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.