MAGNETIC OR ARTIFICIAL.

Under the title Somnambulism it is proposed in the following article to give a brief history of the various phenomena which have at different times been described under the names of Mesmerism, Animal Magnetism, Magnetic Somnambulism, Hypnotism, &c. In the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the first class only of these phenomena received a full treatment.

Neither of the appellations "Animal Magnetism" and "Somnambulism" are free from serious objections, inasmuch as they express theoretical views as to the nature of the subject which many reject as altogether untenable. But long usage has given them too strong a hold upon the public mind to warrant their rejection now, and the other names which have been suggested are not less objectionable than those now mentioned. The different writers on these phenomena have advanced very various theories as to the nature of the mysterious and occult agency engaged in their production, but there has been an all but uniform tendency to connect them with magnetic and electrical forces. It is only in more recent times that attempts have been made to disprove them from this connection, and to explain them upon purely nervous and subjective principles. Though the introduction of the phenomena of somnambulism by the Marquis de Puységur was extremely distasteful to Mesmer, caused no inconsiderable revolution in the doctrines and practice of animal magnetism, and exercised a permanent and powerful influence upon its subsequent fortunes and development, it was not considered, either by Mesmer or Puységur, to be an essential departure from the fundamental principles of the mesmeric theory. The influence or energy at the foundation of both was considered to be identical. The phenomena of somnambulism were believed to have been abundantly manifested in the operations of Mesmer, and to have frequently occurred in the magnetic crisis; but it was only in the practice of Puységur that they were prominently brought forward and made the subject of special observation. It is in the same way that many phenomena, daily seen and casually observed, are found to have an importance and significance which was scarcely even suspected till they have been made the subject of special research and earnest observation. The connection between mesmerism as propounded by its founder, and somnambulism as developed by his pupil, is so intimate both in their historic and intrinsic relations, and the one is so directly the sequel and consequence of the other, that they cannot with justice be dissociated from each other. It is on this ground, therefore, that we propose to treat them both together, and, inasmuch as magnetic somnambulism is that form of the mesmeric theory which has descended almost without change to our own time, and has entirely superseded the original phase of the doctrine, we have thought it right to treat of the whole subject under this designation.

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 who are under its influence, 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 while 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, in their natural or waking state, 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 of 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 animal-magnetic relation; 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. At the outset we shall make a few remarks on Mesmerism before Mesmer.

It seldom happens that any great discovery has been made without its appearing that some traces and indications, more or less distinct, of the phenomena to which it relates have been manifested at some time or other, anterior to the period of its publication. We see this illustrated with respect to the application of steam-power, the electric telegraph, and many other important discoveries. Moreover, if we go back to periods of remote antiquity, and examine the records, scanty and imperfect though they may be, of nations and races who possessed a more ancient civilization than our own, we shall find frequent evidence of the existence of sciences and arts, which we might otherwise suppose had only made their appearance at a much later period in the world's history. We shall find that, in Egypt, in India, and in China, there was much progress made in many of the departments of science and art, at a time when Europe was still in a state of barbarism. The histories of these remote periods are now enveloped in much obscurity, and the traces of the existence of practices analogous to those of mesmerism are very faint. On Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions and hieroglyphs there are some representations of persons apparently employed in mesmeric manipulations. Artifi-

Somnambulism is believed to have been practised by the Brahmins and Faquires of India from a very early period; and there is little doubt that it is not only known and practised by them at the present day, but also that their knowledge has been handed down by tradition from ancient times, and not derived from their intercourse with European nations. The Jesuit missionaries of China also testify to the existence in that empire of modes of treatment analogous to those of mesmerism. To come to times nearer our own, it is believed by some that there are many passages to be found in the writings of Greek and Roman authors which can only be rightly interpreted, on the supposition that there were modes of practice known to the Greek and Roman physicians which did not widely differ from those employed in mesmerism. It was used as an argument against mesmerism by Bailly, in the discussion of the French Academy of Medicine in 1825, that the phenomena exhibited by the mesmerised were in many respects comparable to those manifested in the Eleusinian Mysteries of the temple of Ceres, and to those witnessed in the cave of Trophonius. It was also averred that they bore some analogy to what was witnessed at the rites of the Bona Dea, at the shrine of the Delphic oracle, and in the Forest of Dodona. Whatever may have been the nature of these ancient rites and ceremonies, we know too little of them to use them with effect either for or against any modern system which may be supposed to bear any analogy to them. But it is important to note the existence, throughout all historic ages, of practices which bear some similarity to those of which we are about to treat in this place. In the passages quoted from ancient writers, as in the verses ascribed to Solon, and in the lines from Plautus and Martial, the allusions certainly point strongly to the practice of rubbing with the hands for the purpose of assuaging pain. The miraculous cure by the Emperor Vespasian of a case of blindness by inunction of saliva, at the instance of Serapis, as recorded by Tacitus, seems to have been a very manifest plagiarism of the miracle performed by Christ, and cannot, with any justice be described, as has been done by Mr Colquhoun, to be a "magnetic cure." Setting aside the hypothesis, that mesmerism had certain features in common with the witchcraft and magic of superstitious times, we come to a period not long anterior to the time of Mesmer, when opinions were broached with respect to magnetism which have a very direct and important bearing upon his peculiar views. This portion of the pre-mesmeric history of magnetism has been very well elucidated by Mr Colquhoun, Deleuze, Thouret, and others, who cite numerous authors, writing during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who entertained opinions concerning magnetism extremely analogous, in many respects, to those which were subsequently propounded by Mesmer, as we shall afterwards see. Mesmer, at the outset of his career, and in concert with the astronomer, Father Hell, commenced with the employment of real magnets in the treatment of disease. But at a later period he saw fit to renounce the use of real magnets, and announced the idea that the healing virtue did not reside in the mineral magnet, but emanated from his own person. Even in those cases which at first appeared to be benefited by the application of magnets to different parts of the body, he ascribed the curative power, not to the inherent property of the magnets, but to some quality which he communicated to them by touch. This quality, in contradistinction to that which naturally resides in the magnet, and which has been called mineral magnetism, he designated by the name of animal magnetism. Before the time of Mesmer, the therapeutic power of the magnet, both in powder and entire, had been held from the earliest time; and during two centuries that other so-called magnetical power, which Mesmer imagined he had just discovered to belong to the human frame, was well known and described in terms not very unlike those which Mesmer himself afterwards employed. A brief notice of the history of the use of the mineral magnet in medicine, and of the theory of animal magnetism, which was in vogue before Mesmer promulgated his views, will complete our sketch of the history of mesmerism before the time of Mesmer. We shall just glance at the therapeutic history of the magnet or lodestone. The mysterious attractive property of this inorganic substance, which Reichenbach has recently attempted to show has a counterpart in the organic world—the animal magnetism of Mesmer and his followers—attracted very early attention, and it was not long in being enlisted among the number of therapeutic agencies. It is not necessary to dwell upon the various marvellous and contradictory virtues which were ascribed to it by different professors of the healing art. By some it was looked upon as a noxious, by others as a salutary substance; by some it was regarded as a moral, and by others a physical agent. Powdered, it was given internally as an evacuant for dropsies; and, so late as the sixteenth century, there were few diseases in which the powder was not considered to be beneficial. Externally it was employed in diseases of the eyes, and for burns. As a plaster it was applied to poisoned wounds, in order to exhaust the offending substance. It was termed the divine plaster, and was used generally by surgeons, to purify wounds from all manner of malignity, and to favour the generation of healthy flesh. Although Dr Gilbert of Colchester had shown in 1600 that the properties of the magnet are destroyed by pulverization, practitioners continued to use it up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Since then it has become obsolete. The history of the powdered magnet is the same with that of a hundred other substances which have figured in therapeutic annals. Of how many of the much-vaunted remedies of our own times the same history will hold good, time alone can reveal.

The use of the entire magnet, or of bodies known to possess genuine magnetic properties, dates from a very early period. A glance at the history of the magnet as a therapeutic agent will conduct us to the discovery of Mesmer, the first development of which sprung from the use of the metallic magnet; a circumstance which contributed more than anything else to give the name of animal magnetism to that class of phenomena with which the name of their discoverer has also become indissolubly united.

Attius is the first Greek author who mentions the therapeutic virtues of the unpulverized magnet. When held in the hand, it was reported to prove beneficial in allaying the pains of gout, and in curing convulsions. The employment of the magnet for similar purposes is alluded to by other Greek, and by some Arabian physicians, but it was Paracelsus who first brought the virtues of the magnet most prominently into repute. He attributes to it the property of dislodging and attracting towards itself all material diseases. The list of these diseases is very extensive, and it was much increased by his followers, and by several medical authors of the eighteenth century, more especially by Van Helmont, Borel, Reichel, Klarich, and Kircher. It was employed in the treatment of mania, epilepsy, tetanus, hernia, dropsy, jaundice, ulcers, hysteria, spasms, and a host of other diseases too numerous to mention.

After the discovery of the artificial magnet, an attempt was made by M. le Noble, a French abbe, to introduce this agent into medical practice. He employed these magnets sometimes temporarily, and of great size and power, upon different parts of the body; but for more general and permanent use he had them formed into different pieces of ornamental and useful dress, such as caps or bandecaux for the head, necklaces, crosses, bracelets, girdles, and garters. By frequent and numerous trials he convinced himself that his magnetic dresses and ornaments were often speedy and effectual means of cure in a great variety of diseases. 1777 he applied to the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris to appoint a committee of investigation, in order to make an experimental trial of the medicinal virtue of his magnets. The society acceded to his request, and appointed MM. Andry and Thouret to undertake the task, and report to them the result of their investigation. The commissioners devoted themselves assiduously to the task, and reported very favourably of the effects which they had observed to follow the use of magnets and magnetic dresses. Notwithstanding the very favourable report of MM. Andry and Thouret, the artificial magnet did not prosper as a therapeutic agent. Its virtues, however, continued to be mentioned with favour by such men as Alibert, Laennec, Recamier, and Chomel.

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 Conservativices et Medicatrices Nature*; 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 recognized by medical men under the general, but not always accurately defined, term of the power of imagination.

Though somewhat later in point of time than the first announcement of the discoveries of Mesmer, we may here notice shortly, in connection with the use of magnets, the metallic tractors of Mr Perkins, which were introduced from America about the end of last century, and obtained considerable repute both in England and on the continent. They consisted of an alloy of different metals. They were rounded at one extremity, and pointed at the other. The diseased parts were directed to be rubbed or touched by the sharp point, which was also to be drawn over them in different directions, according to circumstances. The introduction of these tractors into England excited a great degree of attention. It occurred to Dr Haygarth, of Bath, to test their intrinsic value by a series of experiments, in which tractors, made of lead, wood, and old nails, covered with wax so as to resemble as near as possible the tractors of Perkins, were employed. It was found that effects as remarkable as those which had been observed to follow the use of the genuine tractors were produced by the fictitious articles.

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 the use of that agent to the test, by a comparative series of trials of the description suggested by Dr Haygarth.

However conclusive the experiments of Haygarth may have been against the intrinsic merits of Perkins' tractors, they are claimed as corroborating the reality and value of animal magnetism, inasmuch as it is maintained that the effects, though not proceeding from the tractors themselves, emanated from the person of the operator, just as they proceeded from the persons of Mesmer and Puységur, through the intervention of the iron-rods, buckets, and trees which they employed in their practice.

We shall now glance briefly at the theories prevalent for two centuries before the time of Mesmer, in which we shall find not merely obscure foreshadowings, but an almost complete development of those peculiar doctrines which have rendered his name famous. It is true that we shall not find any trace of the paraphernalia which he employed in the practical application of his doctrines to the cure of disease, but it is sufficiently admitted that his buckets and rods were not essential elements, but merely subsidiary appliances fitted to produce a suitable impression on the minds of his pupils and patients. It will be sufficient, therefore, if we demonstrate an identity of principle without insisting upon an identity of practice.

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 give 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 Mosaica*, 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 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 Spirituosa of Wirdig, published in 1673; in the Medicina Magnetica of Alexander Maxwell, a Scotch physician, published in 1679; and in the Philosophia Recondita, sive Magicae Magneticae Munnalis Scientiae Explanatio of Santanelli, published in 1723. 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.

Besides the theories more immediately founded on magnetism, we shall find that the power of the human will or volition is called upon to play an important part in the system of Mesmer, as propounded by himself and developed by his followers. These two elements are mixed up and confounded with one another in a most unsatisfactory way by mesmerists. At one time they appear to be considered identical, while at another they are represented as complimentary,—at one time, the phenomena are referred to the operation of magnetism, while at another they are referred to the influence of the will. In like manner, in the pre-mesmeric period, one writer will be found to ascribe great power to human volition, while another will explain everything by magnetism,—with them, as with Mesmer and his disciples, we shall find that a cloud of mysticism obscures all these theories.

The power of volition may be employed to produce some influence or effect, either upon the person who exercises it, or upon some other person. Many remarkable cases of the former kind of influence have been observed and recorded by men every way worthy of credit. The celebrated Kant wrote an article (Vermischte Schriften, vol. iii., p. 389) on the power which the will can exert to overcome pain. Cases of this kind are related by Passavant, Brandis, and Boerhaave; but the most remarkable case of the seeming power of the will over the body, is that of Colonel Townsend, related by Dr Cheyne. Like the Faquires of India, this man could at will simulate death for a lengthened period. It may prove a warning to others, who, from vanity or any other cause, may venture on such rash experiments, to state that this unfortunate man died, not seemingly, but really in the course of his last experiment. Of the latter kind of effects, those which human volition can produce upon others, analogous and antecedent to those of Mesmer, many singular instances have been recorded. The reality of this power was maintained by many eminent writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A list of these authors, the most remarkable of whom were Pomponatus, Van Helmont, and William Maxwell, will be found in Colquhoun's Report on Animal Magnetism, p. 23. The following are some of the more remarkable effects said by these authors to be produced by the operation of the will, and the imagination acting upon the organization of others.

1. It is assumed as a fact, generally acknowledged, that there are men endowed with the faculty of curing certain diseases, by means of an emanation directed through the will and imagination towards the patient. This is a principle which will be found to lie at the foundation of all the mesmeric theories.

2. This force affects the blood and the spirits, which produce the intended effects by means of an evaporation thrown outwards.—(Pomponatus.)

3. The person operating should have great faith, strong imagination, and a firm desire to cure the patient; and the confidence of the patient contributes to the efficacy of the remedy.—(Pomponatus.)

4. It is further maintained, that this power may render the very elements and matter itself subject to the command of man.—(Pomponatus.) Mesmer asserted that he magnetized the sun.

5. It is maintained that there is an ethereal vital spirit or essence which penetrates all bodies, and acts upon the mass of the universe. In man this influence resides in the blood, and is worked and directed by volition.—(Van Helmont.)

6. This virtue in man may be impressed on external bodies, such as vegetable substances, which derive additional virtue from the imagination of the man who gathers them.—(Van Helmont.)

7. The effect produced is in proportion to the energy of the will in the operator, and the weakness of the person operated on.—(Van Helmont.)

We might adduce many more instances of doctrines maintained by these older writers, in all of which, as well as in those quoted above, the most superficial observer will perceive the striking similarity to, if not complete identity with, the doctrines taught by Mesmer, Puysegur, and their followers. Besides the works of Colquhoun, the Histoire Critique du Magnétisme Animal of M. Deleuze, and the Researches and Doubts on Animal Magnetism of M. Thouret, may be consulted with advantage. Our space will not permit us to enter farther into the subject here. We shall, therefore, proceed to the consideration of the History of Mesmer and his Doctrines.

The personal history of a man like Mesmer, whose views have given rise to so much speculation, is intimately interwoven with the credibility of his discoveries. We shall, therefore, give some account of the more remarkable events of his career.

With respect to the time and place of the birth of Frederick Antony Mesmer our information is imperfect. According to some authorities, he was born on the 23rd May 1734; according to others not till 1740. By some he was stated to be a native of Switzerland; while others maintained that he was born at Merseburg, in Swabia. Those who make 1740 the year of his birth, hold that he was born in Vienna. According to his own account (Précis de la découverte du Magnétisme, p. 1), he was born at Weiler near Stein, on the Rhine, in 1734. He was in poor circumstances, and went to Vienna to study medicine. He attended the lectures of Van Swieten and de Haen, and after graduating in medicine, he is said to have made an advantageous marriage, and commenced practice in Vienna. His mind had early evinced a strong tendency to the study of the marvellous and mystical. His first dissertation, published in 1766, On the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body, is an evidence that he was addicted to the study of astrology. In this work he attempted to show that the heavenly bodies, in virtue of the same law which produces their mutual attraction, exercise an influence on living beings, and particularly on the nervous system, by means of an universal fluid; and that there exists in nature a principle universally active, which, independently of our will, produces those effects which are vaguely ascribed to medical skill.

The first published account of Mesmer's application of his peculiar views to remedial purposes is contained in a letter addressed to Dr Unzer of Altona, of date 5th January 1775. In this letter, which was widely circulated, he relates the case of Mademoiselle Oesterline, a hysterical female, whom he had had under treatment in his own house for two years. This patient exhibited, as might be expected, a very extensive train of symptoms, which only yielded temporarily to the ordinary modes of treatment. Mesmer conceived the idea of establishing in the body of his patient a kind of artificial tide, by means of the magnet. He communicated his project to Father Hell, the imperial astronomer, who assisted him with the magnets which he possessed, and which he got made to fit the different parts of the body. The magnets were attached to her feet and chest, and appear to have caused painful currents to pass through her body, and terminate in the crown of her head. After causing much disturbance in her system, all the symptoms gradually disappeared, the patient became insensible to the action of the magnet, and was cured of the attack. She had relapses as before, but was now easily relieved of them. It is worthy of notice, that at this time Mesmer ascribed all the merit of the treatment to the magnets employed, while at a subsequent period, we find, in his memoir on the discovery of animal magnetism, published at Paris in 1789, that his opinions in regard to the nature of the curative agency had undergone a complete revolution. Besides giving a very different account of the symptoms and effects produced by the magnets, he found that another principle caused the magnet to act, it being itself incapable of this action upon the nerves. Of this principle Mesmer never gave any clear explanation; and it appears to have constituted the secret which he sedulously kept concealed from the world and his disciples, by some of whom it was supposed to be no other than the power of volition. In order to preserve the consistency of his views, he had recourse to the expedient of charging those who derived their information from his letter to Unzer with confounding animal with mineral magnetism. He accused the Academy of Berlin, and those philosophers and physicians who had corresponded with him, and whom he suspected of attempting to penetrate his secret, of having fallen into this error. The desire of setting aside for ever such errors, and of completely establishing his claim to an independent discovery, made him resolve from 1776 no longer to make any use of electricity or the magnet. Both at this period and afterwards he seems to have been keenly alive to the importance of keeping his secret, whatever that may have been. He quarrelled with Father Hell for attempting, as he alleges, to claim the merits of the magnetic treatment for his magnets, but in appealing to the public, the Jesuit appears to have had the advantage. No unprejudiced mind can fail to observe, that Mesmer had now completely departed from his original views; and it is extremely improbable that a body like the Academy of Berlin, and the philosophers and physicians to whom he refers, could have been mistaken as to what was the meaning of his published opinions in so egregious a manner as Mesmer would lead us to suppose. Amongst others with whom he came into collision at Vienna, there were two whom he endeavoured to convince, though without success, of the value and importance of his doctrines. These were M. de Stoërk, President of the Faculty of Medicine at Vienna, and M. Ingenhousz, the Imperial Vaccinator. Baron Stoërk was a countryman of his own, with whom he was well acquainted. Mesmer laboured hard to entangle him in his magnetic theories, to get permission to try experiments in the hospitals, and to get a commission of the faculty to investigate his doctrines. Stoërk seems to have been cautious and politic in his intercourse with Mesmer, who, thus deprived of the distinction which he claimed for his discovery, charges him with fickleness and vacillation. Ingenhousz acceded to Mesmer's invitation to witness his experiments with Mademoiselle Oesterline, which Mesmer avers had been, by the confession of Ingenhousz himself, quite conclusive. The experiments had been conducted with cups, one of which Mesmer had touched, and it appeared that none of them had any effect on the patient, except the one which had been touched. Mesmer, it ought to be observed, had now discovered that almost any substance could be impressed with magnetic virtues by touch. He flattered himself that he had made a convert of Ingenhousz, but he found that, like all the world besides, as he imagined, his new disciple proved unfaithful, and treated his experiments as mere jugglery.

So little had been his success in Vienna, that, during the same year, 1775, in which he had published his letter to Dr Unzer, he left that city in disgust at the deceit and misrepresentations of which he had been made the object. Towards the end of 1775 he made a journey through Swabia, Bavaria, and Switzerland, and performed many supposed cures, both in public and private, in the presence of medical men. At Munich he was consulted by the Elector of Bavaria regarding the cures performed by Gassner at Ratibon, which had caused great commotion. Gassner ascribed diseases to demoniacal possession, which he obviated by adjurations and commands in the name of Jesus Christ. In 1774 and 1775 Gassner's cures excited great attention; thousands flocked to him, whom he threw into convulsions by his exorcisms and imprecations. De Haen, at the desire of the Empress Maria Theresa, and her son the Emperor Joseph II., investigated some of these cases of reputed demoniacal possession; but in no case could he find anything but the most manifest deceit and imposition, and he demonstrated undeniably the total groundlessness and absurdity of Gassner's pretensions. His proceedings were, therefore, put a stop to, and he was shut up in a fraternity of priests, when his miraculous powers completely deserted him. Mesmer's opinion of Gassner was, that he produced real effects, but was ignorant of their cause. He leads us to infer that this convicted impostor was an unconscious, though powerful magnetiser. About this time Mesmer was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences of Munich.

The following year, 1776, he again travelled in Bavaria, where he is reported to have cured M. d'Ostervall, director of the Academy of Sciences, of incomplete gutta serena and paralysis of the limbs. It was at this period that he gave up entirely the use of the magnet and electricity.

On his return to Vienna he undertook, on the 20th January 1777, the treatment of Mile. Paradis, a girl of eighteen, and afflicted since her childhood with complete amaurosis, accompanied with convulsions, which made her eyes start from their orbits. According to the partisans of Mesmer, his treatment of this case produced the most astonishing effects, which were attested by the two presidents of the Faculty of Medicine, one of whom was M. de Stoërk. His opponents, however, it is said, by exciting the fears of the father of his patient lest the Empress should withdraw the pension which she had granted to her on account of her infirmity, succeeded in inducing him to withdraw her from his care before the cure was completely effected, and in consequence of which his directions for her cure being no longer followed, she became completely blind. Mesmer's attempt to retain her under his care, in spite of her father's wish to the contrary, was defeated by an order of the court physician to give her up, and put an end to his trickery. It is also said that he was ordered to leave Vienna; but this is denied by Mesmer, who alleged that he received a recommendation from the minister of foreign affairs to the Austrian ambassador in Paris, who never disavowed him.

Another and a different account of this affair is given by Sprengel (Sendschreiben über Thierischen Magnetismus mit Zusätzen, Halle, 1788, p. 104), on the authority of a work, entitled Magnetit, published by C. L. Hoffman, at Frankfort, in 1787. According to this account, a commission was named by the Empress, Maria Theresa, for the investigation of magnetism, and the alleged cure of the girl Paradis. Before an assemblage of 800 persons, medical men and others, the girl was found to distinguish bright colours correctly; but when it was observed that Mesmer made certain signals to her, he was ordered to withdraw, which he did reluctantly, after which she could no longer distin-

It is said, that when the commissioners had given in their report, Mesmer received an imperial order to leave Vienna within twenty-four hours. It is now impossible to decide which of these accounts may be correct. It is certain, however, that he left Vienna early in 1778, and arrived in Paris in February of that year.

At this period Paris was the most likely place in the world where mesmerism would take root and flourish. In addition to the naturally lively imagination of the French people, their love of novelty, and the power of fashion, of which Paris was at that time the centre, and the influence of a dissolute court, if its countenance could be obtained, together with an unsettled and excited state of public opinion, were all peculiarly favourable for the admission of the new and startling doctrines of which Mesmer was the apostle.

Mesmer's account of his proceedings in Paris is contained in his Mémoire sur la Découverte du Magnétisme Animal, published in 1779; and in his Peces Historique des faits relatifs au Magnétisme Animal, published in 1781. According to his own account, he did not enter upon the practice of animal magnetism in Paris until solicited by the French savants to make experiments. The first encouragement he received was from M. le Roi, director, and M. le Comte Maillebois, member, of the Academy of Sciences. He also formed the acquaintance of Messrs Mauduit, Andry, Desperrières, and the Abbé Tessier, members of the Academy of Medicine. After performing some experiments, he entered into a kind of agreement with them, though not in their official capacity, to undertake the treatment of certain patients, whom they had previously examined. The arrangement broke down at the very outset, Messrs Mauduit and Andry not being satisfied as to the condition of the first patient proposed to be operated upon; a more particular examination was refused, and he sent no more patients to be examined by them. In consequence of this failure on the part of Mesmer to fulfil the terms of the agreement, he was informed, on the 6th of May, by M. Vicq. d'Azyr, the secretary, who returned to him his certificates unopened, that the commission was withdrawn. Mesmer informed the academy that he had not sought a commission; and, on the contrary, had repeatedly rejected it.

After this he collected a number of patients and retired to the village of Créteil, two leagues distant from Paris, where he treated them in his own way, without the too critical surveillance of the scientific men of the metropolis. On the 20th and 22d August he wrote to the Academies of Medicine and Science, inviting them to examine his patients, and compare their then condition with the certificates of their state at the time of their coming under his treatment. This rather barefaced proposal was at once rejected.

Shortly after this he returned to Paris, and in September 1778 he formed the acquaintance of M. D'Eslon, physician to the Count d'Artois, brother of the king. D'Eslon soon became a convert, and a partisan of the new views, and by his great influence assisted to secure for him the patronage of the great and powerful, and enabled him to realize the fortune with which he afterwards retired from the capital. He endeavoured, also, to interest the Academy of Medicine in Mesmer's discoveries, but without success. He could only get three members, MM. Bertrand, Malloet, and Sollier, to witness the magnetic treatment, who, after seven months' observation, declined to adopt the mesmeric doctrines.

In 1779 he published his Memoir relative to the discovery of animal magnetism, which gave rise to some controversy, and was critically examined by M. Thouret four years afterwards.

In 1780 M. D'Eslon published his Observations on animal magnetism, and avowed his adoption of Mesmer's opinions, in consequence of which he incurred the displeasure of his colleagues in the medical faculty. He solicited their intervention in order to secure an impartial examination of Mesmer's doctrines. In reply, he was enjoined to be more circumspect for the future; he was suspended from his deliberative functions for a year, and was threatened that he would have his name erased from the list of members if he did not recant within a year; and the proposals of Mesmer were at the same time rejected.

Mesmer's only hope was now in the government, whose support he had the prospect of obtaining through the assistance of M. de Lassone, first physician to their Majesties, who had become convinced of the reality and utility of his discovery. The conditions under which he was willing to perform his experiments before a commission named by the government were agreed upon, when M. D'Eslon was informed by M. de Lassone that the persons named declined the commission. Mesmer states, that he afterwards ascertained that the proposed commissioners had never been spoken to on the subject. This was for him only another instance of the bad faith with which it appeared all his proposals had hitherto been treated.

"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)." So great, however, was the impression that his experiments had produced upon the mind of the queen, with whom a communication had been opened up, that negotiations were re-opened through M. D'Eslon, in order to avert the threatened calamity; an arrangement was made by which a government commission of five persons, two of whom were to be medical men, was to report finally upon his experiments. If the report proved favourable, the government was to announce officially that Mesmer had made a useful discovery; the king agreed to give him a suitable establishment as a free gift, and a yearly pension of 20,000 livres. He was also to be required to remain in France till his doctrine and practice were completely established, and he was not to quit it without the permission of the king. A few days afterwards the agreement was modified to the extent that the examination by commissioners was to be dispensed with, and in place of an establishment he was to get 10,000 livres annual rent for a house suitable for training pupils, of whom three were to be named by the government and three by himself, if he saw fit. Mesmer declined these proposals on the plea that they were not consistent with his dignity, and that his discovery was above all price. He demanded a territorial possession, and not money. The negotiations having failed, Mesmer addressed a letter to the queen, in which he declared that he renounced all hope of an arrangement with the government, and intimated that he would leave France on the 18th September.

Before quitting France definitively he went to Spa, and whilst there (1782) he learned that M. D'Eslon was deprived of his title of doctor-regent, and had started the practice of animal magnetism on his own account in Paris. He was deeply moved by this intelligence, which caused him great alarm and depression of spirits. He believed that the fruit of his labours was about to pass into other hands; he declared that he was a ruined man; that his confidence had been betrayed; and that he was deprived of the reward that was due to him for his discoveries. In order to console him, his friends and followers, who appear to have been numerous and wealthy, entered into a subscription of 100 louis d'ors each, which was filled up chiefly by men of rank and fashion, and included also several medical men from Lyons and other parts of France. At this time (1783) Mesmer was at Spa, to which place he had returned a second time after a temporary absence. The subscription of 100 louis d'ors, or 2400 francs, was paid by 100 persons, in order to secure the independence and glory of Mesmer.

In the course of a few months he realized 340,000 francs. In 1784 he had returned to Paris, opened a magnetical institution, and commenced his lectures and clinical instructions in the beginning of April. Among his pupils there was one subscriber of 100 louis d'ors, M. Berthollet, physician to the Duke of Orleans, and afterwards renowned as a chemist, upon whom his lectures did not produce the desired effect. After a month's attendance, this refractory pupil, probably more versed than most of the others in the principles of scientific reasoning and in the practice of calm and faithful scientific observation, laid upon Mesmer's table a declaration of his belief that the whole theory and practice of mesmerism was perfectly chimerical.

Another of his pupils was M. Picher-Grandchamp of Lyons, who, along with several other medical men, came from Lyons to Paris, to study mesmerism. He afterwards published a Mémoire de F. A. Mesmer, sur ses Découvertes, in a letter prefixed to which, in 1826, he gives some interesting particulars relative to Mesmer's course. He mentions from memory some of the distinguished men who attended it, such as the Duc de Coigni, the Prince de Condé, the Duc de Bourbon, MM. de Montesquieu, de Lafayette, de Puységur, &c. It lasted two months. It was proposed, in the middle of the second course, that both courses and the doctrine should be published. A decided and successful opposition was made to this proposition, on the ground that, as had happened to medicine, the art of printing, by revealing the whole science, would destroy that consideration and kind of reverence, that public esteem and confidence, with which it was honoured. It was determined, however, that, regardless of expense, the maxims of the science should be engraved on metal plates. This was done, and a copy was given to those who should establish a magnetical institution in certain towns fixed on. M. Picher-Grandchamp possessed a copy, which he presented to M. Bourdois de la Motte, the president of the commission of the academy appointed in 1825, on thin metal plates. This work was never published, but the series of propositions which Mesmer dictated to his disciples was given to the world in 1784 by M. Caulet de Veumorel, under the title of Aphorismes de M. Mesmer. These propositions are arranged under different heads, and treat of cohesion, elasticity, gravity, fire, flux, and reflux, &c., and are as fair a specimen of solemn trifling under the guise of science as we have ever happened to meet with.

Towards the conclusion of his courses a quarrel arose between Mesmer and his pupils (a state of matters which seems to have been quite common on such occasions), who had formed themselves into a Society of Harmony, as to their right of publishing and teaching his doctrines and practices. He affirmed that they had come under an obligation to him not to do so without his consent and approbation (Bertrand's Hist. of Anim. Magn.) The result was, that Mesmer endeavoured, without success, to raise subscriptions at half-price for courses of instruction in several towns of France, while the society opened a public course of instruction, through M. Despénénil, and instituted thirty establishments in France and other parts of the continent. A curious case, illustrating Mesmer's mode of practice, is related by Madame Campan, in her journal. The patient was M. Campan, one of his partisans, like every one who moved in high life. "To be magnetised," she says, "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." 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 power in curing diseases. M. Campan was seized with a pulmonary affection, and Mesmer was called in. Madame C., who seems to have been both the wiser and the better half of this weak courtier, demanded to know what was to be the treatment. To insure a speedy and perfect cure, Mesmer coolly proposed that one of three things should be done—either that a young woman of brown complexion, a black hen, or an empty bottle, should be placed at the left side of M. Campan. "Sir," said Madame C., "if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray, bring the empty bottle." The treatment did no good, and Mesmer, taking advantage of Madame's absence, had recourse to the old-fashioned plan of bleeding and blistering, and M. Campan recovered. He asked for a certificate that the cure had been effected by magnetism alone, and M. Campan gave it. This circumstance coming to the knowledge of Madame Campan, she reported it to their Majesties, and expressed her indignation at the conduct of the barefaced quack. It was immediately determined to have nothing more to do with him.

On the 12th March 1784, the king named four members of the Faculty of Medicine—MM. Sallin, d'Arct, Guillotin, and Majaul—to examine and give him an account of animal magnetism as practised by M. D'Eslon. With these his Majesty associated MM. Franklin, Le Roi, Bailly, de Bory, and Lavoisier, of the Academy of Sciences, and on the 5th April MM. Poissonnier, Caille, Mauduit, André, and Jussieu, were named by M. de Bréteuil, agreeably to the orders of the king, a commission of the Royal Society of Medicine. Mesmer refused to have any communication with these commissioners, though several of them were men possessed of the highest scientific attainments, and who, if there was any worth in the great discovery which he had made, would have been the first to acknowledge it. They had to content themselves with M. d'Eslon, one of the most considerable of his pupils. At the same time M. Thouret was desired by the Royal Society of Medicine to draw up a history of animal magnetism. Five separate reports were the result of these commissions. The first, by M. Thouret, 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 Royal Academy of Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine, was dated the 4th August; the third, a private report to the king; the fourth, the report of the Royal Society of Medicine to the government, was dated 16th August; and the fifth, the report of M. Jussieu, who held opinions peculiar to himself, was dated the 12th September. The report of the joint commission is understood to have been drawn up by Bailly, whose writings establish his claims to the character of a philosopher, and whose conduct, up to the time of his barbarous execution, entitle him to the appellation of a virtuous patriot. M. Thouret's report was entitled Researches and Doubts on Animal Magnetism, in which he undertook to prove that Mesmer's claim of having made a new discovery was untenable, and to show that there existed not only a 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 review of Mesmer's doctrines is to be found in an anonymous work entitled, Anti-Magnétisme, ou Origine, Progrès, Décadence, Renouvellement, et Refutation du Magnétisme Animal, published in London in 1784.

It was the duty of the other commissioners to bring the doubts suggested by M. Thouret to the test of practical observation and experiment. It was their duty first to witness the ordinary modes of procedure employed by mag- Somnambulism; and in the second, to give their judgment upon what they observed. The arrangements were as follows:

1. There was a vessel of wood, closed above, very large, of an oval form, about two feet in height, which was called the bucket (baquet), placed in the middle of the apartment. The lid of the bucket was pierced with holes round the edges, from which arose rods of polished iron, of the thickness of the finger, bent, ending in a rounded point, and alternately a long and a short one. The rods could be plunged into the bucket, drawn back, or entirely removed. To the rods were attached cords, of the same thickness as themselves.

2. The patients were placed round the bucket on chairs, one or more rows deep. The rod was directed towards the seat of the malady, and several coils of the cord were placed round the parts affected with pain. These were considered to be conductors of the magnetic fluid, though no evidence was furnished or observed by the commissioners that any conduction took place. The bucket was not considered essential, but merely accessory.

3. The doors and windows were closed; a soft and feeble light only was admitted through the curtains; silence was observed. The air became heated and vitiated. The appearance of the apartment predisposed to reflection and meditation, which was only interrupted by yawning, sighs, sobbings, convulsions, lamentations, signs of impatience, &c. Towards the end of the sitting a pianoforte was sometimes played.

4. The patients were supplied, when they asked for drink, with water in which cream of tartar had been dissolved.

Having acquainted themselves with the apparatus and external appliances necessary in carrying out the magnetic processes, the next thing that engaged the attention of the commissioners was the manipulatory part of the mesmeric method of treatment. They found that there were two ways of magnetising; viz., by immediate contact, and by the direction of the finger or of a conductor at some distance.

1st. The most ordinary process, 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 forefingers, are applied to the epigastrium. It is also common to place the hands on the region of the kidneys, particularly in magnetising women. The other parts touched are determined by the seat of the disease. Besides simple contact, greater or less friction, particularly on the umbilical and epigastric regions, is resorted to.

2d. Magnetising at a distance is performed by directing the finger or conductor to various parts of the head and body, and carrying them along the body and extremities, the hands being shaken as if in the act of sprinkling a fluid.

The next thing which the commissioners had to do was to observe the nature of the effects produced by these processes. They are very varied. Some are calm, and apparently unaffected; others cough, spit, feel pain, heat, and are thrown into perspiration; others are agitated and convulsed. The convulsions are extraordinary for their number, their duration, and their violence. There is expectation of mucus and blood. The convulsions are accompanied by rapid, involuntary motion of all the extremities and the body, by subsultus of the hypochondrium and epigastrium, by distraction and wildness of the eyes, by piercing cries, weeping, hiccupping, and immoderate laughter. These are preceded or followed by a state of languor. The slightest noise or music excites their vivacity. "Nothing," says 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 other; 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 magnetiser; and though they may appear to be in a state of extreme drowsiness, his voice, or a look or a 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 magnetiser appears to be the depositary."

The next point which it behoved the commissioners to attend to, was the character of the persons in whom the most decided mesmeric phenomena manifested themselves. The commission of the Society of Medicine made the following important observations on this subject:

1st. That such persons are, either from constitution or the effect of disease, exceedingly sensitive.

2d. That the convulsions do not occur till the person has been subjected for a longer or shorter period to the magnetic processes.

3d. That persons magnetised separately, even though very sensitive, seldom experience convulsions, while the same persons magnetised in a crowd are sooner or more frequently thrown into convulsions.

4th. That women are more susceptible than men, and that women in affluent are more susceptible than those in indigent circumstances.

5th. That it is only after remaining a considerable time in the magnetising chamber that the convulsionaries become affected.

Having followed in their experimental investigations the method now delineated, the commissioners arrived at certain results, of which the following is a brief resume:

I. It is established in all the reports that the magnetic fluid, if it exists, is incapable of being recognised by any sensible or physical properties; it cannot be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, nor touched. M. D'Eslon admitted that its existence could only be demonstrated by the changes which it produces on animated beings.

II. It is admitted in all the reports that many persons operated on exhibited none of the magnetic phenomena. The cause, therefore, is not universal, but partial or exceptional in its effects. Even Jussieu, the most favourably disposed of the commissioners towards mesmerism, expresses his conviction that the magnetic fluid, if it exists, has not, on most men, whether in a state of health or disease, an action that can manifest itself by sensible signs.

III. It is 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 best illustration of this statement is the experiment performed by M. D'Eslon, at Passy, before the joint commissioners in Dr Franklin's garden; an apricot-tree, in an isolated situation, was magnetised, and a boy whose susceptibility had been tried by D'Eslon, and after the necessary precautions, was, with his eyes bandaged, made to embrace different trees. He embraced four trees which were not magnetised; nevertheless the magnetic phenomena continued to be developed with increasing effect till he reached the fourth, when he fell into a convulsive crisis, and had to be carried into the house. When he reached the fourth tree he was still 24 feet from the magnetised one. This experiment the commissioners considered to be most conclusive.

IV. It is established in 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, when they knew they were operated on, been found to be very susceptible of magnetic influence. Some very conclusive experiments, in reference to this point, were made by the commissioners, which we have not space to narrate.

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 magnetiser, these persons experienced sensations in parts not operated on, and none in parts against which the magnetic conductor was directed. These mistakes were amply illustrated in the case of a female operated on by M. Jussieu, who, when her eyes were bandaged, felt the same sensations as those which she experienced when magnetic manipulations were going on, even when nothing whatever was being done to her.

VI. The joint commissioners and the commissioners of the Society of Medicine, with the exception of M. Jussieu, considered themselves as authorized to conclude that the effects upon the human economy attributed by Mesmer and his followers to 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. M. Jussieu only differed from the other commissioners to the extent that he ascribed some of the phenomena to the effect of animal heat, which may pass from one body to another; he did not admit the existence of any magnetic, or, as he describes it, undemonstrated universal fluid. His report was much more opposed than favourable to the pretensions of the magnetisers.

VII. With reference to the curative influence of animal magnetism the two commissions pursued different modes of investigation. The one, the joint commission, confined itself to the proof of the purely physical and instantaneous effects of the fluid on the animal body; while the other extended its observations to the employment and effects of magnetism on the treatment of diseases. They divided the cases which they saw under three heads—First, Patients whose affections were evident and had a known cause; Second, Those whose slight ailments consisted in indefinite affections, without any determinate cause; and Third, Melancholics. In the first class they saw no good effects produced. In the second class, though some patients professed that they were better, there was no evidence that this was really the case, and if it was so, that it had been effected by magnetism alone. The evidence from the third class is dismissed as altogether worthless. M. Jussieu maintained that many of the effects were determined by a physical cause—animal heat.

VIII. The commissioners pointed out two classes of dangers as liable to result from the practice of animal magnetism, one affecting the health, and the other the morals of the persons operated on. The dangers to health arose from the immediate injury liable to result from the violence of the crises or convulsions into which the patients were thrown, and from the liability to a habit of convulsions being established in the economy.

The moral dangers formed the subject of the secret report submitted to the king by the joint commission. Into these we need not enter, but we may remark that there can be no doubt that the suggestions contained in the report were equally proper and necessary. On this subject the reader may consult Hufeland's Journal der Praktischen Arzneikunde for 1815 and 1820, and Kieser's System des Tellurismus, &c., ii. 437.

The effect of these reports on the public mind was exceedingly adverse to the cause of animal magnetism. An attempt was made on the part of Mesmer to set aside the verdict of the commissioners, in so far as it affected himself; however applicable it might be to M. D'Eslon or any of his pupils. The commissioners, however, had fully satisfied themselves that the essential practices of magnetism were known to M. D'Eslon. Mesmer, it is said, appealed from the decision of the commissioners to the parliament of Paris. But when that body ordained that he should be obliged to expose his doctrine and methods before a commission appointed by them, he seems to have fallen from his appeal, and to have speedily left Paris.

Answers to the reports of the commissioners were published by MM. D'Eslon, Montjuic, Bonnefoy, and Bergasse. Anonymous replies were also published, among which were —Doutes d'un Provincial, said to have been written by M. Servan, of Grenoble; the Reflections Importantes, &c.; the Observations, &c., par un Médecin de Province; and the Supplement aux Deux Rapports. A reply to these answers was published by M. Daviller, entitled Le Colosse aux Pieds d'Argile. Mesmerism would now, in all probability, have fallen into oblivion, had not the discovery of the principle of somnambulism infused new life and vigour into the effete system. This new class of phenomena ascribed to the principle of animal magnetism has been the means of sustaining the system, though the effects are very different from those which Mesmer demonstrated, and of continuing it to our own time.

In 1799, Mesmer published a new work under the title of Mémoire de F. A. Mesmer sur ses Découvertes, in which he endeavours to establish a claim to the discovery of somnambulism, which he considered to be a necessary consequence and corollary of his own system.

Little is known of his personal history from the time when he left Paris in 1784 till his death. He seems to have visited England, and is said to have witnessed the execution of Bailly in the Champ de Mars.

He passed the latter years of his life at Frauenfeld, near the Lake of Constance, when he was visited by Dr Egg in 1808, and by Dr Wolfart of Berlin in 1812. To the latter, who had been a magnetiser since 1808, Mesmer confided his manuscripts, out of which he drew up a system, which he published at Berlin in 1814, entitled Mesmerism, or System of the Operations, Theory, and Application of Animal Magnetism, as the General Curative for the Preservation of Mankind.

Mesmer died at Merseborg on the 15th March 1815, at the ripe age of eighty-one years.

Having concluded the history of mesmerism, in so far as Puysegur it was directly associated with its author, we now require his discovery to retrace our steps from the time when the joint commission was investigating the merits of Mesmer's discovery, to the year 1764, when mesmerism entered on a new phase of its existence, and assumed a form differing in many respects from that which it obtained from the hands of its author. We allude to magnetic somnambulism, the discovery of M. le Marquis de Puysegur. Though it has been attempted to be shown that Mesmer was acquainted with the phenomena of somnambulism, and that they were witnessed by his disciples in the Salles de Crises, there can be no doubt that the discovery of the Marquis de Puysegur was as original as it was unexpected on his part, that it revolutionized the mesmeric system so essentially, that while it added much to, it received little from the original scheme of Mesmer. The revolution has been complete and persistent, and there appears little doubt that if the discovery of M. de Puysegur had not been made, animal magnetism would have disappeared with the death of Mesmer. It infused new life into the expiring system; a life so vigorous, indeed, that it has been sufficient to keep it alive till the present time. Mesmerism, strictly so called, died with its author. It may be truly affirmed, that long before the death of Mesmer, somnambulism, which was at first coldly received by him, and afterwards tacitly admitted and claimed as his own discovery, had made rapid advances in public estimation.

In the following pages we propose to adopt a topogra- phical arrangement, as the simplest method by which we shall be enabled to give a correct and succinct description of the development and history of the theories of magnetic somnambulism. We shall treat, therefore,

1. Of somnambulism in France. 2. Of somnambulism in Great Britain. 3. Of somnambulism in Germany and other countries.

1. Of Somnambulism in France.—Among the subscribers to Mesmer's course of instruction were the marquis de Puységur, at that time an officer of artillery, and his two brothers; the Count Chastenet, a naval officer; and the Count Maxime, an officer in a regiment of infantry. In fact, it appears that mesmerism was received and cultivated by military officers more than by any other class of the community. Having much unoccupied time, they seem to have espoused it as an elegant and exciting exercise, to relieve themselves from the ennui which a state of comparative idleness usually engenders. Their education and habits were not fitted to raise in their minds any of those difficulties which occur to a Berthollet or a Franklin, while, on the other hand, the easy acquisition (only 100 louis d'ors) of so wonderful a power as that which mesmerism held out for their acceptance, was too tempting a bait to be refused. We cannot wonder, therefore, that the three brothers Puységur, and many others of their brother officers, soon became believers and experts in the new doctrine and practice. The cure of diseases, more especially if the method contains something wonderful and contrary to the ordinary routine, has always been found to possess an irresistible attraction for the idle, the ignorant, and the noble. The Count Chastenet was the first convert. The marquis, at first attaching little credit to the doctrines taught by Mesmer, when he retired to his estate of Busancy, near Soissons, amused himself with experiments in curing toothache. Encouraged by his success (a marquis could scarcely fail to cure a dependant peasant's toothache), he ventured on the treatment of a chest affection on a peasant named Victor, twenty-three years of age. "What was my surprise," exclaims the marquis (8th May 1784), "to see this man in some seven or eight minutes fall asleep peaceably in my arms, without convulsions or pains! I pushed the crisis, which occasioned him sensations of giddiness. He spoke and talked quite aloud of his affairs. When I thought his ideas must affect him in a disagreeable manner, I stopped them, and endeavoured to inspire him with others of a gayer character." The fame of Victor spread, and brought numerous patients, but the powers of the marquis were limited, and in order to husband his energies, he fell upon the plan laid down by Mesmer, of magnetising a tree and attaching cords to it, which his patients laid hold of; and it was found that, while he saved himself much trouble, the tree was as effectual in curing his patients as his own hands had been. Among the ignoble crowd Victor remains pre-eminent. He becomes the alter ego of the marquis. He is his agent of nature, as the marquis expresses it. By nature a boor, a simple man, a large and robust fellow, when in a state of somnambulism, his whole character is changed. "It is with this man," says the marquis, "that I instruct myself—that I enlighten myself. He becomes a being whom I know not how to name." The following is a resumé of the remarkable phenomena exhibited by Victor:—1. The person magnetised falls into a state resembling sleep; 2. He continues to speak and converse while in this state; 3. An influence is exercised over his thoughts by the unexpressed thoughts of his magnetiser; 4. His intellectual faculties are increased; 5. He has a foreknowledge of the progress of his own malady, and to some extent at least of the means necessary for its removal; 6. He has a total oblivion, while not in the state of magnetic sleep, of what he had said or done whilst in that state.

M. de Puységur regarded the production of somnambulism as an entirely new phenomenon in animal magnetism. M. Wurtz and M. Picher-Grandchamp combated this view, and claimed the discovery for Mesmer. M. Foissac adopted the same view, and merely allowed to M. de Puységur the merit of giving a precise description of its true characters, &c. Notwithstanding the claims thus advanced in favour of Mesmer, there is no doubt that all the merit attaching to this discovery belongs to M. de Puységur.

Besides Victor, the marquis soon acquired other assistants in his experiments. Amongst these was Violet, a schoolmaster; Catherine Montenecourt; a lad named Joly; Agnes Remont, wife of the smith of Busancy, named la Marechale; a female named Madeleine, Légoais one of his messengers; Ribault and Clement, two of his domestic servants. It is little to be wondered at, that with such agencies, the marquis was able to conduct his experiments with the greatest apparent success. It is not likely that any doubts or difficulties would arise in their progress with such facile instruments. It was with reference to one of them, la Marechale, that M. Recamier had some reasons to suspect fraud, as he was refused the means of dissipating his doubts, and he heard her repeating things which he had himself previously said to his patients. "How ridiculous, besides," adds M. Recamier, "to hear a person prescribe, as a transcendental remedy in a case of pulmonary consumption, a drachm of Glauber's salts!"

Of the perfect good faith of the marquis there can be no doubt. His letters and writings show that he was an enthusiastic philanthropist, a class of men remarkably open to self-deception, and to be imposed upon by others; that he was greatly imposed upon by his agents there can be as little doubt as there is of his own disinterested benevolence. The declarations of Victor were very probably only dictated by the wish to flatter his master, to whom he owed everything, and to enhance his own importance. In a letter addressed to the intendant of Soissons, and reprinted by M. Montegre in 1814, it is stated that the magnetic manipulations were of an indecorous character, which would be the reverse of objectionable to that class of the population, on whom his magnetic services were so freely lavished; and when we are told, that besides maintaining many of them at his house, the marquis spent more than fifty francs a day in charity, we can be at no loss to understand how his practice became so popular.

Animal magnetism in the hands of Mesmer was simply a curative agent; now, however, we find it not only to be a curative means, but to confer the power of detecting the morbid condition of parts, both in the person operated on and in others, and the instinctive knowledge of the remedies required to effect a cure. M. de Puységur's magnetic or somnambulic physician finds it equally easy to determine the disease and the remedy. No wonder, therefore, at the tone of superiority over ordinary physicians which is assumed by Violet in the account of his own case, written in the dark, as we are told, while in the state of magnetic crisis. "I repeat and I say, that by the sight and the sensation which I actually possess, I can distinguish internal diseases as well as external, and thereby judge, pronounce, and obviate immediately; not like those doctors who give prescriptions after they have informed themselves, and that often very ill, by the statements which they make their patients give them; it is not so in the state in which I am; I can define everything, and conclude in the same way." (Memoires, p. 91.)

The change effected by Puységur from the mesmeric crisis to the state of somnambulism was a great improvement, the chambres de crises being, he avers, "un enfer à convulsions" (Mem., p. 80).

In June 1784 the military duties of the marquis called him to Strasburg, where he performed several magnetic cures. In October he returned to Busancy, and resumed his observations and practice. Towards the end of the year he circulated accounts of the wonderful effects which he had produced. These he afterwards collected and published, in 1786, under the title of *Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire et à l'Établissement du Magnétisme Animal*. The motto of his work is, "Believe and will." The apophthegms, "Active volition towards good; firm belief in its power; entire confidence in employing it," are represented by the marquis as the sum and substance of the whole theory of his magnetic practice.

In the end of 1784, the Count Maxime de Puysegur published an account of sixty cases cured by him in six weeks by the magnetised trees. He ascribes all the merits of his cure to Mesmer, and totally ignores his brother.

In 1785 the Count Maxime organized a society at Guéne for the prosecution of animal magnetism.

About the same period, phenomena analogous to those obtained by the marquis were observed at Lyons, but elicited by different means. The Chevalier de Barbarin established the spiritual school of magnetism. Setting aside every mechanical means, he found that all the phenomena of animal magnetism could be produced by purely mental agencies, by volition and faith, and more especially by prayer. The motto of this school is, "Will that which is good; go and cure."

At Lyons also, patients in a state of magnetic sleep were employed at an early period for detecting the diseases of others. The author of a treatise, entitled *Impartial Reflections on Animal Magnetism*, published in 1784, makes the following illogical statement:—"Till it is explained how a magnetic somnambulist can point out, better than any physician, the seat and the nature of a disease with which another person is affected, I shall be warranted in believing that it is by the magnetic action he detects so promptly and so correctly what passes in the interior of the body." We would have formed a higher opinion of this writer's judgment, if he had suspended his belief altogether till the required explanation had been given, and till it had been satisfactorily proved that any human being could see magnetically what passes in the interior of another body.

In the beginning of 1782 the Marquis de Puysegur, being in Paris, by chance fell in with his original somnambulist, Victor, who, as good luck would have it, was suffering from feverish symptoms, in consequence of a fall. The opportunity was too good to be lost; and he forthwith commenced operations to convince the unbelieving Parisians by ocular demonstration of the truth of his great discovery. He took Victor to Mesmer, but met with a very cold reception, as was naturally to be expected from one who scouted, on all occasions, the pretensions of those who advanced anything that could be brought into competition with his own sublime discovery. The heartless criticism, and injurious suspicions of the Parisian salons, wounded the spirit of the benevolent, though all too credulous, marquis. Victor predicted that, on a given day, his complete cure would be completed by a bleeding from the nose, and from the right nostril only, between mid-day and one o'clock. On a former occasion, the critical haemorrhage had taken place during the night, a circumstance which had excited disbelief and ridicule of his pretensions. The expected day arrived, the hour had come, and at half-past twelve blood escaped from the right nostril. Could victory be more complete? Alas! the unbelievers doubted still; and the marquis retired abashed, with the apparent confusion of an unskilful juggler. Victor was cross-questioned, and disappeared for two days. When he reappeared, it was but too evident that he had been drowning his cares, and comforting his wounded spirit, in generous libations. The marquis was easily satisfied with his explanations, and soon completed his cure.

Notwithstanding the failure of Victor to produce faith in the minds of the incredulous Parisians, the marquis caused one of his female somnambulists, named Madeleine, to be brought to Paris; but his success in the second attempt was not greater than in the first. "The opinion of the disbelievers prevailed over the small number of persons who, trusting to my probity, believed in the somnambulism of Madeleine." The consequence of all this was, that the marquis fell ill, returned to Busancy, put himself under the treatment of his domestics, Ribault and Clement, and the schoolmaster Vielet, and was in a few days restored to health.

At this period numerous papers on this subject, and cases of magnetic somnambulism, were published by different individuals and societies in various parts of France.

In June 1785, the Marquis de Puysegur rejoined his regiment in Strasbourg, and received a letter from the Count de Lutzelbourg, inviting him, on the part of a society of freemasons, of which they were both members, to instruct them in the principles of animal magnetism. He readily complied with this invitation. The only condition which he imposed was, that they should first acquire all possible conviction of the reality of the discovery of Mesmer before he communicated to them Mesmer's papers. They were soon convinced, and the exposition commenced. He began by giving an outline of Mesmer's lectures on the formation of the universe, on the celestial bodies, on cohesion, on elasticity, on gravity, on fire, on tension, and remission of the properties of matter, &c. Such, he said, is a succinct exposition of the lectures of Mesmer. His audience stared, and asked what it all meant. They were unmistakably disappointed with the ridiculous trifles which his pompous and elaborate discourse had resulted in. "This is all very well," they exclaimed, "but your valet-de-chambre did not think of chaotic matter, and the aggregation of atoms, when he made somnambulists at Busancy." After some days of delay, to allow them to digest the mesmeric farrago, he proceeded to explain to them the theory of volition, propounded by Barbarin, and accepted by himself. Still dissatisfied, they could extract from him nothing more than the dogma, that to believe and will contains the whole doctrine of magnetism.

It would almost appear that the marquis, by the solemnity of the conditions imposed at the outset of his lectures, had the design of taking his revenge upon Mesmer for the coldness with which he received the somnambulic theory, by exposing his doctrines in all their native crudity to a somewhat critical audience, and thereby bespeaking a large share of indulgence for the more vulnerable points in his own favourite doctrine.

He delivered a second course of lectures to his fellow-officers of the Metz regiment of royal artillery, which was attended by them, and the officers of other regiments who were not at that time oppressed with military duties. Hence it was that the practice of somnambulism became very prevalent among the officers of the French army.

Two societies were formed in Strasbourg; one called the Harmonic, under the direction of the Marquis de Puysegur; and another, under Dr Ostertag, a pupil and follower of Mesmer. As may be supposed, the society of the marquis was the more popular of the two. The Harmonic published various works—1st, *Exposé des différentes Cures*, &c., 1786; 2d, *Suite de Cures*, &c., in 1787; 3d, *Annales de la Société*, &c. The publication of the fourth volume was prevented by the Revolution. The Count de Lutzelbourg was one of the most zealous practitioners of magnetic somnambulism, and published various works on the subject; among which was a systematic work, entitled *Faits et Nouveaux Magnétiques*, in 1788. The count is considered by M. Deleuze to be a temperate and judicious author, the tendency of his writings being to restrain enthusiasm, and prevent the evil consequences of excessive confidence and imprudent precipitation. In 1787, M. Wurtz, doctor of medicine, a pupil of Mesmer, published, at Strasbourg, a prospectus of a new course of animal magnetism, &c., in defence of Mesmer, and hostile to M. de Puysegur. He avers that Mesmer was well acquainted with the phenomena of somnambulism; but that, from motives of prudence, and with a just appreciation of the evil consequences to which it might lead, he abstained from giving it that publicity which it had obtained under the auspices of M. de Puysegur.

Among the military practitioners of magnetism, one of the most zealous was M. Tardy de Montraval, a captain of artillery. He published an essay on the Theory of Magnetic Somnambulism, in Nov. 1785. The magnetic treatment of Mlle. N. he published in 1786 and that of Madame R. in 1787. The case of the former is remarkable as the first recorded instance of the transference of the senses; for, with her eyes firmly bound, she read foreign, and to her unknown, writings, as soon as they were laid close upon the epigastrium. M. Deleuze states that this girl, of a simple and illiterate character, could not read, even when in the ordinary possession of her senses; a statement which, if true, might have rendered the bandaging of the eyes a superfluous precaution. About the same period, other cases of the same remarkable phenomenon were published. One of these was the case of Mlle. L., by M. Picher-Grandchamp of Lyons. A case was communicated to M. de Puysegur by M. Viallet d'Aignan, a merchant at Montauban, in which the patient asserted that, in the somnambulic state, she saw by the solar plexus, and not by the eyes. Mlle. L., a patient of Captain Masson d'Autun (whose case is published in M. de Puysegur's Researches, p. 160), is mentioned as pointing to the stomachic plexus as the seat of the feelings which informed her of her state.

But the case which seems first to have attracted particular attention to the phenomenon of transference of the senses, was one published in 1787 by M. Petetin, professor to the College of Physicians in Lyons, and not a practitioner of, nor even, at that time at least, a believer in animal magnetism. The subject of it was a young married lady of a very hysterical temperament, whose health had been impaired by anxiety and fatigue. At first she sung incessantly till haemoptysis was brought on, which interrupted the singing. No effort could make her hear by the auditory organs; but it was found that her attention was arrested, and replies vouchsafed when addressed near the epigastrium, or when the person communicating with her spoke into one of his hands, while the other was applied to her epigastrium. She could discriminate playing cards by feeling them with her hands. She could decipher writing with the points of her fingers. She could tell the time by feeling a watch through the glass. She could recognize an object laid on her stomach, even if held in the shut hand when the back of it was laid upon the epigastrium. If a letter was enclosed in a box and held in the hand, she could read the address on it. She could recognize an object placed under the clothes of a person who stood at some distance from her stomach, and say to whom it belonged. If an article of food was laid on the upper part of the abdomen, she could immediately perceive its taste, even when enclosed in a glass vessel; and if an aromatic substance was placed on her stomach, she immediately recognised its odour, and she could distinguish mixed substances in the same way.

M. Petetin attempted to explain these remarkable phenomena by the idea of a fine elastic matter in the stomach, possessing all the properties of the electrical fluid, and he attempted to show by experiments that the interposition of non-conductors of electricity was completely destructive of his patient's extraordinary powers. This explanation is purely hypothetical and somewhat inconsistent, inasmuch as it is averred that she could tell the hour through the glass of a watch, and perceive the taste of a substance contained in a glass vessel; a more rational explanation is within our reach, founded upon psychological and pathological principles; upon which, however, at present we abstain from entering. Somnambulic cases similar to this, and to those of M. Tardy, were published in Lyons two years afterwards.

The phenomena observed in M. Petetin's case, occurring as they did without any magnetic process whatever, are extremely valuable, as showing incontestably that the most wonderful powers which magnetism can claim as its products in the human organism, can arise spontaneously or naturally from ordinary morbid causes.

A work, entitled An Essay on the Probabilities of Magnetic Somnambulism, written by M. Fournel, an advocate, in 1785, attempted to establish an analogy between the phenomena of magnetic somnambulism and other extraordinary phenomena, well known and admitted by medical men and natural philosophers.

Besides the numerous scientific memoirs, reports of cases, and philosophical treatises which appeared from the time of Mesmer till the breaking out of the Revolution in 1788, there was one singular production, a work of fiction, Le Magnétiseur Amoureux, by M. V., or M. Charles Villiers, a member of the Harmonic Society of the Metz regiment, an officer of the royal artillery, which, though in the form of a romance, is described by M. Deleuze as at once a very ingenious book of metaphysics, and one of the best treatises which we possess on magnetism. If this criticism is just, the work of M. Villiers must have been a very bad work of fiction. This is not the only instance in which magnetic somnambulism has been made the principal feature in a work of imagination. The Diary of a Physician, by Alex. Dumas, or one of the collaborateurs of his numerous novels, depends chiefly on the phenomena of somnambulism for the farrago of astounding and improbable incidents of which it is made up. Besides being a very dreary novel, it is neither ingenious as a book of metaphysics, nor valuable as a treatise on magnetism.

With the commencement of the French revolution disappeared for a time all traces of the proceedings of the cultivators of animal magnetism and magnetic somnambulism. In the meantime, however, the latter state became familiarly known in Germany, where, as we shall afterwards see, it has since been made the subject of much experimental investigation, historical research, and philosophical speculation.

In 1807 we find that M. de Puysegur attempted to call the attention of his countrymen to this subject, by the publication of his work, entitled, Du Magnetisme Animal considéré dans ses rapports avec diverses branches de la Physique Générale.

In 1808 there appeared a posthumous work of M. Petetin on animal electricity, containing several new cases of natural somnambulism observed by him. Encouraged by these cases, M. de Puysegur, now a veteran in the cause, brought out, in 1809, a second edition of his Memoirs, and of the work published in 1807. In 1811 he published his Physiological Researches, Experiments, and Observations on Man in the State of Natural Somnambulism, and in the Somnambulism induced by Magnetic Action. In this work, as its title sufficiently indicates, the phenomena of natural somnambulism are assumed to demonstrate that induced somnambulism is in accordance with the laws of nature, and that the magnetic action is the artificial method of producing this state, instead of, as would most naturally occur to the mind of any one who was not the partisan of a particular theory, being considered as the results of the ordinary psychological and pathological laws which govern the human constitution.

In 1813 M. de Montegre published a collection of articles which had appeared in the Journal de Paris, under the title, Du Magnetisme Animal et de ses Partisans, in order to show, in reply to M. Hoffman, one of the editors of the Journal de l'Empire, that no system had ever been submitted to a more attentive and more authentic examination than that of animal magnetism had been.

But of all the writers on animal magnetism who had hitherto appeared, there is no one whose influence upon its future destinies can be compared with that of M. Deleuze, whose Histoire Critique du Magnetisme Animal, the result of twenty-five years' researches and meditations, was published in 1813.

Of the three different schools in existence at this period, viz., those of Mesmer, Puysegur, and Barbarin, M. Deleuze attached himself to that of Puysegur, though he believed, at the same time, that notwithstanding the diversity of theory, the same results were obtained in all of them. He became a zealous advocate of the doctrine of a physical agent as the cause on which the various phenomena depended. He believed in the existence of a fluid filling all space, and penetrating all bodies; a modification of which was recognised by Mesmer as capable of being directed by the will, though he had no facts to prove its existence till somnambulism had brought them to light. This fluid, which is under the control of the will, is not the universal fluid, but a magnetic one, continually escaping from our bodies, and forming around them an atmosphere, which, having no determinate current, does not act sensibly on the persons near us; but when urged and directed by our volition, it moves with all the force which we impress on it; it is moved like the luminous rays emitted by substances in a state of combustion. The chief difference between M. Deleuze and M. de Puysegur has reference to the various modes in which the magnetic fluid should be brought into action, and the suitable occasions for its employment. M. Deleuze, full of caution, and having respect to the prejudices prevalent against magnetism, was dissatisfied with the imprudent revelations made in published cases, which were calculated more to repel than to conciliate the favour of sober thinking men. He would have avoided offensive and extravagant details, and accommodated himself more fully to the temper of his readers, by omitting the exaggerations of enthusiastic disciples. This excessive caution, if carried out, would have deprived us of one of the most valuable means of estimating the value of the testimony of the witnesses. Deleuze, in the interest of somnambulism, would give only garbled statements of the cases recorded, but impartial men, in the interest of truth, demand that the whole mass of evidence, with all its minutest details, should be produced, as the only means by which its value as a whole may be strictly and fairly estimated.

"The wise and moderate tone of the author," says M. Bertrand, "its attainments in the natural sciences, its character for morality, which even his most violent adversaries have never thought of attacking, all concurred to give to this book a success which, were on the same subject had been, up to that time, very far from obtaining. This history was not only useful to the cause of animal magnetism in procuring for it a great number of proselytes; it helped it likewise by encouraging those who practised magnetism in secret openly to declare themselves its partisans; people were no longer ashamed to avow opinions which had been defended by a writer so respectable."

In the first part of his work, M. Deleuze, after some introductory remarks on the discovery of animal magnetism, its publication and propagation, and the obstacles by which it had been opposed, proceeded to an exposition of the proofs of magnetism, and the means of convincing oneself of its reality. He then treated, in successive chapters, of the magnetic fluid, and the means by which magnetism acts; of the processes employed in magnetism; of the difference of force among magnetisers; of the influence which the confidence of patients may have on the efficacy of the magnetic treatment; of the application of magnetism to the cure of diseases; of magnetic somnambulism; of the inconveniences, abuses, and dangers of magnetism; of some remarkable circumstances which had presented themselves to his observation in the practice of the art; of the mystical doctrines, and their association with magnetism. This work may be regarded as the most systematic treatise on the subject which had at that time appeared in France, though one still more complete had been published in Germany many years before, by Professor Kluge, of Berlin, under the title Versuch einer Darstellung des Animalischen Magnetismus, als Heilmittel; of which a second and a third unchanged edition have since appeared. The following short statement, by Deleuze, of the somnambulic effect of magnetism, will show what was the state of belief on this subject which prevailed, at that period, among a large portion of magnetisers in France:

"When magnetism produces somnambulism," says he, "the being who finds himself in this state acquires a prodigious extension in the faculty of feeling. Several of his exterior organs, usually those of sight and hearing, are rendered torpid, and all the sensations which depend on them are performed interiorly. There is in this state an infinite number of shades and varieties; but to form a correct judgment respecting it, it must be examined in its greatest remoteness from the state of waking, passing over in silence everything that experience has not established. The somnambulist has his eyes closed, and does not see by the eyes, nor hear by the ears; but he sees and hears better than a waking man. He sees and hears only those objects with whom he is in relation. He sees only that which he looks at, and he usually looks only at those objects to which his attention is directed. He is subject to the will of his magnetiser for everything that cannot harm him, and for everything that is not opposed to his ideas of justice and truth. He feels the will of his magnetiser; he perceives the magnetic fluid; he sees, or rather he feels, the interior of his own body, and those of others; but he usually remarks only the parts which are not in the natural state, and which disturb the harmony of the economy; he retains in his memory the remembrance of things which he had forgotten while awake; he has pre-visions and pre-sensations, which may be erroneous in several circumstances, and which are limited in their extent; he expresses himself with a surprising facility; he is not exempt from vanity; he improves of himself, for a certain length of time, if he is wisely managed; he spoils if he is ill directed. When he re-enters into the natural state, he loses absolutely the recollection of all sensations, and of all ideas which he has had in the state of somnambulism; so that these two states are as unconnected with one another, as if the somnambulist and the waking man were two different beings."

In the year 1813 there appeared, in the sixth volume of the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, an article entitled "Convulsionnaires," by M. de Montegre, having special reference to the scenes which occurred at the tomb of Deacon Paris, where many sick persons, who went to pray at the tomb, were seized with convulsions. In comparing these phenomena with those produced by mesmerism, he regards both as depending, not on any special agent, like magnetism, but upon the great law of the mutual and reciprocal influence of the moral upon our physical, and of our physical upon our moral, constitution. He also insists, strongly and justly, on the influence of hysteria in the production of these various phenomena.

In the same year a society of amateurs commenced to meet in the house of M. de Commun, in Paris, for experiments on somnambulism, reading of cases, and conversation. This led to the establishment of the Magnetic Society of Paris in July 1816. M. de Puysegur was made president, and M. Deleuze vice-president. Another consequence of the reunions of M. de Commun was the publication of a periodical journal, entitled Annales du Magnetisme Animal. From 1814 to 1816 eight volumes were brought out. In 1817 the journal was revived, under the title Bibliothèque du Magnetisme Animal. It was edited by the Baron d'Hénin, secretary to the Magnetic Society, and was subject to the control of M. Deleuze.

This journal, like the Annales, of which it was a continua-

tion, extended to eight volumes. Of the many curious and remarkable cases contained in the sixteen volumes, the following brief notes of some may be taken as a sample:

1. The case of Clothilde Lamezien, who was able to trace, from a very early period, the development of her own offspring, of the progress of the different parts of which she furnished most minute details; though the German reviewer in Eschenmayer's Archiv gallantly detects some awkward blunders in her anatomical statements, a circumstance less calculated to excite surprise when it is known that her magnetiser was a military officer. Had he been a Baer or a Burdach, we doubt not her anatomy of fetal development would have set all criticism at defiance.

2. The case of an apparently healthy girl, who, falling at once into the state of self-intuition, saw the marks of an injury of her spleen, which had occurred some years before.

3. The case of a woman so sick in a child six months old, the germs of smallpox, which were to occur twelve months afterwards, and which bore at the time a striking resemblance to paternoster beads or worry beads.

4. The somewhat romantic case of Major Pittman's maid-servant, whose master, being obliged to sail for India before having completed her cure, left her a white pocket handkerchief, which should secure her falling into the state of somnambulism when he thought of her. Nor would it be proper to omit

5. The far sight in time of a somnambulist who foresaw the entrance of the allies into Paris in 1814 a considerable time before it happened, and who walked in the somnambulistic state from Paris to Orleans, a distance of 70 miles; nor

6. The far sight in space of the somnambulist who, in the depth of winter, saw that a plant which had been prescribed for her, but which was at a distance of many miles, was not frozen.

Nor is the Bibliothèque des Sciences Médicales in cases rivalling those of the Annales de Médecine; as for

7. The case of Mademoiselle Vernet, who was made several times to see that the chair of which she was at the time pregnant was a boy, and would, when she should feel its motion.

8. That of Dr. Rouillier, into whose interior a somnambulist saw sufficiently distinctly, in 1788, to be able to assure him that he had not had the smallpox; and

9. That of Mademoiselle L., who foretold that, but for the use of certain decoctions which she prescribed for herself, she would have died of five ulcers in the womb.

The Baron d'Henin attempted to continue the Bibliothèque under the title of Journal of Animal Magnetism, in 1818, but only one number appeared. In May 1820 he brought out the Archives du Magnétisme Animal, of which eight volumes appeared in that and the following years. The first two numbers, consisting of an introductory address by the editor, were afterwards brought out as a separate work, under the title Le Magnétisme Éclairé. From this work, and subsequent volumes of the Archives, we find that considerable difference of opinion existed among the members of the Magnetic Society of Paris. M. Deleuze, and a portion of the members, held the view that there is a particular magnetic fluid; while the baron, and some others, dissented from that doctrine. It would appear that the majority of the society were intolerant of the opposition which he offered, and he complains bitterly of its degeneration from its original purpose, which was to investigate the nature of magnetism, and ascertain its effects. Instead of this, he maintains that the society adopted a system (that of Deleuze) on too slight grounds; that it did not attempt to verify the phenomena on which such a system might be founded; that it had not the support of a single rigorous experiment, and that it did not permit contradictory experiments. It has admitted, he asserts, without judgment and without criticism, all the facts which have been addressed to it; and if it has seemed to verify them, it has been only to give countenance to their improbability and absurdity. It has rejected all the observations that have been made to it upon this subject; and, in place of returning to the path of truth, has plunged itself deeper and deeper in the abyss of error. The magicians of animal magnetism have never chosen to undergo the proof of a public discussion, but have contented themselves, in their conversations, with relating to one another, without permitting contradictions, the marvels, prodigies, somnambulism, and miracles, to which they accorded their admiration. The society, in short, has adopted as its principle, that it ought to consolidate itself, and preserve its harmony, only by the unity of all its members in the belief, or rather in the most lively faith, in the facilitative magnetic fluid of man.

"Almost all the relations of magnetic cures," says the Baron at another place (p. 127), "present circumstances that are naturally improbable. The marvellous slides in at every page. There is scarcely a somnambulist who is not represented as more or less endowed with miraculous powers, and principally that of seeing, so to speak, materially, and without change of place, real effective events happening at very remote distances, and of giving an account of them as if he had been an eye-witness. What I have expressed, the magnetists in general allege; and several attest it, and say they have positively verified it. I am not to be told that these are false allegations on my part; to be convinced of them one has only to read any of the relations, printed or in manuscript, which contain instances of animal magnetism. It is vain to object to me, that I have not been well acquainted with the processes of magnetism, that I have not put them in practice, that I have not seen remarkable facts, or that I have observed them badly; I shall not allow myself to be imposed upon by such denials. I have read, or run over, almost all the books which treat of magnetism; I have lived among magnetisers; I have seen them magnetise; I have conversed with them. I have restrained my incredulity, the better, to allow them to reason, and more frequently to speak nonsense (déraisonner), and to push their pretensions to the uttermost. I have often heard the very facts which had occurred before my eyes related in such a way that I could scarcely recognise them, so much were they disguised by the enthusiasm and exaggeration of those who had been witnesses of them, or who had themselves produced them."

The value of the foregoing criticism on the proceedings of the Magnetic Society of Paris, coming as it did from one who acted as its secretary till its dissolution, in 1820, cannot be too highly estimated. It shows us very clearly how great an amount of caution is required before accepting as true any of the wonderful cases which were at that time published under the auspices of the society, and it applies with equal force to all the subsequent records of somnambulism.

In 1818 appeared the article Magnétisme Animal, in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, by M. Virey, in which he attempted to show that the phenomena of animal magnetism, which are well established, are referrible to the principle of the reciprocal dependence of the corporeal and spiritual parts of the human economy on one another. In reply Deleuze published, in the following year, his Défense du Magnétisme Animal contre les Attaques dont il est l'objet dans le Diet. d. Sc. Med. Public attention was further directed, at this time, to the magnetic doctrines, by a public course of lectures on the subject by M. Bertrand, to whom we shall shortly have to refer.

In 1820, when the Magnetic Society expired, and M. Bertrand was lecturing, a series of experiments on animal magnetism were performed in the wards of the Hotel Dieu, of Paris, under the authority of M. Husson, physician to the hospital. The principal subject of the experiments was Mlle. Sanson, a girl of eighteen, who, in consequence of a fright, laboured under a menstrual suppression, accompanied with vomiting. M. Dupotet was the operator. Twenty-four separate experiments were made, in most of which something striking was evolved. Without entering into details, as it is to be feared that this young woman most egregiously imposed upon those who had her in charge, we shall only mention a few of the more remarkable phenomena which she exhibited in such profusion. At the first trial the vomiting was stopped; at the third she fell into the state of somnambulism, out of which it was difficult to rouse her; at the sixth she could only hear the questions of M. Dupotet, who was in magnetic relation with her. She was insensible to various loud noises made by the bystanders. At the eighth she had not arrived at an exact knowledge of the nature of her disease, but she had discovered the remedy for it. "Continue to magnetise me," she said, "and I shall be cured." At the tenth she was magnetised through an oaken partition in three minutes; on inquiry she announced that she would become lucid. She felt the slightest touch of M. Dupotet, but not that of any of the spectators. At the end of the sitting she became convulsed, in consequence of the touch of a hand not in relation with her. At the eleventh she was again magnetised through a partition; at the thirteenth she was pinched by M. Recamier without producing any sensible effect, except convulsions on coming out of the magnetic state; at the fourteenth she saw a great light before her eyes, and promised that she would see her disease at the next sitting. Accordingly, at the fifteenth she declared that she saw her stomach red, and full of red pimples (boutons), and that she would never be cured of her disease; at the sixteenth she saw five pimples, larger than the others, and a small bag full of blood near her heart, out of which the blood she had vomited proceeded. On this occasion she was charged with deception. She continued to see her disease till the twenty-fourth sitting, on the 17th November, when the incredulous M. Geoffroi, who had come into charge of the wards in place of the more credulous M. Husson, gave orders that the magnetic practices should be discontinued. On the occasion of the vomiting returning, M. Geoffroi permitted M. Robouan to magnetise her, when the vomiting ceased.

Among those who were not satisfied that these experiments had been conducted in good faith, on the part of the somnambulist at least, if not on the part of her magnetiser, were M. Bertrand (Du Magnetisme Animal, p. 239) and M. Recamier.

Soon after the experiments at the Hotel Dieu, similar trials were made at the Salpetriere Hospital, which had the effect of enlisting in the cause of animal magnetism two physicians, whose adoption of this belief was well calculated to make an impression upon those who were acquainted with their characters and dispositions, viz., MM. Georget and Rosstan. The former, in his work on the physiology of the nervous system, published in 1821, observes, that the facts which he has mentioned with respect to somnambulism are for him, as well as for the distinguished physicians who have been witnesses of them, the fruit of an intimate conviction, acquired by a number of trials, and guaranteed by the most rigorous precautions. He did not publish his experiments, but they are recorded in a work, entitled Cures Opérées en France par le Magnetisme Animal.

Several years later, in an article published in the 13th volume of the Dictionnaire de Médecine (Nov. 1825), M. Rosstan made confession of his faith in the following terms:—

"I repeat, what I am to write of these phenomena I have seen, and I have seen frequently. I have not contented myself with observing it on one single person, but I have submitted several to this kind of investigation. I have taken for the subjects of my observations persons of different classes, of different sexes; persons, several of whom were even ignorant of the name of magnetism; literary characters, students in medicine, epileptics, ladies of fashion, young girls, &c., some of whom were even afraid to subject themselves to my experiments. I have continued this kind of examinations for several years, on account of its inspiring me with great interest." "It was physically impossible that there should be any connivance, or any communication, among the persons upon whom I made my observations."

Notwithstanding the boasted rigour and variety of the experiments made by these eminent men, it is a sad and melancholy fact, as was afterwards sufficiently proved, that they were the dupes of designing females, who, at great personal inconvenience and discomfort, made fun (s'est moquée de) of them, as we shall afterwards see. Dr Elliot-son, of London, was undoubtedly placed in the same awkward predicament by two clever Irish girls, the O'Keys. Such cases prove to us how little confidence we ought to place in such experiments on the declarations of hysterical and designing females, who seem sometimes to be endowed with all but supernatural powers of endurance and deception. Our readers will easily remember many remarkable cases of females convicted of the most elaborate attempts at imposition in matters totally unconnected with somnambulism, and actuated apparently by a morbid desire of attracting notice.

On the testimony of M. Londe, the collaborateur of M. Georget, and the witness of all his experiments, we learn that the persons who were the subjects of his experiments afterwards boasted of the deceptions which they had practised. M. Dechambre, in a letter published in the Gazette Medicale (12th Sept. 1835), informs us, that having discovered one of the females on whom Georget's experiments had been made (Manoury dite Brouquette, since become Veuve Brouillard), he, with some of his companions, completely exposed, by a series of experiments, the hollowness of her pretensions. In a second letter, M. Dechambre informs us that another of Georget's heroines, Petronille by name, died of consumption at the Salpêtrière in 1833. Two house-pupils, M.M. Gorre and Perrochard, of the ward into which she was received, authorised him to declare, that she had frequently stated to them that she never experienced the slightest symptom of somnambulism; that she had always imposed upon (s'est moquée de) Georget and the others; and that she and Brouillard had amused themselves in recounting the mystifications of the day, and preparing for those of the succeeding.

In 1823 M. Bertrand published a treatise, entitled Traité du Somnambulisme et des diverses Modifications qu'il Présente, in which he showed with how much facility the imagination may produce somnambulism, and that reasonable magnetisers cannot refuse to acknowledge that, in a great number of circumstances, the imagination produces it alone; and that, in all cases, it cannot fail at least to concur powerfully in its production.

In 1825, M. Foissac, a young physician, who had become a convert to animal magnetism, presented memoirs on the subject to the Academies of Science and Medicine (Rapports et Discussions de l'Acad. Roy. de Med. sur le Mag. An.), and asked for a commission to examine and report on its merits, chiefly as to the power it gives of detecting the diseases of others, of announcing their future course, and directing their treatment. The Academy of Science did not respond to his call. The Academy of Medicine was still more neglectful, as it did not even acknowledge his communication. He again, however, brought the subject under the attention of the latter body by a letter on the 11th October, and stated that he had a somnambulist at his disposal, whom he offered as the subject of any experiments which it might be thought proper to make. The opinions of the Academy being divided, a middle course was adopted on the motion of the president, and MM. Adélon, Pariset, Mare, Husson, and Burdin, were appointed a committee—M. Renaudin refusing to be placed on it—to report on the question, Whether it was proper for the Academy to occupy itself with animal magnetism! On the 13th December, the report, drawn up by M. Husson, who had been engaged in the experiments at the Hotel Dieu, was laid on the table. Its conclusion was to the effect,—1. That the judgment of the commission of 1784 did not dispense with a new examination of the subject. 2. That the experiments on which that judgment was founded were performed without a general plan, without the simultaneous and necessary concurrence of all the commissioners, and with moral dispositions which must have caused these experiments to miscarry. 3. That the animal magnetism of 1784 differed entirely from the magnetic somnambulism of 1825.

4. That they should not be behind the German physicians in the study of this subject.

5. That its examination by the Academy would withdraw its use and practice from those who followed it as an object of lucre and speculation.

After a discussion of three days, the report was adopted by 35 to 25 voices; and on the 28th February 1826 a commission was named, consisting of MM. Legoux, Bourdois de la Mothe, Double, Magendie, Guersent, Laennec, Thilay, Marc, Itard, Fouquier, and Guenau de Mussy. On account of the ill health of M. Laennec, M. Husson was named in his stead. On the 7th August M. Husson was appointed the reporter; but from various causes the report was not presented till the 21st June 1831.

Meanwhile, outside the walls of the Academy this subject continued to be prosecuted with zeal.

In 1826 appeared M. Bertrand's work, entitled *Du Magnetisme Animal en France*, &c., suivi de considérations sur l'apparition de l'Extase dans les Traitements Magnétiques*. The first part of this important work is historical. In the second part the author attacks the very foundation of animal magnetism, and maintains that no physical agent is concerned in the production of artificial somnambulism. Of this work M. Deleuze says (*Hermes*, vol. i.), "of all the attacks directed against magnetism, up to the present day, this is the most powerful, the most imposing, and the most ably combined." The author is a man of genius, &c. He has been occupied with magnetism for some years. He has joined its practice to that of medicine, and he has even taught its doctrines in public lectures. A more attentive examination, and new experiments, have dissuaded him from a belief which he himself propagated; he undertakes to undeceive others, and to prove that magnetism is a mere chimera. Certainly his conviction must be very strong."

M. Bertrand, like the Baron d'Hénin, was not long in discovering the weak and untenable points of the common theories, and like him also was not slow to point out the exaggerations and misrepresentations of these enthusiasts whose powers of judgment are eclipsed by the force of their imaginations. Instead of calling in the aid of a new hypothetical imponderable, working silently and mysteriously in the human organism, as well as throughout space, he was contented to accept the phenomena as subjective states, presenting themselves under the most diversified forms in all ages, as states not essentially morbid, though certain diseases greatly predispose to them, and never supervening except under determinate circumstances.

At a meeting of the surgical section of the Academy of Medicine, on the 16th April 1829, M. Jules Cloquet mentioned the case of a lady, a patient of a celebrated Parisian magnetiser, M. Chapelain, whose breast he had extirpated a few days before, on account of a cancerous affection, while she was in a state of magnetic sleep, without her displaying the slightest mark of sensibility during its removal. This case is remarkable as one of the first recorded instances of an operation performed on a patient in the state of anesthesia. The result of the case was unhappy; on the twelfth day after the operation the patient died of pleurisy, caused by imprudent exposure. This person piqued herself, we learn, on her somnambulic powers; and we have ample evidence to show that what a prodigious extent female endurance can go in bearing pain, without giving expression to the feelings, when actuated by some powerful motive. We frankly admit that, in this case, no feeling of pain was expressed; but no one can tell whether it was felt or not, except the patient herself, who, in the circumstances, was the least likely to do so. On inquiry, it was found that she claimed the power of self-intuition and prevision, and that she had announced the existence of a lesion of the liver. Unfortunately for her credit as a clairvoyante, the scalpel did not reveal any disease of that organ, and disclosed only a purulent effusion into the pleural cavity. As a proof of the little faith that should be attached to the cases reported by professed mesmerists, it will be found (*Hermes*, vol. iv., p. 173 to 204) that M. Pigault Lebrun has made it appear that, in this case, it was the daughter of the patient who possessed the faculties of lucidity and prevision, and that the post mortem appearances found in her mother's body are made fully to confirm her predictions.

As already stated, the report of the commission of the Academy was read by M. Husson on the 21st June 1831. It was continued on the 28th. The report was, on the admission of M. Husson, cooked, in so far as the facts observed by the commission were not reported in the order in which they were observed, but arranged so that the phenomena were made to appear gradually to rise from nullity to a degree of perfect certainty, by an ingenious process of progressive development:-1. From nothing; 2. To something little marked; 3. To a product of ennui, monotony, and imagination; and, 4. To a high degree of probability that they are produced by magnetism alone, independent of the latter causes. The *Examen Historique et Raisonné des Expériences Prétendues Magnétiques de M. Dubois (d'Amiens)* is a most masterly and complete exposure, both of the method and conclusions of this report, and is well worth the attentive perusal of every one who studies this subject. Its contrivance, so as to afford to those disposed to believe a ladder by which they may mount by easy steps from the familiar to the extraordinary, and from the extraordinary to the marvellous; the assumption which it involves of the point at issue, viz., the existence of such a power as magnetism; the absurdity of recognising as one division of their facts null effects of magnetism; the trifling character of their second division of facts, comprehending what they entitle the effects of little consideration; the inconsequence of declaring, in respect of the third class of the so-called effects of magnetism, that they are the effects of ennui, monotony, and imagination, are all pointed out with a vigorous hand; whilst, in respect of the fourth class, in which the phenomena were of a more mysterious character, M. Dubois insists on the total neglect, on the part of the commissioners, of proper precautions against deception and collusion between the magnetisers and their somnambulists. We cannot enter into the details of the cases embodied in M. Husson's report. The most of them were signal failures. M. Foissac's somnambulist, Mlle. Coeline, from whom great things were promised, completely broke down. Mlle. Courrier, produced by M. de Geslin, was also an egregious failure. A female somnambulist of Dr. Chapelain, who prophesied that, on a given day and hour, she would discharge a tapeworm as long as her arm, was duly waited on by the commissioners, but the reward of their assiduity was only an ordinary alvine evacuation. The experiments of M. Dupotet also failed. In the case of a man named Chamet, and a female called Lemaitre, he failed to produce convulsions in any part of the body towards which he pointed his finger, as he had promised. The most remarkable case, the one on which the more important conclusion was founded, was in reality more a failure than a success. A man called Cazot, who was an epileptic, predicted the days and hours on which his fits would return. The prediction of events of this kind is not at all wonderful, even though the events should correspond with the prophecy; but in this case the somnambulist did not foresee that he would be killed by a vehicle on the street before the period when the events prophesied were to take place. The explanation that the prevision was only interior and organic, and did not provide against external accidents, is not consistent with the claims of other somnambulists, who pretend that they are able to foretell when their ankle is to be sprained, or when other people are to die. Nevertheless, for every failure there is always a ready excuse, however inconsistent that may be. with the somnambulist's previous promises, or the exaggerated pretensions of others in the same state. Mlle. Coeline, who was first experimented on, and who so signalily failed, was taken by M. Foissac to examine the state of a young lady, the daughter of a peer of France, and, after some manipulation, described the pathological condition of her abdominal viscera, and prescribed a somewhat unusual mode of treatment, viz., the milk of a goat which had been rubbed with mercurial ointment—which had already been prescribed and employed by MM. Dupuytren and Husson.

The report of this wonderful coincidence was received with a general explosion of marks of incredulity in the Academy. The only other case worthy of note was that of Paul Villagrand, who pretended to be affected with palsy, and who by an elaborate, though very transparent course of deception, also pretended that he was cured by magnetism. This young man came under the observation of M. Velpeau. After many trials of different modes of treatment, the moxa was proposed for his paralytic ailment; but the fear of so painful an ordeal made him abandon his deception.

After M. Husson read his report, the Academy declined to print it, but allowed it to be lithographed. "It was read," says M. Dubois, "but not adopted; heard, but not approved." The silence of the Academy is interpreted by M. Foissac, somewhat contradictorily, to mean an expression of consent.

In 1832 M. Fillasier having been cured of a chronic enteritis by M. Chapelain, assisted by a somnambulist, in order to discharge his debt of gratitude, published a graduation thesis, which contained many cases of persons who could see by the epigastrium; who could discover the diseases of others, &c.; who could see what was going on at seventy miles' distance; who, being lame, could be made to walk without crutches; who were relieved of the pains of parturition and the like—all through the power of magnetic somnambulism. (Vide Magnét. An., in Dict. Pract. de Med. et Chir.)

Though the academy had waived the discussion of M. Husson's report, it could not prevent the subject from again penetrating within its walls. At its meeting on the 24th January 1837 (Bull. i., 343), a case of painless tooth extraction, in magnetic sleep, was mentioned; and at the meeting of the 14th February a letter was read from M. Berna, apparently a magnetic practitioner, offering to submit certain somnambulists to a commission of the academy.

MM. Roux, Bouilland, Emery, Oudet (the dentist in the case referred to above), Hipp, Cloquet, and Dubois were named a commission, to which were afterwards added MM. Cormac, Pelletier, and Caventou. The report of this commission, drawn up by M. Dubois, was presented to the academy on the 12th August, and read at that and the subsequent meeting. The subject of the experiments, which were performed in M. Roux's parlour, was a nervous girl of about seventeen years of age. The following is the programme of proceedings drawn up by M. Berna:

1. Somnambulism. 2. Demonstration of insensibility to punctures and to tickling. 3. Restoration of sensibility by mental volition. 4. Obedience to a mental order of losing the power of motion. 5. Obedience to the mental order of ceasing in the midst of a conversation to reply; mental order to reply anew. 6. Repetition of the same experiment, the magnetiser being separated from the somnambulist by a door. 7. Awakening. 8. Conformably with a mental order, which shall have been enjoined during the somnambulistic state, persistence of insensibility on awakening, and persistence also of the faculty of losing and recovering this sensibility at the will of the magnetiser.

It will be observed that in this programme there is no allusion made to the higher phenomena of clairvoyance, prevision, transference of the senses, &c. The experiments bearing on the 1st, 2d, and 7th heads were of an undecided character. The results of the experiments illustrating the Somnambulism head were as follows:—When M. Berna mentally paralysed her right arm only, she declared that both the right leg and the right arm were paralysed. He next mentally paralysed her left leg, but she affirmed that she could move that leg very well, but not at all the left arm. This experiment was repeated with the same result. Inadvertently she did move the left arm also, though she had declared her inability to do so. The experiments on the 3d and 5th articles also completely failed.

After many objections on his part, M. Berna was induced by the commissioners to exhibit experiments illustrative of vision without the assistance of the eyes. The somnambulist on this occasion was a female, thirty years of age, but every one of the experiments resulted in complete failure. Without having the candour to say that she did not see what was on the cards, she persisted in making guesses, no one of which even approached the truth.

The conclusions of this report were all, therefore, justly condemnatory of the pretended powers of somnambulists. M. Berna protested against it, and M. Husson, who had strong leanings in favour of somnambulism, and advocated the adoption of a resolution to the effect that the only conclusion that can be deduced from the report is, that in the experiments made by M. Berna before the commission, it has not seen any of the phenomena which that physician had announced would be produced. The discussion was continued on the 5th September, and the academy adopted the conclusions of the report. The following year M. Berna published a reply, entitled Magnétisme Animal, Examen et Réfutation du Rapport par Dubois à l'Académie Royale de Médecine.

At the meeting of the academy on the 5th September, M. Burdin, a member of the committee of 1825, offered a prize of 3000 francs to any one who could read without the assistance of light, of the eyes, and of touch. The council of administration reported favourably of the proposal of M. Burdin at the next meeting (12th September), and recommended that the time should be limited to two years, if the prize had not previously been merited. The money was lodged, and a commission, consisting of MM. Dubois, Double, Chomel, Husson, Louis, Gerardin, and Moreau, was nominated on the 19th.

The commission, soon after its appointment, published an announcement inviting magnetisers to produce before it any of their somnambulists capable of fulfilling the terms of M. Burdin's offer. (Bulletin, i., 944; ii., 17.) Many communications were received, setting forth the most preposterous claims, but there was only one somnambulist produced before the commission, viz., Mlle. Pigeaire, the daughter of a physician at Montpellier. We need not delay to consider the communication of M. Petriconi, magistrate at Calvi, in Corsica (Bull. i., 944), concerning the husband who satisfied his paternal feelings by predicting that his wife would bring forth a son; or the clairvoyant who announced the result of an election at Bastia, 40 miles off; nor that of M. Hublier (Bull. ii., 126), surgeon-in-chief of the hospitals of Provins, who promised to present to the commission a person capable of reading without the assistance of the eyes, as soon as the necessary training had been completed; nor that of Dr Birnmann of Pirna, in Hanover (Bull. ii., 127), who knew a young person who was able to read not only German but other languages which she did not know, without the intervention of the eyes; nor that of Dr Bergeron (p. 397), who was acquainted with a young somnambulic girl who had the faculty of seeing in the dark and through opaque bodies; nor that of M. Despine of Aix-les-Bains, in Savoy (p. 631), mentioning two cases of transposition of the senses, one of which he had taken under his own immediate charge in order to study the phenomena, which he found to consist of hearing, reading, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching with the feet and hands; as none of the remarkable persons referred to were produced before the commission in Paris in order to have their alleged powers put to the tests necessary to be gone through before the prize could be awarded. We must confine our attention, therefore, to Mlle. Pigeaire, who was brought to Paris in order to be examined by the commission. The terms on which the prize was to be awarded had, in the meantime, been relaxed by M. Burdin, in so far as to allow light to be used as well as the fingers, provided a plate of glass was interposed. This concession was made as Mlle. could not read, it was admitted, without a certain degree of light. The next difficulty which arose between M. Pigeaire and the commissioners was in reference to the apparatus to be used for bandaging the eyes. That offered by the commissioners was rejected by M. Pigeaire, and he insisted on using his own, which they, in their turn, very properly rejected, and gave M. Pigeaire to understand that it belonged to them to determine the form of the mask to be used in the experiments. The president proposed a movable veil to be placed over M. Pigeaire's mask, but this was also rejected, on the pretence that the cheeks required to be uncovered, as he was not disinclined to think, with several persons, that his daughter might read by means of the nerves of the face. To obviate this objection, a member proposed conical tubes to conduct the light to the cheek; but this was also refused by M. Pigeaire. On inquiry it was found that Mlle. Pigeaire could not read for a space of time varying from a quarter of an hour to an hour and a half after the application of the bandage. It was also admitted that she was in the habit of performing a greater or less number of movements with the muscles of the face.

Another point to which the commission attached much importance, was the position of the book in which Mlle. Pigeaire was to read. The commission desired the book to be placed directly in front of her, and on a level with her eyes. M. Pigeaire said that the book must be placed on his daughter's knees or on a table, and that she could not read with the book in face of her on a level with her eyes. He also declared that his daughter would be unable to read, and that she would fall into convulsions if one of the commissioners applied his forefinger on the lower border of the bandage. Towards the conclusion of the sitting, M. Pigeaire said, that at other times his daughter had read words placed in the interior of a box; but, though the commission declared that this experiment would be held decisive, if performed in their presence, he declined it.

The commission having been thus resisted on all hands in their endeavours to secure the necessary precautions against the somnambulist reading with the eyes, encumbered it might be with certain obstacles, but yet not altogether prevented from seeing, there is little wonder that it declined to be a party to the experiments at all. Some members of the academy regretted that the commission had not proceeded the length of experiments, but it seems to have been generally acknowledged that the precautions which they had insisted upon were reasonable.

At the meeting of the 7th of August, M. Berna offered, in the name of several magnetisers, 50,000 and 70,000 francs to any person who, in the natural state, should read with the bandage usually employed for covering the eyes of Mlle. Pigeaire. This foolish challenge was not accepted, as it was quite manifest that, if it had, conditions would have been imposed such as the commission had insisted upon, which would have rendered the accomplishment of the feat impossible.

As the period of the concours terminated in October 1839, and as no candidate had yet offered himself, M. Burdin, on the 30th July of that year, made further modifications of the conditions on which it might be competed for, in order to induce magnetisers to come forward. He said, "Bring us a person magnetised or not magnetised, asleep or awake; let that person read with the eyes open through an opaque substance, such as tissue of cotton, linen, or silk, placed at six inches from the face, or read even through a simple sheet of paper, and that person shall have the 3000 francs." (Bull. de l'Acad., iii., 1123.) No candidate appeared, and the money reverted to its owner.

If such a power as seeing in any other way than by the organ of vision really existed, as was vaunted to be possessed by so many persons both before the prize was offered and since, surely some one of the clairvoyants would have come forward and established a just claim for the prize, but as none appeared, we may conclude with safety that both then and now no such marvellous power exists or is developed in the human constitution.

We have now brought down the history of magnetic somnambulism in France to a period beyond which it did not continue to excite any considerable public interest. So signal and repeated had been the failures on the part of the magnetists to establish the truth of their doctrines before the commissions of the Academy of Medicine, that the whole subject seems to have fallen into merited contempt and oblivion. In more recent times the exciting phenomena of spirit-rapping have superseded those of somnambulism, and spiritual media have recently too much occupied the public attention to leave any room for those who can boast no higher powers than those of which magnetic clairvoyants claim the possession.

2. Somnambulism in Great Britain.—It is stated by M. Somnambule Deuze that Mesmer was desirous to teach his doctrines in England as he had done in France. We have evidence from himself that he visited England, but as to the exact nature of his proceedings there we have no precise information. In a letter written by him to M. Picard-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 have no other mention of Mesmer's ever having been in England, except that Gorton, in his Biographical Dictionary, says that he had lived there for some time subsequently to 1784, under a feigned name. M. Bailly's report was translated into English in 1786, and the impression which it produced upon the public mind probably precluded any hope which Mesmer might have formed of receiving a favourable reception for his views in this country. It does not appear that he made any attempt to propagate his doctrines in London, or formed the acquaintance of any scientific man of eminence on this side the English Channel. England is too rich a field to escape spoliation, and notwithstanding its high pretensions to sound practical sense, it is not averse to receive for a time any scheme, however preposterous and at whatever price, if it puts forth claims sufficiently high, and advertises them widely enough. But in this country a delusion, though it may make a great noise for a season, and seem to flourish, soon disappears and falls into merited oblivion. It may run like wildfire through the land for a few months, but it is soon extinguished, leaving only smoke and ashes behind. Still, though we may repent and be ashamed for a time, we are soon ready to start afresh. Chicanery and deceit do not quench our faith, disappointment and defeat do not extinguish our courage, and pecuniary loss does not damp our enterprise.

Though Mesmer himself did nothing in England, his followers did not lose the golden opportunity of exercising their vocation to some profit on this side the English Channel. About 1788, animal magnetism produced a considerable sensation in this country, and we are informed by Mrs Hannah More, who was keenly alive to the danger of doctrines which emanated from the French metropolis, that M. Maineduc, a disciple of M. D'Eslon, made L100,000 by the practice of mesmerism in this country (Dupotet, p. 319). One Holloway also made his fortune by giving lectures, the fee for which was five guineas. The most notable performers, however, were Mr and Mrs de Lauterbourg, who resided at Hammersmith Terrace. Their house became a great centre of attraction, and they were reported to have cured 2000 people in six months. No disease or infirmity seems to have been capable of resisting their healing virtues, if we can believe their enthusiastic admirers. The deaf and dumb, we are assured, were made to speak by a look of benignity. No wonder that the enthusiastic Mrs Pratt, of 41 Portland Place, Marylebone, announced to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Mr and Mrs Lauterbourg had been rendered by God "proper recipients to receive divine manipulation," and proposed to his lordship a public thanksgiving for the blessings they dispense, and a form of prayer for their continuance. "Let us join," she exclaims, "in prayer and praise to have this most glorious blessing continued, lest our candlestick be removed from us, which I most ardently pray the Lord Jehovah to avert." The miracles of our Saviour in curing the deaf, the dumb, the halt, the lame, and the blind, appear insignificant in number and small in importance when placed side by side with those of Mr and Mrs de Lauterbourg. How great our loss that their candlestick was very speedily removed, and that their names are not found in the English Liturgy, not we, but Mrs Pratt, could adequately express.

Various ephemeral publications appeared in London about the same period on the subject of animal magnetism, written, it would appear, more in the interest of particular manipulators than in that of science. These have all passed into a merited oblivion. (Brit. and For. Med. Rev., April 1839, p. 312.)

The outbreak of the French Revolution, and the events which followed that catastrophe till 1815, cut off this country so much from intercourse with France and other continental countries, that the awakened interest about animal magnetism soon died out, and was not easily resuscitated. At the end of last century, as we have seen, Perkins' tractors enjoyed a brief period of notoriety, which was speedily extinguished by the conclusive experiments of Messrs Haygarth and Smith.

A profound ignorance or indifference seems to have prevailed in this country on the subject of animal magnetism, or magnetic somnambulism, which is the modern phase of that doctrine, from the period of the French Revolution till the year 1837.

It appears that little or nothing was known in this country of what was doing on the Continent, more especially in Germany, in reference to this subject. Our experimenters seem to have commenced de novo, or probably only with the light which was derived from France in the report of the Commission of the French Academy of Medicine, which originated in the importunity of M. Foissac, and was compiled by M. Husson. In 1831, M. Husson, as we have said, read to the Royal Academy of Medicine the report of the commission which it had appointed so long before as 1826. The report was lithographed for the use of the members, but never discussed or adopted. The Academy of Medicine ignored the report, but M. Foissac nevertheless accepted it as the expressed opinion of the Academy, which it was not. He took silence for consent. The conduct of the Academy was certainly of a more vacillating description, on this the second occasion of its investigation of the phenomena of animal magnetism, than it was on the first, and through this circumstance a great impulse and encouragement were given to the study of these phenomena, as well as increased confidence to those who had already adopted the views as well founded.

It is to be regretted that the London experimenters were not acquainted with the proceedings of the German magnetisers, otherwise they might have avoided numerous extravagances in the phenomena which they evoked, which had already in Germany far exceeded anything that they dared to announce here; as well as many experiments, which placed them in such an attitude of contradiction to their more advanced fellow-workers as to afford convincing proof that one or other of their theories must be false.

At the same time, although generally neglected till the outbreak of the mesmeric mania in 1837, it would be wrong to suppose that animal magnetism had wholly died out in this country. We find traces of its existence, though merely in the hands of obscure adventurers, who were resolved not easily to lose sight of a system which had already proved itself profitable. It is chiefly at watering-places, and in those localities which are most frequented by the idle, the frivolous, and the fashionable, that it is found still to linger. Dr Elliotson admits that he had been impressed by experiments which he had seen performed at St Thomas's Hospital many years before he commenced his own at the North London, but that he was prevented from prosecuting them on account of the death of the gentleman by whom they were made.

The advent of the Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy, whose success as a magnetic experimentalist before the second French commission had been more than problematical, was the occasion of a renewed interest in the subject of animal magnetism in this country. From the Medical Gazette of 16th September 1837 we learn that the Baron was first introduced at the Middlesex Hospital, where, on several successive days, and in presence of the physicians, surgeons, and numerous visitors, he selected a few hysterical girls on whom to try his powers, but entirely in vain. They were scarcely even frightened, and like most of M. Bernat's "l'experience était nulique." Some one laughed and whispered, "Send him to the North London—he'll succeed there." He went to the North London Hospital, where he instituted experiments which were concluded on the 19th September, at the instance of the medical committee of the hospital. Although, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, the experiments did not fulfil the expectations held out (vid. Lancet, Oct. 14, 1837, p. 99), they produced such an effect on the mind of Dr Elliotson, professor of medicine in University College and senior physician to the hospital, that though at first somewhat sceptical, and totally disbelieving such phenomena as seeing with the fingers, smelling with the stomach, &c., he was inclined to believe in the reality of such things as sleep, coma, and somnambulism produced by mesmerism (Lancet, Oct. 21, 1837, p. 124). Dr Elliotson, having been so far convinced of the reality of mesmeric phenomena, was induced to continue the experiments himself. This did not excite surprise at first, and it was confidently expected that his experiments would lead to a conclusive refutation of mesmerism. This hope, however, was not realized, and it soon became apparent that he had become a complete convert to all the most marvellous and incredible tenets of the mesmeric faith. Time and space would fail us if we attempted to describe all the windings and turnings of his devious path, till they led to his resignation both of his hospital appointment and his professorial chair. With the blind zeal of a convert to a new faith, he plunged into a series of experiments and exhibitions, at which the learned, the idle, and the noble eagerly assisted; till, urged on step by step, with a credulity and a simplicity which never dreamed of deceit or imposture, he arrived at the brink of a precipice, over which he was hurled, with the ruin of great prospects, the alienation of friends, and the exultation of enemies, but with no word of consolation or support from the noble and curious crowd who had previously assisted at his exhibitions. The history of the sisters O'Key, in connection with animal magnetism and Dr Elliotson, is in our opinion one of the most melancholy in the whole history of practical medicine. For the particulars of it the reader may consult the Gazette and Lancet for the years 1837-8, passim. That the O'Keys were impostors of the first water, and that Dr Elliotson was their unwitting dupe, there cannot be a shadow of doubt. Into the details of the exhibitions we cannot, nor is it necessary for us to enter. The experiments were conducted with a looseness and total absence of the most necessary precautions for distinguishing between phenomena which were real and those which were pretended. In that department of the investigation which Mr Wakley undertook to sift, the introduction of a little method, and the scientific testing of the phenomena, at once demonstrated the fallacy of the pretended magnetic virtue communicated to nickel, gold, water, &c., by the touch of the human hand. In all the experiments conducted by Dr Elliotson himself, the patients received such manifest indications of what they were expected to do that a very ordinary amount of acuteness was sufficient to carry them through the ordeal with apparent success. Some of the experiments intended to prove new and marvellous powers in the human constitution were as frivolous as they were ridiculous. What can we think of an experiment intended to prove so marvellous a phenomena as the transposition of the senses of vision and smell, consisting merely of presenting, either immediately in front of the face or with a piece of pasteboard interposed, a piece of bread and butter which the patient's tutored hand readily seized, probably assisted by the smell of such an object, which can be felt at a considerable distance?

Though Dr Elliotson devoted himself more to experimenting than theorizing, there is a tacit assumption throughout most of his experiments that the effects are the result of some faculty of one organism acting upon another. The adoption of a system, instead of the verification of the phenomena on which a system might be established, by the Magnetic Society of Paris, was, as we have seen, the rock on which that body split, in spite of the energetic protest of the Baron d'Hénin. In so far as he confined himself chiefly to the verification of phenomena, Dr Elliotson adopted a wise course; and though many of the phenomena he witnessed were in strict accordance with the observations of French and German magnetisers, he evoked others in direct opposition to these theories, and which, if true, would have furnished direct proof against their soundness. Such experiments as the following lay the axe at the root of all hitherto recognised systems—"Dr Elliotson, coming in front of the patient, causes her to magnetise herself by desiring her to make bows to her face with one hand." After a few passes she fell into magnetic sleep. Again we are told "that Mr Wood was led to try the effect of magnetising the reflection of Jane O'Key in a looking-glass. Being told to look at herself in an unframed glass, two passes were made at her image, when she fell into the same condition of sleep as when magnetised personally." Upon such inconclusive evidence no person bent upon investigating fairly the existence of the magnetic phenomena could for a moment place the slightest reliance.

The conversation of the O'Keys was not edifying; their sentiments were not refined, their language was not elegant, and their prophecies were not fulfilled. If the phenomena exhibited by these girls in their magnetic state is a true representation of what animal magnetism can do for us in increasing our knowledge, in refining our manners, in improving our medical skill, and in revealing to us the arcana of nature, it will be to the credit and advantage of our race if it is now buried in everlasting oblivion.

Besides Dr Elliotson, Mr Mayo, Dr Macnight, and Dr Sigmund became converts to the magnetic doctrines in London. Of these Mr Mayo is the only one who, by his writings, has exercised an important influence on the fortunes of animal magnetism in this country. Possessed, like Dr Elliotson, of many eminent qualities, both literary and scientific, his adhesion to the cause is no unimportant event in its history. As Dr Elliotson was practical and experimental, so Mr Mayo brought to bear upon the subject theorizing powers of no ordinary kind. We may form an estimate of the length he could go theoretically in discussing the question from the following statement—"By looking upon a mesmerically charged body, you may so mesmerise it that another mesmerically charged substance laid upon it shall from it be mesmerically sufficiently to produce decided mesmeric effects upon patients sufficiently susceptible of this peculiar agency" (Medical Gazette). Of the higher phenomena, such as provision and transference of the senses, he thinks that "they naturally lead to the supposition that they result from the workings of a spiritual nature, in a certain state of independence of those bodily organs to which it is normally closely tied and bound, from the mind being in part dislocated and displaced from her corporeal tenement, holding on with misplaced attributes to unaccustomed points and corners of the frame" (Medical Gazette, vol. xxii., p. 775).

This view of the effect of magnetic sleep is identical with that which prevailed in the most ancient times as to the effect of ordinary sleep. The soul, according to the old theory, withdraws in sleep into the innermost recesses of the human frame, and, in the language of Mr Mayo, "becomes dislocated and displaced from her corporeal tenement." Having retired into the "land of dreams," the soul was relieved from its grosser corporeal impediments, endowed with higher powers, and could then penetrate not merely into the past in time and the distant in space, but could also reach forward into the vistas of futurity. The higher phenomena, therefore, according to Mr Mayo, are but the dreams of artificial sleep, and their revelations convey to us information in every way analogous to that furnished by ordinary dreams. In short, to adopt his form of expression, they are the phenomena of a "dislocated soul" holding on by the corners of the frame.

After a short period of excitement (1837-8), the mesmeric mania subsided, and the public of London generally became content to see with their eyes, taste with their mouths, hear with their ears, and to use the natural means which were provided for the acquisition of all necessary and useful knowledge, instead of seeking for transmigrated faculties in "unaccustomed points" of their frame.

From this period, however, we must date the first beginnings of anything like a school of mesmerism in this country. Though the public excitement passed away, there remained a large number of persons who devoted themselves heart and soul to the investigation of what were to them new and strange doctrines; we shall find that at intervals the public attention could still be aroused to a lively interest in the phenomena of magnetic somnambulism.

Mr Braid, a surgeon in Manchester, was the first (in 1841) who attempted to strike out a new path, and to reform and modify the theory in such a way that, while sufficient to account for all the real phenomena, it could commend itself to the attention of men engaged in the cultivation of the ordinary branches of science. Recognizing the existence of a substratum of truth and facts in the phenomena usually observed at mesmeric meetings, he set about to discover some rational key by which they could be accounted for without shocking our understandings, or making any demand on our powers of credulity. The phenomenon which chiefly arrested his attention, was the loss of voluntary motion in particular parts of the body, which he accepted as real, and explained as follows:—Take the immobility of the eyelids, for instance, "the continued fixed stare of the patient at any object, by paralysing nervous centres in their appendages, and destroying the equilibrium of the nervous system, produced the phenomenon referred to." This explanation, as put by Mr Braid, is singularly absurd. We have an object at rest—in equilibrio—and we wish to explain why it is at rest. This Mr Braid thinks he has done by stating that the fixed stare destroys the equilibrium of the nervous system. If the equilibrium of the nervous system is destroyed, we have not rest but motion on this hypothesis, therefore the eyelids ought to move, which is the very opposite of what he wished to prove. This criticism does not affect his theory, but only his manner of stating it. He evidently means to state that the continued stare of the patient, by producing (not destroying) the equilibrium of the nervous system, caused the phenomenon referred to. With his theory Mr Braid has invented a new nomenclature; with him mesmerism becomes hypnotism or neurhypnology. "The sole object," he says, "which I had in view in undertaking the experimental investigation of animal magnetism, was to devise a simple and satisfactory mode of demonstrating that the real cause of the phenomena manifested was subjective or personal, and not objective or the result of any magnetic fluid or force passing from the operator to the patient; and as I have succeeded in this attempt in producing all the ordinary and useful phenomena (useful in a curative point of view, I mean), more speedily and certainly than by the ordinary mesmerising methods, whilst I never succeeded in producing clairvoyance and the higher phenomena, I thought it better to discuss the phenomena producible by my method under a new name, and adopted the term hypnotism, or nervous sleep." The hypnotising method referred to is described as follows by Mr Braid. He takes any bright object, generally his lancet-case, which he holds ten or twelve inches above the middle of the forehead, so as to require a slight exertion of the attention to enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed gaze on the object, the person being either comfortably seated or standing; stillness is enjoined; and he is requested to engage his attention as much as possible with the simple act of looking at the object, and yield to the tendency to sleep which will steal over him during this apparently simple process. In the course of about three or four minutes, if the eyelids do not close of themselves, the first two fingers of the right hand extended and a little separated, may be quickly, or with a tremulous motion, carried towards the eyes so as to cause the patient involuntarily to close the eyelids, which, if he is highly susceptible, will either remain rigidly closed or assume a vibratory motion, the eyes being turned up, with, in the latter case, a little of the white of the eye visible through the partially closed lids. If the patient is not highly susceptible, this process may be required to be repeated more than once. He found great differences in the susceptibility of different patients; some being affected with difficulty, while others, after a while, became so susceptible as to be affected entirely through the power of imagination, belief, and habit, i.e., the expectant idea produced it in such subjects when no process whatever, whether near or distant, was going forward.

We may notice here, as showing how little is known in France of the progress of science in this country, and how readily discoveries made in one country are, after a lapse of years, reproduced in another as new discoveries, the recent announcement of a method, which is an exact copy of Mr Braid's, of producing a state of anaesthesia, in which a surgical operation was performed. M. Guérin, surgeon to the hospital of Poitiers, recently amputated a thigh, after the patient had been reduced to the hypnotic state, by means of a bright spatula held about four inches from the root of nose; after about ten minutes the patient was hypnotised, and his leg was removed without the exhibition, on his part, of any symptoms of pain. Thus was the honour of re-discovering hypnotism claimed in France.

The discovery of Mr Braid was one well fitted to excite the hostility of the various classes of mesmerists, who, however much they differed amongst themselves, were at one in the view that the mesmeric phenomena were the result of an influence or power, ab extra, which, passing from the operator, was transmitted to the person operated on by means of certain magic passes, fixed stares, and the like. The commission of the French Academy, in 1784, had attempted to explain, on rational principles, the phenomena of mesmerism, as then exhibited; but these explanations, however satisfactory, wanted the convincing evidence of experimental demonstration. This defect has been supplied by Mr Braid, whose experiments have amply confirmed the views then enunciated, by his discovery of a simple method of producing all the credible and authentic phenomena of mesmerism. Besides the simple method described above, there are various auxiliary means which may be employed with success to produce the phenomena in question. It is of advantage if the person to be operated on has witnessed the operation on other persons. The influence of sympathy and imitation is thus brought into play, and increases the susceptibility in a marked degree. The influence of direct auricular suggestion and expectation, excited by the confident tone and deportment of the operator, also contribute to a successful result. Mr Braid is of opinion, that all the mesmerising processes produce their effects from what is essentially the same exciting cause as that which induces hypnotic phenomena—viz., by producing a state of mental concentration, through the attention becoming so engrossed by watching the manoeuvres or suggestions of the operator, as for the time to render the subject dead or indifferent to all other sensible impressions or trains of thought. "In this stage of the sleep," he remarks, "the power of suggestion on the patient is excessive, whatever idea is suggested to his mind, whether by the natural import of the words spoken, or modified by the tone of voice in which they are uttered, is instantly seized upon by the subject, and interpreted in a manner to surprise many, and lead them to believe it has been accomplished by a sort of intuition or inspiration. In this way you may vary or modify the ideas suggested in the most remarkable manner, and the patient sees, and feels, and speaks of all as real, without the slightest desire to impose upon others."

It is easy to see, that however satisfactory and rational this mode of explanation of some of the most remarkable phenomena witnessed at mesmeric sittings may be, the theory of some occult influence, odyle, volition, or by whatever name it may be called, fostered by that innate love of the marvellous so predominant in most minds, presents so great attractions that it has ever been received with more popular favour than the more philosophical account of the matter given by Mr Braid.

He remarks, "That there is nothing occult or specific in the pass with the hand is manifest from this, that a similar agitation of the air by the blast from a pair of bellows will produce precisely similar results as the like current of air from the wafting of the human hand, as I have proved to the satisfaction of hundreds of intelligent individuals.

"A pass, therefore, as a visible or sensible impression, aids the patient in concentrating his mental attention to a given organ or part, and thus influences its function, through giving a special direction to a power residing within the patient's own frame; but it no more imparts a virtue of an occult nature from the operator to the patient, than the lens produces the light and heat which it makes visible and perceptible to the senses, through concentrating the luminous and calorific rays of the sun, and drawing them to a focus. Both the pass and the lens aid in concentrating and manifesting the respective influences, but neither the operator nor the lens is the source or origin of the power or influence so manifested."

In the experience of Mr Braid no phenomena have manifested themselves during either the hypnotic or mesmeric sleep which have not been in accordance with generally admitted physiological and psychological principles. Though the senses and mental powers may be torpidified or quickened to an extraordinary degree, he has never seen anything to warrant a belief that individuals could thereby become gifted with the power of reading through opaque bodies, and other wonderful feats, called by the mesmerists the higher phenomena.

The theory of Mr Braid, as has been seen, is entirely subjective in its principles, and it is one to which the great majority of physiologists and psychologists in this country have given in their adhesion, and to which, indeed, many who had not come forward as authors were previously inclined. The opposite theory, however, the objective, is one which has received no mean support, and its pretensions at least deserve some attention. Besides Elliotson, whose experiments have already been mentioned, there are Gregory, Reichenbach, Colquhoun, and Esdaile, to whose labours we would fail in our duty if we did not call the attention of our readers. These authors are all, more or less, wedded to the doctrine, that the phenomena of mesmerism are attributable to the agency of some power or influence which passes from the operator to the person operated on; that there exists in nature an imponderable power or influence, through which all the magnetic phenomena are excited. This influence Reichenbach designates odyle. Though its author is German, the work of Reichenbach, through the translation of Gregory, has become British; and his views may be more conveniently discussed in connection with the British than the German development of mesmeric doctrines, more especially as, according to the translator, the abstract of these views, published by him in 1846, was more favourably received in this country than the original work was on the continent.

It may appear, prima facie, difficult to connect the odyle theory with that of mesmerism, but this is clearly brought out by Dr Gregory. The mesmeric state, according to him, is merely somnambulism artificially produced; but Reichenbach's discoveries show that a force or influence, analogous to heat, electricity, and magnetism, but distinct from all, exists in the human body, and that a large number of persons are, more or less, sensitive to this influence. Mesmer and others produced powerful effects by using magnets, and other means; and this is now cleared up, by the discovery that the new force residing in the human body does also reside, not only in magnets, but in all other bodies. The conclusion naturally is, according to the translator, that these forces are identical; that there is a fluid (or imponderable power or influence) which is not ordinary magnetism, and which acts strongly on the system. This fluid is odyle. It ought to be premised, that Reichenbach's experiments, on which he founds his system, were performed chiefly upon females, many of whom were afflicted with nervous diseases of various kinds. Though pretending to have followed the inductive method, and claiming for his discoveries a high scientific value, it must be confessed that there is apparent, throughout the whole investigation, a fatal want of those precautions which are absolutely necessary to make his conclusions worthy of credit. The diseased imaginings of nervous females; sensations, whose truthfulness we cannot test; and statements which are manifestly the result of ideas which have been suggested, are not the kind of foundation on which can be built systems which claim for themselves the accuracy of physical research.

If these imposing investigations of Reichenbach, which were brought forward with all the external appearance of scientific inquiry, are divested of these adventitious circumstances, there will be found a residuum, the value of which as a contribution to physical, physiological, or psychological science, is not commensurate with the trouble required for its elimination. If we apply to them the cross-questioning by which Haygarth and others detected the fallacy of the phenomena produced by Perkins' tractors, we shall find that the crystals and magnets of Reichenbach produce effects, the value of which are nearly on a par with those produced by the tractors of Perkins. Mr Braid has had the sagacity to adopt this method in testing the truth of Reichenbach's experiments. He was invited to spend an evening at a lady's house, who was extremely susceptible to ordinary mesmeric processes, and who was so sensitive to the influence of magnets that she was quite uncomfortable if a magnet was near her in any room; and in the dark she could point out any part of the room where a magnet of very moderate power was placed, from her seeing the light it produced streaming all around it. "I had the pleasure," says Mr Braid, "of sitting very near the lady, and of enjoying a long and interesting conversation with her and her husband (who was a most respectable and intelligent gentleman), and no manifestation whatever took place during the whole time, until after I had explained my views regarding the power of an act of fixed attention, directed to any part, in modifying the natural condition of the part so regarded. She was requested to direct her fixed attention to her hand, and watch the result, without anything being done either by her husband or any one else. She did so, and very quickly fell asleep; and the arm to which she had directed her attention became rigidly cataleptic. Some time after being aroused, and when the shades of deep twilight had set in, the most interesting experiment was proposed, which was this,—that she should walk round the room and find a magnet which had been hidden behind some pictures when she was out of the room, in order to prove to me her power of seeing its light, and thus detecting it. She walked cautiously round the room (wide awake, for she did not require to be asleep to manifest this quality), her husband repeatedly urging her to seek about and persevere until she should find it. I feel satisfied that he had no intention of aiding her; but from his long silence when she approached the place where the magnet was hid, I should myself have caught the suggestion that I was near to it, or, in nursery phraseology, that I was then getting very hot. After she had passed it a little she sat down on a chair, but said she could not see it to-night, and then came up to where we were, shortly after which we sat down to supper. The lady showed no symptom of being uncomfortable from the proximity of a magnet, until requested to look out and fix her attention upon her hand; and after being aroused all seemed right again, until she was told that the dreaded magnet was hidden somewhere in the room; and she was requested to go round in the dark and endeavour to find it. The husband thought her sitting down in the chair proved that she felt the influence of the magnet, although she could not see the light from it; but what seemed conclusive evidence to my mind, that it was the mere idea, and not any physical influence in the magnet which affected the lady was this,—that all the time I had been sitting so close to her, conversing with her and her husband, I had had a fourteen pound lifting magnet, with the armature unattached, in my side pocket next to the lady; and that was a magnet of more than double the power of her husband's, and yet no visible effect was produced by my powerful but unsuspected magnet."

Let "Mdlle. Maria Atzmaendorfer, daughter of a military medical man; Mdlle. Angelica Sturmans, daughter of an hotel-keeper; Friedrich Wiedlich, an invalided sol-

Anka Hotmanek, a country girl, working on my property of Schloss Reisenberg; Johann Kleiber, carpenter in my service; and all such magnetically susceptible persons, submit to the same experimental test as that to which Mr Braid's female friend was subjected, and the result will not be widely different from that which was witnessed in that well observed case.

We cannot enter in detail upon the various experiments of Baron Reichenbach; but when we find that they terminate with a positive statement of the results, founded on the assertions of the persons experimented on, without any crucial or negative experiments by which it may be proved that their sensations are produced by causes altogether different from those to which they ascribe them, and that the causes to which they are ascribed are such as do not in many cases produce them; although it may be that the causes assigned are true causes; yet if the tests applied are not subjected to rigid scrutiny, and the numerous sources of fallacy to which phsyco-physiological experiments are so peculiarly liable are not sufficiently attended to, we can have little or no faith in the validity of the conclusions arrived at.

The first patient experimented on by Baron Reichenbach was Mdlle. Nowotny, who was preternaturally sensitive to light and to the action of magnets. Reflecting that the aurora borealis appears to be nothing else than an electric phenomenon, caused by the magnetism of the earth, it occurred to him to try whether such an acute vision as that of Mdlle. Nowotny might not possibly, in absolute darkness, be able to perceive some luminous appearance in connection with the magnet; and if such should be the case, it seemed likely to supply the key to the explanation of the northern lights. She was first experimented on by her father, and she of course did see a luminous appearance so long as the magnet was open. If other instruments had been tried without the knowledge of the patient, and changed from time to time, and if it had been found that she could discriminate between the true and false magnet by light given out by the former, and the absence of light in the latter, the result would have been more satisfactory. Six other females, affected with nervous diseases, were experimented on with nearly similar results. The experiments were made in 1844, and they were followed by others in 1845-6-7. It soon became apparent, even to the Baron himself, that it was of the greatest importance that perfectly healthy persons should be able to see the odyllic light. It is only, however, for the benefit of the sceptical that the evidence of additional witnesses is adduced; and he invites all those who are satisfied with the proofs already adduced, and with the accuracy of his mode of investigation, to pass over, if they please, the pages in which it is recorded. Beginning with the healthy sensitives, he proceeds progressively to the delicate, the sickly, and the highly sensitive. This latter class we need not further notice, as the record of the sensations of persons who are confessedly disordered in their nervous systems will never be accepted by scientific men as admissible evidence in favour of any class of physical phenomena or facts. To the first class—the healthy sensitives, which looks very like a contradiction in terms—as it is admitted that the vast majority of healthy persons do not perceive any of the appearances seen by the highly sensitive, we may pay some attention; but when we find that the first of the so-called healthy sensitives, who is called a young and healthy physician, was subject to sleep-walking, we may entertain some doubts as to what constitutes the healthy condition in the opinion of the Baron. The multiplication of such witnesses ad infinitum, whose morbid impressions are made the foundation on which a scientific fabric is attempted to be built, would only result in the manufacture of a rope of sand; one witness scientifically tested is worth a thousand such. It happened to the Baron in the same manner as to Mesmer and others, that when his speculations and pretended discoveries had received a certain amount of notoriety, inquisitive physicians obtruded themselves upon him. "I well know," he remarks, "that notwithstanding all this, people enough will be left, to whom all that I have done will not appear enough; for there are such things as irrational doubts; there is an absurd incredulity; and, lastly, there is also an evil-minded scepticism. These I am unable, and do not wish to refute." In a foot-note, p. 275, he informs us, that a small association of Vienna physicians has lately given us a deplorable instance of these unamiable qualities. "These gentlemen," he says, "after an examination lasting for half a year, came to the edifying result, that Mdlle. Reichel, Kreuzer, and Nather, were merely impostors and liars! I sincerely pity these gentlemen (there are altogether not less than twenty-three of these doctors and professors of medicine); after twenty-two sittings, these deluded men lost themselves in a monstrous labyrinth of confusion, and arrived at the most absurd and perverted conclusions." In another foot-note, p. 370, the Baron repudiates the experiments of the doctors, on the standard objection which has been uniformly employed by mesmerists, where crucial experiments are made by medical men to test the accuracy of their results,—that their presence so disturbed the system of the sensitive, by the powerful odyllic influence emanating from their own persons, that she was unable to succeed in the experiments. "Under such circumstances," exclaims the Baron, "how could a dozen of doctors and professors expect or insist, that an ignorant girl, driven in the midst of them, should find her way among the confused influences acting on her from all sides, and give clear and scientifically available answers to questions which they themselves did not understand how to put rightly."

Did space permit it would be easy to point out that the Baron himself is guilty of blunders even more egregious than those with which he charges the Vienna physicians. With a mere show of adopting the inductive method in his investigations, he violates its principles in every page, and systematically neglects the precautions which it inculcates. His plan throughout is essentially hypothetical, and his experiments are devised to prove foregone conclusions. He imagines a system of the universe, of which the hypothetical odyle is the sun and centre; and, unappalled by manifest contradictions which rise at every step, he boldly advances to its demonstration by experiments, whose flimsy and fanciful elements are too puerile and absurd to merit our serious consideration.

In the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review for October 1851, there is to be found an elaborate review of Reichenbach's work, which those who wish fuller information on this subject would do well to consult. The following is the estimate which the reviewer gives of the Baron's character as an original scientific investigator, with which every one who studies the subject will heartily concur:—"We find Von Reichenbach highly hypothetical; very credulous—credulous as to the extent of his own powers; credulous in receiving subjective for objective phenomena; negligent in the highest degree of those precautions which ought to have been adopted in making the experiments, so that they should have scientific accuracy; and incompetent from his manifest ignorance of the construction and working of his principal instruments of research—the human brain, and the senses of touch and vision—to make the experiments at all."

The late amiable Dr William Gregory, whose originality, learning, and candour in chemical investigation would have led us to expect a different judgment from him, has, in his translation of Reichenbach's work, accepted, without question, all the theories, doctrines, and experiments of the Baron; and in his Letters on Animal Magnetism, afterwards published by Dr Gregory in 1861, I find that there is nothing too extravagant or outrageously absurd in the pretensions of the most obvious impostors which he is not prepared to support and defend.

In 1846 the work published by Dr Esdaile, entitled, Mesmerism in India, and its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine, attracted the attention of medical men to mesmerism, more particularly in its connection with the state of induced anesthesia. The facts there stated, as to the truth of which we can entertain no reasonable doubt, are worthy of careful attention and study. But while we admit the facts, it is not necessary that we should accept the author's theory of the nature of the mesmeric influence, or the conclusions which he draws from them. Dr Esdaile adopts the objective hypothesis, that some occult and powerful influence passes from the person of the operator to that of the person operated on; he maintains that this agent which, in passing out of the person of the former, causes lassitude and loss of nervous energy, is transmitted to that of the latter, and produces healthful and beneficial effects. Nay more, that it can be incorporated with other than living substances, and through them conveyed to living beings, as by means of water, &c. It will be seen, therefore, that Dr Esdaile discards the rational and physiological hypothesis promulgated by Mr Braid, by which all the credible phenomena of mesmerism may be explained upon purely subjective principles. It will be found, however, that the facts and cases reported by Dr Esdaile may be satisfactorily explained without calling to our aid any new and mysterious agent, as there is nothing in the experience of Dr Esdaile materially new, or widely differing from the experience of the older advocates of the mesmeric doctrine.

Without entering into the particulars of his cases, it may be stated that he performed seventy-three painless operations, of an importance varying from the extraction of a tooth, to the removal of a large tumour from a sensitive part of the body, weighing 80 lb. He also gives a return of eighteen medical cases, in which various cures were effected by mesmeric means. In relating his cases, Dr Esdaile is in the habit of stating the names of the persons who were present at his operations, in order that their acquiescence may more surely induce us to believe in the truth of the phenomena. His plan of mesmerising is somewhat tedious, laborious, and disgusting; inasmuch as, in addition to the other means employed, the use of the operator's saliva is called into requisition, to enable him the more easily to attain the desired end. It may be remarked, however, that the witnesses add very little to the credibility of the phenomena described, inasmuch as it never appears that they made any attempt to look very narrowly into, or scientifically to test the reality of the phenomena.

In addition to the production of a state of anesthesia, and the other phenomena of mesmerism, by the laborious and exhausting method indicated, Dr Esdaile holds the view, that the mesmeric influence is capable of being absorbed by water, and of passing through stone walls. He adopts the theory, that something is transmitted from the system of the operator to the person of the patient operated on.

"From all I have seen," he says, "I cannot but believe that there is an influence of some kind which passes from one person into another, when one of two persons is mesmerised in the way I have described; that, in fact, there is a virtual transfusion of some vital agent from the one body into the other. The wonderful subtlety, as well as the effects of this power, lead us to suspect that it is a nervous product; and may it not be the nervous energy passing off by the organs of sense, and even for a short time going beyond the surface of the body, the lungs meanwhile, and periphery of the body, retaining their vital properties, and remaining under the direction of the will? Every time we move a finger, it is by transmitting something under the control of the will to the end of the fingers, and why should it not go farther? Supposing this to be possible, and that this nervous emanation can be directed by one person upon another, then we would venture to conjecture that, being a nervous product, it is accepted by the nerves of sense, commingled with them in a continuous well sustained stream, and is transmitted by them to the brain, thereby adding to, rather than subtracting from the nervous secretions of the brain, which it is their duty to carry off as soon as formed. If the sensorial secretions are not conveyed away by the nerves of sense and volition, and the exercise of the perceptive and intellectual organs, the brain becomes torpid and oppressed. In like manner the transmission of foreign nervous matter might overwhelm the brain, or a mere stoppage of its own fluids might steep it in a sleepy drench, and the functions of the sensorium would not be restored until the usual outlet for its energies were re-established."

Dr Esdaile is solicitous, with respect to his various experiments, to inform us that numerous witnesses, such as Mr Russell the judge, Mr Money the collector, and Budden Chunder Chowdaree the sub-assistant surgeon, attest the truth of the phenomena in each case. For some months he confined his public experiments to purely professional subjects, but he was at length requested, from a high quarter, to gratify some of the inhabitants of Government House with an especial mesmeric exhibition. It was, therefore, generally made known that all the curious might be gratified, for the first and last time, on the 29th July. The exhibition took place in due course, and Dr Esdaile professes to have been heartily ashamed of it, as ought to be, though it affords the culminating point in the evidence in favour of his peculiar views. According to the "Mesmeric Visitor," whose letter was published in The Englishman of 30th July 1845, a somewhat ludicrous but entertaining exhibition took place, in which patients were mesmerised through walls, and at long distances from the operator. The effects of the "sleeping water," or the "veritable eau merveilleuse," were tried on eight patients, of whom four were rendered cataleptic, and several converted into somnambulists.

It would almost appear that Dr Esdaile had a suspicion that his readers might not have sufficient faith in the veracity of his own testimony as to the phenomena which he witnessed, and he is thus constantly surrounding himself with respectable witnesses of his proceedings, whose declarations he publishes in his work. Now, the real difficulty is not in the testimony, for with that we are not disposed to find much fault; it lies rather in the theory or mode of accounting for the phenomena. The phenomena, indeed, are palpable, have been repeated a thousand times, and have been produced by a great variety of means or modes of operation. The grand controversy has been, and ever will be, What is the causal relation that underlies the external phenomena? The baquets, magnets, crystals, passes, impositions of saliva, &c., are the apparent antecedents of the remarkable phenomena which follow. The question comes to be, does any virtue or causative power reside in these inanimate objects; or are they but the instruments by which a more subtle influence is transmitted from the person who wields them? or, again, are they but the occasion through which the phenomena are developed by a purely subjective process in the persons operated on? These questions receive very various answers from different individuals, and from the same individuals at different periods of their career. Thus, Mesmer at first attributed the phenomena to the power of mineral magnets. This view he afterwards abandoned, and ascribed them to a power residing in his own person. At a later period it was the baquets or tubs in which the mysterious power resided.

In the quotation given above there is developed the theory of Dr Esdaile, which, it cannot be denied, is at least a very remarkable one. It is not likely, however, to receive the sanction of physiologists until some very considerable changes have been made in that branch of science. He advances his hypothesis by cautious steps. First, he cannot but believe that there is an influence of some kind that passes from one person into another; that, in fact, there is a natural transmutation of some vital agent from the one body into the other. If he had seen the same phenomena produced in circumstances in which such a transmutation was impossible, as had been so often shown by Mr Braid and others, he would have been compelled to admit that, in some cases, and probably in all, it was not necessary. Second, he suspects, from the wonderful subtlety, as well as the effects of this power, that it is a nervous product; and, third, asks if it may not be the nervous energy passing off by the organs of sense, and even for a short time going beyond the surface of the body. He afterwards speaks of the sensorial secretions being conveyed away by the nerves of sense and volition, and of the fluids of the brain steeping that organ in a sleepy drench. In the author's experiments this fluid or secretion is found, after leaving the brain, to be absorbed by water, to pass through walls, and to be conveyed through the air long distances. It is by attention that this secretion is impelled or driven forward till it strikes down its victim. Dr Esdaile's theory is one so utterly fanciful, and founded on opinions so completely destitute of any element of truth or rational probability, that it scarcely merits the attention which we have given to it. His views of the nature and functions of the brain and nervous system are such as may amuse and gratify the taste of the unenlightened multitude, but they are such as cannot be entertained for a moment by any one at all well acquainted with cerebral physiology. Such being Dr Esdaile's theory of mesmerism, the following are the general conclusions at which he has arrived from the facts detailed in his work:

- That mesmerism is a natural power of the human body, and that it affects directly the nervous and muscular systems. - That in the mesmeric trance the most severe and protracted surgical operations can be performed without the patient's being sensible of pain. - That spasms and nervous pains often disappear before the mesmeric trance. - That it gives us a complete command of the muscular system, and is therefore of great service in restoring contracted limbs. - That the chronic administration of mesmerism often acts as a useful stimulant in functional debility of the nerves. - That as sleep and the absence of all pain is the best condition of the mind for submitting himself to the mesmeric trance will probably be found to be a powerful remedy in local inflammation. - That imagination has nothing to do with the first physical impression made on the system by mesmerism as practised by me. - That it is not necessary for the eyes to be open; I always shut them as a source of distraction; and blind men are as readily mesmerised as others. - That water can be charged with the mesmeric fluid, and has a powerful effect on the system when it has been previously affected. - That the mesmeric influence can be transmitted through the air to a considerable distance, and even pass through dense materials.

Though "clairvoyance," or the transference of the senses, had not fallen under his observation, Dr Esdaile speaks of it in the appendix of his book as a thing of probable occurrence. Like Dr Gregory, he has little hesitation in accepting it without any critical examination of the phenomena and of the evidence on which it rests. He speaks of it as "one of the wonders of nature," and "a great rarity in art." After briefly alluding to some of the more remarkable cases of natural mesmeric clairvoyance collected by Mr Colquhoun, he concludes that the evidence in favour of the transference of the senses is of the most conclusive kind.

The attention of the British public was directed to the subject of mesmerism pretty frequently during the twelve years that elapsed from 1839 to 1851. Except for a short period at the end of last century, this was the only time when the phenomena of mesmerism, somnambulism, hypnotism, &c., obtained any considerable attention in Somnambulism. When the nature of the subject is considered, it is not surprising to find that many assumed to themselves the privilege of expounding the doctrines and exhibiting the practices of this mysterious science who were ill qualified for the task. Itinerant lecturers appeared in all the cities and villages of the empire, who propounded their absurd theories, and operated upon nervous females, or upon boys and girls selected from their admiring audiences.

A class of persons thus sprung up who professed to be able to exhibit in their own persons all the wonderful phenomena of clairvoyance, pre-vision, &c. This class of persons was usually employed by lecturers, who produced them at mesmeric meetings, in order to show the higher phenomena of the art, which are altogether beyond the power of mere novices. It is only in rare and favoured cases that the higher clairvoyant faculties are developed. Out of a hundred persons who may be able to exhibit the more ordinary phenomena of somnambulism, there may not be one who possesses the qualities necessary in a prophetic and clairvoyant somnambulist. They are not to be looked for, says Dr Esdaile, as a matter of course in persons under the influence of mesmerism.

In Germany great notoriety was obtained by some very remarkable persons of this kind, whose clairvoyant powers were of the highest orders. There were also some in this country who attained to some celebrity; and if the extraordinary nature of their pretensions had not attracted the attention, and been submitted to the scrutiny of able and distinguished men of science—if we knew nothing more of them and their performances than what was written and spoken of them by their friends and admirers, we would be compelled either to accept as true what they pretended to be able to perform, or denounce them as impostors, from the inherent incredibility of their pretensions. It happens, however, fortunately, that we are not left in this predicament.

In the Illustrations of Modern Mesmerism, from Personal Observation, published by Dr (the late Sir John) Forbes in 1845, we have in small compass a complete exposure of the pretended clairvoyant powers of some of the most notorious persons of this class. In the preface, he states that he only professes, by a simple narrative of facts, to illustrate the actual pretensions and performances of the mesmerists of the present day, and to show on what sandy foundations the popular belief in their marvels rests. He expresses the modest hope that what is contained in this little book may teach a useful lesson to those numerous unscientific persons who are accustomed to attend mesmeric exhibitions, public or private, from motives of rational curiosity, or with the commendable object of investigating what seem important truths. He believes that such persons must now feel convinced that no reliance whatever is to be placed on the results presented at such exhibitions as evidencing the truth and powers of mesmerism.

He found that it was impossible for the ordinary visitor at these exhibitions to discriminate the true from the false, and that the coarsest juggling might pass with the trusting spectator, seated at a distance from the scene of action, for mysterious and awful truths. Mesmerism or clairvoyance may be true or false, and he professes to be ready to believe them on obtaining sufficient proof of their reality. If, however, we find the most eminent, and apparently the most trustworthy of the clairvoyants, not only uniformly unsuccessful when the necessary precautions are taken to test their powers, but actually detected, and confessing with shame that they have been guilty of the grossest imposture and deceit—where are we to look for the means of establishing the truths of this mysterious science? If we were to believe a fiftieth part of the pretensions put forth in the works and lectures of professional mesmerists, it would be the easiest matter in the world to carry off the prizes offered to any one who could read writing contained in an envelope so secured that it could not be read in the ordinary way. If it is an easy matter to see what is going on in the arctic regions, it cannot surely be difficult to see what is contained in a deal-box.

Sir John Forbes's first series of illustrations refers to Alexis, one of the most noted clairvoyants of the day. We cannot enter upon the details of the experiments, but must restrict ourselves to the statement of the following conclusions, which must be admitted to be just by any one who peruses the statements of what took place at the first exhibition:

1. That the whole proceeding bore the complexion of trickery, or at all events that it wanted entirely the precision requisite in scientific inquiries. 2. That the total amount of positive failures and positive blunders greatly exceeds that of performances having even a colour or slight degree of success. 3. That the failures occurred in cases where the circumstances were such as to exclude collusion and the exercise of ordinary vision. 4. That all the instances of success occurred when circumstances allowed of collusion or ordinary vision. 5. That in all the cases of success, such collusion or vision was either proved or rendered extremely probable. 6. That there was not one single unequivocal example of what is called clairvoyance. 7. That, consequently, this exhibition not only affords not one title of evidence in favour of the existence of this faculty in the man Alexis, but presents extremely strong grounds for believing that the pretended power in him is feigned, and that he is consequently an impostor.

Even such cases as this do not make Sir John Forbes an utter disbeliever in mesmerism. The positive proofs of trickery and collusion on the part of its professors, he admits, afford no sound reason for declaring it to be false. If it appears, however, that in no case whatever, where clairvoyance is subjected to scientific scrutiny, it is able to establish its pretensions, we shall be justified in coming to the conclusion, that it is nothing more than a gigantic swindle, and that its professors are nothing more than arrant impostors.

At the second exhibition Alexis was not more successful than at the first. The whole performance was a series of blunders and unsuccessful guesses.

"Almost all the published records of mesmeric wonders," remarks Sir John Forbes, "and all those I ever heard narrated are utterly valueless, from being defective in exact and minute details. If the proceedings of Alexis, and a few more of the so-called clear-seers were followed up for a certain time in the close manner adopted on these two occasions, we should speedily come to positive conclusions respecting the truth or falsehood of these most wonderful wonders."

The second series of illustrations referred,

1. To Adolphe, brother of Alexis. When his eyes were carelessly bandaged, he could play cards wonderfully well for a man who did not see, and rather badly for a man who did. When the bandage was more carefully applied by Dr Sharpey, and cotton placed by the side of the nose, he could see nothing; as to boxes and sealed envelopes he could make nothing of them. The failure, therefore, in this case was as signal as it was in that of Alexis.

2. To Mr Vernon's lady somnambulist, who, besides being able to read words enclosed in opaque boxes, had great power in diagnosing diseases. Two boxes and a spectacle-case, each containing words, were presented to her, and she selected the spectacles; but she totally failed, notwithstanding much guessing and "plucking," to approximate even to the right words. It was her habit, when she failed, to announce a day when she would be able to read with certainty. Having failed on this occasion, she announced the 21st June. On this day she was again put to the trial, and was again completely unsuccessful. Her diagnostic powers were then put to the test; a patient was submitted to her who was in good health, except in so far as he had varicose veins of the legs. Even though her attention was directed to the surface of the body for the seat of this disease, she failed to discover it, and announced a variety of diseases, such as weakness of stomach, palpitation, &c.; and on being asked what would cure the diseases, she, as in duty bound, declared that mesmerism would do him good.

3. To Fräulein von Gommer, who announced her arrival in London in the spring of 1845, and her intention to examine and prescribe (mesmerically) for patients either at her own or the patients' houses—the fee for the former being three guineas, and for the latter six. She had in her hands several letters written by her patients. He himself became the patient, and she declared that he laboured under two diseases, which the doctor declares he is thankful to say existed altogether in his fair physician's imagination. Her anatomy was not more accurate, being an embodying of the vulgar notions of the animal structure. A lady who consulted her was informed that she was pregnant, and that the placenta was placed in an abnormal position, but that in consideration of another fee she would change the mal-position of the placenta, and avert the impending danger.

The following are the general conclusions deduced from the foregoing experiments:

1. That some of the exhibitions bear the open and unmistakable impression of imposture. 2. That in all cases, wherever there resulted any positive success, the fact can be accounted for on ordinary principles, without the aid of mesmerism. 3. That all the instances of success occurred when there was at least a possibility of succeeding by the ordinary exercise of the senses in their normal state. 4. That when care was taken to render the ordinary operation of the senses impossible, failure invariably resulted. 5. That the trials failed utterly in proving the possession of clairvoyance by any of the parties submitted to examination. 6. That no proof was afforded that these parties were really in any special abnormal condition, such as is known by the name of somnambulism. 7. That, on the contrary, the evidence adduced renders it extremely probable that the apparent abnormal condition was feigned, and that these persons were consequently impostors.

The third series contains the remarkable case of George Goble, a lawyer's clerk, who had succeeded in making his employer believe in his clairvoyant powers, and who was landed in mesmeric periodicals as one who possessed great candour in confessing his inability to solve any difficulty that occurred to him, who did not guess at an answer if he did not really perceive the object, and who had never failed in a single instance. Invited by his master to test this boy's powers, Sir John Forbes undertook the task.

In the first experiment on the first day, a paper, on which was written the word "country," was folded in brown paper, sealed and put in a card-case, which was not secured in any way. George Goble tumbled the case about, pressed it against his forehead, put it under a pillow, placing both hands under the pillow at the same time, and after wasting much time in these manoeuvres, in a sudden fit of fury he opened the card-case, announced the correct word, and tore the paper. From what occurred in subsequent experiments, it appeared that George Goble had, during his manipulations under the pillow, broken the seals and read the words in the ordinary way; and the sudden fury was simulated in order that his deceit might not be exposed.

In the second experiment the same card-case was employed, and the word "fold" was written on a piece of paper, which was folded into a flattened parallelogram, and placed in the case. After repeating the same manoeuvres, he announced that the word was "Fould." When the box was opened, the shape of the paper was entirely changed; it was now perfectly round, rolled on itself like a common paper-match. There can be no doubt that George Goble opened the case, read the word in the usual way, though not quite correctly, rolled up the paper, and returned it in that condition, little suspecting the trap that was laid for him.

In the third experiment, the additional precaution was taken to bind the card-case with twine and seal it, and the result was that George Goble admitted that he could not see into the box. His excuse was, that the colour of the paper was changed.

In the fourth experiment the required colour was adopted, and the same precautions taken, with a similar result. On the second day Sir John Forbes was assisted by Dr Sharpey and Professor Graham. They took small boxes of wood sealed merely. In the first experiment George Goble failed to discover the word; he guessed it to be "kar" or "hart." The seal was found perfect, and the word was "insane."

In the next experiment he announced the correct word as "royal," and made a desperate effort to open the box, but was prevented, and the seal was found broken, and the result was declared to be null.

In the third experiment, the boxes were tied with tape and sealed. After some manoeuvre he wrote the letters "cas" twice over; and then, after a little longer silence, he suddenly opened his eyes and was declared to be awake. The box contained the figures "1787."

Invited a third time to test the powers of George Goble, the ingenuity of Dr Sharpey completely exposed his roguery. Dr Sharpey prepared a card-case in the following way:—He took a card which exactly filled the case, and pasted on one side the word to be read; on the end of the opposite side he affixed a small ledge exactly filling up the space between the card and the opposite side of the case. The card being placed in the case, he piled upon the ledge a series of long and narrow slips of cork, which filled up the unoccupied space; by this arrangement the withdrawal of the card would unavoidably scatter the slips of cork, which could not be replaced.

In the first experiment a box was employed with the lid screwed down, and the screw concealed by wax. The word contained was "Exhibition," but being unable to open the box, he, nevertheless, affirmed positively that he saw the letters O U S. This was not merely a guess, but an egregious failure.

In the second experiment Dr Sharpey's ingeniously planned card-case was luckily selected by George Goble; but in order to make assurance doubly sure, he himself proposed that it should be tied. Nothing was said about sealing. He tied it himself, and the plan of the knot was carefully noted. Poor George Goble little dreaming of the trap that was laid for him, proceeded with great confidence to go through the usual manipulation. At one stage of the proceeding the box was seen without the ligature. Afterwards he buried his face in the pillow, and was observed repeatedly putting his fingers to his mouth as if placing something in it. At the same time fragments were seen falling on the floor, which turned out to be cork. There was a hiatus valde deflendus in the sofa, through which they had fallen. George Goble made a last effort to deceive by exposing the card-case still tied by the tape; but his roguery was detected, and slips of cork were forced out of his hands and mouth. His magnetism now deserted him, and he awoke up in the most natural manner imaginable. He threw himself on his knees on the ground, and in an agony of shame and terror confessed his roguery, and implored forgiveness, asserting that this was his first offence. On examining the card-case the tape was found crumpled, the plan of the knot was changed, the pieces of cork were displaced, and many of them were found wanting. "It was fated," says Sir John Forbes, "that George Goble's fame as a great seer was here to terminate; he had fought his last fight; he had seen his last sight among honest men; and though I shall not be at all surprised to find him again on the boards with his old itinerant masters (for he is really a clever though somewhat clumsy rogue), it is improbable—and doubtless he felt this—that he can ever be again countenanced by any respectable mesmerist, however credulous."

Notwithstanding this signal failure and detection of George Goble, his too credulous master again invited Sir John Forbes to investigate his powers of clairvoyance. It appeared that Somnambulism after his tormentors left him on the last occasion, he made believe that he was not awake at all, and was afterwards demesmerised by his master in the due form. "He awoke," says his master, "in an agony of tears, quite unconscious of what had passed, and remains so at this moment!"

In order to give him a last chance to retrieve his laurels, Sir John Forbes left in the possession of George Goble's employer a small sealed box, containing a word printed in large type, on the understanding that he would renew his investigations whenever the box was returned unopened, with the inclosed word written on the outside.

George Goble was prevailed on by his master, though with difficulty, to try his skill again; and in about three minutes he said that the word was "Impelments." "I feel great confidence," writes his master, "from his manner of doing it, that he has read it rightly: he named it readily, first the whole word, then letter by letter." Is it necessary to say that George Goble was again wrong? The word was "Objections."

The fourth series of illustrations refers to Miss Martinson's I. This person, an humble domestic, was, according to Miss M., an accomplished clairvoyant. I's cousin was an English mariner, who suffered shipwreck near Hull; and in a mesmeric meeting, I. is described by Miss M. as having given a true, full, and particular account of the circumstances of the wreck, without having any means of acquiring a knowledge of them in the usual way.

From the inquiries instituted by Sir John Forbes, it is proved demonstratively that I. was fully acquainted with all the particulars before the meeting took place; and that her mesmeric revelations, which look so wonderful as related by Miss M. in the Athenæum, are but the rehearsal of pieces of intelligence with which I. had become fully acquainted in the kitchen, before she ascended to announce them mesmerically in the séance held in the parlour.

We would not have referred at so great a length to these experiments had it not been that they present the best model with which we are acquainted of the means of exposing the charlatanry and deceit which are so often employed, to obtain notice, by those who adopt the views of transcendental somnambulism. The proceedings of Sir John Forbes, in which he was so ably assisted by Dr Sharpey and Professor Graham, stand out in bold contrast with those of the members of the second French Commission of 1825, who, if they had exhibited even a portion of the sound sense and firmness of Sir John Forbes and his coadjutors, would have given out a more certain sound than they were able to do in the Report which they presented to the Academy.

It has fallen chiefly to medical men to investigate the pretensions of the various systems of animal magnetism and somnambulism; and, as has been seen in the foregoing pages, their decisions have, for the most part, been adverse, and to such an extent as fatally to damage the claims of the higher phenomena to credit and acceptance among scientific men; and the consequence has been, that the believers in clairvoyance, and the cultivators of mesmerism generally, are uniformly discourteous, and persistently hostile to the medical profession. Narrow-mindedness, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, unreasonableness, and many other such qualities, are ascribed to its members, though it were easy to show that, on all occasions, when medical men have been forced to deal with the subject, they have so often exhibited such a spirit of forbearance, of leniency, and of tenderness towards the disciples of Mesmer, Puysegur, Reichenbach, &c., while investigating their doctrines and practices, as to expose themselves to the animadversion of the less tolerant members of their own profession. It is to be regretted that such men as Drs Esdaile and Gregory should so far forget themselves as to join in the cry against the profession of which they are members, for no other reason than this, that it cannot see with their eyes, and hear with their ears; when, according to their views, it might as well have no such organs at all, as they find that men can see farther, and hear clearer, without either eyes or ears, than those who possess these usually considered necessary and useful organs.

We must now briefly allude to the bearing which mesmerism has upon phrenology, a subject which has given rise to much controversy, or the so-called phenomena of Phreno-mesmerism. In 1842 some astounding announcements were made by Dr Buchanan, of Louisville, U.S., and Mr John B. W. S. Gardner, of Roche Court, Hants, two phrenologists acting independently of, and, it is said, unknown to each other, and whose observations are reported to have led to the same result. According to these gentlemen, it is possible to excite or suspend the action of any cerebral organ (phrenological) by means of animal magnetism directed to the part of the head where the organ is situated; and numerous cases are given in illustration of the alleged fact. "Dr Buchanan is characterised by the American papers as a gentleman of learning and experience; and we understand that Mr Gardner also, though not a medical man, is able, honourable, and well informed. The averments of the latter are corroborated by Dr W. C. Engledue, of Portsmouth; and Dr Elliotson has brought the subject under the notice of the London Phrenological Society." Such is the announcement of the origin of phreno-mesmerism, or mes-mero-phrenology, which appeared in the *Phrenological Journal*, No. 70, p. 188. Dr Engledue, in his introductory address to the Phrenological Association of London, claims the discovery of the magnetic excitation of cerebration for his friends, Messrs Mansford and Gardner. The modus operandi, or method of exhibiting the phenomena, is, after placing the patient under the influence of mesmerism, to apply the finger to one or other of the phrenological organs, when the organ touched is liberated from the mesmeric trance, and at once called into lively action. This happy discovery opened up a wide field of interesting research and amusement for the cultivators of the now amalgamated sciences. It was expected that phrenology would be a great gainer by her union with mesmerism. Besides affording powerful evidence in favour of recognised organs, several new organs had already been discovered. Dr Engledue waxes eloquent over the future of this astounding discovery, and adduces it as a support of his view, "that cerebration is the function of the brain; one of the manifestations of animal life, resulting from a certain peculiar combination of matter; that it is not peculiar to man, but is exhibited, in a greater or less degree, by all the gradations of animal life." "Save me from my friends," became the cry of more sober-minded phrenologists, when the subject of the union of mesmerism and phrenology came to be discussed. Mr Churchill took the view, that phrenology had enough to do to maintain its own character with a prejudiced public, and ought to say to say to mesmerism, as one lady of rank said to another, whose reputation was more than doubtful, "Madam, I cannot afford to be seen in your company. My own character is barely sufficient for my own wants; it is not enough for us both." The addition of Dr Engledue's "Cerebration" to their company was not likely to contribute anything to sustain the slender reputation which confessedly attached to both.

Mr Atkinson read a paper before the same society on "Mesmero-phrenology;" the facts of which doctrine, according to him, consist chiefly in the power of throwing persons of a peculiar constitution, with regard to nervous susceptibility, into a state of somnambulism, and in such condition, of exciting or paralysing the different cerebral organs at will. Mr Atkinson then proceeds to give the following description of this new doctrine:

"There are several ways in which this may be effected, depending much on the peculiarities of the individual case; for the effects of mesmerism, of course, like all other effects, though traceable to general laws, are yet modified according to the conditions of the particular instance. One case will only resemble sleep, another case will appear a completely altered state of existence; in one case you may have attraction to the mesmeriser, which in another instance may be wanting; one patient may exhibit clairvoyance, and not ultra-vision; the next ultra-vision, and not clairvoyance; and so on with regard to all the other phenomena. But, nevertheless, there is a general uniformity running through the whole; the cases may be classified, and many of the most essential conditions observed. But it is not necessary to explain further on this head; it is sufficient if I describe the general bearing on the subject, and my individual conviction of the fact, not merely with the idea of convincing, as of inducing others to follow out the inquiry for themselves. In ordinary cases there are several methods of exciting the organs, all of which I have practised with success. You may press upon the organs, and observe the natural language which may be exhibited, together with the explanations which may accompany this; or you may engage the patients in conversation, by which means you may lead the mind at will; they will follow with their hand pressing on the excited part, and they will press the more firmly according to the degree of excitement in the organ; covering one or several, and taking the other hand, if they are not able to reach to a distant part excited in combination. This they will often do to themselves; or, if ever induced to do so, may continue the habit. A third method is, to touch an organ, and ask for an explanation of the power which is manifested there, or you may picture any particular organ and request to be shown where such is felt to be located, or require the analysis of any sensation, and by what combination it is produced, or if it be a single power. In some cases you may demesmerise organs, and thus bring them into action; or you may paralyse any particular power which may be acting. Music is another means which may be used; and many other methods of inquiry will, doubtless, suggest themselves to those engaged in these experiments. If the organs are much excited, they will no longer manifest their functions with any distinctness and energy; the patient will complain of headache, and a strained sensation in those parts, and a desire to rest. You may excite the organs only on one side of the brain; and when they are becoming confused, you may continue the same feelings on the other side with renewed energy, just as you raise one arm, and then raise the other. You may have a patient in a waking dream, and observe how thought suggests thoughts, and feeling connects with feeling; how the organs become fatigued, and others become excited for relief, just as we change from one constrained position to another, perhaps the opposite, for relief. You may watch the effect of any single organ, and how it is modified when acting in combination."

(*Phrenol. Mag.*, No. 70, p. 326.)

Both in this country and in America, where this new system of mesmerism and phrenology combined seems to have had a simultaneous origin, experiments and lectures demonstrating the most remarkable phenomena, soon caused phreno-mesmerism to attract a considerable share of attention. By one party of phrenologists the union of the two systems was hailed with delight, as likely to shed a new flood of light upon their favourite system, while by another it was repudiated as a source of weakness. The advanced opinions of such men as Dr Engledue and Mr Atkinson were regarded with alarm by more cautious and prudent phrenologists, some of whom, considering phrenology to be not inconsistent with Christianity, separated themselves from the parent association, and formed themselves into a "Christian phrenological association."

Mr George Combe suggested a source of fallacy, which applies both to the magnetic experiments of Reichenbach and those of the phreno-mesmerists. If, as is pretended, a magnetiser, by a mere act of the will, can command the thoughts and feelings of the magnetised, without actually touching or approaching his person, may not the manifestations proceed from these acts of volition, and not from physical excitement through touch of each particular organ? If so, the proof of the situation of the organs, supposed to be afforded by phreno-mesmeric experiments, fails. Dr Elliotson's answer to this objection is, that though the will of the operator may be influential, yet this is only one source of power; he had never been able to produce any effect by mere willing; that in all cases the organs had been excited by the fingers even when his mind was occupied with other matters. It is difficult to understand how, even when otherwise occupied, he could direct his finger to an organ without a very decided act of volition. It is worthy of remark how readily the ground is shifted when any real difficulty or palpable inconsistency is stated. What at one time is insisted upon as an essential and necessary part of the system, is at another, when its presence is inconvenient, quietly set aside and ignored. Principles are advanced and laws laid down, which are being constantly trampled upon, or forced upon our attention, according as the exigency of the case demands.

In connection with phreno-mesmerism a periodical, called the Phreno-Magnet, started into a brief existence. "Phreno-magnetic societies" were formed, and all the usual methods of agitation and promotion followed when any new delusion has taken possession of the popular mind.

Mr Colquhoun, whose labours to advance the cause of animal magnetism in this country were second to none, regarded the union of phrenology and mesmerism with alarm, and in a pamphlet entitled The Fallacy of Phreno-Magnetism Detected and Exposed, denounced it as "a bastard science—the hybrid offspring of a most unnatural union of phrenology with animal magnetism." Mr Colquhoun advocates the principle, that in certain states of the magnetic sleep the patient is placed completely under the arbitrary control of the magnetiser, and is entirely directed by his will, that the minds of the two are in such close rapport, that in the latter, for the time, it may be said the former lives, moves, and has being; so that if this be so, the whole paraphernalia of organs necessarily falls to pieces. Mr Colquhoun's argument is but an expansion of the source of fallacy suggested by Mr Combe.

In 1843 The Zoist, a Journal of Cerebral Physiology and Mesmerism, and their applications to Human Welfare, was started under the auspices of Drs Engleclue, Elliotson, and others. This journal existed for several years, and contains numerous articles on animal magnetism, and records of cases of mesmerism, and advocated the doctrine of materialism and necessity. Through its pages, and those of the Phrenological Journal, there may be found notices of what was being done in reference to phreno-mesmerism. The new doctrine does not appear to have taken very deep root, and the public exhibition of its phenomena seems to have had no greater or more useful result than to afford a new source of amusement.

It was in the year 1851 that the "mesmeric mania," as it has been called, reached its climax in this country. The temporary excitement, however, soon subsided, and from that time to the present the whole subject seems to have been consigned to oblivion and neglect, both in this and other countries. Electro-biology was the new name invented by Dr Darling at the time referred to, and imported into this country from America; and under this designation the same phenomena, and a mode of producing them almost identical with that which Mr Braid had discovered many years before, were brought into notice into this country. A disc of metal placed in the left hand, and intently gazed upon for a quarter of an hour in complete silence, sufficed to put boys and girls, as well as adults of a weak constitution, into that peculiar state in which voluntary motion is suspended, the organs of sense and sensation are disturbed, and the brain and intellectual faculties are temporarily placed under subjection to the will of the operator. Mr Lewis, another American mesmerist, was contented to follow the older methods, and was able, by means of the system of passes and gazing, to produce even more striking phenomena than those which were ascribed to electro-biology. When reduced to the electro-biological state, the patient cannot move if at rest, or cease moving if in motion, except by command of the person operating. The senses and sensations are equally under his command. What is cold is felt to be hot, and what is bitter is felt to be sweet, if he pronounces them to be so. Both in private parties and public meetings these phenomena were exhibited and lectured upon, throughout the greater part of this country.

The Letters to a Candid Inquirer on Animal Magnetism, by Dr Gregory, give an elaborate description and analysis of the phenomena of animal magnetism, which he considers to be identical with mesmerism, electro-biology, electro-psychology, and hypnotism. We need scarcely say that Dr Gregory regards all the objections raised against his favourite science as illogical and absurd in the extreme; that he admits, almost without question, all the lower as well as the higher phenomena; that clairvoyance, prescience, retro-vision, intro-vision, and transference of the senses, present to him no insurmountable difficulties. He is an enthusiastic advocate of, and a firm believer in animal magnetism, under whatever name it is presented to him. Being more of a chemist than a physician, he was less qualified than many other members of his profession to form sound opinions, and a correct judgment, respecting doctrines and practices, the just appreciation of which required no small amount of physiological and psychological knowledge. Of the three most eminent supporters of animal magnetism in this country, it ought to be remarked that one, Mr Colquhoun, was a lawyer; another, Dr Elliotson, was a physician; and a third, Dr Gregory, a chemist.

Our limits do not permit us to discuss at length the numerous interesting and important bearings of the questions relating to animal magnetism and somnambulism. We must content ourselves with stating briefly the following general conclusions:

I. That it has not been proved that there is any magnetic influence, or nervous fluid, which passes from the operator to the person operated on, and produces in him the various phenomena of magnetic somnambulism.

II. That it has been proved that all the phenomena recorded, which have received sufficient scientific scrutiny to convince men of their truth and reality, can be accounted for on ordinary principles, without the aid of mesmerism.

III. That the lower phenomena—such as sleep, diminished or exalted sensibility, loss of voluntary motion, muscular rigidity, and the like, can be produced by persons acting on themselves by means of fixed staring at objects, which are incapable of giving out any nervous or magnetic influence.

IV. That the evidence which can be obtained of the reality of the existence of magnetic somnambulism, in any case, is inconclusive; that it is possible that the person supposed to be in such a state may really be awake, and simply feigning sleep; and that in many cases there is the most conclusive evidence that the persons pretending to be so affected are impostors, while in other cases, in which no intention to deceive may have existed, the patients have acted under a peculiar state of mind, to which only the weak and nervous are liable.

V. That though numerous cases of surgical operations are recorded in which the patients are reported not to have felt pain, it is probable that some at least may have really experienced painful sensations without giving any outward expression of their sensations; that we have no evidence or means of knowing, except from their own testimony, that they did not really feel pain, but that it is very probable that in some cases, from a peculiar state of the mind acting upon the nervous system, the patients were really rendered unconscious of pain.

VI. That it does not appear from experiment that immunity from pain in operations can be induced, in any but exceptional cases, in Europeans; though it appears, from the experience of Dr Esdaile, that it can be produced with comparative facility in the natives of India.

VII. That the higher phenomena of clairvoyance, pre- vision, intro-vision, and retro-vision, do not rest on adequate and satisfactory evidence. That it has never been proved in a single instance, when the necessary precautions have been taken, that a person could read or see objects through opaque substances; and that the alleged instances of the possession of such a power, when put to the test, have proved uniformly unsuccessful, and have amounted to nothing more than attempts at vague guessing. That it has been proved in some cases that the persons pretending to know events which happened at a distance, were fully acquainted with the events through ordinary channels of information. That the description of events pretended to have been discovered by means of clairvoyance has not been in accordance with the truth, unless it has been pos- sible for the patient to employ the usual means of discover- ing them; and that in most instances there are observed the most manifest attempts, on the part of their friends, to assist clairvoyants by suggestions and leading questions. That the attempts to describe what is going on in the interior of their own bodies, to diagnose diseases in them- selves or others, and to prescribe remedies for the cure of the diseases which they pretend to discover, have been complete failures, and mere repetitions of such notions of anatomy, of disease, and of treatment, as they may have ac- quired by casual reading, conversation, or more careful study.

VIII. That there is no recorded instance, worthy of credit, of transference of the senses—that is, of persons being able to read, taste, smell, or hear, by the fingers, stomach, or any other part of the body, other than the organs by which these functions are naturally performed— and that pretended instances of the possession of such powers have been proved to be cases of fraud and willful imposition.

IX. That phreno-mesmerism does not prove the truth of phrenology, or throw any light upon the doctrine that the faculties of the mind have a local seat in special parts of the brain, which can be tied up and let loose—mesmer- ised or de-mesmerised—at pleasure; and that the experi- ments designed to prove the excitement of the so-called phrenological organs by magnetic operations, have all re- sulted in manifest failures or impositions when properly tested.

X. That the phenomena described by different authors, under the various designations of animal magnetism, mag- netic somnambulism, hypnotism, edyle, and electro-biology, are identical in their nature, and can be explained, in so far as they possess any truth or scientific value, upon rec- ognised physiological principles; that the whole subject has been systematically obscured by its cultivators with a cloud of mystery, which has given rise to difficulties, and placed impediments in the way of rational and scientific investigation. That the real phenomena which not un- frequently occur in the weak and nervous subjects of mag- netic operations, are in themselves very remarkable; but that they are not different from phenomena which occur spontaneously; and that they are to be explained by the reciprocal influence exerted by the mind and the nervous system upon each other, and by the unnatural influence thus induced of the nervous upon the muscular systems.

3. Somnambulism in Germany and other Countries.— We have already seen that Mesmer attempted to propagate his doctrines in Germany, but not meeting with sufficient encouragement he emigrated to France. He left France in the end of 1784, and retired to Frauenfeldt in Switzer- land, where he was visited by Dr Wolfart of Berlin. This gentleman had been engaged in magnetical practice since the year 1808. To him Mesmer left his manuscripts at his death, and a system of Mesmerism was drawn up by Wolfart from these documents and published in 1814.

It was the discovery of magnetic somnambulism, how- ever, by the Marquis de Puységur in 1784, and the remark- able phenomena developed in that state, which chiefly aroused the attention of the Germans to the subject of ani- mal magnetism. The person who seems principally to have awakened in his countrymen an interest in this revolution which was working in animal magnetism in France, was the celebrated physiognomist Lavater, who resided at Zurich. He opened a correspondence with M. de Puységur in the latter half of 1785. In November of that year one of his letters was published in Berlin, giving an account of the somnambulency of his wife, and of the surprising pheno- mena which had resulted from it. (Vide Berlin Monat- schrift, and Eichenmeyers Archiv, for Lavater's corre- spondence; also Sprengel's Notes to the Stockholm Sendschreiben, p. 116.)

In 1788 animal magnetism made great progress in Ger- many. Separate treatises and letters were published by Hoffman, Wienholt, Rahn, and others on this subject. Bickers of Bremen seems to have been one of those who took up the subject with most zeal. Two letters of his on the subject of Lavater's magnetism were published and re- published in several journals in the course of 1787. Wien- holt gives an account of the introduction of animal mag- netism into Bremen, in the "Vorbereitung" to his Heilkraft, p. 3. In the same year, C. L. Hoffmann published at Frankfort (on the Main) The Magnetist, to which two appendices appeared in the course of the year, besides a reply by Pichler, entitled The True Magnetist; and as a mode of testing the reality of the alleged powers, he offered a prize of 100 ducats to the person who could distinguish magnetised from ordinary water (Klinge). Eberhard Gmelin of Tübingen was one of the early patrons of animal mag- netism on its return to Germany. In 1787 he addressed a letter on the subject to Mr Privy Councillor Hoffman of Mayence; and in 1789 he published new investigations on that subject. (Salzb. Med. Chir. Zeit., 1790, i., 358.) In 1791 he commenced the publication of his materials for Anthropology, of which a second volume was published in 1793. (Salzb. Med. Chir. Zeit., 1791, iii., 387.) The views of this author on the analogy of the act of magnetising with that of generation are equally indecent and absurd, and do not merit any farther mention here. Journals were instituted for the collection and diffusion of magnetic knowledge. In 1787-8, Bockmann's Archives of Magnetism and Somnambu- lism was published at Carlshutte, and extended to eight parts. The Magnet. Magazin fur Nieder-Deutschland was published at Bremen, and consisted chiefly of the writ- ings of the opponents of magnetism. At this period, as was afterwards done by Deleuze in France, and Colquhoun in this country, investigations were made by German writers to ascertain how far the new phenomena and doctrines corresponded with phenomena previously noticed, or doc- trines previously entertained. In 1788 appeared Kinder- ling's Comparison of the Somnambulism of our Times, with the Incubation, or the Temple-sleep and Prophecy Dreams of Ancient Times; and, in the same year, Uste's Specimen Bibliotheca Critica Magnetismi sic dicti Ani- malis. Nor were opponents to the new views wanting in Germany. Councillor Meiners of Göttingen published a work against animal magnetism in 1788. In the same year Josephi published at Brunswick a work on the same sub- ject, as a contribution to the history of human errors; and a similar work appeared at Königsberg, from the pen of Professor Metzger. In 1789 J. A. Murray published at Göttingen an oration in Latin, De Laude Magnetismi sic dicti Animalis Ambiguo, which is mentioned with appro- bation in the Salzburg Med. Chir. Zeit., 1790, i., 212. As the Hotel Dieu in Paris, and the North London Hos- pital were opened for magnetical practices, so also we find that, in 1790, the wards of the Charité Hospital of Berlin were thrown open for a similar purpose by Selle, who was not satisfied with the results (Sprengel's Zustände). In the same year appeared Rahn's (of Zurich) Physical Treatises on the Causes of Sympathy, Magnetism, and Somnambulism, by which the editor of the Salzburg Med. Chir. Zeitung confesses that he was greatly strengthened in his unbelief in animal magnetism. At Vienna, in 1794, Dr Soherr attracted attention by his magnetic and electric cures; but as soon as an order of the court appeared regulating his proceedings, his successful treatment was no longer heard of. At Leipzig, in the same year, a wonderful cure was pretended to have been performed by the Count de Thun (Sprengel, Zustände, p. 217).

Dr Pezold of Dresden experimented on animal magnetism, and an account of twenty-two of his experiments was published in the second volume of Reil's Archive for 1797. Some of his patients had convulsions. One or two answered questions put to them by other persons than the magnetiser. Perception in the epigastrium occurred at the same time with hearing in the ears. The subjects of his experiments were chiefly servant-maids, and they were chiefly operated on to excite the wonder and gratify the curiosity of people of wealth, rank, and fashion. These experiments of Pezold, as well as a previous work by the same author, were noticed very unfavourably in the Salzburg Med. Chirurg. Zeit., 1798, iii., 81.

Numerous articles appeared in Reil's Archiv on the subject of animal magnetism. In the sixth volume, 1805, two essays were published—one by Fred. Hufeland, and the other by Fischer. Hufeland's patient was a hysterical female, and long accustomed to the attentions of medical men. She was apparently a great admirer of Hufeland. Fischer's patient was an epileptic, twenty years of age, who knew when he was about to have an attack by the dislike he felt for everything metallic. He had a great liking for sulphur, and was, like Hufeland's patient, a manifest deceiver. Reil's ninth volume contains a paper by Nasse. His patient had been affected with an ulcer on the breast for two years. After fourteen days of animal magnetism, applied in grand currents, she fell into the state of somnambulism. From this time she passed from three to five hours daily, for six weeks, in the somnambulistic state, produced by magnetic manipulations. She could not rest at any time content without the presence of her magnetiser. They sat opposite to one another. She sat with her feet on a small footstool, and, as often as his fingers were pointed to her, she saw light streaming out from them towards her. Had she lived at a later period in the history of animal magnetism, she would have proved an able assistant at the odylc experiments of Baron Reichenbach. Her case might be claimed as an additional testimony to the truth of the Baron's discoveries, if it had not been shown that these luminous phenomena are merely subjective sensations, readily produced in nervous and hysterical females. This patient was also clairvoyant, and could see with the eyelids closed. Other cases are related in Reil, but those already given are sufficient to indicate their value. In the twelfth volume will be found Nasse's somewhat useless experiments on the influence of animal magnetism on the growth of plants.

From the time of the French Revolution till near the end of the war, there was, as we have seen, an interruption in the general practice of animal magnetism in France; but its employment in the care of diseases was adopted by a considerable number of German physicians, and various little essays and reports of cases were published in the different journals from 1787 to 1811, when a more elaborate treatise on animal magnetism was published by Professor Kluge, a work which embraced and combined all the theoretical views which had been adopted and the practical observations that had been made previous to its appearance.

Lectures on the subject were delivered two years previously by Professor Spindler in Wurzburg. Kluge's work, Versuch einer Darstellung des Animalischen Magnetismus als Heilmittel, is divided into two portions—a theoretical and a practical. In the former, he gives a history of the discovery of animal magnetism, and a review of the magnetic phenomena, as they are witnessed both in the magnetiser and in the magnetised. After noticing the various magnetic operations, both general and particular, he proceeds to give a determination of the magnetic degrees, which he divides into six. He next offers an explanation of the magnetic phenomena, and the mode of operation of the nerves, for the purpose of elucidating the phenomena. In the latter, he describes the qualities of the magnetiser, under the two heads, physical and psychical. He then gives an account of the various magnetic operations, and describes the cases in which their employment is indicated.

According to Kluge, we may, in the first place, conformably with Hufeland's sketch, distinguish the following leading or principal grades in animal magnetism, viz., the purely physico-magntical state, without participation of the mental, and the magnetic state with psychical affection, of which again there may be two forms, either simple exalted sensibility, or combined with exaltation of the inner sense. These three principal grades are again subdivided each into two particular grades, thus producing a sixfold series.

In the first degree, the common entrances by which the mind (psysle) stands in connection with the external world are still uninjured. The sensibility remains unclosed, and keeps the person constant in the sphere of the usual, whence this state may be called the degree or grade of waking.

If the person reaches a higher degree, then the sensibility is in part closed; but the greater part of the senses give him still a knowledge of surrounding objects, and only the sense of distance (the eye) withdraws itself from the government of the will, and passes into the state of a momentary objectlessness. This second degree of simple disturbed sensibility is named by some magnetists half-sleep, or imperfect crisis. If the whole sensibility retreats, then the individual passes over from the connection with the outer world, and goes to inner darkness. The relation characterising the third degree is nearest to near the state of stupor, and is designated by the name of magnetic sleep. Passed from life, and sunk into himself, man stands here on the limits of two very different worlds, at the dark gate of the passage into a higher and better existence. It is remarkable that memory is carried over from actual life, through this degree of darkness, to the higher degrees, and on the return through this degree, this new link remains behind, and is not brought over into the waking state. If, accordingly, in those higher states, memory resembles an unbroken chain, all the links of it which fall within these states are lost for real life. If the individual wakes, not from that sleep, but within himself, consciousness returns to him as from a confused dream, and he again feels distinctly himself and his estate. He is asleep, yet not sleeping in sleep, and now in so far matter of sleep, that though he cannot be awakened, yet he is not confined by it, but can go out from himself and carry himself out. Already cut off by the preceding degree from life in external things, and brought out into the magnetic sphere, he now lives within it—lives, therefore, only in it—and in dependence on the things associated with it. This dependence is rendered chiefly to the magnetiser, through whom he, to a certain degree, feels, thinks, and acts, and who is to him like a new organ, by means of which he is replaced in a very peculiar connection with external objects. So far from the loss of his freedom being painful to him, and his dependence on his magnetiser oppressive, this relation is to him exceedingly agreeable. When in his vicinity, he feels himself as in a region in which he delights to live and breathe; and when at a distance from him, as if cast into a wilderness, forsaken and tormented with feelings of homesickness.

The fourth degree is mentioned in the writings of the magnetists, frequently under the names of perfect crisis, and also of simple somnambulism. To the patients themselves are given the names of somnambule, somnologue, and criologue. From the preceding degrees, it differs by the peculiar relation of the connection with the external world, and from the subsequent degrees, by the circumstance that in it the consciousness is of its natural character; but in them it is exalted. As the patient in the transition from the second to the third degree returns into himself, so also in passing from the fourth to the fifth degree, he again returns back into himself, not, however, to the same dark confusion, but to internal self-intuition. By his common sensibility, raised to a degree of strength it did not previously possess, and by his exalted consciousness, he acquires a clear and luminous knowledge of his own interior condition of body and mind, marks the morbid phenomena occurring as necessary consequences in the most precise manner, and determines the most effectual means for their removal. This, his internal consciousness, also gives the magnetiser, otherwise placed in magnetic relation with him. The connection with the magnetiser is closer than before, and consequently the dependence upon him is greater, but at the same time the pleasure of magnetic existence is increased. From the fifth degree, which is also named the degree of self-intuition, all the succeeding magnetic states are comprehended under the denomination clairvoyance, and to the patients involved in them is given the name of clairvoyants.

In the sixth degree, the patient again passes out from himself and into a higher union with the whole of nature. The clearness that exists in self-intuition, expands over the near and the distant in space and in time; and hence this state is called the degree of general lucidity, or ecstasy. The patient is withdrawn from everything little or earthly, and elevated to greater and nobler feelings. The highest tranquillity, innocence, and purity, which consist in his whole constitution, give him the appearance of an angel. The connection with the magnetiser is so close that the patient knows his thoughts most intimately, and hearkens to his mere volition. The feeling of this state must border on spirituality.

There is still a higher degree, which Kluge does not enumerate, because, on the one hand, its properties are lost to us; and, on the other hand, it does not belong to the phenomena of rationally conducted magnetic treatment. It is the degree of transport or reprise, in which the person enters into himself for the third time, so far that the intellectual part seems to be completely withdrawn, and life to be entirely transported from the sphere of the animal into that of the vegetable kingdom. Destitute of sensation and consciousness, the person remains for a shorter or longer period in a state of such apparently spiritual non-existence, that on awakening, and even during his magnetic sleep, he has no recollection of it; and may, in case of the frequent return of such a state, pass very readily into that of a permanent confusion of mind.

Kluge was the principal surgeon to the Prussian medicochirurgical Pepinière, and a man of considerable standing in his profession. He, like Gmelin, Reil, and other German magnetists, attempted to explain the phenomena of mesmerism and somnambulism on the theory of a nervous atmosphere. In the third part of his work he discusses the mode of operation of the nerves, the relation of the ganglionic to the cerebral system, the influence of volition and the passions upon the operation of the nervous atmosphere, and attempts to elucidate in this way the magnetic phenomena. When we compare this theory with that of Mesmer, and the earlier cultivators of animal magnetism, we shall find that it saps the foundation on which Mesmer constructed his system, and converts the universal fluid which fills space, and has existed through all time, into the merest ephemeral emanation. A nervous atmosphere depending for its existence upon the presence of perishable organisms, is but a fleeting cloud when compared with the mighty all-pervading physico-dynamic power, which, in the hands of Mesmer, accounted for all the magnetic phenomena. We have already seen, in our account of Dr Esdale's experiment, that he had adopted this theory of a nervous atmosphere or emanation, and there can be no doubt that he derived it from a German source, as, in the appendix to his Mesmerism in India, he gives abundant evidence of his acquaintance with the proceedings and opinions of the German magnetists. We may remark that the work of Kluge, strange as it may appear to English readers from the extracts we have given from it, contains less extravagant opinions than some of the other German writers on this subject; and though some of the cases reported by him in support of his views are sufficiently absurd and ridiculous, the whole style and tone of his work is more rational than that of the generality of the German magnetical writers.

In 1812 regulations were published relative to the practice of magnetism in the Prussian states. (Hufeland's Journal, xxxv., 125.) In 1813 the Baron Von Strombeck published at Brunswick an account of an animal magnetism produced by nature alone, and of a cure effected by it. To this a reply was published at Cassel in French (par un ami de la Vérité), which was answered by Strombeck, whose reply was translated into French and published at Paris in 1814 (Stieglitz, p. 463). In 1814 Dr Stieglitz, physician to the King of Hanover, published a work on animal magnetism, in which he treated of its phenomena and theory, of the magnetic sleep, of the knowledge of their own diseases possessed by somnambulists, of the cure of diseases by animal magnetism, and many of the more important questions belonging to this subject. It is curious to remark how many of the court physicians of Germany at this period were disciples of Mesmer, or at least believers in and defenders of some one or other of the many protean forms of the doctrines which are usually associated with his name. Besides Stieglitz of Hanover, we have Hufeland, physician to the King of Prussia; Brandis, physician to the King of Denmark; and Klein, physician to the King of Wurtemberg. An abstract of Stieglitz's work, published at Berlin by Hufeland in 1816, called forth a reply from Wolfart in the same year, which led to the publication in the following year of explanations by Hufeland.

While the German magnetists were thus engaged in developing new theories, and were wandering far away from the orthodox doctrines of the founder of animal magnetism, Dr Wolfart of Berlin, who had become engaged in magnetical practice in 1808, betook himself to Frauenfeldt in October 1812, and visited Mesmer, who confided to him his manuscripts, out of which he drew up a system which he published at Berlin in 1814, under the title of Mesmerismus, or System of the Operations, Theory, and Application of Animal Magnetism, as the general Curative for the Preservation of Mankind. This work was revised by Mesmer, and received his warmest approbation. Mesmer died in 1815, and left his harmonicon as a legacy to Wolfart, who published in the same year Commentaries on the Aphorisms of Mesmer. In Berlin, Wolfart enjoyed opportunities for the observation of the phenomena and effects of animal magnetism which no individual is likely ever again to possess. The Prussian government gave him an hospital for the reception and treatment of all kinds of diseases by means of that remedy. Besides being director of a magnetic clinique, he was a professor of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Berlin, Knight of the Iron Cross, and of the order of St Anne. In 1818 he commenced a journal entitled, Jahrbücher für den Lebens Magnetismus, oder neues Asclepieion, Allgemeines Zeitblatt für die Gesamte Heilkunde, nach den Grundsätzen des Mesmerismus, which was continued till 1823, and consisted of 5 vols. The title Asclepieion was derived from a journal of that name published in 1811. The Annals contain numerous reports of cases and papers by different writers. At the commencement of the fifth volume he has recorded the general results of his practice in a statistical report of hospital and private practice. He mentions that he had seen about fifty somnambules; but it was chiefly the curative effects to which his attention seems to have been turned. Weisse states that, after graduating at Dorpat in 1815, he came to Berlin, where he attended the private clinique of Wolfart.

"I studied mesmerism," he says, "heard Wolfart lecture on general therapeutics according to mesmeric principles, and was for almost half-a-year nearly daily present at his magnetic manipulations, and likewise very often at the treatment by the baquet. By what I saw, my belief in the healing power of magnetism grew into conviction. I saw many diseases give way under the magnetic treatment only. I had not here had opportunity to see clear-seeing somnambules, for Wolfart, not insane, like so many others, steered clear on this point, and even when he had subjects, did not present them publicly like marvellous beings, but in a quiet manner so employed this salutary state as not to give to the somnambule himself a temptation to vanity, and to the deceptions springing from that source."

The number of patients treated daily in the magnetic clinique of M. Wolfart amounted to more than 200, most of whom had themselves magnetised in the morning by particular manipulations, and the number so operated on was much more considerable than the number who were treated at the baquet. It is worthy of note, that besides mesmerism, he employed other remedies, such as purgatives, emetics, &c. Physicians were sent from Stockholm, from St Petersburg, and from Vienna to study under Wolfart.

At this period animal magnetism appears to have reached its culminating point in Germany. It was adopted as a true and authentic doctrine by many of the most eminent physicians and men of science; and it appears to have obtained a greater hold on the scientific mind of Germany than it ever had in any of the other countries of Europe. Besides Wolfart's Jahrbücher, another periodical, the Archives of Animal Magnetism, was conducted from 1817 to 1821 by Kieser, Nasse, and Nees Von Esenbeck. This journal represented the German school of somnambulism, and is full of the most remarkable cases of clairvoyance, transposition of the senses, introvision, prophecy, and the development of supernatural powers of knowledge. Our space will not permit of the quotation of any of these cases, which are equal in extravagance and incredibility to any that have ever been published.

Before concluding this brief sketch, we must still notice another phase of animal magnetism in Germany—viz., the system of Tellurism—proposed by Dr Kieser of Jena, and published at Leipzig in 1823. This work is entitled System des Tellurismus, oder thierischen Magnetismus. The tellurism of Kieser, though it resolves itself substantially into somnambulism, is as great a departure from the doctrine of Mesmer as that of Kluge was. The universal fluid of Mesmer, and the nervous atmosphere of Kluge, become in the hands of Kieser a telluric spirit. Though this essence might be supposed, from the appellation which has been given to it by its discoverer, to belong peculiarly or exclusively to the earth or tellus, we find that it is not so restricted, but is a property of other bodies of the solar system. By night the moon is said to magnetise the dwellers on the earth, while the sun demagnetises them in the morning. This new system was carefully elaborated by its author; and by its ingenuity, and the harmonious development of its parts, it secured the favour and countenance of some eminent men, though in reality it was nothing more than the old doctrine of somnambulism dressed up in a new name. The fact that this work of Kieser's passed through several editions unchanged sufficiently indicates the powerful hold which it took of the public mind.

From the time of its publication till the appearance of the Researches of Reichenbach, no attempt at an introduction of a new system or theory of animal magnetism seems to have been made. The work of Reichenbach, however, was not received with favour by his countrymen; and but for its translation into English by the late professor of chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, would probably have been little heard of. In consequence of this circumstance, we have already noticed the work of Reichenbach in connection with the history of somnambulism in Great Britain. Besides the works already referred to which have a claim upon our attention, from the pretensions which they set forth of treating the subject of somnambulism in a scientific manner, there are other productions of the German press which, from their extravagance and absurdity, are scarcely worth even a passing notice. We allude to such works as—The Prophetess of Prevorst; Revelations on the Inner Life of Man, and on a World of Spirits extending into our Sphere, by Justinus Kerner, published at Stuttgart in 1832; and Finger-marks of God in divine Revelations for the celestial and terrestrial Salvation of a Somnambule, published at Leipsic and Weimar in 1838. We might with equal advantage undertake to explain the incoherent ravings of lunatics, upon any department of science, religion, or morals, which might form the subject-matter of their delusions, as attempt to analyse or discuss such lucubrations as these.

The history of somnambulism in Germany is, as we have seen, associated with the names of many eminent men, to a greater extent perhaps than in any other country. The magnetic doctrine also penetrated into Russia through German channels. Lichtenstedt published Researches on Animal Magnetism at St Petersburg in 1816; and Professor Reiss, chemist in Moscow, made experiments in 1817. It also spread into Denmark, Sweden, and Holland; but in none of these countries were any new investigations made worthy of special notice. In Italy, an elaborate work on the theory and practice of animal magnetism, by Verati, was published, in 4 vols., at Florence in 1846.

From the United States of America we have derived, at the hands of Dr Darling, that modification of the doctrine which he has styled Electro-Biology; and to some extent we are indebted to that country for the hybrid science of mesmero-phrenology. The Spirit-Rapping mania which recently invaded the United States speedily eclipsed all the lesser forms of delusion; but, following the fate which sooner or later overtakes all such preposterous schemes, its glory has already waned, and the spiritualism, as it is now called, of the present day is neither more nor less than our old friend Clairvoyance under a new name.

A perusal of the foregoing brief review of the progress of the theory and practice of animal magnetism and somnambulism in different countries, will have convinced the reader that it must be a very difficult task to attempt the physiological and psychological analysis of all the varied phenomena which have been observed, or which have been supposed to occur in these states; and some perhaps may be of the opinion that such an analysis, if possible, might be attended with little profit. The space allotted to this article forbids our entering into such a discussion of the subject, and we have thought it best therefore, in the foregoing narration of the different phases which this protean subject has assumed, at different times and among various nations, to introduce very briefly such criticism and reflections as might of themselves conduct the reader to the justest view of its truth or falsehood. We would more especially refer to the general conclusions stated in pp. 441 and 442, as presenting a fair view of the result of an impartial estimate of some of the more remarkable of the magnetic phenomena. But at the same time we feel that the whole subject cannot be finally dismissed without some statement of the general impression which we conceive is left upon the mind of the physiologist by a candid examination of the whole evidence which has been adduced in favour of the existence of the animal magnetic or somnambulic state. That impression appears to be briefly as follows:—That the peculiar condition of nervous excitement into which many so-called susceptible individuals are thrown by the very various practices of the magnetisers, is not, in all instances, as is often supposed by the opponents of the system, unreal, or voluntarily assumed for the purposes of deception, but, on the contrary, may be a real and an involuntary state of their nervous system; and it is equally certain that it is due to the influence of the patient's own mind upon his body. The notion that the magnetic state, in so far as it is real, can be directly induced by the will of the operator, and the opinion that it may be due to any unseen influence, or to the agency of any physical or vital force, known or unknown, passing between the body of the operator and his patient, are entirely devoid of all credit. The extent to which the mind is known to be capable of influencing the condition of the body, is not by any means greater than that which is manifested by any of the physiological states of magnetic somnambulism which can be admitted to be real or established. That same deception has existed among the practitioners of magnetism, and still more among those who have professed themselves susceptible somnambulists, there can be no doubt; but this does not warrant the rejection of the whole of the evidence in favour of the reality of some of the phenomena exhibited. Indeed, it seems certain that the deceptions practised would never have been attempted but upon the basis of some credible and real phenomena. Those phenomena, which we are inclined to admit as real, though they may appear very extraordinary to the uninstructed, are in truth not more remarkable than, nor different from, those known to physiologists and pathologists as liable to occur in certain states of the organism, in the production of which the supposed magnetic agency can have had no share. It seems almost unnecessary to add, that among the possible or real phenomena of the magnetic or somnambulic state, we do not include any of the exhibitions of clairvoyance, or transference of the powers of the senses from their natural seats to other organs. In respect to these we do not hesitate to affirm, that upon due examination and trial they have all proved to be miserable failures, and that after an unbiased consideration of the result of such examinations, nothing but the most perverse or weak credulity could lead any one to place reliance in the statements of the supernatural powers alleged to be acquired in the states to which the names of clairvoyance, lucidity, pre-vision, self-intuition, and the like, have been given. In conclusion, we would remark that the whole subject is fraught with the deepest interest, not only in a physiological point of view, from the striking illustrations which the so-called magnetic phenomena afford of the relations between the natural and unnatural conditions of the nervous system; but still more in its psychological aspects, from the vivid picture which the subject presents of the extent to which many persons, and frequently even those of superior mental power and acquirement, if of a theoretical turn of mind, allow themselves to be misled by the careless observation of phenomena, and by loose reasoning upon their causes; and from the many examples which it furnishes of the peculiar and forcible influence which the principles of imitation, vanity, and love of notoriety exercise on the human mind; leading many persons who would not otherwise be deceivers to make themselves the willing and yielding subjects of magnetic experiments, in the performance of the various feats of which they experience the greatest pleasure, and in which they come to acquire so much dexterity that they end by making dupes of operators, who fondly imagine that in leading on their patients to the performance of the most incredible jugglery, they are advancing the cause of scientific truth by philosophical researches.

(S.A.T.—N.)