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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    bottom of the stairs, he sat down. After resting two minutes, with the assistance of an arm and the balustrade, he ascended twenty-four steps of the stairs which led to the room where he slept, went to the bed without support, sat down again for a moment, and then took another walk in the room, to the great astonishment of all the patients, who, until then, had seen him constantly confined to bed. From that day he never resumed his crutches. On the 11th October following, the committee having repaired to the hospital, he was again magnetised, and announced that he would be completely cured at the end of the year, if a seton were placed two inches below the region of the heart. At this sitting he was repeatedly pinched, and pricked with a pin to the depth of a line, in the eye-brow and in the wrist, without producing any sign of sensibility. . c . On the 29th October, the committee, having repaired to the apartment ot the patient to examine the progress of his cure, ascertained, before he was magnetised, that he walked without crutches more firmly, to all appearance, than at the pre- ceding sitting. His strength was tried with a dynamometer. When pressed by the right hand, the instrument indicated 60 lbs., and by the left, 24 lbs. When pressed by the two hands together, united, it indicated 62 lbs. He was then magnetised, and in four minutes became a somnambulist, when he declared that he would be completely cured upon the 1st January. In this state his strength was tried again with the dynamometer; when the right hand exerted the force of 58 lbs. and the left 52 lbs., and the two hands united 90 lbs. While in a state of somnambulism he walked cleverly, hopped upon the left foot, and knelt upon the right knee. He raised up the body of M. Thillaye, a member of the committee, turned him round, and sat down with him on his knees ; and drew the dynamometer through the whole scale of its traction. Being requested to go down stairs, he took the arm of M. Foissac, and descended and ascended the stairs two or three at a time, with a convulsive rapidity. On awaking he lost this astonishing increase of strength ; his walk was slow but sure, — he could no longer sustain the weight of his own body on the left leg, and he made an ineffectual attempt to lift M. Foissac. A few days previous to this experiment, he lost two pounds and a half of blood, had still two blisters on his legs, and a seton on the neck and breast. It will, therefore, be observed how great an increase of strength attended the process of magnetism, seeing that during the whole time the somnambulism continued, the strength of the body was more than quadrupled. After this Paul renounced all medical treatment; and towards the end of the year, as he expressed a wish to be placed and kept in a state of somnambulism, in order to complete his cure by the 1st January, he was magnetised on the 25th December, and continued in a state of somnambulism until the 1st January. During this period he was awakened for about twelve hours at unequal inter- vals; and on these occasions he was persuaded that he had been only a few hours asleep. During the whole of this period his digestive functions showed increased activity. On the 28th December, having been then asleep and in a state of somnam- bulism for three days, he set out on foot, accompanied by M. Foissac, from the llue Mondovi, in search of M. Fouquier at the hospital, where he arrived at nine o’clock. He there recognised the patients and the pupils, and read with his eyes closed, a finger having been applied to his eyelids, some words which were presented to him by M. Fouquier. All the committee had thus witnessed, seemed to them so astonishing, that, being desirous of following out the history of this somnambulist to the end, they assembled on the 1st January at the house of M. Foissac, where they found Paul still asleep, in a state of somnambulism. Fifteen days before that, the setons had been removed from the neck and breast, and a cautery had been established in the left arm. Paul declared that he was cured, and that, unless guilty of some imprudence, he should live to an advanced age, and should die of apoplexy. While in this state, he went out of the house, walked and ran in the street with a firm and assured step, and, on his return, carried with the greatest facility one of the persons present, whom he could scarcely have lifted before he was set asleep.