ON CERTAIN PHENOMENA OF HYPNOTISM. 93 



before daylight had shone for the dwellers in the valleys of prosaic 

 fact. 



The question of animal magnetism was not, however, to be set 

 at rest by the report of any set of men, however learned or dis- 

 tinguished. It passed through a period of wild charlatanism, 

 which attained its climax in the table-turning and spirit-rapping of 

 some thirty years since. The majority of sensible people 

 disbelieved in the whole thing, quietly following, as the majority 

 of sensible people do, the prevailing orthodox opinions on that 

 and all other matters. A few scientific men, from time to time, 

 had the courage to endeavour to sift what truth there might be 

 in the mesmerism clairvoyance, and other marvels of the 

 charlatans. 



A fresh commission was appointed by the Academy of 

 Medicine, in 1826. Husson, one of the members, after five 

 years of patient research, presented a report, in which the 

 existence of animal magnetism was affirmed : — " The results are 

 negative or insufficient in the majority of cases." The report 

 declares " in others they are produced by weariness, monotony, or 

 the imagination." (The effects of weariness of the sensory organs 

 in producing exhaustion of the highest brain centres were not then 

 dreamed of) " It appears, however, that some results depend 

 solely on magnetism, and cannot be produced without it. These 

 are physiological phenomena, and well established therapeutically." 

 An account of the various phenomena, agreeing in most particu- 

 lars wdth those of what we now call hypnotism, is given ; the 

 difference being that whereas certain phenomena of hypnotism 

 appear to depend upon laws still unknown or imperfectly known, 

 /;/ no case are they at variance with kfiown laws of nature. 



Now some of the experiments reported by M. Husson are at 

 variance with well-known laws, and verge on the miraculous ; the 

 subjects can read and can distinguish the colours and suits of 

 cards when asleep, and wuth their eyelids covered ; can tell the 

 nature of other people's diseases, indicating the method of treat- 

 ment, and can prophesy the date of their own epileptic attacks. 

 It is amusing to see that the method of treatment thus miracu- 

 lously indicated was in perfect accord with the appalling theories 

 of the period as to bleeding; the somnambulist declared that the 



