In every case where I have brought into this story facts connected
with medical matters, I have been most cautious to avail myself of
the authority of medical men. I will give here the words of Mr. James
Douglas upon this matter. After stating the fact that the story was
in part dictated to my dear friend Dr. Gordon Hake during a stay with
him at Roehampton, he says:--
Dr. Hake is mainly known as the 'parable poet,' but as a fact he was
a physician of extraordinary talent who had practised first at Bury
St. Edmunds and afterwards at Spring Gardens, London, until he partly
retired to be private physician to the late Lady Ripon. After her
death he left practice altogether in order to devote himself to
literature, for which he had very great equipments. As _Aylwin_
touched upon certain subtle nervous phases, it must have been a great
advantage to the author to dictate these portions of the story to so
skilled and experienced a friend. The rare kind of cerebral
exaltation into which Henry Aylwin passed after his appalling
experience in the cove, in which the entire nervous system was
disturbed, was not what is known as brain fever. The record of it in
_Aylwin_ is, I understand, a literal account of a rare and wonderful
case brought under the professional notice of Dr. Hake.
But I am now going to touch upon a much more important medical
subject. Since the appearance of _Aylwin_, I have received many
letters enquiring whether the transmission of hysteria from one
patient to another by means of a magnet is an imaginary experiment,
or whether it is based on fact. It has been impossible for me to
answer all these letters. But some of them, coming from loving
relatives of those who have suffered from hysteria, have been couched
in such earnest and pathetic words that they could not be left
unanswered, and this has caused me great inconvenience. I have
therefore determined to give the reader some tangible data upon this
subject. The extract from the _Daily Telegraph_ which appears on page
465 is a real extract, and records a real case of transmission of
hysteria. Upon the same subject I take the following admirable
remarks from an article in the _Quarterly Review_ for July 1890,
called 'Mesmerism and Hypnotism.'
_The Influence of Magnets_.--We have briefly referred to the action
of magnets on the muscles in speaking of the physiological phenomena,
but they possess other properties which hardly come under that head.
They have the power of attracting hypnotised subjects. Thus, if a
good-sized magnet is placed at some little distance from the subject,
and behind a screen so that he cannot see it, after a time he will
get up and go towards it. If now another magnet be placed at an equal
distance behind him, he will stop and remain as it were balanced
between the two. By withdrawing one or other he can be drawn
backwards or forwards. Further, he can be charged with magnetism by
placing near him a large magnet with five ends. If it be suddenly
removed and hidden in another room, he is impelled to follow it with
such force that he will fling aside all obstacles in his way, and
tracking it step by step will walk straight up to it. 'Once he sights
it, he either remains in dumb contemplation of it in front of its two
poles, or else lays his hands on both of the poles with a kind of
profound satisfaction.' These experiments with magnets are very
exhausting.
* * * * *
Finally, if the senses can be so heightened as in the cases already
cited from Braid and the clinique of La Salpêtrière, it requires no
great stretch of imagination to suppose them carried still further
until they become comparable to those inexplicable faculties which we
call instinct in animals, that for instance by which animals--cats,
dogs, and sheep--can find their way home, sometimes over hundreds of
miles of unknown country.
Concerning the faculty of presensation, it is worth while to say a
little more. The early mesmerists made a great point of the power of
some patients to diagnose the condition of another. Dr. Puysegur's
patient Joly, mentioned above, possessed the faculty to an unusual
degree. He was an educated man, of good position, and could express
himself intelligibly:--
C'est une sensation veritable que j'éprouve dans un endroit
correspondant à la partie qui souffre chez celui que je touche: ma
main va naturellement se porter à l'endroit de son mal, et je ne peux
pas plus m'y tromper que je ne pourrois le faire en portant ma main
où je souffrirois moi-meme.
Now, the following experiment has been carried out by Charcot at La
Salpêtrière. A young girl suffering from hysterical hemiplegia
(paralysis of one side) came up one day from the country. She was
placed in a chair behind a screen and a hypnotic patient sent for
from the wards. The latter was placed on the other side of the screen
and hypnotised. Neither of the patients was aware of the other's
presence. At the end of a minute the hypnotised patient was found to
have acquired the other's hemiplegia. The experiment was repeated
every day, and in four days the new comer was relieved of her
trouble, which had lasted over a year. The same experiment was tried
in many cases, and always succeeded, although in some of them the
affections imitated were of a very complex character, such as
paralysis of half the tongue. With these facts in view, the alleged
experiences of the older mesmerists appear by no means impossible.