that they felt their health improved, that they had more appetite and better digestion, &c. These patients, the commissioners observe, are not of the number of those who experience convulsions; whether that no attempt is made to produce those in them, or that by their constitution or the state of their health they are not disposed to undergo them. The commissioners point out various circumstances which may have operated in producing the improvement in the health of this class of patients. “As to the third class of patients, the melancholics, it is well known,” they remark, “how easy it is to afflict such persons, to console them, to suspend for some time their sufferings, to occupy them, to distract them, and, in short, how little we must depend on their testimonies, on their cure, and on the success obtained in the treatment of their diseases.”

Μ. Jussieu, after giving a short account of the therapeutical effects which seemed to result from the magnetical treatment, and of the diseases in which it appeared to prove beneficial, proceeds, in conformity to his general doctrine, to endeavour to prove that these effects are referrible to the transmission of animal heat. “The facts quoted,” says ’ he, “prove in general the tonic action of the remedy (moyen) employed. I have not been x able to attribute to other causes the improved health which I observed in some of the patients. Undoubtedly the imagination, the exercise necessary for going to the place of treatment, the abstinence from every other remedy which might fatigue the body, the relaxation of mind resulting from the assemblage of several persons, the pleasure which music excites, and the habitual use of the cream of tartar administered in this treatment, are means which sometimes add much to the action of the principal remedy; but it would be unnatural to suppose them sufficient in all cases. In reflecting on all these effects,” he continues, “it is easy to perceive that they are determined by a physical cause, which is animal heat, and that this heat forms the basis of the magnetical treatment.”

VIII. The commissioners pointed out two kinds of dangers as liable to result from the practice of animal magnetism, in the mode in which they saw it conducted, one affecting the health, and the other the morals, of the persons operated upon. The dangers which the joint commissioners apprehended might result to the health of those who were subjected to the magnetical operations, were of two kinds; ist, the immediate injury liable to result in many cases from the violence of the crises, as they were called, or the convulsions, &c. into which the patients were thrown; and, 2dly, the liability of a habit of experiencing such convulsions being established in the economy. “The imagination of sick persons,” they remark, “has unquestionably, in many instances, great influence in the cure of their diseases. Its effect is known only by a general experience, and has not been determined by positive experiments; but it does not seem to admit of doubt. It is a well known adage, that in medicine men are saved by faith; this faith is the product of the imagination; in this case the imagination acts only by mild means.” “But when the imagination produces convulsions, it acts by violent means, and these means arc almost always injurious. There are a very few cases in which they may be useful; there are desperate cases in which il faut tout troubler pour ordonner tout de nouveau. These dangerous shocks are to be had recourse to in medicine in the same way as poisons. They must be required by imperious necessity, and employed with the greatest reserve. The need for them is momentary; the shock ought to be single. Far from repeating it, the wise physician occupies himself with the means of repairing the necessary evil which it has produced. But in the public practice of magnetism, the crises are repeated every day, they are long-continued, and severe in degree.” And again, “Who will assure us that this state of crises, at first voluntarily induced, shall not become habitual? And if this habit, thus contracted, frequently reproduces the same symptoms, in spite of the will, and almost without the assistance of the imagination, what would be the fate of an individual subjected to these violent crises, tormented physically and morally by their unfortunate impression, whose days are divided between apprehension and pain, and whose life is only an uninterrupted punishment? These diseases of the nerves, when occurring naturally, are the opprobrium of medicine; how little ought it to be the object of art to produce them.”

Into the consideration of the moral dangers with which the commissioners conceived the practice of animal magnetism to be attended, we shall not enter here. They formed the subject of the secret report already alluded to as having been submitted to the king by the joint commis-sionersofthe Faculty of Medicine and Academy of Sciences; a report equally remarkable for the elegance of its composition and the delicacy of its sentiments. That the hints which it contained were proper and necessary, may [7:14:22]be presumed from the attention they met with at the time, and also from the regulations which have since been adopted in other countries where the practice of magnetism has received the sanction of government; as well as from the rules laid down by various practical physicians, who, in recommending magnetism as a means of cure, show how much they were aware of the aþuses to which its unrestrained practice is liable. The reader who has any curiosity upon this subject, may consult the observations of Hufeland, in his Journal der Practischen Arzneykunde for 1815 and 1820; and of Kieser, System des Téllurìsmus oder Thierischen Magnetismus, ii. 437, &c.

A feeble attempt was made on the part of Mesmer and his admirers to persuade the public that, however applicable the conclusions of the commissioners might be to the magnetic proceedings of his pupils, which alone they had had an opportunity of witnessing, they could not fairly be extended to the doctrines and practice of the master. “Happily for Μ. Mesmer,” it was said, “there are in his system things which it is not easy to transmit, which are not even as yet developed, and which, hitherto made more to be felt than expressed, will not be easily stripped from him.” Against this objection the commissioners had carefully guarded themselves, by stating very fully the grounds they had for believing that the system and practice of D’Eslon did not materially differ from those of Mesmer himself. “It is easy to prove,” say they, “that the essential practices of magnetism are known to Μ. d’Eslon. Μ. d’Eslon has been for many years the pupil of Μ. Mesmer. He has seen constantly, during that period, the practices of animal magnetism employed, and the means of exciting and directing it. Μ. d’Eslon has himself treated patients in presence of Μ. Mesmer; at a distance from him he has produced the same effects as at Μ. Mesmer’s house. Again, when together, they have combined their patients, and have treated them indiscriminately, and consequently in following the same processes. The method which Μ. d’Eslon at present follows cannot, therefore, be different from that of Μ. Mesmer. The effects, likewise, correspond. There are crises as violent, as numerous, and accompanied by similar phenomena, at the house of Μ. d’Eslon as at that of Μ. Mesmer; these effects, therefore, are not dependent on a particular practice, but on the practice of magnetism in general.” Μ. Foissac says {Rapports et Discussions, p. 223), in reference to the commissioners having carried on their investigations at D’Eslon’s instead of at Mesmer’s institution, that “Mesmer in vain addressed the most urgent remonstrances to Franklin and Μ. le Baron de Breteuil: it was in vain that he protested against everything that should be done elsewhere than in his own house; they did not listen to him, they did not deign to honour him with the smallest answer.” Mesmer himself says, in a work subsequently published, “ A minister of the past reign abused all his power to destroy the growing opinion. After having ordered, notwithstanding my protestations, the formation of a commission to judge of my doctrine, and to condemn it in the practice made of it by a person whom I disavowed, he made his triumph be celebrated at the Academy of Sciences, where he was applauded to the skies for having preserved them, as they said, from a great error, which constituted the disgrace of the age. He inundated the whole of Europe with a report made by that commission, and ended by giving up to public derision, upon the theatres, both my doctrine and my method of cure.”

A number of answers were published to the reports of the commissioners, to some of which the names of the authors were attached, while others were anonymous. To the former class belong the works of MM. d’Eslon, de Montjoye, Bonnefoy, and Bergasse. To the latter class, the “Doutes d’un Provincial,” understood to be the composition of Μ. Servan of Grenoble; the “Réflexions Impartiales,” &c.; the “Observations, &c. par un Médecin de Province ;” and the “Supplement aux Deux Rapports.” An analysis and refutation of most of these answers was published by Μ. Devillers under the title of “Le Colosse aux Pieds d’Argile.” In 1785 there were published, by order of the king, extracts of the correspondence of the Royal Society of Medicine, relative to animal magnetism drawn up by Μ. Thouret. This again called forth seve- ’ ral replies, particularly from Μ. de la Boissiere, physician at Bergerac, from Μ. Bonnefoy of Lyons, and from Μ d’Eslon.

The doubts of Μ. Jussieu, and the arguments of the more decided supporters of animal magnetism, would probably have had little influence in saving it from the general disrepute and oblivion to which the reports of the commissions threatened to consign it, had not some of Mesmer’s pupils about this time discovered that this agent is capable of producing a set of phenomena still more wonderful than’ those which had engaged the attention of the commissioners. The consideration of these phenomena, however, we must, as we have already announced, postpone to the article Somnambulism. All that we can at present propose to ourselves, is to collect a few notices respecting the subsequent history of Mesmer, and to point out some of the more general conclusions that seem deducible from the review which we have taken of his transactions.

In the introduction to the English translation of the report of the joint commission, already referred to, it is stated, that “Μ. Mesmer appealed from the decision of the commissioners to the parliament of Paris ;” and in a postscript there is given an extract of a letter, said to be from the best authority, from Paris, and to have been received while the translation of the report was in the press. “Mesmer has complained to the parliament of the report of the royal commissioners, and requested that they would appoint a new commission, to examine, not his theory and practice, but a plan, which shall exhibit the only possible means of infallibly demonstrating the existence and utility of his discovery. The petition was printed: many thought the parliament would do nothing in it. But they have laid hold of it to clinch Mesmer, and oblige him to expose all directly; so that it must soon be seen whether there is any difference between his method and D’Eslon’s. I give you their arrêt of the 6th September 1784. ‘ The parliament ordains that Mesmer shall be obliged to expose, before four doctors of the Faculty of Medicine, two surgeons, and two masters in pharmacy, the doctrine which he professes to have discovered, and the methods which he pretends must be adopted for the application of his principles. They likewise ordain that a report of his communications shall then be delivered to the attorney-general, to be laid before parliament for their sentence.’ ” Whether any proceedings took place in consequence of this decree, and if so, of what nature they were, we are unable to say; nor how far Mesmer’s departure from Paris about the end of 1784 is to be considered as having been influenced by it.

Very little seems to be known of Mesmer’s proceedings subsequently to his leaving Paris at this period. Μ. Deleuze mentions that Mesmer was desirous to teach his doctrines in England as he had done in France. In a letter written by Mesmer to Μ. Picher-Grandchamp of Lyons, dated Paris, 19th May 1787, he says, “I arrived lately from England, where I had passed a month in amusing myself.” We find no other mention of Mesmer’s ever having been in England, except that Gorton, in his Biographical Dictionary, says he had lived there for some time subsequently to 1784, under a feigned name. The translation of Bailly’s report into the English language in 1785, and the impression which it made upon the public mind, probably took from him all hope of a favourable reception [7:14:23]in this country. He appears from time to time to have revisited Paris. Μ. Foissac mentions (p. 226, note) that Dr Aubry, a particular friend of Mesmer’s, informed him, that during the dismal events of 1793, Mesmer witnessed the frightful agony and execution of Bailly in the Champ de Mars, whether as a compulsory or as a voluntary spectator does not appear.

In 1799, Mesmer published a new work under the title of Mémoire de F. A. Mesmer sur ses Découvertes. This work must be considered as belonging rather to the second than to the first period of animal magnetism; for in it Mesmer has, with very considerable art, endeavoured to assume to himself those new views of theory and practice which had been opened up by his pupils subsequently to his development of his system in 1784, particularly those relative to somnambulism and its phenomena, which, though he seems to look upon them with no very favourable eye, he represents as necessary consequences of his doctrines.

Mesmer passed the latter years of his life at Frauen-feldt in Switzerland, near to the Lake of Constance. He was visited there by Dr Egg of Zurich in 1808, and by Dr Wolfart of Berlin in October 1812. To the latter, who had been engaged in magnetical practice in Berlin since the year 1808, he confided his manuscripts, out of which that physician drew up a system, which he published at Berlin in 1814, under the title of Mesmerism, or System of the Operations, Theory, and Application, of Animal Magnetism, as the general Curative for the preservation of Mankind. The manuscripts of this work seem to have been transmitted to Mesmer for his revision, and to have received his warmest approbation. Mesmer died at Mersburg, on the 15th of March 1815, at the age of eighty-one years. In the course of the same year, Wol-fart, to whom he left his Harmonico as a legacy, published Commentaries on the Aphorisms contained in his System.

In reviewing the history of animal magnetism, such as we have endeavoured to sketch it in the foregoing pages, the questions that present themselves for our determination seem to be principally the following: 1st, Did Mesmer make a discovery? 2d, If so, did his discovery consist in the observation of facts not previously known, or in a more correct explanation of facts that had been previously observed? 3¢7, If he made no discovery, either in matters of fact or explanation, did he direct the attention of men of science, more strongly than had previously been done, to facts already known, but not sufficiently appreciated? and, 4√7z, Whatever may have been the nature of Mesmer’s services to science, were they rendered in a way that entitles him to the gratitude of mankind?

To enable us to answer the first two of these questions, it is obviously essential for us to determine in our own minds what are the general facts which were brought to light or illustrated by the practices of the magnetisers, and what are the general principles to which these facts ought to be referred. It would be impossible, perhaps, to make a better arrangement of the facts of animal magnetism than that adopted by the French commissioners, into two classes; the first comprehending those more immediate effects which were produced, in the operations of the magnetisers, upon the different functions of the economy, particularly on the nervous and muscular systems, and on the organs of secretion and excretion,—such as the production, removal, and migration of painful sensations, the occurrence of convulsions, and of the various natural discharges; and the second class comprehending the cures of diseases which occurred in the progress of the magnetical treatment. Now, there has, we think, been a good deal of inaccuracy in the manner in which some of those who have been adverse to the pretensions of Mesmer have expressed themselves in regard to these facts; and at the same time no small degree of misrepresentation in the opinions, on this subject, which have been ascribed by his admirers to others of his opponents, and particularly to the French commissioners. Of the effects which Mesmer and his followers declare themselves to have produced, there can, we conceive, be little doubt that a large portion actually occurred; and such, we think, has been the general conviction of the opponents of animal magnetism. The reports of the French commissioners furnish, indeed, the most authentic record which we possess of the reality of the facts. It is therefore on the principle on which these facts ought to be explained, that the difference of opinion with regard to animal magnetism properly depends. Are they, or are they not, attributable to those physical, vital, and mental agencies to which mankind has been wont to refer the natural and daily observed phenomena of the animal economy, and, in particular, to the handlings and frictions of various parts of the body, to the impressions of awe and hope produced by the mysterious ceremonies, and to the force of instinctive imitation; or, are these agencies incapable of furnishing an explanation of the phenomena of animal magnetism, and is it necessary, for this purpose, to admit the existence and agency of a new and peculiar principle? Mesmer upon various occasions takes great credit to himself for having discovered the existence of the principle of animal magnetism by a priori reasoning. The absurdity of such a pretension is now, however, universally admitted; and the only question, as it appears to us, that remains for consideration, is this,— seeing that it is established beyond all reasonable doubt that the phenomena attributed to animal magnetism can be produced by other and familiar agencies, ought we, for the explanation of the very few cases in which some difficulty may occur in tracing the intervention of these agencies, to have recourse to one of an entirely new and unknown character? Nothing, it is obvious, can in sound philosophy justify us in recognising such a principle, but our finding its admission essential to the explanation of the phenomena that present themselves to our observation.

It would not be difficult to point out a variety of fallacies in the arguments of those who have opposed the explanations of the effects observed in the practice of animal magnetism, which were suggested by Μ. Berthollet, and concurred in by the French commissioners. It has been argued, that, because the so-called magnetic phenomena have manifested themselves in some cases where no handlings or frictions have been practised, and in other cases in which the individuals have been operated on singly, and consequently where there was no room for imitation, we are not entitled to attribute to these powers any influence in the production of the phenomena in question. But in attributing the magnetic phenomena to several different principles, it was not meant to be implied, either that in each individual case one only of these principles could be supposed to operate, or that in each case all of them must be supposed to act in combination. There can be no doubt, that more or fewer of these agencies will be required to produce sensible effects, according to the constitutions and dispositions of the individuals who are the subject of operation; and that, in like manner, the space of time within which these effects can be induced, and their intensity, must be the joint result of the number and force of the impressions, and the susceptibilities of the persons operated on. Not the least singular, certainly, of the fallacies to which we have adverted, is that of supposing that persons of low station in society, and little cultivation of mind, are less under the influence of imagination than persons of refined manners and education. The whole history of witchcraft, of sorcery, of demoniacal possession, and of spurious miracles, affords abundant proofs of the absurdity of such an opinion.

In admitting the reality of most of the effects which the [7:14:24]animal magnetisers professed to produce, we find it necessary to guard against any misinterpretation of our meaning, so far as regards their pretensions to the cure of diseases. That a recovery took place in many cases in which animal magnetism was practised, might be acknowledged, without admitting that these practices had any influence in producing this recovery. If we examine the histories of those cases of cures by the Mesmerian practices which have been recorded, it will be found that many of them were slow processes, occupying months, and even years, for their accomplishment. It would be no difficult task to collect accounts of cases in which equally remarkable recoveries had occurred, sometimes under the supposed influence of medical art, and often also when all remedial means had been abandoned or dispensed with. But, admitting that the practices of animal magnetism assisted in curing the diseases of some, and in ameliorating the symptoms of others, —in doing which, we feel assured, they could act only on the principles explained by the commissioners,—we are very far from being disposed to allow that all those diseases were cured by these means, which the magnetisers claim to have cured. There are two wide sources of fallacy in judgments of this kind; the doubts that may be entertained, first, as to the diseases having actually been of the nature alleged; and, secondly, as to these diseases having been actually cured. But on these points we shall not enter more fully here. In the article Medicine, an opportunity will occur for treating at greater length of thpse numerous fallacies to which the public in general, and even medical men, are exposed in judging of the curative influence of remedies over diseases. We may remark, however, that medical men have been much reproached for not availing themselves of that beneficial influence over the imaginations of their patients, which the experiments of Mesmer and others show that it is possible to exercise. We must confess, that we are not of those who are willing to encourage medical men to have recourse to the practice of fraud in the exercise of their profession; or to prefer that blind and spurious trust which ignorance is ever ready to bestow upon mummery and mystery, to that legitimate confidence which is inspired by a belief in the experience, sagacity, and skill of the medical practitioner. Licere medicum mentiri may be a very good topic to exercise the talents of a disputant, but it is a maxim which requires rather to be kept in check than to be encouraged. The necessity may unquestionably arise for the practitioner to deceive his patient for a time as to the means which he is employing for his cure, but this should be only on rare occasions, and under very peculiar circumstances. It is plain, indeed, that if it were once understood that medical men were habitually wont to address their remedial measures to the imaginations of their patients, a jealousy of their proceedings would be engendered in the public mind, which would not only render these particular means of no avail, but would involve the whole practice of the art in suspicion, so that, instead of being assisted by this spurious confidence, the medical practitioner would have to contend against distrust in circumstances in which it would never otherwise have arisen.

As to our third question, relative to the originality of Mesmer’s observations, it would be easy to show, from the history of the wonder-workers and great curers of all ages, —and it is in fact partly apparent from the slight review of the employment of the mineral and artificial magnets, prefixed to this article,—that, neither as regards the immediate sensible effects which he induced, nor the ultimate cure of diseases, did Mesmer add more to what had been accomplished on innumerable occasions before his time, than merely the invention of a new apparatus. By connecting his practices with a branch of science of great obscurity and interest, and which was then exciting in the highest degree, as it still continues to do, the attention of men of science, he no doubt secured for the phenomena which he professed to produce, a greater degree of attention than they, in all probability, would otherwise have received; and in this manner his name must remain associated, to a greater degree perhaps than it is justly entitled, with a class of phenomena which, so long as ignorance and credulity furnish elements for their production, can never cease to excite the astonishment of the vulgar.

With regard to the last topic to which we have adverted, Mesmer’s claims to the gratitude of mankind, we must acknowledge that we are not able to concur in what has been said on this subject by his eulogists. Notwithstanding all his professions of disinterestedness and high mindedness, of his zeal for truth, and his desire to court investigation, of his anxiety for the benefit of his species, and of the patriotic feelings he entertained in spite of the ingratitude of his country, we confess we can find no evidence in his conduct to justify us in believing that these were actually the feelings by which his mind was swayed. The proceedings of a man inspired, not by a desire for immediate celebrity or immediate gain, but by a pure and sincere love of truth; indulging possibly a hope, that when the justness of his views should come by the force of conviction to be acknowledged, his own claim to admiration and gratitude, or even to more substantial rewards, should not be overlooked; but chiefly urgent in forcing his discovery on the attention of mankind, from the conviction that it materially affected their happiness and welfare; would not have evinced those marks of concealment and mystery, and those pretensions to infallibility, which form so prominent and so constantly recurring a feature in the history of Mesmer. (f. f. f. f.)