THE PHENOMENA OF MAGNETISM. 



IN the year 1778, Mesmer, a German physician, who had already 

 published some fanciful opinions, broached the doctrine of the power 

 of magnetism over the living body. Not finding his ideas to meet 

 with that support in his native country to which he conceived they 

 were entitled, he repaired to Paris, then considered the centre of 

 science and civilization, boldly relying upon the confidence of his 

 assertions, and the credulity of the inhabitants of the French metro- 

 polis. Nor was his audacity disappointed ; for he had no sooner 

 declared his pretensions, than he met with some zealous adherents, 

 if not among the most eminent men of letters, at least among some 

 who possessed so much reputation as to produce a great effect upon 

 the public mind. The object which Mesmer professed was to cure 

 diseases of various kinds, by a certain application of magnetism to 

 the human body ; or by exciting the magnetic influence which pre- 

 viously existed in it, although in a latent or insensible state. After 

 he had resided about a year in France, he published an account of 

 his new system. Some of the leading positions are as follows : 

 Magnetism is a fluid of the greatest tensity, so as to approach to an 

 immaterial or ethereal nature, which pervades all the universe, and 

 fills all the pores or vacancies that are not occupied by grosser 

 matter. It is supposed to be the primary cause of many of the 

 active properties that we observe in the universe, and especially to 

 communicate to them the original impulses of motion and sensation. 

 The human body is capable of receiving the magnetic influence, and 

 the nerves appear to be the media by which it is transmitted through 

 the different organs. This animal magnetism, when excited or 

 liberated, is capable of being communicated from one body to ano- 

 ther, and accumulated in them, analogous to what we observe with 

 respect to the electric fluid. It has, however, many peculiarities in 

 which it differs from this agent ; of which one of the most remark- 

 able is, that it may be transported to a considerable distance without 

 the intervention of any other substance ; and it has, also, the pecu- 

 liarity of affecting certain individuals alone, while it has no percep- 

 tible effect upon others, a difference of constitution which can only 

 be ascertained by actual experiment. But the most important pro- 

 perty of animal magnetism is its power in curing diseases, which it 

 possesses in a degree that could not have been previously conceived, 

 but of the actual existence of which we have the most undoubted 

 evidence : its operation upon the body being through the medium of 

 the nervous system, it follows that what we usually style nervous 

 diseases are those that come more immediately under its influence. 

 In proof of his hypothesis, and of the power of magnetism over the 

 human body, Mesmer and his adherents confidently appealed to their 

 success in the cure of diseases ; and so great did this appear, and so 

 unquestionable was the evidence on which it seemed to be founded, 

 that for some time scarcely any opposition was made to it, and it was 

 regarded as the most unreasonable scepticism to doubt of its reality. 

 M. M. No. 96. 4 S 



