MAGNETISM. 403 



diminishing for twenty minutes. In both patients the sensa- 

 tion was the same; one of warmth, rising into the arm and 

 coinciding exactly with that caused under similar circumstances by 

 the rock crystal. I observed the same phenomena some months 

 later in Miles. Reichel and Atzmanusdorfer. The most surprising 

 result is that attained with a glass of water. If it be taken in one 

 hand and grasped below by the fingers, and if this be continued for 

 about ten minutes, it then possesses for sensitive patients the smell, 

 the taste and all the well-marked and curious properties of what is 

 called magnetized water. Those who have never examined the mat- 

 ter experimentally may exclaim irrationally against this. I was 

 formerly myself one of this number, but all those who have tested 

 this fact by experiment and witnessed the effects, as I have done, 

 can only speak of it with astonishment. The water thus charged, 

 which is exactly similar to that treated by magnets or crystals, has 

 therefore received from the fingers an abundant charge of the pecu- 

 liar force residing in them and retains it for a considerable time. I 

 could after a time produce similar effects on all possible substances 

 by holding them for some time in my hand. The patients who 

 had tried them all before I touched them, now perceived in all of 

 them the same change as if they had been stroked with the poles of 

 magnets or 'crystals, and this whether they knew of my having 

 touched the objects or had been kept in ignorance of my having 

 done so. It follows plainly from all this that bodies may be 

 charged with the force residing in the hands exactly as with the 

 crystalline force.' 



" Here, then, we have the most conclusive evidence of the 

 existence in man of the peculiar force called animal magnetism, 

 and also that it is conductible and can be imparted to all sub- 

 stances. This testimony is all the more valuable, as the facts here 

 stated can be verified at any time by all who may choose to investi- 

 gate the subject. 



"As a therapeutic means, this force has every reason to recom- 

 mend it to the physician. While it in no way interferes with the 

 action of a drug, it is efficient where drugs most conspicuously 

 fail; and as an auxiliary to surgical and medical treatment, it will, 

 when better understood, fill a need that lias long been felt. For 

 instance, in those cases where surgical interference is necessary and 

 yet where the condition of the patient is such as to render an opera- 

 tion unsafe, there is no other means that will so quickly impart 

 vitality and that will tend so much to insure a successful result as 

 this. And in those adynamic diseases, where the enfeebled system 

 fails to respond to drug action, this force will prove most valuable. 



" While the animal magnetic force has proved most efficacious 

 in both acute and chronic diseases, it is in the cure of the latter 

 that it has achieved its greatest success; especially in the treatment 

 of this class of maladies, it is destined to form an important part 

 of the therapeutics of the future; and in those diseases which have 



