EXPERIMENTS WITH LIVING HUMAN BEINGS. 617 



would never have been discussed, even for a moment, in any scientific 

 body. 



The three methods of deceiving the subject by which alone the 

 element of error from mind acting on body can be eliminated, and the 

 results of experiments with living human beings transferred from the 

 i-ealra of opinion to science or positive knowledge, are these : 



1. By doing something when the subject experimented on believes 

 that we are doino- nothino-. 



2. By doing nothing when the subject believes that we are doing 

 something. 



3. By doing something different from what the subject believes is 

 being done. 



In experiments of importance, as where radical and overwhelming 

 discoveries in science are claimed to be made, all of these methods of 

 deceiving should be used ; and it is because they are not used in the 

 experiments of scientific men that we are constantly compelled to face 

 and listen to the claims of " animal magnetism," of "odic force " of 

 "spiritism," of "cundurango," of "blue glass," and, during the past 

 year, of " Mollie Fancher,'' of " metalloscopy," and " metal-therapeu- 

 tics," 



A classical example of one method of deception in experiments of 

 this character was afforded by the expose of the performances of mes- 

 merized or professedly mesmerized girls by Mr. Wakley, of the Lon- 

 don "Lancet," A good example of neglect of this deception, as well 

 as of ignorance of the relation of mind to body, is found in the experi- 

 ments of Dr. Vansant with magnets, as published by him a few years 

 ago. This writer gives an immense number of differential symptoms 

 that, as he claims, are produced by the north and south poles of the 

 magnet ; his experiments were in the same line with the famous Per- 

 kins tractors, though apparently more scientific ; the same criticism 

 applies to the researches that are now being made in the Salpetri^re 

 Hospital in Paris, where, according to the testimony of experts who 

 have witnessed them, and the statements of the experimenters them- 

 selves, no systematic deception is employed or even suggested. 



That even the strongest leaders in physiology are not fully armed 

 against the errors that beset experimental research, when living human 

 beings are the subjects, 'is shown in the not long ago published Lowell 

 Lectures of Professor Brown-Sequard, wherein that master in experi- 

 mental study through the processes of vivisection declares that the 

 claims of telling of time through the back of the head are authentic. 

 Deductive reasoning for ever disproves this claim, which any inductive 

 research, properly conducted, must always confirm ; but any test to be 

 of value must, at every step, shut out absolutely all the six avenues of 

 error ; and the report of any test, in order to be worth reading, must 

 clearly state and show that all such errors were so excluded. 



VOL. XIV. — 40 



