20

Mesmerisation of inanimate substances.

the Okeys by Dr. Elliotson in 1838, and published about that time. (See Zoist, Vol. IV.)

"Water has no effect: but, if it is breathed into or has a finger placed in it, acquires the power of producing sudden sleep if drunk by either sister: and, in the elder, contraction of a finger or limb which is moistened with it, as well as deep sleep. We send her to sleep by passes, and measures are taken to prevent the possibility of sight, and, when she is asleep, we moisten any finger, the side of the nose, or any other part of the face with it or with plain water. If with plain water, there is no effect: if with the mesmerised, the part after a time contracts. If the back of the finger is moistened, the finger extends: if the inside, it bends: if the forehead, this wrinkles and moves up and down: if the eyelids, they open: if the angle of the mouth, it twitches sidewise. These experiments have been made thousands of times, and always, except for some evident reason, with the same results. But the mesmerised water has a powerful narcotic and depressing property. The longer it is applied, and the more of it is used, the deeper the sleep and snoring become: and, if too much is used, paleness, exhaustion, rapidity and extreme smallness of pulse take place, so that no one should presume to make these experiments unless well acquainted with the subject. Indeed, with respect to any of these experiments, for an ignorant man to take the matter in hand himself, as though he had made himself master of the subject, is as absurd and disgusting as if a countryman should push aside a chemical lecturer, and mix acids, alkalies, and salts from various bottles, and declare, because things did not happen as he expected, that chemistry was fudge: or if such a clown, who had never seen a microscope before, should put objects under it, and knowing nothing about the instrument, be able to see fog and confusion only, and therefore declare the instrument an imposition. If the susceptibility is not strong, water swallowed may have no effect till a second draught is taken, or even a draught of unmesmerised water, so as to occasion friction of the part wet with the mesmerised water. Since, if a part has been breathed upon or touched by another, or touched with something mesmerised, friction with any unmesmerised or unmesmerisable substance will bring out the effects of the previous and hitherto dormant cause or re-excite effects that had ceased: should a finger be held by another person, and then rubbed with a brush moistened with unmesmerised water, effects will ensue just as if water first mesmerised were used. Should mesmerised gold or nickle have been applied to a part, and from the susceptibility being low no effect have occurred, or should there have been an effect and it have ceased, friction with anything will bring out the effect of the thing previously applied: or should a thing not directly mesmerisable, but mesmerisable by contact with a directly mesmerisable metal, be ignorantly allowed to be in contact with a mesmerisable metal, and then be applied to the person, the effects of the directly mesmerisable metal will be produced.'

"The effect of all mesmerised substances I found different in dif

Some directly, others indirectly.

21

ferent people, and in the same at different times. Metals, even nickel, had no effect upon Elizabeth Okey at last. All the manifestations and all the phenomena of these cases, whether spontaneous or mesmeric, are liable to fluctuation. In the same way, not only do different medicines act differently upon different persons, but the

same medicine at different times."

"The Okeys felt nothing from common water; but mesmerised water drunk threw them into insensibility: and at one time, in one, it did not till a second draught or a draught of plain water was afterwards taken. Applied to the finger of one, but of Elizabeth only, it caused contraction inwards, if applied to the inside; outwards, if applied to the outside: when sight was impossible, and water from a mesmerised and an unmesmerised glass variously, kept behind her back, even behind a screen, was employed! These beautiful experiments were shewn by me to Mr. Wakley, and he had nothing to object to them: he was quite at a loss even for impudence, and passed them over in silence in his unfair and ignorant account of what he says he saw. At length, if much was employed, insensibility and extreme debility for a time ensued."

Reichenbach tells us that the power of crystals can be transferred to solid bodies and water by striking them with one of its poles, and that every patient can distinguish them from those not struck, if no time were lost in the experiment. In England we had observed the same fact in mesmerism,

"This is the case with mesmerism, in water and inanimate bodies mesmerised by contact, breath, passes, &c. I also find that by rubbing mesmerised gold, &c., upon a body not capable of direct mesmerisation, although it might appear so if the animal moisture upon it was not wiped off, this substance might be indirectly charged. Thus by rubbing mesmerised gold on copper, this becomes mesmerised.

"The power in my experiments instantly began to decline and was soon lost, just as with Reichenbach's crystal and magnet power.

"I have known parties mesmerised at a distance by sending them by the post a piece of leather, &c., first mesmerised. The effect, however, was gradually lost, and a fresh piece required. Once unmesmerised leather was sent with no intimation, and there was no effect; a mesmerised piece, as usual, was then sent, with no intimation, and the effect came."

As to the retention of power, Reichenbach found "that some bodies lost their power almost instantly, as paper; others after a few minutes; and in no case did the power lost remain in the body charged longer than ten minutes."

"This was our general experience with the mesmeric influence. But the longer the mesmerisation is continued, the greater and

22

Mesmeric force connected with health.

more lasting is the power: the more spongy or capable of retaining mesmerised moisture the substance, and the less the exposure, the longer does the power last."

On the fact of our being able to charge metals with mesmerism, and the connexion of mesmeric power with health, the same English mesmerist wrote as follows in 1838 :—

"By means of chargeable metals, I devised a mode of shewing very accurately the influence of health upon the mesmerising power. I took one of the sisters into a female ward in which she had never been, and respecting the inmates of which she and I were perfectly ignorant. Every ticket with the name of the disease on the head of the bed was removed: every patient had the clothes drawn completely over her. A sovereign, which had lain long untouched, and had therefore no mesmeric charge, was taken up by her, and we proceeded to the ward. She put the sovereign under the bed-clothes into the hand of each patient in succession, and at the same number of moments by my stop-watch took it out again and kept it in her hand. I noted the period in which the effect began, the length of time it lasted, and the amount of it,-whether it caused spasm of the hand only; of the hand and arm; or spasm and stupefaction So we went round the ward, and in one bed, at the request of a certain student, I repeated the experiment. As soon as each experiment was finished, the bed-clothes were turned down and the ticket examined. The effects were in every instance precisely proportionate to the strength of the patient in whose hand the sovereign had been placed. Those in consumption or worn down with paralysis produced little or no effect: those who had complaints not impairing the health and strength produced full effect: and all the intermediate degrees were exquisitely proportionate to the condition of the patient. One patient had produced a great effect, who, the student said, was continually bled and kept constantly on low diet. But I found she had not been bled for some weeks, had been for some time on full diet, was taking bark, looked in capital condition, and had only some cautaneous disease not interfering with her strength. Of the two experiments made at one bed, the first had produced a full effect proportionate to the strength of the patient. The second experiment produced only a moderate effect: the clothes were then turned down, and it proved that a nurse said to be in good health, and to do all the work of the ward, had been lain in it. The woman, however, looked very sickly, and I found that she had just lain in, and had come back to her place very weak, and long before she was competent. The experiment was triumphant, and an apology was the next day made to me by the student (Dr. Parkes, now a professor in the place) who had so misrepresented to me the state of those two patients, and at whose request I had willingly made the experiments in this his wise uncle's (Dr. A. T. Thomson) ward, because the results in the case of both sisters, perfectly accordant in every instance up to that time with the strength of each

The imparted Mesmerism wastes.

23

patient, though modified like all results in their form in each sister, had been made in my own ward, where they and I knew every patient.

"Another beautiful set of experiments was made with brutes. If their hand was brought into contact with a brute, the rapidity and intensity of the effect was always proportionate to the size of the animal. If their fingers were placed under the wing of a perroquet, the effect was much inferior to what it was if they were placed under the wings of a cockatoo. If placed on the nose of a small deer, the effect was inferior to what it was if placed upon a lama or a large deer:-a mere rigidity and concussion of the head in the first instance, stupefaction and at last perfect insensibility and relaxation in the latter. Contact of the ends of the fingers with the dry rough trunk of the elephant had no effect upon the elder: but, the instant she touched the soft moist mucous membrane of the trunk of this immense beast, she dropt senseless and snored loudly, and did not become sensible for ten minutes."

Again, the following experiments bear upon the point:

:

"A beautiful experiment shewed the gradual diminution of the power imparted to the gold and could, for the most part, be made upon the younger Okey only, as her susceptibility was, in general, not so great as to shew powerful effects from moderate causes. A sovereign is held in a person's hand, and then given her. Instantly her hand closes violently upon it, she becomes stupified with her eyes open, and at last falls senseless and relaxed on waking, in a minute or two, she is desired to pick up the sovereign, and again it causes her hand to close, and stupifies her; yet not so soon but that she has time to rise a little from the floor, before the stupefaction and rigidity come; and the perfect sleep and relaxation are longer in supervening. On waking she is desired to pick up the sovereign again; the effects are longer in supervening, so that she rises higher from the floor before they come, and there is time, by pointing one's finger at her close hand, to cause it to relax, and drop the sovereign; and in consequence of the absence of this, the rigidity and stupefaction are not kept up, and terminate in waking instead of perfect sleep and relaxation. She is desired again to pick up the sovereign; she does so, and rises higher than ever before the effects come, and they are shorter. All is repeated, she rises completely before they come, and they are still shorter. Again all is repeated, and she not only rises but goes about, and talks before the effects come, and they are slight. On repetition a still longer time intervenes, and still slighter are the effects; and so experiment after experiment goes on till the sovereign has lost its power altogether. The sovereign often rolls far away; and in such cases it has been changed for one charged by contact with another person, it being impossible for her to observe the change and impossible for her to detect any difference in regard to warmth or moisture, as the original sovereign has been as much in her own hand as the new sovereign in the hand of another

24

Inanimate bodies mesmerisable by the eye.

person. The new sovereign has always produced a far more quick and strong effect than the exhausted one.'

He charged inanimate bodies with the eye.

"I have looked," says Dr. Elliotson, "intensely at one sovereign among several lying together: and then called the Okeys into the room, and desired them to take them up one by one. No effect occurred till the sovereign which had been stared at was taken up: and then the hand was violently contracted. No word was spoken -no look given. It was totally impossible for the children to have known anything about the matter. Sir George Cayley well recollects one occasion of these satisfactory experiments at University College Hospital, though beneath the notice of the council and professors."

He never found a magnet, mesmerised or unmesmerised, have any effect upon the Okeys, but

"They were affected by no metal, unless it was first mesmerised, that is, held in the hand or against some other point of the surface, breathed upon, or gazed intensely at. Certain metals, gold, silver, platinum, nickel, could be so mesmerised: while others, as copper and lead, could not, unless the breath or perspiration was left on them; and then an effect came, but none if they were well wiped; and if any substance, but iron, not wiped after a good application of the breath or cutaneous moisture to it, were applied, the effects came. Iron could never be made to affect them. When they were rigid and unconscious and the eyes closed, from a mesmerised sovereign lying on their hand, their muscles all relaxed, their eyes opened, and they were restored instantly, by placing iron upon the gold: the effects returned on withdrawing the iron, and ceased on placing it again upon the gold. Some metals, as lead and copper, could never be charged so as to affect the elder; and nickel had always a tremendous influence over her, such as I defy any human being to imitate. But lead and copper affected the younger, if, after having been held in the hand of another, the perspiration was not wiped off them. If it was wiped away, no effect ever occurred. Iron could never be made to affect either, under any circumstance; on the contrary, it invariably destroyed the power in charged gold or silver. Nothing could be more interesting than to see a charged sovereign or shilling lying in their hand, a screen being held between it and their head; and, as soon as the hand began to close and the eyes to fix, to observe these effects instantly arrested and subside when a short iron rod was brought into contact with the metal, and augment again when it was withdrawn. I have often substituted a rod of silver or of some other metal, for I had rods made of various metals precisely similar in form and size, when it was impossible the girl could know which was being used; and in the case of a leaden rod I myself should not have known by the eye at the moment, but to prevent confusion had put each into a separate pocket. The silver, copper, and lead had no neutralizing power, and therefore never diminished or arrested the effect. I recollect one day having