[October, 
576 
The Interbond of the 
The negative expands the ventricles, and that attracts the 
blood to its reservoir. The positive contracts the ventricles, 
and thus repulses the blood throughout the system. Hence 
there is a continual expansion and attraction, and con- 
traction and repulsion, which illustrate familiarly the omce 
of these forces. The serous surfaces are susceptible ot 
feeling, whilst the mucous surfaces are not. The muscular 
nerves are controlled by the mind, whilst the sympathetic, 
or nerves of sensation, are the medium of actuating the 
mind when motion produces thought.” _ 
“ Xhe brain is composed of a sensitive and complicated 
system of fibres, to which no other part of the body bears 
any analogy. Being sensitive, it is attractive or positive to 
all that is existing on the nervous medium : hence it receives 
impressions irresistibly. It possesses within itself the posi- 
tive and negative poles, or greater and lesser parts, the 
one controlling, the other subjeft ; the one receiving power, 
the other transmitting and exercising power. The ethereal 
substance which serves as a medium may be termed mag- 
netism. The muscular motion of the system is performed 
through the medium of the substance which may be termed 
electricity* When there is a full and uninterrupted exercise 
of all the powers and organs of the body, — when there is 
harmony existing throughout the whole physical system, 
there is perfect health and enjoyment, because its forces 
(which are positive and negative or magnetic and eleCtric) 
are regularly performing their functions : this indicates a 
perfect condition of the magnetic or nervous medium.” The 
body on being deranged shows a loss of the positive or nega- 
tive power ; when all are in unison the system is then 
thoroughly magnetised. In order to demagnetise it, this 
equilibrium must be overcome, and the positive power must 
be extracted by a power still more positive ; and this will 
produce the unconscious state called the magnetic. t 
* On this subiedt Dr. C. B. Radcliffe, M.D., F.R.C.P., has written a learned 
treatise (“ Vital Motion a Mode of Physical Motion ”) in which he asserts the 
same position. Dr. Radcliffe’s work is a scientific and practical illustration of 
S T Coleridge’s idea, that ele&ricity was the method of organised function 
Theory of Life ”). West, of Alford, had some such idea, as had also Sir 
Chas. Bell and others. Humboldt believed in animal ele&ricity. 
+ Dr. Esdaile, in India, employed mesmerism as an anaesthetic, as also do 
many physicians in North America. In 1856, at New York Hospital, I wit- 
nessed a most successful operation under mesmeric influence. An athletic 
man had his arm ciushed so badly that it had to be removed at the shoulder- 
ioint The patient was placed under influence, and was carved at the 
discretion of the operators. I heard no sound, nor did I observe a muscle 
wince ; I watched narrowly, because I was a disbeliever. The joint was 
disengaged from the socket, and the skin sewn over the wound. When all 
was completed the patient was awakened ; he stared around him, but did not 
