100 DYNAMIC AGENTS. 



cases the action of the medicines is doubtless due to an ab- t 

 sorption of their subtle and characteristic emanations, through 

 the pores of the skin, whence they are diffused through the 

 nervous medium of the system, acting upon the vital forces 

 which control all the functions of the physical organism. 



By experiments which placed deception out of the question, 

 it was found that these ethereal influences of different sub- 

 stances, could be conducted through wires to a distance of 

 from three to one hundred and thirty-two feet, so as to be dis- 

 tinctly perceived by the more sensitive of Reichenbach's ex- 

 perimenters. 



But a fact still more important in its bearings was, that differ- 

 ent bodies placed in contact with, or in close proximity to, each 

 other, would mutually impart their influences to each other, so 

 as to modify or totally change the effects which they would 

 otherwise produce upon sensitive patients. In other words, 

 and to use a figure of speech that will be perfectly understood, 

 they would mutually magnetize, or mesmerize, each other 

 would enter into a sort of rapport or reciprocal sympathy, by 

 an interdiffusion of their spheres or ethereal emanations. Thus 

 it was found that sulphur, which of itself would impart a cold 

 and prickling sensation to impressible persons, even at a dis- 

 tance of several feet, and without a conducting wire, would, by 

 contact or close proximity to other substances, empower 

 them, for a time, to give forth a similar influence, even though 

 their own proper influences might be of an opposite, though 

 less powerful, character ; and so of other substances, and their 

 modifying influences upon others.* - j^----- 



The general reliability of the foregoing and other alleged 



* For further details of these interesting experiments and their results, the reader is 

 referred to Reichenbach's " Physico-Physiological Researches on the Dynamics of Mag- 

 netism," etc., New York. J. S. Redfleld. 



