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ARMY MEDICAL LIBRARY
FOUNDED 1836
WASHINGTON, D.C. 
DUE TWO WEEKS FROM LAST DATE





  «W4  I956
 
 
            REPORT

                    ON THK

   MAGNETICAL  EXPERIMENTS

HADE BY THE COMMISSION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY
    MEDICINE, OF PARIS, READ IN THE MEETINGS
              OF JUNE 21 AND 28, 183J,


        BY  MR.  HUSSON,

                THE REPORTER.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, AND  PRECEDED
             WITH  AN INTRODUCTION,


    BY CHARLES POYEN ST.  SAUVEUR.
           Ac.
            T * '
  " La vcritc doit etre I'idole de cclui qui ctudie, les sciences a
quelque elevation philosopliique."—Rostaw.
          BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY D. K. HITCHCOCK,
            9 Cornhill.
              1836. 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1836, by
                D. K. HITCHCOCK,
in the Clerk's Office of the  District Court of Massachusetts.
I

I 
   DISINTERESTED LOVERS AND





COURAGEOUS  PROMOTERS OF TRUTH,








       THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED






              BY THEIR






    ADMIRER AND MOST RESPECTFUL SERVANT,








                 CHARLES POYEN.
?41 f 
 
INTRODUCTION.
           What a miracle to man is man. — Youtco.
Animal magnetism — its definition — conditions to exercise it
  __mode  of operation — phenomena resulting from it — ita
  truth demonstrated through analogy and reasoning—objec-
  tions to it refuted.  Theory of animal magnetism —its use-
  fulness in regard  to religion, morals, intellectual philosophy,
  physiology, and  therapeutics — a sketch of its history down
  to the present time.
   Among all the discoveries of the most remarkable
period of time that extends itself from  1760 to the
present day, there is one which, both by its charac-
ter of marvellousness and  the  important results it
brings forth, seems to me calculated  not only lo ex-
cite curiosity in the highest  degree,  but also to
deserve the most  earnest attention and  interest of
every enlightened  mind.   This  discovery,  indeed,
exhibits,  in a brighter light than any other, the moral
power  and divine origin of man, gives a new life to
the religious principle, and furnishes unconquerable
weapons  to Christianity against materialism,  which
is  already triumphant in some parts of the civilized 
VI
INTRODUCTION.
world — it opens a new and broad field to phsychol-
ogical speculations, that seemed nearly exhausted by
the labors of the  preceding  centuries — creates a
new method of pathological  investigation—settles
therapeutics on  a basis hitherto unknown to the
medical world — enlarges and raises so much the
domain  or physiology, that we may qualify the mod-
ifications operated  en it  as  true revolutions.  The
wonderful discovery alluded to, is that of animal
magnetism, and of the  phenomenon of somnambu-
lism derived from  it.  It is  that new order of facts,
indisputably constituting a most interesting branch
of the science of  man, which makes the subject of
the following pages.
  This  introduction, my  readers will easily  perceive
from the summary view of its contents above placed,
is  designed  to complete, as far as  possible,  their
knowledge of the  subject, by giving them all the in-
formations that are not found in, and naturally ought
to  have  been excluded  from, a report made up en-
tirely with facts.
  What is understood by the words  animal  magnet-
ism ?  I open the dictionary of Medical Sciences,
published at Paris, volume twenty-first, and read that
it is 'a  peculiar state of the nervous system, during
which some unusual physiological phenomena, not
yet well appreciated, present themselves — a state
which is ordinarily  produced in one individual  by
the will  of another  performing  certain manual evo-
lutions for the purpose of causing it to take place.'
  The indispensable, absolute, moral conditions to 
INTRODUCTION.
Vll
produce any magnetical effect are comprehended in
the following precepts of De Puysegur: — A  firm
will to do  good — a  strong  belief in  cue's power,
and entire confidence in using it.
  There is but one physical requisite — good health.
Thus it naturally  follows  that  every person  is not
endowed in  the  same degree with the magnetical
power ;  for all, in  this case, depends upon the ener-
gy of the will ; the capacity of mental concentration ;
the benevolence and  bodily constitution of the op-
erator.   The manual proceedings in the practice of
animal magnetism, consists  in  carrying the hands,
upward and downward, along the nerves of the limbs,
and in exercising  certain pressures alternately on
the forehead, shoulders, and  the pit of the stomach.
Magnetisers usually  commence the  operation by
holding the patient's  thumbs from four to five min-
utes in their own hands, until a like degree is estab-
lished on  either  side.  But the  gestures-—called
passes— are necessary only  in the  first sittings; for,
when a person has been  magnetised several  times,
and  proved  sensible to the  magnetical  action, the
magnetiser's will, without any  motion, is  sufficient
to put him to sleep.  Several instances of this fact
are related  in the report of the  commission appoint-
ed a  few years ago by the Academy of Medicine of
Paris, to make experiments in animal magnetism and
 ascertain the truth.
   The phenomena produced under the influence of
 the will and the gestures, vary according bvth to the
 disposition of the person to  receive the magnetical 
V1U             INTRODUCTION.

action, and the power of the magnetiser to exercise
that action.   Thus some individual*-, especially those
who are strong and  ei joy perfect health,  feel noth-
ing,— some others feel only some heaviness of the
eyelids, cephalgia, nausea, much  calm, or  great agi-
tation.  F nally, some are plunged into a peculiar
sleep, called megnetical sleep, and reach, after a few
sittings, that  very  singular  state  known  under the
name of somnambulism.   The  magnetical sleep is
characterized by a complete suspension of the  ex-
ternal  senses.   Somnambulism  is the faculty  of
speaking during the sleep;  of recognizing external
objects through unusual ways ;  and finally of hear-
ing nobody else  but the magnetiser or  the  other
person brought to relation with the magnetised.*
  ' What!' you will exclaim, ' is  it possible, that by
the plain action of the  will,  and a few insignificant
gestures, one can produce  sd surprising effects?
Does not this overthrow all  the laws  of nature and
good sense ?   The age of  miracles and  magic is
passed away,  and man can be no  longer a god or a
sorcerer.'  These are the exclamations  of incredulity,
that  animal  magnetism  always  suggests in most of
the people who hear of it for the first time.   Then
that doctrine  is  doomed to  contempt and ridicule,
owing only to its appearance of  singularity, and to
its being not like the phenomena commonly observed.
The man of the fashionable world  cries,  ' Miracles !'
  * I need not to give here any further  details about the mag-
netical phenomena.  The reader will find an  ample collection
of them in the report. 
INTRODUCTION.
ix
hisses and laughs at this  quackery of a new kind,
and bu ies himself no longer with it.  The fair one
of the  drawing-room says, with  a  smile of disdain,
that  it would be  an excellent  remedy to still her
nerves in case of vapors, and busies  herself no lon-
ger with it.   The  clergyman sees  in it nothing else
but an infamous attempt against lelig on — an inspi-
ration of the devil, and hurls anathemas  against it.
The puritan philosopher affirms it is only  an ignoble
device of  jugglers to subdue innocevce,  make mo-
ney by deceiving the publie confidence, and already
points it out to the proscription  of the government.
The savant, especially the physician, proud of their
pretended  positive   knowledge — convinced  that
nothing is true but what falls under the microscope
or the scalpel — decided beforehand to treat as false-
hood  everything  that does  not  c me  within  the
compass of their physiolog cal and pathological the-
ories— either lo^ks at magnetism  as an imposture,
as a mere system of quackery, < r c; nsiders it as one
of those lamentable aberrations of the human mind
of which history  affords  so many instances — as a
miserable imitation of the proceedings used by sor-
cerers in  the ages of darkness.
   Such  is the operation made against animal  mag-
netism from its appearance in the world, and which
 it still now  undergoes from the part of a great num-
 ber  of  persons,  notwithstanding  its  triumphant
 march and  the innumerable facts  produced every
 day in witness of its truth.
   But let us examine a little nearer  the value of tmtf 
X
INTRODUCTION.
opposit;on.  In the first place, let us see what foun-
dation it lays upon.   I beg the reader to notice that
it rests on no document or fact of a positive charac-
ter.   Indeed, the opponents of animal magnetism do
not say — we ourselves have  scrupulously observed
or made the experiments used to produce the pr -
tended  phenomena,  and in no case  have we seen
them  manifested.  They say only, that such a thing
is so surprising, so unusual, so contrary to the phy-
siological  knowledges, that  it  is  not  possible  to
believe  in them.  Thence they draw the conclusion,
that magnetism is an  imposture.  But is it  not  a
method  of reasoning evidently absurd,  to condemn
as falsehood what a great many respectable  persons
affirm to be true, only because the  thing mentioned
does not enter into  the circle of phenomena com-
monly observed, and  goes beyond the reach of our
understanding?   Who has not  heard  of sudden
death without apparent cause — of those spontane-
ous combustions which sometimes  reduce to  ashes
old drunkards?  Shall we affirm  that such  facts
never happen,  because they depart from  the or-
dinary course of natural phenomena?
  Again, shall we deny the existence of volcanoes
>— of  the fall of meteoric stones — the  aurora bore-
alis — all  the curious and  interesting  effects  of
electricity and  mineral magnetism — the periodical
revolutions of comets, &c,  because  it has  been
hitherto impossible to give a philosophical explana-
tion of  the formation or cause of those  wonderful 
INTRODUCTION.
XI
operations of nature ?  Verily, nobody doubts now-a-
days the existence of the phenomena I have just
mentioned,  however  extraordinary they  may  be.
Indeed, the facts  repeatedly observed do not allow
the least doubt, and to believe  them it is sufficient
only to examine.   From that  series  of analogous
cases I come to a general conclusion ; I mean that
there are really but very few phenomena that man is
allowed to understand.  Whether he  turns his eyes
upon the innumerable variety of objects which sur-
round him, or raises  them up towards those worlds
of planets  and stars  rolling above  his head, every-
thing is wonder and mystery to him. What a variety
of beings — of different lives — from the insect of
one day up  to man — from the  grain  of sand up to
the brilliant sun which is lighting us !   Each of those
beings has his own peculiar construction  and prop-
erties __each of  these lives has  a mode  of mani-
 festation which distinguishes it from all others. And
 now let us try to discover, through a  close and mi-
 nute analysis, the intimate composition of each of
 those bodies, and the  vital  phenomena of their
 organization.  Surely, by dint of attention and per-
 severance, we shall be able to put together a very
 great number of unknown facts, most of which  will
 be such as  to excite astonishment and amazement —
 even the incredulity of those  who have not studied
 the science.  All  those  facts  can be deduced from
 one another, and understood  through one another;
 but, definitively, we  are unable to know  the reason
 of their production— I mean the primitive cause 
 Xll               INTRODUCTION.

 whence they emanate—the nature of the relations
 and secret ties  which bind them together, without,
 however,  confounding them.  In short, it is possible
 to the genius of man to know something in nature;
 but that something can be but  of facts only — that is,
 visible  manifestations of the existence of  beings.
 As to the why and how of those beings,  we cannot
 discover — this  is  the secret of God.   Here I take
 leave to remind  you  that every science is  nothing
 but a collection  of facts, disposed in an order more
 or less  logical and luminous, connected with each
 other, and explained through  certain theories.   But
 those very theories  are  themselves reared  upon  a
 primitive  law, which  is so difficult to be accounted
 for, that we are  obliged to admit it a priori; that is,
 as a matter beyond demonstration.  Thus, chemistry
 is based on the fact of moleculary affinity and atom-
 istic  combinations;   the  phenomena of elictricity
 and  galvanism recognise, as a regulating cause, the
 existence  of two fluids, one negative and the other
 positive — which existence we must admit a priori.
 Newton judged it  necessary to  base the  theory of
planetary gravitation  upon the hypothesis of the ex-
istence  of two forces — the force of attraction  or
centripetal, and  the  force of  projection or centrifu-
gal.   But  you easily  understand that this is a mere
conjecture, begotten  by the  innate want in  man to
account for everything.
  It would be easy here to  accumulate numberless
instances  which  demonstrate that the primitive cause
of natural  phenomena is, and ever will be, concealed. 
INTRODUCTION.
XtU
from and unaccountable to man, however active and
extensive  his  organ of causality  may  be.   From
what has been said, I conclude that if the existence
of the effects of magnetism is  denied, because they
cannot be understood by our ordinary method of sci-
entific  analysis, and depart from the natural facta
commonly observed, we ought, also,  to deny all the
fundamental facts on  which the science of chemis-
try, natural philosophy,  astronomy, &c. are resting,
because they cannot  be accounted for  by, and  be
submitted to, our instruments  of material examina-
tion.  Really, there  is nothing to be wondered  at
in magnetism.   It is  a plain,  natural phenomenon
hitherto unseen and unknown  to many.  This is all.
On this  subject, I  add, with Rostan,  ' These are
wonders and miracles for the fool only.  The more
ignorant  and rude  people are, the  more miracles
there will  be ; because, as they are not  informed of
the phenomena of nature, there is a greater number
of facts which  are beyond the  circle  of their knowl-
edge, and which seem to them opposed to her laws.
As people instruct themselves, the more their knowl-
edge becomes extended and the less surprising facts
exist.  It is worthy of notice, that everything new
and unaccustomed excites  laughter,  contempt,  and
astonishment.  The true philosopher ought neither
to despise nor to wonder ; he ought to examine.  If
we wonder at one phenomenon because of its nov-
elty, we might  as well wonder at all others.'
   Light, running millions of leagues a minute, and
enabling  us to recognize the existence of object*** 
XIV
INTRODUCTION.
placed at many millions of miles  from us, and that
in a  moment,  and  causing the  spectacle  of the
immensity of all  nature to  penetrate through an
opening not larger than  a pin's head, the pupil, is a
miracle by far more surprising than the influence of
one individual upon another at the distance of a few
feet.  Attraction, ruling the universe  and making
itself felt without an intermediate agent, at the enor-
mous distance of one  star  from another,  and so
holding in space the heavenly  bodies, in  regulating
their unchangeable courses, is again a wonder by far
more astonishing ; and yet,  who pays attention to the
magic of light and attraction ?  A very few learned
men occupy themselves  with  it;  the remainder of
mankind enjoy their benefit without wondering, nay,
thinking of them.   And why ?  because they are ha-
bitual things.
  The magnetical phenomena, it is said, are not
only accountable and miraculous, but some affirm
they are above the reach of human faculties — they
are impossible.  Impossible ! has  the sense  of this
word been sufficiently  reflected  upon?   What  is
impossible to man?  Let us consider the enormous
works of all kind that man has been allowed to ac-
complish from the first step  in social life down to the
present stage of civilization ? let us compare, for in-
stance,  the man of the savage state,  with his miser-
able dwellings, his  precarious, wretched existence
amid the woods — so completely destitute of means
of intellectual improvements, sunk into  the  lowest
depths of moral degradation and idolatry — with the 
INTRODUCTION.
XV
mighty  being who built up  those  splendid  cities,
furnished with every possible means  to satisfy his
physical and intellectual  wants, to gratify  his taste,
elevate and adorn his mind, enriched with the knowl-
edge of the true God.  Finally,  let us compare the
savage with the author of those wonderful  processes
of conveying both  ideas, persons and brute matter,
to the remotest distance over the sea  and  the land,
which makes him a cosmopolite — a universal be-
ing— 'a mortal  god on earth,'  as says a great poet,
and  we shall then  feel the necessity to restrain, in
some measure, the  extent  of the  word impossible.
For all those gigantic things have been accomplished,
and nobody will contend against it, through a moral
a2ent —the strength of will —'that true column of
virtue in man,' as Young says.  It is doubtless from
the consideration of so great a power, that Napoleon,
in the  highest pitch of his  fortunes, declared that
the word impossible should be taken  away from the
vocabulary.   If man has been  able  to execute  so
many difficult and grand works by the general power
of his  will  applied in  particular  directions,  why
could we not  produce,  by a peculiar application of
the  same  faculty, the  phenomena  of magnetism,
which are nothing else  but  an  influence upon  the
nervous system of a fellow-creature ?
   If we examine man by  the side of his divine on-
gin, we have a still greater  motive to conceive and
believe the extent of his power.   Indeed, the holy
scripture teaches us that God created man  in his own
likeness and bequeathed unto him a part of his own 
Xvi
INTRODUCTION.
 substance.  Now, what is God ?  The infinite pow-
 er— infinite love—infinite intellect.   Therefore,
 man is necessarily organized with  a part of these
 three attributes of his Creator.   Why, then, wonder
 at the various manifestations  of the  divine  spirit
 Working in  the favorite creature ?   Why affirm that
 it is impossible for man to operate such phenomena
 as to  show  what is most excellent in  him, and
 through the purest and most energetic  element  of
 his organization, his will?  Why deny the power in
 him  to send from his body, by the act of this benev-
 olent and  sympathetic  will, an agent  capable  of
 curing, or at  least relieving a fellow-creature from
 sickness?   Such an incredulity  is not  only unrea-
 sonable, but it is impious — it is decidedly opposed
 to the teaching of Christianity.  Any  good Chris-
 tian  will  easily  conceive  the  importance  of  this
 argument and cannot fail to approve it.   Then, far
 from throwing ridicule upon animal magnetism and
 denying  its existence,  he will look  at it with inter-
 est and love,  as  a convincing  proof of his dirine
 origin —of his organical power, and of the immor-
 tal ties whieh bind him to the infinite being from
 whom he emanated.
  Among the most violent opposers of animal  mag-
 netism,  it is, perhaps, surprising to meet  a great
 number of scientific men, especially physicians.   It
seems, indeed, that this  class of men —being,  ow-
ing to their daily  avocation, more  apt  to  examine
the phenomena of nature,  her   prodigious variety,
her  infinite resources and power —should have, 
INTRODUCTION.
xvn
more than any other class, received the discovery of
a new order of phenomena by  the  name of animal
magnetism, with benevolence, or at least with the feel-
ing of philosophical doubt which leads  us to experi-
ment by ourselves the announced facts,  before deny-
ing them and crushing them down with contempt and
ridicule.   The characteristics  of the true naturalist
is to  make experiments, even from  hypothetical
views ; for it may happen in starting from an hypoth-
esis to  arrive at the  discovery  of  very important
phenomena.   The true naturalist ought,  then, to
observe and study the facts, however insignificant,
minute, or extraordinary they appear at first; for it is
possible that one single fact is, in the  universal or-
der of things,  a point  concealing a  whole  new
science ; or, at least, a very  great improvement in
some of the sciences already  established.   Certain-
ly,  to those physiologists  who  have bestowed some
attention upon the phenomena of animal magnetism,
it is beyond doubt that their  discovery brings  an im-
portant change both in the science of the physical
and moral organization  of  man  in  pathology  and
therapeutics.  By  what inconceivable   fatality  did
some physicians oppose, with s> much blindness and
narrowness of mind, the establishment  of that  new
truth, so productive of scientific results  and benefits
to suffering mankind ?   We are almost ashamed to
say that they  acted in this  circumstance  from the
same  reasons  as  the  vulgar of men ;  U> -ause the
production of magnetical  phenomena  is incompre-
hensible ; because they are  contrary to all the  phy-
              2 
XV111
INTRODUCTION.
siological knowledge, heaped up by the experience
of past centuries.   That those phenomena are above
the  human  understanding, I grant.  But I beg the
physicians to tell  me how many operations of ani-
mal  economy they can  understand,  either  in  the
healthy or diseased state?  Can  they account, for
instance, for the act of thought and will ?  for this of
assimilation — breathing? for the formation and de-
struction of the living machine?  Can they account
for the periodicity of the intermittent fevers, and the
formation and mode of existence of a crowd of other
affections? — for the way  in  which the remedies,
called specific, act upon such or such of our organs?
(I need not name them here.)   No;  they must ac-
knowledge in these cases, as well as in a great many
others  of the external world, they are and always
will  be in complete ignorance.  ' If some persons,'
says Sydenham,  ' consider  me, on this account, as
unworthy of the name of philosopher,  I would ad-
vise  them to try by themselves  their own strength in
the works of nature,  which everywhere offer them-
selves  to our  observation.   Now, if some  learned
men are not ashamed to acknowledge their ignorance
in such matters, why should we reproach the physi-
cian with being  unable  to  explain the causes in a
thing which is not less difficult, and  goes, perhaps,
far beyond the reach of  human intellect ? '  So Sy-
denham expressed  himself about the periodicity and
and  the seat of intermittent fevers.   Let the physi-
cians and physiologists of our  days learn from this
great man how to be  modest and wise in their judge 
INTRODUCTION.             XIX
ment on  new natural  phenomena they cannot  un-
derstand.   But that which is to my  mind still fitter
to inspire them with modesty and circumspection, is
the  very history of the science they profess.  That
history, properly speaking, is nothing else but a nar-
rative of a continued  struggle  of opposed doctrines,
which  vary according to people and periods of time.
How  many hypothesis and systems !  Hardly  one
has taken possession of the public opinion when a
new one  rises up.  Then, war  and revolution  in the
science.   Let us notice, however, whence all those
modifications proceed ; whether from the discovery
of a new phenomenon or from a different way of ob-
serving and  interpreting  some  of the phenomena
already known.  At this present moment, there are
upwards of eight  various systems of pathology and
therapeutics in the world called  civilized.  All this
seems to  me singularly  calculated to inspire toler-
ance  and  a wise spirit  of examination, instead of
that blind  opposition  so unbecoming of a true savant
and a friend of the human species.   But what  shall
 we think, what shall we say, when we know that this
opposition was made with the  utmost fury and ex-
travagance against the very  discoveries which  were
 afterward  recognised as the most beneficial to man-
 kind ?  ' We cannot,' says Mr.  Husson, the reporter
 of the commission appointed  for the examination of
 animal magnetism, 'open the annals of our art with-
 out being struck, not only by  the  diversity of the
 opinions which have successively occupied its do.
 main, but also by the little   solidity of those judg-> 
XX
INTRODUCTION.
 merits which were thought firm at the moment they
 were brought forward, and that some new judgments
 have come to reform.'  So in our  days we have suc-
 cessively seen the circulation .of the  blood decreed
 impossible; the inocculation of the small-pox consid-
 ered  and  proscribed as a crime ; those enormous
 wigs with which many among us had their heads over-
 loaded, proclaimed,  by  far,  more healthy than the
 natural hair.  Who has  not present to his mind the
 proscription  which  struck all  the preparations of
 antimony   under  the decanat of  the  famous Guy-
 patin ?  Who could  have forgotten that a decree of
 the Parliament, solicited  by the Academy of Medi-
 cine, forbade the use of emetic ? "
   Physicians are aware that those extravagant opin-
 ions and judgments have been successively recalled.
 The circulatory motion of the blood is now  univer-
 sally acknowledged ; inocculation of the small-pox is
 practiced everywhere; antimony and emetics used
 as very useful  remedies  in some  cases.   So it will
 be of the hasty judgment borne against  magnetism
 among people ;  and  already  we see the first report
 made at Paris, fifty years ago,  in opposition to that
 discovery, annihilated by another  a great  deal more
 substantial  and sound, made three years  ago, by a
 commi sion of the  most  respectable scientific body
 in Europe,  the Royal Academy Of Medicine at Paris.
 •The magnetical phenomena,' it is said, again, 'are
contrary to the physiological knowledge accumulated
by the labors of centuries.  So much the better for
the .science and mankind, if those  knowledges were 
INTRODUCTION.
xxi
erroneous, if falsehood  is supplied by truth through
the new discovery.   Let us open the history of sci-
ences, and we shall see  that improvements of all
kind were so accomplished.   How many errors, how
many gross absurdities  have been rooted out by the
labor of the modern —  how many grand truths dis-
covered,  contrary to the  opinions of past ages !  I
recollect having heard  from Mr. Magendie, one of
the  most illustrious heads  of modern physiology,
that the  Asiatic  cholera had revealed some facts
which thoroughly overthrew many points of patho-
logical physiology which were thought settled forever.
Well, it is just so with animal magnetism.  The
future will  confirm, 1 am sure, the results already
obtained by the practitioners of that new doctrine.
   Moreover, if the discovery of new facts was to be
opposed  and  rejected  because it  is contrary  to re-
ceived ideas, where would be both science and man-
kind at this day?   At the very  point  from which it
started — in the savage state.   Again, if the discov-
ery and the possession of truth is a sufficient motive
to consider the authors, and the  people who enjoy
the benefit of those truths, as imposters, or sorcer-
ers, or  gods, what would the ancients say  of us,
should  the dead be allowed to think and speak?
Surely, they could  not  help  looking at us as sorcer-
ers or gods, as did the Indians at  the sight of the
Europeans arriving in their large ships and invading
their land, armed  with cannons and guns, and run-
ning from one place to another with frightful rapidity
pn animals  of a new  species.   What would they 
xxii
INTRODUCTION.
 say of our modern savants, those philosophers ofthe
 school of Thales and Democritus, who believed the
 sun was  not larger than Peloponesus, and that there
 were but four  elements in nature — fire, air, water,
 and earth; if they  heard  by us that  the sun is an
 inflamed body, the diameter of which is one hun-
 dred and twelve times that of the earth ; that there
 are upward of fifty-five elementary substances, of
 which, neither fire, or water, or the air, or the earth,
 are a part; if, in one word, they were able to see the
 inside of our laboratory of chemistry and natural his-
 tory, and our astronomical  observatories ?  Finally,
 what would the physiologists and physicians of anti-
 quity say of us, if they were allowed to know  the
 admirable  discoveries  in  anatomy and  physiology
 made in  this recent period of time, and which raises
 up the science of man so  far above what it was in
 those remote ages ?  Certainly  those men, however
 enlightened they might have been  to their contem-
 poraries, could not help considering us as impostors,
 or sorcerers, or gods.
  May these considerations inspire us with  wisdom
 and tolerance.   May we learn from them not to won-
 der at the  new  facts we  are allowed to discover in
the nature  of the infinite Beimg of which we are a
 part, and in the bosom of which we are all living.
 On the contrary, let us be confident of our original
power, and ready  cheerfully to receive every truth
 we are destined to possess, according to times  and
places, during our progressive development.
  Now, my readers,  I give up the ground of discus- 
INTRODUCTION.
xxiii
sion,  properly said, to demonstrate  through a few
analogous facts already observed  and  known,  how
inconsistent it is to deny the existence of animal
magnetism and shrink  from making proper experi-
ments on them  to  ascertain their degree of reality,
because of apparent impossibility.   Those  facts I
allude to are highly calculated, to my mind,  to show
the probability of the magnetical effects.   Let us
begin by stating that animal magnetism is a peculiar
state  of the  brain and the nervous  system, during
which some unusual phenomena, beyond the power
of man in the wakeful state, are manifested.   Now,
the facts I am about to set down here, prove that a
peculiar state of the  nervous  system  and  unusual
phenomena, also  above the ordinary reach of man,
can be produced  very  naturally without the instru-
mentality of animal magnetism.
   In  the  first place,  I  quote  dreams.  Everybody
has experienced  that  singular state in which  the
moral, intellectual, and especially sensorial faculties
are so wonderfully exalted, while the body is in per-
fect repose.  ' The intellectual faculties, exercised
while dreaming,' says the celebrated professor Rich-
erand,  'can lead us  to  a  certain  order  of ideas
which we never  could reach  in the wakeful state.
So mathematicians have finished during their sleep
the most complicated  calculations, and resolved the
most  difficult problems.'  The phenomena of dream-
ing is surely one ofthe most extraordinary,  and, we
may add, unaccountable,  notwithstanding the ingen-
ious theories made up about it.   But there is another 
XX1V
INTRODUCTION.
phenomenon which bears a still nearer resemblance
to the  magnetical sleep — I mean  the natural som-
nambulism.   There  is none who have not heard of
certain individuals liable to speak aloud while sleep-
ing ; to get up and walk very straight with their eyes
closed ; to read and write with as much, and some-
times more, facility and success than in the wakeful
state.  This fact I have oftentimes witnessed, par-
ticularly in a college companion of  mine, who, one
night, went  down from a second story in which we
slept, opened a door, crossed a long inn, unlocked
another door and entered the study hall, in which he
set himself to writing, fast asleep,  a Latin speech
he had composed for the  great  prize at the end of
the  year.    This  composition  being finished,  the
young man  went back again to his  bed.   The next
morning how surprised he was to find his speech al-
ready written ! He read it through, found it perfectly
correct, and gave it to  the professor just as it was.
Indeed, that speech won the prize to its author.   A
similar instance is related in the Methodical Ency-
clopedia.
  We find in the histories of hysteria and catalepsy,
some instances still more similar to the effects pro-
duced by the magnetical  action. Patients afflicted
with those diseases have  been seen,  isolated  from
all  surrounding  objects, entirely insensible to the
action of  the external  objects, pronouncing  long
speeches,  repeating  by memory, suddenly seized
with presentiments of the future, in such a manner
as to throw  the spectators into  the  greatest amazq. 
INTRODUCTION.
XXV
ment.  Their inward  sense, activity of mind  and
intellectual power  was so much increased  and im-
proved, that the results  were altogether different from
what  they  were in the ordinary state.  I knew, in
the neighborhood  of the city of Blois, in France, a
lady affected  with  catalepsy ; during her fits, she lost
wholly the faculty of  seeing  by  her eyes,  hearing
with her ears, smelling by her nose ; but she saw,
heard, and smelt very well by the pit of her stomach.
That lady was able to  see a great way off,  through
the walls, and foretold what was to happen at many
days interval.   She prescribed remedies for  herself;
announced in  what manner  and at what time she
would cure ;  and  everything took  place according
to her predictions.  When I saw  her she had alrea-
dy recovered her  health.  Numerous instances  of
this kind are related in the works of Dr. Petetin of
Lyon, on catalepsy.
   'In reflecting on such facts,'  says Dr.  Georget,
' we can but  acknowledge in them a great  analogy
with  the  magnetical  effects;  for, in both  series  of
facts we find the  following  characteristic phenome-
na.   First,  suspension, more or less complete, of
the external  senses.   Second, increase of energy, a
concentration of the thinking  power upon  one  ob-
ject.   Third,  possibility, in.some cases,  to find a
substitute for the  or linary action ofthe senses;  to
write, for instance, with the eyes closed.  Fourth, Pos-
sibility to communicate with a person in somnambu-
lism by touching him, and to talk with him without
awaking him.' 
 XXV1            INTRODUCTION.

   As for the power that  one man  has  to produce
 upon another person, through the sole action of his
 will, the extraordinary effects called magnetical, we
.should not wonder  at it, for a similar power is grant-
 ed to some animals of prey — that of striking with
 stupor;   nay,  of drawing  under their  grasp some
 other smaller creatures, destined to be used by them
 as food.   This fact naturalists are aware of; for my-
 self, I affirm I have observed it in the Island of Mar-
 tinique not long ago.   There exists in that island a
 species of serpents, gray and yellow, extremely poi-
 sonous, which possesses the fascinating  power to a
 high degree.   They  exercise  it especially  upon a
 pretty little  bird called the nightingale.    From the
 moment the poor  creatures eyes  have  met  the
 snake's, it must fly down nearer and nearer until  it
 falls its prey, which  it does, moaning in  the most
 piteous manner.   This singular  power  of fascina-
 tion and attraction  may  be easily conceived  and
 accounted for, if we reflect that a very similar prop-
 erty finds itself even in some brute, inorganic bodies.
 I allude  to the wonderful  property — yet  acknowl-
 edged  by every  one—of the loadstone to draw to
 itself other metals.
   Now,  if some  animals  of a lower class  — nay, a
 brute, inert  body—possess so extraordinary power,
 why could not man, the best organized of all living
 creatures, possess some analogous  faculties to affect,
 in a certain  degree, his  fellow-man when sick ?
   But there  is another order of analogous  natural
 facts, the mode of production of which bears a still 
INTRODUCTION.
xxvii
nearer resemblance to that  of the magnetical phe-
nomena.  I allude to  electricity and  galvanism.
Everybody knows that the powerful and marvellous
effects called galvanic and electric are produced by
the mere contact of pieces  of different metals dis-
posed in a certain order, and by the plain rubbing of
some silk against  some resin or glass.   This, I
repeat,  everybody  knows and fully  acknowledges.
Why,  then, deny to  man,  the best organized and
most perfect body in  nature,  the power of produc-
ing  those effects,  called  magnetical,  by placing
himself in contact with another of his fellow-crea-
tures 1   Verily, if the phenomena of magnetism are
incredible, there is something, to my mind, still more
difficult to be understood.   It is the inconsistency
and narrowness of mind  which characterizes the
judgment of men  on certain subjects.  They very
readily grant wonderful  faculties to pieces of dead
matter,  and they  deny the  same faculties  to the
smartest and most powerful agent in nature, a hu-
man brain in activity.— O stulti homines, et tarde
corde credendum !
        Theory of Animal  Magnetism.

  But, is it possible to give a satisfactory explanation
of the magnetical phenomena ?  Some persons will,
doubtless, answer in the negative ; for my part, I say
that, even in admitting that the cause  and mode of
production of the phenomena  should really be above 
 XXV1U           INTRODUCTION.

 the human intellect, it is still  our duty to try to find
 them out.   It  is the privilege of man to be able, or
 to make himself able, to understand the laws of na-
 ture.  Is  there a nobler  pleasure, a  more  grati-
 fying motive of pride, to a moral  being?  Such is
 the  feeling that leads  me  to  the following  con-
 siderations.
   I have said and I repeat, that any sober and sen-
 sible mind — in  a word a true philosopher — before
 admitting or denying, ought to ask  himself whether
 such a thing is  possible or not.   Then he will re-
 cur  to  analogy,  that is  to say, to  the  examination
 and comparison of the various orders of facts alrea-
 dy  known and settled.  Thence, and thence only,
 he will draw his  opinion; but in holding  fast this
 truth, the greatest of all, viz : that  the power of na-
 ture is unbounded, that there  are impossible things
 only because human knowledge does not yet em-
 brace, and cannot yet understand them.
  Such  were,  doubtless, the  principles of some of
 the master intellects  of this age,  who,  through in-
 ductions drawn from the labors  and observations of
 their whole life, bore testimony  in  favor of animal
 magnetism, as an order of phenomena altogether
 within  the limit of natural things.   Among those
 men, I am pleased to find  Blumenback, Hufeland,
 the celebrated Cuvier, Mr. de Laeplace, the illustri-
ous author of the new doctrine  of the faculties of
 the brain or phrenology, Dr. Gall.   Cuvier,  in his
 " Lesons a" Anatomic Comparie" Vol.  2, p.  117
9th Lemons, expresses himself as  follows:   " We 
INTRODUCTION.
XXIX
must acknowledge it is  very  difficult  in the experi-
ments which are made about it — the action  that
the nervous system of two individuals can exercise
upon each other — to distinguish the effect of the
imagination of the person experimented upon, from
the physical effect produced  by  the person experi-
menting.   Yet the effects obtained  upon  persons
already  senseless  before  the operation  was  com-
menced, those which  take place upon other persons
after they  have become senseless through  the very
operation itself, and those that are presented by ani-
mals, do not allow us  to doubt that the proximity of
two  animated  bodies, in a certain position and with
certain  motions,  has  a  real  effect, independent of
the participation of the  imagination of one of  them.
It appears evident enough, that those effects proceed
from a certain communication, whatever it  may be,
which takes place between their nervous systems."
   De La Place, in his work entitled " Theorie Ana-
lytiqne  du Calcul des Probabilities," says, p. 358,
" It is natural  to think that the  action of  the  'mag-
netical agent' is very weak, and can be easily troubled
by a great many  accidental  circumstances.   Thus,
because in many  cases  it has not been manifested,
one should not conclude it does not exist."
   Here is what Dr. Gall says about it, in his " Anat-
omy of the Nervous System,"  Vol.   1, p. 146-48.
" It is not at all my intention to lead people to think
that I will deny the magnetical fluid.   The natural-
ist ought  to acknowledge no other laws than those of
natur e. I acknowledge a fluid, which, especially, has 
XXX
INTRODUCTION.
some  affinity with the nervous system ; which can
emanate from one individual, pass into another, and
accumulate  itself,  by the effect of its peculiar  af-
finity, in certain parts, rather than  in others.  An
observation that I have made upon myself, confirms
me in  this opinion,  independently  of all the true
phenomena of magnetism."
   I will abstain to relate here this observation, which
is expressed in rather too long and minute particulars
in the original work to be presented here.   In conse-
quence of this  fact, and of further reflections sug-
gested by  it, Dr. Gall concludes thus: " Therefore,
we admit the existence of a fluid, the subtraction ol
which diminishes  the  strength of the nerves,  and
the accumulatio   of which increases that strength
— a fluid which puts one part of the nervous sys-
tem to rest  and exalts the activity of another part;
which, consequently, can produce an  artificial som-
nambulism.   In like manner, as in dreams, thoughts
often  have  more  acuteness  and sensation, more
sharpness, as it is possible to hear and answer, to get
up, walk, see  with  the  eyes  closed, to touch with
the hands in the natural somnambulism; so  we con-
ceive and acknowledge that similar phenomena  can
take place in the artificial somnambulism,  nay, in a
higher degree of energy and precision."
   These  few  reflections of the man who is justly
considered one of the most eminent physiologists  and
 anatomists of this age, seem to me peculiarly fit to
 lead  us   to  the right  understanding  of magnetical
 phenomena.  Some more remarks, drawn from the 
INTRODUCTION.
XXXI
ordinary course of every one's  observations,  will
completely justify, to my mind, Dr. Gall's opinion on
the existence of a magnetic I  fluid, and make clear
to us the nature of that fluid, and  the wonderful ef-
fects of its transmission into another's body.
   It is a fact well  known and universally acknowl-
edged, that there are  some  acts, bearing especially
on the brain or the nerve us system of the organical
life, which, by being often repeated  or sustained
during a certain length of time, produce in  us the
feiling  of weakness,  of an  extreme fatigue, some-
times of faintness, and cause  us to feel an  urgent
want of rest and reparation.  Such are long and in-
tense study, deep sorrow, and extreme joy ; tears shed
in very great abundance, immoderate bursts of laugh-
ter,  the delivery  of long, passionate, and enthusias-
tic speeches.  These acts, everybody is aware, are
often productive of the effects I have just mentioned;
nay. they are sometimes the cause of death.   Men,
indeed, have been heard of, who have died with joy
or sorrow ; and laughter, especially, is so weakening,
that the words, to die by laughing, is  known as  a
proverb everywhere.   Again,  individuals have been
seen dying suddenly in  the  middle  of a warm
speech.   A great many  persons  are often  afflicted
with that sort  of disorder called nervous, in conse-
quence of too long and hard study.  I have been un-
well for four years, and am so still, on that account.
All those phenomena, it is also well known, are ef-
fected without loss of any  sensible  matter from our
conomy, as blood, humor, or any solid part of our 
xxxii
INTRODUCTION.
 organs, as that happens in great hemorrages, in dys-
 entery, pulmonary  consumption, old wounds, ampu-
 tation of  the  limbs,  &c.   How,  then,  shall we
 account for  those  effects ?   It  cannot  be  but by
 admitting a loss or  excretion of  a certain substance,
 whatever may be the name  given to it.  Thai this
 substance is  neither perceptible  to our eyes,  nor ap-
 preciable to our common  instruments and scientific
 methods to  analyze matter,  1 am aware.   But, as
 there are in  nature some other  substances, as light,
 caloric, electricity, which do not fall under the cog-
 nizance of our senses, and  cannot  be submitted to
 our scientific pocesses of analysis, so we may con-
 ceive a substance,  of an analogous nature, existing
 in human  organization,  and some of which, being
 lost through the acts alluded to, causes the phenom-
 ena, above described, to take place.   That such a
 loss  is really effected,  there is  no doubt ; for  how
 can a person, from  the full strength and harmony of
 his functions, become weak, faint, and even sick, by
 the effects of certain modifications  of his nervous
 system, if some of that  very substance or  agent,
 which  before  kept them strong and healthy,  has not
 been taken away from his body 1  How can he feel
 want of reparation,  if he has not lost  something?
 Thence I conclude that man contains within himself
 a certain substance, extremely   subtile and nice, a
 fluid, running over all his body, intimately and  deeply
connected with his organs — a fluid that  can  be ac-
cumulated or lost through  peculiar circumstances.
Now, if that  substance can be taken  away from the 
                  INTRODUCTION.          XXxiU

body of one individual,  we may just ps  well admit
that it could  be taken away by the special will  of
this individual ; furthermore, we may, logically  and
from analogy, admit that it.  can be sent to another
body, whatever it may be, but especially to the body
of a human being,  which,  owing to its similar  con-
stitution, has  more affinity  to  the fluid alluded  to
than to any other in nature.   Such is, according to
my opinion, the true and only cause of the magneti-
cal phenomena.  In  reality, we  may  say that mag-
netising is nothing  else  but the sending of a certain
quantity of fluid by the will of one person to anoth-
er person ;  that the  magnetical  sleep and somnam-
bulism  are peculiar states, determined by the inward
action  of that fluid.   It  will  be asked, perhaps,
whether there is  in  the  act of  magnetising a loss
similar to those  abovementioned .'   This loss cer-
tainly takes place ; since, in consequence of the  act
he has performed,  the magnetiser always  feels a
great weakness, fatigue, and want of reparation and
 rest.  It  will  be  asked again, whether the person
 magnetised  really receives within himself the fluid
 which  I  suppose to  emanate  from the magnetizer ?
 I answer, certainly.  The  magnetised person does
 recrive that fluid; since sensations,  hitherto unfelt,
 a state of being entirely unknown to him, are devel-
 oped under the sole influence  of the operation he is
 undergoing.   There is no effect without a  cause.
 Could the extraordinary phenomena of animal mag-
 netism be  produced without cause?   That cause, a
 great many think, is imagination only.  But this ob-
               3 
XXX1V
INTRODUCTION.
jection can  be brought  forward  but by individuals
absolutely destitute of knowledge and experience in
magnetism.   It  is abundantly demonstrated* that
imagination  plays but a small  part, if it plays any,
in the production of those phenomena?  What is
then the cause ?  No  doubt the  action of the fluid,
communicated by the will of  an active person to a
passive one.
   Inquiries have been made about the nature of that
fluid or  agent.   The  recent researches of Messrs.
Prevost  and  Dumas, dispose us  to think  that this
agent has th^ greatest analogy with the  electrical
fluid.  Those physiologists have demonstrated that
the muscular  contraction was  the  result of a true
electrical commotion.   The  celebrated  Professor
Beclard was  about to  perform  curious  experiments
on this subject, when a prematured  death  took him
away from the  science  that he  cultivated with  so
much zeal and intelligence. Dr. Rostan  says that
Beclard often  told him that after dissecting and cut-
ting  up a nerve  of a considerable  size on a livino-
animal, he often caused the pole  of the  magnetic
needle to deviate, by putting that  needle close to the
nerve.    But  everybody  is aware  that  galvanism,
substitu'ed to  the nervous influence, is able to make
the nerve contract — that  one  can  put  into action
the muscles of an animal,  recently  dead, by touch-
ing them with a piece  of metal.   We know how

  * See in the  Report  the effects produced by  magnetism
alone. 
INTRODUCTION.           XXXV
Galvani and Volta saw and  proved the existence of
operative fluid, which afterwards was acknowledged
to be the same as electricity.  We  also know that
certain animals have the singular property of secret-
ing, through the  means of an apparatus disposed
on purpose by nature,  a great quantity of electrical
fluid, with which  they  produce strong commotions,
sometimes so violent  that  they  can kill, at  a dis-
tance, other fishes  and even  men.  The Torpedo
nake,  the Torpedo immaculata,  marmorata,  gal-
vanic, the electric gymnote, the  electri cui  silurus,
&c, possess that singular  faculty.  The electrical
apparatus of these various animals are disposed in a
manner very much  like the galvanic tubes.   They
are composed  of cells and pipes, of various shapes,
containing  a gelatinous fluid and furnished  with a
great multitude of nerves, proceeding, most of them,
from the eighth cerebral paer.   According to Alex.
 de Humbolt and other learned zoologists, this elec-
 trical fluid is s cretcd by the brain of those animals ;
 for, in taking off either the brain  or the nerves which
 resort to the abovementioned  apparatus,  the effects
 are annihilated, which does not take place by cutting
 off the  organ of  circulation,  which  carries  the
 blood into those electrical batteries.   Thus  it is  de.
 monstrated that the brain secretes some electric fluid
 — that the muscular  contractions can take place by
 an electric excitant.   Thence  I  conclude that  the
 nervous agent is of the same nature as the electric
  fluid.  But tl a', agent does not  go to the  muscles or
  the skin only ;  it springs  out with a certain force 
XXXV1          INTRODUCTION.
and energy, and so forms a true nervous atmosphere
— a c rcle of activity  like that of electrical bodies.
This  is the opinion of the most skilful physiologists ;
such  are  Reil,  (exercitatio anatomica,  fasc de
structure  nervorum,) Autenrieth  (Physiologie,  sec-
tion  1031)  Mr.de  Humboldt, &c.  Therefore, we
are now able to account perfectly  well how one  indi-
vidual can be influenced by the action of the will of
another individual, even at distance, and more  than
that, from one  room to  another.  For  the nervous
agent, as well as caloric and electricity, possesses
the facu'ty of penetrating through solid bodies.
  But, in  admitting that a communication of a  cer-
tain quantity of the substance we  call nervous  mag-
netical fluid, really takes place from one person to
ano her, is that fluid — the sole cause—productive
of the num  rous and wonderful phenomena of  som-
nambulism ?   On this  point, Jet  every  one  believe
what  he thinks  the most rational and probable.  It
would not be at all  impossible that the magnetical
agent or  fluid  communicated, really produces all
those phenomena ; fvr  the power of an  ao- nt  is  in
proportion to its nature, to the centre from which it
emanates, and to the degree of energy with which it
is sent forth.  Now, what substance in nature more
subtile, penetrating,  active, and  nice, than the ani-
mal electricity or nervous  agent ?  What centre of
action more  admirably  organized  than the cerebral
centre, by which the   nervous  fluid  is  secrete ?
What more energetic and extensive principle of ac-
tion, than human will?  With some caloric  and a 
INTRODUCTION.         XXXVU
little water, we  move  enormous bulks of matter;
with a few grains of fulminating powder, we  blow
up large rocks ; by the contact of two metallic pieces
against  each other, or the rubbing of some  glass
against some resin,  we produce the wonderful phe-
nomena that everybody knows by the name of elec-
trical.   Why should not an emanation of the most
perfect  instrument in  creation — a human brain —
produce those effects, which really seem so extraor-
dinary to us only because we are not accustomed to
observe  them.   Besides, it is not necessary to admit
that the magnetical communicated fluid is the only
cause productive of the  phenomena of somnambu-
lism. That fluid may be  merely the determining
cause of a peculiar  state  of the brain and nervous
system,  during  which those phenomena are mani-
fested,  in like  manner  as  any other therapeutical
ao*ent creates new phenomena in the organs to which
it is applied.  Anybody, who is somewhat acquaint-
ed  with the laws of human economy, will perfectly
understand this.
Connection vf Animal Magnetism  with Reli-
  gion, Morals, Intellectual Philosophy, Phy-
  siology,  and Therapeutics.

  That which shows how far man is liable to absurd
and blind preventions, to gross and shameful misrep-
resentations of things upon which he hastens to pro-
nounce his sentiment before fairly examining and con- 
 xxxviii           INTRODUCTION.

 scientiously study'ng them, is the charge brought a-
 gainst animal magnetism, by some fanatic clergymen
 and bigoted persons, to be a stratagem formed by the
 devil to seduce the souls, increase the number of his
 followers, and counteract the works of Jesus Christ
 and of his ministers;  that magnetism undermines
 religious belief and morals — that every magnetizer
 is a disciple of Lucifer, &c.
   These objections hardly deserve refutation ; yet I
 will, in a few words, show the absurdity of them, as
 otherwise  some weak-minded persons  might be in-
 fluenced by them.  That refutation  will,  besides,
 bring to light, in certain respects, the usefulness of
 animal magnetism. ' In supposing, says the respecta-
 ble Mr. Deleuze, that the phenomena of somnambu-
 lism cannot be accounted for through physical causes,
 and in considering the results  of this marvellous
 state, it would be more natural, and, especially, more
 logical, to attribute them  to  God than to the devil,
 since magnetism cures, or at least relieves the indi-
 vidual submitted to its  action.  It is  contrary  to the
 principles of the Christian  faith, to admit that the
 devil contributes to good, unless it be to cause that
 good to turn to evil.  Now, the sole design and ef-
 fects of magnetism is to relieve the patient;  its only
 means of action are benevolence, compassion ; and
 the care taken  of these who suffer and those who
 exercise it can  efficiently  act but in proportion as
 they are animated with charity, which, as St. Augus-
 tine says, is the only characteristics of the children
of God.   Therefore, magnetism,  far from furnishing 
INTRODUCTION.            XXX1X
arms against religion, disposes to cherish, reverence,
and follow the principles of it.   Many men of worth
have been  converted again to  Christianity by  the
exercise of magnetism."
  These reflections I will strengthen with a fact that
bears an indisputable testimony ofthe fitness and ef-
ficiency of  magnetism to dispose hearts to Christian
feelings, and bring back to religion those  who were
miscarried  by  the wild  speculations of materialism.
Mr. Georget, one of the most  esteemed physicians
and  writers of the  modern  school of medicine, in
France, on his death-bed pronounced  the following
words, which are  inserted in his testament: " I shall
not finish this  piece," says he,  " without adding an
important declaration.   In 1S21, in my work on the
physiology  of the nervous system,  I loudly professed
materialism ; but I  had hardly  published that work,
when some  new  meditations upon a very extraordi-
nary phenomenon— somnambulism — did  allow me
no longer to doubt the existence, within us and out
of us, of  an intelligent principle, altogether different
from material existence.  It is, if they wish, what is
called  the  soul and God.  My conviction on  this
subject is profound, and founded upon facts that I
believe indisputable."   As  to  the charge  brought
against animal magnetism, to be a  suggestion of the
devil, I find a peremptory refutation of it in the fol-
lowing words  of  one of the  fathers of the  church,
St. Anthanagora, concerning the wonderful faculties
of Sybilles and Pythias : " As to  the  faculty," says
he, " to forsee the  future and to cure  diseases, it is 
xl
INTRODUCTION.
a stranger to the devil; it belongs to the soul only.
Indeed, the soul, owing  to its immortal nature, can,
ffom its own power  and  by  its proper virtue, pene-
trate into the future, and cure infirmities and diseases.
Why,  then, attribute the glory of those  faculties  to
the demons? "
  In  consequence of the foregoing considerations
and facts, we ought to conclude that animal magnet-
ism is  highly calculated to promote religious princi-
ples and faith  in  the dogmas of Christianity.  On
this subject, its usefulness cannot be doubted.  Let
us examine now its actual effects and  tendencies
upon the morals of those who practice it.   A crowd
of attacks have been  directed against magnetism, on
account of the  abuse that the magnetizer can make
of it upon the person submitted to his  action.  Mr.
Rostan, in his  article inserted  in the dictionary  of
medicine, has pointed out those pretended dangers
in a very particular manner, and  goes  so far as  to
call the watchfulness of governments upon the exer-
cise of magnetism.   But those objections fall before
experience,  and those fears are  altogether unseason-
able.   In the first place,  we should not forget that
magnetical power can be  obtained and exercised but
on the condition only to use it  for the good of the
patient.  This  is a fact  stated  not only  by magne-
tizers, but also  by somnambulus  themselves.   They
have at all times  affirmed that  they preserved their
judgment and  reason;  that they would immediately
perceive the bad intentions of the magnetizer, which
would cause them  to awake  without failing ; for it 
                 INTRODUCTION.             xll

appears that the state of somnambulism cannot exist
under the influence of immoral feelings and desires.
Finally, experience fully justifies these assertions ; for
no cases  have  been heard of,  down to this day, of
abuse committed upon the honor or life of the person
submitted to  the  magnetical action.  Moreover, in
order to avoid any  appearance of danger, one should
suffer himself to be magnetized, either by men only
who offer sufficient warranties of morality, or by a
person of the same sex as their own.   I finish this
article by a few words more, quoted from the respec-
table Mr. Deleuze.   To sacrifice  one's time near by
a  patient — to  take painful  and  steady care of
him, it is necessary to be  animated with a benevo-
lence  which is the source  of almost every virtue.
Magnetism being especially a family medicine, is it
not extremely  fortunate that a father  and a mother
may possess one main move to gain the confidence
of their children ?   Is it  possible to  conceive any-
thing  more admirable than  this  faculty,  that  one
might call divine, to cure a patient, and also to con-
tribute to his physical and moral improvement ?
   From all this, we are led to conclude, again, that
animal magnetism is rather advantageous than hurt-
ful to the morals of people, since  it requires and de-
velopes  such fine qualities  of the  mind to be  suc-
cessfully practised.
    In regard to intellectual philosophy,  anybody,
who has occupied himself with the high and arduous
and so long  debated problems, which constitutes al-
most wholly this branch of  human knowledge,  will 
Xlii              INTRODUCTION.
  •
very readily perceive and  acknowledge  the impor-
tance of the magnetical  phenomena.  I sincerely
call the attention of the philosophical intellects who
may happen to read this work, to this new and wide
ground of discussion.  For my  part, I shall make
but one reflection ; if there is a fact which furnishes
any  probability of the existence  of  an order of be-
ings altogether  different from matter,  it is certainly
the fact ofthe power in man to transmit, by his  will,
a fluid, so nice, active, and subtile, that we may  con-
sider it as a spiritual substance ; and to  determine,
through that transmission  of fluid,  the  wonderful
phenomena of somnambulism, in which the material
senses  seem  to  be  entirely suspendid, and which,
however, presents  the intellectual and moral facul-
ties  supernaturally unfolded  and acting  as by their
own proper virtue.
  I come now to the usefulness of animal magnetism
with respect to  physiology and medicine.  But  here
the materials press upon me in so great abundance,
that I really feel embarrassed to  class them and to
present them with the clearness and extent they re-
quire,  within  the narrow  limit  prescribed to  me.
This sole point of the broad  question  of animal
magnetism,  to  be well treated,  should  embrace  a
whole volume.   Therefore, I point it  out to the med-
itation  of those who have devoted their attention to
the interesting  studies of human organization, and
their life to the  improvement of their fellow-crea-
tures.  I  shall  endeavor only to give a faithful out-
line of the question  before us, as it appears to me 
INTRODUCTION.
xliii
from the observation  of facts,  and the opinions of
authors.
  If the magnetical  phenomena are true, and this
we may fully admit from experience, what are their
results in regard, first, to physiology ?  In my opin-
ion, the chief result is to verify, in human economy,
the existence of a peculiar fluid or  agent, called
nervous by some, and which we may name magneti-
cal ; thence the circulation of this fluid over all the
body ;  thence a bright light thrown upon  the nature,
the formation and modification ofthe nervous system ;
upon the secret acts of the organical life upon ner-
vous  diseases, which proceed  either from  a  too
great accumulation or  a too great  loss of the ner-
vous fluid through various  circumstances; all those
points which were hitherto  involved in a  thick dark-
ness,  are suddenly brought to the evidence of facts
well'observed and almost  materially  demonstrated.
In this respect, we may say  that  the discovery of
animal magnetism creates a new era in  the history
of medicine, as well  as the discovery of the circu-
lation ofthe blood, of Peruvian powder, and cow pox.
   Let us now examine the results  flowing from the
 diagnosis  and treatment  of diseases.   " Though
 the° diagnosis of the diseases of the solid parts of
 the human  frame has  been  brought, in this  later
 period, to a high degree of certainty, we  ought, how-
 ever,  to acknowledge that, in  a good many cases,
 this diagnostic is yet obscure, difficult,  nay, impos-
 sible  in the  actual  state  of  scientific  knowledge.
 This branch of the science, notwithstanding the re- 
xliv
INTRODUCTION.
 cent  assistance of chemistry, is yet in its infancy,
 in regard to the alterations of liquid, and especially
 of imponderable  fluid.   Now,    am authorized to
 think, from the facts 1 have related, that the instinc-
 tive faculties of a somnambule could help us to rec-
 tify, enlighten, or confirm our judgment  upon the
 alterations of solids in obscure circumstances, and
 brings in the way important  discoveries, which are
 to be made  in  the  alterations of liquids and fluids.
 Those faculties might be useful, above all, to clear
 up the history  of nervous, of cutaneous affections,
 and of a great many chronic affections. They could,
 perhaps, penetrate into the causes  which  often es-
 cape  our  eyes.  A physician often judges  a disease
 as inflammatory,  while  it is only nervous.  A good
 somnambule could then remove his doubts  and cor-
 rect his errors.
  Therapeutics has been greatly  improved  by the
 labors of the moderns;  but,  we must  confess  how
 impotent it yet  is  in a great many diseases.   It can-
 not and ought  not, then,  to disdain any new assis-
 tance ; it would find  some, I believe, in the lights
 afforded by the  somnambules, applied to the research
 of remedies, and  to the treatment  of certain acute
 and chronic diseases, the most grave and incurable.
  " That which characterises the great physician is
 the medical tact,  which science  can develope and
 improve, but cannot give;  a  faculty  half instinctive
 and half rational, by the means of  which he investi-
gates  the various  morbid individualities, and seizes
 the indications  that suit each  of them.   This happy 
INTRODUCTION.
xlv
combination, both of instinct and intellect, which is
genius, is very  ra e.   Most physicians  are reduced
 to the ligh s painfully  acquired by  their intellec-
tual labor, through which they know some  general
rules, but are unable  to  detect the  peculiar cases,
to  the  diagnostic and  treatment  of  which  they
are obliged to be constantly groping.  Now, in som-
nambulism, instinct is especially unfolded — a facul-
ty remarkable  in certain  beings,  and  extremely
proper  to  find out  the  individual  wants.   Why
could not the instinct of well-tried  somnambules be
united to the intellect of physicians, for  the treat-
ment of  grave  and doubtful diseases.  The instinct
of the former would  feel and discover what the intel-
lect of the latter  would judge and  rectify ; the phy-
sicians,  in  their  turn,  would  propose  the  curative
means, that the somnambule would sanction  or con-
demn, according  to the urgency of  the case.   What
 is the legitimate ambition  ofthe physician?  to
cure ; therefore,  he should, if he be consistent with
 himself,  recur  to every  possible means  to reach the
purposed end,  provided  it should not be contrary to
 morals.  Animal magnetism  should be,  then,  ap-
plied to  the affections which would require it in like
 manner  as opium, Peruvian  powder,  emetic,  and
 other remedies.  Benefit can be derived  from  som-
 nambulism, as from auscultation and percussion, &c.
   The absolute power  of the  magnetizer, and the
 passive  obedience of the somnambule,  open a new
 and broad field for curative effects  in the  diseases of
 those submitted to its action.   In the first place, the 
xlvi
INTRODUCTION.
somnambule is  plunged into  the  magnetical sleep,
which  possesses all the benefits  of natural sleep,
and possesses them in a still higher degree.   It is,
besides, accompanied with benefits which are denied
to the other ; therefore, its curative effects are more
rapid and better marked than those ofthe latter ; of-
ten times, it alone is sufficient to cure ; and whenever
it is necessary to use some other medicament, it still
remains the chief,  the most efficacious of all reme-
dies.   This most precious sleep will prove useful in
every disease, provided it be administered with mo  -
eration, and that,  during its duration,  the  operator
abstains from any experiment of mere curiosity upon
the patient.  Happy, then, are those whom nature
has endowed with the capacity of enjoying the mag-
netical sleep.   The somnambule is  also able to see
his own illness and the remedies for  it; —the mag-
netizer approves or rejects them.   But what good is
he not  capable of doing, by his will, to that suffering
being who is sleeping before him !   He wishes, and
he takes him away  from the atmosphere of men and
things, which are often so fatal, and places him in that
which is more beneficial to him. Is the  patient cold,
he warms  him; is  he  warm, he cools  him.  He
blows upon his pains, and those pains are removed  ;
he turns his tears into laughter, his  sorrow into joy.
If he misses his country or his mother, the magne-
tizer shows them to him ; is he feeble,  he gives him
strength;  is he  too strong,  he weakens him ; does
he take the symptoms of another's disease, he draws
them off from his body ; if he is to undergo a surgi- 
INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
cal operation, he palsies  his sensibility, so that he
does not feel it.  In one  word, the magnetizer com-
mands all  his  functions.  If a point is suffering,
he can relieve it, and  set a revulsive upon another
part.   I could  not finish if I undertook to detail
every peculiarity of the  empire of the magnetizer.
Of what, indeed, is he not capable, who has all pow-
er over the person  submitted to his action !  This is,
certainly,  a medicine  of a new kind, a medicine
from  one  man  towards another.  Man first sought
remedies,  to his own diseases  and the diseases of
others, among  the inorganical  substances, such as
vegetable and dead animal substances.  He  found,
and  still finds  in  them  some good  and  efficacious
medicaments ; but his  greatest medicinal power is
within himself — the  sovereign remedy is himself.
A firm and  moral will, full of benevolence and char-
ity, in a healthy and strong body — this is the greatest
modification of all diseases, in general ; this is true,
especially  of the diseases of somnambulic persons,
or of those  who  are susceptible of the  magnetical
sleep."
  The foregoing considerations are extracted ft\ m
the work  of my friend  Alfred  Fillassier,  a distin-
guished physician of the  faculty of Paris, and one of
the best men I  ever knew.
  In  the celebrated article on  animal magnetism, in-
serted by Mr. Rostan in  the dictionary of medicine,
Vol. 21, there  is a long paragraph  devoted  to  the
therepeutical effects of magnetism.   This paragraph
could not  be too long meditated upon by physicians, 
xlviii
INTRODUCTION.
especially by those who carry on their noble profes-
sion  as  real friends  of mankind  and true philoso-
phers,  advancing towards  truth out of the narrow
sphere and routine of party  spirit.   There are found
in a learned and animated discussion, a great abun-
dance  of original thought, sound  reasoning,  new
and courageous  views ; in  a  word, this article is a
fair specimen  of the genius of modern philosophy
and  of  the  French  medical  school, of which Mr.
Rostan  stands  as one of the brightest luminaries.  1
regret very much that  the  limit of this  article  does
not allow me to quote  here  the  whole paragraph ;
but I will extract a few sentences.
  " They were very  inconsiderable physicians,  phy-
siologists and philosophers," says Mr. Rostan, "those
who denied  that magnetism  could have  any thera-
peutical effect.   It is not sufficient that it produces
changes in the organization,  to conclude that it can
possess  some power  in curing diseases.   From the
moment a substance effects  a  change,  whatever it
may be, in the animal  economy, it is impossible not
to acknowledge that it acts ; and on that account, one
must be very audacious to conclude, a priori, it  can-
not be  useful.   The substances  truly  destitute  of
medicinal action, are those only  which produce no
effect.   But all  those  which produce  some change
in our organization,  however  feeble you may suppose
it, can become useful in many circumstances.   The
more energetically a substance acts, the greater will
be its medicinal  utility.   It belongs to a fool only, to
assume  that a substance which acts cannot become 
INTRODUCTION.
xlix
useful in any case.  In order that it become so, it is
necessary to study its mode of action upon the econ-
omy, and try to ; ppreciate rightly the nature of the
change  produced by it.  Afterwards,  having  a pro-
found knowledge  of the diseases,  of their cause*
and nature, it would be possible to appreciate in what
case the studied means  are proper, and  through so-
ber experiments one would obtain some, useful results.
Farther, Mr. Rostan says,  the theropeutical  power .
of magnetism exists, it  is beyond doubt; to the phy-
sician it belongs to study it without hesitation,  and
to set proper limits to it.  The direct  influence of
this nerve agent upon th  nervous system, make me
believe  that its  action ought  to be  efficiently exer-
cised against nervous diseases, and chiefly the ner-
vous  diseases of  a  general  character.   Histeria,
hypochondria,   melancholy,  mania, epilepsia,  and
catalepsia, might receive, and have already received
from  it, the most beneficial influence.  Spasms of all
kinds, the cramps of the muscles of the animal life,
convulsions, a  great variety  of pains,  rheumatism,
certain amaurosies, certain deafness, some paralysis,
neuroses of all kinds, &c, ought  to undergo, from
magnetism, a modification, whatever it might  be. In
these nervous affections, the  nervous system being
especially troubled, and the same system, above all,
being influenced  by  magnetism,  it is easy to con-
ceive that some results, worthy of attention, must
be obtained.  It  would be too long to quote  instan-
 ces of  successful magnetical treatments; the annals
 of magnetism are filled  with facts of that sort.  But 
I
INTRODUCTION.
will the power of this new agent  be limited to the
diseases  of the nervous system  only?  We  know
that  the  brain extends its  empire over all the other
organs.  This master organ,  being  by that meats
profoundly modified, can it not produce, in  its turn,
some  advantageous change in a suffering part ?   In
suspending the pain, will it not produce a first  ben-
efit?   The pain being suspended, will  not the afflux
of fluids, which  is determined  by  it, be  also sus-
pended ?    Will not the  material  causes of conges-
tion, irritation, obstruction, conveyed by those fluids,
and which increase the local evil,  be entirely re-
moved ?  Shall we not thus prevent the further pro-
gress  of  the evil,  and its resolution ?
  ' If  we only suppose the pain is  stopped, and this
effect  is  indisputable, we already see that the result
is very vreat.  And what  will it  be, if  physiological
experiments prove, in an incontestible  manner, that
magnetism  quickens  the  int' rstitial   absorption ?
Therefore, in acute, nay  in  chronic  diseases,  the
magnetical action can produce good effects.'  I  can-
not better close this article, than by stating here the
avowal of one of  the most eminent members of the
French academy  of medicine, Mr. Virey, who was
formerly  a  most decided opponent of  animal  mag-
netism, but who, afterwards,  could not help but ac-
knowledge its truth.
  When  it is a question of the transmission of dis-
eases,  the  adversaries of  magnetism  admit  some
emanation ; whereas they  attribute  to imagination
only the  transmission of health, though the one be 
INTRODUCTION.
li
as possible as the other.   Why, indeed,  should  we
be more susceptible to receive  the  former  than  the
latter.   The  same  writer  says,  somewhere else:
' Incontestible facts, real  cures  are mentioned, that
the opponents of magnetism do not deny,  but attri-
bute to imagination.  These wonderful  cures have
been  effected through very plain manipulations,  and
similar cures were  obtained once by means of the
touch.  Magnetism  acts  efficiently in a great num-
 ber of diseases; such are  certain slow  affections,
 certain obstructions of the glands, of the abdomi-
 nal viscera, piles,  chronic  phlegmatics,   measles,
 small-pox,  ophtalmia,  inflammation  of the throat,
 gout, rheumatism,hermorrages, epilepsy, hyponchon-
 dria, hysteria,  mania, headach, odontalgy, all kinds
 of nervous  pains, dyspepsia, colic, pains in the stom-
 ach, usual vomiting, asthma, palpitations ofthe heart.'
    I will add one fact which bears witness of the ef-
 ficiency  of magnetism  in the cure of diseases.  In
 France, and almost  every country  in Europe, mag-
 netical  treatments  have  been   established, by which
 thousands  of patients have  recovered their health.
    The  narrative of a great many  cures  has  been
  made, either by individuals, among  whom are three
  hundred physicians, or by the  Society of Harmony.
  The  exposition of the cures made in France, fills up
  two Vols.  8vo. 
Hi
INTRODUCTION.
 Sketch of the History of Animal Magnetism.

   A convincing proof of the reality of animal mag-
 netism, is  the  trouble taken, by  some very distin-
 guished men in Germany  and  France, to demon-
 strate, by numerous and thorough historical investi-
 gations, its  existence in early  ages.    The  work
 entitled,  " Researches  and  Doubts upon  Animal
 Magnetism,' published  in 1784, by  Thouret, one of
 the most learned members of the Academy of Med-
 icine, first  drew the attention  of the followers of
 that new doctrine and practice upon the great num-
 ber of analogous facts,  related by  historians, which
 are connected with  it.   Since that first publication,
 the labors of German physicians,  and especially of
 Messrs. Berlrand, Deleuze, and the  Earl of Abrial,
 a French peer, have fully substantiated what was at
 first  but a subject of doubt and conjecture.   Owing
 to those recent labors, we  are  able to  follow  the
 track of animal magnetism   among  the Egyptians,
 the Jews, the  Greeks and Romans,  and, at a  later
 period, in the various countries of  Europe.   Every-
 where we find it with the  essential  characters that
the modern observers  assign  to it.   This is the opin-
ion of the Commission  of the Royal Academy  of
Medicine.  Whatever may  be the name given  to
magnetism and the powers  which determine it,  its
practical part can be expressed in two main  points.
First, the curing of diseases.  Secondly, the  phe- 
INTRODUCTION.
liii
nomena  of somnambulism.   Now, in studying  the
hisory and customs of the  ancients, we  see  cures
and phenomena produced through the means of  the
same proceedings as those  now in use.  They  are
frictions, touching, breathing, the  imposition of the
hands, and prayer.  More  than that, the ancients
knew perfectly well the  real or imaginary power of
music and  magnetised objects ; such as talismans
and amulets.   Somnambulism, and most ofthe mar-
vellous phenomena which accompany it,  the insen-
sibility of the external senses,  the exaltation of  the
intellect,  intuition, the  instinct of remedies, sight
without the assistance of the eye, communication of
thoughts, &C., were also known.   Somnambulists
have  been  successively designated by the names of
Oneiropolcs, inspirers,  fairies, sorcerers,  extatics,
convulsioners— such were the convulsioners of  St.
Medard, in  France.  This singular state had struck
with amazement and admiration the greatest men of
antiquity.   Most of them being not able to account
for it, the natural causes being yet unknown, attrib-
uted  them  to the beneficial  interposition of  the
gods, Isis,  Osiris,  Serapis, Apollo, Vulcan, Jupiter,
Esculapius, &c.  The  fathers of the church, and
some  modern savans, among whom I will cite Dc-
haen, miscarried by the spirit of their time, and  the
popular prejudices, saw therein nothing else but the
action of the de il.  This  ignorance  of the  primi-
tive cause of magnetical phenomena kindled up the
piles ofthe middle ages, and was the spring of num-
berless superstitions,  lamentable schisms,  and the
moot odious cruelties. 
liv
INTRODUCTION.
   Let it be sufficient to have thrown a slight glance
 upon the history  of animal  magnetism  in  the past
 ages; and let us arrive  at the moment when it was
 brought from the narrow  and dark sphere of secret
 practices  into the  broad  light of publicity.  This
 great change, which may be well termed a true dis-
 covery, was effected by  Antony  Mesmer,  born  at
 Weiler, on  the  Rhine, in Germany.   Mesmer had
 studied  physics with the celebrated  Van  Swieten
 and Dehaen.  Being naturally endowed with a gen-
 ius of inquiry, an exalted and active imagination, he
 indulged, from the  earliest period of his career, in
 researches about the influence of heavenly bodies
 upon  the  nervous  system.  This influence  he attri-
 buted to  a  peculiar, universal fluid.  He  wrote  a
 dissertation  entitled  ' De Planetarum Influxu,'  in
 which  he sustains that doctrine.   A short while af-
 ter, he had opportunity to  ascertain the truth of his
 conjecture,  by experiments made on a sick person
 with some pieces of metal, impregnated  with load-
 stone, which had been handed to  him by a learned
 Jesuit — Father Hell — a professor of astronomy at
 Vienna.   After two or three successful experiments
 with those pieces, Mesmer noticed that another prin-
 ciple  beside  the  general  natural agent, the will,
 caused the loadstone to act.  From this  admirable
observation, we may date the existence of the branch
of science called animal  magnetism.  Mesmer was
 then able to perform many  important cures at Vi-
 enna.  He wrote another  pamphlet, in which he an-
 nounced the nature  and  action of magnetism, and 
INTRODUCTION.
Iv
its analogy with the loadstone and electricity.   Soon
after, he  set  himself at travelling in Swabia, Swit-
zerland, and Bavaria, and obtained everywhere both
success and a  great degree of fame.
  Passing all  the particulars concerning his various
experiments,  his subsequent travels over  his own
country,  the  numerous  obstacles  opposed  to him
both by envy  and ignorance, we  come to the time of
his arrival  at Paris, in 1778.   Having caused an  ex-
citement there, and acquired a great reputation by
the wonderful cures* he performed, Mr. D'Eslon, a
member  of the Royal  Academy of Medicine, and
first physician ofthe king's brother, studied his doc-
trine, and declared himself his follower, in a  publi-
cation entitled, 'Observations sur le   Magnetisme
Animal.'   Through D Eslon's instigation, the king
at last appointed  a commission, formed of var  ous
members of the Royal Society of Medicine, and  the
Academy of Sciences,  t) make  an investigation of
animal magnetism in every respect.  As the report
made by that  company of distinguished and popular
men exerted a great influence  over the public mind,
and is still now the most formidable authority for a
great number of persons in this country against an-
imal magnetism, I think it necessary  to enter into
some particulars,  to show  how litt'e confidence  the

   * These facts may be found in the work of Thouret, of the
Academy of .Medicine, entitled  ' Kecherches et Doutes sur le
Magnetisme Animal ;' also in D'Eslon's ' Observations sur le
Magnetisme,'—Bergasse's  'Considerations  sur le Magne-
tisme,' &c. 
hi
INTRODUCTION.
  said report really deserved, and  how hasty and  su-
  perficial was  the  conclusi n inferred  from it by  the
  public.  In the first place, I would have it understood
  that the commission  did not resort to the  inventor's
  house,  but to  that  of Mr. D'Eslon — his disciple.
  Mesmer protested  against anything d ne elsewhere
  than in his presencp.   He repeatedly  addressed the
  most urgent entreaties about it to Franklin and the
  Baron  de Breuteuil,  but all was in  vain.  Those
 gentlemen did not even think it  worth  their while to
  honor him with a word of answer.  Our readers will
 easily conceive how unfair, and odiously unjust, was
 such conduct, by reflecting  that Mesmer's  magneti-
 cal power was by far superior  in every  respect  to
 that of Mr. D'Eslon or  any  one  else,  at that time.
 That power was almost extraordinary, as far as we
 can judge from  the facts transmitted to us  by re-
 spectable eye-witnesses.*  Is it not likely that Mes-
 mer could have brought the truth of animal magnet-
 ism to such a degree of evidence that the commission,
 however sceptical and adverse, would have forcibly
 acknowledged  it?  But that  which  is still  better
 calculated to  show how little confidence the  report
 alluded to deserv, s, is the manner in which the ex-
periments were carried  on.  Let us hear  about  it
from the commissioners  themselves.   ' The distin-
guished patients who come to the treatment  for their
health,'  say they,  ' m.ght be plagued with questions ;

  * Among the persons cured by Mesmer, were the celebrated
Advocate  Gene.al, Bergasse—the chemist Berthollet — and
the banker Kornman. 
INTRODUCTION.
Ivii
the care of observing them  might either trouble or
displease  them.    The  commissioners  themselves
would be embarrassed by their discretion.   There-
fore,  they  have  decided  that their assiduity  in
this treatment being not necessary, it was sufficient
that some among them should come now  and then to
confirm  the first general observations — to make
some  new  ones, if there were an opportunity, and
give an account of them to the commission.'   Thus,
it is established as a principle, that in the examina-
tion of so important a fact, the commissioners should
not ask any question ofthe persons submitted to the
experiments —that they should not take care to ob-
serve  them, nor to assiduously notice  the courses of
operation ; but that it was sufficient to come thither
now and then, in  order  to  give on account, to the
commission assembled,  of what they had each seen.
On this  subject, Mr. Husson, the reporter  of the
last commission appo nted by the Academy of Med-
icine, of   Paris,  judiciously  expresses  himself as
follows : ' However bright may be the light reflected
upon  the  present  generation  by  the  reputation of
Franklin,  Bailly, Darcet, Lavoisier — whatever may
be the respect which  surrounds  their  memory —
however general may have been the assent granted
during forty years to their report —it is  certain that
the judgment they have borne, fails, at its radical ba-
sis, by a wrong and loose manner, to proceed in the
study  of the question they were appointed to exam-
ine.'  But here is another fact, which most decidedly
bears  witness  against the conduct and judgment of 
Iviii
INTRODUCTION.
the commission.  Mr. de Jussieu, whose reputation,
as a naturalist, is universally spread — whose probity,
exactitud  , and candor cai not be questioned, h ving
assiduously and conscienciously followed the experi-
ments, and experimented  by himself with  success,
separated  from  his colleagues, and published another
particular  report,  in which he  recognizes  the mag-
netical effects.  ' In such a circumstance,' says again
Mr. Husson,  'which of tvose  two reports deserves
to stop our indecision ?   Is it that in which it is  an-
nounced that questions will not be asked of patients
— that they will not be strictly  observed -- that it is
not necessary to assiduously attend  the experiments?
or the  report of  a  laborious,  attentive,  scrupulous
man, who is courageous enough to separate from his
colleagues — to trample upon the ridicule with which
he is aware he  is to be  covered — to brave the in-
fluence of the power, and publish  a report, the con-
clu ions of which  are altogether opposed  to those
drawn  by  the commissioners?   Let every intelligent
and moral  man decide the question.
  I now proceed  to a comparative view of Mesmer's
doctrine and process with the doctrine, and  mode of
operation  of modern magnetizers.  Such a view is
highly  calculated, to my  mind, to exhibit, in a con-
spicuous and clear manner, the improvements made,
these forty years since, in the theory and practice of
animal magnetism
  ' According to  Mesmer's doctrine, animal  magnet-
ism is a fluid  universally spread.  It is the means of
ft mutual influence between the heavenly bodies, the 
INTRODUCTION.
lix
earth, and the animated beings.   It  is continued in
such a manner as any  void  cannot take place ;  its
subtlety is beyond comparison.   It is capable to  re-
ceive, propagate, communicate all the impressions of
motion.  It is  susceptible of a tide and ebb.  The
animal body feels the effect of this  agent,  and it is
by insinuating itself  into the  substances  of  the
nerves that it immediately affects them.   Properties
similar to those in the loadstone, may be recognized
 in the human  body.  Poles,  likewise, various  and
 opposed, are discovered in  it.  Both the action  and
 virtue of animal magnetism  can be communicated
 from one body to another ; that action takes place at
 a remote distance, without the assistance of any in-
 termediate  object.   It  is  increased,  reflected   by
 glasses, communicated, propagated, increased  by
 sound;  it  can be  accumulated, concentrated,  con-
 veyed.'  Although this  fluid is universal, every  ani-
 mated body is not  equally susceptible of it.   There
 are even some,  but those are few, which have quite
 a different property.
    ' Animal magnetism  can cure  immediately   the
  nervous pains, and mediately  the other  pains.  It
  makes  more  perfect the action of mendicaments—
  provokes and directs  the  wholesome  crisis, so as it
  is possible to overwhelm them.  Through  its medi-
  um the physician  knows the state of health of each
  individual, and judges with  certainty the  origin,
  nature, and  progress of the most complicated dis-
  eases; he can stop and even cure  them, without ex-
  posing the patient to any dangerous effect or hurtful 
Ix
INTRODUCTION.
 consequences, whatever  may be  the  sex, tempera-
 ment, or age.  Nature offers, then, in animal mag-
 netism, a universal means for curing men or preserv-
 ing them from sickness.'
   Such  was Mesmer's doctrine. Now,  those persons
 who have written  upon  magnetism or  practice it,
 admit neither  the existence nor the action  of that
 universal fluid, nor do they  admit a mutual influence
 between the heavenly bodies, the earth, and  the an-
 imated beings, nor those  poles and opposed current,
 &c.   Some reject the existence of any fluid what-
 ever;  some others  think  that the  magnetical agent,
 which produces  all the phenomena we have men-
 tioned, is a  fluid existing  in every individual, but
 which is secreted and emanated only by the will of
 him who wishes to impregnate with  it  another indi-
 vidual ; that, by the act of his will, he puts that fluid
 to motion, directs  and fixes it as he  pleases, and
 wraps the person  acted upon with  that atmosphere ;
 that, if he meets in that individual some moral dispo-
 sitions- analogous to those existing  in him, the same
 fluid is  unfolded  in  the magnetised person, which
 gives birth to those  relations which identify the one
 with the  other — relations,  which  cause the sensa-
 tions ofthe former to be communicated to the latter
 and which, according  to  modern  magnetizers,  ex-
 plain how the persons who  fall  into somnambulism
 possess  the  faculty of seeing perfectly  well, their
eyes being closed, &c.
  If we  now examine the proceedings  used to prac-
tise magnetism, we shall see again a complete  dif- 
INTRODUCTION.
lxi
ference between those once used by Mesmer, D'Es-
lon, Jumelin, Father Hervier, &c, and those used
by modern magnetizers.   Here are  the particulars
transmitted to us by  the commissioners of the king
about the proceedings which were resorted to before
them.   They saw, ' in the middle of a large hall, a
circular box made with  oak wood,  standing about
one foot and a half above the floor ;  this was called
the baquet.  The cover of this box was pierced with
a great  many  holes, through which sprung out as
many iron rods, elbowed and movable  The patients
are placed on  many  ranges about the baquet, each
of them touching one iron rod, which, owing to the
elbow, could  be applied upon the  sick part.   A rod
is passed about their body, and unites them  together.
Sometimes another chain  of patients is formed by
communicating with each other by the hands.  The
impression being received  on the left, is transmitted
to the right;  it so circulates around.  A piano-forte
stands in a corner of the room, upon  which  various
tunes are played, on various motions; sometimes the
sound of the voice or singing  is added  to it.  All
those  who magnetize, hold  in their hands  an iron
rod, from  ten to twelve feet long.  That rod,  which
is the conductor of magnetism, concentrates the fluid
in its  edge, and  makes the  emanations of it more
powerful.  The sound of the piano is also a con-
ductor  of magnetism.   The  patients,  ranked  in
many  circles  around the baquet,  receive then the
magnetical influence  by all those means at once, viz :
the iron branches, which  transmit the fluid of the 
Ixii
INTRODUCTION.
baquet — the rod tied about their bodies — the union
by the hands—the sound ofthe  piano.  The pa-
tients are also magnetized  in a direct manner — that
is, by the finger and the iron rod of the magnetizer
carried before their faces,  above or behind the head,
and upon the sick parts,  but especially by the ap-
plication of the hands, and  the pressure upon the
hypondres  and the low  regions  of  the abdomen.
That application  is continued a long  lime, some-
times during two or three hours.'
  Such were the  proceedings used, by Mesmer and
his followers, to practice magnetism ; and one easily
conceives, from the above description,  that it waa
impossible that the imagination would not be deeply
excited by the sight of those apparatus—the exer-
cise  of those processes upon a great many persons at
once in the same  room — by the sound ofthe piano,
and  the spectacle  of the crisis or rather convulsions,
which never failed to take place, and sometimes with
»o frightful gestures, that  the magnetical room had
received the name of Enfer a Convulsions.
  Now, on the contrary, magnetizers look no longer
for witnesses of their experiments ; they help them-
selves neither with  the  influence  of music  nor the
power of imitation.   The   magnetized person  is
either alone or  in the  company of a few  relatives
and  friends; they are no longer tied  up with ropes;
the baqwt and th  iron branches coming out from it
have been given up   Instead of  the  pressure once
exercised  on  the hypochondres  or  the abdomen
magnetizers content themselves with some  motion* 
INTRODUCTION.
lxiii
which seem at first insignificant, and produce no me-
chanical  effect.   They carry  their hands gently
along the arms, thethighs, and the legs ;  they slight-
ly touch the forehead and the epigaster.  These
touchings have nothing in them  contrary to decency,
Bince they are exercised over the dressing apparatus.
Moreover,  the  above described motions are  often
made without touching, for frequently the  magneti-
cal effect is obtained by carrying the banc's at  a dis-
tance of many  inches from the magnetized, nay, of
many feet, and sometimes he being not aware of the
action  effected upon him.
   But  is it in the results once obtained and  those
now produced, that  we find the greatest difference.
The same  commissioners already  mentioned, speak
as follows of the effects they had witnessed.  ' Dur-
ing the experiment, the patients exhibit a very vari-
ous picture by the different state in which  they find
themselves.  Some are calm, still,  and  feel nothing,
some others cough,  s it,  feel some slight  pain,  a
general or local heat and sweat; some others, finally,
a e tormented and agitated with convulsions. These
convulsions are extraordinary, both by their length
and strength.  From   the moment one  commences,
many  others follow  in succession.   The  commis-
sioners saw some of them  which  lasted more than
three hours.   They are  accompanied with the ex-
pectoration or spitting out  of a troubled and viscous
water, sometimes  mixed  with filaments  of blood.
They are characterized by  involuntary  and precipi-
tated motion of every limb and the whole body, by 
lxiv
INTRODUCTION.
the straitness of the throat, quick and internal mus-
cular agitation  of the stomach and hypochondres,
the troubled and wandering state  of the eyes — by
piercing  cries,  tears,  hiccoughs,  and  immoderate
laughter.   These fits are  followed by a  state of lan-
guor and revery, and a sort of debility and numb-
ness.  Nothing is more astonishing than the specta-
cle of these fits. One must  see  them, to have  a
correct idea of what they are ; and by seeing them,
one is generally surprised, both by the profound rest
of one part of the  patients,  and by the  agitation
which animates the other — the  various accidents
which happen, and  the  sympathies that  are estab-
lished.  Some patients become so f.nd of each other,
that they seek  each other, and  hurry towards  one
another, smiling and laughing,  and speaking  with
affection — and so  mutually  soften  their convulsive
state.  Ail of them are  submitted  to the operator ;
vainly they are  plunged  into apparent  drowsiness ;
his voice, a look, a sign from him, draws them off from
that state.  It  is  impossible  not to acknowledge,
from these constant effects,  a great power  that agi-
tates the patients or affects them, and which the op-
erator seems to disp  se  of  as  the  only  possessor.
That convulsive state is called crisis, in the theory
of animal  magnetism.'
   Now, there are no longer convulsions;  if any ner-
vous motion  manifests itself, the magnetizer applies
himself to stop it immediately.  Every  possible care
is taken not  to  trouble the persons submitted to the
magnetical action,  and that operation is no longer a 
INTRODUCTION.
1XY
spectacle.  But  if those crises, cries  and convul-
sions are no longer observed, another phenomenon,
which had not been produced by Mesmer, and is not
mentioned in the report ofthe king's commissioners,
viz., magnetical somnambulism, has been discovered,
and presented itself to modern experimenters as the
most extraordinary subject  of  research and  med-
itation.
   Mr. De Puyscgur, a man of great birth and wealth,
highly  respected for his benevolence and moral qual-
ities, was the first  who observed  that phenomenon,
and made it known at the end  of the year 1784,
four months after the publication  of the abovemen-
tioned report.
   About that time — in 1786 —the  revolutionary
trouble broke out in France ; the  minds of the peo-
ple became so much taken up by political questions,
that it was really impossible to  bring  into publicity
any other matter.   From that moment, animal mag-
netism seemed to have dropped from public notice,
and lost its first brightness.   Yet  it was still  prac-
ticed by some firm believers, who found that, it con-
stantly fulfilled their expectations  in regard both to
science and health. Nay, we may say that, although
secretly practiced,  it acquired a considerable extent,
especially in Germany, where whole sects of philos-
ophers took hold of it as a  foundation to their doc-
trine.
   During that period  of  time, Mr. De Puysegur
published his memoirs, which  are still considered
as standard works on magnetism.
                5 
IXV1            INTRODUCTION.
  In 1813, Mr. Deleuze, the librarian ofthe Museum
of Natural History of Paris, and  whose veracity,
probity, and honor everybody in Europe  fully ac-
knowledges, issued his celebrated * Histoire Critique
du Magnetism Animal; in which he devoted a long
chapter to the phenomenon of somnambulism. This
work brought animal magnetism to  a high degree of
importance, and some distinguished intellects began
to occupy themselves with it.
   In 1819, Mr. Bertrand, formerly an engineer from
the  Polytechnical School, and  now a doctor-physi-
cian of the  faculty of  Paris,  delivered  a course of
public lectures on this  subject.   This course was so
well attended, that Mr.  Bertrand repeated them  in
1820 and 1821, with not less success.   In 1822, he
published his ' Traite du Somnambulisme et de Vex-
tase,'  which raised  him to  the rank  of the  most
learned and profound intellects of this century.
   Two years previous, in 1820, public experiments
on magnetism had been  made  at the Hotel Dieu of
Paris, in  presence of a great many respectable per-
sons ; among whom were found several professors of
the faculty.   Those experiments  were completely
 successful, and put  the truth of magnetism beyond
 doubt in the mind of all who witnessed them.*
   The 11th of October, 1825, Dr.  Foissac, a dis-
 tinguished physician  of the  Faculty of Paris, and a
 skillful magnetizer, wrote a memoir to the Academy

   *The narrative of these experiments, written from the notes
 taken by Dr. Husson himself, the chief physician of the hos-
 pital, has been published. 
INTRODUCTION.
Ixvii
of Medicine, in which  he invited that learned body
to make a new examination of animal magnetism.
Mr.  Foissac's proposition  was  discussed,  finally
adopted, and a commission was appointed to investi-
gate the subject.  The  members chosen, were Bour-
dois de la  Motte,  Fouquier,  Gueneau de Mussy,
Guersent,  Itard, Leroux,  Magendie, Marc, Thillayej
Husson, Double.  A regular course of experiments
was commenced  by these gentlemen and pursued
during four  years.  Their reputation and the length
of time they were engaged, make it certain that the
experiments were carefully made  and  can be fully
relied upon.
   In 1831,  a  report, on the facts observed  by the
commission, was  read before the  Academy of Medi-
cine.  The  report contains a full account of most of
the experiments,  presented in a progressive manner,
from the most doubtful cases to the most evident and
striking proofs of the magnetical action.   It is writ-
ten in a plain, lucid, and very philosophical manner;
and its tone  and character show that it was carefully
considered  by scientific and  sceptical  men, who
could neither be imposed upon  by falsehood  and
jugglery,  nor  led to exaggeration by enthusiasm or
credulity.
   Finally, there  is now no fact  better ascertained
than this  of animal magnetism.  Almost every lead-
ing scientific man bowed to it and tried to make out
the theory of  those newly discovered phenomena.
   The celebrated Cuvier, in  his  'Anatomie  Com-
parie,' Vol.2, p.  117, and the Marquis of Laplace, 
lxviii
INTRODUCTION.
in his ' Traite  Analytique  du callail des probabili-
tis,' have  mentioned  it as a truth.  Gall, in his
Anatomy of the Brain, acknowledges it.  Spurzheim
believed in it.   Hannmann declares  that they are
but madmen who deny it.   Dr. Rostan wrote a long
and very profound article on it in the Dictionary of
Medicine, in Vol. 20.   Dr. Georget  also devoted to
it a long chapter in his Physiologie du Systeme Ner-
veux.  Dr. Andral delivered two lectures  on mag-
netism, comprised in his course of internal pathology.
Dr. Broussais tried it  with the  greatest success at
the hospital of Valde-Grace — and now public theses
are sustained, on magnetism, for the degree of M.D.
   In Prussia, the celebrated savant  and benefactor
of  mankind,  Hufeland,   after   declaring   himself
against magnetism, has  bowed to  evidence, and uses
it in his practice.  An extensive  clinique  has been
established at Berlin,  in which patients are success-
fully treated  by that  method.   The Academy of
Sciences of the same  city,  one of the most distin-
guished, learned bodies of Europe, proposed, in 1818,
a price of thirty-three  hundred francs for  the best
memoir on  animal magnetism.   In the same country,
Prussia, a royal ordinance, issued February 7, 1817,
allows  regular  physicians  only to exercise magnet-
ism, and enjoins to those  who carry it on  to give
account every three months of the results obtained,
before  a superior commission.
   In 1815, the  Emperor of Russia appointed a com-
mission on purpose to make examination of animal
magnetism.  This commission  having declared, from 
INTRODUCTION.
lxtx
their experiments, that magnetism is a very impor-
tant agent, which  should be trusted to the hands of
well-informed physicians only, it was ordered  that
those physicians who would occupy themselves with
magnetical cures, are bound to give accounts of their
operations every three months, and that the commis-
sion itself should, every three months, present a re-
port  to the  emperor.   A  decree of the  Medical
College of Denmark, of December 21,  1815,  and
another subsequent ordinance of January 14, 1817,
impose  upon physicians the same obligations, and
prescribe to the local authorities to take care  that
magnetism be not practiced by any other sort of peo-
ple whatever.  In various  other parts of Germany
and Denmark,  Hermstaedt, Mekel, Klaproth, Shig-
lits— all of them stand high in the scientific world —
have delivered  up themselves  to researches on  ani-
mal  magnetism, and  stated  the truth of  it.   At
Frankfort, Dr.  Passavant  has published a very re-
markable work, in which he exposes not only facts,
but also the moral and  psychological  consequences
arising  from them.   At Groningue,  Dr. Bosker,
who enjoys a great  reputation, translated into the
Dutch language the  critical history of magnetism by
the honorable  Mr. Deleuze, and joined  it to a vol-
ume of observations made in the clinique he  has
established together  with his brother physicians. At
Stockholm, public theses on magnetism are sustained
for the grade  of doctor.   At St.  Petersburg,  Dr.
Stroffreghen, first physician of the emperor of Rus-
sia, and many  others,  pronounced their opinion in 
lxX
INTRODUCTION.
behalf of magnetism, and declared  its usefulness.
Near  Moscow, the earl Panin,  formerly a  minister
of Russia,  has established in his land,  under the
charge of a skillful physician, a magnetical cliuique
in which a good many important cures  have  been
effected.
   From the foregoing statement of imposing facts,
who can reasonably doubt the  existence of animal
magnetism ?  To deny it, would be  to suppose that
men of the highest  worth, twolearnrd bodies ofthe
first respectability, governments known  for having
surrounded  themselves  with  the  best physicians,
could have,  in various places and at various  times,
fallen the dupes of miserable jugglers or enthusiasts,
and executed,propagated, ordered and favored labors
merely  chimerical.   To your good  sense and mor-
als, I  wholly refer to judge what is probable and true
in this case.
   Here I finish my  task.  I shall not, however, lay
aside my pen before apologizing, in  a few words, for
the great imperfection of my English idiom.  My
only, and I  believe best, excuse is, that I am a for-
eigner,  and  have been acquainted  with the English
language, but for twenty-two months.  Moreover, I
never would have attempted to issue a book in that
language, had I not relied upon the assistance of an
intelligent friend of mine, who not only encouraged
me in the idea of that publication, but also took the
trouble to read, with the greatest care,  my  manu-
script, and of correcting every improper word. This
he must have done  well, for he is a scholar, both in 
INTRODUCTION.
lxxi
his native tongue and in the French language, which
he had opportunity to learn  during  a residence  in
Paris.  Besides, being already acquainted  with the
subject of animal  magnetism, on which he had  is-
sued several articles,  and to  which  he felt a very
lively interest, as every liberal and enlightened mind
ought to  do, he found himself in a proper moral dis-
position to  help me by his hearty advice and assist-
ance.  This gentlemen and  disinterested friend is
Mr.  Hewins, already known  in  Boston as  a distin-
guished  artist.  Had I listened to his  feelings of mod-
esty, I should not  have mentioned him here; but I
hope he  will readily excuse the liberty I take, for I
consider it a duty to myself and to my fellow crea-
tures to give ' a chacum suivant  ses oeuvres et son
merite.' 
 
REPORT.
Gentlemen,
  More  than five  years have  elapsed,  since a
young  physician, Mr. Foissac,  whose zeal  and
talent of observation we had frequent  opportuni-
ties to judge, thought proper to  call the attention
 f the  Academy to the  phenomena of Animal
Magnetism.   He  reminded it  that  the  Report
made in 1784, by the Royal Society of Medicine,
had met, among the commissioners intrusted with
the care of the experiments, a  conscientious and
enlightened man who had published a report con-
tradictory to that of his  colleagues; — that,  since
that epoch,  magnetism  had  been the object of
new experiments and new researches; and, if the
Academy deemed it proper, he proposed to submit
to its examination a "Somnambule," who seemed
fit  to throw  light  upon a question, that many
sound minds in France and Germany considered 
74
REPORT.
 as far from  being  resolved, — although, in 1784,
 the Academy of Sciences  and  Royal Society of
 Medicine, had pronounced their judgment against
 magnetism.
  A commission,  composed of Messrs. Adelon,
 Burdin the eldest, Marc, Pariset, and  myself, was
 appointed to  make a report upon Mr.  Foissac's
 proposition.   This  report, presented to the section
 of medicine at the  meeting ofthe 13th of Decem-
 ber, 1825, led to the conclusion that magnetism
 should  be  submitted  to  a  new examination.
 That conclusion gave rise to an animated discus-
 sion, which was continued during the meetings of
 the 10th and 24th January, and the 14th February,
 1826.  In this last, the  commission replied to all
 the objections brought against the report, —and,
 on the same day, after a mature examination, in
 a mode hitherto unknown in matter of science,
 of an  individual  scrutiny, the section decided
 that  a special commission  should  be appointed
 to examine  anew  the  phenomena  of animal
 magnetism.
  This new commission,  composed  of Messrs.
Bourdois,  Double,  Fouquier, Itard, Gueneau de
Mussy, Guersent,  Laennec, Leroux, Magendie,
Marc and Thillaye, was  appointed  at the meeting
of the 28th of February, 1S26.   Some time after,
Mr. Laennec, having been obliged to leave Paris
on account of ill-health,  I was designated to  sup- 
REPORT.
75
ply his place,  and  the  commission being  thus
constituted, occupied  itself with the fulfilling of the
mission conferred upon it.
   Its  first  care, before Laennec's retreat, was to
examine the Somnambule who had  been offered
by Mr. Foissac.   Various experiments were made
upon  her in the  Academy's room ; but, we  must
acknowledge that, our  inexperience, our  impa-
tience and  diffidence, perhaps too ostensibly mani-
fested, allowed  us to observe but  some physiologi-
cal phenomena, curious enough,  that we shall let
you know in another part of our report, but in
which we saw none of the  faculties, the  proofs of
which she  gave us on other occasions.   That
Somnambule,  undoubtedly  wearied  by our  too
urging experiments, ceased  at that time  to be
placed  at  our  disposal,  and  we had to seek in
the hospitals the  means  of pursuing our  ex-
periments.
   Mr.  Pariset,  a physician  at  the Saltpetriere,
was  better able than anybody else to  assist us
in our researches ;  which he  showed himself wil-
ling to do  with an eagerness, the result of which,
unfortunately,   answered  not  our expectation.
 The commission, which founded a great  part of
 its hopes  upon  the resources that could be fur-
 nished to it by that hospital, either in  regard to
 the individuals who should have been  submitted
 to the experiments,  or on account of the presence 
76
REPORT.
of Mr. Magendie, who begged  to attend to them
as one of the commission ;  the commission,  we
say, in seeing itself deprived of the means of in-
formation hoped to  be found there, had recourse to
the zeal of each of its members in particular.
  Mr.  Guersenl promised to use his influence at
the children's hospital;  Mr. Fouquier,  in that of
the Charity ; Messrs. Gueneau and the Reporter
at the Hotel  Dieu  ; Mr.  Itard, at the  nstitulion
of the deaf and dumb ;  and from that  moment,
each of us disposed ourselves to make some trials
which we  pledged ourselves  to have witnessed
by all the other members of the commission.
  Soon after, our  labors  were  arrested by some
other and  more powerful obstacles.  The causes
of these obstacles are unknown to us ; but, through
the effect of a decision of the General Council of
the Hospital, taken on the 19th of  October, 1825,
which prohibited  the use of  any new  remedy
which should not have  been  approved by a Com-
mission appointed by the Council, the magnetical
experiments could not be pursued  at the Hospital
of Charity.   Reduced  thus to its  own resources,
to those that  the   private relation  of each of its
members could  offer to it, the commission made
an appeal, to all the physicians known, for having
made  animal magnetism the special object o
their researches.  It requested them to permit us
to witness their experiments, to allow us to follow* 
REPORT.
77
together with them,  the process, and to state the
results of them.  We declare  that we were very
much assisted  in  our  progress by  many of our
brother  physicians, and  especially  by him who
first had proposed the question of the examination
of magnetism,  we mean  Dr. Foissac.   We do
not hesitate to declare  that it is the constant and
persevering efforts of this physician, and  also  to
the active  zeal of Mr.  Dupotet, that we  are  in-
debted for  the greatest part of the materials  we
have  been  able to  put  together to prepare the re-
port which we now present to you.
   However,  gentlemen, we  wish  here to state,
that your commission has not, in any case, trusted
to any other but its own members the care  of di-
recting the experiments which it  has been wit-
nessing ; that no  other person than  the  reporter
himself  was permitted to note down the results of
the experiments tried, and of pic paring the pro-
cess  verbal, staling the various phenomena that
presented themselves at the time, and in the order
as they were produced.   The commission  ap-
plied  itself to fulfill  its duties with the most scru-
pulous exactitude; and  if it  does justice to those
who  assisted it with their benevolent co-operation,
it ought to  remove even the slightest doubts, that
might arise in your  minds, that any other persons
but themselves have taken even  the slightest part
in the examination of this question.   Itself alone 
78
REPORT.
always conceived the various modes of experimen-
tation, traced out the  plans, constantly directed
the course, followed and wrote down the progress
of them.   Finally, even in using some auxiliary
persons, more or less zealous and  enlightened, it
always was present, and  always gave  its own di-
rection to all that was done.  Therefore, you will
see that it admitted no  experiment  made  out of
its own circle, even by members of the Academy.
   However great  may  be the confidence  which
ought to be established  between us by  the spirit
of confraternity and reciprocal esteem,  which ani-
mate all of us, we felt that, in the examination of
a question the solution of which is  so delicate,  we
should rely upon  ourselves  only —and that, for
your  part, you could refer  but to our  guarantee.
Yet, we thought it proper not to  strike with that
rigorous exclusion,  a very curious fact observed
by Mr. Cloquet.   We admitted it, because it was
already, so to speak, the Academy's propeity ', —
the Section of Surgery  having occupied itself with
it in two of its meetings.
   Such a  reserve, imposed upon itself by the com-
mission, in the use ofthe various facts concerning
the question that it studied  with  so much  care
and impartiality, would give us the right to expect
a similar feeling and proceeding, if some  persons
who should not  have witnessed  our experiments
were going to discuss their  authenticity.   As we 
REPORT.
79
ask your confidence only as to what we have seen
and done, for that very reason we  cannot admit
that those who  had not the same advantages as
ourselves to observe the fact, could attack or doubt
what we shall say we have observed ; and as, final-
ly, we always distrusted those wonders which were
announced to us as to happen, and this feeling con-
stantly  overwhelmed us in all our investigations,
we think we have  some right  to require of you,
if you do not grant us your entire confidence, not
to suggest  any doubts  upon the moral and phy-
sical dispositions with which we always proceeded
in the  observation of the various phenomena we
have witnessed.
   Thus, gentlemen, this report which we are far
from  presenting to you  to  settle your  opinion
about, animal magnetism, cannot and should not
be considered anything else but the collecting and
classification of  the  facts we have observed until
this moment;  we  offer  it to you as a proof that
we endeavored  to justify your confidence ;  and al-
though  regretting that it  does  not  rest upon  a
greater  number  of experiments, still we hope that
you will receive it with indulgence,  and listen to
the reading of it with some interest.
   We think it, however, a duty  to tell you, in ad-
vance, that what we saw in our experiments re-
semble  by no means all that the report of 1784
relates of the magnetizers of that time.  We nei- 
80
REPORT.
ther admit nor reject the  existence of a fluid ;  we
speak neither of the Baquet,  nor of  the rod,  of
the chain which  was established,  causing the
magnetized  individuals to communicate by the
hands, nor of the pressures a long time continued,
and sometimes so during  several hours, upon the
hypochondrac region and the  abdomen ; nor  of
the singing and instrumental'music which accom-
panied  the  magnetical  operations;   nor of the
meeting of a great number  of persons who had
themselves magnetized in presence of  a crowd  of
witnesses ; — because our experiments were  made
in the most perfect calm,  the most absolute silence,
without any accessary means, never by an imme-
diate contact, and at every time upon a single per-
son only.
   We do not mention that which, at  the time  of
Mesmer, was so improperly called crisis, and con-
sisted  in convulsions, in  laughter sometimes im-
moderate,  in inexhaustible  tears, piercing  cries,
because we never met  those various phenomena.
   In all these respects, we do  not hesitate to say,
that there exists a very great difference between
the facts observed and judged  in 1784, and those
collected by us in the work we have the honor  of
presenting to you ; that this difference established
between the one and the  other  a line very distinct
of demarcation,  and. that if reason has  cleared
away a  great part of the former, the spirit of in- 
                   REPORT.                 81

vestigation  and observation ought to apply itself
in multiplying and appreciating the latter.
  It is with animal "magnetism, gentlemen, as
with a great many operations in nature ; viz : it
is necessary that certain  conditions be  united to-
gether, in order to  produce  such and such effects.
This is  an incontestible truth, — which, did it
need proofs to be  established,  would  find itself
confirmed by  what happens  in various physical
phenomena.   Thus,  without dryness of the at-
mosphere, you can but in a feeble manner, devel-
op  electricity ;  without heat, you never  can  ob-
tain the combination of lead and pewter, which is
the common solder; without the light of the sun,
you will not see the mixture of parts  equal in  vol-
ume of  hydrogen and chlore,  spontaneously in-
flaming  themselves,  &c.  &c.  Whether  these
conditions  be external or physical,  as  those we
have just been mentioning; whether they be inti-
mate or  moral, as those which are pretended, by
Messrs. Deleuze, Puysegur, &c, to be indispensa-
ble  to the development  of the  magnetical phe-
nomena, it is sufficient that  they exist, and are
required by them  to  have led  the commission
to  consider  it a duty to endeavor to meet them
together, and submit itself to  them.   Yet we
ought not  and would not have  thrown off  that
anxious curiosity which at the same time induced
us to vary our experiments, and try to put at fault,
          6 
82
REPORT.
the practices and promises of certain magnetizers.
In those two respects, we thought it proper to free
ourselves of  the  obligation "imposed by  them  to
have a strong faith, to be moved only by the desire
of doing good ; we sought merely to be  accurate,
curious and diffident observers.
  Neither did we deem  it convenient to try  to
account for those  conditions;  it would have been
a question of mere controversy, and for the solu-
tion of which we should have been no more satis-
fied than when it matters to explain the conditions
owing to which physiological phenomena are exe-
cuted, and how the action of medicaments takes
place.   These are questions of the same kind, and
upon  which the  science  has not yet pronounced
its judgment.
   In all the experiments  made by us, the strictest
silence has always been kept, because we thought
that, to  the  development of  so nice  phenomena,
the attention, both of the  magnetizer and magne-
tized person,  would   be  diverted  by   anything
strange ; we would not, moreover, deserve the  re-
proach of having put obstacles, by talking or other
sort of diversion,  to the success of the experiments ;
and we always took care that the expression of our
countenances should neither  trouble  the magne-
tizer, nor suggest doubt to the magnetized ; — our
position, we are pleased to repeat,  constantly was
that of curious  and  impartial observers.  Those 
REPORT.
83
conditions, many of which had been recommended
in the works of  the  respectable  Mr. Deleuze,
having been well established, the following is
what we  saw.
  The person who  was to be magnetized was
placed in the sitting position, on a  convenient
sofa, or upon a chair.  The magnetizer, sitting on
a little higher seat, before his face,  and at about a
foot distant, recollects himself a  few moments,
during which he holds the thumb of  the patient,
and remains in this  position until he feels that
the  same degree  of heat is established between
the thumbs of that person and his own.   Then
he draws off his hands in turning them outwards,
and places them upon the shoulders for nearly one
minute.   Afterwards he carries them down slowly,
by a sort of friction,  very light, along the arms,
 down to the extremities  of  the fingers, — he be-
 gins again the same motion five or six times;  it is
 what magnetizers call passes.   Then  he passes his
 hands over the head, keeps  them there a few mo-
 ments, brings  them down in passing before the
 face, at the  distance of one or two inches,  to the
 epigastrium, where he stops again, either in  bear-
 ing upon that region, or without touching it with
 his fingers.  And he thus comes down  slowly along
 the body, to the feet.  These passes, or motions,
 are repeated during the greatest part of the course,
 and when  he  wishes to finish it,  he carries them 
84
REPORT.
 even beyond the extremities of the hands and feet,
 in shaking his fingers at each time.   Finally, he
 performs before the face and the chest some trans-
 versal motions, at the  distance of three or  four
 inches, in presenting his two hands, put near one
 another,  and  in  removing  them abruptly.   At
 other times, he brings near together the fingers of
 each hand, and  presents  them  at three or  four
 inches  distant from the head or the stomach, in
 leaving them in that position for one or two min-
 utes;  then, alternately drawing  them  off,  and
 bringing  them near  those parts, with more or less
 quickness, he imitates the motion that we natu-
 rally execute when we wish to get rid of a liquid
 which met the extremity of our fingers.
   These  various modes were followed in all our
 experiments, without adhering to  one rather than
 to the other,—often using  but  one,  sometimes
 two; and we never were directed in the choice that
 we made of them,  by  the  idea  that one mode
 would produce a quicker and  better marked effect
 than  another.  The commission will not follow
 in the  enumeration of the facts it  has observed ;
 the order  of times   when  each of  them  was
 produced ; we  thought  it more convenient, and
 above all, more rational, to  present them to you
 classed according to the degree, more  or less deci-
ded, of the magnetical action that it recognized in
 each of them. 
REPORT.
85
  Therefore, we have established four  divisions,
as follows.
  1.  The effects of magnetism are not manifested
upon healthy persons,  and certain  other patients.
  2.  They are but feebly manifested upon  some
others.
   3.  They  are often the  product  of ennui, mo-
notony and  imagination.
   4.  Finally, they have been  seen developed in-
dependently of these last causes, very probably by
the effect of Magnetism  alone.*

   *Note of the Translator.  Out of twenty-six indi-
viduals mentioned in those various classes, as having been sub-
mitted to the action of Animal Magnetism, there  are but two
who felt nothing at all ; three others exhibited the magnetical
phenomena in a  pretty high degree ; but those  effects  were
attributed to other causes, such as tiresomeness and imagination.
Six felt the action  more or less independently  of any  other
cause ; finally, fifteen showed themselves affected by the mag-
netical action in a most evident manner. 
SECTION I.
Experiments wherein no effect was manifested*

  The reporter of the commission repeatedly sub-
mitted himself  to  magnetical experiments.  At
one  time,  in  particular, enjoying  then  perfect
health, he was steady enough  to  keep  himself
sitting during three quarters of  an  hour, in  the
same  position,  his  eyes closed, in  a complete
immobility, and he  declares he never  felt any
effect, although  the tiresomeness of  the  position
and the absolute silence  that he had begged ofthe
assistants might have  been  capable of producing
sleep.  Mr. Gueneau  de Mussy underwent  the
same trial with a similar result.   At another day,
when the reporter was tormented with violent and
very tenacious rheumatic pains,  he tried  magnet-
ism many times, and never obtained from that
means the least melioration, although certainly the

  *Note ofthe Translator.   In this first class, there
are but four facts related, of which two (the last ones) already
present a commencement of the magnetical action.   Is it not
likely that the action would have been better marked, if the op-
eration had  lasted  longer  ?  Very seldom indeed, are the
magnetical phenomena developed in ten minutes, at the first
sitting. 
REPORT.
87
intensity of his sufferings caused him to desire
most earnestly to have them removed, or  at least
mitigated.
  The 11th  of November, 1S26, our  respectable
colleague, Mr. Bourdois, had felt for two  months
an illness  which  required from his  partner a par-
ticular attention in his  usual manner of living.
This trouble, said he, was not his  normal state;
he knew the cause of it, and could  determine  its
points of departure.
   In these  conditions, which,  according to Mr.
Dupotet's assertion, were favorable to  the  develop-
ment of the magnetical phenomena, Mr. Bourdois
was magnetized by  the same  Mr.  Dupotet,  in
presence of Messrs. Itard, Marc, Double, Gueneau
and  the  reporter.  The  experiment began  at
thirty-three minutes after three in  the afternoon;
the pulse  then throbbed eighty-four times, a num
her which, according to Messrs. Double and Bour-
dois, is that ofthe normal  state.  At twenty-nine
minutes to  four the operation  ceased,  and Mr.
Bourdois  felt nothing at all.  But  we noted that
the pulse had come down to seventy-two pulsations,
that is  twelve less than  before the experiment.
   In the same meeting, our colleague Mr. Itard,
affected for eight years with a chronic rheumatism,
the seat of which was then in the stomach,  and
laboring at this same moment under an unusual
crisis attached to his complaint, (these are his own 
88
REPORT.
expressions) was magnetized-by Mr. Dupotet.  At
ten minutes before four, his pulse beat sixty times;
at three minutes to four he shut his eyes,  and  at
three minutes past four he ceased to be magnetized.
   He tells us that, while he  had his eyes opened,
he thought he had felt the impression of the pas-
sage ofthe fingers upon his organs, as though they
had been struck with a sudden blowing of warm
air; but that after shutting them  up,  he  had no
longer felt the same sensation;  he adds that at the
end of five minutes he felt a pain which occupied
all the fore part of his head and the bottom of his
orbit, with a sensation  of dryness ofthe  tongue,
although, when observed by us, it was in fact very
wet.  Finally, he says, that the pain which he felt
before the experiment, and hadannounced as being
dependent of the affection  he complained of,  was
removed, but that it was generally  very move-
able.   We noted that the pulse had risen to sev-
enty-four pulsations, that  is fourteen more than
before the experiment.
   We  certainly  might relate to  you some other
observations, in which magnetism had no  sort of
action; but besides the inconvenience of  quoting
facts without result, we thought that it would be
sufficient to you to know  that  three members of
the commission had  submitted themselves to ex-
periments, to be more completely convinced of the
truth of our investigations. 
SECTION II.
           Effects slightly marked.

  You could not have failed to notice, gentlemen,
that the last fact of the preceeding series presented
a commencement of magnetical action ; we placed
it at the end of that section to  serve as a link to
those that are to follow.
  Mr.  Magnien, a physician, fifty-four years  old,
living in St. Dennis street, No. 202, walked with
much difficulty, in consequence of a fall he  had
experienced several years before on the left knee,
and  probably  also owing  to  an aneurism  of the
heart, under which he sunk in the month of Sep-
tember last, (1831) was magnetized by the report-
er,  August 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 1826.   The num-
ber of pulsations was less at the end of five succes-
sive operations than at the beginning.   Thus it
lowered from ninety-six to ninety, from ninety-six
to eighty-six, from seventy-seven  to seventy-one,
from eighty-two  to seventy-nine, from eighty to
seventy-eight; and at the sixth experiment this
number did not vary ; it still remained at eighty-
three   pulsations.  His  respirations  have been
always equal,  except in one case, in which  they
rose from twenty  to twenty-six.  Mr.  Magmen
 constantly felt a sensation of coolness in  all the
 parts towards which the magnetizer directed  and 
90
REPORT.
 kept a long time his fingers in the same position.
 This phenomena did not miss a single time.
   Mr. Roux, our colleague,  who  complained of a
 chronic  affection of the stomach, was magnetized
 six times by Mr. Foissac, on the 28th  and 29th
 of September, and  October 1, 3, 5, 7, 1827.  He
 felt at first a sensible diminution in the number of
 the respirations  and of the  beating of the pulse;
 afterwards, some heat in his stomach, a great cool-
 ness  in his face, the sensation of  evaporization  of
 ether, even when no passe  was executed  before
 him,  and a strong inclination to sleep.
   Anna Burdin, aged five and twenty years, resi-
 ding  in rue du Paon, No. 15, was magnetized the
 17th, 20th and  21st of July, 1826, at  the Hotel
 Dieu, by Mr. Fossae, in  presence of the reporter.
 This woman complained of a cephallagy and a nev-
 ralgy, the seat of which was in the left eye.  Du-
 ring  the  three  magnetical  sittings which were
 devoted to her, we have seen the respirations rise
 from sixteen to thirty-nine, from fourteen to twen-
 ty, and the pulsations from  sixty-nine to seventy-
 nine,  from sixty  to  sixty-eight, from  seventy-five
 to ninety-five.   She was very drowsy,  and slept
 a  few minutes;  felt  some  amelioration in her
cephaltgea, but  no change  was operated  in the
orbiary nevralgy.
   Theresa Ferlin was magnetized the 22d, 23d,
24th,  29th, and 30th of July, 1826.   She  had 
REPORT.
91
entered the hospital, complaining of pains in the
abdomen and the lombar region.  During the
five magnetical sittings devoted to her, we saw the
respirations rising from fifteen to seventeen, from
eighteen to nineteen,  from twenty  to twenty-five,
and  falling from  twenty-seven  to Iwenty-fourj
and  the pulsations ascending from 118  to 125,
from 100 to 120, from 100 to 113,  from 95 to 98,
from 117 to 120.  We  noticed that this woman
seemed to be afraid of the motions  of the fingers
and hands of the magnetizer; that she avoided
them in drawing back her head ; that she followed
them not  to lose sight of them, as though she
dreaded some evil from them.  She was visibly
tormented  during  the four sittings.  We noticed
 also, in her long and  frequent sighs,  sometimes
 interrupted,  the wrinkling  and  lowering of the
 eyelids, the rubbing  of the nose, a pretty frequent
 deglutition of saliva,  a motion which, in other
 magnetized  persons, constantly preceeded sleep,
 and finally the cure  ofthe pain which  existed in
 the lombar region.
   The  commission, in  putting  together  these
 various facts, wishes only to call your attention to
 the series  of the  physiological phenomena which
 presented  themselves  in the two last ones.   It
 cannot attach any  importance to that particular
 amelioration effected in the symptoms of the very
 insignificant diseases  of these two  women.   If 
92
REPORT.
those diseases existed, time and  rest could  have
removed them; if they did not exist, as it too
often  happens,  the  feigning must  have ceased
without magnetism.
  Thus, gentlemen,  we have presented  them to
you only as the first  elements of the magnetical
action, which you will see increasing in proportion
as we shall overrun  the other divisions  that we
have established.
            SECTION  III.

Effects  produced  by Tiresomeness, Monotony
              and Imagination.

  The commission  had  several opportunities to
notice that the monotony of the gestures, the strict
silence kept during the experiments, the weari-
someness occasioned by a  position constantly the
same, have produced sleep  in several individuals
who, however, were not  submitted  to the mag-
netical influence, but who found themselves in
the same physical  and moral  circumstances in
which they had  previously been put to sleep.   In
these cases it was impossible not to  acknowledge
the power of imagination,  a power owing to which
those individuals believing themselves magnetized,
felt the same effects as if  they had been so.   We 
REPORT.
93
shall particularly relate the following observations.
  Mile.  Lemaitre,  twenty-five  years  old,  was
affected for three years with an amaurosis.  When
she entered the Hotel Dieu, she  was magnetized
on the 7th,  13th,  14th,  15th, 16th, 17th, 18th,
19th, 20th,  and 22d of July,  1826.  We shall
not  repeat here the  various phenomena which
marked the  beginning of the magnetical action,
and which  we have  declared in the preceeding
sections,  such as the  wrinkling and lowering of
the eyelids, the rubbing of the eyes as to get rid of
a troublesome  sensation, the sudden  sloping of
the head and the deglutition of the saliva.  These
are, as we have already  said, symptoms that we
constantly noticed, and  of which we shall speak
no more.  We shall say only,  that we noticed a
commencement of somnolence  at  the  end ofthe
third sitting; that  this somnolence continued in-
creasing until the eleventh ; that, from  the fourth
course of operation, conclusive motions ofthe mus-
cles of the neck and face, of the hands, the shoul-
ders, manifested themselves ; that,  at  the end of
each sitting, we found the pulse more accelerated
than at the beginning.  But  that  which ought
especially to deserve your  attention, is  that after
having been magnetized ten times and during the
eight last ones,  seeming more  and more  sensible
to the action of magnetism, Mr.  Dupotet,  her 
94
REPORT.
magnetiser, sate, by the invitation of the reporter,
at the eleventh course of operation, on the 20th of
July, behind her, without making any gesture,
without any intention to magnetize  her, and she
felt a somnolance still stronger  marked  than the
preceeding days, but less agitation and convulsive
motions.  Moreover,  no amelioration was  mani-
fested in the state of her sight since the commence-
ment of the experiments ; and she left the hospital
as she had entered.
   Louisa Ganot,a domestic, living in rue du Batoir,
No. 19, entered the Hotel Dieu, on the 18th of
July, 1826, ward It, Roch No.  17, in order  to be
treated there for a  leucorrhea.   She was magne-
tized, by Mr. Dupotet, the 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th,
25th, 26th, 27th, and  28th of  July, 1826.  She
was liable, as she said,  to fits  of nerves ; indeed,
convulsive motions, similar to those which charac-
terize  histeria, constantly  manifested themselves
during the magnetical operations, such as moan-
ing cries, the stiffness and bending of the superior
limbs, the sudden projection of the hand towards
the epigastrum, the bending over of all  the  body
in such a manner as to form an arch, the concav-
ity of which was in the back,  and finally'a few
minutes of sleep.  At  the sixth sitting, Mr. Dupo-
tet placed himself before her face, at  two feet dis-
tant, without touching her, without  performing a
single gesture, but with the firm intention of mag- 
REPORT.
95
netizing her; the agitation, the convulsive motions,
long and  interrupted  sighs,  the stiffness of  the
arms were not so long in manifesting themselves,
as in the preceeding sittings.  The next day (27)
the patient being seated on  the large  arm-chair
which  had been used in the preceeding experi-
ments,  we placed Mr.  Dupotet behind her; he
contents himself with directing the extremity of his
fingers against the middle  part of her  back; the
hind part of the arm-chair was, of course,  inter-
posed  between  the magnetized person and the
magnetizer;  soon, the convulsive motions ofthe
preceeding days presented themselves  still more
violently, and often she turns back her head.   She
says, after being awakened, that she executed that
motion  because it  seemed to  her  that she wTas
tormented by something acting behind her.  Fi-
nally, after having observed, on the 26th and 27th
of  July,  the  development  of  the  magnetical
phenomena, produced in one case only by  inten-
tion, and  in the  other by very plain gestures (the
directing of the fingers) executed behind,  and the
patient being not aware of it,  we wished to  ascer-
tain whether  the  same phenomena could  be
produced again in the magnetizer's absence, and
by the sole  effect  of imagination; as  actually
happened on the 28th of July.
   Mile.  Ganot  was  placed  in all the  circum-
stances  of the  preceding trials; viz.:  the  same 
96
REPORT.
hour in the  day, same apartment, same  silence,
same  arm-chair, the same assistant, same prepa-
ration ; everything, in a word, was exactly similar
as on the preceeding  days,  one thing  only  was
wanting, the magnetizer who  had remained at
his house.  The same convulsive motions mani-
fested themselves, but with a little less  quickness
and violence, although with the same character.
   A man twenty-seven years of age, subject since
the age of fifteen to epeleptic  fits, was  magnetized
fifteen times at the Hotel  Dieu,  from the 27th of
June  to the 17th of July,  1826,  by ther eporter of
the commission.  Sleep began  to show itself at
the fourth sitting, on  the  1st of July ; it was still
sounder at the fifth, the 2d of the  same month ;
in the following it was pretty slight, and was easily
interrupted, either by slight noise, or by questions;
the reporter magnetized him  at the thirteenth and
fourteenth, of the same month, by placing himself
behind the arm  chair in which this man was sit-
ting;  at the fifteenth sitting,  which took place on
the 17th of July, we placed  him, as it  had been
done for Mile. Ganot, in the same circumstances
in which he had found himself since the beginning
of the  experiments;  the reporter puts  himself
behind his arm-chair,  and the same phenomena
of somnolence were manifested,  although  he  had
not magnetized him.   We  were  necessarily led 
REPORT.                   97
to conclude, from that series of experiments, that
these  two women  and that man felt the same
effects, both when  magnetized  and when they
believed they were so; that, consequently, imagi-
nation was  sufficient to  produce in  them  some
phenomena, that  with  some  little  attention or
preoccupations  of the   mind, we  might  have
attributed to magnetism.
   But we hasten to declare that there are many
other cases, as severely and carefully observed, in
which it would be difficult not to admit magnetism
as  the  cause  of those  phenomena.  We  place
them in the fourth class.
              SECTION IV.

Effects very probably derived from Magnetism
                   alone.
  A child twenty-eight months of age, affected as
his  father, of whom we shall speak below, with
epileptic fits, was magnetized at Mr. Bourdois', by
Mr. Foissac, on the 6th of October, 1827.   Almost
immdiately after the passes had  begun, the child
rubbed his eyes, bent his head on one side, leant
it upon one ofthe cushions ofthe sofa upon which
he was sitting, gaped, agitated himself, scratched
his  head and ears, appeared to  struggle against
         7 
98
REPORT.
sleep, which seemed to pervade him, and soon rose
in murmuring; he was  seized with the need of
making water,  and after  satisfying  it,  he  was
magnetized  again  a few  moments;  but as this
time the somnolence was not so much marked, we
ceased the experiment.
   We put near this fact, that of a deaf and dumb
person of eighteen years  old, liable for a long time
to very frequent fits of epilepsy, and on whom Mr.
Itard  wished  to  have   magnetism  tried.   This
young man  was magnetized  fifteen times, by Mr.
Foissac; we shall not only say that the epileptical
fits were suspended during the  sitting, and  that
they re appeared only at  the end of eight  months,
a  delay without example  in the  history of his
disease; but also that the appreciable  phenomena
felt by this young  man  during  the  experiments,
were  the  heaviness of the eye-lids,  a general
numbness, the need of sleep,  and even sometimes
some vertigo.
   An  action still  better marked was observed
upon  a member of the  commission.   Mr. Itard
on  the 11th of November 1826,  had submitted
himself, as we have said, and had felt no effect.
Being magnetized  by  Mr. Dupotef,  on the 27th
of October, 1827, he felt  some drowsiness without
sleep, a sensible excitement of the nerves of the
face, some convulsive motions in  the  nostrils, the
muscles of the face and the jaws, an afflux in his 
REPORT.
99
 mouth of a saliva with a metallic taste, a sensation
 similar to that which he  had felt by galvanism.
 The two first sittings caused a  cephalagy which
 lasted several  hours; and in the  same  time  the
 usual pains subsided very much.   A year after,
 Mr. Itard, who had severe pains in his head was
 magnetized eighteen times by Mr. Foissac.   Mag-
 netism provoked  almost  constantly an afflux of
 saliva, and twice  with a  metallac taste; but few
 motions and muscular contractions were observed,
 except some sudden agitations in the tendons of
 the muscles of the fore-arms and legs.  Mr. Itard
 told  us  that his cephalalgy had  ceased  at each
 time after a sitting of twelve and fifteen  minutes;
 that it was entirely removed at  the  ninth, when
 it  was brought on again, by an  interruption of
 three  days in  the  magnetical  treatment, and
 removed again by  the same means; he felt, during
 the experiment, the sensation of a general comfort,
 a disposition to pleasant sleep,  some somnolence
 accompanied with vagueand agreeable dreaming;
 his complaint  received, as previously, a  notable
 amelioration, which lasted but a short while after
 the cessation of magnetism.
   These  three  observations appeared  to  your
 commission altogether worthy of notice.   The two
 individuals who were the subjects of  the two first
 experiments — the one, a child  of  twenty-eight
months old; the other, the deaf and dumb person— 
100
REPORT.
 were  perfectly ignorant  of what was  done  to
 them : one of them is not yet able to know it, and
 the other never had  the least idea of what is
 relating to magnetism ; and yet, both are  sensible
 to its action ;  and certainly we cannot consider in
 either of them that sensibility  as an effect of imag-
 ination: could we do it with  more  propriety and
 reason in the  observation we have related concern-
 ing Mr.  Itard  1
   It is not upon men of our age and always in guard
 against the errors both of our mind and senses,
 that imagination,*-  such  as we consider  it  here,
 may exercise its influence.   It is, at this advanced
 period of life, lightened by reason, and free of those
 deceiving charms which so  easily seduce youth;
 it keeps  itself  awake ;  and diffidence, rather than
 confidence, presides over the various  operations of
 our mind.  These conditions happily found them-
 selves  united in our colleague; and  the academy
 know  him  too well  not  to admit  that  he  has
 really felt what he says be has felt;  his  veracity
 has been  the same, both on the 11th of November,
 1826, when he declared he had felt nothing, and
 on the 27th of  Oct., 1827, when he affirmed before
 us that he was  sensible to the action of magnetism.
  The somnolence observed  in the three facts we
 have just related, seemed  to us the  transition of
the  wakeful state, to  that which is called •• the
 magnetical sleep  or  somnambulism;' words 
REPORT.
101
that  the commission  thought improper, as lead-
ing to wrong ideas, but which, in the impossibil-
ity of altering them, it was obliged to adopt.
  When the individual submitted to the magneti-
cal  action,  is  in somnambulism,   magnetizers
assure us that he ordinarily hears but the  person
who magnetizes him, and those who are  put to
communication with  him through the  means of
an immediate contact-   According to their opinion,
all, or almost all, the external senses  of the som-
nambule are suspended, and yet he feels sensations.
They  also  pretend   that  an   "internal  sense,
a sort  of instinct," is excited  within him, which
enlightens him, both  on his own  preservation and
on  that of those who are  in  relation with him.
During all  the time of the state of somnambu-
lism, the somnambule is,  say they,  submitted to
the influence of the magnetizer and seems to obey
him with an unlimited docility, even when  his
will, strongly  moved  inwardly,  is  manifested
neither by a gesture nor by a word.
   The  magnetized   person,  says the  illustrious
Bailly, in  his  report to the Royal  Academy of
Sciences, page 7, is  vainly plunged in an appa-
rent drowsiness; the  voice of the magnetizer, his
look, a sign from him, draws them  off from  that
state.   It  is impossible not to  acknowledge, by
these constant effects, a great power  that agitates
the patient, oveiwhelms him, and of which the
 piagnetizer alone seems to dispose. 
102
REPORT*.
  This  singular  phenomena,  gentlemen,  your
commission  thought a subject so  much  more
worthy  of  its attention and investigation, that,
although Bailly  seemed to have perceived it, it
was  not however known when magnetism was
submitted  to  the  examination of  the king's
commissaries, in  1774 ; and that, besides, it was
particularly for the  purpose of studying it, that
Mr. Foissac had, if 1 may so  speak, brought to
light again  the question of magnetism.  Indeed,
Mr. de Puysegur's memoirs, in which the phenom-
ena  of  somnambulism were,  for the first time,
exposed, had been issued  only  after the report o
the commission,  aLthe end of 1784 and in 1785.
   In a subject which could be so easily vised as a-
means  of  charlatanism,  and  seemed  to  us so
different from all that was hitherto known, your
commission  must  have been  very careful  and
severe about the  kind of proofs which were devised
and  admitted to verify this phenomena, and at
the same time to be contiuually on  their  guard
against illusion and deception, of which they might
have feared to be the dupes.
   The commission beg to  call  your attention to
the following observations, which it hasdisposed in
such a manner as to offer you a progression, always
increasing, of the phenomena  of somnambulism.
It is the means to make  them more and more
evident  to you. 
REPORT.
103
  Mile. Louise Delaplane, sixteen years old, living
in rue Terechape, 9,  affected with an obstruction,
accompanied with pains,  tension and swelling of
the lower region of the abdomen, entered the hos-
pital on the 13th of June 1826.   Some leeches,
baths, and in general a proper treatment, produced
no relief; she was magnetized by Mr. Dupotet, on
the 22d, 23d, 21th, 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th of
June, 1826.  She  was  put to sleep, in the  first
sitting, at the end of eight  minutes.   We speak
to  her, she answers  not;  we cast on the floor
before her  a tin  blower, she remains in a complete
immobility, — a glass flask is broken with violence,
and she awakes suddenly.   At the second sitting,
she answered by affirmative and negative  signs of
the head  to the question  addressed to her.  At
 the third, she made us understand that she would
 be able in two or three days to speak and  indicate
 the nature and seat of  her disease ;  she was so
 severely pinched as to produce an  ecchmosis ; she
 gave no  sign  of sensibility.  A flask filled  with
 ammoniac was uncorked under her nose,  she was
 insensible at the first respiration; at the second, she
 carried her hand to her nose.   After being  awaked,
 she complained of the pain she felt in the pinched
 and   ecchyinosed  part.   The  same  flask  of
 ammoniac  is  presented to her, and at  the first
 respiration she abruptly  drew back her  head. 
104
REPORT.
 The  relations of  this girl  resolved to  take  her
 away from the hospital on the 30th of the same
 month, because  they had  heard  of her being
 magnetized ; however, she was magnetized there
 four times more.   In all of these trials she never
 spoke, and  answered only by signs the various
 questions addressed to her.   We add that, having
 been insensible to  the touch of a  pen introduced
 into her  nose carried  over her lips  and nostrils,
 also to the noise of a plank suddenly cast upon  a
 table, she was awakened by the noise of a copper
 basin thrown upon the floor, and  by the noise of
 a bag of dollars, that, at another day, we emptied
 from a high place into the same basin.
   At another time, on the 9th of December, 1826,
 Mr. Dupotet magnetized  before the  commission a
 cart driver at Charonne, whom he had magnetized
 for the last time, two or three years ago.   At the
 end  of eight  minutes, being repeatedly  asked
 whether he slept, he suddenly made an affirmative
 sign with his head, — several questions remained
 without answers.  As he  seemed  suffering, we
 asked him what pained  him,  he  indicated  his
 chest with his hand, we  asked  him again what
is that part, he answered, it is the liver, and still
indicated the  chest.  Mr. Guerseut  pinched him
violently  in  his  left wrist, and he  felt  no pain.
We  opened his eye-lid which yielded but with 
REPORT.
105
difficulty to the attempt, and we saw the globe of
the eye turned up convulsively towards  the  upper
part  of the  orbit, and his  pupil contracted in  a
notable manner.
   The commission saw, in the two observations it
has just brought near together the first  outline of
somnambulism,  that   faculty  through   which
magnetizers pretend that, during the sleep  of the
external  organs of  senses, an  internal sense  is
developed in the magnetized person, which enables
him to do reasonable external acts.   In each  of
the  cases above  related,  the commission saw,
indeed either answers by  signs or by  phrases  to
questions asked, or promises (it is true always mista-
ken) of events that were to happen, but yet the first'
marks of a beginning of intelligence.   The three
following observations will  prove to you with what
difference the promises of certain pretended som-
nambules ought, to be received.
   Mile.  Josephine Martineau, nineteen  years old,
living in rue St. Nicholas, No. 37, affected for three
months  with a chronic gartritis when she entered
the Hotel Dieu, on the 5th  of August, 1S26.  She
was magnetized  by Mr. Dupotet, in presence of
the  reporter, fifteen  times  in succession, from the
7th  to the 21st ofthe same month, twice between
four and five o'clock in  the evening, and thirteen
times, from six  to  seven  in  the morn.ng.  She 
106
REPORT.
commenced sleeping at the second sitting, and in
the fourth she answered  the  questions asked of
her.   We shall not repeat to  you that, at the end
of each sitting, her pulse was more frequent  than
at the beginning, that  she preserved  no  remem-
brance of what had taken  place  during her sleep.
These are common phenomena, which had previ-
ously  been very well verified in other  magnetized
persons.  It matters here of somnambulism only ;
and it is that phenomena  that we endeavored to
observe on Mile. Martineau.  In her sleep, she said
that she did not  see the assistants,  but that she
heard them,— and  nobody was speaking.   Being
asked about what she  meant,  she  answered that
she heard them when  they  made a  noise;  she
said that she should  not recover until  she should
be purged.  She designated  for  that purgative
three ounces of manna and  some  English pills
to be taken two hours after the manna.  The two
following days the reporter gives  no  manna, but
instead of it four pills made with the crumbs of bread
which he administered in two days, and they ope-
rated  as real purgatives four times during the two
days.   She said once that she should  awake after
five minutes, at another time  after ten minutes of
sleep;  and she awoke  only after seventeen and
sixteen minutes.  She announced  that at such a
day she would give us some details about the 
REPORT.
107
nature of her complaint.  That day  arrived, and
she said nothing.   Finally, at every time she was
found in fault.*
  M. De Geslin, living in rue de Grenelle St. Hon-
ore, No. 37, wrote  to the  commission, on the 8th
of July, 1826, that he had under his hand a som-
nambule,  lodging in  the   same  house,  Mine.
Couturier, thirty years old, a milliner, who, among
other faculties, possessed that of  reading her mag-
netizer's  thoughts, and  of executing  the  orders
that he mentally transmitted to her.
   Mr. de  Geslin's proposition was too important
not  to be immediately accepted.  Mr. Gueneau
and  the   reporter  repaired to his house,  at  this
invitation.  This  gentleman renewed there  the
 assurances he  had given us in his letter  o(  the
 surprising faculties of his somnambule, and after
 having put her to  sleep by the usual proceedings,
 he invited us to let him know what we wished to
 have executed  by  her.
   One of us, the  reporter, sate before  the writing
 desk to take note of all that was going  to  take
 place ; and the other, Mr. Gueneau wrote  upon  a

   •This fact proves the truth of an observation made by well-
 informed and experienced magnetizers,  that somnombules are
 sometimes  full  of vanity.  They are generally very suscep-
 tible about their lucidity,  and  often pretend that they  know
 and see better than they really do.  Yet, although  fulfilhng
 not their promises, they may be really in the state of somnam-
 bulism.—[Note  of  the Translator.] 
108
REPORT.
bit of paper the following words, " Go and  sit on
the cricket which stands  in  front of the  piano."
Mr. de Geslin penetrated  himself with that  will,
and  told the somnambule to  execute  what he
mentally  commanded  her.  She rose from her
seat, and sitting herself before the clock, she said,
it is twenty minutes past  nine.*   Mr. Geslin told
her, that was not what  he asked of her; then she
entered the next apartment; she was told that she
was mistaken again ; she then  resumed her  seat.
We wished that  she should scratch her head; she
stretched her right hand, but without, executing the
motion.  We wished that she should  go  and sit
at the piano, and she went  to a  window  six feet
distant from the piano.  The  magnetizer com-
plained that she did not execute what he imposed
upon her by thought; she rose and took  another
chair.  We asked, that when Mr. Geslin  should
raise his aim,  the  somnambule  may  raise hers,
and hold  it  suspended so  until the magnetizer
brings his down.  She raised  her  hand, which
remained  immovable, and was not brought down
again until five  minutes  after  the magnetizer's;
we presented to her the back side of a watch, and
she said that it was thirty-five  minutes past nine
o'clock, while it was but seven o'clock.  She said
that there were three needles, and there were but
*The reporter don't say whether she said right or not. 
REPORT.
109
two.   A watch with  three  needles is  substituted
for the other, and she said  that  there were two,
that it was  forty minutes past nine,  whereas it
was  but twenty-five  minutes past  nine by the
watch.  She wa3 put in contact with  Mr, Guenau,
and told him, concerning  his  health,  things alto-
gether erroneous and evidently contradicting what
our colleague had  written  about it  before lending
himself to the experiment.  Finally, that woman
kept, none of the promises  which  had been  made
to us, and we w -ie thereby authorized to believe
that  Mr. de Geslin had not taken all the necessa-
ry cares not to be  led into error,  and  that  was
the reason of his belief in  the  extraordinary facul-
ties he had attributed to the somnambule.*
   Here are, then, three cases very well established ;
and  we might relate some more, in  which there

   ♦As the third observation contains  several particulars which
 might sound badly to the delicate ears of our  female  readers,
 we think it more proper to  relate it  in French, such as it is in
 the original.  " Mr. Chapelain, docteureu medecine, demeuraut,
 Cour Fatve, No. 3, informa la commission, le 14 Mars, 1828,
 qulune feromie, &c.
    In the foregoing cases, it is  evident that the subjects exper-
 imented upon were really in the state of somnambulism, but
 had not  yet  reached a sufficient degree of lucidity to foretell,
 without mistake, what was to happen.  Miscarried by their
 vanity and  an exaggerated confidence in their faculties, they
 gave as positive and certain, what was in fact but some slight
 and obscure  impressions  of the instinct or  inward sense. —
 [Note or  the  Translator.] 
110
REPORT.
 was evidently either error or attempt of deception
 upon the part of the somnambule, both in what
 they said they heard, or in what they promised to
 do — or, finally, in what they announced as about
 to happen.
   In such a position, and eagerly desirous to throw
 light on the question, we thought it  essential to
 the interest ofthe investigations we were appointed
 to make, and in  order to shelter  ourselves from
 the deceptions of charlatanism, to ascertain whether
 there was any token  that could indicate the real
 existence of somnambulism, that is to say, whether
 the magnetized individual being  put to sleep was
 (allow  us the expression) more than asleep, whether
 he had reached the state of somnambulism.
   Mr.   Dupotet, of whom mention  has already
 been made several limes,  proposed, on the 4th  of
 November, L826, to the commission to make it wit-
 ness some experiments in which  he would show,
 in all its evidence, the reality of magnetical som-
 nambulism.   He  pledged  himself (and we have
 his promise signed by himself) to produce at will,
 and out of the sight of the individuals put by him
 in a state of somnambulism, some convulsive
 motions in a part whatever of their body, merely
 by directing his  fingers  towards that part.  He
considered those convulsions as a  certain token of
the existence of somnambulism.   The commission
availed itself of the-presence of B. Chamet to make 
REPORT.
Ill
upon him the experiments necessary to  ascertain
the fact and resolve the question.  Therefore, Mr.
Dupotet, having put him in a state of somnambu-
lism, stretched a finger pointedly towards his; nay,
he approached them with a metallic stem, and no
convulsive effect was produced.  One finger ofthe
magnetizer's was directed again towards those of
the magnetized ; we saw in the finders, index, and
medius of both hands, a slight motion  similar to
the convulsion caused by the galvanic pile.   Six
minutes after, the finger of the magnetizer being
directed toward the left wrist, determined in that
part a complete motion of convulsion.  Then the
magnetizer announced that in five minutes every-
thing he could wish for  would be  obtained from
 that man.  At  that moment, Mr. Marc, standing
 behind the somnambule, indicated  that the mag-
 netizer should try to act upon the right fore finger;  .
 himself directed his own toward that part, but it
 was the left one, and the leg  of the same  side
 which entered  into convulsion.  At another time,
 one of us directed his fingers towards the toes— no
 effect was produced ; some anterior passes were
 executed.  Messrs. Bourdois,  Guersent, Gueneau
 de Mussy, directed successively their fingers toward
 those of the magnetized, which were contracted at
 their  approach.  A short while after, we perceived
 some  motions  in  the  left  hand, toward which,
 however, no finger had been  directed.  Finally, 
112
REPORT.
 the  experiments  were suspended  to ascertain
 whether the convulsive motions would not take
 place when no magnetical action should be exer-
 cised, and those motions renewed themselves, but
 in a feeble manner.
    The commission concluded from this, that the
 approach  of  the  magnetizer's  fingers was not
 necessary  to produce convulsions, although Mr.
 Dupotet said that after  they  had begun to take
 place, they could be continued of themselves.
   Mile. Lemaitre, of whom we havealready spoken,
 when we mentioned the influence of imagination
 on  the  production  of magnetical  phenomena,
 presented also that convulsive mobility; but now,
 these motions, pretty  nearly  like those that are
 felt by the approach of an  electrical  point,  were
 caused in  part by the approach of fingers.   Then
 without this last condition, we saw them happen-
 ing, more or less, after the attempt made on pur-
 pose to obtain them.   Several times, this phenom-
 enon manifested itself in the course of one siltino- ■
 whereas it showed itself not at all at another. Fi-
 nally, the approach of the fingers  toward a  part,
 was sometimes  followed with convulsions in  a
 different part of the body.
   A new example of this phenomena, is that which
we observed upon Mr. Chalet, a consul of France
at  Odessa.  Mr. Dupotet mao-netized him in our
presence, on  the 19th  of November, 1826; he 
REPORT.
113
directed his fingers towards his  left  ear, and im-
mediately we perceived  in the  hair placed behind
the ear,  a motion  which  was attributed to the
contraction of the muscles of that  region.   Some
passes with a single hand were repeated, without,
however, directing the finger towards the ear, and
we perceived a general and sudden motion of ascen-
sion in the ear.   A finger was afterwards directed
towards the same ear, and produced no  effect on it.
   It was especially upon Mr. Petit, thirty-two years
old, an instructor at Athis, that (he convulsive
motions were determined with the most  precision
by the approach of the  magnetizer's fingers.  Mr.
 Dupotet presented him  to the commission, on the
 10th of August, 1826,  in  announcing to  it that
 this man was very  susceptible  of  entering into
 somnambulism, and  that while in that state,  he
 (Mr. Dupotet) could determine  at will,  without
 expressing  it by  word,  in such parts as would be
 designated  by the commission, some apparent con-
 vulsive motions,  by the sole approach of his fingers.
 Mr.  Petit was very soon put to sleep, and  then the
 commission, in order to  prevent all  suspicion  of
 intelligence, handed  to Mr. Dupotet a note, written
 in silence,  at the very  moment in  which it desig-
 nated the  part it  wished  to  see convulsed ;  he
 placed himself, afterwards, behind the magnetized
  individual, and directed his finger, in the first place,
  towards the  left  thigh,  afterwards  towards the
            8 
114
REPORT.
left elbow, and finally towards the head.  These
three parts  were  almost instantaneously seized
with convulsive  motions.  Mr. Dupotet directed
his left leg towards that of the magnetized ;  this
one agitated itself so  much that became very near
falling over.   Mr. Dupotet directed his foot toward
the right elbow, and  that elbow  was  convulsed;
afterwards, he brought his  foot  towards the left
elbow and hand, and violent convulsive motions
were developed in all the superior limbs.  One of
the commission,  Mr. Marc,  with the intention of
preventing, still more, all kind of deception, put a
handkerchief around his eyes; and  the preceeding
experiments  were  repealed  with  but  a slight
difference in the result.   Agreeably to  the signs
and  instantaneous indications of several among us,
Mr. Dupotet directed his fingers  toward the left
hand ; at its approach, both  hands agitated them-
selves.   We wished to see the action exercised  on
the  two  inferior  limbs at  once.  At  first, the
magnetizer's  fingers  were  approached  without
result; but soon after, the somnambule agitated his
hands, shrunk back, and shook his feet.  A few
moments after, the finger having  been  brought
near the hand caused  it to  withdraw itself,  and
produced  a general agitation.  Messrs.  Thillaye
and  Marc directed their fingers on various parts of
the body, and provoked some convulsive motions.
Thus Mr. Petit always had, by the approach of 
REPORT.
115
the fingers, convulsive motions,  whether a blind
was put upon his  eyes; or not and those motions
were still more strongly produced when a metallic
stem, such as a key or a branch of spectacles was
directed towards the parts submitted to the exper-
iments. Bui, as for the result, the commission —
although it has  witnessed several  cases in which
that contractile faculty was put into action by the
approach either of the fingers or  ofthe metallic
stems, needs more facts to appreciate that phenom-
enon, on the constancy and value of which it does
not believe itself sufficiently  enlightened  to  pro-
nounce its opinion.
   Having, then, no other means to ascertain the
truth, than in referring toour anxious watchfulness,
we pursued our investigations and  multiplied our
observations with  still more  care, attention  and
diffidence than ever.
   You recollect,  perhaps,  gentlemen, the experi-
ments which were made in  1820, at  the Hotel
Dieu, in presence  of a great number of physicians,
among whom were found several members of this
academy, and under  the eyes of the reporter, who
alone conceived  the plan of them,  directed  every
particular, and  noted them  down, minute  after
minute, in a process-verbal signed  by each of the
assistants.  Perhaps  we should have  omitted to
mention them here,  were it not that a particular
circumstance imposes upon us the duty.  Amidst 
116
REPORT.
the discussions, which the proposition to submit
animal magnetism to a new examination, awak-
ened in the  academy, a member*, who, however,
did not  deny  the  reality  of the  magnetical
phenomena,  had said that  while magnetizer*
proclaimed Mile.  Sampson's cure, she begged of
him to be admitted  again  into the  hospital, in
which, he added, she had died in consequence of
an organical lesion that the men of the art  had
judged incurable.   And yet, this  very same Mile.
Samson  reappeared " six years after her pre-
tended death" and your commission having been
convoked on the 29th of November, 1826, to make
experiments  upon her, wished  first to ascertain
whether  the  person  submitted  by  Mr. Dupotet,
the good faith and sincerity of whom was more-
over perfectly well known to it, really was  the
same as that  who six years  previous had been
magnetized at the Hotel Dieu; Messrs. Bricheteau
and Patissier, who had witnessed those first exper-
iments, were complaisant enough to comply  with
the invitation  of  the commission,  and  together
with the  reporter, they testified and signed a
declaration that it was really the same person who
had been the subject of the experiments  made at
the Hotel Dieu, in 1820, and that they perceived
no  other  alteration  in   her  than  that which
* Mr. Recamier. 
REPORT.
117
announced a remarkable improvement in health.
The identity being thus established, Mile. Sam-
son was magnetized by Mr. Dupotet  in  presence
of the commission.  The passes had barely com-
menced,  when Mile.  Samson  moved  on  her
arm-chair, complained, and coughed with a rough
voice, that recalled, to Messrs. Patissier, Bricheteau
and the reporter, the same sound of voice  which
had struck them in 1820, and which, at  that time
as well as in the present moment, was, according
to their opinion, a beginning of the  magnetical
action.   Soon after, she struck the floor with her
foot, leant her head  upon  her  right  hand, and
seemed to them quietly  asleep.   We lifted up her
eye-lids, and we  saw, as we  had  in 1820, her
eye-balls  convulsively  turned  upwards.   Several
questions were asked her, but  remained without
 answers.   Some others having been addressed to
her, she made gestures of impatience, and answered
in  a tone of bad  humor, that  we  ought  not  to
torment her.  Finally,  without previously men-
tioning it to  any  one, the reporter threw on the
 floor,  violently,  a table and  stick  of  wood  he
 had placed thereon.  Some of the assistants cried
 out with fear ; Mile. Samson alone heard nothing,
 made no motion  of any sort, and continued sleep-
 ing most soundly.   We awaked her four minutes
 after, in rubbing her eyes  with the thumbs in a
 circular manner.   Then the same  stick of wood 
118
REPORT.
 was suddenly cast on the floor;  the noise caused
 the magnetized to start from her  chair;  and  she
 complained very much ofthe sensation of fear we
 had just caused  to  her,  whereas, six  minutes
 before, she had been insensible to a much  greater
 noise.
   You have all heard of a fact  which attracted,
 very much at the time it took place, the attention
 ofthe surgical section ofthe academy,  and which
 had been communicated at the  meeting of the
 16th of April, 1829,  by  Mr.  Jule Cloquet.   The
 commission thought it proper  to relate it  here as
 one  of the most indisputable proofs of the  force of
 the magnetical sleep.
   Mme.  Plantain, fifty-four years of age,  residing
 No. 151, St. Dennis street, consulted Mr.  Cloquet
 on the 8th of April, 1829, for an  ulcerated cancer
 which she bore on the right breast for many years,
 and which was complicated  with a considerable
 swelling and obstruction  ofthe corresponding ax-
 illary ganglions.   Mr. Chapelain, the physician of
 that lady, and who magnetized her some months
 since,  with the  intention of dissolving  the ob-
 struction  of  the  breast,  could  obtain no other
result than a  very profound  sleep,  during which
her sensibility seemed annihilated, her ideas, how-
ever, remaining  quite  lucid.   He proposed to Mr.
Cloquet to operate her while she should be plunged
into the magnetical sleep.   This surgeon, who had 
REPORT.
119
already judged the operation necessary,  agreed,
and it  was decided  that it  would take  place the
following  Sunday,  12th  of  April.  During the
two days  previous, Mme.  Plantin was repeatedly
magnetized by Mr. Chapelain,  who  disposed her
while she was in somnambulism to suffer the ope-
ration  without fear,  and who succeeded so well as
to lead her to converse with assurance about it;
whereas, in the wakeful state, she rejected the idea
of it with horror.
   The day  appointed for the operation, Mr. Clo-
quet, at his arrival  at half past ten o'clock in the
morning, found the patient dressed, and sitting on
an arm-chair in the position of a person quietly
delivered up to the natural sleep.   There was about
one hour since  she had  returned  from  church,
which she used to attend at the same time.  Mr.
 Chapelain had caused her to  pass into the mag-
 netical sleep since her  return; the  patient spoke
 with the  greatest calm of the operation she was
 about to  undergo.   Everything being ready for
 the operation, she undressed herself and sat on the
 chair.
   Mr. Chapelain  sustained  the right arm, the
 left one was left hanging  down by  the side of
 the body.   Mr. Pailloux, an  eleve interne  of
 the Hospital St. Louis, had the care of presenting
 the  instruments   and of making  the  ligatures.
 A first  incision  was  carried  above  the  tumor 
120
REPORT.
to the  internal  face  of the  pap.   The second,
starting from the same point, surrounded the tumor
below, and was carried  to  the meeting  with the
first.   Mr. Cloquet carefully dissected the swelled
ganglions, because of their  vicinity to the exillary
artery, and extirpated the tumor.   The  operation
lasted  from ten to  twelve  minutes.   During that
length of time,  the   patient  continued quietly to
converse with the  operator, and  did not give the
slightest token of sensibility ; no alteration either
in the breathing  or  the voice ; no  motion in the
limbs, the features, or even in the pulse toas man-
ifested ; the  patient continued in the same  state
of indifference and  automatons  impassability in
which she was a few minutes before  the opera-
tion commenced.   It was not necesary to  constrain
her;  she  was sustained  only.   A ligature was
applied to the lateral thoracik  artery,  that had
been opened during the extraction of the ganglions.
The  wound  having been brought together by
some adhesive plasters,  and  dressed, the patient
was  put to bed, still in a state of somnambulism,
in which she  was left during forty-eieht  hours.
One hour after the operation, a slight hemori hagy
manifested itself, but without any bad consequence.
The first dressing apparatus was taken off on the
following Tuesday ; the  wound was cleansed and
dressed anew; the patient showed no feeling ; the
pulse preserved its  usual motion. 
REPORT.
121
  After this dressing operation,  Mr. Chapelain
awoke  the patient,  whose  magnetic sleep had
lasted two days.   She appeared to have no  idea,
no feeling of what had happened; but on hearing
that the operation had been performed, and seeing
her children around her, she testified a very lively
emotion, which the magnetizer stopped by  putting
her immediately to sleep.
  The commission had, in their two observations,
the most evident proof of the absence of sensibility
during  somnambulism :  and  it  declares  that,
although it has not witnessed (he last one, yet  it
finds it bearing such a stamp  of truth, (and  besides,
it was  testified to,) and repeated by so excellent an
observer (Mr. Cloquet) who had  communicated  it
to the  section of surgery, that it has not  feared  to
present it to you as the most indisputable  testimony
of that state of torpor and numbness determined
by magnetism.
  While   the commission  was endeavoring  to
appreciate, by  proper experiments, the  faculty  of
putting into motion without  contact, the contrac-
tibility of Mr. Peiit's muscles, some other attempts
were made upon  him, to observe a  peculiar  kind
of  lucidity, (clairvoyance) the vision or  faculty  of
seeing through the  eye lids  closed, of which  he
was said to be endowed during the  state  of som-
nambulism.  The magnetizer had announced  to
us that this somnambule would recognise between 
122               REPORT.
 twelve pieces of money that  which he (Mr. Dupo-
 tet) should  have in  his  hands.  The  reporter
 placed in it  a five  frank piece, marked  at  the
 millesim of the year XIII, (of the French repub-
 lic) and  mixed  it  up afterwards with  twelve
 others that he ranged in a circle on a table.  Mr.
 Petit designated one of these  pieces; but  it was
 by the millesim  of  the year  1812.  Afterwards,
 a watch, the hands of which had been altered, in
 order that they should mark a wrong time, was
 presented to him, and  twice  in succession Mr.
 Petit mistook their  direction.   These  errors Mr.
 Dupotet accounted for  by telling us that Mr. Petit
 was not so lucid  since he was so seldom  magne-
 tized ; and  yet, at that very sitting, the  reporter
 played with him  a game of piquet; and he often
 tried to deceive him,  in  announcing a card or a
 color differently from what it really was, and these
 attempts at deception on the part of the  reporter
 did not prevent Mr.  Petit  from playing carefully
 and knowing  the color of  his adversary's card.
 We must add that whenever we interposed a body,
 such as a sheet of paper or a piece of pasteboard
 between his eyes  and the object to be  designated,
 Mr. Petit could distinguish nothing.
   If these trials had  been the only ones by which
 we had endeavored to  recognize  that "clairvoy-
 ance," we might have concluded from it that this
somnambule did not  possess it, but in the  follow- 
REPORT.
123
ing experiment, that faculty was exhibited in  all
its power, and at this time thesuccess was altogether
according to Mr. Dupotet's  promises.
   Mr. Petit was magnetized on the 15th of March,
1826, at half past eight in the evening, and put to
sleep in about one minute.   The president ofthe
commission, Mr.  Bourdois, ascertained  that  the
number of pulsations had diminished by  twenty-
two  per minute  since he  was asleep, and even
that  the  pulse  was  somewhat  irregular.  Mr.
Dupotet, after having set a blind upon Mr. Petit's
eyes, repeatedly directed his fingers in point upon
him at the distance of about two feet.  Immediately,
a violent contraction was manifested in the hands
and feet, upon which the action was directed.   Mr.
Dupotet, having likewise  approached the feet of
Mr.  Petit, yet without contact, he  withdrew them
with quickness.  He  complained feeling in  the
limbs acted upon, a smart pain and a  burning
heat.   Mr. Bourdois  tried to produce  the same
effects; he also obtained them, but slowly and  in a
feeble degree.
   This point  being well established, we occupied
 ourselves with verifying I he somnambule's "clair-
 voyance.   In the first place,  we directed all our
 attention to establish that  his eye-lids were exactly
 closed.  In   that view,  a  light  was   held  up
 almost constantly before  Mr. Petit's eyes at  the
 distance of one or two inches, and  many persons 
124
REPORT.
 kept looking  at them all the time.   None could
 perceive  the  least opening  between them ; nay,
 Mr. Ribes, of the  academy, noticed that the edges
 of them were closed in such a manner as the lids
 were crossing each other.  After these preliminary
 observations, we went about verifying the phenom-
 enon of the vision through the eyes closed.
   Mr. Ribes presented a catalogue  that he drew
 from his  pocket.   The  somnambule,  after some
 efforts, read very distinctly these words; " Lavater
 il est bien difficile de  connaitre les hommes : (It is
 very difficult to know men ;) these last words were
 printed in very fine characters.  Then a passport was
 put under his eyes, he recognized and  designated
 it by the nameot passe homme. A few moments af-
 ter, a permit and bill to carry arms was substituted
 for the passport, and was presented to Mr. Petit on
 the blank side, he  could recognize only  that it was
 a piece framed and pretty like the former one ;  the
 permittance was turned up ; then, after a few mo-
 ments of  attention, he says what it  is, and reads
 very distinctly these words, 'De  par le Roi,' (the
 king allows) and on the left, < port d'armes (permit
 to carry arms.) A  letter opened was showed again
 to him ; he said he could not read it, because he
 did not understand the English  language   In-
 deed,  the  language   was written   in  English
Mr. Bourdois, the presidentof the commission took
from his pocket a  tobacco-box, upon  which there 
REPORT.
125
was a little figure in relievo framed with  gold.
The somnambule says that he sees the emblem of
faithfulness.   Being urged  to say what this em-
blem was, he added, I see a dog, he is standing up
before an  altar.   This was indeed the figure rep-
resented.  A closed letter was presented to him, he
could not  read the contents of it ; he followed very
well the direction ofthe lines with  his fingers, but
he  could  read very distinctly  the address  of it,
though it contained a name rather  difficult, Mr.
de  Rockcnsbrock.  These experiments wearied
Mr. Petit  very much.  He was allowed to rest an
instant; afterwards, as he was very  fond of playing
cards, we  proposed to him, as a way of resting, to
play a game.  If (he experiments of mere curiosity
contradict and tire  him,  he performed with  the
greatest ease and dexterity what pleased him, and
that (o which he  was naturally  inclining.   One
of the assistants, Mr. Raynal, an ancient inspector
at the university, played a hand of piquet  with
him, and  lost.  Mr. Petit managed the cards with
a wonderful agility, without  mistaking one. They
tried to put him in fault, by taking off or altering
the cards, but all  was in vain.  During all this
performance, the assistants had not ceased to hold
a light before Mr.  Petit's eyes, and to  examine
them with attention ; they were found constantly
closed.
   While  Mr. Petit was playing a  second game of 
126
REPORT.
piquet, Mr.  Dupotet,  at Mr. Ribes's  suggestion,
directed from behind  his  hand towards the som-
nambule's  elbow.   The  contraction  previously
observed  was produced  again.   Afterwards,  at
Mr. Bourdois proposition, he magnetized him also
behind, and still  at  one foot distant,  wTith  the
intention of awakening him.  The eagerness with
which the somnambule played, counteracted that
action, and  caused that, although  not awaking
him, he  was troubled by  it.  Several  times  he
brought his  hand behind his head, as  though he
felt pain in that part.   At last, lie fell into a state
of drowsiness that resembled a pretty  slight natu-
ral sleep, and one of us having spoken to  him in
that state, he suddenly opened  his eyes.  A little
while after, Mr. Dupotet, yet placed near him, but
at some distance, put him again into the magnetic
sleep, and the experiments  were resumed.  Mr.
Dupotet,  wishing that not a least shadow of doubt
should remain about  the  nature- of a physical
action  exercised  at will  on the somnambule,
proposed to put as  many bandages as  we would
choose on Mr. Petit's  eyes, and  to act upon him
in that state.  Indeed,  we covered his  face down
to the nostrils with several handkerchiefs ;  we
filled  up  with gloves  the  cavity formed  by  the
prominence  of the  nose, and we covered up the
whole  with  another black  cravat falling in  the
shape  of  a  veil down to the neck.  Then  the 
                   REPORT.                127

attempts of the action at a distance  were made
again  in  every possible  manner, and constantly
the same motions were  manifested  in  the parts
towards which  the hand  or feet were directed.
   After these trials were over, Mr.  Dupotet took
away Mr. Petit's bandages,  and played with  him
a game of ecarte in order to divert bis mind.  He
played with the same ease and skillfulnss as before,
and gained  again.   He was so  eager in  his
game, that he  remained insensible to the influ-
ence of Mr. Bourdois, who tried, but in vain, to act
upon him  behind, and to cause him to execute
a certain motion at his command.
   After his game wa>  fini-died, the somnambule
got up, walked across the  parlor, removing  the
chairs that  he found in his way, went and sat
down in a retired place, to resi awhile, far from the
curious persons and  the  experimenters  who  had
fatigued him.   There, Mr. Dupotet awakened  him
at several  feet distan< er;  but this awakening  was
incomplete, for a few moments after, he fell drowsy
again ; it  was necessary  to  make new efforts to
awaken him completely.
   Being awakened, he s;iys that he recollects noth-
ing  of what happened during his sleep.
   Certainly,  if, as Mr. Burdnis expressed  it a  part
in the process-verbal of that sitting, "the constant
immobility of the  eye-lids and the closing of
their edges in such a manner as the lids seemed 
128
REPORT.
crossi?ig  each other, are sufficient warranties
ofthe  clairvoyance (faculty of seeing)  of this
somnambule through the eye-lids, it is impossi-
ble, at least, not to wonder at all that happened
during that sitting, and not to desire to witness
some new experiments of the  same kind,  in
order to be able to establish one's opinion on the
existence  and value of animal magnetism?
   The wish expressed  by  our president  did not
last long before receiving its full execution in three
other somnambules, who, besides that clairvoyance
observed on the former one,  presented proofs of a
remarkable  degree  of intuition prevision, and
both concerning themselves and other persons.
   Here the  sphere  seemed  te be enlarged; it  no
longer  matters to satisfy a mere curiosity, to endeav-
or ascertaining whether it does exist a token that
may enable us to  pronounce  that somnambulism
is real  or feigned,  whether  a somnambule can
read, his eyes  being closed,  and  indulge  himself,
while sleeping, with more or less complicated com-
binations  of  games, such questions are  curious,
interesting and their solution (especially of the last
one) is, as a spectacle, a very extraordinary  phe-
nomena;  but  with  respect  to the  hopes on  the
benefit  that  medecine might derive from them
they are by far below  those which the commission
is going to communicate to you.
   There are none of you, gentlemen,  who in  all 
REPORT.
129
that you have heard of magnetism, have not been
told of that  faculty of certain somnambules,  not
only  to determine the kind of disease they  are
affected with, the duration and mode  of  termi-
nation of those diseases, but also the kind, dura-
tion and termination of the diseases of persons with
which they  were put  in  communication.   The
three following observations seemed  to  us  so im-
portant, that we thought  it a duty to make them
known to you in their whole length, as presenting
very  remarkable instances of that intuition  and
prevision ; you will also find in them all the vari-
ous phenomena which  were  not observed  in the
other magnetized individuals.
   Paul  Villagrand,  a student at law, born  at
 Magnac laval (haute Vienne) on the 18th of May,
 1803, was struck, on the 25th of December, 1825,
 with a fit  of apoplexy, with palsy of all the  left
 side  of  the body.   After  seventeen  months  of
 various  treatments by the acupuncture, a seton be-
 low the occiput, twelve moxas applied along the ver-
 tebral column, which treatment had been followed
 either at his own house, at the infirmary, or at the
 hospital ofperfectionment, and during the course
 of which he had had two new  attacks  he  was
 admitted, on the 8th of April, 1827, at the Hospi-
 tal de la Charite. Although he had received a no-
 table relief by the means he  had used before his
  entrance  into  that  hospital, he still walked with
             9 
130
REPORT.
crutches, and could not sustain himself on the left
foot.  The arm of the same side  could  perform
various motions, but Paul was not able to lift it
up to his  head.   He  could  hardly see  with  his
left eye, and had  very imperfect hearing of both
ears.  He was in  such a state, when he was trust-
ed to the hands of our colleague,  Mr. Fouquier.
who, besides the very evident paralysy, discovered
in him symptoms of an  hypertrophy ofthe heart.
  During five months, he administered to him the
alcoholic  extract  of nux vomica,  had him  bled
occasionally, purged him, and ordered that blisters
should be applied to him.  The left arm regained
some strength, — the pain he had in his head be-
came farther  apart,  and  its state remained  the
same until the 29th of August,  1827;  at  that
epoch, he was for  the first, time magnetized by Dr.
Foissac,  agreeably to the invitation and under the
direction of Mr. Fouquier.   In that first sitting, he
felt  a sensation of general  heat, and afterwards
some quick motion in his tendons.  He was  sur-
prised to be pervaded, so to speak, by an inclination
to sleep ; rubbed  his eyes  to counteract it; made
visible but  fruitless efforts  to  keep  his eye-lids
opened.   Finally, his head bent down,  and he
fell asleep.  From that very moment,  his deafness
and headach have ceased.   It was but in  the 9th
sitting that the sleep became profound ;  and in
the 10th he was  able to answer by inarticulated 
REPORT.
131
sound, the  questions that were asked him ; at a
later period, he  announced that he could be cured
only  by magnetism,  and prescribed  to  himself
synapisms, Bareges  baths, and the continuation of
the pills, made of extract  of nux vomica.  On the
25th of September, the commission repaired to the
Hospital de la Charite, and  ascertained, by a
proper examination, that the left inferior limb was
manifestly thinner  than  the  right one; that the
right hand was much  stronger than the left; that
the tongue, being drawn out from the mouth, was
brought towards the right commissure, and  that,
in the act of buccination, the right cheek was more
rounded out than the left.
   Paul was  magnetized, and  soon  entered  into
 somnambulism.  He told over again all that  con-
 cerned his treatment,  and prescribed that on the
 same day a synopism should be applied during
 one hour and a half on each leg ; that the next day
 he should take a Barages bath, and that soon after
 the bath, synapisms should  be set on him during
 twelve hours without interruption, now atone place,
 then at another; that on the  day following  after
 taking a second Barages bath, a pallet and a half of
 blood  should  be  extracted from the righ  arm
 Finally, he added that in following this treatment,
 on the 28th, viz:  three days after, he could walk
 without  crutches  in going out from the sitting
 Im;  he said, also, that it  would be necessary to 
132
REPORT.
magnetize him in that  last sitting.  The treat-
ment indicated by  Paul was followed; and on the
said day, the 28th of September, the commission
repaired to the Hospital de la Charite.  The patient
walked, leaning on his  crutches, to the conference
room, when he was magnetized  as  usually, and
put in the state of somnambulism.  In  that  stale
he assured that he could  return  to his bed with-
out crutches or support.   Having been awaked, he
asked for his crutches;  but we answered him that
he needed them no longer.   Indeed,  he rose, sus-
tained himself on his palsied leg, crossed the crowd
that followed him,  walked down  the stairs of the
experiment  room, crossed the second yard of the
hospital,  stepped up two stairs, and having reached
the lower part of the stair-case of the establishment
he  sat  down.  After  resting two  minutes,  he
walked up (helping himself with a hand, and lean-
ing on the railing,) the twenty-four stairs that lead
to his sleeping room; he went to  his  bed  without
support,  sat  again  one moment,  and executed a
new walk through the ward  ; all the patients  who
had hitherto seen him confined to his  bed were in
the greatest amazement.  From  that day, Paul
never resumed his crutches.
  The commission met again on the 11th of Oc-
tober following, at  the Hospital de la Charite. He
was magnetized, and announced that he would be
completely cured at the end of the year, if a seton 
REPORT.
133
 was applied at two inches below the  region of the
 heart.  In  that sitting,  he was pinched several
 limes;  a pin  was thrust one line deep, into his
 brows and his wrist; he gave no sign of feeling.
   On the 16th of October, Mr. Fouquier received
 from the general council  of the hospitals a letter,
 by which he was  directed to terminate the mag-
 netical  experiments that he had commenced at
 the Hospital de la Charite.   Therefore, we were
 obliged   to cease the use of magnetism, the effi-
 ciency of which the patient said  was much to his
 satisfaction.  Mr.  Foissac then caused  him  to
 leave the hospital, and placed  him in a house in
 the rue  des  Petits  Augustins, in a private room,
 in which he pursued his former treatment.
   On the 29th of the  same month,  the commis-
 sion  resorted  to the private  room,  in order  to
 examine the progress of his cure; but before mag-
 netizing him, we noticed that  he  walked with-
 out crutches,—nay, that his gait appeared firmer
 than  at the preceeding  sitting.  Afterwards we
 caused him  to try his strength  by  the dynamo-
 metre.  Having been  pressed down  by his right
 hand,  the  needles  marked  thirty  kilogramms
 and only twelve by the left hand ; it marked thirty-
 one by   both  hands united.   He  was  magne-
 tized ; in four  minutes, somnambulism manifested
itself,  and Paul assured  them that he would be
completely cured on the  1st of January.  We 
134
REPORT.
tried his strength; the right hand caused the nee-
dle to  mark  twenty-nine  kilogramms (one  less
than before the sleep,) and the left  hand (the pal-
sied one) twenty-six, (fourteen more than before
sleep,)  both  hands  united  marked  forty-five,
(fourteen more than before.)   Always, in the state
of somnambulism,  he got up to walk, and moved
about  with  rapidity; jumped  on the left  foot;
kneeled on the right knee, and rose again, sustain-
ing himself with the left hand on one of the assist-
ants, and in causing all  the weight ofthe body to
be borne on the left  knee.   He took hold of Mr.
Thillaye and lifted him up, made him move round
upon himself, and resumed his seat,  holding  him
on  his knees.  He drew with all  his might the
dynamometre, and caused the scale of traction to
mark sixteen myriagramms.  Having been invi-
ted to go down  the stairs, he abruptly left his arm-
chair, took Mr. Foissac's arm, which he abandoned
at the door, went, down stairs and  ran up  again
two and even three steps  at a leap, with a convul-
sive  rapidity, that,  however, he mitigated  when
we told him to  ascend them only one at a time.
As soon as he was awaked, he lost that  astonish-
ing increase of strength ; then, indeed, the dynamo-
metre marked but three myriagramms and three
quarters, viz: twelve and  a  quarter  less than be-
fore his awakening.  His gait was slow, but firm ;
he was not able to bear the weight  of his body on 
REPORT.
135
his left leg, (the palsied one) and he  tried, but in
vain, to lift Mr. Foissac.
  We ought to note down, gentlemen, that a few
days before this last experiment, the  patient had
lost two pounds and a half of blood,  that he still
had two blisters on his legs, a seton  on the back
part of his neck, and another on his breast; there-
fore  you will perceive with us that magnetism had
determined a very prodigious increase of strength
in the sick organs whereas the sound one remained
the same; since, during all the state  of somnambu-
lism, the whole strength  of the body had  been
more than quadrupled.
   Paul  gave up afterwards all  sort of medical
treatment.  He  wished  only to be  magnetized ;
and towards the end  of the  year,  as  he expressed
the  desire to be put, and kept during  eight days in
somnambulism, in order that his  cure might be
completed on the 1st  of January, he  was magne-
 tized on the 25th of December;  and  from  that
 day, he remained in somnambulism  until the first
 of January.
   During that length of time,  he  was awaked  at
 various and  unusual  intervals,  for an  average
 time of twelve hours ; and in these short intervals,
 we left him believing that  he  had  been sleeping
 only a few hours.  During all his sleep, his diges-
 tive functions were performed with unusual ac-
 tivity. 
136
REPORT.
    He was sleeping for three days, when, accom-
  panied by Mr. Foissac, he set out on  foot, on the
  28th of December, from Mondovi street, and visited
  Mr. Fouquier, at the Hospital de la Charite, where
  he arrived at  nine o'clock.   He recognized there
  the patients near whom he had been laying before
  his leaving  the hospital, the pupils who had  the
  care ofthe hall and read  (with  his eyes being
  closed, and a finger applied to both his lids,) some
  words presented to him by Mr. Fouquier.
    All that we had been witnessing appeared to us
  so astonishing,  that the commission,  desirino- to
 follow to its end the  history  of this somnambule,
 net on the 1st of January at Dr. Foissac's, where
 it found  Paul  who had  been sleeping since the
 25th of December.  He had ordered, fifteen days
 previous, the suppressing ofthe setons he bore on
 the back part of his neck and on his  chest, and
 had caused a cautery, that he said he should retain
 all his life, to be established on his left arm.  More-
 over, he  declared that he was cured ; that if he was
 guilty of no imprudence, he  should reach an old
 age ; that he  should sink under a fit of apoplexy
 Hav,„g been  awaked, he went out from Mr Fois-
 sac s house, walked  and ran  through  the street
 with a firm and assured step.  At his  return  he
carried with thegreatest  ease one ofthe assents
whom he could not have lifted updurioVK?
but with difficulty.            *      S     SIeeP> 
REPORT.
137
  January the 12th, the commission met again at
Mr. Foissac's, where was present Mr. Emmanualde
las  Cases, of the chamber of deputies, the count de
Rumigny the  first  aide-de-camp of the king, and
Mr. Segalas, a member ofthe academy.  Mr. Fois-
sac told us that he was going to put Paul to sleep;
that, in the state  of  somnambulism, one finger
could be applied on each of his eyes, closed ; and
that, notwithstanding so complete a closing ofthe
eye-lids, he could distinguish  the color of cards,
read the title of a  work, and some words or lines
indicated by chance in the very middle ofthe work.
At the end of two minutes of magnetical gestures,
Paul was  plunged  into  sleep,  his eye-lids  being
held constantly shut, alternately  by Messrs.  Fou-
quier, Itard, Marc, and the reporter, a pack of new
cards, tied  up with  a  band of paper, was  pre-
sented to him ; the band was torn, the cards mixed
up, and Paul  easily and successively  recognized
the king of spades, ace  of clubs, queen of spades,
the  nine  of clubs, the seven of diamonds, queen of
diamonds, and eight of diamonds.  We presented to
him, his eyes  being kept shut by Mr. Segalas, a
volume that the reporter had  provided.  He read
the title:' Histoire de France', (a history of France)
He could not read the two intermediary lines, and
read on the fifth one the name of Anquetel, alone,
that was  preceeded by  the preposition  par.   We
opened the book at the eighty-ninth page, and he 
138
REPORT.
read on the  first line  ' le nombre  de ses,J (he
omitted  the  word  l troupes; and proceeded on :)
1 du  moment on on le  croyait le plus occupe des
plaisirs du  Carnaval.'1  He likewise  read the
title ' Louis,' but could not read the Roman cypher
that was following.  A bit of paper Was presented
to him,  on which one of us  had just written the
words agglutination and  animal magnetism.
He spelt the first one and  pronounced  the two
others.  Finally, we presented  to him the process-
verbal of this sitting; he read pretty  distinctly the
date of it and some words written in a more legi-
ble manner than others.   In  all these experiments,
the fingers of some of us were applied on the whole
commissure  of each eye : in pressing the  superior
eye-lid on theinferior from upward downward-", we
noticed  that the  eye-ball  had been in  a constant
motion of rotation, and seemed to direct itself to-
wards the object submitted to the vision.
   On the 2d of February, Paul was  put in the
state of  somnambulism  at Messrs. Scribe and Bre-
mards, merchants, rue St. Honore, No. 296.   The
reporter of the commission was tha only  one pres-
ent at  the  experiment.  Paul's eves were kept
shut, as in the preceeding sitting, and  he read in
the work entitled lLesmi'le et une Nuits; the title,
the word preface, and the first line of that preface,
in omitting,  however,  the  word peu.  Another
work, entitled l Lettres de deux Amies;by Mme. 
REPORT.
139
Campan was also presented  to  him.   He distin-
guished in a picture Napoleon's figure ; he pointed
out his boots; and said  that  he saw two women.
Afterwards he read very readily the first four lines
of page three, with the exception ofthe word ravi-
ver.  Finally  he  recognized, without  touching
them, four cards that we successively presented to
him, two after two.
   In another sitting, which took place on the 13th
of March, Paul tried, but in  vain, to  distinguish
various cards applied on  his epigastrium ; but he
read again, his eyes being shut, in a book opened
by chance, and  this time his eye-lids  were kept
closed  by  Mr. Jules Cloquet; the reporter  also
wrote  on a bit of paper  two  proper names; Max-
imilier, Robespiere, which he  likewise read well,
   The conclusions to be  drawn from this long and
curious observation,  are easy.   They  naturally
flow from the plain exposition ofthe facts we have
related, and we establish them as follows : — 1st. A
patient, whom a rational treatment  prescribed
by one of the most distinguished practicians of
the capital could not cure  of palsy, is cured by
the use of magnetism, and by the exactitude with
which the treatment that he ordered to himself
 while in the state of somnambulism was followed.
 2d. In that state, his strength was increased in a
 remarkable manner.  3d.  He gave us  the most
 indisputable  proofs  that he could read  with his 
140               REPORT.
eyes shut.  4th. He foresaw the time of his cure,
and that cure actually took place.
  The following observation will show  you that
prevision still more developed in a man of a low
class, quite ignorant, and who certainly never had
heard of magnetism before.
  Pierre Cazot, of the age of twenty,  a  hatter,
born from an epileptic mother,  was liable for  ten
years to fits of epilepsy, that returned five or six
times a week, when he entered the Hospital de la
Charite,  on the first  of August,  1827.  He was
immediately  magnetized  by  Mr. Foissac; was
put to sleep at the third sitting, and became a som-
nambule at the tenth,  which took place on  the
19th of August; in that sitting, at nine o'clock in
the morning, he  announced that the same day,
at four o'clock in  the afternoon, he would  have a
fit of epilepsy, but that it  could be  prevented  by
magnetizing him a little while previous.   We pre-
ferred to verify the exactitude of his prevision, and
no care  was taken to  prevent  the fit.   We con-
tented ourselves with observing him, he being not
aware of it.  At one o'clock,  he  was seized with
a violent headach ; at  three, he was  compelled to
go to his bed; and at four exactly the fit came on;
it lasted five minutes.   The day  after the next,
Cazot  being in  somnambulism.  Mr.  Fouquier
thrust suddenly a pin  an inch long between  the
fore-finger and  thumb of his right hand;  pierced 
REPORT.
141
with the same pin (he lobe of his ear; we brought
apart his eye-lids, hit several times his conjonetive
with a pin's head, and he gave not the least token
of sensibility.
  The commission  repaired  to the Hospital de la
Charite, on the 24th of August, at nine o'clock in
the morning, to attend the experiments that Mr.
Fouquier, a member, intended to make on this
patient.  In that sitting Mr. Foissac placed him-
self in  front, and at six feet distant from Cazot;
fixed his  eyes  upon him, made  no motion with
his hands, kept  the most complete  silence, and
Cazot fell asleep in  eight  minutes.   A flask filled
with  ammoniac  was put three times under  his
nose; his face became red and his breathing accel-
erated by it, but  he was  not awaked.  Mr. Fou-
quier thrust into his fore arm, a pin of an  inch in
length.  Another was introduced two lines deep
obliquely into his sternum; a third one also  ob-
liquely into his epigastrium, and a fourth  perpen-
dicularly into  the sole of  his foot.   Mr.  Guersait
pinched his fore arm so  violently as to cause an
ecclymosis; Mr. Itard leant on his thigh with all
the weight of his body.   We  tried  to tickle him
by carrying a b*t of paper under his nose,  on  his
lips, brows, lids,  neck, and the soles of his feet:
nothing could awake him.   We urged him with
questions.   How many fits more shall you have ?
They  will continue one year.   Do you  know 
142
REPORT.
whether they will  take place near each other ?
No.   Shall you  have one  this month?   I  shall
have one on Monday, the 27th, at twenty minutes
past three.   Will it be violent ?   Not half so vio-
lent as the last one.   On what day shall you have
another attack ?   After a motion  of impatience,
he answers — in fifteen days from this, viz: on the
7th  of September.  At what o'clock?   At ten
minutes before six in the morning.
  The  sickness of one of Cazot's children obliged
him to leave  la Charite on that  da)', the 24th of
August.  But it was agreed upon to have him
return there on Monday, the 27th, in the morning,
in order to  observe the fit he had announced as
being to take place on that day, at twenty minutes
to three.  But the  porter of the  hospital having
refused  to receive him when he presented himself
at the gate, he went to Mr. Foissac's, to complain
about the refusal.  This gentleman  preferred, as
he said to us, to prevent that fit through  magnet-
ism, than to be  the  only witness of it; therefore,
we  were not able to verify  the exactitude of that
prevision.   But we  had  to observe again the fit
announced for the 7th of September.  Mr. Fou-
quier having caused Cazot to enter the hospital on
the  6th, in  order that he might receive those at-
tentions that  it would  not  have  been possible to
receive  elsewhere,  had him  magnetized  in  the
course of the Sunday,  by Mr. Foissac,  who put 
REPORT.
143
him to sleep by the sole action of his will, and the
fixedness of his look.   In that sleep, Cazot repeated
that on the next day he would have a  fit  at ten
minutes  to six,  which might be prevented  by
magnetizing  him  a  little  while previous.  At a
signal  previously agreed upon and given by Mr.
Fouquier, Mr. Foissac, of the  presence  of whom
Cazot was not aware, awakened him as he had
made him sleep, by the act of his will,  in spite of
the questions that were asked to this somnambule,
with no other intent than to keep him in ignorance
about the moment he was to be awakened.
  In order to witness the second fit, the commis-
sion met on the 7th  of September, at  a quarter
before six in the morning, in St. Michael ward, at
la Charite.  There  it was informed that the day
previous, at eight o'clock in the evening,  Cazot
had  been seized  with a pain in his head, with
which he had been troubled all the night; that
that pain had caused  him the sensation of a chime,
and that  he had had darting  pains in his ears.
At ten minu(es to six, we witnessed the epileptic
fit, characterized by the stiffness and contraction of
the limbs, the brisk repeatedly throwing back ofthe
head, the bending back of the body, the convulsive
closing up ofthe eye-lids, the retraction of the eye-
ball towards the upper part of the orbit, sighs, cries,
insensibility to pinching, and the starting of the
tongue  between  the teeth.  These symptoms 
144
REPORT.
 lasted five  minutes, during which  there were two
 remissions  of a few  seconds each,  and after-
 wards a sensation of general fatigue, as if the limbs
 were broken down.
   On the lOih of September, at seven o'clock in
 the evening,  the committee met  at  Mr. Itard's
 house, in order to pursue its experiments on Cazot.
 This one was in the study,  where a conversation
 was held with him until half past  seven  o'clock ;
 at that  moment, Mr. Foissac,  who  had  arrived
 after him, and had remained in the entrance sep-
 arated from the study by (wo closed doors, and at
 the distance of twelve feet, commenced magnetizing
 him.  Three  minutes after,  Cazot  said : I believe
 that Mr. Foissac is there, for 1 feel drowsy.  In
 the course  of  eight minutes he  was  completely
 asleep.  AVe questioned him, and  he assured us
 again that in three weeks  from that  day, on  the
 1st of October, he would  have  an  epileptic fit at
 two minutes before twelve o'clock.
   It was important to observe wilh as much care
 as we had already done on the 27th of September,
 the epileptic fit that had been predicted for the 1st
 of October.  Therefore, the commission repaired,
 the same  day, at half past seven  o'clock, to Mr.
 Georges', a hat manufacturer, rue des Manebiiers,
 No. 17,  where Cazot was living  and working.
We were informed  by Mr.  Georges, that Cazot
was a workman of regular and excellent couduct, 
REPORT.
145
incapable, either by the simplicity of his mind of
by his morality, to lend himself to the least decep-
tion ; that he had had no  epileptic fit since  the
last one witnessed by the commission at the Hospi-
tal de la Charite;  that, feeling unwell, he had kept
his room all day, and had done  no labor; that
there was in the present moment in his room an
intelligent man, the  veracity  and discretion  of
whom could be relied  upon; that  this  man had
not told him that he had foretold an attack for this
day; that it appeared  as a thing well proved, that
since the 10th of September, Mr. Foissac had  had
some  relation with  Cazot, without inferring from
it, however, that he had spoken to him of his  pre-
diction,  and that,  on  the  contrary, Dr.  Foissac
attached a very  great  importance to keeping the
patient in ignorance of what he  had announced.
At five minutes of twelve, Mr.  Georges proceeded
to a room situated above that  of  Cazot;  and one
minute  after, he ran  down, and  told us that the
fit was actually taking place.   We walked up in
haste, Messrs. Guersent, Thillage, Marc, Gueneau
de Mussy, Itard, and  the reporter, all at once, to
the sixth story; we arrived at one minute to twelve,
the precise time, by the watch of a member of the
commission.  We  surrounded Cazot's  bed,  and
found that the  fit was characterized by  the follow-
ing symptoms.  A tetanick stiffness of the trunk
and limbs;  the throwing back ofthe head, and at
          10 
146
REPORT.
 times of the trunk ; a convulsive withdrawing up-
 wards of the eye-ball, .he  white of the eye alone
 being visible; a very strong injection of the face
 and neck ; contraction of the jaws ; partial fibril-
 lary convulsions of the muscles  of the right  fore-
 arm ; soon after, so  violent an opisthotonos that
 the trunk was  lifted  up in forming an arch of a
 circle, and  that the body had no other support
 than the head and the feet.   A few moments after
 that attack, viz : after one minute of calm, a new
 fit similar to the preceding, declared itself. We heard
 some inarticulated  sounds;  the patient's breath-
 ing was short, irregular, and by sudden motions ;
 the larynx  lowering and  raising  itself rapidly ;
 the pulse throbbed from one hundred and thirty to
 one hundred  and  sixty  times.  There was no
 foam in  the mouth ;  neither did we notice  any
 contraction of the thumb towards the  palm of the
 hand.   After six minutes had elapsed, the fit ter-
 minated by sighs, the relaxing  of the limbs and
 the opening of the eye-lids.   The patient fixed his
 eyes upon the assistant with an air of astonishment;
 he complained of being  broken down,  and  said
 that he had this feeling especially in his right arm.
  Although the  commission  could  not doubt the
 action, evident enough, of magnetism upon Cazot,
 even he being not aware  of it,  and at a  certain
 distance, it wished to ascertain by  a  new  proof.
As it had been proved in the last sitting that Mr. 
REPORT.
147
Foissac had communicated with  him, and might
have told him that he had announced an attack
of epilepsy that was  to  take  place on  the 1st of
October,  the commission conceived the idea,  in
suggesting  some new experiments on  Cazot, to
induce Mr.  Foissac into error about the day in
which his epileptic patient would have  an attack,
which should have  been previously announced.
By so doing, we sheltered ourselves from all suspi-
cion of connivance, unless one could suppose that a
gentleman whom we had always seen honest and
loyal, wished to concert with an uneducated man,
destitute  of intelligence, to deceive us.  We ac-
knowledge that we have no occasion for  such an
injurious supposition, and we are pleased to do the
same justice to Messrs.  Dupotet and Chapelain, of
whom we had several times occasion to speak to
you.
   Therefore, the commission  met in Mr.  Burdois'
study, on the 6th of October, at twelve o'clock, the
time at which Cazot arrived there with  his child.
Mr. Foissac had been invited  to repair to the same
place at half past twelve tfclock ; he came at the
precise time and remained in the parlor, — Cazot
being not informed of it, and having no  commu-
nication  with us.   One of  us,  however, went
through  a  secret door,  and told him that Cazot
was sitting on a sofa, at the  distance  of ten  feet
from a closed door,  and  that  the commission  de- 
148
REPORT.
sired to see him put to sleep and awakened at that
distance; viz:  he,  Mr. Foissac remaining in the
parlor, and Cazot in the study.
  At thirty-seven  minutes past twelve, while Ca-
zot was engaged in talking with us, or was look-
ing at the pictures that adorned the  room, Mr.
Foissac, being placed in the next apartment, began
magnetizing him; we noticed that in four minutes,
Cazot slightly wrinkled his eye-lids, appeared un-
easy, and finally fell  asleep in nine minutes.  Mr.
Guersent, who had taken  care of him at the hos-
pital of children, asked of him whether  he recog-
nized him.   The answer was affirmative.  Mr.
Itard asked whether he  would soon have a fit.
He answered in four weeks from that day, on the
 3d of November, at  five minutes past four o'clock
in the evening.   We asked him afterwards when
he  would have  another  attack.  He answered,
 after a moment of reflection and  hesitation, that
 it would be in five weeks after the one he had just
 announced on the 9th of November, at half past
 nine in the morning.
   The process-verbal qf that sitting having been
 read in Mr. Foissac's presence,  in order that he
 might sign it with us,  we wished, as abovemen-
 tioned, to induce him into error; and in reading it
 to him, before having it signed by  the members of
 the  commission,  the reporter read that the next 
REPORT.
149
attack would take  place on Sunday,  the 4th of
November, whereas the patient  had announced
it for Saturday, the 3d. It also deceived him as to
the other fit, and Mr.  Foissac  noted down these
false indications as if they  were true; but having,
a few days after, put Cazot in somnambulism, as
he used  to do to remove  his  head-ach, he  was
informed  by him that the  fit was to take place on
the third, and not on the fourth ;  he spoke of it to
Mr. Itard, on the 1st of November, thinking that
an error might have slipped into the process-verbal,
of which, however, Mr. Itard  confirmed the pre-
tended veracity.
   The commission again took every possible care
to observe the fit of the 3d of November ; it repaired
at four o'clock to Mr.  Georges' ;  it was  informed
by him, his wife, and a workman of his, that Ca-
zot had  worked, as usual, all  the forenoon until
two o'clock, and that, in dining, he had  felt some
headach ; that, however,  he had come down to
resume his work ; but the headach increasing, and
feeling some dizziness, he had gone again to his
room, laid down on his bed, and had fallen asleep.
Then Messrs. Bourdois, Fouquier, and the reporter,
preceded by Mr. Georges, went to Cazot's cham-
ber.  Mr. Georges' entered alone and found him
soundly asleep, which he  made us notice through
 a door half opened  towards  the staircase.   Mr.
 Georges  spoke  loud  to  him, shook him, moved 
150
REPORT.
his arms; but he  could not be awakened ; at six
minutes after 4 o'clock, in the midst of Mr. Georges'
attempts to awaken him, Cazot  was seized  with
the chief symptoms that  characterize a fit of epi-
lepsy, and exactly similar to what we had previ-
ously observed on him.
   The second attack, announced in the sitting of
the 6th of October for the 9th of December, that
is two months previous, took place at half past
nine o'clock, a quarter of an hour later than it had
been predicted, and was characterized by the same
precursory phenomena, and  the  same  symptoms
as those of the 7th of November.
   Finally, on the 11th of February, 1828, Cazot
announced another fit for the 22d of April follow-
ing, at five minutes after twelve o'clock ; and that
prediction was verified as the preceding ones, but
five minutes later, viz: at ten minutes after twelve.
That fit, remarkable for its violence, the sort  of
fury with which Cazot bit his hand and fore-arm
by the repeated motions that threw him up on his
bed, had lasted for thirty-five minutes,  when Mr.
Foissac, who was present, magnetized him.   The
convulsive state soon ceased, to make room for
the state  of  somnambulism, during which Cazot
rose, placed himself on a chair,  and said  that he
was very much fatigued ; that he would have two
fits more ; the one in  nine weeks  from the  next
day, at three minutes  after six  o'clock, (25th of 
REPORT.
151
June.)  He was not willing to think of the other
attack, because it was necessary to occupy  himself
with what would previously happen, (at this mo-
ment he sent away his wife, who was present,) and
he added, that about three weeks after the fit ofthe
25th  of June, he would become crazy;  that his
craziness would last three days, during which, he
would be so mad, that he  would fight with every-
body ; that he would  even ill-treat  his wife and
child;  that it  would be  necessary  to  separate
him  from  them  ; that  he  doubted whether he
would not kill a person, whom he did  not desig-
nate.   Then it would be necessary to bleed him
on both his feet.   Finally, said he, I shall be cured
for the month of August; and being once cured
 I shall never be  sick again, whatever  circum-
stance may happen*
   It was on the 22d of April, that these predictions
 were made; and two  days after,  on the 24th,
 Cazot, in trying to stop a mad horse that had taken

   * The reader will recollect that at the time Cazot began to
 be magnetized, he was liable to five or six fits a week.  Now,
 owing to magnetism, his at acks became farther and farther
 apart; what he foretold was always verified with so great a
 precision, that it is likely he would have been cured according
 to his last  prediction, if his life had not been abruptly taken
 away by an unexpected accident. — [Note of the Trans-
  lator.] 
152
REPORT.
the moise between his teeth, was violently thrown
off against the wheel of a chaise, which broke  his
left orbitary  arcade, and horribly mangled  him.
Having been transported to the Hospital Beargon,
he died on the 15th of  May.   At the opening of
his scull, the surgeon  found a  recent meningite,
some purulent gathering under the leguments of
the scull, and at the extremity ofthe choroid plex-
us a  yellowish substance,  outwardly white  and
enclosing some small hydatides.*
   We see,  in this observation, a young man liable
for ten years  to  epileptic fits,  for  which he  had
been  successively treated at the Hospital of chil-
dren, at St. Louis, and exempted from the military
service.  Magnetism acts upon him,  although he
is perfectly ignorant of what is done  to  him ; he
becomes a somnambule ; the symptoms of his com-

   • This same man, who foretold with so much exactitude his
fits of  epilepsy, was not allowed to foresee  the unfortunate
event that was to end his life.  How account for this ? I find in
a note published by Dr. Foissac, on Cazot, the following words:
"From the first time he entered into the state of somnambulism,
Cazot had manifested a great tendency to  apply his faculty of
prevision to the ordinary events of life ; but being convinced,
by a great many facts, of the  danger there  is  to allow to a
somnambule to depart from the circle of disease, I had re-
strained the tendency of the  faculty in him !  Who  could:
ever have foreseen that so well motived and laudable a reserve
should become  perhaps  the cause of his death.   [Note or
the  Translator.] 
REPORT.
153
plaint are improved by it; the fits become less fre-
quent ; his headach and  oppression are removed
through the influence of magnetism ; he prescribes
to himself a treatment appropriate to  the nature
of his disease, and says that he will recover by it.
Having been magnetized,  although  not aware of
it, he fell into somnambulism, and was awakened
from that state with the same promptitude as when
he was  magnetized  by immediate  contact.  In
fine, he indicated, with a rare  precision,  one and
two months previous, the day and hour at which
he would have a fit.   Yet, endowed with previs-
ion for so  many  remote  attacks of epilepsy, more
than  that, for attacks which will never  happen,
he did not foresee that, in  two days, he would be
struck by a mortal accident.
   Without contriving to  conciliate  all that may
appear, at a first  look, contradictory in such an ob-
servation, the commissioner will beg you  to notice
that Cazot's previsions are related only  as to his
 fits ;  that they are nothing else but the conscious-
 ness  of the organical modifications that are prepar-
 ing themselves, and  take  place within him, as  a
 necessary result  of internal functions; that these
 previsions, although  more extended, are altogether
 similar to those of certain epileptic persons, who are
 enabled, through various precursory symptoms,  as
 the headach. vertigo, morosity, the aura  epileptica 
154
REPORT.
&c, to recognize that they will very soon have an
attack.  Would it be surprising that somnambules,
the sensation of whom, as you saw it, are exceed-
ingly active and keen, could foresee their fits for a
long time in advance, through  various  internal
symtoms and impressions, that escape the atten-
tion of a man in the wakeful state:  so,  gentlemen,
we might understand the prevision testified by Are-
teus, in two passages of his immortal work, by Sau-
vage, who relates an instance of it, and by Cabanis.
We add that Cazot's prevision was not absolute;
it was conditional,—since, in foretelling a fit, he an-
nounced that it  would not take place if he was
magnetized ; — indeed, it did not take place;  that
prevision is  all organic and  internal.   Thus we
understand why he did  not  foresee an  external
event, viz:  that he  would,  by chance,  meet a
mad horse, which he would be imprudent enough
to try to stop, and that he would receive by him a
mortal wound.  Therefore, he could have foreseen
a fit that was never to happen.   It is the needle of
a  watch, which, in  a  given  time, ought to  go
through a certain portion of the dial, but  does not
because it is broken.
   We have  just presented you, in the  two forego-
ing observations, two remarkable instances of in-
tuition, of that faculty, which is developed during
somnambulism, and through which two magetized 
REPORT.
155
individuals saw the disease with which they were
affected, indicated the treatment that suited them,
announced their termination and foresaw their fits.
The fact we are now going to analyze before you,
offered us a new kind of interest.  Here, the som-
nambule pronounces his judgment on the complaint
of the persons  with whom he is  put in contact;
he  determines  the nature of it, and indicates a
proper remedy.
  Mile. Celine was put in the state  of somnam-
bulism, before the commission, on the  18th and
21st of April, the 17th  of June, 9th of August,
23d of December, 1826,13th and 17th of January,
and the 2lst of February, 1827.  In  passing from
the wakeful state into somnambulism,  she  felt a
diminution of heat of several degrees, by the ther-
mometer ; her tongue became  dry and rough, from
being wet and supple, as it was before  ; her breath-
ing, usually soft  and agreeable, became fetid in a
most repulsive manner.
   Her sensibility  was entirely lost during her sleep,
for she  breathed six times  while a phial filled
with muriatic acid was held under her  nose;  she
 shewed no emotion at it. Mr. Marc pinched her
 wrist;  an acupuncture  needle was  thrust three
 lines deep into her  left  thigh, another  needle two
 lines deep into her left wrist.   These two needles
 were united together by a galvanic conductor, and 
156
REPORT.
some very  well marked convulsive motions were
effected in  her hand.  Mile. Celine seemed to be
a stranger to what was done upon her.  She heard
the person who spoke near to her, and in touching
her, and she heard  not the noise produced by two
plates suddenly broken by her side.
  It was while she was  plunged into that state of
somnambulism, that  the  commission  recognized
three times in  her the faculty of detecting the com-
plaints of the persons she touched, and of indica-
ting the remedies that it was proper to  give them.
  The  commission found among its  members a
gentleman  who was willing to submit himself to
the  explosion of  the  somnambule;  it was Mr.
Marc.  Mile. Celine was requested to carefully ex-
amine the  state of health  of our colleague: she
applied her hand on his forehead, and  the  region
of the heart,—and after three minutes, said that
the blood was rushing to the head ; that Mr. Marc
actually had a pain in the left side of that cavity;
that he often  felt some oppression, especially after
his  meals; that  he was  often  troubled with  a
slight cough, that the lower part of the chest was
filled up with blood ; that something troubled the
passage of the food ; that  the part  called the re-
gion of the xiphoid (appendix,) had grown nar-
rower;— that to cure Mr Marc, it should be ne-
cessary to bleed him in an abundant manner; ap-
ply,  on the inferior part of the breast, poultices 
REPORT.
157
made with hemlock,  and rub it with laudanum ;
that he should drink lemonade, in which he should
dissolve some gum arabic ;  eat little, and  often ;
finally,  that he ought not to walk immediately
after eating.
   We  longed to hear from Mr Marc, whether he
had really felt what the somnambule had an-
nounced ; he  said that  he had, indeed, some op-
pression when he  walked  immediately after his
meals ; that he was often troubled with cough, and
that before the experiment, he had a pam in the
left side of his head,  but  felt no difficulty in the
passing down  of his food.
   We were struck by the analogy that  existed be-
tween Mr Marc's feeling and that which was an-
 nounced by the  somnambule ;  we carefully noted
 it down, and waited for another opportunity to ver-
 ify again that singular faculty.  That opportu-
 nity was furnished to the reporter by the mother of
 a  young lady whom he attended, as a physician,
 for a long time.
    Mile de  N***,  a  daughter of  the  Marquis of
 N***   a  peer of France,  from  twenty-three to
 twenty-five years old, was affected  for two years
 with an ascitis dropsy, accompanied with numer-
 ous obstructions, some of the size of an egg, oth-
 ers as large as the fist, some others as big as a child's
 head, the largest  of  which were  in the left side of
 the abdomen.  The external part of the abdomen 
158
REPORT.
  was uneven and bunched;  these swellings corres-
  ponded with the obstructions contained within the
  cavity.   Mr.  Dupuytreu had  already performed
  ten or twelve punctures on that patient,  and at
  each  time had extracted a great quantity  of a
  clear limpid inodorous and pure albamine.   This
  was always followed by some relief.
    The reporter was three times  present at these
  operations ; and it was easy,  both to Mr. Dupuytreu
  and himself, to ascertain the hardness and  size of
  these  tumors; and  consequently  to acknowledge
  that it would not be possible for them to cure this
 patient.   Nevertheless,  they prescribed  various
 remedies, and thought it especially important that
 Mile, de  N*** should make  use of the milk of a
 goat previously submitted to murcural functions.
   On the  21st of February, the reporter brought
 with him  Mr. Foissac and Mile. Celine to a house,
 in the street Faubourg-du-Roule,  without indicat-
 ing to them either the  name,  residence,  or the
 nature  of  the  disease  of the person whom  he
 wished  to submit to the somnambule's examina-
 tion.
  The patient entered the experiment room only
 after Mr Foissac had  put Mile. Celine to sleep.
 Then, after taking one of her hands between hers
she examined her during eight minutes, not in the
same manner as a physician would do, by pressing
upon the abdomen, and  scrutinizing it in  every 
REPORT.
159
possible manner, but only by slightly and repeat-
edly applying her  hand on her abdomen,  her
chest, her back and head.  Having been  asked
to let us know what she had observed in Mile, de
N###, she answered that all the abdomen was dis-
eased ; that there  was a  great quantity of water
and a schirrous,  by the side of the loin;  that the
bowels were swollen ; that the patient was afflicted
with worms; that there were some tumors as large
as an egg, in which purulent matter was contained,
and that these tumors must be painful;  that there
was in the lower part of the stomach,  an obstructed
gland,  as large as three  of  her fingers ;  that this
gland was in the inside of her stomach, and must
trouble the digestion ; that the disease was of long
standing, and that, finally, Mile, du N***, was lia-
ble to headaches.  She prescribed the use of a pti-
san of borago  and dod's-grass, (chendent) with
some nitre in it, five ounces of the juice of "parie-
taire" to be taken every morning, and a very lit-
tle  mercury taken in some milk; — she  added,
that the milk of a goat, previously  rubbed with
murcural ointment  half an hour before milking
it, would suit better.  Besides,  she prescribed some
poultices, with flowers, constantly applied on her
stomach, frictions  on the cavity, with laurel oil, or
in  case that it could not  be  procured, with  the
juice of that shrub  mixed  with the oil of sweet
almonds, a clyster of a decoction of peruvian pow- 
160
REPORT.
 der, mixed with another  decoction  of emollient
 plants.  The patient's food should consist of white
 meats, milk, farinaceous vegetables;  no lemon at
 all.   She permitted  very little wine, a little  rum
 perfumed with orange tree flower, or some essence
 of peppermint.   This treatment  was not followed,
 and even should it have been so, it would not have
 saved the patient.   She died a year after;  and as
 no post-mortem examination was made, we could
 not verify, in all its particulars, the truth of what
 the somnambule had said.*
   In a very delicate case,  in which some very
 skillful physicians, several of  whom are members
 of the Academy, had prescribed a mercurial treat-
 ment  for an  obstruction of  the cervical  glands,
 which they thought caused by a siphilitic affection,
 the family of the patient perceiving  that the con-
 sequences of this treatment were becoming very
 alarming, wished to have the advice of a somnam-
 bule.  The  reporter was called to assist at that
 consultation, and he did not fail to seize that new
 opportunity to add   something else to what  the

  * Without attaching a very great importance to that singular
 coincidence of the prescription given by the somnambule, to
use the milk of a goat previously rubbed  with mercurial oint-
ment, with the same prescription  recommended to the patient
by Mr. Dupugtrue, and the reporter, the commission  thought
proper to insert this fact in its work.   It presents it,  as hav-
ing been well authenticated by the reporter, without any  fur-
ther explanation. 
REPORT.
161
commission  had  already seen.   He  found  the
patient a young woman — the countess de F***,
having all the  right side of the neck very much
obstructed by  a great  number of glands,  placed
nearone another; one of these glands was opened,
and emitted a yellowish purulent matter.
   Mile. Celine,  having been magnetized by  Mr.
Foissac, in presence of  the reporter, put herself in
contact with the patient, and said that her stomach
had been attacked by  a substance like poison;
that the intestines were slightly inflamed ;  that
there was in the right upper part of the neck a
scrofulous malady, that must have been more  con-
siderable than at the present moment; that, in fol-
lowing a treatment she was going to prescribe,
there would be  some amelioration within a  fort-
night or three weeks.   This treatment consisted
of eight leeches applied on the hollow of the stom-
 ach, a few  grains of magnesia, some decoction of
 gruel, a saline purgative, every  week ; two injec-
 tions  every day, one of which should  be  of
 the decoction of Peruvian  powder,  and  imme-
 diately after, another of guimauve roots, frictions
 with  ether on the limbs,  a bath  every  week;
 and for  food,  milk, light meats, and abstinence
 from  wine.   This treatment  was  followed for
 a little while; and there was already a remark-
 able improvement.  But the impatience of the pa-
 tient, who  thought that she did not regain her
             11 
162
REPORT.
 health fast enough, determined her family to ask a
 new consultation of physicians. They decided that
 the patient should be submitted to another mercu-
 rial treatment. The reporter then ceased to see her,
 but was informed that in consequence of the use of
 mercury, the symptoms previously felt in her stom-
 ach  became so  much  aggravated,  that  it had
 brought her to the grave, after two months of ex-
 cruciating  pains.  A process-verbal of post-mor-
 tem  examination, signed by Messrs.  Fouquier,
 Marjolin, Cruvelhier, and Foissac, stated that there
 was  a scrofulous or tuberculous swelling of the
 glands of the neck, two small excavations filled  up
 with pus, resulting from the dissolving of  the tu-
 bercules of the upper part of each lung.  The mus-
 cous membrane of the stomach was almost entirely
 destroyed.   These  gentlemen  verified also that
 nothing indicated the existence of a syphilitic dis-
 ease, either recent or at any former period.
  It results from these observations, 1st. That  in
 the state of somnambulism Mile. Celine recognized
 the disease  of the persons with whom she was
 put in  contact.  2d. That the declaration  of one
 of these persons,  the examination that  was made
 of the other, after three  punctures, the  aulopsy of
the third one, were found  according to what the
 somnambule had announced.   3d.  That the va-
rious treatments prescribed by her do not depart ei-
 ther from the circle of the remedies that she might
have known, nor from the order of things that she 
REPORT.
163
might reasonably recommend; 4th.  That she ap-
plied them with a sort of discrimination.
  To all these facts, that we have collected with
so much labor,  observed with so much diffidence
and attention, that we have endeavored to class
in the best possible manner  to make you  follow
the development of the phenomena we have wit-
nessed, that we have especially  applied ourselves
to present to you free from all the accessory circum-
stances which  might  have embarrassed and en-
tangled their exposition, we might add  those that
the ancient, nay, modern history  relates   about
 the prevision that  have been often realized, the
 cures  obtained  by  the imposition  of  the hand,
 about oracles,  extacies, convulsionar,  hallucina-
 tions, finally about all that which, by departing
 from  the ordinary  physical phenomena,  can  be
 accounted for through the action of one body up-
 on another, enters into the  sphere of psychology,
 and may be considered as an effect depending on
 a moral influence out of the  perception  of our
 senses   But the commission was appointed to ex-
  amine somnambulism, to make  experiments  on
  that  phenomenon which  had not been studied by
  the committee of 1784, and to give an account of it.
  Therefore, it would  have departed from  the cir-
  cle within which it had been circumscribed, if, in
  seeking to support what it had seen  by quoting
  authorities that  might have  observed analogous 
164
REPORT.
 facts, and it would have enlarged its work with facts
 foreign to its purpose.   It has related with impar-
 tiality, what it saw  with diffidence;  it has exposed
 with order what it has observed in various circum-
 stances, and followed with a minute and persever-
 ing attention.
  It has the consciousness that the work it presents
 to you is  the faithful expression of all that it has
 observed.  You  are informed of the  difficulties
 which it  had to overcome ; they were, in a certain
 measure,  the cause  of the delay it has caused  in
 making  this report, although for a long time the
 materials were in our hands; — however, we shall
 not complain, and apologize for this delay,  since it
 gives to our observations a character of maturity
 and reserve  that ought to command  your con-
 fidence to the facts we have  related,  instead of
 the precipitation and enthusiasm  with which you
 might reproach us,  had we collected them but on
 the day previous.   We add that it is far from our
 thought  to believe that  we have  seen everything
 concerning animal  magnetism,  and we  do not
 pretend to induce you to admit as an axiom, that
 nothing  is positive  in it but what we have men-
 tioned in our report.  Far from  setting limits to
 that branch of the  physiological science,  we, on
 the  contrary,  entertain the  hope  that  " a new
field is opened " before  it; and certain as we are
 of the exactitude of our own observations,  present- 
CONCLUSIONS.
165
ing them  with confidence  to those who, after us,
will occupy themselves with magnetism, we con-
tent ourselves  to draw the  following conclusions,
that are the necessary consequence of the facts the
whole of which constitute our Report.
                 Conclusions.
  1. The contact with the thumbs or hands, fric-
tions, or certain other gestures  made at a  little
distance from the body, and called passes — such
are the means used to place one's self in communi-
cation, or, in other words,  to transmit the action
from the magnetizer to  the  magnetized person.
2. External and visible means are  not always
necessary, since, in many instances, the steadiness
of the look will have been sufficient to produce the
magnetical phenomena, even the magnetized indi-
vidual being not aware of it.   3. Magnetism acts
upon persons of both sexes and different ages.  4.
The  time necessary to  transmit the magnetical
influence and make  it felt, varied from half an
hour to one minute.   5. Magnetism, in  general,
does not act on healthy persons.  6. Neither does
it operate on every patient. 7. Sometimes, during
the magnetical operation, some insignificant and
fugitive effects manifest themselves, but which do
not belong to magnetism alone;  such  as  some
oppression, heat or cold,  and other nervous  phe-
          11* 
166
CONCLUSIONS.
 nomena, that may be accounted for  without the
 intervention of a  particular agent,  viz. through
 hope or fear, the prevention and expectation of an
 unknown and new thing,  the tiresomeness which
 results from the monotony of gestures, the silence
 and quiet kept during the experiments, finally by
 imagination,  that  exercises  so  great  an  empire
 over  certain minds and  certain  organizations.
 8.  "A certain number of the observed phenom-
 ena appeared to  us as having been produced
 by magnetism alone, and could not be produced
 without it.  These are physiological and thera-
 peutical phenomena well established."  9. The
 real effects produced by magnetism  are very vari-
 ous; it  agitates  some,  calms others; the most
 usually  it  causes  a momentary  acceleration of
 breathing and  circulation,  some transient convul-
 sive fibrillary motion, resembling electrical shocks,
 a numbness more or less deep, some drowsiness,
 somnolence, and, in a small number of cases, what
 magnetizers call somnambulism.   10.  The exist-
 ence of a constant and only character, fit to make
 us recognize in every case  the reality  ofthe state
 of  somnambulism, has not been  established.
 11. However, " we may conclude with certainty',
that such a state exists, whenever it gives rise to
the development of the  new faculties designated
by  the names of clairvoyance, intuition, pre-
vision, or  produces some  great change on the 
CONCLUSIONS.
167
physiological state,  as insensibility,  a  sudden
and  considerable  increase  of strength," and
whenever, finally, that effect cannot be attributed
to another cause.  12. As  among the effects ari-
sing from somnambulism, there are  some that
can be  feigned, somnambulism itself can  some-
times be so too; and thus furnish charlatanism
with means  of deception.   Therefore, in the obser-
vation of those phenomena, which as yet present
themselves only as isolated facts that can be con-
nected with  no theory, it is but by a most attentive
examination, the severest care,  and by numerous
and varied  trials,  that one can escape  illusion.
13.  The sleep determined  with more or less
promptitude, and established  in a degree  more or
less profound, is a real, but not constant effect of
magnetism.    14. It is a fact,  demonstrated too,
that it has been determined in such circumstances
as the magnetized  individuals  could  neither see
nor know  the means used to cause it  to take
place.  15.  When a person has been once put to
the magnetic sleep, there is no need of recurring to
contact and the "passes" to magnetize him again.
The magnetizer's look, his will alone, have  upon
him  the same influence.   In  such  a  case, the
magnetized person can be not only acted upon,
but also completely thrown  into  somnambulism ;
the magnetizer can bring  him out of that state, he
being not aware of it, out of his sight, at a certain 
168
CONCLUSIONS.
  distance, and even through closed doors.   16.  Cer-
  tain alteratians, more or less marked, are ordinarily
  produced  in the perceptions, in  the  faculties  of
  those who fall into somnambulism, by the effect
  of magnetism.  (A) Some, in the middle of the
  noise of  confused  conversations,  hear no other
  voice than the magnetizer's; many answer in a
  correct and precise manner  the  questions asked
  by him, or other persons who have  been  brought
  into contact with  them ; some others hold conver-
 sation with  all the  assistants; seldom,  however,
 they hear what is going on  around themselves.
 Most of the time, they remain, completely, strangers
 to external and unexpected noises made at their
 ear, such as the resounding of copper vases violent-
 ly struck before them, the falling of furniture, &c.
 (B) The eyes  are closed; the eyelids  yield  but
 with difficulty to efforts  made with  the hands to
 open them; that operation, which is not free from
 pain, exhibits  the eye-ball convulsed, and turned
 upwards, and sometimes downwards in the orbit.
 (C) The sense of smelling is sometimes  annihila-
 ted ;  somnambules can  breathe into their luno-s
 the muriatic acid or concentrated ammonia, with-
 out feeling any trouble by it, even without suspect-
 ing it.  The contrary exists in some other cases:
 they are sensible to ordors.  (D) Most of the som-
 nambules we have seen  were completely destitute
of the sense of feeling.   We could tickle their feet, 
CONCLUSIONS.
169
nostrils, and the  angle  of the eye with a feather;
pinch their  skin so as to cause an  ecchymosis,
prick it under  the nail with  pins suddenly thrust
into it  to a  great depth,  without the least token
of pain on  their part; nay, they seemed not to
perceive it.  Finally, one of them has been  seen
who remained insensible to  a most painful surgi-
cal operation, and in whom neither the face nor
the pulse nor the breathing denoted the  least  emo-
tion.   17. Magnetism has the same strength and
intensity of action, and is as  quickly felt at a dis-
tance of six inches —and the phenomena devel-
oped by it are the same in both cases.   18.  The
action at a distance cannot, as  it seems, be  exer-
cised  with success but on individuals  who  have
already been  submitted to  magnetism.   19. We
did not see any person falling into somnambulism
the first time  he was  magnetized.   Somnambu-
lism manifested itself sometimes only in the eighth
or tenth sitting.  20.  We  have constantly seen
the  ordinary  sleep,  which  is  the repose of the
organs of  sense,  of the  intellectual faculties,
and  voluntary  motions, preceding  and  termina-
ting the slate of  somnambulism.   21.  While in
somnambulism, the  magnetized persons whom we
observed  preserved  the  exercise of the  faculties
they possess during the wakeful state.  Nay, their
memory seems  more' faithful and  extensive ; for
 they remember what happened all the time and at 
170
CONCLUSIONS.
 every time they were in somnambulism.  22. Af-
 ter awaking, they say that they have  totally for-
 gotten every circumstance ofthe state of somnam-
 bulism, and can never recollect it again.  To as-
 certain this, we had  no other guarantee than their
 own declarations.  23. The muscular strength of
 somnambules is sometimes numbed and palsied.
 At some other times, their motions are but troubled,
 and they walk  staggering, as  drunken men do,
 without avoiding, and sometimes also in avoiding,
 the obstacles they meet in their way.  There are
 somnambules who preserve, in all its integrity, the
 exercise of their limbs ; who even  become  much
 stronger and  smarter  than in  the wakeful  state.
 24. We saw two somnambules, who distinguished,
 their  eyes being closed, the objects  placed  before
 them;  they  have designated, without  touching
 them, the color  and  value of  cards;  they read
 words written with the hand, also several lines of
 books, opened without adhering to  any particular
 page.  This phenomenon took place even  when
 the opening of the eyelids was kept exactly closed
 by the fingers.  25. We met, in two somnambules,
 the faculty of foreseeing acts  ofthe organization
 more  or  less  distant  and  complicated.  One of
 them  announced several days, even several months
 in advance, the day,  hour and minute of the
 invasion and return  of epileptic fits.   The  other
indicated  the time of his  cure.  Their previs^ 
CONCLUSIONS.              171
ions were realized with  a remarkable  precision
and exactitude.  They seemed to us applied only
to acts or lesions of their own organism.  26. We
met but one somnambule who indicated the symp-
toms of the diseases of three  other  persons  with
whom they had been put in communication.  Yet
we had  been  making  investigations about that
faculty on  a  pretty  large  number of individuals.
27. In order to establish with correctness the rela-
tion of magnetism with therapeutics, it would be
necessary to have observed the effects of  it on a
great number of persons, and made, a  long  time,
and every day, experiments on the same patients.
 The commission, not having  done  this, ought to
 have contented itself with saying what it saw in a
 too small number of cases to dare to pronounce its
judgment.   28.  Some of the magnetized  patients
 felt no good from it.  Others felt a relief,  viz. the
 one, the suspension  of habitual pains,  another
 regained his strength ; a third one  felt a  delay of
 many months in the return of the epileptic  fits,
 and a fourth the complete cure of a  grave  and
 long-continued palsy.   29. Considered as an agent
 of physiological phenomena, or as a therapeutical
  means,  magnetism should be ranked within the
  frame of medical  knowledge,  and  consequently
  physicians alone ought to use and watch over it, as
  it is already practised in the northern countries of
  Europe.  30. The commission  could  not  verify, 
172             CONCLUSIONS.
because it had no opportunity to do so, other facul-
ties that magnetizers had announced as existing
in somnambules.  But it has collected facts impor-
tant enough to allow it to  believe  that the Acad-
emy should encourage and favor researches on
magnetism, as being  a very curious branch of
psychology and natural history. 
 
 
 


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