404 Notices of Books . , [July, 
vent their being opened without detection, and that the Professor 
adds, “ I have in my possession one of the envelopes thus read, 
which has since been opened, and I am convinced that the pre- 
cautions taken precluded any other than lucid vision.”* 
Still more important, perhaps, is the testimony of many 
eminent physicians to the existence of these remarkable powers. 
Dr. Rostan, Parisian Professor of Medicine, in his article “ Mag- 
netisme,” in the 44 Didtionnaire de Medecine,” says (as quoted 
by Dr. Lee), “ There are few things better demonstrated than 
clairvoyance. I placed my watch at a distance of three or four 
inches from the occiput of the sonnambulist, and asked her if she 
saw anything. 4 Certainly,’ she replied, 4 it is a watch ; ten 
minutes to eight.’ M. Ferrus repeated the experiment with the 
same successful result. He turned the hands of his watch 
several times, and we presented it to her without looking at it ; 
she was not once mistaken.” The Commissioners of the Royal 
Academie de Medecine applied the excellent test of holding a 
finger on each eye-lid, when the clairvoyant still read the 
title of a book, and distinguished cards. (Quoted in Dr. Lee’s 
44 Animal Magnetism,” p. 22.) Dr. Esdaile had a patient at 
Calcutta who could hear and see through the stomach. This 
was tested by himself with a watch, as in the French case quoted 
above. (“ Zoist,” vol. viii., p. 220.) Dr. Teste’s account of the 
clairvoyance of Madame Hortense is very suggestive. She 
sometimes read with ease when completely bandaged, and when 
a paper was held between her eyes and the objebt ; at other 
times she could see nothing, and the smallest fatigue or excite- 
ment caused this difference. This excessive delicacy of the 
conditions for successful clairvoyance render all public exhibi- 
tions unsatisfactory; and Professor Gregory 44 protests against 
the notion that it is to be judged by the rough experiments of the 
public platform, or by such tests as can be publickly applied.” 
For the same reason diredt money tests are always objected to 
by experienced magnetisers, the excitement produced by the 
knowledge of the stake or the importance of the particular test 
impairing or destroying the lucidity. This is the reason why 
gentlemen and physicians like Professor Gregory, Major Buckley, 
and Dr. Haddock, who have had the command of clairvoyants, 
have not attempted to gain the bank-notes which have at various 
times been offered. Dr. Carpenter was very irate because I 
suggested at Glasgow— -not as he seems to have understood 
that there was no note in Sir James Simpson’s envelope- — but 
that the clairvoyants themselves, if they heard of it, might very 
* Dr. Carpenter says that “the unsealing of letters and the re-sealing them 
SO as to conceal their having been opened are practised in Contihental post- 
offices. No doubt this can be done with an ordinary letter, but it is no less 
certain that there are many ways of securing a letter which absolutely preclude 
its being done undetected, and Dr. Carpenter omits to state that ^such pre- 
cautions are here expressly mentioned by Professor Gregory as having been 
used in these experiments. 
