find him so well. He has often expressed his gratitude to the Giver of all good for the blessings of health he now enjoys.

Contraction of the Knee.

Mrs. Anne Wilson, aged 39, of Princes Street, Huddersfield, had been afflicted for eight years with a contracted knee. After trying every means in her power to get relief both in London and elsewhere, she applied to me. I mesmerised her for several weeks, and she obtained relief; and now can walk with great ease; and is able to walk with her husband-what she could not do before she was mesmerised. She does this with ease, is still improving, and thankful for the change.

Rheumatic Pains and Contraction of the Arms and one Knee.

Enoch Crowther, aged 36, Princes Street, Huddersfield, had been severely afflicted five years. For two years he could not lift his arms to his head nor bend his knees. After being mesmerised by me several weeks, he can now use his arms and bend his knee with ease. He is a person of good character. Although he has been so very much afflicted, he has been in one employ for ten years. He is now well and can go through his work with pleasure. He has frequently spoken of his cure before the public audiences at Huddersfield and Holmfirth, where he is well known.

Contraction of the Hip.

Eliza Ann Staley, of Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, aged 20 years, had been afflicted for nine years with a contraction of the hip, and could not bear her weight on the side affected for nine years. After having been operated on by me for one week, she can now walk well and stand on her foot, to the astonishment of her friends. She is still going on with mesmerism, and I expect she will soon be cured completely.

Severe Spinal Affection.

Ann Cotton, of Crossland Moor, near Huddersfield, aged 17, has been very much afflicted for four years, and not able to walk for two years. After being put into the mesmeric sleep a few times, she began to walk alone, to the astonishment of her mother and friends. As she is now improving fast, she expects to run about shortly.

6, Nile Street, Liverpool.

H. HUDSON.

IX. On the claims of Dr. Robert H. Collyer in reference, 1. to the original excitement and stupefying of distinct Cerebral Organs by Local Mesmerism; 2. to the original suggestion of preventing pain by the inhalation of narcotic vapours; and 3. to the original production of the phenomena absurdly called Electro-Biology.

"Another error is, that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrine with some conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences to which they have most applied; and given all things else a tincture according to them, utterly untrue and improper. So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus, our countryman, hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone."-LORD BACON, Advancement of Learning, book i.

"The electrical operation, concerning which Gilbert and others since him have made up such a wonderful story, is nothing else than the oppolition of a body, which, excited by friction, does not well tolerate the air, and prefers another tangible body if it be found near."-LORD BACON, Novum Organum, book ii.* 1. In our Third Number, at p. 237, the origin of the discovery in 1839 of the possibility of exciting and stupefying distinct cerebral organs by local mesmerism was fully detailed. The discovery was made quite accidentally in 1839 by Dr. Collyer, at Pittsfield in North America, but remained unheeded by him and unknown both there and in England. In fact, Dr. Collyer in 1842 declared that he had been mistaken, and that the phenomena had arisen from unintended suggestion alone.

In May, 1843, he published a pamphlet entitled, Psychography, or the Embodiment of Thought, with an Analysis of Phreno-magnetism, Neurology, and Mental Hallucination, in which he most positively denied that the organs were ever excited by any force transmitted from the fingers.

"At a party, when mesmerism was the topic of conversation, he threw into the mesmeric sleep a young lady who had always refused to allow him to examine her cerebral development. He took this oportunity of examining it with his hands, and, to his astonishment, as he touched over the organs of Self-esteem, Combativeness, Wit, &c., the respective faculties went into action. He was, however, already so excited with the occurrence of clairvoyance at this period that he confesses he paid very little attention to the circumstance. In Louisiana, during the following spring, he produced the same results; and, having become a lecturer on mesmerism at Boston, in the spring of 1841, he publicly demonstrated such facts

* What would Bacon think of this his own folly were he to come again upon the earth and witness all the facts now ascertained in the science of magnetism and electricity?

Since he could write thus foolishly, we cannot wonder at the writings of the medical profession against our mesmeric facts, obvious, great and most blessedly useful, though they are.-Zoist.

62 Mesmeric affection of distinct cerebral organs proved.

in

there as early as May-above two months before any other person America pretends to have made similar observations. However, in October, 1842, he was convinced that he had been mistaken, and declared that he had claimed priority of what he no longer held to be a reality. He does most positively deny, in the pamphlet published two months ago, that the organs were ever excited by the transmission of any force from the fingers.'

After he had witnessed experiments made without the possibility of suggestion, he still adhered to his scepticism but ascribed the effect to the power of the operator's will.

This fancy, however, was completely dissipated by Dr. Elliotson's experiments, in some of which small pieces of paper were put upon the organs of a sleep-waking patient highly susceptible of the effect, and certain organs excited through mere pointing at them without the possibility of the patient's knowledge of what was doing, and by a person ignorant of both mesmerism and phrenology and of the purpose for which he was requested to point: no body looking at what he did, till the excitement of the respective organ manifested itself by external signs, when the mesmerist turned round and found the manifestations were those of an individual organ that had been and was still being pointed at. These results were the more remarkable, as the organ of the side only which was pointed at was excited in this patient so that if pride, rage, or attachment was pointed at on one side, the corresponding arm performed the action of pride, rage, or affection: and a different organ on the opposite side might be thrown into action. For instance, at the same time, the right hand and arm would squeeze and embrace and the left arm repel and strike. Let the scoffers at phrenology and mesmerism study and get over, if they can, the exquisite facts which prove the truth of the two sciences at once, and which are detailed in both No. III., pp. 239-246, and No. VI., pp. 222-233. In all physiology and psychology nothing can surpass, and few things approach them, in interest and wonder. But cells, and fibres, and all minute anatomy, requiring the microscope; and the humble functions of nutrition or vegetable life (albeit all worthy of our careful study) forcibly attract the attention of the generality of medical minds, which seem at present unable to appreciate the higher matters of our nature.

The fact unintentionally noticed by Dr. Collyer was too astounding for his belief: and he ascribed it to suggestion. Yet the fact was but an instance of local mesmerisation; like the stiffening of a finger by a pass along it or pointing at it,

* Zoist, No. III., p. 237.

Dr. Collyer has no merit on this subject.

63

and the relaxation of it again by breathing upon it. This was very excusable in him, but he must now regret that he did not ascertain by an easy experiment whether this expla nation was just.

Mesmerisation of distinct cerebral organs is on a footing with the production of every other mesmeric effect. Every one may result from imagination, and this may be produced by suggestion; and, to prove a mesmeric phenomenon to be genuinely mesmeric, perfect care must be taken to prevent the patient from knowing what is being attempted. When the patient does know, and expects the effect, we have no right to assert that the effect, whatever it be, is from simple mesmeric agency. In truth, by suggestion you may in some persons excite the manifestation of particular faculties by touching any part of the head or any part of the systembody or extremities.

A long while afterwards, when Dr. Collyer witnessed the mesmeric excitement of distinct cerebral organs in circumstances where he saw that suggestion was impossible, he ascribed the effect to the operator's will. But in Dr. Elliotson's experiments, mentioned above, this explanation was out of the question, since the operator had no idea of what he was doing, and one was equally ignorant of mesmerism and phrenology and mesmeric phrenology and no other person witnessed to what organs he was pointing. Nay more, by the strongest will which Dr. Elliotson can exert, and with staring at the seat of the respective organs, he has never been able to excite one of them in this patient.

In the matter of the mesmeric excitement of cerebral organs Dr. Collyer, therefore, has no pretension to merit. Mr. Mansfield discovered these facts in 1841 in Clare Hall in the University of Cambridge.* We had always understood that Mr. Mansfield's facts were equally the result of accident in 1841 with those of Dr. Collyer. But recently Mr. Mansfield has anxiously assured our readers that there was no accident in the matter;† but that his facts resulted from what he calls induction. By this we suppose he means that he was induced to make the experiments by reflexion. He now asserts that a lady in sleep-waking, on hearing a discord which distressed her, assured him in answer to his enquiry that she felt pain in the organ of Music. This, however, was not mesmeric excitement of a cerebral organ. calmed the pain by putting his finger over the organ, as pain is calmed by mesmerists habitually. He says that he fol

He

* See No. III.,

p. 238.

† No. XXXVIII., p. 226.

64

Mr. Mansfield has all the merit.

lowed up the facts which he witnessed, and made the discovery by reasoning, by investigation. His friend, Mr. (now Sir John) Gardiner, soon joined him in the investigation.

This account by Mr. Mansfield is not the same as that which was given by Dr. Elliotson in the Phrenological Association on the authority of two gentlemen who were present when Mr. Mansfield announced his discovery, and who were present when this account was read. Neither has expressed that it was inaccurate, and it stood in the pages uncontradicted till Mr. Mansfield wrote to The Zoist in 1853, as we have stated. His letter was a little eccentric, and so full of blots and alterations that these struck us. If we take his last account we see no mesmeric excitement of any organ. His merit, however, is that of following out the subject. Whether the fact which he followed out presented itself to him accidentally or not, his merit is indisputable, great, and sufficient.

2. We some time ago received the following letter from Dr. Collyer, and press of matter has caused it to remain unprinted till now, as we were desirous of making it the groundwork of an article.

"To the Editor.

"San Francisco, California, "May 24, 1852.

"For The Zoist.

"You will confer on me a favour by republishing the enclosed communication.

"The whole merit of the discovery of inhalation to produce unconsciousness or nervous congestion of the brain, and abstracting sensibility from the rest of the body, so that surgical operations can be performed without pain, is due to mesmerism; and had it not been for my mesmeric investigations, the important fact that all stimulating and narcotic vapours produce insensibility' would, in all probability, have remained as an undeveloped law of nature until this day. I think it is in the Fifth Number of The Zoist that you refer to my claim; and by referring to the pamphlet in the possession of Dr. Elliotson, entitled Psychography, &c., published in 1843, it will be there seen that I declare, in several places, the identity of the condition induced by mesmerism and inhalation. Dr. Morton was a resident dentist of Boston, and attended my lectures, and saw my experiments in 1842 : it was not until 1846, when I was in Europe, that he pretended to have made the discovery.

"Yours truly,

"ROB. H. COLLYER.