EFFECTS OF THE IMAGINATION ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
Ignorance of the influence of the imagination upon the nervous system
has given rise to many superstitions. We will give a few statements of
facts to establish and illustrate this position. Some time previous to
1784, a gentleman in Paris, by the name of Mesmer, professed to have
discovered a universal remedy for all diseases; and this remedy
consisted in being _magnetized_ under peculiar forms and circumstances.
M. Mesmer became so noted for his discovery, and he performed such
extraordinary cures, that, in 1784, the French king appointed a
committee, consisting of four physicians and five members of the Royal
Academy of Sciences, to investigate this matter. The committee, as soon
as they had examined the whole apparatus employed in magnetizing, and
taken cognizance of the manoeuvres of Mesmer, and his partner, Deslon,
proceeded to notice the symptoms of the patients while under the
influence of magnetism. These were various in different individuals.
Some were calm and tranquil, and felt nothing; others were affected
with coughing and spitting, with pains, heats, and perspirations; and
some were agitated and tortured with convulsions. These convulsions
were sometimes continued for three hours, accompanied with
expectoration of a viscid phlegm, ejected by violent efforts, and
sometimes streaked with blood. They had involuntary motions of the
limbs, of the whole body, and spasms of the throat. Their eyes wandered
in wild motions; they uttered piercing shrieks, wept, laughed, and
hiccoughed. The commissioners observed that the great majority of those
thus effected were females, and that these exhibitions did not begin
until they had been under the operation of magnetism one or two hours,
and that, when one became affected, the rest were soon seen in the same
situation. In order to give the magnetizer the fairest opportunity to
exhibit the power of his invention, and to give the most satisfactory
evidence to the public, the commissioners all submitted to be operated
upon themselves, and sat under the operation two hours and a half, but
without the least effect upon them, except the fatigue of sitting so
long in one position. They were magnetized three days in succession,
but without any sensible effect being produced. The magnetizing
instruments were then removed to Dr. Franklin's house, away from public
view, parade, and high expectation, and fourteen persons were then
magnetized, all of them invalids. Nine of them experienced nothing,
five appeared slightly affected, and the commissioners were surprised
to learn, in every instance, that the poor and ignorant alone were
affected. After this eight men and two women were magnetized, but
without the least effect. At length a female servant submitted to the
same operation, and she affirmed that she felt a heat in every part
where the magnetized finger was pointed at her; that she experienced a
pain in her head; and, during a continuation of the operation, she
became faint, and swooned. When she had fully recovered, they ordered
her eyes to be bandaged, and the operator was removed at a distance,
when they made her believe that she was still under the operation, and
the effects were the same, although no one operated, either near her or
at a distance. She could tell the very place where she was magnetized;
she felt the same heat in her back and loins, and the same pain in her
eyes and ears. At the end of one quarter of an hour, a sign was made
for her to be magnetized, but she felt nothing. On the following day, a
man and woman were magnetized in a similar manner, and the result was
the same. It was found that to direct the _imagination_ to the parts
where the sensations were to be felt, was all that was necessary to
produce these wonderful effects. But _children_, who had not arrived at
sufficient maturity of age to be excited by these imposing forms,
experienced nothing from the operation.
Mesmer and Deslon asserted that they could magnetize a tree, and every
person approaching the tree, in a given time, would be magnetized, and
either fall into a swoon or in convulsions, provided the magnetizer was
permitted to stand at a distance and direct his look and his cane
towards the tree. Accordingly, an apricot tree was selected in Dr.
Franklin's garden, at Vassy, for the experiment, and M. Deslon came and
magnetized the tree while the patient was retained in the house. The
patient was then brought out, with a bandage over his eyes, and
successively lead to four trees, which were not magnetized, and was
directed to embrace each tree two minutes, while M. Deslon, at a
distance, stood pointing his cane to the tree actually magnetized. At
the first tree, which was about twenty-seven feet from the magnetized
tree, the patient sweat profusely, coughed, expectorated, and said he
felt a pain in his head. At the second tree, now thirty feet from the
magnetized tree, he found himself giddy, attended with headache, as
before. At the third tree, his giddiness and headache were much
increased, and he said he believed he was approaching the magnetized
tree, although he was still twenty-eight feet from it. At length, when
brought to the fourth tree, _not magnetized_, and at the distance
of twenty-four feet from that which was, the young man fell down in a
state of perfect insensibility; his limbs became rigid, and he was
carried to a grass plot, where M. Deslon went to his assistance and
recovered him. And yet, in no instance had he approached within a less
distance than twenty-four feet of the magnetized tree.
A similar experiment was soon afterwards made on two poor females, at
Dr. Franklin's house. These women were separated from each other. Three
of the commissioners remained with one of them in one chamber, and two
of them with the other, in an adjoining chamber. The first had a
bandage over her eyes, and was then made to believe that M. Deslon came
in and commenced magnetizing her, although he never entered the room.
In three minutes the woman began to shiver. She felt, in succession, a
pain in her head, and a pricking in her hands. She became stiff, struck
her hands together, got up, stamped, &c., but nothing had been done to
her. The woman in the adjoining chamber was requested to take her seat
by the door, which was shut, with her sight at liberty. She was then
made to believe that M. Deslon would magnetize the door on the opposite
side, while the commissioners would wait to witness the result. She had
scarcely been seated a minute before she began to shiver. Her breathing
became hurried; she stretched out her arms behind her back, writhing
them strongly, and bending her body forwards; a general tremor of the
whole body came on. The chattering of the teeth was so loud as to be
heard out of the room; and she bit her hand so as to leave the marks of
her teeth in it; but M. Deslon was not near the door, nor in either
chamber, nor was either of the women touched, not even their pulse
examined. We perceive, then, that these effects were produced solely by
the imagination, and the above facts exhibit very satisfactorily the
power which the mind has over the body. The symptoms were not feigned,
but, in the peculiar state of mind of these persons, they were
involuntary and irresistible. They believed they should be effected in
this manner; the idea was formed in their imaginations, and the nerves
were acted upon precisely as though what they conceived was real, and
the muscular effects followed. And as the patients themselves could not
explain the causes of these effects, they very naturally attributed the
whole to magnetism. When the commissioners explained the matter,
magnetism ceased to produce these wonderful effects. The minds of
persons were enlightened upon the subject, and they no longer expected
to be influenced in this manner, and accordingly they were not.
Dr. Sigault, an eminent physician of Paris, professed to be an adept in
the art of Mesmer. Being at a great assembly one day, he caused it to
be announced that he could magnetize. The voice and serious air he
assumed had a very sensible effect upon a lady present, although she
endeavored at first to conceal the fact. But having carried his hand to
the region of the heart, he found it palpitating. She soon experienced
difficulty in respiration. The muscles of her face were affected with
convulsive twitches; her eyes rolled; she shortly fell down in a
fainting fit, vomited her dinner, and experienced incredible weakness
and languor. This seemed to corroborate the remarks of Burton, in his
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, where he says, "If, by some soothsayer,
wise man, fortune teller, or physician, men be told they shall have
such a disease, they will so seriously apprehend it that they will
instantly labor of it--a thing familiar in China, (saith Riccius, the
Jesuit.) If they be told they shall be sick on such a day, when that
day comes they will surely be sick, and will be so terribly affected
that sometimes they die upon it."
A late English paper states that a young woman, named Winfield, who had
been on a visit to Derby, returned home to Radborn, taking a little dog
with her by a string. On arriving there, she informed her friends she
had seen a gypsy on the road, who told her, that if she led her dog by
the string into the house, she would soon be a corpse. Singular to
relate, the young woman expired on the following morning! It was
thought she died from the effect of imagination, aided by a debilitated
constitution.
A missionary among the New Zealanders says, "There is a class of people
in New Zealand, called by the natives _Areekee_, and whom we very
improperly call _Priests_. These men pretend to have intercourse with
departed spirits, by which they are able to kill, by incantation, any
person on whom their anger may fall. And it is a fact, that numbers
fall a prey to their confidence in the efficacy of the curses of these
men, and pine under the influence of despair, and die."
In less than fifteen years after the trial of the pretensions of Mesmer
and his coadjutors, in regard to magnetism, there was originated in
America, by a Mr. Perkins, a cause of delusion of precisely the same
nature. It prevailed in all the United States, in Great Britain,
Scotland, and Ireland, and to considerable extent on the continent of
Europe. Mr. Perkins prepared two small pieces of different kinds of
metal drew them to a point, and polished them. These _Metallic
Tractors_, as they were denominated, were said to have, in their joint
operation, great power over the electric fluid; and by moving these
points gently over the surface of an inflamed part, the heat was
extracted, the swelling subsided, and, in a short time, the patient was
relieved. After a while, thousands and tens of thousands were ready to
certify to the happy influence of these _Tractors_. Mr. Perkins went
to England and obtained the royal letters patent, for the purpose of
securing to him the advantages of his discovery; and it has been
asserted by the best authority, that he returned from England possessed
of ten thousand pounds sterling, which he received for the use of his
Tractors.
But Dr. Haggarth, an eminent physician and philosopher, recollecting
the development of animal magnetism at Paris, wrote to Dr. Falconer,
surgeon of the General Hospital at Bath, (England,) and stated his
suspicion concerning the Tractors; that their efficacy depended wholly
on the imagination of the patient; and recommended the experiment of
_wooden_ Tractors in the place of the _metallic_.
Accordingly, five persons were selected for the experiment, who were
laboring under chronic rheumatism in the ankle, knee, wrist, and hip.
Wooden Tractors were prepared and painted in such a manner that the
patients could not discover but that they were metal; and on the 7th of
January, 1799, these _wooden_ Tractors were employed for the first
time. All the patients except one, were relieved. Three were very much
benefited. One felt his knee warmer, and he could walk much better, as
he showed the medical gentlemen present. One was easier for nine hours,
till he went to bed, and then his pain returned. The next day, January
8th, the metallic Tractors were employed with the same effect as that
of the preceding day. This led to further experiments of a similar
kind, and they were continued, until the physicians became fully
satisfied that the wooden Tractors were of the same utility with the
metallic, provided the patients _supposed_ them metallic. Similar
experiments were soon after made at Edinburgh, and the result was the
same. A servant girl, afflicted with a most acute headache, which had
rendered her nights altogether restless for a fortnight, readily
submitted to be pointed at with these _wooden_ Tractors. The operator
moved them about her head, but did not touch her. In four minutes she
felt a chilliness in the head. In a minute or two more, she felt as
though cold water was running down her temples, and the pain was
diminished. In ten minutes more, she declared that the headache was
entirely gone; and the next day she returned to express her thanks to
her benefactors for the good sleep she enjoyed through the night. By
similar experiments, the intelligent citizens in America soon
ascertained the true cause of the deception, and when these facts came
to be developed, the Tractors lost all their influence on the human
system, and have since been spoken of only in derision.
Here, again, we behold the astonishing power of the imagination over
the human system, and witness the miracles that have been performed on
the ignorant and unsuspecting. Even in the _modern_ practice of the
mesmeric art, a great deal of the success depends upon this tendency of
the mind. A very respectable operator assures us, that he cannot
magnetize persons unless he can first impress them with the belief that
they are actually to become magnetized. They must have _faith_ in order
that the effect may be produced. A public lecturer may hang up his
watch before his auditors, and tell them to look upon that watch, and
they will become magnetized. Those who expect to be affected are thrown
into the magnetic state. Those who have little faith and expectation
are seldom, if ever, influenced by such experiments. We, however, do
not mean to avow a disbelief in the science of magnetism. On the
contrary, we look forward with much interest to its perfection,
unencumbered with the false pretensions of its zealous and mistaken
friends.