680 MESMERISM. 



use common language ; but, that they may be real and inde 

 pendent of all imagination, I have seen quite sufficient to con- 

 vince me. 



In May, 1829, I was introduced to Mr. Chenevix by Dr. 

 Hodgkin, and, as that gentleman had persuaded himself, theo- 

 retically and practically, at Paris, of the truth of mesmerism, I 

 seized this opportunity of commencing an experimental examin- 

 ation, by availing myself of his offer to mesmerise any person I 

 might present to him. I saw him mesmerise two girls at his own 

 lodgings in Old Burlington Street, and took him several times to 

 St. Thomas's Hospital. The two girls appeared to fall fast 

 asleep by the process: but, though I watched them very carefully, 

 I might be deceived, and, as they were well known to Mr. Che- 

 nevix, and had been mesmerised before, I drew no inference. 

 At St. Thomas's Hospital, I selected female patients at random 

 from my list of their names, and neither he had seen them nor 

 they heard of him or mesmerism. Each was manipulated alone 

 in a private room. On manipulating a patient of a colleague, 

 who selected her himself, she had an hysterical fit, at which 

 I was not surprised, as hysteria was her complaint and the 

 least emotion at any time excited a paroxysm. He endea- 

 voured to put an end to it in vain. On a second occasion, a 

 violent fit recurred and his attempts to calm it were fruitless. 

 He manipulated six other young females, with no effect, except 

 that one, labouring under chorea, said her head was light and 

 heavy alternately, and menstruated two days afterwards for 

 the first time during three months. An epileptic woman fell 

 asleep, apparently, on the two occasions she was mesmerised : 

 yet we found that she was not asleep the second time, and she 

 declared she had not been asleep the first time, though on both 

 occasions she felt drowsy. I did not venture to conclude she 

 was asleep, but the redness of her eyes and cheeks, the heavi- 

 ness of her look, and every circumstance make me now believe 

 she was asleep the first time, for I have seen many mesmerised 

 persons fast asleep, who afterwards denied it. Pain was pro- 

 duced in her arm, and afterwards in her head, and presently 

 recurred by manipulating in another direction ; from this I 

 inferred nothing then, but I have since then witnessed such 

 phenomena so frequently, that I do not doubt their reality and 

 their production by the manipulator. I remained unconvinced 



