TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 121 



crowded thoroughfare, where some persons, when crossing the streets amidst a 

 crowd of carriages, not only become spell-bound by a sense of their danger, so that 

 they cannot move from the point of danger, but it even sometimes happens that they 

 seem impelled to advance forward into the greater danger from which they are anxious 

 to escape, and from which a person with more self-possession or presence of mind may 

 be forced, by the very sense of his danger, to escape, by making an incredible bound 

 — his natural powers having become stimulated to unwonted energy, by a lively 

 faith having taken possession of his mind as to his capability to accomplish such a 

 feat. It is this very principle of involuntary muscular action from a dominant idea 

 which has got possession of the mind, and the suggestions conveyed to the mind by 

 the muscular action which flows from it, which led so many to be deceived during 

 their experiments in "table-turning," and induced them to believe that the table 

 was drawing them, whilst all the while they were unconsciously drawing or push- 

 ing it by their own muscular force. As already remarked, it is upon this principle 

 that the bird is drawn to its fell destroyer, and, moreovei-, that human beings may 

 appear deliberately and intentionally to leap over precipices, and cast themselves 

 from towers and other situations, not only of danger, but of certain destruction. 

 It is also upon the same principle that some individuals may be brought so much 

 under the control of others, through certain audible and visible and tangible sug- 

 gestions by another individual, as is seen in the phenomena exhibited in the waking 

 condition, in what has been so absurdly called " electro-biology." The whole of 

 these phenomena of "electro-biology," of "table-turning," the gyrations of the 

 odometer of Dr. Mayo, of the magnetometer of Mr. Rutter, the movements of the 

 divining rod, and the supposed levity of the human body lifted on the tips of the 

 fingers of four individuals, as described by Sir David Brewster, the fascination of 

 serpents, the evil eye and witchcraft, and the charm by which a fowl may be fixed 

 and spell-bound by causing it to gaze at a chalk line, or strip of coloured paper, or 

 of white paper on a dark ground — all come under the same category, namely, the 

 influence of a dominant idea, or fixed act of attention, absorbing, or putting in 

 abeyance for the nonce, the other and great controlling power of the mind — the will. 

 My investigations have proved, beyond all controversy', that by these means the 

 ordinary mental and physical functions may be changed, so that the subject shall 

 lose his freedom of action, and that all the natural functions may be either excited 

 or depressed with great uniformity, even in the waking condition, according to the 

 dominant idea existing in the mind of man or animal at the time, whether that has 

 arisen spontaneously, has been the result of previous associations, or of the sugges- 

 tions of others. The whole of the subsequent abnormal phaenomena are due entirely 

 to this influence of dominant ideas over physical action, and point to the importance 

 of combining the study of psychology with that of physiology, and vice versa. I 

 believe the attempt made to study these two branches of science so much apart from 

 each other, has been a great hindrance to the successful study of either. 



On the Action of the Carbo-azotic Acid and the Carbo-azotates on the Human 

 Body. By Professor Calvert and Dr. Thomas Moffat. 



On an abnormal Condition of the Nervous System. 

 By William Camps, M.D. 



The author stated that the object aimed at in this communication was to present 

 to the Section a remarkable, if not unique condition of the nervous system, as 

 observed in a female aged fourteen years. He described it as an instance of 

 irregular intermittent tetanic catalepsy. Although the subject of this catalepsy 

 resided some sixty or seventy miles from London, yet he had seen the young woman 

 on two separate occasions, thus afl'ordinghim opportunities of witnessing the various 

 phaenomena connected with this abnormal condition of the nervous system. By this 

 means, he had seen her whilst waUng vp ovt of a profound cataleptic slumber, 

 during her waking state, and also in the cataleptic slumber. She had continued in 

 this state throughout a period of nearly twenty weeks, during which he had been in- 

 formed she had taken but very little nourishment. The conditions of the voluntary 



