192 Foreign Literature and Science. 



viz, 30,000 sick-35,000 aged and infirm— and 25,000 chil- 

 dren. In this number h not comprised, the aged who are 

 supported at home, and the children at nurse in the coun- 

 try. The expense of this vast charity is estimated at 90 

 centimes, (x\ of a pound) per day, for the sick; and 60 

 centimes for the aged, and for children : hence the total is 

 from 24 to 25 millions (from 4 to 5 millions of dollars.) 

 The revenue of these establishments exceeds this expendi- 

 ture, and is daily increasing by numerous legacies. Before 

 the rev^olution, the number of foundlings supported by the 

 public was about 45,000. It is now 60,000, and the ex- 

 pense of their maintenance is seven millions. Before the 

 public bounty was extended to this numerous class of inno- 

 cent sufferers, children abandoned by their parents, were 

 publicly sold, under the portals of the church of St. Landry, 

 to women with full breasts, to boatmen, to beggars, and it is 

 said, to magicians. The current price was 20 sous. 



42. Animal Magnetism. — It appears from the French 

 Journals^ that this singular and incomprehensible doctrine 

 has been revived inFaris; and if a statement of certain ef- 

 fects produced by magnetism, at the hotel Dieu, during the 



months of 



1S20, m 



presence of seven or eight Physicians, and several other 

 persons whose nances are given, are worthy of reliance, it 

 must be acknowledged that the commissioners appointed by 

 Louis XVI, with Dr. Franklin in their number, were clear- 

 ly mistaken ; and that Mesmer ought to be regarded as a 

 man of real genius^ misunderstood, aqd persecuted by hi 

 cotemporaries, 



A detail of 5evcral cases has been signed by thirty phy- 

 sicians, and acknowledged by M. Husson, the hospital 

 physician. One of these cases was^that of a young girl af- 

 fected with hisieria, and spasmodic vomiting, which nothing 



< 



^ 



could check. 



a 



ed as near. As soon as she was magnetised, the vomiting 

 ceased, and after a few trials she fell into a sonjnabulisni ; 

 and experiments the most varied, ingenious, and exact, con- 

 vinced t|ie doctor that the magnetic influence was real, cu- 

 rative, and entirely independent of ^he imagination. 



