Animal magnetism.

Date:
[1838?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Animal magnetism. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Jvacfa /6a/Cl ANIMAL MAGNETISM. [Contiwcd from Vol. I. p. 3/30.] The committee of the Royal Ac^my^ Metlicine of France, appointed in 1826, adopted a resolution not to advert m their report to any facts oi pheno- mena which did not come under their own immediate observation. I o this resolution one exception only was admitted, — the case of the opeiation performed on Madame Plan tin, by M. Cloquet. Ins case had been admit- ted by the College of Surgeons, and was considered to be so well authent - catedf that it would have been improper to have excluded all notice of it ^The'commktee devoted five years to the prosecution of their inquines, and did not make their report till June, 1831. During this period they examined numerous cases, in several of which no discoverable effects weie produced. In others, the effects were slight, but well ascertained, and m veral all the higher and more extraordinary phenomena were evolved. I he limits of these articles do not permit us to enter on many of the details eve of the most important cases which they have put on record, especially as it is our purpose to state some facts, scarcely less important, of which we have ourselves been witnesses. We shall therefore limit ourselves to a few of the many cases, attested and recorded by the committee. Among the subjects experimented on was M. Itard, a member of the committee; and though none of the higher phenomena were developed, effects were produced quite decided and unequivocal, and such as the committee considered could not be ascribed to imagination or any known physiological agency. In reference to this case, and two others not less remarkable, the committee observe : — These three cases appeared to your committee to be altogether worthy of' re- mark. The subjects of the first two — one a child of twenty-eight months, the other a deaf and dumb boy, — were ignorant of what was done to them. I he one in- deed was not in a state capable of knowing it, and the other never had the slightest idea of magnetism. Both however manifested the effects of its influence, ant most certainly it is impossible in either case to attribute this sensibility to ie imagination. Still less is it attributable to this in the case ol M. Itard. It is not over men of our years, and, like us, always on our guard against men a error and sensible delusion, that the imagination such as we view it has any sway. At this period of life, we are enlightened by reason and disengaged from those illusions by which young persons are so easily seduced. At this age we stain upon our guard, and distrust rather than confidence presides over the several oper- ations of our minds. These circumstances were happily united in our colleague, and the Academy knows him too well not to admit that he really experiencec \\ in he declares that he felt. The next case we shall quote is one in which some of the liighei effects were produced. CASE OF PIERRE CAZOT. Paris, August, 1827, to May, 1828. Attesting Witnesses. — MM. Bourdois, Double, Itard, Gueneau de Ilussy, G,iersei.t, Leroux, Magendie, Marc, Thillaye, and Husson, members of the committee appoin -t . c Society of Medicine of France; M. Foissac, physician attending on I lcrie azo • Pierre Cazot, aged twenty years, a hatter by trade, was born ol an epileptic mnltor hnrl cihif.pt tn rnilontic fits, which USUitlly OCCtMTed h\’e Ol’ SIX