oft-repeated assertion, relative to the power which certain persons are
said to possess in a state of crisis, of deciphering a letter at a
distance with the foot, the nape of the neck, or the stomach. The word
_impossible_ in this instance seemed quite legitimate. Still, I do not
doubt but some rigid minds would withhold it after having reflected on
the ingenious experiments by which Moser produces, also at a distance,
very distinct images of all sorts of objects, on all sorts of bodies,
and in the most complete darkness.
When we call to mind in what immense proportion electric or magnetic
actions increase by motion, we shall be less inclined to deride the
rapid actions of magnetizers.
In here recording these developed reflections, I wished to show that
somnambulism must not be rejected _à priori_, especially by those who
have kept well up with the recent progress of the physical sciences. I
have indicated some facts, some resemblances, by which magnetizers might
defend themselves against those who would think it superfluous to
attempt new experiments, or even to see them performed. For my part, I
hesitate not to acknowledge it, although, notwithstanding the
possibilities that I have pointed out, I do not admit the reality of the
readings, neither through a wall, nor through any other opaque body, nor
by the mere intromission of the elbow, or the occiput,--still, I should
not fulfil the duties of an academician if I refused to attend the
meetings where such phenomena were promised me, provided they granted me
sufficient influence as regards the proofs, for me to feel assured that
I was not become the victim of mere jugglery.
Nor did Franklin, Lavoisier, or Bailly believe in Mesmeric magnetism
before they became members of the Government Commission, and yet we may
have remarked with what minute and scrupulous care they varied the
experiments. True philosophers ought to have constantly before their
eyes those two beautiful lines:--
"To suppose that every thing has been discovered is a profound error:
It is mistaking the horizon for the limits of the world."[12]
FOOTNOTES:
[7]
"Le voilà, ce mortel, dont le siècle s'honore,
Par qui sont replongés au séjour infernal
Tous les fléaux vengeurs que déchaîna Pandore;
Dans son art bienfaisant il n'a pas de rival,
Et la Grèce l'eut pris pour le dieu d'Epidaure."
[8]
"Les sots sont ici-bas pour nos menus plaisirs."
[9]
"Un décrotteur â la royale,
Du talon gauche estropié,
Obtint pour grace spéciale
D'être boiteux de l'autre pié."
[10]
"De par le Roi, défense à Dieu
D'opérer miracle en ce lieu!"
[11]
"Il est des noeuds secrets, il est des sympathies,
Dont par les doux rapports les âmes assorties
S'attachent l'une à l'autre."
[12]
"Croire tout découvert est un erreur profonde:
C'est prendre l'horizon pour les bornes du monde."
ELECTION OF BAILLY INTO THE ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS.
In speaking of the pretended identity of the Atlantis, or of the kingdom
of Ophir under Solomon with America, Bailly says, in his fourteenth
letter to Voltaire: "Those ideas belonged to the age of learned men, but
not to the philosophic age." And elsewhere (in the twenty-first letter)
we read these words: "Do not fear that I shall fatigue you by heavy
erudition." To have supposed that erudition could be heavy and be
deficient in philosophy, was for certain people of a secondary order an
unpardonable crime. And thus we saw men, excited by a sentiment of hate,
arm themselves with a critical microscope, and painfully seek out
imperfections in the innumerable quotations with which Bailly had
strengthened himself. The harvest was not abundant; yet, these eager
ferrets succeeded in discovering some weak points, some interpretations
that might be contested. Their joy then knew no bounds. Bailly was
treated with haughty disdain: "His literary erudition was very
superficial; he had not the key of the sanctuary of antiquity; he was
everywhere deficient in languages."
That it might not be supposed that these reproaches had any reference to
Oriental literature, Bailly's adversaries added: "that he had not the
least tincture of the ancient languages; that he did not know Latin."
He did not know Latin? And do you not see, you stupid enemies of the
great Astronomer, that if it had been possible to compose such learned
works as _The History of Astronomy_, and _The Letters on the Atlantis_,
without referring to the original texts, by using translations only, you
would no longer have preserved any importance in the literary world.
How is it that you did not remark, that by despoiling Bailly (and very
arbitrarily) of the knowledge of Latin, you showed the inutility of
studying that language to become both one of your best writers, and one
of the most illustrious philosophers of the age?
The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, far from participating
in these puerile rancours, in the blind prejudices of some lost children
of erudition, called Bailly to its bosom in 1785. Till then, Fontenelle
alone had had the honour of belonging to the three great Academies of
France. Bailly always showed himself very proud of a distinction which
associated his name in an unusual manner with that of the illustrious
writer, whose eulogies contributed so powerfully to make science and
scientific men known and respected.
Independently of this special consideration, Bailly, as member of the
French Academy, could all the better appreciate the suffrages of the
Academy of Inscriptions, since there existed at that time between those
two illustrious Societies a strong and inexplicable feeling of rivalry.
This had even proceeded so far, that by a most solemn deliberation of
the Academy of Inscriptions, any of its members would have ceased to
belong to it, would have been irrevocably expelled, if they had even
only endeavoured to be received into the French Academy; and the king
having annulled this deliberation, fifteen academicians bound themselves
by oath to observe all its stipulations notwithstanding; furthermore, in
1783, Choiseul Gouffier, who was accused of having adhered to the
principles of the fifteen confederates, and then of having allowed
himself to be nominated by the rival Academy, was summoned by Anquetil
to appear before the Tribunal of the Marshals of France for having
broken his word of honour.
But, I may be allowed here to remark, superior men have always had the
privilege of upsetting, by the mere influence of their name, the
obstacles that routine, prejudices, and jealousy wished to oppose to the
progress and the union of souls.
REPORT ON THE HOSPITALS.
Scientific tribunals, which should pronounce in the first instance while
awaiting the definitive judgment of the public, were one of the
requisites of our epoch; and thus, without any formal prescription of
its successive regulations, the Academy of Sciences has been gradually
led on to appoint committees to examine all the papers that have been
presented to it, and to pronounce on their novelty, merit, and
importance. This labour is generally an ungrateful one, and without
glory, but talent has immense privileges; entrust Bailly with those
simple Academical Reports, and their publication becomes an event.
M. Poyet, architect and comptroller of buildings in Paris, presented to
Government in the course of the year 1785, a paper wherein he strove to
establish the necessity of removing the Hôtel Dieu, and building a new
hospital in another locality. This document, submitted by order of the
king to the judgment of the Academy, gave rise, directly or indirectly,
to three deliberations. The Academic Commissioners were, Lassone, Tenou,
Tillet, Darcet, Daubenton, Bailly, Coulomb, Laplace, and Lavoisier. It
was Bailly, however, who constantly held the pen. His reports have been
honoured with a great and just celebrity. The progress of science would
now perhaps allow of some modification being made in the ideas of the
illustrious commissioners. Their views on warming-rooms, on their size,
on ventilation, on general health, might, for example, receive some real
ameliorations; but nothing could add to the sentiments of respect
inspired by Bailly's work. What clearness of exposition! What neatness,
what simplicity of style! Never did a writer put himself more completely
out of view; never did a man more sincerely seek to make the sacred
cause of humanity triumph. The interest that Bailly takes in the poor is
deep, but always exempt from parade; his words are moderate, full of
gentleness, even where hasty feelings of anger and indignation would
have been legitimate. Of anger and of indignation! Yes, Gentlemen;
listen, and decide!
I have cited the names of the commissioners. At no time, and in no
country, could more virtue and learning have been united. These select
men, regulating themselves in this respect according to the most common
logic, felt that the task of pronouncing on a reform of the Hôtel Dieu
imposed on them the necessity of examining that establishment. "We have
asked," said their interpreter, "we have asked the Board of
Administration to permit us to see the hospital in detail, and
accompanied by some one who could guide and instruct us ... we required
to know several particulars; we asked for them, but we obtained
nothing."
We have obtained nothing! These are the sad, the incredible words, that
men so worthy of respect are obliged to insert in the first line of
their report!
What then was the authority that allowed itself to be so deficient in
the most usual respect towards commissioners invested with the
confidence of the King, the Academy, and the Public? This authority
consisted of several administrators (the type of them, it is said, is
not quite lost), who looked upon the poor as their patrimony, who
devoted to them a disinterested but unproductive activity; who were
impatient at any amelioration, the germ of which had not developed
itself either in their own heads, or in those of certain men,
philanthropic by nature, or by the privilege of their station. Ah! if by
enlightened and constant care that vast asylum, opened to poverty and
sickness, near Notre-Dame, had been then conducted, now sixty years ago,
only in a tolerable way, we should have understood how, in taking human
nature into consideration, the promoters of this great benefit would
have repelled an examination that seemed to throw a doubt on their zeal
and on their good sense. But alas! let us take from Bailly's work a few
traits of the moderate and faithful picture that he drew of the Hôtel
Dieu, and you shall decide, Gentlemen, whether the susceptibility of the
administrators was authorized; whether, on the contrary, they ought not
themselves to have anticipated the unhoped-for help from the king's
power, united to science, which was now offered to them; whether by
retarding certain ameliorations by a single day, they did not commit the
crime of lèse-humanity.
In 1786, infirmities of all sorts were treated at the Hôtel Dieu:
surgical maladies, chronic maladies, contagious maladies, female
diseases, infantine diseases, &c. Every thing was admitted, but all
presented an inevitable confusion.
A patient on arriving was often laid in the bed and in the sheets of a
man who had had the itch, and had just died.
The department reserved for madmen being very confined, two were put to
sleep together. Two madmen in the same sheets! Nature revolts at the
very thought of it.
In the ward of St. Francis, reserved exclusively for men having the
smallpox, there were sometimes, for want of other space, as many as six
adults or eight children in a bed not a mètre and a half wide.
The women attacked with this frightful disease were mixed in the ward of
St. Monique with others who had only a simple fever, and the latter fell
an inevitable prey to the hideous contagion, in the very place where,
full of confidence, they had hoped to recover their health.
Women with child, women in their confinement, were equally crowded,
pell-mell, on narrow and infected truckle-beds.
Nor let it be supposed that I have borrowed from Bailly's Report some
purely exceptional cases, belonging to those cruel times, when whole
populations, suffering under some epidemic, were tried beyond all human
anticipation. In their usual state, the beds of the Hôtel Dieu, which
were not a mètre and a half wide, contained four, and often six
patients; they were placed alternately head and feet, the feet of one
touching the shoulders of the next; each had only for his share of space
25 centimetres (9 inches); now, a man of medium size, lying with his
arms close to his body, is 48 centimetres (16 inches) broad at the
shoulders. The poor patients then could not keep within the bed but by
lying on their side perfectly immovable; no one could turn without
pushing, without waking his neighbour; they therefore used to agree, as
far as their illness would allow, for some of them to remain up part of
the night in the space between the beds, whilst the others slept; and
when the approaches of death nailed these unfortunate people to their
place, did they not energetically curse that help, which in such a
situation could only prolong their painful agony.
But it was not only that beds thus placed were a source of discomfort,
of disgust; that they prevented rest and sleep; that an insupportable
heat occasioned and propagated diseases of the skin and frightful
vermin; that the fever patient bedewed his neighbours with his profuse
perspirations; and that in the critical moment he might be chilled by
contact with those whose hot fit would occur later, &c. Still more
serious effects resulted from the presence of many sick in the same bed;
the food, the medicines, intended for one person, often found their way
to another. In short, Gentlemen, in those beds of multiple population,
the dead often lay for hours, and sometimes whole nights, intermingled
with the living. The principal charitable establishment in Paris thus
offered those dreadful coincidences, that the poets of Rome, that
ancient historians have represented under King Mezentius, as the utmost
extreme of barbarism.
Such was, Gentlemen, the normal state of the old Hôtel Dieu. One word,
one word only, will suffice to tell what was the exceptional state: they
placed some patients on the tops or testers of those same beds, where we
have found so much suffering, so many authorized maledictions.
Now, Gentlemen, let us, together with our fellow academician, cast a
glance on the ward of surgical operations.
This ward was full of patients. The operations were performed in their
presence. Bailly says, "We see there the preparations for the torment;
there are heard the cries of the tormented. He who has to suffer the
next day has before him a picture of his own future sufferings; he who
has passed through this terrible trial, must be deeply moved at those
cries so similar to his own, and must feel his agonies repeated; and
these terrors, these emotions, he experiences in the midst of the
progress of inflammation or suppuration, retarding his recovery, and at
the hazard of his life."... "To what purpose," Bailly justly exclaims,
"would you make an unfortunate man suffer, if there is not a probability
of saving him, and unless we increase that probability by all possible
precautions?"
The heart aches, the mind becomes confused, at the sight of so much
misery; and yet this hospital, so little in harmony with its intended
purpose, still existed sixty years ago. It is in a capital, the centre
of the arts, of knowledge, of polished manners; it is in an age renowned
for the development of public wealth, for the progress of luxury, for
the ruinous creation of a crowd of establishments devoted to amusements,
to worldly and futile pleasures; it is by the side of the palace of an
opulent archbishop; it is at the gate of a sumptuous cathedral, that the
unfortunate, under the deceitful mask of charity, underwent such
dreadful tortures. To whom should we impute the long duration of this
vicious and inhuman organization?
To the professors of the art? No, no, Gentlemen! By an inconceivable
anomaly the physicians, the surgeons, never obtained more than a
secondary, a subordinate influence over the administration of the
hospitals. No, no, the sentiments of the medical body for the poor could
not be doubted, at an epoch and in a country where Dr. Anthony Petit
thus answered the irritated queen, Marie Antoinette: "Madam, if I came
not yesterday to Versailles, it was because I was attending the lying-in
of a peasant, who was in the greatest danger. Your Majesty errs,
however, in supposing that I neglect the Dauphin for the poor; I have
hitherto treated the young child with as much attention and care as if
he had been the son of one of your grooms."
Preference was granted to the most suffering, to those in most danger,
disregarding rank and fortune; such was, you see, Gentlemen, the sublime
rule of the French Medical Corps; and such is still its gospel. I want
no other proof of it than those admirable words addressed by our fellow
labourer Larrey, to his friend Tanchou, when wounded at the Battle of
Montmirail: "Your wound is slight, sir; we have only room and straw in
this ambulance for serious wounds. They will take you into that stable."
The medical corps could not, therefore, with any reason be accused or
suspected in regard to the old Hôtel Dieu of Paris.
If economy be invoked, I find an answer quite à-propos in Bailly: the
daily allowance for the patients at the Hôtel Dieu was notably higher
than in other establishments in the capital more charitably organized.
Would any one go so far as to assert that the sick condemned to seek
refuge in the hospitals, having their sensibilities blunted by labour,
by misery, by their daily sufferings, would but faintly feel the effects
of the horrible arrangements that the old Hôtel Dieu revealed to all
clear-sighted people? I will quote from the report of our colleague;
"The maladies continue nearly double the time at the Hôtel Dieu,
compared with those at the Charité: the mortality there is also nearly
double!... All the trepanned die in that hospital; whilst this
operation is tolerably successful in Paris, and still more so at
Versailles."
The maladies continue double the time! The mortality there is double!
All those who are trepanned die! The lying-in women die in a frightful
proportion, &c. These are the sinister words that strike the eye
periodically in the statements of the Hôtel Dieu; and yet, let us repeat
it, years passed away, and nothing was altered in the organization of
the great hospital! Why persist in remaining in a condition that so
openly wounds humanity? Must we, together with Cabanis, who also abused
the old Hôtel Dieu severely, "must we exclaim, that abuses known by all
the world, against which every voice is raised, have secret supporters
who know how to defend them, in a manner to tire out well-meaning
people? Must we speak of false characters, perverse hearts, that seemed
to regard errors and abuses as their patrimony?" Let us dare to
acknowledge it, Gentlemen, evil is generally perpetrated in a less
wicked manner: it is done without the intervention of any strong
passion; by vulgar, yet all-powerful routine, and ignorance. I observe
the same thought, though couched in the calm and cleverly circumspect
language of Bailly: "The Hôtel Dieu has existed perhaps since the
seventh century, and if this hospital is the most imperfect of all, it
is because it is the oldest. From the earliest date of this
establishment, good has been sought, the desire has been to adhere to
it, and constancy has appeared a duty. From this cause, all useful
novelties have with difficulty found admission; any reform is difficult;
there is a numerous administration to convince; there is an immense mass
to move."
The immensity of the mass, however, did not discourage the old
Commissioners of the Academy. Let this conduct serve as an example to
learned men, to administrators, who might be called upon to cast an
investigating eye on the whole of our beneficent and humane
establishments. Undoubtedly, the abuses, if any yet exist, have not
individually any thing to be compared to those to which Bailly's report
did justice; but would it be impossible for them to have sprung up
afresh in the course of half a century, and that in proportion to their
multiplicity, they should still make enormous and deplorable breaches in
the patrimony of the poor?
I shall modify very slightly, Gentlemen, the concluding words of our
illustrious colleague's report, and I shall not in the least alter their
innate meaning, if I say, in finishing this long analysis: "Each poor
man is now laid alone in a bed, and he owes it principally to the
gifted, persevering, and courageous efforts of the Academy of Sciences.
The poor man ought to know it, and the poor man will not forget it."
Happy, Gentlemen, happy the academy that can adorn itself with such
reminiscences!
REPORT ON THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.
An attentive glance at the past has been, in all ages and in all
countries, the infallible means of rightly appreciating the present.
When we direct this glance to the sanitary state of Paris, the name of
Bailly will again present itself in the first line amongst the promoters
of a capital amelioration, which I shall point out in a few words.
Notwithstanding the numerous acts of parliament,--notwithstanding the
positive police regulations, which dated back to Charles IX., to Henry
III., to Henry IV., slaughter-houses still existed in the interior of
the capital in 1788; for instance, at l'Apport-Paris, La Croix-Rouge, in
the streets of the Butcheries, Mont-Martre, Saint-Martin, Traversine,
&c. &c. The oxen were, consequently, driven in droves through frequented
parts of the town; enraged by the noise of the carriages, by the
excitements of the children, by the attacks or barking of the wandering
dogs, they often sought to escape,--entered houses or alleys, spread
alarm everywhere, gored people, and committed great damage. Fetid gases
exhaled from buildings too small and badly ventilated; the offal that
had to be carried away gave out an insupportable smell; the blood flowed
through the gutters of the neighbourhood, with other remains of the
animals, and putrefied there. The melting of tallow, an inevitable
annexation of all slaughter-houses, spread around disgusting emanations,
and occasioned a constant danger of fire.
So inconvenient, so repulsive a state of things, awakened the solicitude
of individuals and of the public administration; the problem was
submitted to our predecessors, and Bailly, as usual, became the reporter
of the Academical Committee. The other members were Messrs. Tillet,
Darcet, Daubenton, Coulomb, Lavoisier, and Laplace.
When Napoleon, wishing to liberate Paris from the dangerous and
insalubrious results of internal slaughter-houses, decreed the
construction of the fine slaughter-houses known by everybody, he found
the subject already well examined, exhibited in all its points of view,
in Bailly's excellent work. "We ask," said the reporter of the
Academical Commission in 1788, "we ask that the shambles be removed to a
distance from the interior of Paris;" and these interior shambles have
disappeared accordingly. Does it create surprise that it required more
than fifteen years to obtain the grant of this most reasonable demand?
I will further remark that, unfortunately, there was nothing exceptional
in this; he who sows a thought in a field rank with prejudices, with
private interests, and with routine, must never expect an early harvest.
BIOGRAPHIES OF COOK AND OF GRESSET.
The publication of the five quarto volumes of which _the History of
Astronomy_ consists, together with the two powerful _reports_ that I
have just described, had worn out Bailly. To relax and amuse his mind,
he resumed the style of composition that had enchanted him in his youth;
he wrote some biographies, amongst others, that of Captain Cook,
proposed as a prize-subject by the Academy of Marseilles, and the Life
of Gresset.
The biography of Gresset first appeared anonymously. This circumstance
gave rise to a singular scene, which the author used to relate with a
smile. I will here myself repeat the principal traits of it, if it be
only to deter writers, whoever they may be, from launching their works
into the world without affixing their names to them.