MESMERISM. 



A PEW remarks on that functional state of the nervous system, termed Mesmerism, 

 may not be irrelevant to add in this treatise. It is called by some animal or human 

 magnetism. It was known to the ancients, and has been revived by the moderns,* par- 

 ticularly in the last century by Dr. Frederick Antony Mesmer, of France, from whom 

 it has derived its name. Under the name of " neurology," attempts have been made 

 in this country to put a new-dress upon it, and to bring it before the public with new 

 features, and to connect with it some new discoveries ; but it remains to be what it has 

 ever been, the principal difference being only different modes of illustration. 



Of the nature of this mysterious principle or agent, we know but little, but of its 

 effects on the system we are quite familiar ; and it can be practised and demonstrated 

 easily by any one a little acquainted with the method of operating upon those termed 

 " impressible subjects." After repeated passes of the hand from the head downwards 

 nearly in contact with the body, the subject falls into a mesmeric sleep, formerly called 

 the crisis, in which the outward senses, particularly the sight, are apparently closed, and 

 the interior, or inward senses, are capable of seeing and describing objects not otherwise 

 visible as internal diseases, reading when blindfolded, &c. The body sometimes 

 becomes fixed as in a trance, and is insensible to pain, so that even surgical opera- 

 tions have been performed in a magnetic sleep without causing distress. 



A limb having been mesmerized, becomes stiff and almost immovable, and may be 

 made to adhere firmly to the head, so that it cannot be forced off until the fluid has been 

 withdrawn. The will of the person magnetized appears to be completely under the 

 direction of the magnetizer. In this condition, if any of the phrenological organs be 

 magnetized, it developes their peculiar character, and the subject involuntarily ex- 

 ercises them preternaturally ; for instance, combativeness, which arouses the pugnacious 

 or fighting propensities; if amativeness, the subject make loves to the operator. Some 

 who make extravagant if not visionary pretensions to magnetism, assert that by putting 

 certain agents into the hand, such as Capsicum, Antimony, &c., their effects will be felt 



* Travellers in eastern countries describe paintings found in the temples of Thebes and other 

 ancient cities which represent persons in a sleeping posture, while others are making passes ever 

 them. The priests of Chaldea, of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Judea, and Jerusalem, and the priests 

 and physicians of ancient Greece and Rome practised magnetism in their temples and in the heal- 

 ing art, long before the Christian era. " Aristotle informs us that Thales, who lived six hundred 

 years befoie Christ, ascribed the curative properties in the magnet to a soul with which he sup- 

 posed it to be endowed, and without which' he also supposed no kind of motion could take place. 

 Pliny also affirms the magnet to be useful in curing diseases of the eyes, scalds, and burns ; and 

 Celsus, a philosopher of the first century after Christ, speaks of a physician by the name of 

 Asclepiades, who soothed the ravings of the insane by manipulations, and he adds that his manual 

 operations, when continued for some time, produced a degree of sleep or lethargy." 



