262 
EFFECTS OF MESMERISM ON BRUTES. 
Dr. Wilson to have been caused by the magnetising that we do 
not find equally occasioned in animals in a variety of ways. Thus, 
if a cat or dog is placed on the hearth-rug before a warm fire, and 
spoken to coaxingly, it will, probably, in a short time fall asleep. 
Tickle a cat behind the ears, and the same result will follow. That 
the sleep induced by Dr. Wilson was nothing but common sleep, 
is very evident ; its duration was usually short, and frequently the 
slightest cause was sufficient to awaken. A tom-cat that had been 
often magnetised, after receiving the passes might be pulled about, 
lifted up by the nape of the neck, and have its ears tickled with a 
pen, and would remain motionless the while : “ the cat was then 
said to be in a state of catalepsy.” Any tame cat, when teased, 
either becomes savage and excited, or — what is quite as common, if 
experience has told it that there is no escape — stupid, motionless, 
and, to all appearance, half-dead. The animals in which convulsive 
twitchings occurred, judging from the general description, were 
suffering from fear. Frighten a horse, and it will sweat; a cat, 
and other excretions than the perspiratory will be excited. Any 
thing that is quite strange to an animal, that it cannot understand, 
especially if, at the same time, its natural mode of shewing dis- 
pleasure and resistance prove of no avail, will produce alarm. 
What can we imagine more mysterious to a dog, a horse, or a pig, 
or more affronting to a leopard, a lion, or an elephant, than for a 
dignified man gravely to paw the air before it for an hour or more 1 
The beast would think it meant as a solemn mockery. For a dog 
to convulsively twitch in his sleep is very common, and such an 
occurrence would be more likely to happen during the somewhat 
disordered state of the nervous system attending sleep induced un- 
der unusual circumstances. There is no uniformity in the effects 
produced. Some of the animals appeared to like the passes, others 
disliked them ; some were soothed and calmed, others irritated and 
excited; some were rendered playful, others alarmed : nor is there 
less discrepancy in the results of different performances of the same 
kind of experiment by the same operator upon the same animal. 
On two out of four attempts some of the fish appeared to a certain 
extent affected ; but it is to be remarked, that the fish which fol- 
lowed the finger of the mesmeriser had been gently stroked along 
the back, and seems to have followed the movement of the finger 
as if for the purpose of keeping its body in contact with it, rather 
than on any other account. That gentle stroking gives an agree- 
able sensation to certain, if not to all, fish has long been practically 
known to the trout-tickler. 
The most curious effect of Dr. Wilson’s mesmerising was that 
on the puppy, twelve hours old , which, during the passes, opened 
its eyes and saw ! 
