210 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvn. 



merism in rendering the most serious operations painless, 

 and at the same time greatly assisting the patient's re- 

 covery, was fully acknowledged, the discovery of anaes- 

 thetics occurred ; and this physiological agent, being more 

 easy to apply and more certain to act upon all patients, 

 soon led to the neglect of mesmerism. With this neg- 

 lect the old prejudices and incredulity revived; and, 

 although its soothing and remedial influence in disease 

 was quite as well established as its use in surgery, it soon 

 fell into disuse, and the great majority of medical men 

 came to look upon it as either disreputable or altogether 

 a delusion. For nearly half a century it remained in 

 abeyance, till its study was revived in the French hospi- 

 tals, where all the phenomena described by the early 

 mesmerizers have been re-observed, together with some 

 others even more extraordinary. 



During the latter portion of the century, the study of 

 these and other obscure psychical phenomena has be- 

 come more extended, and in every civilized country 

 societies have been formed for investigation, and many 

 remarkable works have been published. One after an- 

 other, facts, long denied as delusions or exaggerations,, 

 have been admitted to be realities. The stigmata, which 

 at different times have occurred in Catholic countries, 

 are no longer sneered at as priestly impostures. 

 Thought-transference, automatic writing, trance-speak- 

 ing, and clairvoyance, have been all demonstrated in the 

 presence of living observers of undoubted ability and 

 knowledge, as they were demonstrated to the observers 

 of the early part of the century and carefully recorded 

 by them. The still more extraordinary phenomena 

 veridical hallucinations, warnings, detailed predictions 



