l882r] 
Mesmerism. 
137 
will this fluid is evolved in larger quantity, just as the 
amount of nerve-energy required to stimulate a muscle can 
be increased by an effort of volition. By attributing to this 
fluid some unknown reflex aCtion, the advocates of animal 
magnetism attempt to account for the mesmeric phenomena. 
Although to the eye of the superficial observer the above 
explanation may appear highly irrational, yet further inves- 
tigation proves it to be not altogether unsupported by facets, 
and as such it demands our closest attention. 
During the investigations of a committee of the Royal 
Academy of Medicine at Paris, appointed for the purpose of 
testing the accuracy of the mesmeric phenomena, it was 
observed that, in certain stages of the trance, the approxi- 
mation of the fingers of the operator to any part of the body 
of the subject was attended with the production of involun- 
tary muscular twitchings in the opposed surfaces. Subse- 
quent investigation has confirmed these observations, and 
numerous faCts of a like nature might be recorded,-— e.g., the 
application of the finger over the sterno-mastoid muscle 
causing contraction of its fibres, &c. 
Now, in order to show the full significance of these faCts, 
we must go a little into detail. 
It is a well-known physiological faCt that the contraction 
of a muscle is due to a series of extremely rapid chemical 
changes taking place in the muscle during the period of 
contraction. In order to supply material for these chemical 
changes the muscle requires nourishment. This it obtains 
from the blood. It is apparent, then, that in a properly 
nourished muscle, before contraction, there is an amount of 
energy stored up, or, in other words, the materials for the 
chemical change are there, but they require to be stimulated 
before chemical aCtion can take place. How are they sti- 
mulated ? By the nerve energy. This energy or force,— 
call it what we will, — passing along the nerve to the 
muscle, aCts as a liberating energy or stimulus to set a-going 
this chemical change. Various other agents — e.g., me- 
chanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, and stimuli — are 
likewise capable of inducing these changes. 
Now in endeavouring to account for the before-mentioned 
faCts, for want of a better explanation we are forced to come 
to the conclusion that some species of energy, possessing 
the same power as electricity, but probably to a lesser degree, 
passes from the finger to the nerve, and either reflexly or 
direCtly stimulates the chemical molecules of the muscle, 
thereby causing contraction. This is, of course, a mere 
hypothesis, but the following experiment, which certainly 
VOL. iv. (third series). l 
