Buchanan"s Journal of Man, July 1887.
by Various.
MAGNETIC EDUCATION AND THERAPEUTICS.
EXTRACTS FROM AN ESSAY BY DR. CHARLES DU PREL, IN SPHINX, TRANSLATED FOR THE JOURNAL OF MAN.
"In the _Wiener Allgemeiner_ I spoke of the possibility of moral education by means of magnetism, which has been carried out." * * *
"Dr. Bernheim, a Professor of the Medical Faculty in Nancy who is a champion of hypnotism has written a book on "Suggestion and its Application in Therapeutics," in which a great many hypnotic cures are recorded."
"Dr. ---- quotes Franklin against magnetism but Sprengel in his Pharmacology says "Franklin, sickly as he was, took no part whatever in the investigation." The Academy again investigated (1825-31) somnambulism, discovered by Puysegur, Mesmer"s scholar. In their report of two year"s investigation, eleven M.
D."s unanimously p.r.o.nounced in favor of all important phenomena ascribed to somnambulism. A fairly complete synopsis of their report will be found in my "Philosophy of Mystics.""
"Du Potet first studied medicine, but disgusted by the poor results of Pharmacology he embraced magnetism. He performed a series of mesmeric experiments in the Hotel Dieu of so potent a nature that twenty M. D."s of that celebrated hospital signed the minutes of these proceedings. People ran after Du Potet, pointing at him and crying "The man who cures.""
"The respect for medical therapeutics never has been at as low an ebb as just now. The public cannot be blamed for this lack of respect, for they have daily experiences of the ill results of medicine. Even high medical authorities are of the opinion that we have to-day a disintegration of medical principles worse than ever. More uncertain than therapeutics is the manner of diagnosing to-day! The public is well aware that each doctor has something different to say or prescribe. I have a personal case in point. During eighteen months I consulted seven different doctors, and got seven different contrary diagnoses as well as contradictory modes of treatment, and this, too, in the city of Munich, which is hardly secondary to any other city for its medical talent. Is there any cause to blame the public for running to the magnetizers? I should do so myself if my magnetic susceptibility was greater. In such magnetizers as even Mesmer, Dr. B. can see nothing but charlatans, but I desire to make him aware that a physician whose reputation he is cognizant of, Prof. Nussbaum in Munich, said to his audience in College, "Gentlemen, magnetism is the medicine of the future." As I am writing this I have been disturbed by a visitor desiring the address of a reliable magnetizer, as the physician recommended a magnetizer, as he was at his wits end."
"In our medicine the adjunct sciences alone are scientific, and we must respect their high grade; but therapeutics we have none.
Hence Mesmer should be called a benefactor to mankind, for he has pointed out the correct way. He, with Hippocrates, says that not the physician but nature cures--that the real therapeutics consists only in aiding the _vis medicatrix naturae_. In this direction the professors at Nancy and Paris are laboring. They have given the experimental proof that _if the idea of an organic change of the body is instilled into the mind of the hypnotized, then such change will take place_. In this we have a foundation for a PSYCHIC THERAPEUTICS which we hope will soon put an end to the anarchic condition of medicine of the present day. But the greatest curse to science of old, and which makes its appearance even to-day, is that _the old ideas are the greatest enemies of the new_."
"Unfortunately it is the same in the thought realm as in lifeless nature, _vis inertiae_--the law of indolence, according to which nature remains in its condition to all eternity, until she is forced into some new condition from a new cause. This _vis inertiae_ is harder to conquer in the thought realm than in lifeless nature, for Mesmer appeared a hundred years ago, and yet to-day they call him "a perfect charlatan." Braid, thirty years ago, started hypnotism, but only after Hansen made a mult.i.tude of experiments for profit and pleasure in the largest cities of Germany, did the physicians wake up to the idea of investigating it. They teach nothing of mesmerism or hypnotism at the universities. Yes, even one year ago a professor of medicine confessed to me, should I p.r.o.nounce the word somnambulism I"d be ruined. This is the manner in which ideas are kept from medical students."
"If medicine, in its results, could look with pride on its therapeutics, it might be explained. But a therapeutics that allows thousands of children to sink yearly into untimely graves from all manner of diseases, that allows a large proportion of grown persons to be decimated yearly by epidemics, that in its psychiatry is perfectly impotent to stop the rapid increase of insanity, that notoriously cannot cure a migraine, a cold, yea, not even a corn,--such a system ought surely to have some modesty, and be only too glad to accept improvements that tend to ameliorate this condition."
CONDITION OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
These remarks of Dr. Du Prel, though somewhat exaggerated, are probably based on truth in their reference to the backward condition of the medical profession in Europe, and of all that portion in America which is essentially European, and governed by European authority. But the healing art in America has been to a great extent emanc.i.p.ated by the spirit of American liberty, and in its actual results among liberal physicians is far in advance of the European system. One signal proof of this was given at Cincinnati in 1849, when that city was visited by a terrible epidemic of Asiatic cholera, which swept off five thousand of its inhabitants. The mortality of cholera under old school practise had been from twenty-five to sixty per cent., the latter having been realized in hospitals at Paris. Under the practice taught in our college at that time, the mortality in 1,500 cases did not exceed six per cent.
The atmosphere of freedom in this country, and the absolute medical freedom (until within a few years the colleges have procured medical legislation to help their diplomas, and their graduates) have given a progressiveness and practicality to American physicians which are beginning to be recognized abroad.
Dr. Lawson Tait is eminent in the treatment of women in England. In the _Medical Current_ of April 20th, he is quoted as expressing a regret that his time and money had not been directed to the Western instead of the Eastern Hemisphere, when picking up his medical knowledge. He predicted that "ere long it will be to the medical colleges of America rather than to those of Europe that students will travel." Then he goes on to say:
"American visitors abroad who have given weeks and months to see me work, have one and all impressed me with their possession of that feature of mind which in England I fear we do not possess, the power of judging any question solely upon its merits, and entirely apart from any prejudice, tradition, or personal bias.
No matter how we may struggle against it, tradition rules all we do; we cannot throw off its shackles, and I am bound to plead guilty to this weakness myself, perhaps as fully as any of my countrymen may be compelled to do. I may have thrown off the shackles in some instances, but I know that I am firmly bound in others, and my hope is that my visit to a freer country and a better climate may extend my mental vision."
POWER OF MAGNETISM AND SUGGESTION.
The suggestion of Du Prel as to the hypnotic teaching in France, that an idea impressed on the mind of the hypnotized will be realized in the body is the basis of a great deal of therapeutic philosophy. It is true in practice just to the extent of human impressibility. A cheerful physician or friend, by encouraging words impresses the idea of recovery and thus sometimes produces it. Judicious friends never speak in a discouraging manner to the invalid. The success of mind cure pract.i.tioners is based on this principle. They endeavor to impress on the patient"s mind the idea of perfect health, but they know too little of the whole subject to know how to place the patient in that pa.s.sive and receptive condition in which the results are most promptly and certainly produced.
Such methods are limited in their effect in proportion to human impressibility and cannot possibly supersede all use of remedies which reach thousands of cases in which mental operations would be entirely futile. But the power of animal magnetism over all diseases and infirmities of mind and body has been so often demonstrated that its neglect is a deep disgrace to the medical colleges. A correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ gives the following ill.u.s.tration of its power over drunkenness:
"About eighteen months ago I was conversing with my friend B., who is an enthusiastic believer in mesmerism, and has repute as an amateur pract.i.tioner. My contention was that his favorite science (?) had contributed absolutely nothing to the world"s good to cause its recognition by either scientists or philosophers. "Can you give me," said I, "one instance in which you have conferred an actual benefit by the practice of your favorite art?" He related several, from which I selected the following:--"There lives by my parsonage," said my friend B., "a man who for many years, had been a confirmed drunkard.
Repeatedly were his wife and children forced to flee from him, for when in his drunken frenzies, he attempted to murder them.
Again and again have I striven to induce him to flee from his horrible vice, but my efforts were always futile. One day he called to see me when he was suffering acutely from the effects of drink. I resolved to place him under mesmeric influence. This I did, and while subject to me made him promise not to touch strong drink again, and if he attempted to break his pledge, might the drink taste to him filthy as putrid soapsuds. I then restored him to his normal state, and he left me. He kept his unconsciously given promise. In the course of a couple of years this man raised himself from a condition of poverty to the comfortable position of a thriving market gardener. "Not a fortnight since," resumed my friend, "my neighbor"s wife laughingly said to me, "There is no fear of my husband ever drinking again, sir. You know he has to be in the market very early in the morning with his vegetables. Yesterday morning, while he was drinking a cup of coffee at the hotel an old mate said to him, "Why don"t you drink some spirits; are you afraid?"
To show his mate that he was not afraid, he ordered a gla.s.s of brandy, but no sooner did he put it in his mouth than he spat it out again, saying the "filthy stuff tasted like rotten soapsuds." My friend B. said, that, till he told me, to no one had he mentioned the fact, and that what he did to his poor neighbor he did in order to see if it were possible to use mesmerism as a remedial agent in cases of drunkenness."
The power of control over the impressible condition (which is so easily developed into hypnotism) has been recently ill.u.s.trated in France, and reports of the phenomena published in the _London News_, concerning which Mr. Charles Dawbarn has published the following in the _Banner of Light_:
"According to the reports published in the _Daily News_ of London, Eng., an attempt has been made by physicians in Paris, France, to determine the duration of an hypnotic influence. Some of my readers may not be aware that "hypnotism" is a word coined by the medical faculty to replace the term "mesmerism," which they consider disreputably a.s.sociated with spiritualism. These physicians seem to have had some very fine sensitives upon whom to operate. The first experiment was upon a lady of some means, but having a mother and sister dependent upon her for support.
The hypnotizer first established his influence in the usual manner, and then told the lady he wished her to go to a lawyer the next day, and make her will in his favor. She protested, but finally gave way. All memory of this promise seemed to be lost as soon as she returned to her normal condition. But next day she went to a lawyer, and although he begged her to remember her mother and sister, the will was made just as suggested by the physician. She was an affectionate daughter and told the lawyer she was impelled to leave her property to a stranger by _an influence which she could not resist_.
"A second experiment with another sensitive was then tried. This time the poor girl promised to poison a friend next day, she carried away with her a dose prepared by the doctor. Not knowing why, and like the other sensitive, _under an influence she could not resist_, she gave her friend the harmless drug in a gla.s.s of milk, and thus enacted the part of a murderer.
"These experiments have the novelty of having been made by the regular faculty; but thousands of Spiritualists have proved the truth of an hypnotic influence lasting long after the apparent release of the sensitive. We know, or ought to know, that the hypnotic condition can be induced without visible pa.s.ses; and many of us have seen a sensitive under influence sitting quietly, showing no sign of her slavery to the will of another.
We may go yet a step further and a.s.sert that men and women, visible and invisible, are constantly psychologizing each other, although we only use the term "sensitive" when the effect is visible to our dull senses.
"But Spiritualists as a whole have been converted by the phenomena appealing to their outward senses, and know little and care little for effects that can only be traced by shrewd, careful and scientific experiment. Yet such facts as come to the surface in those experiments with sensitives in France, are keys with which to unlock some of life"s darkest mysteries, and expose the harsh treatment of many mediums.
"Many of us have been greatly troubled by the conduct of our mediums, and often puzzled by their careful prepared attempts at fraud. Mediums we have met and loved, because they have given us proof after proof of the "gates ajar" for angel visitors, have been presently detected in frauds that required days of careful preparation. We have cried, "Down with the frauds!" and insisted that they should return to wash-tub and spade for an honest living.
"We have omitted to keep in view that one who is a medium Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays must also be a medium Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sat.u.r.days, and we have neglected to learn the lessons of our own experience. I was talking recently to a gentleman of prominence, twice sheriff of his county, who was narrating with glee how he had mesmerised a young man, and then told him, "At noon to-morrow you will be lame, and it will last two hours." Of course it happened much to the poor fellows perplexity, but my friend would have been surprised to discover that therein was the entire case of the French sensitives and of our poor mediums.
"A very important thought is that an hypnotic influence need not spring from any verbal expression. We all carry with us an influence which strikes every sensitive we meet; and if we sit with her when she is, of course, specially pa.s.sive, she must receive a yet more marked influence. There is a photographic curiosity now often exhibited which, I think, ill.u.s.trates the thought I want to emphasize. A family or a cla.s.s can be photographed, one by one, at exactly the same focus and on the same negative, with a result that you have a clear and distinct face, not of any one"s personality, but that actually combines the features of the whole into a new individual unlike any of the sitters."
"This is the very influence we cast upon a sensitive when she sits for us in a miscellaneous circle. We cannot say that any one of us has powerfully affected her, but we know the entire influence has got control and possession, and that influence follows her, too often with irresistible power."
The publication of a work on animal magnetism by Binet and Fere of Paris prompts the following sketch of the subject by the _Boston Herald_, a newspaper which pays great attention to anything foreign or anything from the old school profession, but ignores that which is American and original. The reader will observe that the writers are all in the dark, unable to explain the phenomena they describe.
PROGRESS OF MAGNETISM.
One of the most notable features of the scientific tendencies of the present day is the extraordinary interest taken in the investigation of those peculiar physical and psychical conditions attending the states now known collectively under the name of hypnotism, varying from lethargy, catalepsy, etc., to somnambulism. Until quite recently these investigations have been frowned upon and tabooed in scientific circles, and the fact that any man of scientific inclinations was known to feel an interest in matters a.s.sociated with "mesmerism" or "animal magnetism" was sufficient to make him an object of suspicion, and injure his good standing amongst his fellow-scientists. The result of the so-called investigations long ago inst.i.tuted by the French Academy, p.r.o.nouncing in effect the whole subject a humbug and delusion, has lain like an interdict upon further researches, and the whole matter was left over, for the most part, to charlatans or to persons hardly capable of forming sound judgments or proceeding according to the accurate methods demanded by modern science. Science, however, in the remarkable progress attained of late, has advanced so far upon certain lines that it has been hardly possible to proceed further in those directions without entering upon the forbidden field.
Therefore, the old signboards against trespa.s.sing have been taken down. For "mesmerism," that verbal scarecrow, has been subst.i.tuted "hypnotism," which word has had a wonderfully legitimatizing effect; while "animal magnetism," that once flouted idea, has been proven to be an existent fact by methods as accurate as those adopted by Faraday or Edison to verify their observations.
EFFORTS OF SCIENTISTS.
Many of the most eminent scientists of Europe are now devoting themselves a.s.siduously to these researches. Periodicals making a specialty of the subject are now published in France, Germany, and England. A catalogue of the recent literature of hypnotism and related phenomena, compiled by Max Dessoir, was printed in the number of the German magazine called the _Sphinx_ for February of this year, and this catalogue occupied nine pages. The list is limited to those works written on the lines laid under the methods of the modern school, all books being excluded whose authors hold to "mesmeric" theories, or who are even professional magnetizers. The catalogue is, therefore, as strictly scientific as possible, and, being cla.s.sified with German thoroughness under the different branches of the subject, such as "hystero-hypnotism," "suggestion," "fascination," etc., it will prove a valuable a.s.sistance to the student.
In this country the interest of scientists has not yet been aroused to an extent comparable with that of European investigators. Old prejudices have not entirely lost their potency. One of the most eminent professors of a leading university is said to have been subjected to ridicule from his colleagues because of a marked interest shown in the subject, and a Boston physician of high standing within a few months confided to the writer that he had made use of hypnotic methods, with gratifying success, in the case of a patient where ordinary remedies had proven unavailing, but he did not venture to make the results public, since his fellow doctors might be inclined to condemn his action as "irregular."
A work embracing the whole subject has lately appeared in Paris, and, as it is to form a volume of the valuable International Scientific series, published in English, French, German, and Italian, it can hardly fail to diffuse a correct popular understanding of the results thus far attained. The book is called "Le Magnetism Animal" (Animal Magnetism), and its authors are Messrs. Alfred Binet and Charles Fere of the medical staff of the Salpetriere Hospital for Nervous Disorders in Paris. It gives a history of the patient researches conducted at that inst.i.tution by the medical staff under the celebrated Prof.
Charcot during the past nine years. These experiments have been prosecuted according to the most exact scientific methods, and with the most extreme caution. The endeavor has been to obtain, first of all, the most elementary psychic phenomena, and to test every step in the investigations by separate experiment, specially devised to prove the good faith of the subject and the reality of his hallucination, to eliminate the possibility of unconscious suggestion, to establish relations with similar phenomena of disease or health in the domain of physiology and psychology, and to note the modifications which can be brought about by altering the conditions of the experiments. The authors possess the great scientific virtue of never dogmatising. In the entire book not a single law is laid down, not a single hypothesis is advanced, which is not reached by the most approved inductive processes. A great service of the book lies in its enunciation of new and trustworthy methods for studying the physiology of the brain in health and disease, while it brings into the realm of physical experiment vexed questions of psychology heretofore given over to metaphysical methods exclusively.
THE HYPNOTIC SLEEP
Is described as a different form of natural sleep, and all the causes which bring on fatigue are capable of bringing on hypnotism in suitable subjects. Two of the leading hypnotic states are lethargy and catalepsy, the former being a.n.a.logous to deep sleep, and the latter to a light slumber. In lethargy the respiratory movements are slow and deep; in catalepsy slight, shallow, very slow, and separated by a long interval. In lethargy the application of a magnet over the region of the stomach causes profound modifications in the breathing and circulation, while there is no such effect in catalepsy. This shows the connection of hypnotism with magnetism, and various other experiments with magnets have produced some remarkable results. Here it may be added that Dr. Gessmann, a Vienna scientist who has made a specialty of hypnotic studies, has invented and successfully applied an instrument called a hypnoscope, consisting of an arrangement of magnets for the purpose of ascertaining whether any person is a good hypnotic subject.