MESMERISM. 675 



is the third whom he quotes : " The estimable Reil," thus Gall 

 generously terms him, " after having spoken of the abdominal 

 ganglia as capable of becoming the conductors of sensation, says, 

 ' the transition to the state of a conductor is so much more easy 

 in living than in inanimate nature, that a communication may be 

 established between the magnetiser and the magnetised, so that 

 if the former chew pepper, the latter tastes it;'" "the mag- 

 netised are enabled to know by this evidence the configuration of 

 their interior just as well as if they saw it with their external 

 senses ;" < a patient described the thoracic and abdominal 

 viscera, the spinal marrow, the sympathetic nerve, and the solar 

 plexus, as white threads and clear spots ; some have heard 

 sounds too low to be heard by others ; some, with their eyes 

 shut, have perceived objects, and especially men, in another 

 apartment, and foretold, without ever making a mistake, what 

 persons would come to the house : the magnetiser scratches 

 himself, the magnetised itches at the same part ; the former 

 coughs, pricks himself, the latter also coughs and feels the 

 prick P: the magnetiser takes wine and pepper into his mouth, 



9 This equals Sir Kenelme Digby, who solemnly assures us that a gentleman, 

 having had his hand wounded in a duel and suffering great pain, found the 

 pain suddenly cease when Sir Kenelme dissolved some powder of vitriol in water, 

 and put into the solution the bloody garter with which the wound had been 

 bound up. A few hours afterwards, however, he took the garter out of the 

 solution and dried it before a large fire ; but " it was scarce dry before the 

 wounded gentleman's servant came roaring that his master felt as much burning 

 as ever he had done, if not more, for the heat was such as if his hand were twixt 

 coales of fire." He desired the man to return home, saying, " his master should 

 be free from that inflammation, it may be, before he coidd possibly return unto 

 him." " Thereupon he went, and at the instant Sir Kenelme did put again the 

 garter into the water : thereupon he found his master without any pain at all. 

 To be brief, there was no sense of pain afterwards, but within five or six dayes 

 the wounds were cicatrised and entirely healed.*' (A Late Discourse made in a 

 Solemne Assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at Montpellier in France, by Sir 

 Kenelme Digby, Knight, &c. ; rendered faithfully out of French into English, 

 by M. White, Gent., ed. 2. London, 1658. p. 6. sqq.) I may mention that 

 the knight anticipated another folly and imposition, just as it may be with dif- 

 ferent practitioners, Hahnemannism, or homoeopathy, by pointing out an 

 undoubted remedy on the principle of similia similibus. " Tis an ordinary 

 remedy, though a nasty one, that they who have ill breaths, hold their mouths 

 open at the mouth of a privy, as long as they can, and by the reiteration of this 

 remedy they find themselves cured at last." p. 76* 



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