xvi] LONDON AND LEICESTER 235 



seen some of the effects of exciting the phrenological organs 

 by touching the corresponding parts of the patient's head. 

 But as I had no book containing a chart of the organs, I 

 bought a small phrenological bust to help me in determining 

 the positions. 



Having my patient in the trance, and standing close to 

 him, with the bust on my table behind him, I touched succes- 

 sively several of the organs, the position of which it was easy 

 to determine. After a few seconds he would change his 

 attitude and the expression of his face in correspondence 

 with the organ excited. In most cases the effect was unmis- 

 takable, and superior to that which the most finished actor could 

 give to a character exhibiting the same passion or emotion. 



At this very time the excitement caused by painless 

 surgical operations during the mesmeric trance was at its full 

 height, as I have described it in my " Wonderful Century " 

 (chapter xxi.), and I had read a good deal about these, and 

 also about the supposed excitement of the phrenological 

 organs, and the theory that these latter were caused by 

 mental suggestion from the operator to the patient, or what 

 is now termed telepathy. But as the manifestations often 

 occurred in a different form from what I expected, I felt 

 sure that this theory was not correct One day I intended 

 to touch a particular organ, and the effect on the patient 

 was quite different from what I expected, and looking 

 at the bust while my finger was still on the boy's head, I 

 found that I was not touching the part I supposed, but an 

 adjacent part, and that the effect exactly corresponded to the 

 organ touched and not to the organ I tJiought I had touched, 

 completely disproving the theory of suggestion. I then tried 

 several experiments by looking away from the boy's head 

 while I put my finger on it at random, when I always found 

 that the effect produced corresponded to that indicated by 

 the bust. I thus established, to my own satisfaction, the 

 fact that a real effect was produced on the actions and speech 

 of a mesmeric patient by the operator touching various parts 

 of the head ; that the effect corresponded with the natural 

 expression of the emotion due to the phrenological organ 



