MESMERISM. 665 



prove the antiquity of performing manipulations like those of 

 magnetism to procure tranquillity : 



" TGV Si JtKa~? vova-oia-i 



Sometimes the fury of the worst disease;, 

 The hand by gentle stroking will appease. 



They adduce another from Plautus to show that manipu- 

 lations were used in Rome to send persons to sleep. Mer- 

 cury, proposing to knock a man down, says ironically in allusion 

 to putting a child to sleep by gently rubbing it, " Quid si 

 ego ilium tractim tangam ut dormiat." Sosia replies, " Ser- 

 vaveris, nam continuas has tres noctes pervigilavi." a The 

 Bible, of course, has not been left unquoted. When Naaman 

 drove to Elisha's door in his chariot, and the prophet neither 

 invited him in nor went out to him, but directed him to go 

 and wash himself seven times in the Jordan, he was greatly 

 disappointed at not being touched by the holy man. " But 

 Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, 

 He will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name 

 of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and 

 recover the leper." b They believe there was mesmeric oper- 

 ation in these things : and consider them, and all the oracles, 

 visions, prophecies, magic, and miracles of the pagan world, and 

 those mesmerisers who are deists consider even the alleged 

 supernatural things of the Jewish and Christian world, as not 

 supernatural, but the result of this mighty power. Some are such 

 enthusiasts, that they refer to mesmerism the instinctive applica- 

 tion of our hand to a part in pain and rubbing it. The pressure 

 and agreeable sensation go for nothing. The production of 

 sleep by gentle friction is mesmeric. The mere circumstance of 

 a gentle and continued impression has not the effect, because the 

 sight of waving corn, the trickling of a brook, or the motion of 

 rocking, does not produce sleep, nor can we rock or rub ourselves 

 to sleep. The practice of the peasants in Bavaria, of rubbing their 



a Amphitryo, act 1. 



Consult Lettres Physiologiques et Morales sur le Magnetisme Animal. Par J. 

 Amedee Dupeau. Paris, 1826. 

 b Kings, ii. 5. 11. 



