378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whom Bailly (that unfortunate Bailly who was to perish on the scaffold 

 some years later) was the reporter, to investigate them. Its conclusion 

 was that the pretended magnetic fluid did not exist, and that the ex- 

 periments and observations of Mesmer were based on nothing real. 

 One of the members of the committee, the celebrated Laurent de Jus- 

 sieu, declined to sign this report, and in a memorial, which had a con- 

 siderable support of public opinion, admitted that there was a portion 

 of truth in Mesmerism, which ought to be discovered and extracted 

 from the juggleries, unworthy the attention of scientific men, in which 

 it was buried. 



Mesmer was not, in fact, the creator of the theory of animal mag- 

 netism. If the Marquis Armand de Puysegur had not repeated his 

 experiments, the art would not have existed, and the subjects of the 

 baqiiet of Mesmer would have been put in the same class with the con- 

 vulsionists of St. Medard. Puysegur cured several sick at Poissons 

 by touching them ; then others, and still others. He gathered disci- 

 ples, be wrote numerous papers, he indicated the processes that should 

 be employed to put a subject to sleep, he described the phases of in- 

 duced somnambulism, between 1785 and 1825. Experimentists, whose 

 good faith, if not their good sense, could not be suspected, everywhere 

 repeated his experiments ; physicians and men of science occupied 

 themselves with them and confirmed them in part. Petetin, Deleuze, 

 Dupotet, Husson, Braid, and many other persons whose names are less 

 familiar, developed and interpreted his ideas. Through their confused 

 work the fact has been brought up into clear evidence, from among the 

 absurd errors and hardly imaginable follies in which it was buried, 

 that a nervous affection of a peculiar nature may be induced among 

 subjects who are more or less predisposed to it. At present, all en- 

 lightened physicians recognize that somnambulism exists with symp- 

 toms which are always identical, and that it has a right to be recog- 

 nized as a special form of disease. We shall try to tell in a few words 

 what must be believed about it, remarking that we do not speak of it 

 from hearsay, but according to facts which we have ourselves ob- 

 served. 



The processes by the aid of which somnambulism is induced are 

 irregular and empirical. If the subjects are predisposed and habit- 

 uated, by having had previous attacks, to be affected by that neurotic 

 disorder, a slight disturbance of the nervous system, sometimes the 

 most insignificant in the world, is enough. A subject who has been 

 frequently put to sleep may be magnetized in less than half a minute. 

 But, in dealing with a person who has never before been put under 

 magnetic influence, the rules of the magnetizers must be followed, 

 however ridiculous they may seem. The operator must set himself 

 opposite the face of the subject, make a few passes with his hands 

 before his forehead, and look at him fixedly. Very often no result 

 will be obtained at the first sitting ; but the operator will learn by 



