SCIENCE LETTER FROM PARIS. 741 



A patient was admitted into the Pitie hospital, absolutely insensible to pain ; 

 plates of platina and of silver were applied, but no sensibility was provoked. I 

 was remarked, that the patient wore a silver ring ; the doctor pricked the part of 

 the finger covered with the ring, and immediately the patient started. Silver 

 alone could not produce that sensibility, as it had been already tried. The ring 

 was then analyzed, and found to be an alloy of copper. Copper and silver plates 

 were then applied to the forehead and the umbilical region, strange as it may 

 appear, when the whole body gradually became sensitive. 



In the lethargic state, the patient is in a very high degree of nervous irrita- 

 bility: a fly touching his skin, can induce contractions; even the slightest vibra- 

 tions induce a movement in the whole nervous network, similar to that which 

 -takes place when fulminating matters explode under the influence of determined 

 vibrations. Judge: the patient is in his hospital bed ; he is sensitive on one side 

 of the body, cataleptic on the other: by means of a mirror, a ray of light is thrown 

 ■on the muscles of the sensitive leg, by these, to us invisible mechanical vibra- 

 tions, the limb trembles, slowly rises up, the abdomen inflates, the contraction 

 arises at its maximum, the abdomen swelling, despite a weight of 224 pounds 

 placed thereupon ; then the contraction diminishes, the abdomen lessens in vol- 

 ume, the tetanic stiffness disappears. The vibrations of light which produced 

 these phenomena, also induce their cessation. 



Heat, cold, sound, a magnet, even a common bellows will produce the same 

 effects as light; the patient thus resembles a puppet; the members, if cataleptic, 

 -can be placed in any posture, the other moiety of the body, if sensitive, can be 

 jcontracted to a very high degree; indeed one half of the face can be made to look 

 tragical, and the other gay. 



With some patients. Dr. DumontpoUier, by blowing on certain parts of the 

 forehead, or by a steadfast gaze, or approaching with his finger, causes them to 

 .immediately lose all faculty of speech and ability to write. Also, the patient can 

 be made to lose all notions respecting the use of certain objects. Many of these 

 phenomena are produced by mesmerists, magnetizers, etc., but strip the latter of 

 their empiricism, their passes, their mystery, and it will be seen that, as science 

 -reveals, they are determined by physical agents. It cannot however be positive- 

 ly affirmed that the phenomena are absolutely produced independent of will. 



The hospital experiments were conducted on persons laboring under nervous 

 diseases ; could the same be made on individuals in robust health ? If it be borne 

 -in mind that disease creates nothing; morbid phenomena being only the modifi- 

 cations of physiological functions. Very slight causes can make a person pass 

 from good health into sickness. In this age, especially in large cities, there are 

 but too many on the frontiers in question; nervous systems are over-excited, over- 

 taxed, especially between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Such individuals 

 .are fit subjects to be plunged into the cataleptic or the lethargic condition. The 

 latter depends on convulsing the eyes; convulse the eyes and sleep is induced; 

 ihe cataleptic stage follows. Such subjects, mesmerists class as ''sensible:" they 

 pass as robust, when in fact their nervous system may be out of joint. Once 



