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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78413 ***
+
+
+
+
+REPORT
+
+OF
+
+DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
+
+AND OTHER
+
+COMMISSIONERS,
+
+CHARGED BY THE
+
+KING OF FRANCE,
+
+WITH THE EXAMINATION OF THE
+
+ANIMAL MAGNETISM,
+
+AS NOW PRACTISED AT PARIS.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
+
+WITH AN
+
+HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+LONDON:
+
+PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, (NO. 72) ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD. 1785.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+The subject of the following pamphlet has excited the extremest
+attention in France, has for years filled their Journals and Mercures,
+and has employed some of their best pens and their brightest wits.
+By some it has been applauded as the greatest of philosophical
+discoveries, and by others decried as the juggle of an unprincipled
+impostor. The English nation has too much curiosity for every thing
+that occupies the neighbour kingdom, from whom we have long since been
+used to receive the laws of politeness and etiquette, and who have
+lately seemed to take the lead of us in philosophical discovery, for
+the present translation not to prove an acceptable present to a large
+and respectable class of our countrymen. It has been thought proper,
+in order that the most uninformed reader may find in this little
+compilation, every species of information upon the subject, to prefix
+to it a brief account of the progress of this system.
+
+M. Mesmer, the inventor of the animal magnetism, is a German physician.
+The first thing by which he distinguished himself, appears to have
+been the publication of a Dissertation upon the Influence of the Stars
+on the Human Body, printed at Vienna 1766, and publicly defended by
+him as a thesis in that university. In 1774 father Hehl, a German
+philosopher, strongly recommended the use of the loadstone in the art
+of medicine. M. Mesmer became very early a convert to the principles of
+this writer, and actually carried them into practice with distinguished
+success. In the midst however of his attention to the utility of the
+loadstone, he was led to the adoption of a new set of principles,
+which he conceived to be much more general in their application and
+importance. In conformity to these principles he laid aside the use
+of the loadstone, and proceeded with his cures in the method which he
+afterwards published to the world. This apostacy involved him in a
+quarrel with father Hehl and the celebrated Ingenhouz, by whom he had
+formerly been patronized; and as their credit in Vienna was extremely
+high, and their exertions against him indefatigable, his system almost
+immediately sunk into general disrepute. To parry their opposition he
+appealed in 1776 to the academy of sciences at Berlin. Here however
+his principles were rejected as “destitute of foundation and unworthy
+the smallest attention.” Undismayed by these important miscarriages,
+he made a progress through several towns of Germany, still practising
+the methods of the animal magnetism, and from time to time publishing
+an account of the cures he effected, which did not fail to be followed
+by a detection from his enemies. In the mean time, resolved, as it
+should seem, if possible not to deprive his country of the benefits of
+so valuable a discovery, he returned a second time to Vienna, and made
+another essay with no greater success than the former.
+
+Decided in his conduit by these uninterrupted defeats, he left Germany
+and arrived at Paris in the beginning of the year 1778. Here one of
+the first connexions he formed was with M. A. J. S. D., author of the
+Dictionnaire des Merveilles de la Nature, from which work many of the
+following particulars are extracted. It is observed by this Writer,
+that “in spite of the apparent cautiousness and reserve of M. Mesmer,
+and even in spite of the little success of his first experiments,
+he could not refuse him credit for sincerity in his conduct, and
+solidity in his reasonings; and he was convinced, that the failure
+did not originate in the fault of his agent, but the indisposition of
+the subjects upon which it was employed.” In April 1778, M. Mesmer
+retired to Creteil with the patients he had collected, and in a few
+months almost all of them returned to Paris perfectly restored. One of
+them in particular was a paralytic, deprived of the use of her limbs,
+and who now walked with all the ease and firmness in the world. In
+November M. A. J. S. D. introduced M. Mesmer to the house of a family
+of distinction, and who were actuated with the extremest curiosity
+respecting all discoveries which had the benefit of humanity for their
+object. Here he made an experiment so remarkable that it is necessary
+to extract it somewhat at length.
+
+“There being a pretty numerous company in the saloon, M. Mesmer touched
+successively several persons, some of whom had nerves extremely
+irritable, without producing any effect sufficiently considerable to
+deserve to be ascribed to the animal magnetism. The operation was
+repeated; the success was the same.
+
+“The governor of the children of the family, a man of a very robust
+and muscular constitution, little inclined to credulity, and fortified
+in his scepticism by what he had just seen, had complained for some
+time of a pain in his shoulders. As he was beyond dispute the least
+susceptible person in the company, he proposed himself by way of
+gasconade for the subject of a last experiment.
+
+“M. Mesmer refused to touch this gentleman, but consented to direct
+upon him the magnetism from a small distance. In compliance with the
+doctor’s inclinations, the governor turned his back, and M. Mesmer,
+seven or eight feet from his subject, presented his finger. This
+continued for two minutes, the governor replying to the repeated
+questions of the doctor with much humour and irony, M. Mesmer then
+nodded his head significantly to the company, and in the mean time
+guided his finger upwards, downwards, and a little circularly. The
+patient said that he felt a kind of shuddering in the superior part of
+the back; he however ascribed it to the action of the fire near which
+he stood, and accordingly removed to another part of the room. The
+experiment was resumed, the sensation augmented, and the patient said
+he could compare it to nothing better, than a stream of boiling water,
+circulating in the veins of his back and shoulders. The impression
+became so strong that he refused to submit to the experiment any
+longer. He was persuaded however; the master of the house held one of
+his arms, and myself the other. In the process of the experiment the
+heat became so insupportable, that he violently broke away from our
+grasp. It was succeeded by a profuse perspiration in the part affected.
+
+“M. Mesmer then placed the forefinger of each hand upon the chest
+of the patient. The same sensation, but less violent, was produced
+in this part; it ascended gradually to the face, and was succeeded
+by a perspiration of the forehead. The patient then presented his
+forefingers and thumbs, the rest of his hand being clenched; M. Mesmer
+did the same very near to the patient, but without touching him. He
+complained successively of a shuddering, itching and stiffness in the
+palms of his hands; these were again succeeded by a local perspiration.”
+
+To this remarkable experiment we will beg leave to add the following
+from the Journal de Paris, No. 44, 1784.
+
+“M. Mesmer being one day with messieurs Camp---- and d’E---- near the
+great canal at Meudon, proposed to them to go alternately to the other
+side of the canal, while he remained where he was. He then directed
+them to thrust their cane into the water, in the mean time doing the
+same himself. At this distance M. Camp---- was seized with a fit of
+the asthma, and M. d’E---- with a pain in the liver to which he was
+subject. Many persons have been unable to submit to this experiment
+without fainting away.”
+
+“One evening M. Mesmer walked with six persons in the gardens of the
+prince de Soubise. He performed the magnetical operation upon a tree,
+and a little time after three ladies of the company fainted away. The
+duchess de C----, the only remaining lady, supported herself upon the
+tree, without being able to quit it. The count de Mons----, unable to
+stand, was obliged to throw himself upon a bench. The effects upon M.
+Ang----, a gentleman of a very muscular frame, were more terrible. M.
+Mesmer’s servant, who was summoned to remove the bodies, and who was
+inured to these scenes, found himself unable to move. The whole company
+were obliged to remain in this situation for a considerable time.”
+These instances are cited by M. Thouret, Recherches & Doutes, p. 65.
+
+M. Mesmer was from the first desirous of submitting his system to
+the examination of the faculty of medicine; but he would not submit
+to a regular and authentic committee appointed for that purpose,
+apprehensive as he said of the baleful effects of the spirit of
+society. This exception occasioned a misunderstanding between him and
+the faculty, and the examination was never made.
+
+In France the success of M. Mesmer was the reverse of what it had
+been in Germany. His patients increased rapidly. His cures were
+numerous and of the most astonishing nature. He was obliged to form
+a number of pupils under his inspection to administer his process.
+In 1779 he published a Memoir respecting the Discovery of the Animal
+Magnetism, and promised a complete system upon the subject, which
+should make as great a revolution in philosophy, as it had already
+done in medicine. Struck with the clearness and accuracy of his
+reasonings, the magnificence of his pretensions, and the extraordinary
+and unquestionable cures he performed, some of the greatest physicians
+and most enlightened philosophers of France became his converts.
+Among these M. Court de Gebelin particularly distinguished himself, a
+writer, who had attained the highest reputation by his researches into
+antiquity, and who was, if possible, still more distinguished for the
+elegance of his taste, the beauty of his conceptions and the richness
+of his fancy. The house of M. Mesmer at Creteil was crowded with
+patients. A numerous company was daily assembled at his house at Paris,
+where the operation was publicly performed; and M. Deslon, one of his
+pupils, is said to have cleared £100,000. He was patronised by people
+of the first rank, and, as M. Thouret observes, the animal magnetism
+became a mode, an affair of bon ton, an interest, extremely precious
+and warmly espoused by the fashionable world.
+
+In the mean time the new system was by no means destitute of enemies.
+Some of the first pens in France were drawn to oppose it, and among
+others that of M. Thouret, regent-physician of the faculty. The faculty
+indeed had all along beheld its progress with the extremest jealousy.
+At length it was thought to deserve the attention of government,
+and a committee, partly physicians, and partly members of the royal
+academy of sciences, with doctor Benjamin Franklin at their head, were
+appointed to examine it. M. Mesmer refused to have any communication
+with these gentlemen; but M. Deslon, the most considerable of his
+pupils, consented to disclose to them his principles, and assist them
+in their enquiries. Their Report forms the principal piece in the
+ensuing pamphlet. M. Mesmer however has appealed from their decision to
+the parliament of Paris.
+
+In the mean time it can no longer be concealed that the system of
+the animal magnetism is to be regarded as an imposture, and it may
+therefore be asked, why it should be thought necessary to give to the
+public a translation of papers, which may be thought interesting only
+to persons who have been witnesses of the imposture. To this enquiry
+several good answers may be given.
+
+One at which we have already hinted is the universal attention it
+has excited at Paris, where it seems to have divided the public
+speculations with the celebrated and incomparable discovery of the
+aerostatic globe. There are surely few people of a literary turn among
+us, who will confess themselves void of curiosity respecting what
+engages all the faculties of our neighbours, or who will not confess
+that their literary pursuits are commonly at least as interesting and
+instructive a subject of enquiry, as their politics.
+
+Secondly, the Report of the commissioners and the enquiries respecting
+the animal magnetism in general may be considered as relating not
+merely to a temporary and unfounded hypothesis, but to the general and
+most important question respecting the influence of the imagination
+upon the animal frame, a question peculiarly interesting to the
+metaphysician, and of the last consequence in medicine. Upon this
+subject the Report seems to throw new light, and to have a tendency to
+add precision and accuracy to our notions in regard to it.
+
+But the argument upon which we would place the principal stress is the
+essential importance of this fact in the history of the human mind.
+Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is
+more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is
+uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require
+so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to
+encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality,
+but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In
+this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display
+all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting
+extravagancies and absurdities. It is observed of civil history, that
+it is properly the record of human calamities; the same thing may be
+observed of ecclesiastical history, it is the record of our errors.
+For this reason a well written ecclesiastical history, a species of
+composition that we suspect does not yet exist, would perhaps be the
+most instructive study in the world.
+
+But there is an additional reason, which gives the error of the
+animal magnetism a particular claim to our attention. The same error
+was started, if M. Thouret be in the right, two centuries ago. It is
+therefore worth our curiosity to enquire, what different instruments
+were necessary to deceive mankind in an ignorant and an enlightened
+age, in the commencement of the seventeenth and the close of the
+eighteenth century; in a word to run a parallel between the borrowed
+system of Mesmer, and the original one of Paracelsus, Maxwel and sir
+Kenelm Digby. And as every publication ought to be as complete as
+possible within itself, we have destined to assist the reader in this
+enquiry, the ensuing paper of the society of medicine respecting M.
+Thouret’s performance.
+
+  P. S. The following extract of a letter from the best authority from
+  Paris, has been received while these papers are in the press. It
+  relates to the particulars of a fact alluded to at the bottom of page
+  xiv.
+
+  “Mesmer has complained to the parliament of the report of the
+  royal commissioners, and requested that they would appoint a
+  new commission, to examine--not his theory and practice, but--a
+  _plan_, which shall exhibit the only possible means of infallibly
+  demonstrating the existence and utility of his discovery. The
+  petition was printed: many thought the parliament would do nothing in
+  it. But they have laid hold of it to clinch Mesmer, and oblige him to
+  expose all directly; so that it must soon be seen whether there is
+  any difference between his method and Deslon’s.--I give you their
+
+                                            “Arret, of the 6 Sept. 1784.
+
+  “The parliament ordains that Mesmer _shall be obliged_ to expose,
+  before four doctors of the faculty of medicine, two surgeons and
+  two masters in pharmacy, the doctrine, which he professes to have
+  discovered, and the methods which he pretends must be adopted for the
+  application of his principles: they likewise ordain that a report of
+  his communications shall then be delivered to the attorney general,
+  to be laid before parliament for their sentence.”
+
+
+
+
+REPORT
+
+  Of a Committee of the Royal Society of Medicine, appointed to
+  examine a Work, entitled, ENQUIRIES AND DOUBTS RESPECTING THE ANIMAL
+  MAGNETISM, BY M. THOURET, _Regent Physician of the Faculty of
+  Paris, and Member of the Society_. To which are subjoined, by the
+  Translator, Notes, chiefly extracted from M. Thouret’s Performance.
+
+
+The underwritten were charged by the royal society of medicine, with
+the examination of a work of M. Thouret, member of the society,
+entitled, Enquiries and Doubts respecting the Animal Magnetism.
+
+In the attentive perusal of this work, it is obvious to remark, that
+it has two very distinct objects; one of them, which is in a manner
+historical, is to explain the coincidences of the animal magnetism,
+as it was known to the ancients, with that which is admitted by the
+moderns: the other contains critical reflections and doubts in regard
+to the evidences upon which the doctrine is founded, the uncertainty
+of which M. Thouret undertakes to display. We will endeavour to lay
+before the society an idea of his performance.
+
+The animal magnetism held a principal rank among the systems, which
+were embraced in that period of literary history, when suppositions
+were admitted to hold the place of facts; and this hypothesis vanished,
+together with many others, when experimental philosophy began to
+dissipate the impostures of the imagination, and to afford an accurate
+measure of the value of arts and sciences.
+
+The object of this system was a fluid extremely subtle, upon which were
+bestowed the magnificent titles of soul of the world, spirit of the
+universe, and universal magnetic fluid; and which was pretended to be
+diffused through the whole space occupied by the material creation, to
+animate the system of nature, to penetrate all substances, and to be
+the vehicle to animated bodies in general, and their several regions in
+particular, of certain forces of attraction and repulsion, by means of
+which they explained the phenomena of nature.
+
+Nor were they contented to admit, or rather to imagine, the fluid we
+have described; they flattered themselves that they were able, in
+certain methods, to render themselves masters of this fluid, and to
+direct its operations. Even this did not terminate their chimerical
+pretensions: they affirmed that this fluid, in which they admitted a
+species of flux and reflux, exerted an important degree of action upon
+the nerves, and had a grand analogy with the vital principle; that its
+effects, under the guidance of skill and illumination, extended to very
+great distances, without the intervention of any foreign substances;
+that it was possible to impregnate with it, either certain powders, in
+the manner of sir Kenelm Digby, who asserted that he had done this, or
+fluids, or different parts of the bodies of animals; that this agent
+was like light reflected by mirrors, and that sound and music augmented
+its intensity.
+
+The partisans of the animal magnetism, who wrote in the seventeenth
+century, did not yet confine their hopes within these limits: the art
+of directing the fluid, which they had brought down from heaven, and
+which, according to them, acted in so distinguished a manner upon
+the human body, might be expected to have a considerable share in
+the medical science, or rather to supersede that science, as it had
+hitherto existed; they did not fail to assert, that in causing it to
+circulate in a proper manner, the restoration of diseased organs was
+infallible, as well the preservation of the health of those who were
+yet unattacked with any disease[1].
+
+Such was the origin of an external and universal medicine, of a species
+entirely new, and which boasted of having the advantage of curing
+diseases, without obliging any drugs to be swallowed by the diseased.
+Soon after poles were discovered in the human body, that is, points,
+towards which it appeared that the action of this imaginary fluid
+ought to be directed, cures and evacuations were operated without the
+assistance of pharmacy, sensations of various kinds were excited in the
+patients; and notwithstanding the distinguished effects ascribed to
+this agent, it was asserted, that persons the most feeble and delicate
+might submit to its process without danger. The process had yet another
+use, that of discovering the seat of the distemper; a thing frequently
+so difficult to be ascertained, but which was pointed out by the fluid
+by a sort of instinctive intelligence, and with absolute demonstration.
+It perfected the concoction of the humours; nervous distempers
+in particular, rarely resisted its influence; it was favourable
+to transpiration. In fine, and this last remark is of particular
+importance, it had a powerful action upon the moral principles of our
+frame. A propensity, that could scarcely be resisted, was the basis of
+the attachment and gratitude, which were vowed by the patients to those
+who had employed upon them this method of cure. Several, and in this
+number was Maxwel, even gave us to understand, that it was possible, in
+certain circumstances of human life, to make an improper use of this
+vehicle of influence[2].
+
+This picture of the animal magnetism, as it was invented and applauded
+by the ancients, is faithfully extracted from the performance of
+M. Thouret. The principal authors, to which he has recourse in the
+progress of his enquiry, are Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Goclenius,
+Burgravius, Libavius, Wirdig, Maxwel, Santanelli, Tentzel, Kircher
+and Borel[3]. The entire passages are extracted, and M. Thouret has
+displayed in this performance, as he had already done in so many
+others, an erudition, the most various, the most precise, and the most
+extensive.
+
+It is easy to see, how analogous is the system we have described
+to that of M. Mesmer. To demonstrate this analogy, M. Thouret has
+considered separately each of the propositions published and avowed
+by the latter. They amount to twenty-seven, and the result of this
+examination is, that they are all positively announced in some of the
+authors whose names have been recited.
+
+Every part of Mesmer’s system, even down to the experiments of the ring
+and the sword, have been found by M. Thouret in the works of these
+writers[4]. It is therefore certain, that the assertions of M. Mesmer,
+which are represented by him as principles of his own, do not belong to
+him; and that this theory, in the room of being an attractive novelty,
+is an ancient system, abandoned by the learned near a century ago.
+
+In ascending indeed to the original systems which were formed upon
+the subject, we are unable to discover any thing but suppositions
+destitute of proof, and for that reason devoted to oblivion. The parts
+of this hypothesis were not connected together by any other tie, than
+that of the imagination. The steps that were proposed in order to its
+establishment, were the very same that had been employed in favour of
+the art of cure, now by enchantments, and now by exorcisms. It has been
+always by sensations that they have pretended to prove the existence
+of these different agents; and if this kind of proof were sufficient,
+there is not one of them which would not have been demonstrated. Sound
+philosophy has therefore refused credit, as well to this species
+of proof, as to the magnetism, such as it was proposed by Maxwel,
+Goclenius and Santanelli, and such as we have described it in the
+opening of this report.
+
+Has the animal magnetism of M. Mesmer any better claim to our
+confidence? M. Thouret, without replying to this question in a positive
+manner, has permitted to himself, in the second part of his work,
+certain reflections respecting it, which he has proposed simply as
+doubts, and which relate entirely to what M. Mesmer has published, or
+authentically advanced. It may be objected to him, says M. Thouret,
+
+1. That the touch frequently employed in his method for a considerable
+time, and on regions extremely sensible, such as those of the stomach,
+is of itself capable of producing effects, by communicating a vivid
+impulse to the nerves of the plexuses which are there situated, and
+which have an intimate connection with the whole nervous system; that
+authentic records present us with a great number of facts of this
+kind, and that in consequence, the sensations, which originate in the
+application of the touch, do not prove the existence of a separate
+fluid or agent.
+
+2. That the heat produced by the hand, and the motion communicated to
+the air, may occasion very strong impressions upon a person extremely
+sensible, and whose fibres are in a state of convulsion, without these
+impressions being calculated to prove a new agent.
+
+3. That in subduing the imagination by solemn preparations, by
+extraordinary proceedings, by the confidence and enthusiasm inspired
+by magnificent promises, it is possible to exalt the tone of sensible
+and nervous fibres, and afterwards to direct, by the application of
+the hands, their impulse towards certain organs, and to excite in them
+evacuations or excretions, without there resulting any addition to the
+sciences, either of philosophy or medicine.
+
+4. That the partisans of the animal magnetism do not produce what
+they call crises, that is, a state of convulsions, but in subjects
+extremely irritable, extremely nervous, and above all, in women, whose
+sensibility has been already excited by the means we have described.
+
+5. That among these disposing causes, particular stress is to be laid
+upon the presence of a person already in a state of convulsion, or
+ready to fall into that state; that just as an organ attacked with
+spasmodic affections, easily propagates these affections to the other
+organs, in like manner are they transmitted from one man to another;
+that we have therefore no reason to be surprised, if in the halls,
+where the pretended magnetical operations are performed, spasms, and
+even convulsions are diffused with extreme alacrity; and that history
+furnishes a great number of facts, of convulsions propagated through
+whole villages or towns, in a manner still more astonishing than that
+of which the animal magnetism presents us with an example.
+
+6. That history has also transmitted to us a great number of cures
+operated by fear, by joy, or the commotion of any violent passion;
+which proves beyond controversy, the power of nervous influences over
+diseases.
+
+7. That in different ages, two famous empirics, Valentine Greatrakes
+of the kingdom of Ireland, and Gassner of Ratisbon, produced upon
+different persons effects which appeared surprising, and have had
+their admirers; that they employed only the instrumentality of the
+touch, either upon the nape of the neck, or the limb affected; and that
+it has been universally acknowledged, that they acted only upon the
+imagination[5].
+
+8. That in many instances, the partisans of the magnetism seem to
+bestow a greater attention to excite surprise in the spectators, than
+salutary effects in their patients; the spasms and convulsions which
+they produce being the source of undoubted evil, were it only by the
+habitude of that state which they are calculated to induce, while the
+advantages of this method are not equally demonstrated.
+
+9. That certain local diseases not being of the number of those upon
+which the animal magnetism acts, and certain persons, by the confession
+of M. Mesmer, not being susceptible of its action, it may be suspected,
+that the partisans of this system have contrived for themselves this
+resource, in order to account for their failure of success in certain
+cases.
+
+10. That to pretend to the discovery of a means which shall extend
+to every kind of disease, that is, to an universal medicine, is an
+illusion which cannot be excused in an enlightened age.
+
+11. That the known effects of sensibility are sufficient to explain,
+without any new agent, the phenomena which M. Mesmer produces by a
+method which he has not yet imparted to the public.
+
+12. That M. Mesmer, in supposing a particular agent, has adopted a rout
+contrary to the interests of his discovery, in following the example of
+those who have exerted their efforts to give credit to a system, worthy
+upon every account of the oblivion into which it has fallen.
+
+The society may judge of the performance from this extract: it is
+proper here to call to mind, that the royal society, acquainted with
+the zeal of M. Thouret, and his indefatigable enquiries into every
+thing that concerned the magnetism, charged him in their session of
+the twelfth of March 1784, with the collection from the authors, as
+well ancient as modern, of all that had been written respecting the
+animal magnetism. This collection, which is sufficiently complete to
+satisfy every reasonable desire, and of which M. Thouret communicated
+the plan to the society, composes the first part of his work, and is to
+be considered as his report to the society upon that subject. We are of
+opinion, that the society is extremely indebted to him in that respect.
+The second part contains judicious reflections and sagacious doubts.
+We think both of them worthy of being printed with the approbation and
+privilege of the society.
+
+The society, charged by the king with the examination of all new
+inventions and secret methods of healing diseases, has not beheld
+without inquietude, the species of vogue acquired by the animal
+magnetism; whose procedures, whatever be their merit, have been and
+are administered to the diseased, and paid for by the public, without
+having previously, in obedience to the express provisions of the laws
+of the kingdom, undergone the examination of the physical profession;
+an abuse, against which the society, as in duty bound, has exclaimed
+ever since its introduction. They have a right to take much pride
+to themselves, that one of their members is publishing so learned
+enquiries upon a subject, which has not been hitherto treated but in
+anonymous compositions, which are, for the greater part, destined more
+for the amusement than the instruction of their readers. The work of
+M. Thouret, full of depth and sagacity, will enlighten those who are
+impartial in their enquiries, and will greatly tend to the solution
+of a question, upon which the public interest requires that sentence
+should be pronounced as soon as possible.
+
+    Louvre, July the 9th, 1784.
+
+            (Signed)                                       GEOFFROY,
+                                                           DESPERRIERES,
+                                                           JEANROI,
+                                                           DEFOURCROY,
+                                                           CHAMBON,
+                                                           VICQ D’AZYR.
+
+
+
+
+REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS, &c.
+
+
+The king named, on the twelfth of March 1784, four physicians of the
+faculty of Paris, messieurs Borie, Sallin, d’Arcet, Guillotin, to
+enter into the examination, and to lay before him an account of the
+animal magnetism practised by M. Deslon: and upon the petition of these
+physicians, his majesty joined with them, for the purpose of this
+inquisition, five members of the royal academy of sciences, messieurs
+Franklin, le Roy, Bailly, de Borie, Lavoisier. M. Borie having died in
+the commencement of the business, his majesty appointed M. Majault,
+doctor of the faculty, to replace him.
+
+M. Mesmer has described the agent he professes to have discovered,
+and to which he has given the appellation of animal magnetism, in the
+following manner. “It is a fluid universally diffused; the vehicle
+of a mutual influence between the celestial bodies, the earth and
+the bodies of animated beings; it is so continued as to admit of no
+vacuum; its subtlety does not admit of illustration; it is capable
+of receiving, propagating and communicating all the impressions that
+are incident to motion; it is susceptible of flux and reflux. The
+animal body is subject to the effects of this agent; and these effects
+are immediately produced by the agent insinuating itself into the
+substance of the nerves. We particularly discover in the human body
+qualities analogous to those of the loadstone; we distinguish in it
+poles different and opposite. The action and the virtue of the animal
+magnetism are capable of being communicated from one body to another,
+animated or inanimate; they exert themselves to considerable distances,
+and without the least assistance from any intermediate bodies: this
+action is increased and reflected by mirrors; it is communicated,
+propagated and augmented by sound; and the virtue itself is capable of
+being accumulated, concentrated and transferred. Though the fluid be
+universal all animal bodies are not equally susceptible of it; there
+even are some, though very few, of so opposite a nature, as by their
+mere presence to supersede its effects upon any other contiguous bodies.
+
+“The animal magnetism is capable of curing immediately diseases of
+the nerves, and mediately other distempers; it improves the action
+of medicines; it forwards and directs the salutary crises so as to
+subject them totally to the government of the judgment; by means of
+it the physician becomes acquainted with the state of health of each
+individual, and decides with certainty upon the causes, the nature and
+the progress of the most complicated distempers; it prevents their
+increase, and effects their extirpation, without at any time exposing
+the patient, whatever be his age, sex or constitution, to alarming
+incidents, or unpleasing consequences[6].” “In the influence of the
+magnetism, nature holds out to us a sovereign instrument for securing
+the health and lengthening the existence of mankind[7].”
+
+Such is the agent, with the examination of which the commissioners
+have been charged, and whose properties are avowed by M. Deslon, who
+admits all the principles of M. Mesmer. This theory forms the basis of
+a memoir, which was read at the house of M. Deslon, on the ninth day
+of May, in the presence of M. the lieutenant general of the police,
+and the commissioners. It is asserted in this memoir, that there is
+but one nature, one distemper and one remedy; and this remedy is the
+animal magnetism. This physician, at the same time that he acquainted
+the commissioners with the doctrine and process of the magnetism,
+instructed them in its practice by discovering to them the poles, and
+shewing them the manner of touching the diseased, and directing in
+regard to them the magnetic fluid.
+
+M. Deslon undertook to the commissioners, in the first place, to evince
+the existence of the animal magnetism; secondly, to communicate to them
+his knowledge respecting this discovery; and thirdly, to prove the
+utility of this discovery and of the animal magnetism in the cure of
+diseases.
+
+After having thus made themselves acquainted with the theory and
+practice of the animal magnetism, it was necessary to observe its
+effects. For this purpose the commissioners adjourned themselves, and
+each of them repeatedly witnessed the public method of M. Deslon.
+They saw in the centre of a large apartment a circular box, made of
+oak, and about a foot or a foot and an half deep, which is called the
+bucket;[8] the lid of this box is pierced with a number of holes, in
+which are inserted branches of iron, elbowed and moveable. The patients
+are arranged in ranks about this bucket, and each has his branch of
+iron, which by means of the elbow may be applied immediately to the
+part affected; a cord passed round their bodies connects them one with
+the other: sometimes a second means of communication is introduced, by
+the insertion of the thumb of each patient between the forefinger and
+thumb of the patient next him; the thumb thus inserted is pressed by
+the person holding it; the impression received by the left hand of the
+patient, communicates through his right, and thus passes through the
+whole circle.
+
+A piano forté is placed in one corner of the apartment, and different
+airs are played with various degrees of rapidity; vocal music is
+sometimes added to the instrumental.
+
+The persons who superintend the process, have each of them an iron rod
+in his hand, from ten to twelve inches in length.
+
+M. Deslon made to the commissioners the following declarations. 1st.
+That this rod is a conductor of the magnetism, has the power of
+concentring it at its point, and of rendering its emanations more
+considerable. 2dly. That sound, conformably to the theory of M. Mesmer,
+is also a conductor of the magnetism, and that to communicate the fluid
+to the piano forté, nothing more is necessary than to approach to it
+the iron rod; that the person who plays upon the instrument furnishes
+also a portion of the fluid, and that the magnetism is transmitted by
+the sounds to the surrounding patients. 3dly. That the cord which is
+passed round the bodies of the patients is destined, as well as the
+union of their fingers, to augment the effects by communication. 4thly.
+That the interior part of the bucket is so constructed as to concentre
+the magnetism, and is a grand reservoir, from which the fluid is
+diffused through the branches of iron that are inserted in its lid.
+
+The commissioners in the progress of their examination discovered, by
+means of an electrometer and a needle of iron not touched with the
+loadstone, that the bucket contained no substance either electric
+or magnetical; and from the detail that M. Deslon has made to them
+respecting the interior construction of the bucket, they cannot infer
+any physical agent, capable of contributing to the imputed effects of
+the magnetism.
+
+The patients then, arranged in considerable number and in successive
+ranks round the bucket, derive the magnetic virtue at once from all
+these conveyances: from the branches of iron, which transmit to them
+that of the bucket; from the cord which is passed round their bodies,
+and the union of their fingers, which communicate to them that of their
+neighbours; and from the sound of the piano forté, or of a musical
+voice, which diffuses it through the air. The patients are beside
+magnetised directly, by means of a finger or a bar of iron, guided
+before the face, above or behind the head, and over the surface of the
+parts affected, the distinction of the poles still observed; they are
+also acted upon by a look, and by having their attention excited. But
+especially they are magnetised by the application of the hands, and by
+the pressure of the fingers upon the hypochonders and the regions of
+the lower belly; an application frequently continued for a long time,
+sometimes for several hours.
+
+In this situation the patients offer a spectacle extremely varied in
+proportion to their different habits of body. Some of them are calm,
+tranquil and unconscious to any sensation; others cough, spit, are
+affected with a slight degree of pain, a partial or an universal
+burning, and perspirations; a third class are agitated and tormented
+with convulsions. These convulsions are rendered extraordinary by
+their frequency, their violence and their duration. As soon as one
+person is convulsed, others presently are affected by that symptom.
+The commissioners saw accesses of this kind, which lasted upwards of
+three hours; they were accompanied with expectorations of a thick and
+viscous water, brought away by the violence of the efforts. Sometimes
+these expectorations were accompanied with small quantities of blood;
+and there is among others a lad, a patient, who has frequently brought
+up blood in considerable abundance. These convulsions are characterised
+by precipitate and involuntary motions of all the limbs or of the whole
+body, by a contraction of the throat, by sudden affections of the
+hypochonders and the epigastrium, by a distraction and wildness in the
+eyes, by shrieks, tears, hiccuppings, and immoderate laughter. They
+are either preceded or followed by a state of languor and reverie, by
+a species of dejection and even drowsiness. The least unforeseen noise
+occasions starting; and it has been observed, that the changing of
+the key and the time, in the airs played upon the piano forté, had an
+effect upon the patients; so that a quicker motion agitates them more,
+and renews the vivacity of their convulsions.
+
+There is an apartment lined with quilting, which was originally
+destined for the patients in whom the magnetism produced convulsions,
+and is denominated the apartment of crises; but M. Deslon has not
+judged proper to make any use of it; and all the patients, whatever be
+the accidents of their situation, are placed together in the apartment
+of public proceeding.
+
+Nothing can be more astonishing than the sight of these convulsions;
+he that has not had it, can have no idea of it: and in beholding it,
+a man is not less struck with the profound repose of one class of
+patients, than with the violence which agitates another; he observes
+with admiration the various accidents that are repeated, and the
+sympathies that are developed. He sees some patients seek each other
+with eagerness; and in approaching smile, converse with all the
+demonstrations of attachment, and soothe their mutual crises. They
+are entirely under the government of the person who distributes the
+magnetic virtue: in vain they may appear to be in a state of the
+extremest drowsiness, his voice, a look, a sign from him rouses
+them. It is impossible not to recognise in these regular effects an
+extraordinary influence, acting upon the patients, making itself master
+of them, and of which he who superintends the process, appears to be
+the depository.
+
+These convulsive affections are improperly stiled crises in the theory
+of the animal magnetism: according to this doctrine indeed they are
+regarded as a salutary crisis, of the same kind as those which nature
+produces, or which a skilful physician has the art to excite to
+facilitate the cure of diseases. The commissioners will adopt this
+expression in the following report; and, wherever they employ the word
+crisis, they will always understand the convulsive, drowsy or lethargic
+affections, produced by the means of the animal magnetism.
+
+The commissioners observed, that in the number of patients in the state
+of crisis, there were always many women and few men: that it was one
+or two hours before these crises took place; and that, when one had
+taken place, all the others commenced successively, and without any
+considerable interval. But after having made these general remarks,
+the commissioners were speedily of opinion, that the public process
+could not be made the scene of their experiments. The multiplicity
+of the effects is one obstacle; too many things are seen at once
+for any one of them to be seen well. Beside, the patients of rank,
+who repair hither upon account of their health, might be displeased
+with the enquiries of the commissioners; the very act of watching
+them might appear a nuisance; and the recollection of this might be
+burdensome, and impede the commissioners in their turn. They therefore
+resolved, that as their frequent attendance at the public process was
+unnecessary, it would be sufficient for a few of them to go from time
+to time, to confirm the former general observations, to make new ones
+in case an opportunity should occur for that purpose, and to report
+them to the commission assembled.
+
+After having observed these effects at the public process, it behoved
+them, in the next place, to endeavour to discover their causes, and
+enquire into the proofs of the existence and utility of the magnetism.
+The question of its existence is first in order; that of its utility it
+were idle to examine, till the other shall have been fully resolved.
+The animal magnetism may indeed exist without being useful, but it
+cannot be useful if it do not exist.
+
+Of consequence the first object of attention with the commissioners,
+and the direct tendency of their first experiments, ought to be
+the ascertaining this existence. Again, this was itself an object
+of considerable comprehension, and had need of being simplified.
+The animal magnetism embraces the whole compass of nature; it is
+the vehicle, we are told, of the influence exerted upon us by the
+celestial bodies; the commissioners were of opinion, that they ought,
+in the first place, to leave this more extensive influence out of the
+question, and to consider only that part of the fluid which is diffused
+over the earth, without troubling themselves with whence it comes; in a
+word, to evince the action it exercises upon us, around us, and within
+the sphere of our inspection, before they undertook to examine its
+relation to the universe.
+
+The most certain method of determining the existence of the animal
+magnetic fluid, would have been, to have rendered its presence capable
+of being perceived by the senses; but much time was not necessary
+to convince the commissioners that this fluid is too subtle to be
+subjected to their observation. It is not, like the electrical fluid,
+luminous and visible; its action is not, like the attraction of the
+loadstone, the object of our sight; it has neither taste nor smell;
+its process is silent, and it surrounds you or penetrates your frame,
+without your being informed of its presence by the sense of touch. If
+therefore it exist in us and around us, it is after a manner perfectly
+insensible. There are persons among those who profess the magnetism,
+who pretend that it may sometimes be seen passing from the extremity
+of the fingers, which serve it for conductors, or who believe that
+they feel its passage when you guide your finger before their face, or
+along their hand. In the first of these cases, the emanation perceived
+is merely that of transpiration, which becomes completely visible when
+viewed through a solar microscope; in the second, the impression of
+cold or freshness which is felt, an impression by so much the more
+perceptible the warmer one is, results from the motion of the air which
+follows the finger, and the degree of whose temperature is always below
+that of animal heat. When, on the other hand, the finger is approached
+to the surface of the face, which is colder than the finger, and it is
+held at rest, the consequence is a sensation of heat, which is no other
+than the communication of the animal heat.
+
+It is also pretended that this fluid has a smell, and that it is
+perceived when either the finger or an iron conductor is brought into
+contiguity with the nostrils; it is even said, that the sensation is
+different, according as the finger or the rod of iron is directed
+parallel with, or opposite to the poles. M. Deslon made the experiment
+upon several of the commissioners; the commissioners themselves have
+repeated it upon different subjects; not one has experienced this
+difference of sensation: and if, by giving a close attention, any
+scent has been perceived, it has been that of the iron, when the rod
+has been presented rubbed and heated; or that of the emanation of the
+transpiration, when the finger has been presented, a scent frequently
+combined with that of the iron with which the finger itself has been
+impressed. These effects have been erroneously attributed to the
+magnetism, but they may be traced in reality to natural and definite
+causes.
+
+Indeed M. Deslon has never insisted upon these transient impressions,
+he did not think they were to be offered in evidence; on the contrary
+he expressly assured the commissioners, that he could not demonstrate
+to them the existence of the magnetism, otherwise than by the action
+of this fluid, producing certain changes in animated bodies. This
+existence is so much the more difficult to be demonstrated by effects,
+which shall be incontrovertible, and whose causes shall be unequivocal;
+by authentic facts, in cases where moral circumstances cannot exert
+their influence: in a word, by proofs calculated to convince and compel
+the understanding, the only ones which can yield any solid satisfaction
+to persons really proficient in the study of nature.
+
+The action of the magnetism upon animated bodies may be observed in two
+different ways; either as it consists in that action continued for a
+long time, and in its salutary effects in the treatment of diseases, or
+in its momentary effects upon the animal œconomy and the perceptible
+changes there produced. M. Deslon insisted that the former of these
+methods should be employed principally, and nearly exclusively; the
+commissioners have been of a different opinion, and their reasons are
+as follow.
+
+The majority of diseases have their seat in the interior part of our
+frame. The collective experience of a great number of centuries has
+made us acquainted with the symptoms, which indicate and discriminate
+them; the same experience has taught the method in which they are to
+be treated. What is the object of the efforts of the physician in this
+method? It is not to oppose and to subdue nature, it is to assist her
+in her operations. Nature, says the father of the medical science,
+cures the diseased; but sometimes she encounters obstacles, which
+constrain her in her course, and uselessly consume her strength. The
+physician is the minister of nature; an attentive observer, he studies
+the method in which she proceeds. If that method be firm, strong,
+regular and well directed, the physician looks on in silence, and
+bewares of disturbing it by remedies which would at least be useless;
+if the method be embarrassed, he facilitates it; if it be too slow or
+too rapid, he accelerates or retards it. Sometimes, to accomplish his
+object, he confines himself to the regulation of the diet: sometimes
+he employs medicines. The action of a medicine, introduced into the
+human body, is a new force, combined with the principal force by which
+our life is maintained: if the remedy follow the same route, which
+this force has already opened for the expulsion of diseases, it is
+useful, it is salutary; if it tend to open different routes, and to
+turn aside this interior action, it is pernicious. In the mean time it
+must be confessed that this salutary or pernicious influence, real as
+it is, may frequently escape common observation. The natural history
+of man presents us in this respect with very singular phenomena. It
+may be there seen that regimens the most opposite, have not prevented
+the attainment of an advanced old age. We may there see men, attacked
+according to all appearance with the same disease, recovering in the
+pursuit of opposite regimens, and in the use of remedies totally
+different from each other; nature is in these instances sufficiently
+powerful to maintain the vital principle in spite of the improper
+regimen, and to triumph at once over the distemper and the remedy. If
+it have this power of resisting the action of medicine, by a still
+stronger reason it must have the power of operating without medicine.
+The experience of the efficacy of remedies is always therefore attended
+with some uncertainty; in the case of the magnetism the uncertainty has
+this addition, the uncertainty of its existence. How then can we decide
+upon the action of an agent, whose existence is contested, from the
+treatment of diseases; when the effect of medicines is doubtful, whose
+existence is not at all problematical?
+
+The cure which is principally cited in favour of the magnetism is
+that of M. le baron de ----; all classes are acquainted with its
+history. We shall not here enter into a discussion of the facts; we
+shall not enquire whether the remedies precedingly employed might have
+contributed to this cure. On the one hand the very critical situation
+of the patient is admitted, and on the other the inefficacy of all the
+ordinary means of medical science; the magnetism has been employed
+and M. le baron de ---- has completely recovered. But might not a
+natural crisis have singly operated this recovery? A woman of low
+rank and extremely poor, who lived at the Gros-caillou, was attacked
+in 1779 with a malignant fever in all its symptoms; she resolutely
+refused every assistance, she only desired that a vessel which she
+had near her should be kept constantly replenished with water: she
+remained quiet upon the straw which served her for a bed, drinking
+water continually and doing nothing more. The disease developed itself,
+passed successively through its different stages, and terminated in a
+complete cure[9]. Mademoiselle G----, who lived at the lesser royal
+mews, had two indurations formed in her right breast, which gave her
+great pain; a surgeon recommended to her the use of the Eau du Peintre
+as an excellent dissolvent; at the same time informing her, that if
+this remedy did not succeed in a month, it would be necessary to
+extirpate them by incision. The young lady, terrified at this sentence,
+consulted M. Sallin, who gave it as his opinion that the indurations
+were susceptible of resolution; M. Bonvart, who was also consulted,
+confirmed the opinion of M. Sallin. Before entering upon any course of
+remedy, they prescribed dissipation; fifteen days after she was seized
+at the opera with a violent cough, and so profuse an expectoration,
+that she was obliged to be carried home; she spit in the space of four
+hours about three pints of a viscid lymph; one hour after this M.
+Sallin examined the breast, he discovered no trace of induration. M.
+Bouvart, called in the next day, proved on his part the happy effect of
+this natural crisis. If mademoiselle G---- had taken Eau du Peintre,
+the honour of her cure would have been attributed to this medicine.
+
+The uninterrupted observation of ages proves, and the professors of
+physic acknowledge, that nature alone and without our interference,
+cures a great number of persons. If the magnetism were absolutely
+inactive, the patients, who undergo this method of cure, might be
+considered as abandoned to nature. It would be absurd to chuse a method
+of deciding upon the existence of this agent, which, by attributing to
+it all the cures performed by nature, would tend to prove that it had
+an action useful and curative, when in reality it might have no action
+at all.
+
+Upon this head the commissioners are of the opinion of M. Mesmer.
+He rejected the cure of diseases, when this method of proving the
+magnetism was proposed to him by a member of the academy of sciences:
+“It is a mistake,” replied he, “to imagine that this kind of proof is
+unanswerable; it cannot be demonstrated that either the physician or
+the medicine causes the recovery of the patient[10].”
+
+The treatment of diseases can therefore furnish nothing but a result,
+always uncertain, often deceitful; nor can this uncertainty be
+dissipated, and all the causes of illusion compensated, but by an
+infinity of cures, perhaps by the experience of successive centuries.
+The object and importance of the commission demand means of a speedier
+description. It was the duty of the commissioners to confine themselves
+to arguments purely physical, that is, to the momentaneous effects of
+the fluid upon the animal frame, excluding from these effects all the
+illusions which might mix with them, and assuring themselves that they
+could proceed from no other cause than the animal magnetism.
+
+They proposed to make experiments upon single subjects, who might
+be willing to submit to the various experiments which they should
+invent; and who, some of them by their simplicity, and others by their
+intelligence, should be capable of giving an exact and faithful
+account of their sensations. These experiments we shall not confine
+ourselves to relate in the order of time, but shall follow the order of
+the facts they were intended to elucidate.
+
+The commissioners in the first place resolved to make their first
+experiments upon themselves, and personally to experience the action
+of the magnetism. They were extremely curious to become acquainted
+by their own sensations with the effects ascribed to this agent.
+They therefore submitted themselves to these effects, and in such a
+disposition, that they would not have been sorry to have undergone some
+accidents and a partial derangement of health, which being evidently
+produced by the operation of the magnetism, should have enabled them
+to decide this important question upon the spot, and with their own
+testimony. But in submitting themselves to the magnetism in this
+manner, the commissioners have employed one necessary precaution. There
+is not an individual, in a state of the fullest health, who, if he paid
+a close attention to the point, would not be sensible to an infinity of
+interior motions and variations, either of a pain infinitely slight, or
+of heat in different parts of his body; these variations which exist at
+all times are independent of the magnetism. To turn and fix in this
+manner ones attention upon oneself, is not perhaps itself entirely
+without its effects. There is so intimate a connection, whatever be the
+vehicle of that connection, between the volitions of the soul and the
+motions of the body, that it is not easy to prescribe limits to the
+influence of attention, which appears to be nothing more than a train
+of volitions, directed, constantly and without interruption, to the
+same object. When we recollect that the arm is moved by the will as it
+pleases, how can we be certain, that the attention being fixed upon
+some interior part of our frame, may not excite some slight emotion in
+it, direct the heat towards it, and so modify its actual situation as
+to produce in it new sensations? The first thing therefore, to which
+the commissioners were bound to attend, was not to observe too minutely
+what passed within them. If the magnetism were a real and operative
+cause, there was no need that it should be made an object of thought,
+in order to its action and manifesting itself: it ought, so to express
+ourselves, to compel and arrest the attention, and to render itself
+perceptible to a mind that should even be distracted from it by design.
+
+But in determining to make experiments upon themselves, the
+commissioners unanimously resolved to make those experiments private,
+without admitting any stranger, except M. Deslon, by whom the
+operation was to be performed, or such persons as they should chuse; in
+like manner they engaged not to submit to the magnetism at the public
+process, in order that they might discuss freely their observations,
+and be in all events the sole, or at least the first judges of the
+symptoms observed.
+
+In pursuance of these determinations, a particular apartment and a
+separate bucket were destined for their use in the house of M. Deslon,
+and the commissioners repaired thither once in the course of every
+week. The operation was continued in each experiment for two hours and
+a half, the branch of iron being in contact with the left hypochonder,
+surrounded with a cord of communication, and forming from time to time
+the chain of fingers and thumbs. They were magnetised either by M.
+Deslon, or, in his absence, by one of his pupils; some of them for a
+longer time and more frequently than others, and those with whom this
+was the case were the commissioners who appeared from constitution and
+habit the most susceptible. The operation was performed sometimes with
+the finger and the rod of iron presented and guided along the different
+parts of the body, sometimes by the application of the hands and the
+pressure of the fingers, either upon the hypochonders, or upon the pit
+of the stomach.
+
+Not one of the commissioners felt any sensation, or at least none
+which ought to be ascribed to the action of the magnetism. Some of
+the commissioners are of a robust constitution; others have more
+delicate habits, and are subject to interruptions of their health:
+one of these last, was sensible of a slight pain at the pit of the
+stomach, in consequence of a considerable pressure that was employed
+upon that part. This pain continued all that and the next day, and
+was accompanied with a sensation of fatigue and dejection. Another
+felt, in the afternoon of one of the days in which the experiments
+were performed, a slight irritation of the nerves, to which he is
+very subject. A third, endowed with a still greater sensibility, and
+especially with an extreme restlessness of the nerves, was subject to
+a higher degree of pain and a more perceptible irritation; but these
+lesser accidents are the result of perpetual and ordinary variations
+in the state of their health, and are of consequence foreign to the
+operation they had undergone, or proceed only from the pressure
+employed upon the region of the stomach. The commissioners do not speak
+of these slight details, but from a scrupulous fidelity; they relate
+them, because they have imposed it as a law upon themselves constantly
+and in every particular to lay the truth.
+
+The commissioners could not avoid being struck with the difference of
+the private experiment made upon themselves from the public process.
+All was calm and silence in the one, all restlessness and agitation
+in the other; there multiplied symptoms, violent crises, the ordinary
+state both of body and mind interrupted and overthrown, and nature
+wrought up to the highest pitch; here the body free from pain, and
+the mind from anxiety, nature preserving her ordinary course and her
+equilibrium, in a word the absolute privation of every kind of effect:
+the stupendous influence, which creates such an astonishment in the
+public process, appears no longer; the magnetism stripped of its energy
+seems perfectly supine and inactive.
+
+The commissioners, having at first submitted to the experiment only
+once a week, were desirous to ascertain whether a continuity of
+experiment would produce any effect; they submitted to it three days
+successively, but their insensibility was the same, and the magnetism
+appeared with respect to them perfectly impotent. This experiment, made
+at once upon eight different subjects, several of whom were subject to
+habitual derangements of health, authorises the conclusion that the
+magnetism has little or no action in a state of health, or even in a
+state of lesser infirmity. We then resolved to make experiments upon
+persons really diseased, and we chose them out of the lower class.
+
+Seven of these were assembled at Passy, at the house of Dr. Franklin;
+the operation was performed upon them by M. Deslon in the presence of
+all the commissioners.
+
+The widow Saint-Amand, asthmatic, having the belly, legs and thighs
+swelled; and dame Anseaume, who had a swelling upon her thigh, felt
+no sensation; the little Claude Renard, a child of six years of age,
+scrophulous, almost consumptive, having the knees swelled, the legs
+bent inward, and the articulation nearly deprived of motion, a very
+interesting child, and possessing a greater degree of understanding
+than is usual at his age, was likewise conscious to no sensation; any
+more than Geneviève Leroux, nine years of age, subject to convulsions,
+and to a disorder greatly resembling that which is called St. Vitus’s
+Dance. François Grenet experienced some effects; he had a distemper
+in his eyes, particularly in the right, in which he had scarcely
+any sight, and in which there was a considerable tumour. When the
+operation was directed towards the left eye, by approaching and moving
+backward and forward the thumb very near and for a considerable time,
+he was sensible of a pain in the ball of the eye, and the eye watered.
+When the operation was directed to the right eye, which was the most
+disordered, he felt no sensation in it; he felt the same pain in the
+left eye, and nothing in any other part of the body.
+
+Dame Charpentier, who had been thrown down against a log of wood by a
+cow two years before, had experienced the most unfortunate consequences
+from this accident; she lost her sight, recovered it afterwards in
+part, but remained in a state of habitual infirmities; she declared
+that she had two ruptures, and the belly of so great sensibility, that
+she could not bear the pressure of the strings of her petticoats: this
+sensibility belongs to the case of nervous irritation; the slightest
+pressure upon the region of the belly is capable of determining this
+irritation, and producing, through the correspondence of the nerves,
+effects in every part of the body.
+
+The operation was performed upon this woman as upon the rest by
+the application and the pressure of the fingers; the pressure was
+extremely painful to her: afterwards, in directing the finger towards
+the rupture, she complained of a pain in her head; the finger being
+placed before her face, she said she could not draw her breath. Upon
+the repeated motion of the finger upwards and downwards, she had
+sudden starts of the head and shoulders, like those which are commonly
+occasioned by surprise mixed with terror, for instance that of a
+person who has some drops of cold water suddenly thrown in his face.
+She appeared to have the same startings when her eyes were closed.
+The fingers being held under her nose, while her eyes were shut, she
+complained of a sensation of faintness so long as they were continued
+there. The seventh subject, Joseph Ennuyé, experienced sensations of a
+similar nature, but much less considerable.
+
+Of these seven patients four felt no sensation at all; three
+experienced some effects from the operation. These effects deserved to
+engage the attention of the commissioners, and demanded an accurate
+examination.
+
+The commissioners, to obtain further light, and to define their
+ideas upon this part of the subject, resolved to make the experiment
+upon patients, placed in other circumstances, and selected from the
+polite world; such as could not be suspected of sinister views, and
+whose understanding made them capable of enquiring into and giving
+a faithful account of their sensations. Mesdames de B---- and de
+V----, messieurs M---- and R---- were admitted to the private bucket
+together with the commissioners; they were intreated to remark their
+sensations, without fixing upon them too regular an attention. M.
+M---- and madame de V---- were the only persons who experienced any
+sensation. M. M---- had an indolent tumour over the whole articulation
+of the knee, and a constant pain in the patella. He declared, during
+the operation, that he felt nothing in any part of his body, except
+in the moment that the finger was guided before the diseased knee;
+he then thought that he felt a slight degree of heat in the place,
+in which he has habitually the sensation of pain. Madame de V----,
+attacked with a nervous disorder, was several times upon the point of
+falling asleep during the operation. The experiment having continued
+for an hour and nineteen minutes without interruption, and for the
+greater part by the application of the hands, she was sensible to
+nothing but a sensation of irritation and dejection. These two subjects
+underwent the experiment only once. M. R----, whose distemper was
+the remainder of an obstruction in the liver, the consequence of a
+very violent disorder of that kind ill cured, underwent the operation
+three times and felt nothing. Madame de B----, severely attacked with
+obstructions, underwent the experiment constantly at the same time
+with the commissioners, and felt nothing; it is necessary to observe,
+that she submitted to the magnetism with an extreme tranquility, which
+originated in the highest degree of incredulity.
+
+Experiments were made at other times upon different subjects, but
+without the assistance of the bucket. One of the commissioners, in a
+violent head-ach, had the operation performed upon him by M. Deslon
+for half an hour; one of the symptoms of his disorder was an extreme
+cold in his feet. M. Deslon brought his foot near that of the patient,
+the foot was never the warmer, and the head-ach lasted its ordinary
+term. The patient, having placed himself near a fire, obtained from it
+the salutary effects which heat has constantly procured him, without
+experiencing, either during that day or the night following, any effect
+from the magnetism.
+
+Dr. Franklin, though the weakness of his health hindered him from
+coming to Paris, and assisting at the experiments which were there
+made, was magnetised by M. Deslon at his own house at Passy. The
+assembly was numerous; every person who was present underwent the
+operation. Some sick persons, who had come with M. Deslon, were subject
+to the effects of the magnetism in the same manner as at the public
+process; but madame de B----, Dr. Franklin, his two relations, his
+secretary, and an American officer, felt no sensation, though one of
+Dr. Franklin’s relations was convalescent, and the American officer had
+at that time a regular fever.
+
+The experiments we have related, furnish a number of facts, calculated
+to illustrate, and fit to be compared with each other, and from which
+the commissioners were at liberty to deduce certain inferences. Of
+fourteen sick persons five only appeared to feel any effect from the
+operation, nine felt no effect at all. The commissioner, who had
+the head-ach and coldness in the feet, derived no benefit from the
+magnetism, nor did his feet recover their natural heat. This agent
+has not therefore the property which has been attributed to it of
+communicating heat to the feet. The magnetism has also been said
+to have the property of discovering the species, and particularly
+the seat of diseases, by the pain, which the action of this fluid
+infallibly occasions in that part. Such an advantage would be of
+great consequence; the fluid which was the instrument of it would
+be a valuable means in the hands of the physician, often deceived
+by equivocal symptoms: but François Grenet felt no sensation, no
+pain, but in the eye least affected. If the redness and tumour of
+the other eye had not furnished external symptoms, in judging from
+the effect of the magnetism we should have been led to conclude that
+it was undistempered. M. R---- and madame de B----, both attacked
+with obstructions, and madame de B---- with great severity, as they
+were conscious to no sensation, would have received no intelligence,
+either respecting the species, or the seat of their disease. And yet
+obstructions are among the disorders, which are said to be particularly
+subject to the action of the magnetism; since according to the new
+theory the free and rapid circulation of this fluid through the nerves,
+is a means of opening the channels and destroying the obstacles, that
+is, the obstructions, which it encounters in its passage. It is at
+the same time said that the magnetism is the touchstone of health:
+if therefore M. R---- and madame de B---- had not experienced the
+derangements and the sufferings inseparable from obstructions, they
+would have had a right to believe that they enjoyed the best health
+in the world. The same thing may be said of the American officer: the
+magnetism therefore announced as the discoverer of diseases completely
+failed of its effect.
+
+The heat that M. M---- felt in the patella, is an effect too slight
+and fugitive to authorise any conclusions. It may be suspected
+that it proceeded from the cause already descanted on, a too great
+attention to observe what passes within us: the same attention would
+discover similar sensations at any other time, when the magnetism
+was not employed. The drowsiness experienced by madame de V---- must
+undoubtedly be ascribed to the regularity and fatigue of preserving the
+same situation; if she was sensible to any vaporous emotion, it must be
+remembered that it is a known property of nervous affections, to have
+much dependency upon the attention that is paid them; to renew them it
+is only necessary to hear them spoken of, or to think of them. It is
+easy to judge what ought to be expected from a woman, whose nerves are
+extremely irritable, and who, being magnetised for an hour and nineteen
+minutes, had during that time no other subject of reflection than
+that of the disorders which are habitual to her. She might have had a
+nervous crisis more considerable than that we have described, without
+our having a right to be surprised at it.
+
+There remains then only the effects produced upon dame Charpentier,
+François Grenet and Joseph Ennuyé, which can be supposed to derive
+from the operation of the magnetism. In comparing these three
+particular facts to the rest, the commissioners were astonished
+that three subjects of the lower class should be the only ones who
+felt any thing from the operation, while those of a more elevated
+rank, of more enlightened understandings, and better qualified to
+describe their sensations, have felt nothing. Without doubt François
+Grenet experienced a pain and a watering in the eye when the thumb
+was approached very near to it; dame Charpentier complained, that in
+touching her stomach the pressure corresponded to her rupture; and the
+pressure might have been in part the cause of what she felt; but the
+commissioners suspected that these sensations were augmented by moral
+causes.
+
+Let us represent to ourselves the situation of a person of the lower
+class, and of consequence ignorant, attacked with a distemper and
+desirous of a cure, introduced with some degree of ceremony to a large
+company, partly composed of physicians, where an operation is performed
+upon him totally new, and from which he persuades himself before hand
+that he is about to experience prodigious effects. Let us add to this
+that he is paid for his compliance, that he thinks he shall contribute
+more to our satisfaction by professing to experience sensations of
+some kind; and we shall have definite causes to which to attribute
+these effects; we shall at least have just reason to doubt whether
+their true cause be the magnetism.
+
+Beside this it may be enquired, why the magnetism produced these
+effects upon persons, who knew what was done to them, and might imagine
+they had an interest in saying what they said, while it took no sort of
+hold upon the little Claude Renard, upon an organisation endowed with
+all the delicacy of infancy, so irritable, so susceptible? The sound
+understanding and ingenuous temper of this child evince the veracity of
+his relation. Why too has this agent produced no effect upon Geneviève
+Leroux, who was in a perpetual state of convulsion? Her nerves were
+certainly sufficiently irritable, how comes it that the magnetism
+did not display its power, either in augmenting, or diminishing her
+convulsions? Her indifference and impassibility induced the belief,
+that the reason of her having felt nothing, was the idiotism which did
+not permit her to judge that she ought to have felt any thing.
+
+From these facts the commissioners are at liberty to observe, that the
+magnetism has seemed to have no existence for those subjects, who have
+submitted to it with any degree of incredulity; that the commissioners,
+even those who have their nerves most irritable, having expressly
+turned their attention to other objects, and having armed themselves
+with that philosophic doubt which ought always to accompany enquiry,
+have felt none of those sensations, which were experienced by the
+three patients of the lower class; and they have a right to suspect
+that these sensations, supposing their reality, were the fruits of
+anticipated persuasion, and might be operated by the mere force of
+imagination. Of this suspicion another class of experiments has been
+the result. Their subsequent researches were directed towards a new
+object; it was necessary to destroy or confirm the suspicion they had
+formed, to determine to what degree the power of the imagination can
+influence our sensations, and to demonstrate whether it can be the
+cause, in whole or in part, of the effects attributed to the magnetism.
+
+At this time the commissioners heard of the experiments, which were
+made at the house of M. the dean of the faculty by M. Jumelin,
+doctor of physic; they were desirous of seeing these experiments,
+and they met M. Jumelin in a body at the house of M. Majault, one
+of the commissioners. M. Jumelin declared to them that he was a
+disciple neither of M. Mesmer, nor of M. Deslon; he had learned
+nothing respecting the animal magnetism from them, but had formed
+his principles and digested his process from what he had heard upon
+the subject in conversation. His principles consist in regarding the
+animal magnetic fluid, as a fluid which circulates in the human body,
+and which flows from it, but which is essentially the same with the
+principle of animal heat; like all other fluids he conceived that
+it tended to an equilibrium, and that it therefore passes from the
+body in which the greatest quantity of it resides, into that which
+has the least. His method does not differ from that of messieurs
+Mesmer and Deslon less than his principles; like them he performs the
+operation with the finger and the rod of iron as conductors, and by the
+application of the hands, but without any distinction of poles.
+
+Eight men and two women submitted to the operation in the first
+experiment, and felt nothing; at length a woman, who waits in the hall
+of M. Alphonse le Roy, doctor of physic, having been magnetised in the
+forehead, but without touching her, said that she felt the sensation of
+heat. M. Jumelin guiding his hand, and presenting the five extremities
+of his fingers over the whole of her face, she said that she felt as
+it were a flame, that passed from place to place; magnetised in the
+stomach she said that she felt heat; magnetised upon the back she made
+the same declaration: she also said that she felt hot in every part of
+her body, and that her head ached.
+
+The commissioners, observing that, of eleven persons that underwent the
+experiment, one only had been sensible to the magnetism of M. Jumelin,
+were of opinion that this person had experienced certain sensations,
+only because she had probably an imagination more easily excited than
+the rest: the opportunity was favourable for clearing up the point. The
+sensibility of this woman being perfectly established, the business
+was only to protect her from the illusions of the imagination, or
+at least to leave her imagination without any thing to direct its
+operations. The commissioners proposed to blindfold her, in order to
+observe what her sensations would be, when she could no longer know any
+thing respecting the conduct of the experiment. She was accordingly
+blindfolded and magnetised; the phenomena no longer answered to
+the places towards which the magnetism was directed. Magnetised
+successively upon the stomach and in the back, she felt only a heat in
+her head, a pain in both eyes and in the left ear.
+
+The bandage was removed from her eyes, and M. Jumelin having applied
+his hands upon the hypochonders, she said that she felt heat; after a
+few minutes she said that she was ready to faint, and she fainted in
+effect. When she was tolerably recovered, the experiment was resumed,
+she was blindfolded, M. Jumelin was removed, silence recommended, and
+the woman was induced to believe that the operation was performing. The
+effects were the same, though no operation, either near or distant was
+performed; she felt the same heat, the same pain in her eyes and in her
+ears; besides which she felt a heat in her back and loins.
+
+After a quarter of an hour, a sign was made to M. Jumelin to magnetise
+her in the stomach, she felt no sensation; in the back, it was the same
+thing. The sensations diminished instead of augmenting. The pains in
+her head continued, the heat in her back and loins ceased.
+
+We see in this instance certain effects produced, and these similar to
+those which were experienced by the three subjects, respecting whom the
+experiment has already been detailed. But the former and the latter
+were obtained in different methods; it follows that this difference is
+of no consequence. The process of messieurs Mesmer and Deslon, and an
+opposite process have produced the same phenomena. The distinction of
+poles is therefore chimerical.
+
+It may be observed that while the woman was permitted to see the
+operation, she placed her sensations precisely in the part towards
+which it was directed; that on the other hand when she did not see
+the operation, she placed them at hazard, and in parts very distant
+from those which were the object of the magnetism. It was natural to
+conclude that these sensations, real or pretended, were determined
+by the imagination. Of this we were convinced when we saw that being
+entirely at rest, the preceding sensations having ceased, and the
+bandage being fixed over her eyes, this woman experienced all the same
+effects, though no operation was performed; but the demonstration
+was complete, when after a remission of a quarter of an hour, her
+imagination being undoubtedly cooled and worn down, the effects, in the
+room of augmenting, diminished at the moment in which the operation was
+actually renewed.
+
+If she was seized with a faintness, women are sometimes liable to this
+accident from their garments being tight or otherwise burdensome. The
+application of the hands upon the hypochonders was capable of producing
+the same effect upon a woman extremely susceptible; but there is no
+need of having recourse to this cause to explain the appearance. The
+weather was extremely hot, the woman had unquestionably felt some
+emotion in the beginning of the experiment, she had made an effort upon
+herself to submit to a new and unknown operation, and it is by no means
+extraordinary that an effort, continued for a longer time than the
+constitution will bear, should occasion a propensity to faint.
+
+This swoon had therefore a natural known cause, but the sensations,
+which she experienced when no operation was performed upon her, could
+be only the result of imagination. In similar experiments, which M.
+Jumelin made in the same place the next day, the commissioners being
+present, upon a man who was blindfolded, and upon a woman who was not
+blindfolded, the result was precisely the same; it was evident their
+answers were determined by the questions that were put to them, that
+is, the question pointed out where the sensation was expected to be; in
+the room of directing the magnetism upon them, all that was done was
+the exalting and directing their imagination. A child of five years of
+age being afterwards magnetised, felt nothing but the heat which he had
+just before contracted at play.
+
+These experiments appeared sufficiently important to the commissioners,
+for them to desire a repetition of them, in order to obtain further
+light into the subject, and M. Jumelin had the complaisance to comply
+with their request. It would be to no purpose to object, that the
+method of M. Jumelin was a bad one; for at the present moment it was
+not proposed to bring the magnetism, but the imagination to the proof.
+
+The commissioners agreed to blindfold subjects who had already
+undergone the magnetical operation, for the most part not to magnetise
+them at all, but to put to them interrogations, so framed as to point
+out to them their answers. This mode of proceeding was not calculated
+to deceive them, it only misled their imagination. In reality, when
+no operation was performed upon them, their sole answer ought to
+have been, that they felt no sensation; and when the operation was
+performed, the impression they felt, not the manner in which they were
+interrogated, ought to have dictated their replies.
+
+The commissioners adjourned themselves to the house of M. Jumelin; they
+began with an experiment upon his servant. They fixed a bandage over
+his eyes, prepared for the purpose, and which they employed in all the
+succeeding experiments. The bandage was made of two calottes of elastic
+gum, whose concavity was filled with edredon; the whole inclosed and
+sown up in two pieces of stuff of a circular form. These pieces of
+stuff were then fastened to each other, and to two strings which were
+tied in a knot at the back part of the head. Placed over the eyes,
+they left in their interval room for the nose, and the entire liberty
+of respiration, without the person blindfolded being permitted to
+receive even the smallest particle of light, either through, or above,
+or below the bandage. These precautions having been contrived, with an
+equal view to the convenience of the subject, and the certainty of the
+result, the servant of M. Jumelin was persuaded that the operation was
+performing upon him. Upon this he felt an almost universal sensation of
+heat, and certain emotions in the region of the belly, together with
+an extreme heaviness; by degrees he grew drowsy and appeared upon the
+point of falling asleep. This experiment proves what we have already
+said, that the symptom of drowsiness is the effect of situation and
+weariness, not of the magnetism.
+
+The same person being afterwards magnetised with his eyes uncovered,
+and a rod of iron being presented to his forehead, he experienced
+sensations of pricking: the bandage being then replaced and the
+circumstance repeated, he was conscious to no sensation. The rod
+of iron was then removed, and the patient being interrogated if he
+felt nothing in his forehead, he declared that he felt something move
+backward and forward from one side of it to the other.
+
+M. B----, a man of learning, and particularly acquainted with the
+science of medicine, was then blindfolded, and presented us with the
+same spectacle, feeling certain sensations when he was not acted
+upon, and often feeling nothing when the operation was performed.
+These sensations went to such a length, that, previously to the being
+magnetised in any manner, but believing that the operation had been
+performing for ten minutes, he felt a heat in his loins which he
+compared to that of a stove. It is evident that M. B---- had a very
+strong sensation, since, in order to convey an idea of it, he thought
+it necessary to have recourse to such a comparison; this sensation
+however he owed solely to imagination, which was the only agent
+concerned in the affair.
+
+The commissioners, particularly those of the faculty of medicine,
+made an infinite number of experiments upon different subjects, whom
+they either magnetised themselves, or persuaded that they underwent
+the operation. They performed the operation indifferently, either
+opposite to, or in the direction of the poles or at right angles with
+them, and in each case obtained the same effects; experiencing in all
+these experiments no other difference, than that of an imagination
+more or less susceptible[11]. They were therefore convinced that
+the imagination alone is capable of producing various sensations,
+and causing the patient to experience both pain and heat, and even a
+very considerable degree of heat, in all parts of the body, and they
+concluded that it of course entered for a considerable share into the
+effects attributed to the animal magnetism. It must at the same time be
+admitted, that the process of the magnetism produces in the animated
+body changes more distinguished, and derangements more considerable,
+than those we have just reported. None of those subjects, whom we
+have hitherto described as the imaginary objects of the magnetical
+operation, were so far impressed as to produce convulsions; it was
+therefore a new subject for the experiments of the commissioners,
+to enquire, whether by the mere energies of the imagination it were
+possible to produce crises, similar to those which we have stated in
+the public process.
+
+Many experiments were thought of for the decision of this question.
+When a tree has been touched according to the principles and method of
+the magnetism, every person who stops under it, ought to experience
+in a greater or less degree the effects of this agent; there have
+even been some in this situation who have swooned, or experienced
+convulsions. We communicated our ideas upon this subject to M. Deslon,
+who replied, that the experiment ought to succeed, provided the
+subject were extremely susceptible; and it was agreed that it should
+be made at Passy in the presence of Dr. Franklin. The necessity that
+the subject should be susceptible, led the commissioners to conceive,
+that to render the experiment decisive and unanswerable, it was
+necessary that it should be made upon a person of M. Deslon’s choice,
+and of whose susceptibility to the operations of the magnetism he was
+already convinced. M. Deslon therefore brought with him a boy of about
+twelve years of age; an apricot tree was fixed upon in the orchard of
+Dr. Franklin’s garden, considerably distant from any other tree, and
+calculated for the preservation of the magnetical power which might
+be impressed upon it. M. Deslon was led thither alone to perform the
+operation, the boy in the mean time remaining in the house, and another
+person along with him. We could have wished that M. Deslon had not
+been present at the subsequent part of the experiment, but he declared
+that he could not answer for its success, if he did not direct his
+cane and his countenance towards the tree, in order to augment the
+action of the magnetism. It was therefore resolved, that M. Deslon
+should be placed at the greatest possible distance, and that some of
+the commissioners should stand between him and the boy, in order to
+ascertain the impracticability of any signals being made by M. Deslon,
+or any intelligence being maintained between them. These precautions
+in an experiment the essence of which must be authenticity, are
+indispensible, without giving the person with respect to whom they are
+employed a right to think himself offended.
+
+The boy was then brought into the orchard his eyes covered with the
+bandage, presented successively to four trees upon which the operation
+had not been performed, and caused to embrace each of them for the
+space of two minutes, the mode of communication which had been
+prescribed by M. Deslon himself.
+
+M. Deslon, present, and at a considerable distance, directed his cane
+towards the tree which had been the object of his operations.
+
+At the first tree the boy being interrogated at the end of a minute,
+declared that he perspired in large drops; he coughed, spit, and
+complained of a slight pain in his head; the distance of the tree which
+had been magnetised was about twenty seven feet.
+
+At the second tree he felt the sensations of stupefaction and pain in
+his head; the distance was thirty six feet.
+
+At the third tree the stupefaction and head-ach increased considerably;
+he said that he believed he was approaching to the tree which had been
+magnetised; the distance was then about thirty eight feet.
+
+In fine at the fourth tree which had not been rendered the object of
+the operation, and at the distance of about twenty four feet from the
+tree which had, the boy fell into a crisis; he fainted away, his limbs
+stiffened, and he was carried to a neighbouring grass-plot, where M.
+Deslon hastened to his assistance and recovered him.
+
+The result of this experiment is entirely contrary to the theory of
+the animal magnetism. M. Deslon accounted for it by observing, that
+all the trees by their very nature, participated of the magnetism,
+and that their magnetism was beside reinforced by his presence. But
+in that case a person sensible to the power of the magnetism, could
+not hazard a walk in a garden without the risk of convulsions; an
+assertion confuted by the experience of every day. The presence of M.
+Deslon had no greater influence here, than in the coach, in which the
+boy came along with him, was placed opposite to him, and felt nothing.
+If he had experienced no sensation even under the tree which was
+magnetised, it might have been said that at least upon that day he
+had not been sufficiently susceptible: but the boy fell into a crisis
+under a tree which was not magnetised; the crisis was therefore the
+effect of no physical or exterior cause, but is to be ascribed solely
+to the influence of imagination. The experiment is therefore entirely
+conclusive: the boy knew that he was about to be led to a tree upon
+which the magnetical operation had been performed, his imagination was
+struck, it was exalted by the successive steps of the experiment, and
+at the fourth tree it was raised to the height necessary to produce the
+crisis.
+
+Other experiments were made calculated to support this, and the result
+was the same. One day when the commissioners were all together at Passy
+at the house of Dr. Franklin, and M. Deslon with them, they previously
+intreated the latter to bring some of his patients with him, selecting
+those of the lower class, who were most susceptible to the magnetism.
+M. Deslon brought two women; and while he was employed in performing
+the operation upon Dr. Franklin and several persons in another
+apartment, the two women were separated, and placed in different rooms.
+
+One of them, dame P----, had films over her eyes; but as she could
+always see a little, the bandage already described was employed. She
+was persuaded that M. Deslon had been brought into the room to perform
+the magnetical operation; silence was recommended; three commissioners
+were present, one to interrogate, another to make minutes of the
+transaction, and the third to personate M. Deslon. The conversation was
+pretended to be addressed to M. Deslon; he was desired to begin the
+operation; the three commissioners in the mean time remained perfectly
+quiet and solely occupied in observing her symptoms. At the end of
+three minutes the patient began to feel a nervous shuddering; she
+had then successively a pain in the back of her head, in her arms, a
+creeping in her hands, that was her expression, she grew stiff, struck
+her hands violently together, rose from her seat, stamped with her
+feet: the crisis had all the regular symptoms. Two other commissioners,
+who were in the adjoining room with the door shut, heard the stamping
+of the feet and the clapping of the hands, and without seeing any thing
+were witnesses to this noisy experiment.
+
+The two commissioners we have mentioned were with the other patient,
+mademoiselle B----, who was subject to nervous distempers. No bandage
+was employed upon her, but her eyes were at liberty; she was seated
+with her face towards a door which was shut, and persuaded that M.
+Deslon was on the other side, employed in performing upon her the
+magnetical operation. This had scarcely taken place a minute, before
+she began to feel the symptom of shuddering; in another minute she had
+a chattering of the teeth and an universal heat; in fine in the third
+minute she fell into a regular crisis. Her respiration was quick, she
+stretched out both her arms behind her back, twisting them extremely,
+and bending her body forward: her whole body trembled; the chattering
+of her teeth became so loud that it might be heard in the open air; she
+bit her hand, and that with so much force, that the marks of the teeth
+remained perfectly visible.
+
+It is proper to observe that neither of these subjects were touched
+in any manner; their pulse was not even felt, that it might not be
+possible to say that the magnetic fluid was communicated; the crises
+however were complete. The commissioners, who had been desirous to know
+the effect of the influence of the imagination, and to appreciate the
+share it might have in the magnetical crises, had now obtained all that
+they desired. It is impossible to see this influence displayed in a
+clearer or more incontrovertible manner than in these two experiments.
+If the subjects have declared that their crises were stronger in the
+public treatment, it must be ascribed to the power of communication
+possessed by the numerous emotions, and that in general every
+individual symptom has been increased by the contemplation of similar
+symptoms.
+
+We had occasion to try a second experiment upon dame P----, and to
+experience how much she was under the dominion of her imagination. The
+experiment of the magnetic bason was proposed: this experiment consists
+in discovering among a number of basons one that has been magnetised.
+They are successively presented to a patient susceptible to the
+magnetism; he ought to fall into a crisis, or at least to experience
+sensible effects, when the magnetic bason is presented to him, he ought
+to be perfectly indifferent to all the rest. All that was necessary
+according to the recommendation of M. Deslon, was to present them to
+him in the direction of the poles, in order that he who presents the
+bason may not himself magnetise the patient, and that there may be no
+other effect than that of the magnetism of the bason itself.
+
+Dame P---- was sent for to the arsenal to the house of M. Lavoisier,
+where M. Deslon was; she began with falling into a crisis in the
+anti-chamber, before she had seen either the commissioners or M.
+Deslon, and merely from the knowledge she had that she was about to
+see him; a distinguished effect of the influence of imagination.
+
+When she had been tolerably recovered, she was led into the room
+destined for the experiment. Several china basons were presented to
+her which had not been magnetised; at the second bason she began to
+feel the usual symptoms, and at the fourth fell into a complete crisis.
+It may be objected that her actual state was a state of crisis, that
+it had begun in the anti-chamber, and was renewed by its own single
+energy; but a circumstance which is decisive, is that having asked for
+something to drink, the bason which had been magnetised by M. Deslon
+himself was presented to her; she drank with perfect calmness and said
+that she felt herself much better. The bason and the magnetism had
+therefore failed of their effect, since the crisis was tranquilized in
+the room of being augmented.
+
+Some time after, while M. Majault examined the films she had over
+her eyes, the magnetic bason was presented to the back of her head,
+and continued there for twelve minutes; she was unconscious of the
+operation and felt no effect from it; she had even at no time been more
+tranquil, because her imagination was diverted, and fixed upon the
+examination that was making into the disorder of her eyes.
+
+The commissioners were informed that while this woman had been left
+alone in the anti-chamber, different persons unacquainted with the
+animal magnetism had approached her, and the convulsive emotions had
+recommenced. She was desired to observe that the magnetical operation
+was not performed upon her; but her imagination was struck to such a
+degree that she replied: If you did nothing to me, I should not be in
+the condition in which I am. She knew that she had been sent for in
+order to be made the subject of the experiments; and the approach of
+any person towards her, or the slighted noise attracted her attention,
+excited the idea of the magnetism and renewed her convulsions.
+
+The imagination, in order to its acting with considerable strength,
+has often need that you should touch several cords at a time. It has
+a correspondence with each of the senses; and its reaction may be
+expected to be in proportion, both to the number of senses applied
+to, and of sensations received: the commissioners were led to this
+observation by the following experiment. M. Jumelin had spoken to them
+of a young lady, twenty years of age, whom he had deprived of the
+faculty of speech by the influence of the magnetism; the commissioners
+repeated the experiment at his house, the young lady consented to
+submit to it, and to suffer herself to be blindfolded.
+
+The first object of the experiment was to endeavour to obtain the same
+effect without performing the operation; but, though in this situation
+she felt or believed she felt the effects of the magnetism, we were not
+able to strike her imagination, with the force that was necessary for
+the success of the experiment. The operation was then really performed,
+the bandage not being removed; and the success was the same. The
+bandage was then taken away; her imagination was now attacked at once
+through the different channels of sight and hearing, and the effects
+were more considerable; but though she complained of a heaviness in
+her head, an obstruction in the superior part of the nostrils, and a
+number of the symptoms which she had felt under the operation of M.
+Jumelin, she did not lose the faculty of speech. She observed herself,
+that the hand by which she was magnetised in the forehead, ought to
+descend to the level of the nose, recollecting that that was its
+situation at the time in which she had felt the loss of her voice. What
+she demanded was accordingly performed, and in three quarters of a
+minute she was dumb; nothing was now to be heard from her but low and
+inarticulate sounds, though the exertion of the muscles of the throat
+for the formation of sound, and that of the tongue and the lips in
+order to articulation were visible. This state lasted only a minute:
+it is obvious to observe that, finding herself precisely in the same
+circumstances, the seduction of the understanding and the effect of
+that seduction upon the organs of speech were the same. But it was not
+enough that she should be expressly informed that she was magnetised,
+it was also necessary that the sense of seeing should yield her a
+testimony, stronger, and capable of greater effects; it was necessary
+that a gesture with which she was already acquainted should re-excite
+her former ideas. It should seem that this experiment is admirably
+calculated to display the manner in which the imagination acts, the
+degrees by which it is exalted, and the different exterior succours it
+requires in order to its displaying itself in its greatest energy.
+
+The power, which the sense of sight exercises over the imagination,
+explains the effects attributed by the doctrine of the magnetism to the
+eyes. The eyes possess in an eminent degree the power of magnetising;
+signs and gestures, as the commissioners were informed, have commonly
+no effect, except upon a subject who has been previously mastered by
+the employment of the eyes. The reason of this is very simple; it is
+the eyes that convey the most energetic expressions of passion, it
+is in them that is developed all that the human character has of the
+commanding or the attractive. It is natural therefore that the eyes
+should be the source of a very high degree of power; but this power
+consists merely in the aptitude they possess of moving the imagination,
+and that in a degree more or less strong in proportion to the activity
+of the imagination. It is for this reason, that the whole process
+of the magnetism commences from the eyes of the operator; and their
+influence is so powerful and leaves traces so strong and lively, that
+a woman, newly arrived at the house of M. Deslon, having encountered a
+look of one of his pupils, who had performed the operation upon her,
+just as she was recovering from a crisis, had her eyes set in her
+head for three quarters of an hour. For a long time she was haunted
+with the remembrance of this look; she always saw before her this
+very eye fixed to regard her; and she bore it uninterruptedly in her
+imagination sleeping as well as waking for three days. We see from this
+instance what an imagination is capable of doing, that can preserve
+one impression for so long a time, that is, can renew, of itself,
+and by its single power, the same sensation regularly and without
+interruption, for three days.
+
+The experiments, which we have already reported, are uniform in their
+nature, and contribute alike to the same decision; they authorise us
+to conclude that the imagination is the true cause of the effects
+attributed to the magnetism. But the partisans of this new agent will
+perhaps reply, that the identity of effects does not always prove an
+identity of causes. They will grant that the imagination is capable
+of exciting these impressions without the magnetism: but they will
+maintain that the magnetism is also capable of exciting them without
+the imagination. The commissioners might easily destroy this assertion
+by applying the principles of all reasoning, and the laws of natural
+philosophy: of which the first, is to admit no new causes without an
+absolute necessity. When the effects observed are capable of having
+been produced by a known cause, and a cause whose existence other
+phenomena have already established, found philosophy teaches that the
+effects ought to be ascribed to that cause; and when on the other hand
+we are acquainted with the discovery of a cause hitherto unknown,
+found philosophy requires that its exigence be made out by effects,
+which do not belong to a known cause, and which cannot be explained but
+by the new cause. It therefore properly belongs to the partisans of the
+magnetism, to bring forward other proofs, and to discover effects which
+shall be entirely stripped of the illusions of the imagination. But as
+facts are more demonstrative than reasonings, and as their evidence
+is more universally striking, the commissioners have been desirous of
+establishing by experiment, what the magnetism could do in cases where
+the imagination had no concern.
+
+For this experiment they made choice of two rooms, contiguous to each
+other, and united by a door of communication. The door was taken away,
+and a frame of wood substituted in its place, with transverse bars,
+and covered with a double texture of paper. In one of these rooms was
+a commissioner, who undertook to make minutes of the transaction, and
+a lady, who was given out to be just arrived from the country, and to
+have a suit of linen, which she wanted to have made up. Mademoiselle
+B----, a sempstress by profession, who had been already employed in
+the experiments at Passy, and whose sensibility to the magnetism was
+well known, was sent for. Every thing was arranged against her arrival
+in such a manner, that there was but one seat upon which she could
+place herself, and that seat stood within the frame of the door of
+communication.
+
+The commissioners were in the other apartment, and one of them, a
+physician, who had upon former occasions performed the magnetical
+operation with success, had undertaken to magnetise mademoiselle
+B---- through the paper partition. It is a principle in the theory
+of the magnetism that this agent passes through doors, walls, &c. A
+partition of paper could therefore be no obstacle; beside M. Deslon had
+positively declared that the magnetism passes through paper.
+
+Mademoiselle B---- was accordingly magnetised during half an hour, at
+the distance of a foot and an half, and in a direction opposite to that
+of the poles, in conformity to the rules taught by M. Deslon, and which
+the commissioners had seen practised at his house. During the operation
+she conversed with much gaiety, and, in answer to an enquiry concerning
+her health, she readily replied, that she was perfectly well: at Passy
+she had fallen into a crisis in the course of three minutes; in the
+present instance she underwent the operation of the magnetism without
+any effect for thirty minutes. The only reason of this difference
+must be that here she was ignorant of the operation, and that at Passy
+she thought it had been performed. The inevitable conclusion is, that
+the imagination singly produces all the effects attributed to the
+magnetism, and that, where the imagination ceases to be called forth,
+it has no longer the smallest efficacy.
+
+Only one objection can be suggested to this experiment; it is that
+mademoiselle B---- might not be prepared to receive the magnetic
+fluid, and might be less susceptible to its operation than usual. The
+commissioners foresaw this objection, and for that reason made the
+following experiment. As soon as they had ceased to magnetise the
+patient through the paper partition, the same commissioner passed into
+the other apartment; he found no difficulty in engaging mademoiselle
+B---- to submit to the magnetical operation. It was accordingly
+repeated in precisely the same manner as in the former instance, at the
+distance of a foot and an half, and by the intervention of gestures
+only, together with the employment of the right finger and the rod
+of iron. If he had applied the hands, and touched the hypochonders,
+it might have been objected that any difference of effect, was to be
+ascribed to the application having been more immediate in the latter
+instance. But the only difference between the two experiments was, that
+in the former mademoiselle B---- was magnetised in a direction opposite
+to that of the poles, and conformable to the rules of the magnetical
+theory; and in the second she was magnetised in the direction of the
+poles, or in the transverse line. On this account according to the
+principles of the magnetism no effect ought to have been produced.
+
+In three minutes however she felt a sensation of dejection and
+suffocation; to these succeeded an interrupted hiccup, a chattering
+of the teeth, a contraction of the throat, and an extreme pain in her
+head; she was restless in her chair; she complained of a pain in the
+loins; now and then she struck her foot with extreme quickness on the
+floor; afterwards she stretched her arms behind her, twisting them
+extremely as at Passy; in a word the convulsive crisis was complete and
+accompanied with all the regular symptoms. All these accidents appeared
+in consequence of a process of twelve minutes, though the same process
+employed for thirty minutes a little before had been ineffectual. The
+only ground of difference that remains, is the play that was afforded
+in the latter instance to the imagination; to this therefore the
+difference of the effects is to be ascribed.
+
+If the crisis originated in the influence of the imagination, it was
+the imagination also that put a stop to it. The commissioner who
+magnetised her, observed that it was time to have done; at the same
+time presenting to her his two forefingers in the form of a cross;
+and it is proper to observe that in so doing he magnetised her in the
+direction of the poles, in the same manner as he had done through
+the whole experiment; no actual alteration had therefore been made,
+and the process being continued, the impressions ought also to have
+continued. But the declared intention of the operator was sufficient
+to dissipate the crisis; her heat and the pain in her head were
+immediately alleviated. The disorder of her frame was in this manner
+followed from place to place, announcing at the same time that it was
+going to disappear. In this manner in obedience to the voice to which
+the imagination was subjected, the contraction of the throat ceased,
+then the accidents of the breast, lastly those of the stomach and the
+arms. The whole required only three minutes; after which mademoiselle
+B---- declared that she no longer felt any sensation, but was perfectly
+restored to her habitual state.
+
+These last experiments, as well as several of those that were made at
+the house of M. Jumelin, have the double advantage of demonstrating
+at once the efficacy of the imagination, and the impotence of the
+magnetism, in regard of the symptoms which were operated.
+
+If the symptoms are more considerable and the crises more violent at
+the public process, it is because various causes are combined with the
+imagination, to operate, to multiply and to enlarge its effects. They
+begin with subduing the minds of the patients by the employment of the
+eyes; this is followed by the touch, the application of the hands; it
+is proper to develop in this place the physical effects of this method
+of procedure.
+
+The symptoms are more or less considerable: the less are hiccuppings,
+qualms of the stomach and purgings; the greater are the convulsions to
+which they have given the denomination of crises. The parts upon which
+the touch is employed, are the hypochonders, the pit of the stomach,
+and sometimes the ovaria, when the patient is a woman. The hands and
+the fingers are pressed with a greater or less stress upon these
+different regions.
+
+The colon, one of the larger intestines, runs through both the regions
+of the hypochonders, and the region of the epigastrium which separates
+them. It is placed immediately under the integuments. It is therefore
+upon this intestine that the pressure falls, an intestine full of
+sensibility and irritability. A repeated voluntary effort, without
+assistance from any other cause, excites the muscular action of this
+intestine, and sometimes procures evacuations. Nature, as it were
+by instinct, indicates this manœuvre to persons hypochondriacally
+affected. The process of the magnetism is nothing more than this very
+manœuvre; and the evacuations it is calculated to produce are further
+facilitated in the magnetical process, by the frequent and almost
+habitual use of a real laxative, the cream of tartar in their drink.
+
+But while the motion which is produced, excites principally the
+irritability of the colon, this intestine offers other phenomena. It
+swells in a greater or less degree, and sometimes distends itself to
+a considerable volume. At such times it communicates to the diaphragm
+such an irritation, that this organ becomes more or less convulsed.
+It is this convulsion to which they have given the appellation of
+crisis in the animal magnetism. One of the commissioners had occasion
+to see a woman, subject to a kind of spasmodic vomitings, with which
+she was seized several times in the course of every day. Her efforts
+produced nothing but a turbid and viscous water, similar to that
+which is brought up by the patients in the crisis of the magnetical
+operation. The convulsion had its seat in the diaphragm, and the
+region of the colon was so sensible, that the slightest touch upon
+that part, a strong commotion of the air, the surprise caused by
+a sudden noise sufficed to excite the convulsion. This woman had
+therefore regular crises without the assistance of the magnetism, by
+the single irritability of the colon and diaphragm; and the women who
+are magnetised, obtain their crises from the same cause and through the
+same irritability.
+
+The application of the hands upon the stomach has physical effects not
+less remarkable. The application is made directly upon that organ.
+Sometimes a strong continuous compression is operated, sometimes a
+number of slight and successive compressions, sometimes a discomposure
+of the stomach by a rotatory motion of the rod of iron in contact
+with the part, or by the successive and rapid passage of the thumbs
+over it one after the other. These methods convey almost immediately
+to the stomach an irritation, more or less strong and durable, in
+proportion as the subject is more or less susceptible. The part is
+also previously disposed for the reception of this irritation by
+being first compressed. This compression prepares it to act upon the
+diaphragm and to communicate to it the impressions it receives. It is
+irritated, the diaphragm is also irritated, and from thence result, in
+the same manner as by the action of the colon, the nervous accidents
+which had been already stated. In women who are peculiarly susceptible,
+the mere compression of the two hypochonders, without their being acted
+upon in any other manner, occasions a contraction of the stomach and
+fits of swooning. This happened in the case of the woman magnetised by
+M. Jumelin, and it often happens from no other cause than an improper
+degree of tightness in their dress. These cases are not followed by the
+crisis, because the stomach is compressed, without being irritated, and
+the diaphragm remains in its natural state. The same methods employed
+upon the ovaria in the female sex, beside their particular effects,
+produce with great force the above accidents. The empire and extensive
+influence of the uterus over the animal œconomy is well known.
+
+The intimate connection of the colon, the stomach and the uterus with
+the diaphragm is one of the causes of the effects ascribed to the
+magnetism. The regions of the lower belly, which are the subject of
+these operations, answer to the different plexuses which constitute a
+regular nervous centre in this part, by means of which, leaving every
+particular system out of the question, there most certainly exists a
+sympathy, communication or correspondence between all the parts of the
+body, such an action and reaction, that the sensations excited in this
+centre affect the other parts of the body, and reciprocally a sensation
+experienced in any part affects and calls into play the nervous centre,
+which often transmits the impression back again to all the parts of the
+body.
+
+The truth thus stated not only explains the effects of the magnetic
+touch, but also the physical effects of the imagination. It has been
+constantly remarked, that the affections of the soul make their first
+corporeal impression upon the nervous centre, which commonly leads
+their subject to describe himself as having a weight upon his stomach,
+or a sensation of suffocation. The diaphragm enters into this business,
+from whence originate the sighs, the tears and the expressions of
+mirth. The viscera of the lower belly then experience a reaction; and
+it is by this automatous process that we are enabled to account for the
+physical disorders produced by the imagination. Surprise occasions the
+colic, terror causes a diarrhœa, melancholy is the origin of icterical
+distempers. The history of medicine presents to us an infinity of
+examples of the power of imagination and the mental affections. The
+terror occasioned by a fire, a violent degree of desire, a strong and
+undoubting hope, a fit of choler have restored the use of his limbs
+to one who has been crippled with the gout or to a paralytic person;
+a strong and unlooked for degree of joy has dissipated a quartan
+ague of two months standing; close attention is a remedy for the
+hiccup; and persons, who by some accident have been deprived of the
+faculty of speech, have recovered it in consequence of some of the
+vehement emotions of the soul. This last assertion is supported by the
+testimony of history, and the commissioners have themselves witnessed
+a suspension of this faculty, occasioned singly by the imagination.
+The action and reaction of the physical upon the moral system, and of
+the moral upon the physical, have been acknowledged ever since the
+phenomena of the medical science have been remarked, that is, ever
+since the origin of the science.
+
+Tears, laughter, coughs, hiccups, and in general all the effects which
+are observed in what have been stiled crises in the animal magnetism,
+do therefore originate either in the interruption of the functions
+of the diaphragm by a physical vehicle, such as the touch and the
+pressure, or from the power with which the imagination is endowed of
+acting upon this organ and interrupting its functions.
+
+If it be objected that the touch is not always necessary to these
+effects, it may be replied, that the imagination may be sufficiently
+fertile in resources to produce them all by its sole instrumentality;
+especially the imagination exerted in a public process, called into
+play at once by the methods in which it is itself addressed, and by the
+effects observed in those who surround it. It has been already seen
+what were its effects in the experiments made by the commissioners
+upon isolated subjects; it may easily be conceived in what degree
+those effects must be multiplied in the case of a number of patients
+collected together in a public process. These patients are assembled in
+a narrow space, if the space be compared with the number of patients;
+the air of the apartment is heated, although care be employed to renew
+it; and it is always more or less impregnated with mephitic gas, which
+has the property of acting immediately upon the head and the nervous
+system. When the introduction of music is added, it affords another
+means of acting upon and exciting the nerves.
+
+In the public process several women are magnetised at the same time,
+and they experience at first no effects but such as are similar to
+those, obtained by the commissioners in various experiments. It is even
+acknowledged that for the most part the crises do not commence in less
+than the space of two hours. By little and little the impressions are
+communicated from one to another, and reinforced, in the same manner as
+the impressions which are made by theatrical representation, where the
+impressions are greater in proportion to the number of the spectators,
+and the liberty they enjoy of expressing their sensations. The
+applause, by which the emotions of individuals are announced, occasions
+a general emotion, which every one partakes in the degree in which he
+is susceptible. The same observation has been made in armies upon a day
+of battle, where the enthusiasm of courage, as well as the impressions
+of terror, are propagated with so amazing rapidity. The drum, the sound
+of the military musical instruments, the noise of the cannon, the
+musquetry, the shouts of the army, and the general disorder impress the
+organs, have a uniform effect upon the understanding, and exalt the
+imagination in the same degree. In this equilibrium of inebriation,
+the external manifestation of a single sensation immediately becomes
+universal; it hurries the soldiery to the charge, or it determines them
+to fly. The same cause is deeply concerned in rebellions; the multitude
+are governed by the imagination; the individuals in a numerous assembly
+are more subjected to their senses, and less capable of submitting to
+the dictates of reason; and where fanaticism is the presiding quality,
+its fruit is the tremblers of the Cevennes[12]. It has been usual to
+forbid numerous assemblies in seditious towns, as a means of stopping
+a contagion so easily communicated. Every where example acts upon
+the moral part of our frame, mechanical imitation upon the physical
+part: the minds of individuals are calmed by dispersing them; the same
+method puts a stop to their spasmodic affections, always contagious in
+their nature: we have had a recent example of this in the young ladies
+of Saint Roch, who were in this manner cured of the convulsions with
+which they were affected when together[13].
+
+The magnetism then, or rather the operations of the imagination,
+are equally discoverable at the theatre, in the camp, and in all
+numerous assemblies, as at the bucket, acting indeed by different
+means, but producing similar effects. The bucket is surrounded with
+a crowd of patients; the sensations are continually communicated and
+recommunicated; it ought to be expected that the nerves should be at
+length worn out with this exercise, they are accordingly irritated,
+and the woman of most sensibility in the company gives the signal.
+Immediately the cords, every where stretched to the same degree and
+in perfect unison, respond to each other; the crises are multiplied;
+they mutually reinforce each other, and are rendered violent. In the
+mean time the men, who are witnesses of these emotions, partake of them
+in proportion to their nervous sensibility; and those with whom this
+sensibility is greatest and most easily excited become themselves the
+subjects of a crisis.
+
+This propensity to irritation, partly natural and partly acquired,
+becomes in each sex habitual. The sensations having been felt once or
+oftener, nothing is now necessary, but to recal the memory of them, and
+to exalt the imagination to the same degree, in order to operate the
+same effects. This will never be difficult when the subject is placed
+in the same circumstances. The public process is no longer necessary,
+you have only to touch the hypochonders and to conduct the finger and
+the rod of iron before the countenance; the signs are well known.
+Even these are not necessary, it is sufficient that the patients be
+blindfolded, made to believe that these signs are repeated upon them,
+and that they are magnetised; the ideas are reexcited, the sensations
+are reproduced, the imagination, employing its accustomed instruments
+and resuming its former routes, gives birth to the same phenomena.
+These cases happen exactly to the patients of M. Deslon, who fall
+into a crisis without the bucket, and without being excited with the
+spectacle of the public process.
+
+Compression, imagination, imitation are therefore the true causes of
+the effects attributed to this new agent, known by the appellation
+of animal magnetism, this fluid, which is said to circulate through
+the human body, and to be communicated from individual to individual.
+Such is the result of the experiments of the commissioners, and
+the observations they made upon the means employed and the effects
+produced. This agent, this fluid has no existence. Chimerical however
+as it is, the idea is by no means novel. Some authors, particularly
+physicians of the last age, have expressly treated of it in various
+performances. The curious and interesting enquiries of M. Thouret have
+convinced the public, that the theory, the operations and the effects
+of the animal magnetism, proposed in the last age, were nearly the same
+with those revived in the present. The magnetism then is no more than
+an old falshood. The theory indeed is now presented, as was necessary
+in a more enlightened age, with a greater degree of pomp; but it is
+not less erroneous. Human nature is formed to seize, to quit and to
+resume the mistake which is flattering to its wishes. There are errors
+which will be eternally dear to the sublunary state. How often has the
+pretended science of astrology vanished and reappeared! The magnetism
+is calculated to lead us back to it. Its professors have been desirous
+of connecting it with the celestial influences, that it might have
+the stronger seduction, and attract mankind by the two hopes that
+are nearest their heart, that of looking into futurity, and that of
+prolonging their existence.
+
+There is room to believe that the imagination is the principal of the
+three causes which we have assigned to the magnetism. It appears by
+the experiments we have related that it suffices alone to produce the
+crises. The pressure and the touch seem to serve it as preparatives;
+it is by the touch that the nerves begin to be excited, imitation
+communicates and extends the impressions. But the imagination is that
+active and terrible power, by which are operated the astonishing
+effects, that have excited so much attention to the public process. The
+effects strike all the world, the cause is enveloped in the shades
+of obscurity. When we consider that these effects seduced in former
+ages men, venerable for their merit, their illumination and even their
+genius, Paracelsus, Van Helmont and Kircher, we cease to be astonished,
+that persons of the present day, learned and well informed, that even
+a great number of physicians have been the dupes of this system. Had
+the commissioners been admitted only to the public process, where there
+is neither time nor opportunity of making decisive experiments, they
+might themselves have been led into error. It was necessary to have
+liberty to insulate the effects, in order to distinguish the causes; it
+was necessary to see as they have done the imagination act, if we may
+be allowed the expression, partially, and produce its effects one by
+one and in detail, to have an idea to what the accumulation of those
+effects might amount; to conceive the extent of its power, and to
+account for all its prodigies. Such an examination demanded a sacrifice
+of time, and a number of systematical researches, which we have not
+always the leisure to undertake for our private instruction or private
+curiosity, nor even the power properly to pursue without being like the
+commissioners charged with the mandates of the sovereign, and honoured
+with the confidence of the public.
+
+M. Deslon is not much averse to the admission of these principles.
+He declared in our session held at the house of Dr. Franklin the
+19th of June, that he thought he might lay it down as a fact, that
+the imagination had the greatest share in the effects of the animal
+magnetism; he said that this new agent might be no other than the
+imagination itself, whose power is as extensive as it is little known:
+he affirmed that he always acknowledged the concern of this faculty in
+the treatment of his patients, and he affirmed with equal confidence
+that many persons have been either entirely cured or infinitely
+amended in the state of their health under his direction. He remarked
+to the commissioners that the imagination thus directed to the relief
+of suffering humanity, would be a most valuable means in the hands
+of the medical profession[14]; and persuaded of the reality of the
+power of the imagination, he invited the commissioners to embrace the
+opportunity which his practice afforded to study its procedure and
+its effects. If therefore M. Deslon be still attached to his first
+idea, that these effects are to be ascribed to the agency of a fluid,
+which is communicated from individual to individual by the touch or
+under the guidance of a conductor, he cannot however avoid conceding
+to the commissioners that only one cause is requisite to one effect,
+and that since the imagination is a sufficient cause, the supposition
+of the magnetic fluid is useless. It cannot be denied that we are
+surrounded with a fluid which peculiarly belongs to us; the insensible
+perspiration forms around us an atmosphere of insensible vapours: but
+this fluid has no agency but such as is common to other atmospheres;
+cannot be communicated by the touch but in infinitely small quantities;
+is not capable of being directed either by conductors, or by the eyes,
+or by the will; is neither propagated by sound, nor reflected by
+mirrors; and is in no case susceptible of the effects ascribed to it.
+
+It remains for us to enquire, whether the crises or convulsions,
+excited by the methods of the pretended magnetism in the assemblies
+round the bucket, be capable of any utility, or be calculated to
+cure or relieve the patients. The imagination of sick persons has
+unquestionably a very frequent and considerable share in the cure of
+their diseases. With the effect of it we are unacquainted otherwise
+than by general experience; but, though it has not been traced in
+positive experiments, it should seem not to admit of a reasonable
+doubt. It is a known adage, that in physic as well as religion, men
+are saved by faith; this faith is the produce of the imagination: in
+these cases the imagination acts by gentle means; it is by diffusing
+tranquility over the senses, by restoring the harmony of the functions,
+by recalling into play every principle of the frame under the genial
+influence of hope. Hope is an essential constituent of human life; the
+man that yields us one contributes to restore to us the other. But when
+the imagination produces convulsions, the means it employs are violent;
+and such means are almost always destructive. There are indeed a few
+rare cases in which they may be useful; there are desperate diseases,
+in which it is necessary to overturn every thing for the introduction
+of an order totally new. These critical shocks are to be employed in
+the medical art in the same manner as poisons. It is requisite that
+necessity should demand, and œconomy employ them. The need of them
+is momentary; the shock ought to be single. Very far from repeating
+it, the intelligent physician exerts himself to invent the means of
+repairing the indispensible evil which has thus been produced; but
+in the public process of the magnetism the crises are repeated every
+day, they are long and violent. Now since the state introduced by
+these crises is pernicious, the habit cannot be other than fatal. How
+indeed can it be conceived, that a woman, attacked for instance with
+a pulmonary distemper, can undergo with impunity a crisis, some of
+whose symptoms are a convulsive cough and compulsory expectorations; or
+can safely fatigue, perhaps shatter the lungs by violent and repeated
+efforts, when so great pains are necessary to convey to the wounded
+frame the sanative and the balsamic? How can we imagine that a man,
+be his disorder what it will, can need in order to his recovery the
+intervention of crises, in which the sight appears to be lost, the
+members stiffen, he strikes his breast with precipitate and involuntary
+motions; crises in a word, that are terminated by an abundant spitting
+of viscous humours and even blood? The blood thus discharged is neither
+vitiated nor corrupted, it flows from vessels from which it is torn by
+the violence of effort and contrary to the intention of nature; these
+effects are therefore to be regarded as a real not a salutary evil, an
+evil additional to the distemper be it what it will.
+
+Nor is this the only danger with which they are attended. Man is
+incessantly enslaved by custom; nature is modified by habit only in
+a progressive manner, yet she is often so completely modified, as to
+suffer an entire metamorphosis, and to be scarcely capable of being
+known for the same. Who will assure us that this state of crises, at
+first voluntarily induced, shall not become habitual? And should the
+habit thus contracted frequently reproduce the same symptoms, in spite
+of the will, and almost without the assistance of the imagination, how
+dreadful the fate of an individual, subjected to so violent effects,
+tormented, as well morally as physically, with their unfortunate
+impression, whose days should be divided between apprehension and
+agony, and whose life should be an uninterrupted state of suffering!
+Nervous distempers of this description, even when natural, are the
+opprobrium of the medical science; how little ought it to be the
+object of art to produce them! The art, which thus interferes with all
+the functions of the animal œconomy, urges nature out of her proper
+course, and multiplies the victims of irregularity, is to be regarded
+as pernicious. Its effects are the more to be apprehended, since
+it not only aggravates the disorder of the nerves by renewing their
+symptoms, and causing them to degenerate into habit; but if a distemper
+of this kind be contagious, as it may be suspected to be, the method of
+provoking nervous convulsions and of exciting them in public assemblies
+is a means to diffuse them in great towns, and even to afflict with
+them generations to come, since the diseases and the habits of parents
+are transmitted to their posterity.
+
+The commissioners having convinced themselves, that the animal magnetic
+fluid is capable of being perceived by none of our senses, and had no
+action either upon themselves or upon the subjects of their several
+experiments; being assured, that the touches and compressions employed
+in its application rarely occasioned favourable changes in the animal
+œconomy, and that the impressions thus made are always hurtful to the
+imagination; in fine having demonstrated by decisive experiments,
+that the imagination without the magnetism produces convulsions, and
+that the magnetism without the imagination produces nothing; they
+have concluded with an unanimous voice respecting the existence and
+the utility of the magnetism, that the existence of the fluid is
+absolutely destitute of proof, that the fluid having no existence
+can consequently have no use, that the violent symptoms observed in
+the public process are to be ascribed to the compression, to the
+imagination called into action, and to that propensity to mechanical
+imitation, which leads us in spite of ourselves to the repetition of
+what strikes our senses. And at the same time they think themselves
+obliged to add as an important observation, that the compressions and
+the repeated action of the imagination employed in producing the crises
+may be hurtful, that the sight of these crises is not less dangerous on
+account of that imitation which nature seems to have imposed upon us as
+a law, and that of consequence every public process, in which the means
+of the animal magnetism shall be employed, cannot fail in the end of
+producing the most pernicious effects[15].
+
+    Paris, the 11th day of August, 1784.
+
+            (Signed)                                        B. FRANKLIN,
+                                                            MAJAULT,
+                                                            LE ROY,
+                                                            SALLIN,
+                                                            BAILLY,
+                                                            D’ARCET,
+                                                            DE BORY,
+                                                            GUILLOTIN,
+                                                            LAVOISIER.
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+[1] “It must be confessed however, that the manner of directing the
+pretended magnetism, is different in these systems. The ancients, as
+well as M. Mesmer, regarded this fluid as universally diffused, as
+pervading the bodies of animals, and as capable of being rendered the
+vehicle of the most salutary influences. But, in order to call it into
+action, they did not, like M. Mesmer, desire to touch, or so much as
+to approach the patient. Their method consisted in a different order
+of proceeding. To give a suitable direction to the universal spirit,
+they were obliged to employ real parts, either extracted or evacuated,
+of the individual upon whom they proposed to direct the magnetism. The
+different humours of the human body, whether natural, as the blood,
+the urine, the excrements, or contrary to nature, as the pus bred in
+wounds; in fine, the solid parts of the frame, as the flesh, the nails,
+the hair, in a state of separation from the body, afforded, according
+to the ancient doctrine, the suitable and necessary means of employing
+the magnetism. These different parts, so long as they remained in a
+state of integrity, were supposed to be united in the link of a common
+vital principle with the individual who had furnished them. The union
+was operated by the intervention of the universal spirit, and in
+acting upon them, the physician was said to act also upon the person
+to whom they had belonged; an action, which, as it was independent of
+contact, and was not superseded by distance, was regarded as magnetic.”
+_Thouret._
+
+[2] “Far be it from me,” says Maxwel, “to lead you to improper
+actions. If from the perusal of my works, you become acquainted
+with the means of such actions, you will do me the justice not to
+divulge them.--I have seen,” adds he, “the most incredible effects,
+and the greatest advantages from a right use of this method. I have
+also seen infinite evils occasioned by the abuse of it.--Indeed, it
+is scarcely prudent to treat of these subjects, on account of the
+dangers that may result from it. If we were to express ourselves in a
+manner universally intelligible, fathers could never be sure of their
+daughters, nor husbands of their wives; women would be deprived of
+their self-government in spite of the most judicious and obstinate
+resistance.” _Maxwel, de medicina magnetica, apud Thouret._
+
+[3] Paracelsus Arecolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombastus de Hohenheim
+is to be regarded as the inventor of the magnetical system. He was born
+at a village near Zurich in Switzerland in 1493, and died in 1541. His
+profession was that of a physician, and he obtained great reputation
+by the use of mercury and opium, medicines that were unknown, or not
+employed by the physicians of those times. But beside this, he was a
+proficient in alchymy, astrology, and magic. He was acquainted with the
+philosopher’s stone, and the universal medicine. And he invented an
+elixir, in the use of which a man could not fail to live to the age of
+a thousand years.
+
+Van Helmont was the immediate successor of Paracelsus in the pursuit
+of the magnetical science, and wrote an express treatise De Magnetica
+Vulnerum Curatione.
+
+All the other persons enumerated, lived in the seventeenth century.
+
+“To Maxwel, we are particularly indebted for the most complete and
+copious treatise upon the subject, in which he has endeavoured to
+support its declining credit by calling in the assistance of that
+theory of the universal spirit, which he derived from the earliest
+philosophers of antiquity, and in which we are presented with the exact
+counterpart of the system of M. Mesmer.
+
+“Another inhabitant of this island, the learned and illustrious sir
+Kenelm Digby, is well known for his invention of the sympathetic
+powder; which it was only necessary to apply to the linnen which had
+imbibed the blood or pus of a wound, or to the arm or sword of him who
+inflicted it, provided they were still stained with the blood of the
+wounded person. It was necessary however, that the wound should be kept
+perfectly clean, and protected from the air.
+
+“There was a sympathetic sweating powder, invented so lately as the
+year 1745. The means of applying it was, by mixing it with the urine of
+the person diseased, and keeping it boiling over a fire, as long as you
+wished the perspiration to continue. During the operation, the patient
+was to keep his bed, to be covered up warm, and to drink several large
+basons of tea. This medicine was never known to fail of its effect.”
+_Thouret._
+
+[4] The experiments of the ring and sword, are to be found in Kircher’s
+Magnes, sive de arte magnetica. They are both well known. “That of
+the sword consists in the balancing it upon the point of one of the
+fingers, the consequence of which will be a very rapid rotatory motion,
+_provided the person be properly magnetised_. That of the ring is
+performed by a person initiated in the animal magnetism, holding it
+suspended by a thread in the inside of a wine glass, when it will
+invariably strike the hour of the day.” _Thouret._
+
+[5] “Valentine Greatrakes, esq; was a native of Afane, in the kingdom
+of Ireland. We are told, that one day he was conscious to a wonderful
+internal revolution, and at the same time heard a voice like that
+of a genius, which cried incessantly for a long time: “I endow you
+with the faculty of curing diseases.” Importuned by this salutation,
+from which he could in no way distract his attention, he determined
+to make an experiment of the truth of the intelligence. The voice
+had first announced to him the gift of curing the king’s evil. He
+made an experiment upon this distemper, and succeeded. He afterwards
+touched persons attacked with an epidemical fever, that raged in his
+neighbourhood; the voice had announced to him the gift of curing this
+disease. In fine, he was enabled to cure every species of disease; and
+he succeeded in all cases, except where, as he observed, the malady
+was too deeply rooted, or the patient laboured under a particular
+indisposition to this method of cure. The exterior of this man was
+extremely simple. His cures were accompanied with no degree of pomp and
+ceremony, unless we should call such, his ascribing his success to God,
+publicly expressing his gratitude, and inviting the patient to join
+with him in the act of thanksgiving. But he made a very extensive use
+of the operation of touch. The distemper fled before him, and he was
+able, we are told, to dislodge it from its seat, and remove it to parts
+the least useful. If its progress appeared to be suspended in any part,
+he redoubled his frictions upon that part, to remove the obstacle. In
+this operation nature, excited by the stroking, seemed frequently to
+operate crises, and it produced stools, vomitings and perspirations.”
+_Thouret._
+
+“Greatrakes cured not only internal diseases, but also external ones,
+such as wounds and ulcers. The second Villiers, duke of Buckingham, was
+one of his patients. His attestations were signed by Boyle, Wilkins,
+Whichcot, Cudworth and Patrick. He was born in 1628, received the gift
+of healing 1662, and removed to London 1666.” _Des Maizeaux, Vie de St.
+Evremond_.
+
+“The cures of Gassner are of a much later date, and are not above ten
+or twelve years old. This German, having in his youth been afflicted
+with an ill state of health, which resisted the efforts of all the
+physicians, suspected that his distemper might have a supernatural
+cause, and derive from the influence of the devil. His conjecture was
+verified by his success in expelling the devil, having adjured him
+in the name of Jesus Christ. From that moment he enjoyed the most
+perfect health for sixteen years. Encouraged by this event, he laid
+aside the study of medicine, to which his distemper had prompted him,
+and procured all the authors who had treated of exorcism. He began
+with healing his parishioners in an obscure town upon the borders
+of Switzerland and the Tirol, and his reputation increased so much,
+that, in the two last years of his residence there, he had between
+four and five hundred patients who applied to him. He then made a
+progress through several of the Swiss cantons, and settled at Ratisbon
+in 1774. He distinguished diseases into two classes, the natural and
+the demoniac, the last of which were much the most numerous. Over the
+former he pretended to no power. His cures were performed with much
+pomp and solemnity; and it was observed, that he constantly rubbed his
+hands upon his girdle and handkerchief previously to his touching the
+patient. He performed his cures in the name of Christ, and by the faith
+of the diseased in his holy name; if their faith failed, the cure did
+not take place. He gave the sick, when he dismissed them, balm and oil,
+which he considered as spiritual medicaments, together with certain
+waters and powders, and a little ring, inscribed with the name of
+Jesus, to prevent a relapse.” _Thouret._
+
+Thouret considers the system of Gassner as having had an influence on
+that of M. Mesmer. Astrology and possessions were extremely current
+in Germany; and as Gassner had taken possession of, and ruined the
+latter pretension, Mesmer had recourse to the former. It should however
+be remembered, that Mesmer had written and published his thesis upon
+astrology before the pretensions of Gassner were heard of.
+
+These instances are produced by Thouret, as distinguished proofs of
+the efficacy both of the touch and the imagination. In proof of the
+contagion of convulsive affections, he cites the convulsions of Saint
+Medard, and the possessions of Loudun. “The former of these took place
+in 1732, and made their appearance as soon as any of the religious
+were approached to the tomb of their patron saint. They were exposed
+in the most triumphant manner, and covered with ridicule by Hecquet,
+in his Natural History of Convulsions. The pretended possessions of
+Loudun (1740) originated in an infamous scheme of avarice and revenge
+against the unfortunate Urbain Grandier, rector of Loudun, who became
+the victim of the machinations of his enemies. The physicians of
+Montpelier, charged with the examination of the affair, discovered the
+whole secret of the possessions to consist in factitious and pretended
+convulsions.” _Thouret._
+
+[6] Memoir by M. Mesmer, upon the Discovery of the Animal Magnetism,
+1779, pages 74 and following.
+
+[7] Ibid. Advertisement, page vi.
+
+[8] _Baquet._ The diameter of this box is usually large enough to admit
+of fifty persons standing round its circumference. _Translator._
+
+[9] The observation of this fact was laid in detail before the faculty
+of medicine at Paris, in an assembly de prima mensis, by M. Bourdois de
+la Mothe, physician of the charity of Saint-Sulpice, who visited the
+sick person regularly every day.
+
+[10] M. Mesmer, Historical Abridgement, pages 35, 37.
+
+[11] M. Sigault, doctor of the faculty of Paris, well known for his
+invention of the operation of the symphysis of the ossa pubis, made a
+number of experiments, tending to prove that the magnetism is merely an
+imaginary power. The following is the detail which he made in a letter,
+dated July the 30th, 1784, and addressed to one of the commissioners.
+
+“Having given the persons who inhabited a large house in the Marais, to
+understand that I was a pupil of M. Mesmer, I produced various effects
+upon the woman of the house. The magisterial tone and the serious
+air I affected, together with certain gestures, made a very great
+impression upon her, which she at first was desirous to conceal from
+me; but having guided my hand upon the region of the heart, I felt that
+it palpitated. The state of oppression in which she appeared likewise
+indicated a contraction of the chest. Other symptoms were connected
+with these; her face became convulsed, her eyes wandered, she at length
+fell into a swoon, then threw up her dinner, had several stools, and
+was reduced to a state of weakness and sinking, perfectly incredible.
+I repeated the same trick upon several persons, and succeeded more or
+less, according to their different degrees of sensibility and credulity.
+
+“A celebrated artist, master of design to the children of one of
+our princes, complained for several days of an extreme head-ach; he
+acquainted me with it upon the Pont-royal; having persuaded him that I
+was initiated in the mysteries of M. Mesmer, I expelled his head-ach
+almost instantaneously by the means of a few gestures, to his great
+astonishment.
+
+“I produced the same effects upon the apprentice of a hatter in the
+same distemper. The lad felt nothing in consequence of my first
+gestures; I then laid my hand upon his false ribs, bidding him at the
+same time look in my face. He immediately felt a contraction of the
+chest, palpitations of the heart, yawnings, and an extreme dejection.
+He doubted no longer of the power I possessed over him. I then guided
+my finger over the part affected, and asked him what he felt. He
+replied that his pain dislodged itself and descended. I assured him
+that I would guide it towards his arm, and make it come out at his
+thumb, at the same time squeezing it with considerable force. He took
+me at my word, and was perfectly well for two hours. At that period he
+stopped me in the street to tell me that his pain was returned. This
+effect seems to be the same with that produced by certain dentists upon
+the mental faculties of those, who go to them to have a tooth drawn.
+
+“Further lastly, being in the parlour of a convent, rue du Colombier,
+fauxbourg Saint Germains, a young lady said to me: I understand,
+sir, that you are a pupil of M. Mesmer. I am so, replied I; and I
+can perform the magnetical operation upon you, notwithstanding the
+intervention of the grate. At the same time I presented my finger; she
+was terrified, trembled extremely, and besought me for God’s sake to
+proceed no farther. Her emotion was such, that, if I had persevered in
+my experiment, she would infallibly have fallen into convulsions.”
+
+M. Sigault relates that he had himself felt the power of imagination.
+One day, the operator having undertaken to perform upon him the
+magnetical operation to convince him of its reality, at the moment he
+had determined to touch him, he felt a contraction of the chest, and a
+palpitation of the heart. But having immediately composed himself, the
+gestures and the process of the magnetism were employed in vain, and
+made no impression upon him.
+
+[12] Marshal Villars, who was employed in appeasing the troubles of the
+Cevennes, says: “I saw things in this kind, which I should not have
+believed, if they had not passed before my eyes; I saw a considerable
+town, of which the whole female part without exception appeared to
+be possessed by the devil. They trembled and prophesied publicly in
+the streets. One had the rashness to tremble and prophesy for an
+hour together in my presence. But of all these absurdities the most
+surprising was that, which was related to me by the bishop of Alais,
+and which I wrote to M. de Chamillard in the following terms.
+
+“‘A M. de Mandagors, lord of the manor of that name, mayor of Alais,
+possessing the first appointments in the town and county, and having
+even been for some time subdelegate to M. de Bàville, was the subject
+of this relation. He was sixty years of age, temperate in his manners,
+possessed of a fine understanding, and had written and published many
+performances. Some of them I have read, and, before I knew what I have
+just learned respecting him, I considered them as distinguished by a
+very vigorous imagination.
+
+“‘A prophetess, aged twenty seven or twenty eight years, was taken up
+about eighteen months ago and carried before the bishop of Alais. He
+interrogated her before several ecclesiastics. The creature, after
+having heard what he said, replied with a modest air, exhorted him no
+longer to torment the true children of God, and then addressed him for
+an entire hour in an uncouth language of which he could not understand
+a word: just as we have formerly seen the duke de la Ferté, when he
+had drank a few glasses, talk English before the inhabitants of that
+country. I have heard them say, I understand very well that he speaks
+English, but I cannot comprehend a word that he says. It would have
+been somewhat difficult that they should have done so, for he never
+knew a word of English in his life. This girl talked Greek and Hebrew
+in the style of the duke de la Ferté.
+
+“‘You will take it for granted that M. d’Alais sent the girl to prison.
+After several months, the girl appearing to be entirely ridded of her
+absurdities by the attention and advice of the sieur de Mandagors, who
+frequently visited her in her confinement, she was set at liberty, and
+the consequence of that liberty, and of the liberties that the sieur
+Mandagors had taken with her, was an immediate pregnancy.
+
+“‘But the fact which I was about to relate is the resignation made by
+the sieur Mandagors of all his employments in favour of his son, at
+the same time saying to several individuals, and among others to the
+bishop, that it was by express commission from God that he had had
+carnal knowledge of the prophetess, and that the child which should
+be born would be the true saviour of the world. The consequence of
+all this in any other country than France, would have been merely the
+sending M. the mayor and his fair patroness to bedlam. The bishop
+suggested to me to have him arrested. I proposed previously to confer
+with M. de Bàville, intendant of the province, ordering in the mean
+time that he and the prophetess should be closely watched, so that
+they might not be able to escape. My opinion was, that, in the midst
+of a country of madmen, what relates to a madman of such importance
+ought to make as little noise as possible; and that it was therefore
+necessary to endeavour to get him out of the country by gentle means,
+and then to take him into custody. Your lordship will easily conceive
+that to declare publicly for a prophet a mayor of Alais, the lord
+of an extensive manor, an ancient subdelegate of the intendant, an
+author, and a man hitherto esteemed for his penetration and sagacity,
+in the midst of a country accustomed to venerate and respect him, was a
+measure better calculated to revolt the minds of the inhabitants than
+to correct them. It would the rather have had this tendency, that,
+except the folly of believing that God had commanded him to have carnal
+knowledge of this young woman, his conversation is as full of reason
+and good sense, as was that of Don Quixote upon all other subjects but
+that of knight-errantry. M. de Bàville was of my opinion. The children
+of M. Mandagors conducted him without noise to one of his châteaux,
+where he was confined, and the prophetess taken from him and sent
+to prison.’” Vie du Maréchal Duc de Villars, tome I., pages 325 and
+following.
+
+[13] On the day of the ceremony of the first communion, celebrated
+in the parish church of Saint Roch a few years ago (1780), after the
+evening service they made according to custom the procession through
+the streets. Scarcely were the children returned to the church,
+and had resumed their seats, before a young girl fell ill and had
+convulsions. This affection propagated itself with so much rapidity,
+that in the space of half an hour fifty or sixty girls from twelve
+to nineteen years of age were seized with the same convulsions; that
+is, with a contraction of the throat, an inflation of the stomach,
+suffocation, hiccups and spasms more or less considerable. These
+accidents reappeared in some instances in the course of the week; but
+the following Sunday, being assembled with the dames of Sainte Anne,
+whose business it is to teach the young ladies, twelve of them were
+seized with the same convulsions, and more would have followed, if
+they had not had the precaution to send away each child upon the spot
+to her relations. The whole were obliged to be divided into several
+schools. By thus separating the children, and not keeping them together
+but in small numbers, three weeks sufficed to dissipate entirely this
+epidemical convulsive affection. See for other instances of the same
+kind the Natural History of Convulsions by M. Hecquet.
+
+[14] M. Deslon had already said in 1780. “Granting for a moment that M.
+Mesmer possesses no other secret than that of employing the imagination
+in the extensive production of the most salutary effects, will it not
+still be true, that his invention is an extremely valuable one? For in
+reality, if the physic of the imagination be more salutary than the
+other kinds of medicine, what good reason can be alledged, why the
+physic of the imagination should not be brought into general use?”
+Observations on the Animal Magnetism, pages 46 and 47.
+
+[15] If it be objected to the commissioners that this decision
+concludes respecting the magnetism in general, instead of relating
+singly to the magnetism practised by M. Deslon, the commissioners
+reply that the intention of the king was to have their opinion upon
+the animal magnetism, and that in consequence they have not exceeded
+the bounds of their commission. Again they reply that M. Deslon has
+appeared to them acquainted with what are called the principles of the
+magnetism, and that he certainly possesses the means of producing the
+effects and exciting the crises which are ascribed to it.
+
+The principles of M. Deslon are the very same with those included
+in the twenty seven propositions disseminated from the press by M.
+Mesmer in 1779. If M. Mesmer now announces a more extensive theory,
+it was not necessary for the commissioners to be acquainted with the
+theory to decide upon the existence and utility of the magnetism, it
+was sufficient to estimate the effects. It is by the effects that
+the existence of a cause is established, it is by the effects also
+that its utility must be demonstrated. The phenomena are learned from
+observation long before we can arrive at the theory which connects and
+explains them. The theory of the loadstone does not yet exist, and its
+phenomena are ascertained by the experience of successive ages. The
+theory of M. Mesmer is in this case indifferent and superfluous; the
+methods employed, the effects produced, this is what it was necessary
+to examine. Now it is easy to prove that the essential practice of the
+magnetism is known to M. Deslon.
+
+M. Deslon was for many years the pupil of M. Mesmer. Constantly during
+that time he saw the process of the animal magnetism, and the means
+employed in exciting and directing it. M. Deslon himself administered
+the magnetism in the presence of M. Mesmer; separated from him he
+operated the same effects. Being afterwards reconciled they united
+their patients; the one and the other without distinction undertook the
+management of them, and of consequence the methods were the same. The
+method which is followed at this day by M. Deslon can be no other than
+the method of M. Mesmer.
+
+The effects are not less correspondent. There are crises equally
+frequent, and accompanied by similar symptoms, at the house of M.
+Deslon and at the house of M. Mesmer; the effects do not therefore
+belong to the method of an individual, but to the practice of the
+magnetism in general. The experiments of the commissioners demonstrate
+that the effects obtained by M. Deslon are due to compression, to
+imagination and to imitation. These are therefore the causes of the
+magnetism in general. The observations of the commissioners have
+convinced them that these convulsive crises and these violent means
+cannot be useful in medicine any otherwise than as poisons, and they
+have judged independent of all theory that wherever it shall be the
+object to excite convulsions they may become habitual and pernicious,
+they may be epidemically diffused, and even extend to future
+generations.
+
+The commissioners were of consequence obliged to conclude that not only
+the measures in a particular mode of proceeding, but the measures of
+the magnetism in general, might in the end produce the most pernicious
+effects.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note
+
+
+Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+Small caps have been converted to ALL CAPS.
+
+Erroneously placed or missing punctuation has been silently corrected.
+
+Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the book.
+
+The following typographical errors have been changed:
+
+  p. 16: “administred” changed to “administered” (have been and are
+  administered to the diseased)
+
+  p. 30: “seness” changed to “senses” (capable of being perceived by
+  the senses)
+
+  p. 33: “difrent” changed to “different” (may be observed in two
+  different ways)
+
+  p. 39: “account account” changed to “account” (giving an exact and
+  faithful account of their sensations)
+
+  p. 84: “hiccuphings” changed to “hiccuppings” (hiccuppings, qualms of
+  the stomach and purgings)
+
+  Footnote 12: “chàteaux” changed to “châteaux” (conducted him without
+  noise to one of his châteaux)
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78413 ***
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+      Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, With the Examination of Animal Magnetism | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78413 ***</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</span></p>
+
+
+<h1><span class="xx-large wide9">REPORT</span><br>
+<span class="small">OF</span><br>
+<span class="x-large"><span class="smcap">Dr.</span> BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,</span><br>
+<span class="small">AND OTHER</span><br>
+<span class="x-large">COMMISSIONERS,</span><br>
+<span class="small">CHARGED BY THE</span><br>
+<span class="xx-large"><span class="wide2">KING </span><span class="allsmcap">OF</span><span class="wide2"> FRANCE</span></span>,<br>
+<span class="small">WITH THE EXAMINATION OF THE</span><br>
+<span class="x-large wide2">ANIMAL MAGNETISM,</span><br>
+<span class="large">AS NOW PRACTISED AT PARIS.</span><br>
+<span class="medium">TRANSLATED <span class="allsmcap">FROM THE</span> FRENCH.</span><br>
+<span class="small">WITH AN</span><br>
+<span class="large">HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.</span></h1>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="center p4"><span class="wide9">LONDON</span>:</p>
+
+<p class="center wwide">PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, (NO. 72) ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD. 1785.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a><a id="Page_iii"></a>[Pg iii]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">
+    <span class="x-large wide2">INTRODUCTION</span>.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="cap">THE subject of the following
+pamphlet has excited the extremest
+attention in France, has for
+years filled their Journals and Mercures,
+and has employed some of their
+best pens and their brightest wits.
+By some it has been applauded
+as the greatest of philosophical
+discoveries, and by others decried
+as the juggle of an unprincipled
+impostor. The English nation
+has too much curiosity for every
+thing that occupies the neighbour
+kingdom, from whom we have long
+since been used to receive the laws of
+politeness and etiquette, and who have
+lately seemed to take the lead of us in
+philosophical discovery, for the present
+translation not to prove an acceptable
+present to a large and respectable
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</span>class of our countrymen. It has
+been thought proper, in order that the
+most uninformed reader may find in
+this little compilation, every species of
+information upon the subject, to prefix
+to it a brief account of the progress
+of this system.</p>
+
+<p>M. Mesmer, the inventor of the
+animal magnetism, is a German physician.
+The first thing by which
+he distinguished himself, appears to
+have been the publication of a Dissertation
+upon the Influence of the
+Stars on the Human Body, printed at
+Vienna 1766, and publicly defended
+by him as a thesis in that university.
+In 1774 father Hehl, a German philosopher,
+strongly recommended the
+use of the loadstone in the art of medicine.
+M. Mesmer became very
+early a convert to the principles of
+this writer, and actually carried them
+into practice with distinguished success.
+In the midst however of his
+attention to the utility of the loadstone,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span>he was led to the adoption of
+a new set of principles, which he conceived
+to be much more general in
+their application and importance. In
+conformity to these principles he laid
+aside the use of the loadstone, and
+proceeded with his cures in the method
+which he afterwards published to the
+world. This apostacy involved him
+in a quarrel with father Hehl and the
+celebrated Ingenhouz, by whom he
+had formerly been patronized; and
+as their credit in Vienna was extremely
+high, and their exertions against him
+indefatigable, his system almost immediately
+sunk into general disrepute.
+To parry their opposition he appealed
+in 1776 to the academy of sciences
+at Berlin. Here however his principles
+were rejected as “destitute of
+foundation and unworthy the smallest
+attention.” Undismayed by these
+important miscarriages, he made a
+progress through several towns of
+Germany, still practising the methods
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</span>of the animal magnetism, and from
+time to time publishing an account of
+the cures he effected, which did not
+fail to be followed by a detection from
+his enemies. In the mean time, resolved,
+as it should seem, if possible
+not to deprive his country of the benefits
+of so valuable a discovery, he
+returned a second time to Vienna, and
+made another essay with no greater
+success than the former.</p>
+
+<p>Decided in his conduit by these
+uninterrupted defeats, he left Germany
+and arrived at Paris in the beginning
+of the year 1778. Here one of the
+first connexions he formed was with
+M. A. J. S. D., <span lang="fr">author of the Dictionnaire
+des Merveilles de la Nature</span>,
+from which work many of the following
+particulars are extracted. It
+is observed by this Writer, that “in
+spite of the apparent cautiousness and
+reserve of M. Mesmer, and even in
+spite of the little success of his first
+experiments, he could not refuse him
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span>credit for sincerity in his conduct, and
+solidity in his reasonings; and he was
+convinced, that the failure did not
+originate in the fault of his agent,
+but the indisposition of the subjects
+upon which it was employed.” In
+April 1778, M. Mesmer retired to
+Creteil with the patients he had collected,
+and in a few months almost all
+of them returned to Paris perfectly
+restored. One of them in particular
+was a paralytic, deprived of the use
+of her limbs, and who now walked
+with all the ease and firmness in the
+world. In November M. A. J. S. D.
+introduced M. Mesmer to the house
+of a family of distinction, and who
+were actuated with the extremest
+curiosity respecting all discoveries
+which had the benefit of humanity
+for their object. Here he made an
+experiment so remarkable that it is
+necessary to extract it somewhat at
+length.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span></p>
+
+<p>“There being a pretty numerous
+company in the saloon, M. Mesmer
+touched successively several persons,
+some of whom had nerves extremely
+irritable, without producing any effect
+sufficiently considerable to deserve
+to be ascribed to the animal magnetism.
+The operation was repeated;
+the success was the same.</p>
+
+<p>“The governor of the children
+of the family, a man of a very robust
+and muscular constitution, little inclined
+to credulity, and fortified in
+his scepticism by what he had just
+seen, had complained for some time
+of a pain in his shoulders. As he
+was beyond dispute the least susceptible
+person in the company, he proposed
+himself by way of gasconade
+for the subject of a last experiment.</p>
+
+<p>“M. Mesmer refused to touch
+this gentleman, but consented to direct
+upon him the magnetism from
+a small distance. In compliance with
+the doctor’s inclinations, the governor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span>turned his back, and M. Mesmer,
+seven or eight feet from his subject,
+presented his finger. This continued
+for two minutes, the governor replying
+to the repeated questions of the
+doctor with much humour and irony,
+M. Mesmer then nodded his head significantly
+to the company, and in the
+mean time guided his finger upwards,
+downwards, and a little circularly.
+The patient said that he felt a kind
+of shuddering in the superior part of
+the back; he however ascribed it to
+the action of the fire near which he
+stood, and accordingly removed to
+another part of the room. The experiment
+was resumed, the sensation
+augmented, and the patient said he
+could compare it to nothing better,
+than a stream of boiling water, circulating
+in the veins of his back and
+shoulders. The impression became
+so strong that he refused to submit to
+the experiment any longer. He was
+persuaded however; the master of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span>house held one of his arms, and myself
+the other. In the process of the
+experiment the heat became so insupportable,
+that he violently broke
+away from our grasp. It was succeeded
+by a profuse perspiration in
+the part affected.</p>
+
+<p>“M. Mesmer then placed the forefinger
+of each hand upon the chest
+of the patient. The same sensation,
+but less violent, was produced in this
+part; it ascended gradually to the face,
+and was succeeded by a perspiration
+of the forehead. The patient then
+presented his forefingers and thumbs,
+the rest of his hand being clenched;
+M. Mesmer did the same very near to
+the patient, but without touching
+him. He complained successively of
+a shuddering, itching and stiffness in
+the palms of his hands; these were
+again succeeded by a local perspiration.”</p>
+
+<p>To this remarkable experiment we
+will beg leave to add the following
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span>from the Journal de Paris, No. 44,
+1784.</p>
+
+<p>“M. Mesmer being one day with
+messieurs Camp—— and d’E——
+near the great canal at Meudon, proposed
+to them to go alternately to the
+other side of the canal, while he remained
+where he was. He then directed
+them to thrust their cane into
+the water, in the mean time doing
+the same himself. At this distance
+M. Camp—— was seized with a fit
+of the asthma, and M. d’E—— with
+a pain in the liver to which he was
+subject. Many persons have been
+unable to submit to this experiment
+without fainting away.”</p>
+
+<p>“One evening M. Mesmer walked
+with six persons in the gardens of the
+prince de Soubise. He performed the
+magnetical operation upon a tree, and
+a little time after three ladies of the
+company fainted away. The duchess
+de C——, the only remaining lady,
+supported herself upon the tree, without
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span>being able to quit it. The count
+de Mons——, unable to stand, was
+obliged to throw himself upon a bench.
+The effects upon M. Ang——, a gentleman
+of a very muscular frame,
+were more terrible. M. Mesmer’s
+servant, who was summoned to remove
+the bodies, and who was inured
+to these scenes, found himself unable
+to move. The whole company
+were obliged to remain in this situation
+for a considerable time.” These
+instances are cited by M. Thouret,
+<span lang="fr">Recherches &amp; Doutes</span>, p. 65.</p>
+
+<p>M. Mesmer was from the first desirous
+of submitting his system to the
+examination of the faculty of medicine;
+but he would not submit to a
+regular and authentic committee appointed
+for that purpose, apprehensive
+as he said of the baleful effects
+of the spirit of society. This
+exception occasioned a misunderstanding
+between him and the faculty,
+and the examination was never made.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span></p>
+
+<p>In France the success of M. Mesmer
+was the reverse of what it had been
+in Germany. His patients increased
+rapidly. His cures were numerous
+and of the most astonishing nature.
+He was obliged to form a number of
+pupils under his inspection to administer
+his process. In 1779 he
+published a Memoir respecting the
+Discovery of the Animal Magnetism,
+and promised a complete system upon
+the subject, which should make as
+great a revolution in philosophy, as it
+had already done in medicine. Struck
+with the clearness and accuracy of his
+reasonings, the magnificence of his
+pretensions, and the extraordinary and
+unquestionable cures he performed,
+some of the greatest physicians and
+most enlightened philosophers of
+France became his converts. Among
+these M. Court de Gebelin particularly
+distinguished himself, a writer,
+who had attained the highest
+reputation by his researches into antiquity,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span>and who was, if possible,
+still more distinguished for the elegance
+of his taste, the beauty of his
+conceptions and the richness of his
+fancy. The house of M. Mesmer at
+Creteil was crowded with patients.
+A numerous company was daily assembled
+at his house at Paris, where
+the operation was publicly performed;
+and M. Deslon, one of his pupils, is
+said to have cleared £100,000. He
+was patronised by people of the first
+rank, and, as M. Thouret observes,
+the animal magnetism became a
+mode, an affair of bon ton, an
+interest, extremely precious and
+warmly espoused by the fashionable
+world.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the new system
+was by no means destitute of enemies.
+Some of the first pens in France were
+drawn to oppose it, and among others
+that of M. Thouret, regent-physician
+of the faculty. The faculty indeed
+had all along beheld its progress with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</span>the extremest jealousy. At length
+it was thought to deserve the attention
+of government, and a committee,
+partly physicians, and partly members
+of the royal academy of sciences, with
+doctor Benjamin Franklin at their
+head, were appointed to examine it.
+M. Mesmer refused to have any communication
+with these gentlemen;
+but M. Deslon, the most considerable
+of his pupils, consented to disclose to
+them his principles, and assist them
+in their enquiries. Their Report forms
+the principal piece in the ensuing
+pamphlet. M. Mesmer however has
+appealed from their decision to the
+parliament of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time it can no longer
+be concealed that the system of the
+animal magnetism is to be regarded
+as an imposture, and it may therefore
+be asked, why it should be thought
+necessary to give to the public a
+translation of papers, which may be
+thought interesting only to persons
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</span>who have been witnesses of the imposture.
+To this enquiry several
+good answers may be given.</p>
+
+<p>One at which we have already
+hinted is the universal attention it has
+excited at Paris, where it seems to
+have divided the public speculations
+with the celebrated and incomparable
+discovery of the aerostatic globe.
+There are surely few people of a
+literary turn among us, who will confess
+themselves void of curiosity respecting
+what engages all the faculties
+of our neighbours, or who will not
+confess that their literary pursuits
+are commonly at least as interesting
+and instructive a subject of enquiry,
+as their politics.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, the Report of the commissioners
+and the enquiries respecting
+the animal magnetism in general
+may be considered as relating not
+merely to a temporary and unfounded
+hypothesis, but to the general and
+most important question respecting
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</span>the influence of the imagination upon
+the animal frame, a question peculiarly
+interesting to the metaphysician,
+and of the last consequence in medicine.
+Upon this subject the Report
+seems to throw new light, and to
+have a tendency to add precision and
+accuracy to our notions in regard
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>But the argument upon which we
+would place the principal stress is the
+essential importance of this fact in the
+history of the human mind. Perhaps
+the history of the errors of
+mankind, all things considered, is
+more valuable and interesting than
+that of their discoveries. Truth is
+uniform and narrow; it constantly
+exists, and does not seem to require
+so much an active energy, as a passive
+aptitude of soul in order to encounter
+it. But error is endlessly diversified;
+it has no reality, but is the pure and
+simple creation of the mind that invents
+it. In this field the soul has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</span>room enough to expand herself, to
+display all her boundless faculties, and
+all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies
+and absurdities. It is
+observed of civil history, that it is
+properly the record of human calamities;
+the same thing may be observed
+of ecclesiastical history, it is the record
+of our errors. For this reason a
+well written ecclesiastical history, a
+species of composition that we suspect
+does not yet exist, would perhaps
+be the most instructive study in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>But there is an additional reason,
+which gives the error of the animal
+magnetism a particular claim to our
+attention. The same error was started,
+if M. Thouret be in the right, two
+centuries ago. It is therefore worth
+our curiosity to enquire, what different
+instruments were necessary to
+deceive mankind in an ignorant and
+an enlightened age, in the commencement
+of the seventeenth and the close
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</span>of the eighteenth century; in a word
+to run a parallel between the borrowed
+system of Mesmer, and the original
+one of Paracelsus, Maxwel and sir
+Kenelm Digby. And as every publication
+ought to be as complete as
+possible within itself, we have destined
+to assist the reader in this enquiry,
+the ensuing paper of the society of
+medicine respecting M. Thouret’s performance.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdl tdt nwrap">P. S.</td><td>The following extract of a letter
+from the best authority from
+Paris, has been received while
+these papers are in the press.
+It relates to the particulars of a
+fact alluded to at the bottom
+of page xiv.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>“Mesmer has complained to the
+parliament of the report of the royal
+commissioners, and requested that
+they would appoint a new commission,
+to examine—not his theory
+and practice, but—a <em>plan</em>, which shall
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</span>exhibit the only possible means of
+infallibly demonstrating the existence
+and utility of his discovery. The
+petition was printed: many thought
+the parliament would do nothing in
+it. But they have laid hold of it to
+clinch Mesmer, and oblige him to expose
+all directly; so that it must soon
+be seen whether there is any difference
+between his method and Deslon’s.—I
+give you their</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+  “Arret, of the 6 Sept. 1784.
+</p>
+
+<p>“The parliament ordains that
+Mesmer <em>shall be obliged</em> to expose, before
+four doctors of the faculty of
+medicine, two surgeons and two
+masters in pharmacy, the doctrine,
+which he professes to have discovered,
+and the methods which he pretends
+must be adopted for the application
+of his principles: they likewise ordain
+that a report of his communications
+shall then be delivered to the
+attorney general, to be laid before
+parliament for their sentence.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="REPORT">
+    <span class="x-large wide9">REPORT</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="hanging">Of a Committee of the Royal Society of
+Medicine, appointed to examine a Work,
+entitled, <span class="smcap">Enquiries and Doubts
+respecting the Animal Magnetism,
+by M. Thouret</span>, <i>Regent Physician
+of the Faculty of Paris, and Member
+of the Society</i>. To which are subjoined,
+by the Translator, Notes, chiefly
+extracted from M. Thouret’s Performance.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="cap">THE underwritten were charged by the
+royal society of medicine, with the
+examination of a work of M. Thouret,
+member of the society, entitled, Enquiries
+and Doubts respecting the Animal
+Magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>In the attentive perusal of this work, it
+is obvious to remark, that it has two very
+distinct objects; one of them, which is in
+a manner historical, is to explain the coincidences
+of the animal magnetism, as it was
+known to the ancients, with that which is
+admitted by the moderns: the other contains
+critical reflections and doubts in regard
+to the evidences upon which the
+doctrine is founded, the uncertainty of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>which M. Thouret undertakes to display.
+We will endeavour to lay before the society
+an idea of his performance.</p>
+
+<p>The animal magnetism held a principal
+rank among the systems, which were embraced
+in that period of literary history,
+when suppositions were admitted to hold
+the place of facts; and this hypothesis
+vanished, together with many others, when
+experimental philosophy began to dissipate
+the impostures of the imagination, and to
+afford an accurate measure of the value of
+arts and sciences.</p>
+
+<p>The object of this system was a fluid extremely
+subtle, upon which were bestowed
+the magnificent titles of soul of the world,
+spirit of the universe, and universal magnetic
+fluid; and which was pretended to be
+diffused through the whole space occupied
+by the material creation, to animate the
+system of nature, to penetrate all substances,
+and to be the vehicle to animated bodies in
+general, and their several regions in particular,
+of certain forces of attraction and
+repulsion, by means of which they explained
+the phenomena of nature.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were they contented to admit, or
+rather to imagine, the fluid we have described;
+they flattered themselves that
+they were able, in certain methods, to
+render themselves masters of this fluid, and
+to direct its operations. Even this did
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>not terminate their chimerical pretensions:
+they affirmed that this fluid, in which
+they admitted a species of flux and reflux,
+exerted an important degree of action upon
+the nerves, and had a grand analogy with
+the vital principle; that its effects, under
+the guidance of skill and illumination, extended
+to very great distances, without the
+intervention of any foreign substances;
+that it was possible to impregnate with it,
+either certain powders, in the manner of
+sir Kenelm Digby, who asserted that he
+had done this, or fluids, or different parts
+of the bodies of animals; that this agent
+was like light reflected by mirrors, and
+that sound and music augmented its intensity.</p>
+
+<p>The partisans of the animal magnetism,
+who wrote in the seventeenth century, did
+not yet confine their hopes within these
+limits: the art of directing the fluid, which
+they had brought down from heaven, and
+which, according to them, acted in so
+distinguished a manner upon the human
+body, might be expected to have a considerable
+share in the medical science, or
+rather to supersede that science, as it had
+hitherto existed; they did not fail to assert,
+that in causing it to circulate in a proper
+manner, the restoration of diseased organs
+was infallible, as well the preservation of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>the health of those who were yet unattacked
+with any disease&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the origin of an external and
+universal medicine, of a species entirely
+new, and which boasted of having the advantage
+of curing diseases, without obliging
+any drugs to be swallowed by the diseased.
+Soon after poles were discovered in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>human body, that is, points, towards which
+it appeared that the action of this imaginary
+fluid ought to be directed, cures and
+evacuations were operated without the assistance
+of pharmacy, sensations of various
+kinds were excited in the patients; and
+notwithstanding the distinguished effects
+ascribed to this agent, it was asserted, that
+persons the most feeble and delicate might
+submit to its process without danger. The
+process had yet another use, that of discovering
+the seat of the distemper; a thing
+frequently so difficult to be ascertained,
+but which was pointed out by the fluid by
+a sort of instinctive intelligence, and with
+absolute demonstration. It perfected the
+concoction of the humours; nervous distempers
+in particular, rarely resisted its influence;
+it was favourable to transpiration.
+In fine, and this last remark is of particular
+importance, it had a powerful action upon
+the moral principles of our frame. A
+propensity, that could scarcely be resisted,
+was the basis of the attachment and gratitude,
+which were vowed by the patients
+to those who had employed upon them
+this method of cure. Several, and in this
+number was Maxwel, even gave us to understand,
+that it was possible, in certain
+circumstances of human life, to make an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>improper use of this vehicle of influence&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>This picture of the animal magnetism,
+as it was invented and applauded by the
+ancients, is faithfully extracted from the
+performance of M. Thouret. The principal
+authors, to which he has recourse in
+the progress of his enquiry, are Paracelsus,
+Van Helmont, Goclenius, Burgravius,
+Libavius, Wirdig, Maxwel, Santanelli,
+Tentzel, Kircher and Borel&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>. The entire
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>passages are extracted, and M. Thouret has
+displayed in this performance, as he had
+already done in so many others, an erudition,
+the most various, the most precise,
+and the most extensive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see, how analogous is the system
+we have described to that of M.
+Mesmer. To demonstrate this analogy,
+M. Thouret has considered separately each
+of the propositions published and avowed
+by the latter. They amount to twenty-seven,
+and the result of this examination
+is, that they are all positively announced in
+some of the authors whose names have
+been recited.</p>
+
+<p>Every part of Mesmer’s system, even
+down to the experiments of the ring and
+the sword, have been found by M. Thouret
+in the works of these writers&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>. It is
+therefore certain, that the assertions of M.
+Mesmer, which are represented by him as
+principles of his own, do not belong to
+him; and that this theory, in the room of
+being an attractive novelty, is an ancient
+system, abandoned by the learned near a
+century ago.</p>
+
+<p>In ascending indeed to the original systems
+which were formed upon the subject,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>we are unable to discover any thing but
+suppositions destitute of proof, and for that
+reason devoted to oblivion. The parts of
+this hypothesis were not connected together
+by any other tie, than that of the imagination.
+The steps that were proposed in
+order to its establishment, were the very
+same that had been employed in favour of
+the art of cure, now by enchantments, and
+now by exorcisms. It has been always by
+sensations that they have pretended to prove
+the existence of these different agents; and
+if this kind of proof were sufficient, there
+is not one of them which would not have
+been demonstrated. Sound philosophy has
+therefore refused credit, as well to this
+species of proof, as to the magnetism, such
+as it was proposed by Maxwel, Goclenius
+and Santanelli, and such as we have described
+it in the opening of this report.</p>
+
+<p>Has the animal magnetism of M. Mesmer
+any better claim to our confidence?
+M. Thouret, without replying to this
+question in a positive manner, has permitted
+to himself, in the second part of his
+work, certain reflections respecting it,
+which he has proposed simply as doubts,
+and which relate entirely to what M. Mesmer
+has published, or authentically
+advanced. It may be objected to him, says
+M. Thouret,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p>
+
+<p>1. That the touch frequently employed
+in his method for a considerable time, and
+on regions extremely sensible, such as those
+of the stomach, is of itself capable of producing
+effects, by communicating a vivid
+impulse to the nerves of the plexuses which
+are there situated, and which have an intimate
+connection with the whole nervous
+system; that authentic records present us
+with a great number of facts of this kind,
+and that in consequence, the sensations,
+which originate in the application of the
+touch, do not prove the existence of a separate
+fluid or agent.</p>
+
+<p>2. That the heat produced by the hand,
+and the motion communicated to the air,
+may occasion very strong impressions upon
+a person extremely sensible, and whose
+fibres are in a state of convulsion, without
+these impressions being calculated to prove
+a new agent.</p>
+
+<p>3. That in subduing the imagination
+by solemn preparations, by extraordinary
+proceedings, by the confidence and enthusiasm
+inspired by magnificent promises, it
+is possible to exalt the tone of sensible and
+nervous fibres, and afterwards to direct, by
+the application of the hands, their impulse
+towards certain organs, and to excite in
+them evacuations or excretions, without
+there resulting any addition to the sciences,
+either of philosophy or medicine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
+
+<p>4. That the partisans of the animal
+magnetism do not produce what they call
+crises, that is, a state of convulsions, but
+in subjects extremely irritable, extremely
+nervous, and above all, in women, whose
+sensibility has been already excited by the
+means we have described.</p>
+
+<p>5. That among these disposing causes,
+particular stress is to be laid upon the presence
+of a person already in a state of convulsion,
+or ready to fall into that state;
+that just as an organ attacked with spasmodic
+affections, easily propagates these
+affections to the other organs, in like manner
+are they transmitted from one man to
+another; that we have therefore no reason
+to be surprised, if in the halls, where the
+pretended magnetical operations are performed,
+spasms, and even convulsions are
+diffused with extreme alacrity; and that
+history furnishes a great number of facts,
+of convulsions propagated through whole
+villages or towns, in a manner still more
+astonishing than that of which the animal
+magnetism presents us with an example.</p>
+
+<p>6. That history has also transmitted to
+us a great number of cures operated by
+fear, by joy, or the commotion of any violent
+passion; which proves beyond controversy,
+the power of nervous influences
+over diseases.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p>
+
+<p>7. That in different ages, two famous
+empirics, Valentine Greatrakes of the kingdom
+of Ireland, and Gassner of Ratisbon,
+produced upon different persons effects
+which appeared surprising, and have had
+their admirers; that they employed only
+the instrumentality of the touch, either
+upon the nape of the neck, or the limb
+affected; and that it has been universally
+acknowledged, that they acted only upon
+the imagination&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13-15]</span></p>
+
+<p>8. That in many instances, the partisans
+of the magnetism seem to bestow a greater
+attention to excite surprise in the spectators,
+than salutary effects in their patients;
+the spasms and convulsions which
+they produce being the source of undoubted
+evil, were it only by the habitude
+of that state which they are calculated to
+induce, while the advantages of this method
+are not equally demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>9. That certain local diseases not being
+of the number of those upon which the
+animal magnetism acts, and certain persons,
+by the confession of M. Mesmer, not
+being susceptible of its action, it may be
+suspected, that the partisans of this system
+have contrived for themselves this resource,
+in order to account for their failure of
+success in certain cases.</p>
+
+<p>10. That to pretend to the discovery of
+a means which shall extend to every kind
+of disease, that is, to an universal medicine,
+is an illusion which cannot be excused
+in an enlightened age.</p>
+
+<p>11. That the known effects of sensibility
+are sufficient to explain, without
+any new agent, the phenomena which
+M. Mesmer produces by a method which
+he has not yet imparted to the public.</p>
+
+<p>12. That M. Mesmer, in supposing a
+particular agent, has adopted a rout contrary
+to the interests of his discovery, in
+following the example of those who have
+exerted their efforts to give credit to a
+system, worthy upon every account of the
+oblivion into which it has fallen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p>
+
+<p>The society may judge of the performance
+from this extract: it is proper
+here to call to mind, that the royal society,
+acquainted with the zeal of M.
+Thouret, and his indefatigable enquiries
+into every thing that concerned the magnetism,
+charged him in their session of the
+twelfth of March 1784, with the collection
+from the authors, as well ancient
+as modern, of all that had been written respecting
+the animal magnetism. This
+collection, which is sufficiently complete
+to satisfy every reasonable desire, and of
+which M. Thouret communicated the plan
+to the society, composes the first part of
+his work, and is to be considered as his
+report to the society upon that subject.
+We are of opinion, that the society is extremely
+indebted to him in that respect.
+The second part contains judicious reflections
+and sagacious doubts. We think
+both of them worthy of being printed
+with the approbation and privilege of the
+society.</p>
+
+<p>The society, charged by the king with
+the examination of all new inventions and
+secret methods of healing diseases, has not
+beheld without inquietude, the species of
+vogue acquired by the animal magnetism;
+whose procedures, whatever be their
+merit, have been and are <span id="cor_016">administered</span> to
+the diseased, and paid for by the public,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>without having previously, in obedience
+to the express provisions of the laws of
+the kingdom, undergone the examination
+of the physical profession; an abuse, against
+which the society, as in duty bound, has
+exclaimed ever since its introduction. They
+have a right to take much pride to themselves,
+that one of their members is publishing
+so learned enquiries upon a subject,
+which has not been hitherto treated but
+in anonymous compositions, which are, for
+the greater part, destined more for the
+amusement than the instruction of their
+readers. The work of M. Thouret, full
+of depth and sagacity, will enlighten those
+who are impartial in their enquiries, and
+will greatly tend to the solution of a
+question, upon which the public interest
+requires that sentence should be pronounced
+as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p class="larger p2">Louvre, July the 9th, 1784.</p>
+<!--
+  (Signed) <span class="smcap">Geoffroy</span>,<br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.5em;"><span class="smcap">Desperrieres</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 5.0em;"><span class="smcap">Jeanroi</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 3.5em;"><span class="smcap">Defourcroy</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 5.0em;"><span class="smcap">Chambon</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 3.0em;"><span class="smcap">Vicq D’Azyr</span>.</span> todo delete-->
+
+<table class="signature larger">
+  <tr><td>(Signed)<span style="margin-right: 6em;"></span></td><td><span class="smcap">Geoffroy</span>,</td></tr>
+  <tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Desperrieres</span>,</td></tr>
+  <tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Jeanroi</span>,</td></tr>
+  <tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Defourcroy</span>,</td></tr>
+  <tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Chambon</span>,</td></tr>
+  <tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Vicq D’Azyr</span>.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a><a id="Page_19"></a>[Pg 19]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="REPORT_1">
+    <span class="x-large wide9">REPORT</span><br>
+    <span class="small">OF THE</span><br>
+    <span class="x-large"><span class="wide2">COMMISSIONERS</span>, &amp;c.</span>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="cap">THE king named, on the twelfth of
+March 1784, four physicians of the
+faculty of Paris, messieurs Borie, Sallin,
+d’Arcet, Guillotin, to enter into the examination,
+and to lay before him an account
+of the animal magnetism practised
+by M. Deslon: and upon the petition of
+these physicians, his majesty joined with
+them, for the purpose of this inquisition,
+five members of the royal academy of
+sciences, messieurs Franklin, le Roy, Bailly,
+de Borie, Lavoisier. M. Borie having died
+in the commencement of the business, his
+majesty appointed M. Majault, doctor of
+the faculty, to replace him.</p>
+
+<p>M. Mesmer has described the agent he
+professes to have discovered, and to which
+he has given the appellation of animal
+magnetism, in the following manner. “It
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>is a fluid universally diffused; the vehicle
+of a mutual influence between the
+celestial bodies, the earth and the
+bodies of animated beings; it is so
+continued as to admit of no vacuum;
+its subtlety does not admit of illustration;
+it is capable of receiving, propagating
+and communicating all the impressions
+that are incident to motion;
+it is susceptible of flux and reflux. The
+animal body is subject to the effects of
+this agent; and these effects are immediately
+produced by the agent insinuating
+itself into the substance of the
+nerves. We particularly discover in the
+human body qualities analogous to those
+of the loadstone; we distinguish in it
+poles different and opposite. The action
+and the virtue of the animal magnetism
+are capable of being communicated from
+one body to another, animated or inanimate;
+they exert themselves to considerable
+distances, and without the least
+assistance from any intermediate bodies:
+this action is increased and reflected by
+mirrors; it is communicated, propagated
+and augmented by sound; and the
+virtue itself is capable of being accumulated,
+concentrated and transferred.
+Though the fluid be universal all animal
+bodies are not equally susceptible
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>of it; there even are some, though very
+few, of so opposite a nature, as by their
+mere presence to supersede its effects
+upon any other contiguous bodies.</p>
+
+<p>“The animal magnetism is capable of
+curing immediately diseases of the nerves,
+and mediately other distempers; it improves
+the action of medicines; it
+forwards and directs the salutary crises
+so as to subject them totally to the
+government of the judgment; by means
+of it the physician becomes acquainted
+with the state of health of each individual,
+and decides with certainty upon
+the causes, the nature and the progress
+of the most complicated distempers;
+it prevents their increase, and effects
+their extirpation, without at any time
+exposing the patient, whatever be his
+age, sex or constitution, to alarming incidents,
+or unpleasing consequences&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>.”
+“In the influence of the magnetism, nature
+holds out to us a sovereign instrument
+for securing the health and lengthening
+the existence of mankind&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>.”</p>
+
+<p>Such is the agent, with the examination
+of which the commissioners have been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>charged, and whose properties are avowed
+by M. Deslon, who admits all the principles
+of M. Mesmer. This theory forms
+the basis of a memoir, which was read at
+the house of M. Deslon, on the ninth day
+of May, in the presence of M. the lieutenant
+general of the police, and the commissioners.
+It is asserted in this memoir,
+that there is but one nature, one distemper
+and one remedy; and this remedy is the
+animal magnetism. This physician, at the
+same time that he acquainted the commissioners
+with the doctrine and process
+of the magnetism, instructed them in its
+practice by discovering to them the poles,
+and shewing them the manner of touching
+the diseased, and directing in regard to them
+the magnetic fluid.</p>
+
+<p>M. Deslon undertook to the commissioners,
+in the first place, to evince the existence
+of the animal magnetism; secondly, to
+communicate to them his knowledge respecting
+this discovery; and thirdly, to
+prove the utility of this discovery and
+of the animal magnetism in the cure of
+diseases.</p>
+
+<p>After having thus made themselves acquainted
+with the theory and practice of
+the animal magnetism, it was necessary to
+observe its effects. For this purpose the
+commissioners adjourned themselves, and
+each of them repeatedly witnessed the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>public method of M. Deslon. They saw
+in the centre of a large apartment a circular
+box, made of oak, and about a foot
+or a foot and an half deep, which is called
+the bucket;&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> the lid of this box is pierced
+with a number of holes, in which are
+inserted branches of iron, elbowed and
+moveable. The patients are arranged in
+ranks about this bucket, and each has his
+branch of iron, which by means of the
+elbow may be applied immediately to the
+part affected; a cord passed round their
+bodies connects them one with the other:
+sometimes a second means of communication
+is introduced, by the insertion of the
+thumb of each patient between the forefinger
+and thumb of the patient next him;
+the thumb thus inserted is pressed by the
+person holding it; the impression received
+by the left hand of the patient, communicates
+through his right, and thus passes
+through the whole circle.</p>
+
+<p>A piano forté is placed in one corner of
+the apartment, and different airs are played
+with various degrees of rapidity; vocal
+music is sometimes added to the instrumental.</p>
+
+<p>The persons who superintend the process,
+have each of them an iron rod in his
+hand, from ten to twelve inches in length.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p>
+
+<p>M. Deslon made to the commissioners
+the following declarations. 1st. That this
+rod is a conductor of the magnetism, has
+the power of concentring it at its point,
+and of rendering its emanations more considerable.
+2dly. That sound, conformably
+to the theory of M. Mesmer, is also
+a conductor of the magnetism, and that
+to communicate the fluid to the piano
+forté, nothing more is necessary than to
+approach to it the iron rod; that the
+person who plays upon the instrument
+furnishes also a portion of the fluid, and
+that the magnetism is transmitted by the
+sounds to the surrounding patients. 3dly.
+That the cord which is passed round the
+bodies of the patients is destined, as well
+as the union of their fingers, to augment
+the effects by communication. 4thly. That
+the interior part of the bucket is so constructed
+as to concentre the magnetism,
+and is a grand reservoir, from which the
+fluid is diffused through the branches of
+iron that are inserted in its lid.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners in the progress of
+their examination discovered, by means
+of an electrometer and a needle of iron
+not touched with the loadstone, that
+the bucket contained no substance either
+electric or magnetical; and from the
+detail that M. Deslon has made to them
+respecting the interior construction of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>bucket, they cannot infer any physical
+agent, capable of contributing to the imputed
+effects of the magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>The patients then, arranged in considerable
+number and in successive ranks
+round the bucket, derive the magnetic
+virtue at once from all these conveyances:
+from the branches of iron, which transmit
+to them that of the bucket; from the cord
+which is passed round their bodies, and
+the union of their fingers, which communicate
+to them that of their neighbours;
+and from the sound of the piano forté, or
+of a musical voice, which diffuses it through
+the air. The patients are beside magnetised
+directly, by means of a finger or a bar
+of iron, guided before the face, above or
+behind the head, and over the surface of the
+parts affected, the distinction of the poles
+still observed; they are also acted upon by
+a look, and by having their attention excited.
+But especially they are magnetised
+by the application of the hands, and by
+the pressure of the fingers upon the hypochonders
+and the regions of the lower
+belly; an application frequently continued
+for a long time, sometimes for several
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>In this situation the patients offer a
+spectacle extremely varied in proportion
+to their different habits of body. Some
+of them are calm, tranquil and unconscious
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>to any sensation; others cough,
+spit, are affected with a slight degree of
+pain, a partial or an universal burning,
+and perspirations; a third class are agitated
+and tormented with convulsions.
+These convulsions are rendered extraordinary
+by their frequency, their violence
+and their duration. As soon as one person
+is convulsed, others presently are affected
+by that symptom. The commissioners
+saw accesses of this kind, which lasted
+upwards of three hours; they were accompanied
+with expectorations of a thick
+and viscous water, brought away by the
+violence of the efforts. Sometimes these
+expectorations were accompanied with small
+quantities of blood; and there is among
+others a lad, a patient, who has frequently
+brought up blood in considerable
+abundance. These convulsions are
+characterised by precipitate and involuntary
+motions of all the limbs or of the whole
+body, by a contraction of the throat, by
+sudden affections of the hypochonders and
+the epigastrium, by a distraction and wildness
+in the eyes, by shrieks, tears, hiccuppings,
+and immoderate laughter. They are
+either preceded or followed by a state of
+languor and reverie, by a species of dejection
+and even drowsiness. The least
+unforeseen noise occasions starting; and it
+has been observed, that the changing of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>the key and the time, in the airs played
+upon the piano forté, had an effect upon
+the patients; so that a quicker motion
+agitates them more, and renews the vivacity
+of their convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>There is an apartment lined with quilting,
+which was originally destined for the patients
+in whom the magnetism produced
+convulsions, and is denominated the apartment
+of crises; but M. Deslon has not
+judged proper to make any use of it; and
+all the patients, whatever be the accidents
+of their situation, are placed together in
+the apartment of public proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can be more astonishing than
+the sight of these convulsions; he that has
+not had it, can have no idea of it: and in
+beholding it, a man is not less struck with
+the profound repose of one class of patients,
+than with the violence which agitates
+another; he observes with admiration
+the various accidents that are repeated,
+and the sympathies that are developed. He
+sees some patients seek each other with
+eagerness; and in approaching smile,
+converse with all the demonstrations of attachment,
+and soothe their mutual crises.
+They are entirely under the government of
+the person who distributes the magnetic
+virtue: in vain they may appear to be in
+a state of the extremest drowsiness, his
+voice, a look, a sign from him rouses them.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>It is impossible not to recognise in these
+regular effects an extraordinary influence,
+acting upon the patients, making itself
+master of them, and of which he who superintends
+the process, appears to be the
+depository.</p>
+
+<p>These convulsive affections are improperly
+stiled crises in the theory of the animal
+magnetism: according to this doctrine
+indeed they are regarded as a salutary
+crisis, of the same kind as those which
+nature produces, or which a skilful physician
+has the art to excite to facilitate the
+cure of diseases. The commissioners will
+adopt this expression in the following report;
+and, wherever they employ the word
+crisis, they will always understand the
+convulsive, drowsy or lethargic affections,
+produced by the means of the animal
+magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners observed, that in
+the number of patients in the state of crisis,
+there were always many women and few
+men: that it was one or two hours before
+these crises took place; and that, when
+one had taken place, all the others commenced
+successively, and without any considerable
+interval. But after having made
+these general remarks, the commissioners
+were speedily of opinion, that the public
+process could not be made the scene of
+their experiments. The multiplicity of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>the effects is one obstacle; too many things
+are seen at once for any one of them to be
+seen well. Beside, the patients of rank,
+who repair hither upon account of their
+health, might be displeased with the enquiries
+of the commissioners; the very act
+of watching them might appear a nuisance;
+and the recollection of this might
+be burdensome, and impede the commissioners
+in their turn. They therefore
+resolved, that as their frequent attendance
+at the public process was unnecessary, it
+would be sufficient for a few of them to
+go from time to time, to confirm the former
+general observations, to make new ones
+in case an opportunity should occur for
+that purpose, and to report them to the
+commission assembled.</p>
+
+<p>After having observed these effects at
+the public process, it behoved them, in the
+next place, to endeavour to discover their
+causes, and enquire into the proofs of the
+existence and utility of the magnetism.
+The question of its existence is first in
+order; that of its utility it were idle to
+examine, till the other shall have been fully
+resolved. The animal magnetism may
+indeed exist without being useful, but it
+cannot be useful if it do not exist.</p>
+
+<p>Of consequence the first object of attention
+with the commissioners, and the
+direct tendency of their first experiments,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>ought to be the ascertaining this existence.
+Again, this was itself an object of considerable
+comprehension, and had need of
+being simplified. The animal magnetism
+embraces the whole compass of nature;
+it is the vehicle, we are told, of the influence
+exerted upon us by the celestial bodies;
+the commissioners were of opinion, that
+they ought, in the first place, to leave this
+more extensive influence out of the question,
+and to consider only that part of the fluid
+which is diffused over the earth, without
+troubling themselves with whence it comes;
+in a word, to evince the action it exercises
+upon us, around us, and within the sphere
+of our inspection, before they undertook
+to examine its relation to the universe.</p>
+
+<p>The most certain method of determining
+the existence of the animal magnetic fluid,
+would have been, to have rendered its presence
+capable of being perceived by the
+<span id="cor_030">senses</span>; but much time was not necessary to
+convince the commissioners that this fluid is
+too subtle to be subjected to their observation.
+It is not, like the electrical fluid,
+luminous and visible; its action is not, like
+the attraction of the loadstone, the object
+of our sight; it has neither taste nor smell;
+its process is silent, and it surrounds you
+or penetrates your frame, without your
+being informed of its presence by the sense
+of touch. If therefore it exist in us
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>and around us, it is after a manner perfectly
+insensible. There are persons among
+those who profess the magnetism, who pretend
+that it may sometimes be seen passing
+from the extremity of the fingers, which
+serve it for conductors, or who believe that
+they feel its passage when you guide your
+finger before their face, or along their
+hand. In the first of these cases, the emanation
+perceived is merely that of transpiration,
+which becomes completely visible
+when viewed through a solar microscope;
+in the second, the impression of cold or
+freshness which is felt, an impression by
+so much the more perceptible the warmer
+one is, results from the motion of the air
+which follows the finger, and the degree
+of whose temperature is always below that
+of animal heat. When, on the other hand,
+the finger is approached to the surface of
+the face, which is colder than the finger,
+and it is held at rest, the consequence is a
+sensation of heat, which is no other than
+the communication of the animal heat.</p>
+
+<p>It is also pretended that this fluid has a
+smell, and that it is perceived when either
+the finger or an iron conductor is brought
+into contiguity with the nostrils; it is even
+said, that the sensation is different, according
+as the finger or the rod of iron is directed
+parallel with, or opposite to the
+poles. M. Deslon made the experiment
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>upon several of the commissioners; the
+commissioners themselves have repeated
+it upon different subjects; not one has experienced
+this difference of sensation: and
+if, by giving a close attention, any scent
+has been perceived, it has been that of the
+iron, when the rod has been presented
+rubbed and heated; or that of the emanation
+of the transpiration, when the finger
+has been presented, a scent frequently
+combined with that of the iron with which
+the finger itself has been impressed. These
+effects have been erroneously attributed to
+the magnetism, but they may be traced in
+reality to natural and definite causes.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed M. Deslon has never insisted
+upon these transient impressions, he did
+not think they were to be offered in evidence;
+on the contrary he expressly assured
+the commissioners, that he could not
+demonstrate to them the existence of the
+magnetism, otherwise than by the action
+of this fluid, producing certain changes in
+animated bodies. This existence is so
+much the more difficult to be demonstrated
+by effects, which shall be incontrovertible,
+and whose causes shall be unequivocal; by
+authentic facts, in cases where moral circumstances
+cannot exert their influence: in
+a word, by proofs calculated to convince
+and compel the understanding, the only
+ones which can yield any solid satisfaction
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>to persons really proficient in the study of
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>The action of the magnetism upon animated
+bodies may be observed in two <span id="cor_033">different</span>
+ways; either as it consists in that
+action continued for a long time, and in
+its salutary effects in the treatment of diseases,
+or in its momentary effects upon the
+animal œconomy and the perceptible
+changes there produced. M. Deslon insisted
+that the former of these methods
+should be employed principally, and nearly
+exclusively; the commissioners have been
+of a different opinion, and their reasons are
+as follow.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of diseases have their seat
+in the interior part of our frame. The
+collective experience of a great number of
+centuries has made us acquainted with the
+symptoms, which indicate and discriminate
+them; the same experience has taught the
+method in which they are to be treated.
+What is the object of the efforts of the
+physician in this method? It is not to oppose
+and to subdue nature, it is to assist her
+in her operations. Nature, says the father
+of the medical science, cures the diseased;
+but sometimes she encounters obstacles,
+which constrain her in her course, and
+uselessly consume her strength. The
+physician is the minister of nature; an attentive
+observer, he studies the method in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>which she proceeds. If that method be
+firm, strong, regular and well directed, the
+physician looks on in silence, and bewares
+of disturbing it by remedies which would
+at least be useless; if the method be embarrassed,
+he facilitates it; if it be too slow
+or too rapid, he accelerates or retards it.
+Sometimes, to accomplish his object, he
+confines himself to the regulation of the
+diet: sometimes he employs medicines.
+The action of a medicine, introduced
+into the human body, is a new force, combined
+with the principal force by which
+our life is maintained: if the remedy follow
+the same route, which this force has already
+opened for the expulsion of diseases,
+it is useful, it is salutary; if it tend to open
+different routes, and to turn aside this interior
+action, it is pernicious. In the
+mean time it must be confessed that this
+salutary or pernicious influence, real as it
+is, may frequently escape common observation.
+The natural history of man presents
+us in this respect with very singular
+phenomena. It may be there seen that regimens
+the most opposite, have not prevented
+the attainment of an advanced old
+age. We may there see men, attacked
+according to all appearance with the same
+disease, recovering in the pursuit of opposite
+regimens, and in the use of remedies
+totally different from each other; nature is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>in these instances sufficiently powerful to
+maintain the vital principle in spite of the
+improper regimen, and to triumph at once
+over the distemper and the remedy. If it
+have this power of resisting the action of
+medicine, by a still stronger reason it must
+have the power of operating without medicine.
+The experience of the efficacy of
+remedies is always therefore attended with
+some uncertainty; in the case of the magnetism
+the uncertainty has this addition,
+the uncertainty of its existence. How
+then can we decide upon the action of an
+agent, whose existence is contested, from
+the treatment of diseases; when the effect
+of medicines is doubtful, whose existence
+is not at all problematical?</p>
+
+<p>The cure which is principally cited in
+favour of the magnetism is that of M. le
+baron de ——; all classes are acquainted
+with its history. We shall not here enter
+into a discussion of the facts; we shall not
+enquire whether the remedies precedingly
+employed might have contributed to this
+cure. On the one hand the very critical
+situation of the patient is admitted, and on
+the other the inefficacy of all the ordinary
+means of medical science; the magnetism
+has been employed and M. le baron de
+—— has completely recovered. But
+might not a natural crisis have singly operated
+this recovery? A woman of low
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>rank and extremely poor, who lived at the
+Gros-caillou, was attacked in 1779 with a
+malignant fever in all its symptoms; she
+resolutely refused every assistance, she only
+desired that a vessel which she had near her
+should be kept constantly replenished
+with water: she remained quiet upon the
+straw which served her for a bed, drinking
+water continually and doing nothing more.
+The disease developed itself, passed successively
+through its different stages, and
+terminated in a complete cure&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>. Mademoiselle
+G——, who lived at the lesser
+royal mews, had two indurations formed
+in her right breast, which gave her great
+pain; a surgeon recommended to her
+the use of the Eau du Peintre as an excellent
+dissolvent; at the same time informing
+her, that if this remedy did not
+succeed in a month, it would be necessary
+to extirpate them by incision. The young
+lady, terrified at this sentence, consulted
+M. Sallin, who gave it as his opinion that
+the indurations were susceptible of resolution;
+M. Bonvart, who was also consulted,
+confirmed the opinion of M. Sallin.
+Before entering upon any course of remedy,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>they prescribed dissipation; fifteen days
+after she was seized at the opera with a
+violent cough, and so profuse an expectoration,
+that she was obliged to be carried
+home; she spit in the space of four hours
+about three pints of a viscid lymph; one
+hour after this M. Sallin examined the
+breast, he discovered no trace of induration.
+M. Bouvart, called in the next
+day, proved on his part the happy effect
+of this natural crisis. If mademoiselle
+G—— had taken Eau du Peintre, the honour
+of her cure would have been attributed
+to this medicine.</p>
+
+<p>The uninterrupted observation of ages
+proves, and the professors of physic acknowledge,
+that nature alone and without our
+interference, cures a great number of persons.
+If the magnetism were absolutely
+inactive, the patients, who undergo this
+method of cure, might be considered as
+abandoned to nature. It would be absurd
+to chuse a method of deciding upon the
+existence of this agent, which, by attributing
+to it all the cures performed by nature,
+would tend to prove that it had
+an action useful and curative, when in reality
+it might have no action at all.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this head the commissioners are
+of the opinion of M. Mesmer. He rejected
+the cure of diseases, when this method
+of proving the magnetism was proposed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>to him by a member of the academy
+of sciences: “It is a mistake,” replied he,
+“to imagine that this kind of proof is
+unanswerable; it cannot be demonstrated
+that either the physician or the medicine
+causes the recovery of the patient&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>.”</p>
+
+<p>The treatment of diseases can therefore
+furnish nothing but a result, always uncertain,
+often deceitful; nor can this uncertainty
+be dissipated, and all the causes of
+illusion compensated, but by an infinity of
+cures, perhaps by the experience of successive
+centuries. The object and importance
+of the commission demand means of
+a speedier description. It was the duty
+of the commissioners to confine themselves
+to arguments purely physical, that is, to
+the momentaneous effects of the fluid upon
+the animal frame, excluding from these
+effects all the illusions which might mix
+with them, and assuring themselves that
+they could proceed from no other cause
+than the animal magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>They proposed to make experiments
+upon single subjects, who might be willing
+to submit to the various experiments
+which they should invent; and who, some
+of them by their simplicity, and others by
+their intelligence, should be capable of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>giving an exact and faithful <span id="cor_039">account</span>
+of their sensations. These experiments
+we shall not confine ourselves to
+relate in the order of time, but shall follow
+the order of the facts they were intended
+to elucidate.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners in the first place
+resolved to make their first experiments
+upon themselves, and personally to experience
+the action of the magnetism. They
+were extremely curious to become acquainted
+by their own sensations with the
+effects ascribed to this agent. They therefore
+submitted themselves to these effects,
+and in such a disposition, that they would
+not have been sorry to have undergone
+some accidents and a partial derangement
+of health, which being evidently produced
+by the operation of the magnetism, should
+have enabled them to decide this important
+question upon the spot, and with their
+own testimony. But in submitting themselves
+to the magnetism in this manner, the
+commissioners have employed one necessary
+precaution. There is not an individual,
+in a state of the fullest health, who,
+if he paid a close attention to the point,
+would not be sensible to an infinity
+of interior motions and variations, either
+of a pain infinitely slight, or of
+heat in different parts of his body;
+these variations which exist at all times
+are independent of the magnetism. To
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>turn and fix in this manner ones attention
+upon oneself, is not perhaps itself entirely
+without its effects. There is so intimate
+a connection, whatever be the vehicle of
+that connection, between the volitions of
+the soul and the motions of the body, that
+it is not easy to prescribe limits to the influence
+of attention, which appears to be
+nothing more than a train of volitions,
+directed, constantly and without interruption,
+to the same object. When we recollect
+that the arm is moved by the will
+as it pleases, how can we be certain, that
+the attention being fixed upon some interior
+part of our frame, may not excite some
+slight emotion in it, direct the heat towards
+it, and so modify its actual situation
+as to produce in it new sensations?
+The first thing therefore, to which the
+commissioners were bound to attend, was
+not to observe too minutely what passed
+within them. If the magnetism were a
+real and operative cause, there was no need
+that it should be made an object of thought,
+in order to its action and manifesting itself:
+it ought, so to express ourselves, to
+compel and arrest the attention, and to
+render itself perceptible to a mind that
+should even be distracted from it by design.</p>
+
+<p>But in determining to make experiments
+upon themselves, the commissioners
+unanimously resolved to make those experiments
+private, without admitting any
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>stranger, except M. Deslon, by whom the
+operation was to be performed, or such
+persons as they should chuse; in like
+manner they engaged not to submit to the
+magnetism at the public process, in order
+that they might discuss freely their observations,
+and be in all events the sole, or
+at least the first judges of the symptoms
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>In pursuance of these determinations, a
+particular apartment and a separate bucket
+were destined for their use in the house of
+M. Deslon, and the commissioners repaired
+thither once in the course of every week.
+The operation was continued in each experiment
+for two hours and a half, the
+branch of iron being in contact with the
+left hypochonder, surrounded with a cord
+of communication, and forming from time
+to time the chain of fingers and thumbs.
+They were magnetised either by M. Deslon,
+or, in his absence, by one of his pupils;
+some of them for a longer time and more
+frequently than others, and those with
+whom this was the case were the commissioners
+who appeared from constitution
+and habit the most susceptible. The operation
+was performed sometimes with the
+finger and the rod of iron presented and
+guided along the different parts of the
+body, sometimes by the application of the
+hands and the pressure of the fingers, either
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>upon the hypochonders, or upon the pit
+of the stomach.</p>
+
+<p>Not one of the commissioners felt any
+sensation, or at least none which ought to
+be ascribed to the action of the magnetism.
+Some of the commissioners are of a robust
+constitution; others have more delicate
+habits, and are subject to interruptions of
+their health: one of these last, was sensible
+of a slight pain at the pit of the stomach,
+in consequence of a considerable pressure
+that was employed upon that part. This
+pain continued all that and the next day,
+and was accompanied with a sensation of
+fatigue and dejection. Another felt, in the
+afternoon of one of the days in which the
+experiments were performed, a slight irritation
+of the nerves, to which he is very
+subject. A third, endowed with a still
+greater sensibility, and especially with an
+extreme restlessness of the nerves, was
+subject to a higher degree of pain and
+a more perceptible irritation; but these
+lesser accidents are the result of perpetual
+and ordinary variations in the state of their
+health, and are of consequence foreign to
+the operation they had undergone, or proceed
+only from the pressure employed upon
+the region of the stomach. The commissioners
+do not speak of these slight
+details, but from a scrupulous fidelity; they
+relate them, because they have imposed it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>as a law upon themselves constantly and
+in every particular to lay the truth.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners could not avoid being
+struck with the difference of the private
+experiment made upon themselves from
+the public process. All was calm and
+silence in the one, all restlessness and agitation
+in the other; there multiplied
+symptoms, violent crises, the ordinary state
+both of body and mind interrupted and
+overthrown, and nature wrought up to the
+highest pitch; here the body free from
+pain, and the mind from anxiety, nature
+preserving her ordinary course and her
+equilibrium, in a word the absolute privation
+of every kind of effect: the stupendous
+influence, which creates such an
+astonishment in the public process, appears
+no longer; the magnetism stripped of its
+energy seems perfectly supine and inactive.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners, having at first submitted
+to the experiment only once a week,
+were desirous to ascertain whether a continuity
+of experiment would produce any
+effect; they submitted to it three days
+successively, but their insensibility was the
+same, and the magnetism appeared with
+respect to them perfectly impotent. This
+experiment, made at once upon eight different
+subjects, several of whom were
+subject to habitual derangements of health,
+authorises the conclusion that the magnetism
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>has little or no action in a state of
+health, or even in a state of lesser infirmity.
+We then resolved to make experiments
+upon persons really diseased, and we chose
+them out of the lower class.</p>
+
+<p>Seven of these were assembled at Passy,
+at the house of Dr. Franklin; the operation
+was performed upon them by M.
+Deslon in the presence of all the commissioners.</p>
+
+<p>The widow Saint-Amand, asthmatic,
+having the belly, legs and thighs swelled;
+and dame Anseaume, who had a swelling
+upon her thigh, felt no sensation; the
+little Claude Renard, a child of six years
+of age, scrophulous, almost consumptive,
+having the knees swelled, the legs bent
+inward, and the articulation nearly deprived
+of motion, a very interesting child,
+and possessing a greater degree of understanding
+than is usual at his age, was likewise
+conscious to no sensation; any more
+than Geneviève Leroux, nine years of age,
+subject to convulsions, and to a disorder
+greatly resembling that which is called
+St. Vitus’s Dance. François Grenet experienced
+some effects; he had a distemper
+in his eyes, particularly in the right, in
+which he had scarcely any sight, and in
+which there was a considerable tumour.
+When the operation was directed towards
+the left eye, by approaching and moving
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>backward and forward the thumb very
+near and for a considerable time, he was
+sensible of a pain in the ball of the eye,
+and the eye watered. When the operation
+was directed to the right eye, which was
+the most disordered, he felt no sensation
+in it; he felt the same pain in the left
+eye, and nothing in any other part of the
+body.</p>
+
+<p>Dame Charpentier, who had been thrown
+down against a log of wood by a cow two
+years before, had experienced the most unfortunate
+consequences from this accident;
+she lost her sight, recovered it afterwards
+in part, but remained in a state of habitual
+infirmities; she declared that she had two
+ruptures, and the belly of so great sensibility,
+that she could not bear the pressure
+of the strings of her petticoats: this sensibility
+belongs to the case of nervous irritation;
+the slightest pressure upon the region
+of the belly is capable of determining this
+irritation, and producing, through the
+correspondence of the nerves, effects in
+every part of the body.</p>
+
+<p>The operation was performed upon this
+woman as upon the rest by the application
+and the pressure of the fingers; the
+pressure was extremely painful to her:
+afterwards, in directing the finger towards
+the rupture, she complained of a pain in
+her head; the finger being placed before
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>her face, she said she could not draw her
+breath. Upon the repeated motion of the
+finger upwards and downwards, she had
+sudden starts of the head and shoulders,
+like those which are commonly occasioned
+by surprise mixed with terror, for instance
+that of a person who has some drops of
+cold water suddenly thrown in his face.
+She appeared to have the same startings
+when her eyes were closed. The fingers
+being held under her nose, while her eyes
+were shut, she complained of a sensation
+of faintness so long as they were continued
+there. The seventh subject, Joseph Ennuyé,
+experienced sensations of a similar
+nature, but much less considerable.</p>
+
+<p>Of these seven patients four felt no
+sensation at all; three experienced some
+effects from the operation. These effects
+deserved to engage the attention of the
+commissioners, and demanded an accurate
+examination.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners, to obtain further
+light, and to define their ideas upon this
+part of the subject, resolved to make the
+experiment upon patients, placed in other
+circumstances, and selected from the polite
+world; such as could not be suspected of
+sinister views, and whose understanding
+made them capable of enquiring into and
+giving a faithful account of their sensations.
+Mesdames de B—— and de V——,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>messieurs M—— and R—— were admitted
+to the private bucket together with
+the commissioners; they were intreated to
+remark their sensations, without fixing
+upon them too regular an attention. M.
+M—— and madame de V—— were the
+only persons who experienced any sensation.
+M. M—— had an indolent tumour
+over the whole articulation of the knee,
+and a constant pain in the patella. He
+declared, during the operation, that he felt
+nothing in any part of his body, except in
+the moment that the finger was guided
+before the diseased knee; he then thought
+that he felt a slight degree of heat in the
+place, in which he has habitually the sensation
+of pain. Madame de V——, attacked
+with a nervous disorder, was several
+times upon the point of falling asleep
+during the operation. The experiment
+having continued for an hour and nineteen
+minutes without interruption, and for the
+greater part by the application of the hands,
+she was sensible to nothing but a sensation
+of irritation and dejection. These
+two subjects underwent the experiment
+only once. M. R——, whose distemper
+was the remainder of an obstruction in the
+liver, the consequence of a very violent
+disorder of that kind ill cured, underwent
+the operation three times and felt nothing.
+Madame de B——, severely attacked with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>obstructions, underwent the experiment
+constantly at the same time with the commissioners,
+and felt nothing; it is necessary
+to observe, that she submitted to the
+magnetism with an extreme tranquility,
+which originated in the highest degree of
+incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>Experiments were made at other times
+upon different subjects, but without the
+assistance of the bucket. One of the commissioners,
+in a violent head-ach, had the
+operation performed upon him by M. Deslon
+for half an hour; one of the symptoms
+of his disorder was an extreme cold in his
+feet. M. Deslon brought his foot near
+that of the patient, the foot was never the
+warmer, and the head-ach lasted its ordinary
+term. The patient, having placed
+himself near a fire, obtained from it the
+salutary effects which heat has constantly
+procured him, without experiencing, either
+during that day or the night following,
+any effect from the magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Franklin, though the weakness of
+his health hindered him from coming to
+Paris, and assisting at the experiments
+which were there made, was magnetised
+by M. Deslon at his own house at Passy.
+The assembly was numerous; every person
+who was present underwent the operation.
+Some sick persons, who had come with
+M. Deslon, were subject to the effects of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>the magnetism in the same manner as at
+the public process; but madame de B——,
+Dr. Franklin, his two relations, his secretary,
+and an American officer, felt no sensation,
+though one of Dr. Franklin’s relations
+was convalescent, and the American
+officer had at that time a regular fever.</p>
+
+<p>The experiments we have related, furnish
+a number of facts, calculated to illustrate,
+and fit to be compared with each other,
+and from which the commissioners were
+at liberty to deduce certain inferences. Of
+fourteen sick persons five only appeared to
+feel any effect from the operation, nine
+felt no effect at all. The commissioner,
+who had the head-ach and coldness in the
+feet, derived no benefit from the magnetism,
+nor did his feet recover their
+natural heat. This agent has not therefore
+the property which has been attributed to it
+of communicating heat to the feet. The
+magnetism has also been said to have the
+property of discovering the species, and
+particularly the seat of diseases, by the
+pain, which the action of this fluid infallibly
+occasions in that part. Such an advantage
+would be of great consequence;
+the fluid which was the instrument of it
+would be a valuable means in the hands of
+the physician, often deceived by equivocal
+symptoms: but François Grenet felt no
+sensation, no pain, but in the eye least
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>affected. If the redness and tumour of the
+other eye had not furnished external symptoms,
+in judging from the effect of the
+magnetism we should have been led to
+conclude that it was undistempered. M.
+R—— and madame de B——, both attacked
+with obstructions, and madame de
+B—— with great severity, as they were
+conscious to no sensation, would have received
+no intelligence, either respecting the
+species, or the seat of their disease. And
+yet obstructions are among the disorders,
+which are said to be particularly subject to
+the action of the magnetism; since according
+to the new theory the free and
+rapid circulation of this fluid through the
+nerves, is a means of opening the channels
+and destroying the obstacles, that is, the
+obstructions, which it encounters in its
+passage. It is at the same time said that
+the magnetism is the touchstone of health:
+if therefore M. R—— and madame de
+B—— had not experienced the derangements
+and the sufferings inseparable from
+obstructions, they would have had a right
+to believe that they enjoyed the best health
+in the world. The same thing may be
+said of the American officer: the magnetism
+therefore announced as the discoverer
+of diseases completely failed of
+its effect.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p>
+
+<p>The heat that M. M—— felt in the
+patella, is an effect too slight and fugitive
+to authorise any conclusions. It may be
+suspected that it proceeded from the cause
+already descanted on, a too great attention
+to observe what passes within us: the same
+attention would discover similar sensations
+at any other time, when the magnetism
+was not employed. The drowsiness experienced
+by madame de V—— must undoubtedly
+be ascribed to the regularity and
+fatigue of preserving the same situation;
+if she was sensible to any vaporous emotion,
+it must be remembered that it is a
+known property of nervous affections, to
+have much dependency upon the attention
+that is paid them; to renew them it is
+only necessary to hear them spoken of, or
+to think of them. It is easy to judge
+what ought to be expected from a woman,
+whose nerves are extremely irritable, and
+who, being magnetised for an hour and
+nineteen minutes, had during that time
+no other subject of reflection than that of
+the disorders which are habitual to her.
+She might have had a nervous crisis more
+considerable than that we have described,
+without our having a right to be surprised
+at it.</p>
+
+<p>There remains then only the effects
+produced upon dame Charpentier, François
+Grenet and Joseph Ennuyé, which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>can be supposed to derive from the operation
+of the magnetism. In comparing
+these three particular facts to the rest, the
+commissioners were astonished that three
+subjects of the lower class should be the
+only ones who felt any thing from the
+operation, while those of a more elevated
+rank, of more enlightened understandings,
+and better qualified to describe their sensations,
+have felt nothing. Without doubt
+François Grenet experienced a pain and a
+watering in the eye when the thumb was
+approached very near to it; dame Charpentier
+complained, that in touching her
+stomach the pressure corresponded to her
+rupture; and the pressure might have been
+in part the cause of what she felt; but the
+commissioners suspected that these sensations
+were augmented by moral causes.</p>
+
+<p>Let us represent to ourselves the situation
+of a person of the lower class, and of
+consequence ignorant, attacked with a
+distemper and desirous of a cure, introduced
+with some degree of ceremony to a large
+company, partly composed of physicians,
+where an operation is performed upon
+him totally new, and from which he persuades
+himself before hand that he is about
+to experience prodigious effects. Let us
+add to this that he is paid for his compliance,
+that he thinks he shall contribute
+more to our satisfaction by professing to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>experience sensations of some kind; and
+we shall have definite causes to which to
+attribute these effects; we shall at least
+have just reason to doubt whether their
+true cause be the magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>Beside this it may be enquired, why the
+magnetism produced these effects upon
+persons, who knew what was done to them,
+and might imagine they had an interest in
+saying what they said, while it took no sort
+of hold upon the little Claude Renard,
+upon an organisation endowed with all the
+delicacy of infancy, so irritable, so susceptible?
+The sound understanding and ingenuous
+temper of this child evince the veracity
+of his relation. Why too has this
+agent produced no effect upon Geneviève
+Leroux, who was in a perpetual state of
+convulsion? Her nerves were certainly
+sufficiently irritable, how comes it that the
+magnetism did not display its power,
+either in augmenting, or diminishing her
+convulsions? Her indifference and impassibility
+induced the belief, that the reason
+of her having felt nothing, was the idiotism
+which did not permit her to judge
+that she ought to have felt any thing.</p>
+
+<p>From these facts the commissioners are
+at liberty to observe, that the magnetism
+has seemed to have no existence for those
+subjects, who have submitted to it with
+any degree of incredulity; that the commissioners,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>even those who have their
+nerves most irritable, having expressly
+turned their attention to other objects, and
+having armed themselves with that philosophic
+doubt which ought always to accompany
+enquiry, have felt none of those
+sensations, which were experienced by the
+three patients of the lower class; and they
+have a right to suspect that these sensations,
+supposing their reality, were the
+fruits of anticipated persuasion, and might
+be operated by the mere force of imagination.
+Of this suspicion another class of
+experiments has been the result. Their
+subsequent researches were directed towards
+a new object; it was necessary to destroy
+or confirm the suspicion they had formed,
+to determine to what degree the power of
+the imagination can influence our sensations,
+and to demonstrate whether it can
+be the cause, in whole or in part, of the
+effects attributed to the magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the commissioners heard of
+the experiments, which were made at the
+house of M. the dean of the faculty by M.
+Jumelin, doctor of physic; they were desirous
+of seeing these experiments, and
+they met M. Jumelin in a body at the
+house of M. Majault, one of the commissioners.
+M. Jumelin declared to them
+that he was a disciple neither of M. Mesmer,
+nor of M. Deslon; he had learned
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>nothing respecting the animal magnetism
+from them, but had formed his principles
+and digested his process from what he
+had heard upon the subject in conversation.
+His principles consist in regarding
+the animal magnetic fluid, as a fluid which
+circulates in the human body, and which
+flows from it, but which is essentially the
+same with the principle of animal heat;
+like all other fluids he conceived that it
+tended to an equilibrium, and that it
+therefore passes from the body in which
+the greatest quantity of it resides, into that
+which has the least. His method does
+not differ from that of messieurs Mesmer
+and Deslon less than his principles; like
+them he performs the operation with the
+finger and the rod of iron as conductors,
+and by the application of the hands, but
+without any distinction of poles.</p>
+
+<p>Eight men and two women submitted
+to the operation in the first experiment,
+and felt nothing; at length a woman, who
+waits in the hall of M. Alphonse le Roy,
+doctor of physic, having been magnetised
+in the forehead, but without touching her,
+said that she felt the sensation of heat.
+M. Jumelin guiding his hand, and presenting
+the five extremities of his fingers
+over the whole of her face, she said that
+she felt as it were a flame, that passed from
+place to place; magnetised in the stomach
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>she said that she felt heat; magnetised upon
+the back she made the same declaration:
+she also said that she felt hot in every part
+of her body, and that her head ached.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners, observing that, of
+eleven persons that underwent the experiment,
+one only had been sensible to the
+magnetism of M. Jumelin, were of
+opinion that this person had experienced
+certain sensations, only because she had
+probably an imagination more easily excited
+than the rest: the opportunity was
+favourable for clearing up the point. The
+sensibility of this woman being perfectly
+established, the business was only to protect
+her from the illusions of the imagination,
+or at least to leave her imagination
+without any thing to direct its operations.
+The commissioners proposed to blindfold
+her, in order to observe what her sensations
+would be, when she could no longer
+know any thing respecting the conduct of
+the experiment. She was accordingly
+blindfolded and magnetised; the phenomena
+no longer answered to the places
+towards which the magnetism was directed.
+Magnetised successively upon the
+stomach and in the back, she felt only a
+heat in her head, a pain in both eyes and in
+the left ear.</p>
+
+<p>The bandage was removed from her
+eyes, and M. Jumelin having applied his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>hands upon the hypochonders, she said
+that she felt heat; after a few minutes she
+said that she was ready to faint, and she
+fainted in effect. When she was tolerably
+recovered, the experiment was resumed,
+she was blindfolded, M. Jumelin was removed,
+silence recommended, and the woman was
+induced to believe that the operation was
+performing. The effects were the same,
+though no operation, either near or distant
+was performed; she felt the same heat, the
+same pain in her eyes and in her ears; besides
+which she felt a heat in her back and
+loins.</p>
+
+<p>After a quarter of an hour, a sign was
+made to M. Jumelin to magnetise her in
+the stomach, she felt no sensation; in the
+back, it was the same thing. The sensations
+diminished instead of augmenting.
+The pains in her head continued, the heat
+in her back and loins ceased.</p>
+
+<p>We see in this instance certain effects
+produced, and these similar to those which
+were experienced by the three subjects, respecting
+whom the experiment has already
+been detailed. But the former and the
+latter were obtained in different methods;
+it follows that this difference is of no consequence.
+The process of messieurs Mesmer
+and Deslon, and an opposite process
+have produced the same phenomena. The
+distinction of poles is therefore chimerical.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p>
+
+<p>It may be observed that while the
+woman was permitted to see the operation,
+she placed her sensations precisely in the
+part towards which it was directed; that
+on the other hand when she did not see
+the operation, she placed them at hazard,
+and in parts very distant from those which
+were the object of the magnetism. It was
+natural to conclude that these sensations,
+real or pretended, were determined by the
+imagination. Of this we were convinced
+when we saw that being entirely at rest,
+the preceding sensations having ceased, and
+the bandage being fixed over her eyes, this
+woman experienced all the same effects,
+though no operation was performed; but
+the demonstration was complete, when
+after a remission of a quarter of an hour,
+her imagination being undoubtedly cooled
+and worn down, the effects, in the room
+of augmenting, diminished at the moment
+in which the operation was actually renewed.</p>
+
+<p>If she was seized with a faintness,
+women are sometimes liable to this accident
+from their garments being tight
+or otherwise burdensome. The application
+of the hands upon the hypochonders
+was capable of producing the same effect
+upon a woman extremely susceptible; but
+there is no need of having recourse to this
+cause to explain the appearance. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>weather was extremely hot, the woman
+had unquestionably felt some emotion in
+the beginning of the experiment, she had
+made an effort upon herself to submit to
+a new and unknown operation, and it is
+by no means extraordinary that an effort,
+continued for a longer time than the
+constitution will bear, should occasion a
+propensity to faint.</p>
+
+<p>This swoon had therefore a natural
+known cause, but the sensations, which
+she experienced when no operation was
+performed upon her, could be only the
+result of imagination. In similar experiments,
+which M. Jumelin made in the
+same place the next day, the commissioners
+being present, upon a man who was
+blindfolded, and upon a woman who was
+not blindfolded, the result was precisely
+the same; it was evident their answers
+were determined by the questions that
+were put to them, that is, the question
+pointed out where the sensation was expected
+to be; in the room of directing the
+magnetism upon them, all that was done
+was the exalting and directing their imagination.
+A child of five years of age being
+afterwards magnetised, felt nothing but
+the heat which he had just before contracted
+at play.</p>
+
+<p>These experiments appeared sufficiently
+important to the commissioners, for them
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>to desire a repetition of them, in order to
+obtain further light into the subject, and
+M. Jumelin had the complaisance to comply
+with their request. It would be to
+no purpose to object, that the method of
+M. Jumelin was a bad one; for at the
+present moment it was not proposed to
+bring the magnetism, but the imagination
+to the proof.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners agreed to blindfold
+subjects who had already undergone the
+magnetical operation, for the most part
+not to magnetise them at all, but to put
+to them interrogations, so framed as to
+point out to them their answers. This
+mode of proceeding was not calculated to
+deceive them, it only misled their imagination.
+In reality, when no operation was
+performed upon them, their sole answer
+ought to have been, that they felt no sensation;
+and when the operation was performed,
+the impression they felt, not the
+manner in which they were interrogated,
+ought to have dictated their replies.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners adjourned themselves
+to the house of M. Jumelin; they began
+with an experiment upon his servant. They
+fixed a bandage over his eyes, prepared for
+the purpose, and which they employed in
+all the succeeding experiments. The bandage
+was made of two calottes of elastic
+gum, whose concavity was filled with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>edredon; the whole inclosed and sown up
+in two pieces of stuff of a circular form.
+These pieces of stuff were then fastened
+to each other, and to two strings which
+were tied in a knot at the back part of the
+head. Placed over the eyes, they left in
+their interval room for the nose, and the
+entire liberty of respiration, without the
+person blindfolded being permitted to receive
+even the smallest particle of light,
+either through, or above, or below the
+bandage. These precautions having been
+contrived, with an equal view to the convenience
+of the subject, and the certainty
+of the result, the servant of M. Jumelin
+was persuaded that the operation was performing
+upon him. Upon this he felt an
+almost universal sensation of heat, and
+certain emotions in the region of the belly,
+together with an extreme heaviness; by
+degrees he grew drowsy and appeared upon
+the point of falling asleep. This experiment
+proves what we have already said,
+that the symptom of drowsiness is the
+effect of situation and weariness, not of
+the magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>The same person being afterwards magnetised
+with his eyes uncovered, and a rod
+of iron being presented to his forehead,
+he experienced sensations of pricking: the
+bandage being then replaced and the circumstance
+repeated, he was conscious to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>no sensation. The rod of iron was then
+removed, and the patient being interrogated
+if he felt nothing in his forehead,
+he declared that he felt something move
+backward and forward from one side of it
+to the other.</p>
+
+<p>M. B——, a man of learning, and
+particularly acquainted with the science of
+medicine, was then blindfolded, and presented
+us with the same spectacle, feeling
+certain sensations when he was not acted
+upon, and often feeling nothing when the
+operation was performed. These sensations
+went to such a length, that, previously
+to the being magnetised in any manner,
+but believing that the operation had
+been performing for ten minutes, he felt
+a heat in his loins which he compared to
+that of a stove. It is evident that M.
+B—— had a very strong sensation, since,
+in order to convey an idea of it, he thought
+it necessary to have recourse to such a
+comparison; this sensation however he
+owed solely to imagination, which was the
+only agent concerned in the affair.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners, particularly those of
+the faculty of medicine, made an infinite
+number of experiments upon different subjects,
+whom they either magnetised themselves,
+or persuaded that they underwent
+the operation. They performed the operation
+indifferently, either opposite to, or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>in the direction of the poles or at right
+angles with them, and in each case obtained
+the same effects; experiencing in all these
+experiments no other difference, than that
+of an imagination more or less susceptible&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>They were therefore convinced that the
+imagination alone is capable of producing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>various sensations, and causing the patient
+to experience both pain and heat, and even
+a very considerable degree of heat, in all
+parts of the body, and they concluded that
+it of course entered for a considerable share
+into the effects attributed to the animal
+magnetism. It must at the same time be
+admitted, that the process of the magnetism
+produces in the animated body changes
+more distinguished, and derangements more
+considerable, than those we have just reported.
+None of those subjects, whom
+we have hitherto described as the imaginary
+objects of the magnetical operation, were
+so far impressed as to produce convulsions;
+it was therefore a new subject for the experiments
+of the commissioners, to enquire,
+whether by the mere energies of the imagination
+it were possible to produce crises,
+similar to those which we have stated in the
+public process.</p>
+
+<p>Many experiments were thought of for
+the decision of this question. When a
+tree has been touched according to the
+principles and method of the magnetism,
+every person who stops under it, ought to
+experience in a greater or less degree the
+effects of this agent; there have even been
+some in this situation who have swooned,
+or experienced convulsions. We communicated
+our ideas upon this subject to M. Deslon,
+who replied, that the experiment
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>ought to succeed, provided the subject
+were extremely susceptible; and it was
+agreed that it should be made at Passy in
+the presence of Dr. Franklin. The necessity
+that the subject should be susceptible,
+led the commissioners to conceive, that to
+render the experiment decisive and unanswerable,
+it was necessary that it should be
+made upon a person of M. Deslon’s choice,
+and of whose susceptibility to the operations
+of the magnetism he was already convinced.
+M. Deslon therefore brought
+with him a boy of about twelve years of
+age; an apricot tree was fixed upon in the
+orchard of Dr. Franklin’s garden, considerably
+distant from any other tree, and
+calculated for the preservation of the magnetical
+power which might be impressed
+upon it. M. Deslon was led thither alone
+to perform the operation, the boy in the
+mean time remaining in the house, and
+another person along with him. We
+could have wished that M. Deslon had not
+been present at the subsequent part of the
+experiment, but he declared that he could
+not answer for its success, if he did not
+direct his cane and his countenance towards
+the tree, in order to augment the
+action of the magnetism. It was therefore
+resolved, that M. Deslon should be placed
+at the greatest possible distance, and that
+some of the commissioners should stand between
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>him and the boy, in order to ascertain
+the impracticability of any signals
+being made by M. Deslon, or any intelligence
+being maintained between them.
+These precautions in an experiment the
+essence of which must be authenticity, are
+indispensible, without giving the person
+with respect to whom they are employed a
+right to think himself offended.</p>
+
+<p>The boy was then brought into the
+orchard his eyes covered with the bandage,
+presented successively to four trees upon
+which the operation had not been performed,
+and caused to embrace each of
+them for the space of two minutes, the
+mode of communication which had been
+prescribed by M. Deslon himself.</p>
+
+<p>M. Deslon, present, and at a considerable
+distance, directed his cane towards the
+tree which had been the object of his
+operations.</p>
+
+<p>At the first tree the boy being interrogated
+at the end of a minute, declared that
+he perspired in large drops; he coughed,
+spit, and complained of a slight pain in his
+head; the distance of the tree which had
+been magnetised was about twenty seven
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>At the second tree he felt the sensations
+of stupefaction and pain in his head; the
+distance was thirty six feet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
+
+<p>At the third tree the stupefaction and
+head-ach increased considerably; he said
+that he believed he was approaching to the
+tree which had been magnetised; the distance
+was then about thirty eight feet.</p>
+
+<p>In fine at the fourth tree which had not
+been rendered the object of the operation,
+and at the distance of about twenty four
+feet from the tree which had, the boy
+fell into a crisis; he fainted away, his
+limbs stiffened, and he was carried to a
+neighbouring grass-plot, where M. Deslon
+hastened to his assistance and recovered
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The result of this experiment is entirely
+contrary to the theory of the animal magnetism.
+M. Deslon accounted for it by
+observing, that all the trees by their very
+nature, participated of the magnetism, and
+that their magnetism was beside reinforced
+by his presence. But in that case a person
+sensible to the power of the magnetism,
+could not hazard a walk in a garden without
+the risk of convulsions; an assertion confuted
+by the experience of every day. The
+presence of M. Deslon had no greater influence
+here, than in the coach, in which
+the boy came along with him, was placed
+opposite to him, and felt nothing. If he
+had experienced no sensation even under
+the tree which was magnetised, it might
+have been said that at least upon that day
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>he had not been sufficiently susceptible:
+but the boy fell into a crisis under a tree
+which was not magnetised; the crisis was
+therefore the effect of no physical or exterior
+cause, but is to be ascribed solely to
+the influence of imagination. The experiment
+is therefore entirely conclusive: the
+boy knew that he was about to be led to a
+tree upon which the magnetical operation
+had been performed, his imagination was
+struck, it was exalted by the successive
+steps of the experiment, and at the fourth
+tree it was raised to the height necessary
+to produce the crisis.</p>
+
+<p>Other experiments were made calculated
+to support this, and the result was the
+same. One day when the commissioners
+were all together at Passy at the house of
+Dr. Franklin, and M. Deslon with them,
+they previously intreated the latter to bring
+some of his patients with him, selecting
+those of the lower class, who were most
+susceptible to the magnetism. M. Deslon
+brought two women; and while he was
+employed in performing the operation
+upon Dr. Franklin and several persons in
+another apartment, the two women were
+separated, and placed in different rooms.</p>
+
+<p>One of them, dame P——, had films
+over her eyes; but as she could always see
+a little, the bandage already described was
+employed. She was persuaded that M.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>Deslon had been brought into the room to
+perform the magnetical operation; silence
+was recommended; three commissioners
+were present, one to interrogate, another
+to make minutes of the transaction, and
+the third to personate M. Deslon. The
+conversation was pretended to be addressed
+to M. Deslon; he was desired to begin the
+operation; the three commissioners in the
+mean time remained perfectly quiet and
+solely occupied in observing her symptoms.
+At the end of three minutes the patient
+began to feel a nervous shuddering; she
+had then successively a pain in the back of
+her head, in her arms, a creeping in her
+hands, that was her expression, she grew
+stiff, struck her hands violently together,
+rose from her seat, stamped with her feet:
+the crisis had all the regular symptoms.
+Two other commissioners, who were in
+the adjoining room with the door shut,
+heard the stamping of the feet and the
+clapping of the hands, and without seeing
+any thing were witnesses to this noisy experiment.</p>
+
+<p>The two commissioners we have mentioned
+were with the other patient, mademoiselle
+B——, who was subject to nervous
+distempers. No bandage was employed
+upon her, but her eyes were at liberty;
+she was seated with her face towards
+a door which was shut, and persuaded
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>that M. Deslon was on the other
+side, employed in performing upon her the
+magnetical operation. This had scarcely
+taken place a minute, before she began to
+feel the symptom of shuddering; in another
+minute she had a chattering of the teeth
+and an universal heat; in fine in the third
+minute she fell into a regular crisis. Her
+respiration was quick, she stretched out
+both her arms behind her back, twisting
+them extremely, and bending her body
+forward: her whole body trembled; the
+chattering of her teeth became so loud that
+it might be heard in the open air; she bit
+her hand, and that with so much force,
+that the marks of the teeth remained perfectly
+visible.</p>
+
+<p>It is proper to observe that neither of
+these subjects were touched in any manner;
+their pulse was not even felt, that it
+might not be possible to say that the magnetic
+fluid was communicated; the crises
+however were complete. The commissioners,
+who had been desirous to know
+the effect of the influence of the imagination,
+and to appreciate the share it might
+have in the magnetical crises, had now
+obtained all that they desired. It is impossible
+to see this influence displayed in a
+clearer or more incontrovertible manner
+than in these two experiments. If the
+subjects have declared that their crises were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>stronger in the public treatment, it must
+be ascribed to the power of communication
+possessed by the numerous emotions,
+and that in general every individual symptom
+has been increased by the contemplation
+of similar symptoms.</p>
+
+<p>We had occasion to try a second experiment
+upon dame P——, and to experience
+how much she was under the dominion
+of her imagination. The experiment
+of the magnetic bason was proposed:
+this experiment consists in discovering
+among a number of basons one that has
+been magnetised. They are successively
+presented to a patient susceptible to the
+magnetism; he ought to fall into a crisis,
+or at least to experience sensible effects,
+when the magnetic bason is presented to
+him, he ought to be perfectly indifferent
+to all the rest. All that was necessary
+according to the recommendation of M.
+Deslon, was to present them to him in the
+direction of the poles, in order that he who
+presents the bason may not himself magnetise
+the patient, and that there may be
+no other effect than that of the magnetism
+of the bason itself.</p>
+
+<p>Dame P—— was sent for to the arsenal
+to the house of M. Lavoisier, where M.
+Deslon was; she began with falling into a
+crisis in the anti-chamber, before she had
+seen either the commissioners or M. Deslon,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>and merely from the knowledge she had
+that she was about to see him; a distinguished
+effect of the influence of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>When she had been tolerably recovered,
+she was led into the room destined for the
+experiment. Several china basons were
+presented to her which had not been magnetised;
+at the second bason she began to
+feel the usual symptoms, and at the fourth
+fell into a complete crisis. It may be objected
+that her actual state was a state of
+crisis, that it had begun in the anti-chamber,
+and was renewed by its own single
+energy; but a circumstance which is decisive,
+is that having asked for something to
+drink, the bason which had been magnetised
+by M. Deslon himself was presented
+to her; she drank with perfect calmness
+and said that she felt herself much better.
+The bason and the magnetism had therefore
+failed of their effect, since the crisis
+was tranquilized in the room of being
+augmented.</p>
+
+<p>Some time after, while M. Majault examined
+the films she had over her eyes, the
+magnetic bason was presented to the back
+of her head, and continued there for twelve
+minutes; she was unconscious of the operation
+and felt no effect from it; she had
+even at no time been more tranquil, because
+her imagination was diverted, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>fixed upon the examination that was making
+into the disorder of her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners were informed that
+while this woman had been left alone in
+the anti-chamber, different persons unacquainted
+with the animal magnetism had
+approached her, and the convulsive emotions
+had recommenced. She was desired
+to observe that the magnetical operation
+was not performed upon her; but her
+imagination was struck to such a degree
+that she replied: If you did nothing to
+me, I should not be in the condition in
+which I am. She knew that she had been
+sent for in order to be made the subject of
+the experiments; and the approach of any
+person towards her, or the slighted noise
+attracted her attention, excited the idea of
+the magnetism and renewed her convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>The imagination, in order to its acting
+with considerable strength, has often need
+that you should touch several cords at a
+time. It has a correspondence with each
+of the senses; and its reaction may be expected
+to be in proportion, both to the
+number of senses applied to, and of sensations
+received: the commissioners were
+led to this observation by the following
+experiment. M. Jumelin had spoken to
+them of a young lady, twenty years of age,
+whom he had deprived of the faculty of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>speech by the influence of the magnetism;
+the commissioners repeated the experiment
+at his house, the young lady consented to
+submit to it, and to suffer herself to be
+blindfolded.</p>
+
+<p>The first object of the experiment was
+to endeavour to obtain the same effect
+without performing the operation; but,
+though in this situation she felt or believed
+she felt the effects of the magnetism, we
+were not able to strike her imagination,
+with the force that was necessary for the
+success of the experiment. The operation
+was then really performed, the bandage
+not being removed; and the success was the
+same. The bandage was then taken away;
+her imagination was now attacked at once
+through the different channels of sight and
+hearing, and the effects were more considerable;
+but though she complained of a
+heaviness in her head, an obstruction in
+the superior part of the nostrils, and a
+number of the symptoms which she had
+felt under the operation of M. Jumelin,
+she did not lose the faculty of speech. She
+observed herself, that the hand by which
+she was magnetised in the forehead, ought
+to descend to the level of the nose, recollecting
+that that was its situation at the
+time in which she had felt the loss of her
+voice. What she demanded was accordingly
+performed, and in three quarters of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>a minute she was dumb; nothing was now
+to be heard from her but low and inarticulate
+sounds, though the exertion of the
+muscles of the throat for the formation
+of sound, and that of the tongue and the
+lips in order to articulation were visible.
+This state lasted only a minute: it is obvious
+to observe that, finding herself precisely
+in the same circumstances, the seduction
+of the understanding and the effect
+of that seduction upon the organs of
+speech were the same. But it was not
+enough that she should be expressly informed
+that she was magnetised, it was
+also necessary that the sense of seeing should
+yield her a testimony, stronger, and capable
+of greater effects; it was necessary that
+a gesture with which she was already acquainted
+should re-excite her former
+ideas. It should seem that this experiment
+is admirably calculated to display the
+manner in which the imagination acts, the
+degrees by which it is exalted, and the
+different exterior succours it requires in
+order to its displaying itself in its greatest
+energy.</p>
+
+<p>The power, which the sense of sight
+exercises over the imagination, explains
+the effects attributed by the doctrine of
+the magnetism to the eyes. The eyes
+possess in an eminent degree the power of
+magnetising; signs and gestures, as the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>commissioners were informed, have commonly
+no effect, except upon a subject
+who has been previously mastered by the
+employment of the eyes. The reason of
+this is very simple; it is the eyes that convey
+the most energetic expressions of passion,
+it is in them that is developed all that
+the human character has of the commanding
+or the attractive. It is natural therefore
+that the eyes should be the source of
+a very high degree of power; but this
+power consists merely in the aptitude they
+possess of moving the imagination, and
+that in a degree more or less strong in proportion
+to the activity of the imagination.
+It is for this reason, that the whole
+process of the magnetism commences
+from the eyes of the operator; and their
+influence is so powerful and leaves traces
+so strong and lively, that a woman, newly
+arrived at the house of M. Deslon, having
+encountered a look of one of his pupils,
+who had performed the operation upon
+her, just as she was recovering from a
+crisis, had her eyes set in her head for three
+quarters of an hour. For a long time she
+was haunted with the remembrance of this
+look; she always saw before her this very
+eye fixed to regard her; and she bore it
+uninterruptedly in her imagination sleeping
+as well as waking for three days. We
+see from this instance what an imagination
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>is capable of doing, that can preserve one
+impression for so long a time, that is, can
+renew, of itself, and by its single power,
+the same sensation regularly and without
+interruption, for three days.</p>
+
+<p>The experiments, which we have already
+reported, are uniform in their nature,
+and contribute alike to the same
+decision; they authorise us to conclude
+that the imagination is the true cause of
+the effects attributed to the magnetism.
+But the partisans of this new agent will
+perhaps reply, that the identity of effects
+does not always prove an identity of causes.
+They will grant that the imagination is
+capable of exciting these impressions
+without the magnetism: but they will
+maintain that the magnetism is also capable
+of exciting them without the imagination.
+The commissioners might easily
+destroy this assertion by applying the
+principles of all reasoning, and the laws of
+natural philosophy: of which the first, is
+to admit no new causes without an absolute
+necessity. When the effects observed
+are capable of having been produced by
+a known cause, and a cause whose existence
+other phenomena have already established,
+found philosophy teaches that the
+effects ought to be ascribed to that cause;
+and when on the other hand we are acquainted
+with the discovery of a cause
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>hitherto unknown, found philosophy requires
+that its exigence be made out by
+effects, which do not belong to a
+known cause, and which cannot be
+explained but by the new cause. It
+therefore properly belongs to the partisans
+of the magnetism, to bring forward other
+proofs, and to discover effects which shall
+be entirely stripped of the illusions of the
+imagination. But as facts are more demonstrative
+than reasonings, and as their evidence
+is more universally striking, the
+commissioners have been desirous of establishing
+by experiment, what the magnetism
+could do in cases where the imagination
+had no concern.</p>
+
+<p>For this experiment they made choice
+of two rooms, contiguous to each other,
+and united by a door of communication.
+The door was taken away, and a frame of
+wood substituted in its place, with transverse
+bars, and covered with a double
+texture of paper. In one of these rooms
+was a commissioner, who undertook to
+make minutes of the transaction, and a
+lady, who was given out to be just arrived
+from the country, and to have a suit of
+linen, which she wanted to have made up.
+Mademoiselle B——, a sempstress by profession,
+who had been already employed
+in the experiments at Passy, and whose
+sensibility to the magnetism was well
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>known, was sent for. Every thing was
+arranged against her arrival in such a manner,
+that there was but one seat upon which
+she could place herself, and that seat stood
+within the frame of the door of communication.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners were in the other
+apartment, and one of them, a physician,
+who had upon former occasions performed
+the magnetical operation with success, had
+undertaken to magnetise mademoiselle
+B—— through the paper partition. It is
+a principle in the theory of the magnetism
+that this agent passes through doors,
+walls, &amp;c. A partition of paper could
+therefore be no obstacle; beside M. Deslon
+had positively declared that the magnetism
+passes through paper.</p>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle B—— was accordingly
+magnetised during half an hour, at the
+distance of a foot and an half, and in a direction
+opposite to that of the poles, in
+conformity to the rules taught by M. Deslon,
+and which the commissioners had
+seen practised at his house. During the
+operation she conversed with much gaiety,
+and, in answer to an enquiry concerning
+her health, she readily replied, that she
+was perfectly well: at Passy she had fallen
+into a crisis in the course of three minutes;
+in the present instance she underwent the
+operation of the magnetism without any
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>effect for thirty minutes. The only reason
+of this difference must be that here she
+was ignorant of the operation, and that at
+Passy she thought it had been performed.
+The inevitable conclusion is, that the
+imagination singly produces all the effects
+attributed to the magnetism, and that,
+where the imagination ceases to be called
+forth, it has no longer the smallest efficacy.</p>
+
+<p>Only one objection can be suggested to
+this experiment; it is that mademoiselle
+B—— might not be prepared to receive
+the magnetic fluid, and might be less susceptible
+to its operation than usual. The
+commissioners foresaw this objection, and
+for that reason made the following experiment.
+As soon as they had ceased to
+magnetise the patient through the paper
+partition, the same commissioner passed
+into the other apartment; he found no
+difficulty in engaging mademoiselle B——
+to submit to the magnetical operation. It
+was accordingly repeated in precisely the
+same manner as in the former instance, at
+the distance of a foot and an half, and by
+the intervention of gestures only, together
+with the employment of the right finger
+and the rod of iron. If he had applied
+the hands, and touched the hypochonders,
+it might have been objected that any difference
+of effect, was to be ascribed to the
+application having been more immediate in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>the latter instance. But the only difference
+between the two experiments was,
+that in the former mademoiselle B——
+was magnetised in a direction opposite to
+that of the poles, and conformable to the
+rules of the magnetical theory; and in the
+second she was magnetised in the direction
+of the poles, or in the transverse line. On
+this account according to the principles of
+the magnetism no effect ought to have
+been produced.</p>
+
+<p>In three minutes however she felt a
+sensation of dejection and suffocation; to
+these succeeded an interrupted hiccup, a
+chattering of the teeth, a contraction of
+the throat, and an extreme pain in her
+head; she was restless in her chair; she
+complained of a pain in the loins; now and
+then she struck her foot with extreme
+quickness on the floor; afterwards she
+stretched her arms behind her, twisting
+them extremely as at Passy; in a word the
+convulsive crisis was complete and accompanied
+with all the regular symptoms.
+All these accidents appeared in consequence
+of a process of twelve minutes, though
+the same process employed for thirty minutes
+a little before had been ineffectual.
+The only ground of difference that remains,
+is the play that was afforded in the
+latter instance to the imagination; to this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>therefore the difference of the effects is to
+be ascribed.</p>
+
+<p>If the crisis originated in the influence
+of the imagination, it was the imagination
+also that put a stop to it. The commissioner
+who magnetised her, observed that
+it was time to have done; at the same time
+presenting to her his two forefingers in
+the form of a cross; and it is proper to
+observe that in so doing he magnetised her
+in the direction of the poles, in the same
+manner as he had done through the whole
+experiment; no actual alteration had therefore
+been made, and the process being continued,
+the impressions ought also to have
+continued. But the declared intention of the
+operator was sufficient to dissipate the crisis;
+her heat and the pain in her head were
+immediately alleviated. The disorder of
+her frame was in this manner followed
+from place to place, announcing at the
+same time that it was going to disappear.
+In this manner in obedience to the voice
+to which the imagination was subjected,
+the contraction of the throat ceased, then
+the accidents of the breast, lastly those of
+the stomach and the arms. The whole
+required only three minutes; after which
+mademoiselle B—— declared that she no
+longer felt any sensation, but was perfectly
+restored to her habitual state.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span></p>
+
+<p>These last experiments, as well as several
+of those that were made at the house of
+M. Jumelin, have the double advantage of
+demonstrating at once the efficacy of the
+imagination, and the impotence of the
+magnetism, in regard of the symptoms
+which were operated.</p>
+
+<p>If the symptoms are more considerable
+and the crises more violent at the public
+process, it is because various causes are
+combined with the imagination, to operate,
+to multiply and to enlarge its effects.
+They begin with subduing the minds of
+the patients by the employment of the
+eyes; this is followed by the touch, the
+application of the hands; it is proper to
+develop in this place the physical effects of
+this method of procedure.</p>
+
+<p>The symptoms are more or less considerable:
+the less are <span id="cor_084">hiccuppings</span>, qualms of the
+stomach and purgings; the greater are the
+convulsions to which they have given the
+denomination of crises. The parts upon
+which the touch is employed, are the hypochonders,
+the pit of the stomach, and
+sometimes the ovaria, when the patient is a
+woman. The hands and the fingers are
+pressed with a greater or less stress upon
+these different regions.</p>
+
+<p>The colon, one of the larger intestines,
+runs through both the regions of the
+hypochonders, and the region of the epigastrium
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>which separates them. It is placed
+immediately under the integuments. It is
+therefore upon this intestine that the pressure
+falls, an intestine full of sensibility
+and irritability. A repeated voluntary
+effort, without assistance from any other
+cause, excites the muscular action of this
+intestine, and sometimes procures evacuations.
+Nature, as it were by instinct, indicates
+this manœuvre to persons hypochondriacally
+affected. The process of the
+magnetism is nothing more than this very
+manœuvre; and the evacuations it is calculated
+to produce are further facilitated in
+the magnetical process, by the frequent
+and almost habitual use of a real laxative,
+the cream of tartar in their drink.</p>
+
+<p>But while the motion which is produced,
+excites principally the irritability of the
+colon, this intestine offers other phenomena.
+It swells in a greater or less degree,
+and sometimes distends itself to a considerable
+volume. At such times it communicates
+to the diaphragm such an irritation,
+that this organ becomes more or
+less convulsed. It is this convulsion to
+which they have given the appellation of
+crisis in the animal magnetism. One of
+the commissioners had occasion to see a
+woman, subject to a kind of spasmodic
+vomitings, with which she was seized several
+times in the course of every day. Her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>efforts produced nothing but a turbid and
+viscous water, similar to that which is
+brought up by the patients in the crisis of
+the magnetical operation. The convulsion
+had its seat in the diaphragm, and the
+region of the colon was so sensible, that
+the slightest touch upon that part, a strong
+commotion of the air, the surprise caused
+by a sudden noise sufficed to excite the
+convulsion. This woman had therefore
+regular crises without the assistance of the
+magnetism, by the single irritability of the
+colon and diaphragm; and the women
+who are magnetised, obtain their crises
+from the same cause and through the same
+irritability.</p>
+
+<p>The application of the hands upon the
+stomach has physical effects not less remarkable.
+The application is made directly
+upon that organ. Sometimes a
+strong continuous compression is operated,
+sometimes a number of slight and successive
+compressions, sometimes a discomposure
+of the stomach by a rotatory motion
+of the rod of iron in contact with the part,
+or by the successive and rapid passage of
+the thumbs over it one after the other.
+These methods convey almost immediately
+to the stomach an irritation, more or less
+strong and durable, in proportion as the
+subject is more or less susceptible. The
+part is also previously disposed for the reception
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>of this irritation by being first
+compressed. This compression prepares it
+to act upon the diaphragm and to communicate
+to it the impressions it receives.
+It is irritated, the diaphragm is also irritated,
+and from thence result, in the same
+manner as by the action of the colon, the
+nervous accidents which had been already
+stated. In women who are peculiarly susceptible,
+the mere compression of the two
+hypochonders, without their being acted
+upon in any other manner, occasions a
+contraction of the stomach and fits of
+swooning. This happened in the case of
+the woman magnetised by M. Jumelin,
+and it often happens from no other cause
+than an improper degree of tightness in
+their dress. These cases are not followed
+by the crisis, because the stomach is compressed,
+without being irritated, and the
+diaphragm remains in its natural state.
+The same methods employed upon the
+ovaria in the female sex, beside their particular
+effects, produce with great force
+the above accidents. The empire and extensive
+influence of the uterus over the
+animal œconomy is well known.</p>
+
+<p>The intimate connection of the colon,
+the stomach and the uterus with the diaphragm
+is one of the causes of the effects
+ascribed to the magnetism. The regions
+of the lower belly, which are the subject
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>of these operations, answer to the different
+plexuses which constitute a regular nervous
+centre in this part, by means of which,
+leaving every particular system out of the
+question, there most certainly exists a
+sympathy, communication or correspondence
+between all the parts of the body,
+such an action and reaction, that the sensations
+excited in this centre affect the other
+parts of the body, and reciprocally a sensation
+experienced in any part affects and
+calls into play the nervous centre, which
+often transmits the impression back again
+to all the parts of the body.</p>
+
+<p>The truth thus stated not only explains
+the effects of the magnetic touch, but
+also the physical effects of the imagination.
+It has been constantly remarked, that the
+affections of the soul make their first corporeal
+impression upon the nervous centre,
+which commonly leads their subject to
+describe himself as having a weight upon
+his stomach, or a sensation of suffocation.
+The diaphragm enters into this business,
+from whence originate the sighs, the tears
+and the expressions of mirth. The viscera
+of the lower belly then experience a reaction;
+and it is by this automatous process
+that we are enabled to account for the
+physical disorders produced by the imagination.
+Surprise occasions the colic, terror
+causes a diarrhœa, melancholy is the origin
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>of icterical distempers. The history of
+medicine presents to us an infinity of examples
+of the power of imagination and
+the mental affections. The terror occasioned
+by a fire, a violent degree of desire,
+a strong and undoubting hope, a fit of
+choler have restored the use of his limbs
+to one who has been crippled with the
+gout or to a paralytic person; a strong and
+unlooked for degree of joy has dissipated
+a quartan ague of two months standing;
+close attention is a remedy for the hiccup;
+and persons, who by some accident have
+been deprived of the faculty of speech,
+have recovered it in consequence of some
+of the vehement emotions of the soul.
+This last assertion is supported by the
+testimony of history, and the commissioners
+have themselves witnessed a suspension of
+this faculty, occasioned singly by the imagination.
+The action and reaction of the
+physical upon the moral system, and of the
+moral upon the physical, have been acknowledged
+ever since the phenomena of
+the medical science have been remarked,
+that is, ever since the origin of the science.</p>
+
+<p>Tears, laughter, coughs, hiccups, and
+in general all the effects which are observed
+in what have been stiled crises in the
+animal magnetism, do therefore originate
+either in the interruption of the functions
+of the diaphragm by a physical vehicle,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>such as the touch and the pressure, or from
+the power with which the imagination is
+endowed of acting upon this organ and
+interrupting its functions.</p>
+
+<p>If it be objected that the touch is not
+always necessary to these effects, it may be
+replied, that the imagination may be sufficiently
+fertile in resources to produce
+them all by its sole instrumentality; especially
+the imagination exerted in a public
+process, called into play at once by the
+methods in which it is itself addressed,
+and by the effects observed in those who
+surround it. It has been already seen what
+were its effects in the experiments made by
+the commissioners upon isolated subjects;
+it may easily be conceived in what degree
+those effects must be multiplied in the case
+of a number of patients collected together
+in a public process. These patients are
+assembled in a narrow space, if the space
+be compared with the number of patients;
+the air of the apartment is heated, although
+care be employed to renew it; and it is
+always more or less impregnated with
+mephitic gas, which has the property of
+acting immediately upon the head and
+the nervous system. When the introduction
+of music is added, it affords another
+means of acting upon and exciting the
+nerves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p>
+
+<p>In the public process several women are
+magnetised at the same time, and they experience
+at first no effects but such as are
+similar to those, obtained by the commissioners
+in various experiments. It is
+even acknowledged that for the most part
+the crises do not commence in less than
+the space of two hours. By little and little
+the impressions are communicated from
+one to another, and reinforced, in the same
+manner as the impressions which are made
+by theatrical representation, where the impressions
+are greater in proportion to the
+number of the spectators, and the liberty
+they enjoy of expressing their sensations.
+The applause, by which the emotions of
+individuals are announced, occasions a general
+emotion, which every one partakes
+in the degree in which he is susceptible.
+The same observation has been made in
+armies upon a day of battle, where the
+enthusiasm of courage, as well as the impressions
+of terror, are propagated with so
+amazing rapidity. The drum, the sound
+of the military musical instruments, the
+noise of the cannon, the musquetry, the
+shouts of the army, and the general disorder
+impress the organs, have a uniform effect
+upon the understanding, and exalt the
+imagination in the same degree. In this
+equilibrium of inebriation, the external
+manifestation of a single sensation immediately
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>becomes universal; it hurries the
+soldiery to the charge, or it determines
+them to fly. The same cause is deeply
+concerned in rebellions; the multitude
+are governed by the imagination; the individuals
+in a numerous assembly are more
+subjected to their senses, and less capable
+of submitting to the dictates of reason;
+and where fanaticism is the presiding quality,
+its fruit is the tremblers of the
+Cevennes&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>. It has been usual to forbid
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93-94]</span>numerous assemblies in seditious towns,
+as a means of stopping a contagion so
+easily communicated. Every where example
+acts upon the moral part of our
+frame, mechanical imitation upon the physical
+part: the minds of individuals are
+calmed by dispersing them; the same
+method puts a stop to their spasmodic
+affections, always contagious in their nature:
+we have had a recent example of
+this in the young ladies of Saint Roch,
+who were in this manner cured of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>convulsions with which they were affected
+when together&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The magnetism then, or rather the
+operations of the imagination, are equally
+discoverable at the theatre, in the camp,
+and in all numerous assemblies, as at
+the bucket, acting indeed by different
+means, but producing similar effects. The
+bucket is surrounded with a crowd of
+patients; the sensations are continually
+communicated and recommunicated; it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>ought to be expected that the nerves should
+be at length worn out with this exercise,
+they are accordingly irritated, and the
+woman of most sensibility in the company
+gives the signal. Immediately the cords,
+every where stretched to the same degree
+and in perfect unison, respond to each
+other; the crises are multiplied; they
+mutually reinforce each other, and are
+rendered violent. In the mean time the
+men, who are witnesses of these emotions,
+partake of them in proportion to their
+nervous sensibility; and those with whom
+this sensibility is greatest and most easily
+excited become themselves the subjects of
+a crisis.</p>
+
+<p>This propensity to irritation, partly natural
+and partly acquired, becomes in each
+sex habitual. The sensations having been
+felt once or oftener, nothing is now necessary,
+but to recal the memory of them, and
+to exalt the imagination to the same degree,
+in order to operate the same effects. This
+will never be difficult when the subject is
+placed in the same circumstances. The
+public process is no longer necessary, you
+have only to touch the hypochonders and
+to conduct the finger and the rod of iron
+before the countenance; the signs are well
+known. Even these are not necessary, it
+is sufficient that the patients be blindfolded,
+made to believe that these signs are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>repeated upon them, and that they are
+magnetised; the ideas are reexcited, the
+sensations are reproduced, the imagination,
+employing its accustomed instruments and
+resuming its former routes, gives birth to
+the same phenomena. These cases happen
+exactly to the patients of M. Deslon, who
+fall into a crisis without the bucket, and
+without being excited with the spectacle
+of the public process.</p>
+
+<p>Compression, imagination, imitation are
+therefore the true causes of the effects attributed
+to this new agent, known by the
+appellation of animal magnetism, this fluid,
+which is said to circulate through the
+human body, and to be communicated from
+individual to individual. Such is the result
+of the experiments of the commissioners,
+and the observations they made upon the
+means employed and the effects produced.
+This agent, this fluid has no existence.
+Chimerical however as it is, the idea is
+by no means novel. Some authors, particularly
+physicians of the last age, have
+expressly treated of it in various performances.
+The curious and interesting enquiries
+of M. Thouret have convinced the
+public, that the theory, the operations and
+the effects of the animal magnetism, proposed
+in the last age, were nearly the same
+with those revived in the present. The
+magnetism then is no more than an old
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>falshood. The theory indeed is now presented,
+as was necessary in a more enlightened
+age, with a greater degree of
+pomp; but it is not less erroneous. Human
+nature is formed to seize, to quit
+and to resume the mistake which is flattering
+to its wishes. There are errors which
+will be eternally dear to the sublunary state.
+How often has the pretended science of
+astrology vanished and reappeared! The
+magnetism is calculated to lead us back to
+it. Its professors have been desirous of
+connecting it with the celestial influences,
+that it might have the stronger seduction,
+and attract mankind by the two hopes that
+are nearest their heart, that of looking into
+futurity, and that of prolonging their
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>There is room to believe that the imagination
+is the principal of the three causes
+which we have assigned to the magnetism.
+It appears by the experiments we have related
+that it suffices alone to produce the
+crises. The pressure and the touch seem
+to serve it as preparatives; it is by the
+touch that the nerves begin to be excited,
+imitation communicates and extends the
+impressions. But the imagination is that
+active and terrible power, by which are
+operated the astonishing effects, that have
+excited so much attention to the public
+process. The effects strike all the world,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>the cause is enveloped in the shades of
+obscurity. When we consider that these
+effects seduced in former ages men, venerable
+for their merit, their illumination
+and even their genius, Paracelsus, Van
+Helmont and Kircher, we cease to be
+astonished, that persons of the present day,
+learned and well informed, that even a great
+number of physicians have been the dupes
+of this system. Had the commissioners
+been admitted only to the public process,
+where there is neither time nor opportunity
+of making decisive experiments,
+they might themselves have been led into
+error. It was necessary to have liberty to
+insulate the effects, in order to distinguish
+the causes; it was necessary to see as they
+have done the imagination act, if we may
+be allowed the expression, partially, and
+produce its effects one by one and in
+detail, to have an idea to what the accumulation
+of those effects might amount; to
+conceive the extent of its power, and to
+account for all its prodigies. Such an examination
+demanded a sacrifice of time,
+and a number of systematical researches,
+which we have not always the leisure to
+undertake for our private instruction or
+private curiosity, nor even the power properly
+to pursue without being like the
+commissioners charged with the mandates
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>of the sovereign, and honoured with the
+confidence of the public.</p>
+
+<p>M. Deslon is not much averse to the
+admission of these principles. He declared
+in our session held at the house of Dr. Franklin
+the 19th of June, that he thought
+he might lay it down as a fact, that the
+imagination had the greatest share in the
+effects of the animal magnetism; he said
+that this new agent might be no other
+than the imagination itself, whose power
+is as extensive as it is little known: he
+affirmed that he always acknowledged the
+concern of this faculty in the treatment of
+his patients, and he affirmed with equal
+confidence that many persons have been
+either entirely cured or infinitely amended
+in the state of their health under his direction.
+He remarked to the commissioners
+that the imagination thus directed to the
+relief of suffering humanity, would be a
+most valuable means in the hands of the
+medical profession&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>; and persuaded of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>reality of the power of the imagination,
+he invited the commissioners to embrace
+the opportunity which his practice afforded
+to study its procedure and its effects.
+If therefore M. Deslon be still attached to
+his first idea, that these effects are to be
+ascribed to the agency of a fluid, which is
+communicated from individual to individual
+by the touch or under the guidance
+of a conductor, he cannot however avoid
+conceding to the commissioners that only
+one cause is requisite to one effect, and
+that since the imagination is a sufficient
+cause, the supposition of the magnetic fluid
+is useless. It cannot be denied that we
+are surrounded with a fluid which peculiarly
+belongs to us; the insensible perspiration
+forms around us an atmosphere of
+insensible vapours: but this fluid has no
+agency but such as is common to other
+atmospheres; cannot be communicated
+by the touch but in infinitely small quantities;
+is not capable of being directed
+either by conductors, or by the eyes, or
+by the will; is neither propagated by
+sound, nor reflected by mirrors; and is in
+no case susceptible of the effects ascribed
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>It remains for us to enquire, whether
+the crises or convulsions, excited by the
+methods of the pretended magnetism in
+the assemblies round the bucket, be capable
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>of any utility, or be calculated to cure or
+relieve the patients. The imagination of
+sick persons has unquestionably a very
+frequent and considerable share in the cure
+of their diseases. With the effect of it
+we are unacquainted otherwise than by
+general experience; but, though it has
+not been traced in positive experiments,
+it should seem not to admit of a reasonable
+doubt. It is a known adage, that in physic
+as well as religion, men are saved by faith;
+this faith is the produce of the imagination:
+in these cases the imagination acts
+by gentle means; it is by diffusing tranquility
+over the senses, by restoring the
+harmony of the functions, by recalling
+into play every principle of the frame
+under the genial influence of hope. Hope
+is an essential constituent of human life;
+the man that yields us one contributes to
+restore to us the other. But when the
+imagination produces convulsions, the
+means it employs are violent; and such
+means are almost always destructive. There
+are indeed a few rare cases in which they
+may be useful; there are desperate diseases,
+in which it is necessary to overturn
+every thing for the introduction of an order
+totally new. These critical shocks are to
+be employed in the medical art in the
+same manner as poisons. It is requisite
+that necessity should demand, and œconomy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>employ them. The need of them is momentary;
+the shock ought to be single.
+Very far from repeating it, the intelligent
+physician exerts himself to invent the means
+of repairing the indispensible evil which
+has thus been produced; but in the public
+process of the magnetism the crises are
+repeated every day, they are long and violent.
+Now since the state introduced by
+these crises is pernicious, the habit cannot
+be other than fatal. How indeed can it
+be conceived, that a woman, attacked for
+instance with a pulmonary distemper, can
+undergo with impunity a crisis, some of
+whose symptoms are a convulsive cough and
+compulsory expectorations; or can safely
+fatigue, perhaps shatter the lungs by violent
+and repeated efforts, when so great pains are
+necessary to convey to the wounded frame
+the sanative and the balsamic? How can
+we imagine that a man, be his disorder
+what it will, can need in order to his recovery
+the intervention of crises, in which
+the sight appears to be lost, the members
+stiffen, he strikes his breast with precipitate
+and involuntary motions; crises in a
+word, that are terminated by an abundant
+spitting of viscous humours and even blood?
+The blood thus discharged is neither
+vitiated nor corrupted, it flows from vessels
+from which it is torn by the violence
+of effort and contrary to the intention of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>nature; these effects are therefore to be
+regarded as a real not a salutary evil, an
+evil additional to the distemper be it what
+it will.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is this the only danger with which
+they are attended. Man is incessantly
+enslaved by custom; nature is modified by
+habit only in a progressive manner, yet she
+is often so completely modified, as to suffer
+an entire metamorphosis, and to be scarcely
+capable of being known for the same.
+Who will assure us that this state of crises,
+at first voluntarily induced, shall not become
+habitual? And should the habit thus
+contracted frequently reproduce the same
+symptoms, in spite of the will, and almost
+without the assistance of the imagination,
+how dreadful the fate of an individual,
+subjected to so violent effects, tormented,
+as well morally as physically, with their
+unfortunate impression, whose days should
+be divided between apprehension and agony,
+and whose life should be an uninterrupted
+state of suffering! Nervous distempers of
+this description, even when natural, are
+the opprobrium of the medical science;
+how little ought it to be the object of art
+to produce them! The art, which thus
+interferes with all the functions of the animal
+œconomy, urges nature out of her
+proper course, and multiplies the victims
+of irregularity, is to be regarded as pernicious.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>Its effects are the more to be apprehended,
+since it not only aggravates the
+disorder of the nerves by renewing their
+symptoms, and causing them to degenerate
+into habit; but if a distemper of this
+kind be contagious, as it may be suspected
+to be, the method of provoking nervous
+convulsions and of exciting them in public
+assemblies is a means to diffuse them in
+great towns, and even to afflict with them
+generations to come, since the diseases and
+the habits of parents are transmitted to
+their posterity.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners having convinced
+themselves, that the animal magnetic fluid
+is capable of being perceived by none of
+our senses, and had no action either upon
+themselves or upon the subjects of their
+several experiments; being assured, that the
+touches and compressions employed in its
+application rarely occasioned favourable
+changes in the animal œconomy, and that
+the impressions thus made are always hurtful
+to the imagination; in fine having demonstrated
+by decisive experiments, that
+the imagination without the magnetism
+produces convulsions, and that the magnetism
+without the imagination produces
+nothing; they have concluded with an
+unanimous voice respecting the existence
+and the utility of the magnetism, that the
+existence of the fluid is absolutely destitute
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>of proof, that the fluid having no existence
+can consequently have no use, that the
+violent symptoms observed in the public
+process are to be ascribed to the compression,
+to the imagination called into action,
+and to that propensity to mechanical imitation,
+which leads us in spite of ourselves
+to the repetition of what strikes our senses.
+And at the same time they think themselves
+obliged to add as an important observation,
+that the compressions and the repeated
+action of the imagination employed
+in producing the crises may be hurtful,
+that the sight of these crises is not less
+dangerous on account of that imitation
+which nature seems to have imposed upon
+us as a law, and that of consequence every
+public process, in which the means of the
+animal magnetism shall be employed, cannot
+fail in the end of producing the most
+pernicious effects&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p>
+
+<p class="larger p2">Paris, the 11th day of August, 1784.</p>
+
+<!--
+<p class="right">
+  (Signed)      <span class="smcap">B. Franklin</span>,<br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.0em;"><span class="smcap">Majault</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.5em;"><span class="smcap">Le Roy</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.5em;"><span class="smcap">Sallin</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.5em;"><span class="smcap">Bailly</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.0em;"><span class="smcap">D’Arcet</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 2.0em;"><span class="smcap">De Bory</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 1.0em;"><span class="smcap">Guillotin</span>,</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-right: 1.0em;"><span class="smcap">Lavoisier</span>.</span>
+</p> todo delete-->
+
+<table class="signature larger">
+<tr><td>(Signed)<span style="margin-right: 6em;"></span></td><td><span class="smcap">B. Franklin</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Majault</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Le Roy</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Sallin</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Bailly</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">D’Arcet</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">De Bory</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Guillotin</span>,</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Lavoisier</span>.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="center large"><span class="wide9">FINIS</span>.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">
+    FOOTNOTES:
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> “It must be confessed however, that the manner
+of directing the pretended magnetism, is different in
+these systems. The ancients, as well as M. Mesmer,
+regarded this fluid as universally diffused, as pervading
+the bodies of animals, and as capable of being rendered
+the vehicle of the most salutary influences. But, in
+order to call it into action, they did not, like M. Mesmer,
+desire to touch, or so much as to approach the
+patient. Their method consisted in a different order of
+proceeding. To give a suitable direction to the universal
+spirit, they were obliged to employ real parts,
+either extracted or evacuated, of the individual upon
+whom they proposed to direct the magnetism. The
+different humours of the human body, whether natural,
+as the blood, the urine, the excrements, or contrary to
+nature, as the pus bred in wounds; in fine, the solid
+parts of the frame, as the flesh, the nails, the hair, in a
+state of separation from the body, afforded, according to
+the ancient doctrine, the suitable and necessary means
+of employing the magnetism. These different parts, so
+long as they remained in a state of integrity, were supposed
+to be united in the link of a common vital principle
+with the individual who had furnished them. The
+union was operated by the intervention of the universal
+spirit, and in acting upon them, the physician was said
+to act also upon the person to whom they had belonged;
+an action, which, as it was independent of contact, and
+was not superseded by distance, was regarded as magnetic.”
+<cite>Thouret.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> “Far be it from me,” says Maxwel, “to lead
+you to improper actions. If from the perusal of my
+works, you become acquainted with the means of such
+actions, you will do me the justice not to divulge them.—I
+have seen,” adds he, “the most incredible effects,
+and the greatest advantages from a right use of this
+method. I have also seen infinite evils occasioned by
+the abuse of it.—Indeed, it is scarcely prudent to treat of
+these subjects, on account of the dangers that may result
+from it. If we were to express ourselves in a manner
+universally intelligible, fathers could never be sure of
+their daughters, nor husbands of their wives; women
+would be deprived of their self-government in spite of
+the most judicious and obstinate resistance.” <cite lang="la">Maxwel,
+de medicina magnetica, apud Thouret.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> Paracelsus Arecolus Philippus Theophrastus
+Bombastus de Hohenheim is to be regarded as the inventor
+of the magnetical system. He was born at a
+village near Zurich in Switzerland in 1493, and died
+in 1541. His profession was that of a physician, and he
+obtained great reputation by the use of mercury and
+opium, medicines that were unknown, or not employed
+by the physicians of those times. But beside this, he
+was a proficient in alchymy, astrology, and magic. He
+was acquainted with the philosopher’s stone, and the
+universal medicine. And he invented an elixir, in the
+use of which a man could not fail to live to the age of
+a thousand years.</p>
+
+<p>Van Helmont was the immediate successor of Paracelsus
+in the pursuit of the magnetical science, and wrote
+an express treatise <span lang="la">De Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione</span>.</p>
+
+<p>All the other persons enumerated, lived in the seventeenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>“To Maxwel, we are particularly indebted for the
+most complete and copious treatise upon the subject, in
+which he has endeavoured to support its declining credit
+by calling in the assistance of that theory of the universal
+spirit, which he derived from the earliest philosophers of
+antiquity, and in which we are presented with the exact
+counterpart of the system of M. Mesmer.</p>
+
+<p>“Another inhabitant of this island, the learned and
+illustrious sir Kenelm Digby, is well known for his
+invention of the sympathetic powder; which it was only
+necessary to apply to the linnen which had imbibed the
+blood or pus of a wound, or to the arm or sword of him
+who inflicted it, provided they were still stained with the
+blood of the wounded person. It was necessary however,
+that the wound should be kept perfectly clean, and
+protected from the air.</p>
+
+<p>“There was a sympathetic sweating powder, invented
+so lately as the year 1745. The means of applying
+it was, by mixing it with the urine of the person
+diseased, and keeping it boiling over a fire, as long as
+you wished the perspiration to continue. During the
+operation, the patient was to keep his bed, to be covered
+up warm, and to drink several large basons of tea.
+This medicine was never known to fail of its effect.”
+<cite>Thouret.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> The experiments of the ring and sword, are to
+be found in Kircher’s <span lang="la">Magnes, sive de arte magnetica</span>.
+They are both well known. “That of the sword consists
+in the balancing it upon the point of one of the fingers,
+the consequence of which will be a very rapid rotatory
+motion, <em>provided the person be properly magnetised</em>. That
+of the ring is performed by a person initiated in the animal
+magnetism, holding it suspended by a thread in the
+inside of a wine glass, when it will invariably strike the
+hour of the day.” <cite>Thouret.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> “Valentine Greatrakes, esq; was a native of
+Afane, in the kingdom of Ireland. We are told, that
+one day he was conscious to a wonderful internal revolution,
+and at the same time heard a voice like that of
+a genius, which cried incessantly for a long time: “I
+endow you with the faculty of curing diseases.” Importuned
+by this salutation, from which he could in no
+way distract his attention, he determined to make an
+experiment of the truth of the intelligence. The voice
+had first announced to him the gift of curing the king’s
+evil. He made an experiment upon this distemper, and
+succeeded. He afterwards touched persons attacked
+with an epidemical fever, that raged in his neighbourhood;
+the voice had announced to him the gift of curing
+this disease. In fine, he was enabled to cure every species
+of disease; and he succeeded in all cases, except
+where, as he observed, the malady was too deeply rooted,
+or the patient laboured under a particular indisposition
+to this method of cure. The exterior of this man was
+extremely simple. His cures were accompanied with
+no degree of pomp and ceremony, unless we should call
+such, his ascribing his success to God, publicly expressing
+his gratitude, and inviting the patient to join with him
+in the act of thanksgiving. But he made a very extensive
+use of the operation of touch. The distemper fled
+before him, and he was able, we are told, to dislodge it
+from its seat, and remove it to parts the least useful.
+If its progress appeared to be suspended in any part, he
+redoubled his frictions upon that part, to remove the
+obstacle. In this operation nature, excited by the
+stroking, seemed frequently to operate crises, and it produced
+stools, vomitings and perspirations.” <cite>Thouret.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“Greatrakes cured not only internal diseases, but
+also external ones, such as wounds and ulcers. The
+second Villiers, duke of Buckingham, was one of his
+patients. His attestations were signed by Boyle, Wilkins,
+Whichcot, Cudworth and Patrick. He was
+born in 1628, received the gift of healing 1662, and
+removed to London 1666.” <cite lang="fr">Des Maizeaux, Vie de
+St. Evremond</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>“The cures of Gassner are of a much later date,
+and are not above ten or twelve years old. This
+German, having in his youth been afflicted with an ill
+state of health, which resisted the efforts of all the physicians,
+suspected that his distemper might have a supernatural
+cause, and derive from the influence of the devil.
+His conjecture was verified by his success in expelling
+the devil, having adjured him in the name of Jesus
+Christ. From that moment he enjoyed the most perfect
+health for sixteen years. Encouraged by this event, he
+laid aside the study of medicine, to which his distemper
+had prompted him, and procured all the authors who
+had treated of exorcism. He began with healing his
+parishioners in an obscure town upon the borders of
+Switzerland and the Tirol, and his reputation increased
+so much, that, in the two last years of his residence there,
+he had between four and five hundred patients who applied
+to him. He then made a progress through several
+of the Swiss cantons, and settled at Ratisbon in 1774.
+He distinguished diseases into two classes, the natural
+and the demoniac, the last of which were much the
+most numerous. Over the former he pretended to no
+power. His cures were performed with much pomp
+and solemnity; and it was observed, that he constantly
+rubbed his hands upon his girdle and handkerchief
+previously to his touching the patient. He performed
+his cures in the name of Christ, and by the faith of the
+diseased in his holy name; if their faith failed, the cure
+did not take place. He gave the sick, when he dismissed
+them, balm and oil, which he considered as spiritual
+medicaments, together with certain waters and powders,
+and a little ring, inscribed with the name of Jesus, to
+prevent a relapse.” <cite>Thouret.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Thouret considers the system of Gassner as
+having had an influence on that of M. Mesmer.
+Astrology and possessions were extremely current in
+Germany; and as Gassner had taken possession of, and
+ruined the latter pretension, Mesmer had recourse to the
+former. It should however be remembered, that Mesmer
+had written and published his thesis upon astrology
+before the pretensions of Gassner were heard of.</p>
+
+<p>These instances are produced by Thouret, as distinguished
+proofs of the efficacy both of the touch and the
+imagination. In proof of the contagion of convulsive
+affections, he cites the convulsions of Saint Medard, and
+the possessions of Loudun. “The former of these took
+place in 1732, and made their appearance as soon as
+any of the religious were approached to the tomb of their
+patron saint. They were exposed in the most triumphant
+manner, and covered with ridicule by Hecquet, in
+his Natural History of Convulsions. The pretended
+possessions of Loudun (1740) originated in an infamous
+scheme of avarice and revenge against the unfortunate
+Urbain Grandier, rector of Loudun, who became the
+victim of the machinations of his enemies. The physicians
+of Montpelier, charged with the examination of
+the affair, discovered the whole secret of the possessions
+to consist in factitious and pretended convulsions.”
+<cite>Thouret.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> Memoir by M. Mesmer, upon the Discovery of
+the Animal Magnetism, 1779, pages 74 and following.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> <span lang="la">Ibid.</span> Advertisement, page vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> <i lang="fr">Baquet.</i> The diameter of this box is usually large
+enough to admit of fifty persons standing round its circumference.
+<cite>Translator.</cite></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> The observation of this fact was laid in detail before
+the faculty of medicine at Paris, in an assembly de
+prima mensis, by M. Bourdois de la Mothe, physician
+of the charity of Saint-Sulpice, who visited the sick
+person regularly every day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> M. Mesmer, Historical Abridgement, pages 35, 37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> M. Sigault, doctor of the faculty of Paris, well
+known for his invention of the operation of the symphysis
+of the ossa pubis, made a number of experiments, tending
+to prove that the magnetism is merely an imaginary
+power. The following is the detail which he made
+in a letter, dated July the 30th, 1784, and addressed to
+one of the commissioners.</p>
+
+<p>“Having given the persons who inhabited a large
+house in the Marais, to understand that I was a pupil
+of M. Mesmer, I produced various effects upon the
+woman of the house. The magisterial tone and the
+serious air I affected, together with certain gestures,
+made a very great impression upon her, which she
+at first was desirous to conceal from me; but having
+guided my hand upon the region of the heart, I felt
+that it palpitated. The state of oppression in which
+she appeared likewise indicated a contraction of the
+chest. Other symptoms were connected with these;
+her face became convulsed, her eyes wandered, she
+at length fell into a swoon, then threw up her dinner,
+had several stools, and was reduced to a state of
+weakness and sinking, perfectly incredible. I repeated
+the same trick upon several persons, and succeeded
+more or less, according to their different
+degrees of sensibility and credulity.</p>
+
+<p>“A celebrated artist, master of design to the children
+of one of our princes, complained for several
+days of an extreme head-ach; he acquainted me
+with it upon the Pont-royal; having persuaded him
+that I was initiated in the mysteries of M. Mesmer,
+I expelled his head-ach almost instantaneously by the
+means of a few gestures, to his great astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>“I produced the same effects upon the apprentice of
+a hatter in the same distemper. The lad felt nothing
+in consequence of my first gestures; I then laid my
+hand upon his false ribs, bidding him at the same time
+look in my face. He immediately felt a contraction
+of the chest, palpitations of the heart, yawnings, and
+an extreme dejection. He doubted no longer of the
+power I possessed over him. I then guided my finger
+over the part affected, and asked him what he felt.
+He replied that his pain dislodged itself and descended.
+I assured him that I would guide it towards his arm,
+and make it come out at his thumb, at the same time
+squeezing it with considerable force. He took me
+at my word, and was perfectly well for two hours.
+At that period he stopped me in the street to tell me
+that his pain was returned. This effect seems to be
+the same with that produced by certain dentists upon
+the mental faculties of those, who go to them to have a
+tooth drawn.</p>
+
+<p>“Further lastly, being in the parlour of a convent,
+rue du Colombier, fauxbourg Saint Germains, a
+young lady said to me: I understand, sir, that you are
+a pupil of M. Mesmer. I am so, replied I; and
+I can perform the magnetical operation upon you,
+notwithstanding the intervention of the grate. At
+the same time I presented my finger; she was terrified,
+trembled extremely, and besought me for God’s
+sake to proceed no farther. Her emotion was such,
+that, if I had persevered in my experiment, she would
+infallibly have fallen into convulsions.”</p>
+
+<p>M. Sigault relates that he had himself felt the power
+of imagination. One day, the operator having undertaken
+to perform upon him the magnetical operation
+to convince him of its reality, at the moment he had
+determined to touch him, he felt a contraction of the
+chest, and a palpitation of the heart. But having immediately
+composed himself, the gestures and the process
+of the magnetism were employed in vain, and made no
+impression upon him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> Marshal Villars, who was employed in appeasing
+the troubles of the Cevennes, says: “I saw things in
+this kind, which I should not have believed, if they
+had not passed before my eyes; I saw a considerable
+town, of which the whole female part without exception
+appeared to be possessed by the devil. They
+trembled and prophesied publicly in the streets. One
+had the rashness to tremble and prophesy for an hour
+together in my presence. But of all these absurdities
+the most surprising was that, which was related to me
+by the bishop of Alais, and which I wrote to M. de
+Chamillard in the following terms.</p>
+
+<p>“‘A M. de Mandagors, lord of the manor of that
+name, mayor of Alais, possessing the first appointments
+in the town and county, and having even been
+for some time subdelegate to M. de Bàville, was the
+subject of this relation. He was sixty years of age,
+temperate in his manners, possessed of a fine understanding,
+and had written and published many performances.
+Some of them I have read, and, before
+I knew what I have just learned respecting him, I
+considered them as distinguished by a very vigorous
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>“‘A prophetess, aged twenty seven or twenty eight
+years, was taken up about eighteen months ago and
+carried before the bishop of Alais. He interrogated
+her before several ecclesiastics. The creature, after
+having heard what he said, replied with a modest air,
+exhorted him no longer to torment the true children
+of God, and then addressed him for an entire hour
+in an uncouth language of which he could not understand
+a word: just as we have formerly seen the duke
+de la Ferté, when he had drank a few glasses, talk
+English before the inhabitants of that country. I
+have heard them say, I understand very well that he
+speaks English, but I cannot comprehend a word
+that he says. It would have been somewhat difficult
+that they should have done so, for he never knew a
+word of English in his life. This girl talked Greek
+and Hebrew in the style of the duke de la Ferté.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You will take it for granted that M. d’Alais
+sent the girl to prison. After several months, the
+girl appearing to be entirely ridded of her absurdities
+by the attention and advice of the sieur de Mandagors,
+who frequently visited her in her confinement, she
+was set at liberty, and the consequence of that liberty,
+and of the liberties that the sieur Mandagors had
+taken with her, was an immediate pregnancy.</p>
+
+<p>“‘But the fact which I was about to relate is the
+resignation made by the sieur Mandagors of all
+his employments in favour of his son, at the same
+time saying to several individuals, and among others
+to the bishop, that it was by express commission from
+God that he had had carnal knowledge of the prophetess,
+and that the child which should be born
+would be the true saviour of the world. The consequence
+of all this in any other country than France,
+would have been merely the sending M. the mayor
+and his fair patroness to bedlam. The bishop
+suggested to me to have him arrested. I proposed
+previously to confer with M. de Bàville, intendant of
+the province, ordering in the mean time that he and
+the prophetess should be closely watched, so that they
+might not be able to escape. My opinion was, that,
+in the midst of a country of madmen, what relates to
+a madman of such importance ought to make as little
+noise as possible; and that it was therefore necessary
+to endeavour to get him out of the country by gentle
+means, and then to take him into custody. Your
+lordship will easily conceive that to declare publicly
+for a prophet a mayor of Alais, the lord of an extensive
+manor, an ancient subdelegate of the intendant,
+an author, and a man hitherto esteemed for his penetration
+and sagacity, in the midst of a country accustomed
+to venerate and respect him, was a measure
+better calculated to revolt the minds of the inhabitants
+than to correct them. It would the rather
+have had this tendency, that, except the folly of believing
+that God had commanded him to have carnal
+knowledge of this young woman, his conversation is
+as full of reason and good sense, as was that of Don
+Quixote upon all other subjects but that of knight-errantry.
+M. de Bàville was of my opinion. The
+children of M. Mandagors conducted him without
+noise to one of his <span id="cor_fn12">châteaux</span>, where he was confined,
+and the prophetess taken from him and sent
+to prison.’” <span lang="fr">Vie du Maréchal Duc de Villars, tome
+I.</span>, pages 325 and following.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> On the day of the ceremony of the first communion,
+celebrated in the parish church of Saint Roch
+a few years ago (1780), after the evening service they
+made according to custom the procession through the
+streets. Scarcely were the children returned to the
+church, and had resumed their seats, before a young girl
+fell ill and had convulsions. This affection propagated
+itself with so much rapidity, that in the space of half an
+hour fifty or sixty girls from twelve to nineteen years
+of age were seized with the same convulsions; that is,
+with a contraction of the throat, an inflation of the
+stomach, suffocation, hiccups and spasms more or less
+considerable. These accidents reappeared in some instances
+in the course of the week; but the following
+Sunday, being assembled with the dames of Sainte Anne,
+whose business it is to teach the young ladies, twelve of
+them were seized with the same convulsions, and more
+would have followed, if they had not had the precaution
+to send away each child upon the spot to her relations.
+The whole were obliged to be divided into several
+schools. By thus separating the children, and not
+keeping them together but in small numbers, three
+weeks sufficed to dissipate entirely this epidemical convulsive
+affection. See for other instances of the same
+kind the Natural History of Convulsions by M. Hecquet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> M. Deslon had already said in 1780. “Granting
+for a moment that M. Mesmer possesses no other
+secret than that of employing the imagination in the
+extensive production of the most salutary effects, will
+it not still be true, that his invention is an extremely
+valuable one? For in reality, if the physic of the
+imagination be more salutary than the other kinds
+of medicine, what good reason can be alledged, why
+the physic of the imagination should not be brought
+into general use?” Observations on the Animal
+Magnetism, pages 46 and 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> If it be objected to the commissioners that this decision
+concludes respecting the magnetism in general,
+instead of relating singly to the magnetism practised by
+M. Deslon, the commissioners reply that the intention
+of the king was to have their opinion upon the
+animal magnetism, and that in consequence they have
+not exceeded the bounds of their commission. Again
+they reply that M. Deslon has appeared to them acquainted
+with what are called the principles of the magnetism,
+and that he certainly possesses the means of producing
+the effects and exciting the crises which are
+ascribed to it.</p>
+
+<p>The principles of M. Deslon are the very same with
+those included in the twenty seven propositions disseminated
+from the press by M. Mesmer in 1779. If M.
+Mesmer now announces a more extensive theory, it was
+not necessary for the commissioners to be acquainted
+with the theory to decide upon the existence and utility
+of the magnetism, it was sufficient to estimate the effects.
+It is by the effects that the existence of a cause
+is established, it is by the effects also that its utility must
+be demonstrated. The phenomena are learned from
+observation long before we can arrive at the theory
+which connects and explains them. The theory of the
+loadstone does not yet exist, and its phenomena are
+ascertained by the experience of successive ages. The
+theory of M. Mesmer is in this case indifferent and superfluous;
+the methods employed, the effects produced,
+this is what it was necessary to examine. Now it is
+easy to prove that the essential practice of the magnetism
+is known to M. Deslon.</p>
+
+<p>M. Deslon was for many years the pupil of M. Mesmer.
+Constantly during that time he saw the process
+of the animal magnetism, and the means employed in
+exciting and directing it. M. Deslon himself administered
+the magnetism in the presence of M. Mesmer;
+separated from him he operated the same effects. Being
+afterwards reconciled they united their patients; the
+one and the other without distinction undertook the
+management of them, and of consequence the methods
+were the same. The method which is followed at this
+day by M. Deslon can be no other than the method of
+M. Mesmer.</p>
+
+<p>The effects are not less correspondent. There are
+crises equally frequent, and accompanied by similar
+symptoms, at the house of M. Deslon and at the house
+of M. Mesmer; the effects do not therefore belong to the
+method of an individual, but to the practice of the magnetism
+in general. The experiments of the commissioners
+demonstrate that the effects obtained by M. Deslon
+are due to compression, to imagination and to
+imitation. These are therefore the causes of the magnetism
+in general. The observations of the commissioners
+have convinced them that these convulsive crises
+and these violent means cannot be useful in medicine
+any otherwise than as poisons, and they have judged
+independent of all theory that wherever it shall be the
+object to excite convulsions they may become habitual
+and pernicious, they may be epidemically diffused, and
+even extend to future generations.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners were of consequence obliged to
+conclude that not only the measures in a particular
+mode of proceeding, but the measures of the magnetism
+in general, might in the end produce the most pernicious
+effects.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">
+    Transcriber’s Note
+  </h2>
+
+
+<p>Erroneously placed or missing punctuation has been silently corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the book.</p>
+
+<p>The following typographical errors have been changed:</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li><a href="#cor_016">p. 16</a>: “administred” changed to “administered” (have been and are administered to the diseased)</li>
+ <li><a href="#cor_030">p. 30</a>: “seness” changed to “senses” (capable of being perceived by the senses)</li>
+ <li><a href="#cor_033">p. 33</a>: “difrent” changed to “different” (may be observed in two different ways)</li>
+ <li><a href="#cor_039">p. 39</a>: “account account” changed to “account” (giving an exact and faithful account of their sensations)</li>
+ <li><a href="#cor_084">p. 84</a>: “hiccuphings” changed to “hiccuppings” (hiccuppings, qualms of the stomach and purgings)</li>
+ <li><a href="#cor_fn12">Footnote 12</a>: “chàteaux” changed to “châteaux” (conducted him without noise to one of his châteaux)</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78413 ***</div>
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