INTRODUCTION.

THE subject of the following pamphlet has excited the extremest attention in France, has for years filled their Journals and Mercures, and has employed some of their best pens and their brightest wits. By some it has been applauded as the greatest of philosophical discoveries, and by others decried as the juggle of an unprincipled impostor. The English nation has too much curiosity for every thing that occupies the neighbour kingdom, from whom we have long since been used to receive the laws of politeness and etiquette, and who have lately seemed to take the lead of us in philosophical discovery, for the present translation not to prove an acceptable present to a large and respectable class of our countrymen. It has been thought proper, in order that the most uninformed reader may find in this little compilation, every species of information upon the subject, to prefix to it a brief account of the progress of this system.

M. Mesmer, the inventor of the animal magnetism, is a German physician. The first thing by which he distinguished himself, appears to have been the publication of a Dissertation upon the Influence of the Stars on the Human Body, printed at Vienna 1766, and publicly defended by him as a thesis in that university. In 1774 father Hehl, a German philosopher, strongly recommended the use of the loadstone in the art of medicine. M. Mesmer became very early a convert to the principles of this writer, and actually carried them into practice with distinguished success. In the midst however of his attention to the utility of the loadstone, he was led to the adoption of a new set of principles, which he conceived to be much more general in their application and importance. In conformity to these principles he laid aside the use of the loadstone, and proceeded with his cures in the method which he afterwards published to the world. This apostacy involved him in a quarrel with father Hehl and the celebrated Ingenhouz, by whom he had formerly been patronized; and as their credit in Vienna was extremely high, and their exertions against him indefatigable, his system almost immediately sunk into general disrepute. To parry their opposition he appealed in 1776 to the academy of sciences at Berlin. Here however his principles were rejected as “destitute of foundation and unworthy the smallest attention.” Undismayed by these important miscarriages, he made a progress through several towns of Germany, still practising the methods of the animal magnetism, and from time to time publishing an account of the cures he effected, which did not fail to be followed by a detection from his enemies. In the mean time, resolved, as it should seem, if possible not to deprive his country of the benefits of so valuable a discovery, he returned a second time to Vienna, and made another essay with no greater success than the former.

Decided in his conduit by these uninterrupted defeats, he left Germany and arrived at Paris in the beginning of the year 1778. Here one of the first connexions he formed was with M. A. J. S. D., author of the Dictionnaire des Merveilles de la Nature, from which work many of the following particulars are extracted. It is observed by this Writer, that “in spite of the apparent cautiousness and reserve of M. Mesmer, and even in spite of the little success of his first experiments, he could not refuse him credit for sincerity in his conduct, and solidity in his reasonings; and he was convinced, that the failure did not originate in the fault of his agent, but the indisposition of the subjects upon which it was employed.” In April 1778, M. Mesmer retired to Creteil with the patients he had collected, and in a few months almost all of them returned to Paris perfectly restored. One of them in particular was a paralytic, deprived of the use of her limbs, and who now walked with all the ease and firmness in the world. In November M. A. J. S. D. introduced M. Mesmer to the house of a family of distinction, and who were actuated with the extremest curiosity respecting all discoveries which had the benefit of humanity for their object. Here he made an experiment so remarkable that it is necessary to extract it somewhat at length.

“There being a pretty numerous company in the saloon, M. Mesmer touched successively several persons, some of whom had nerves extremely irritable, without producing any effect sufficiently considerable to deserve to be ascribed to the animal magnetism. The operation was repeated; the success was the same.

“The governor of the children of the family, a man of a very robust and muscular constitution, little inclined to credulity, and fortified in his scepticism by what he had just seen, had complained for some time of a pain in his shoulders. As he was beyond dispute the least susceptible person in the company, he proposed himself by way of gasconade for the subject of a last experiment.

“M. Mesmer refused to touch this gentleman, but consented to direct upon him the magnetism from a small distance. In compliance with the doctor’s inclinations, the governor turned his back, and M. Mesmer, seven or eight feet from his subject, presented his finger. This continued for two minutes, the governor replying to the repeated questions of the doctor with much humour and irony, M. Mesmer then nodded his head significantly to the company, and in the mean time guided his finger upwards, downwards, and a little circularly. The patient said that he felt a kind of shuddering in the superior part of the back; he however ascribed it to the action of the fire near which he stood, and accordingly removed to another part of the room. The experiment was resumed, the sensation augmented, and the patient said he could compare it to nothing better, than a stream of boiling water, circulating in the veins of his back and shoulders. The impression became so strong that he refused to submit to the experiment any longer. He was persuaded however; the master of the house held one of his arms, and myself the other. In the process of the experiment the heat became so insupportable, that he violently broke away from our grasp. It was succeeded by a profuse perspiration in the part affected.

“M. Mesmer then placed the forefinger of each hand upon the chest of the patient. The same sensation, but less violent, was produced in this part; it ascended gradually to the face, and was succeeded by a perspiration of the forehead. The patient then presented his forefingers and thumbs, the rest of his hand being clenched; M. Mesmer did the same very near to the patient, but without touching him. He complained successively of a shuddering, itching and stiffness in the palms of his hands; these were again succeeded by a local perspiration.”

To this remarkable experiment we will beg leave to add the following from the Journal de Paris, No. 44, 1784.

“M. Mesmer being one day with messieurs Camp—— and d’E—— near the great canal at Meudon, proposed to them to go alternately to the other side of the canal, while he remained where he was. He then directed them to thrust their cane into the water, in the mean time doing the same himself. At this distance M. Camp—— was seized with a fit of the asthma, and M. d’E—— with a pain in the liver to which he was subject. Many persons have been unable to submit to this experiment without fainting away.”

“One evening M. Mesmer walked with six persons in the gardens of the prince de Soubise. He performed the magnetical operation upon a tree, and a little time after three ladies of the company fainted away. The duchess de C——, the only remaining lady, supported herself upon the tree, without being able to quit it. The count de Mons——, unable to stand, was obliged to throw himself upon a bench. The effects upon M. Ang——, a gentleman of a very muscular frame, were more terrible. M. Mesmer’s servant, who was summoned to remove the bodies, and who was inured to these scenes, found himself unable to move. The whole company were obliged to remain in this situation for a considerable time.” These instances are cited by M. Thouret, Recherches & Doutes, p. 65.

M. Mesmer was from the first desirous of submitting his system to the examination of the faculty of medicine; but he would not submit to a regular and authentic committee appointed for that purpose, apprehensive as he said of the baleful effects of the spirit of society. This exception occasioned a misunderstanding between him and the faculty, and the examination was never made.

In France the success of M. Mesmer was the reverse of what it had been in Germany. His patients increased rapidly. His cures were numerous and of the most astonishing nature. He was obliged to form a number of pupils under his inspection to administer his process. In 1779 he published a Memoir respecting the Discovery of the Animal Magnetism, and promised a complete system upon the subject, which should make as great a revolution in philosophy, as it had already done in medicine. Struck with the clearness and accuracy of his reasonings, the magnificence of his pretensions, and the extraordinary and unquestionable cures he performed, some of the greatest physicians and most enlightened philosophers of France became his converts. Among these M. Court de Gebelin particularly distinguished himself, a writer, who had attained the highest reputation by his researches into antiquity, and who was, if possible, still more distinguished for the elegance of his taste, the beauty of his conceptions and the richness of his fancy. The house of M. Mesmer at Creteil was crowded with patients. A numerous company was daily assembled at his house at Paris, where the operation was publicly performed; and M. Deslon, one of his pupils, is said to have cleared £100,000. He was patronised by people of the first rank, and, as M. Thouret observes, the animal magnetism became a mode, an affair of bon ton, an interest, extremely precious and warmly espoused by the fashionable world.

In the mean time the new system was by no means destitute of enemies. Some of the first pens in France were drawn to oppose it, and among others that of M. Thouret, regent-physician of the faculty. The faculty indeed had all along beheld its progress with the extremest jealousy. At length it was thought to deserve the attention of government, and a committee, partly physicians, and partly members of the royal academy of sciences, with doctor Benjamin Franklin at their head, were appointed to examine it. M. Mesmer refused to have any communication with these gentlemen; but M. Deslon, the most considerable of his pupils, consented to disclose to them his principles, and assist them in their enquiries. Their Report forms the principal piece in the ensuing pamphlet. M. Mesmer however has appealed from their decision to the parliament of Paris.

In the mean time it can no longer be concealed that the system of the animal magnetism is to be regarded as an imposture, and it may therefore be asked, why it should be thought necessary to give to the public a translation of papers, which may be thought interesting only to persons who have been witnesses of the imposture. To this enquiry several good answers may be given.

One at which we have already hinted is the universal attention it has excited at Paris, where it seems to have divided the public speculations with the celebrated and incomparable discovery of the aerostatic globe. There are surely few people of a literary turn among us, who will confess themselves void of curiosity respecting what engages all the faculties of our neighbours, or who will not confess that their literary pursuits are commonly at least as interesting and instructive a subject of enquiry, as their politics.

Secondly, the Report of the commissioners and the enquiries respecting the animal magnetism in general may be considered as relating not merely to a temporary and unfounded hypothesis, but to the general and most important question respecting the influence of the imagination upon the animal frame, a question peculiarly interesting to the metaphysician, and of the last consequence in medicine. Upon this subject the Report seems to throw new light, and to have a tendency to add precision and accuracy to our notions in regard to it.

But the argument upon which we would place the principal stress is the essential importance of this fact in the history of the human mind. Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities. It is observed of civil history, that it is properly the record of human calamities; the same thing may be observed of ecclesiastical history, it is the record of our errors. For this reason a well written ecclesiastical history, a species of composition that we suspect does not yet exist, would perhaps be the most instructive study in the world.

But there is an additional reason, which gives the error of the animal magnetism a particular claim to our attention. The same error was started, if M. Thouret be in the right, two centuries ago. It is therefore worth our curiosity to enquire, what different instruments were necessary to deceive mankind in an ignorant and an enlightened age, in the commencement of the seventeenth and the close of the eighteenth century; in a word to run a parallel between the borrowed system of Mesmer, and the original one of Paracelsus, Maxwel and sir Kenelm Digby. And as every publication ought to be as complete as possible within itself, we have destined to assist the reader in this enquiry, the ensuing paper of the society of medicine respecting M. Thouret’s performance.

P. S.The following extract of a letter from the best authority from Paris, has been received while these papers are in the press. It relates to the particulars of a fact alluded to at the bottom of page xiv.

“Mesmer has complained to the parliament of the report of the royal commissioners, and requested that they would appoint a new commission, to examine—not his theory and practice, but—a plan, which shall exhibit the only possible means of infallibly demonstrating the existence and utility of his discovery. The petition was printed: many thought the parliament would do nothing in it. But they have laid hold of it to clinch Mesmer, and oblige him to expose all directly; so that it must soon be seen whether there is any difference between his method and Deslon’s.—I give you their

“Arret, of the 6 Sept. 1784.

“The parliament ordains that Mesmer shall be obliged to expose, before four doctors of the faculty of medicine, two surgeons and two masters in pharmacy, the doctrine, which he professes to have discovered, and the methods which he pretends must be adopted for the application of his principles: they likewise ordain that a report of his communications shall then be delivered to the attorney general, to be laid before parliament for their sentence.”