1884.] 3Ir. J. N. Langley on the Physiological Asiject of Mesmerism. 25 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 14, 1884. 



Sib Frederick Pollock, Bart. M.A. Manager anr] Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 



J. N. Langley, Esq. M.A. F.E.S. 



The Physiological Aspect of Mesmerism, 



Scattered about in the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries are many records of the cure of divers human maladies in 

 simple and mysterious-seeming ways. 



Valentin Greaterakes, in Charles II.'s reign, was, we are told, 

 " famous for curing various diseases and distempers by a stroak of 

 the hand only." His power, he thought, was a special gift from 

 heaven. Many people, however, were not slow to say that he had 

 dealings with the devil. In some cases wonders were wrought by 

 touching the affected parts of the patient with a magnet. Maxwell, 

 w^ho in 1679 published a short treatise on magnetic medicine, 

 attributed the cures brought about by this, and by some other un- 

 usual forms of medical practice, to the accumulation of a subtile fluid 

 in the body of the patient. This subtile fluid was diffused through 

 all things in nature ; a fortunate few amongst men had an inborn 

 power of controlling its distribution. Such men could cure all 

 diseases ; they could indeed, he says, by adding to their own proper 

 quantum of fluid, make themselves live for ever, were not the 

 influence of the stars adverse. 



In 1775 the theory of animal magnetism was put forward in 

 Vienna by Friedrich Anton Mesmer Neither his theories nor his facts 

 differ very greatly from those of some of his predecessors. There 

 exists, he said, in nature a universal fluid; in virtue of this, the 

 human body possesses " properties analogous to those of a magnet ; 

 there are to be distinguished in it poles equally different and 

 opposite, which may even be communicated, changed, destroyed, and 

 restored ; even the phenomenon of inclination is observed therein." 

 By means of this magnetic fluid all the maladies of man could be 

 healed. A few years later Mesmer left Vienna for Paris. At first 

 he magnetised his patients by gazing steadily at them, or by means of 

 " passes " ; but as patients became more numerous, he brought them 

 into a proper magnetic condition by other methods, often of a very 

 fantastic nature. The patients did not, when magnetised, all show 

 the same symptoms ; some passed into a heavy sleep, some became in- 

 sensible to touch, or even to stimuli ordinarily painful ; some became 

 cataleptic, some were seized with local or general convulsions. This 

 last condition was called a crisis, and was the triumph of the mes- 



