activity of the brain is renewed) by being relieved of the nervous secretions that have deserted the surface, and become concentrated on the sensorium and muscular system.

The smallness of the cause, and the greatness of the result, when we restore a person to the complete possession of his senses, and intellect, by sprinkling water in his eyes when in the mesmeric coma, are quite as remarkable in natural fainting, in which the effects are often equally striking and instantaneous; and I leave it to the reader to determine whether the exhaustion of the nervous system in natural coma, and its presumed repletion in the mesmeric state, does not assist us in understanding the similarities and differences observed in natural, and mesmeric sleep.

CHAPTER VI.

Mesmerism as a Remedy.-Coma as a Medical Agent.Journal of Practical Mesmerism.-Chronic Inflammation of Eye cured.-Nervous Headache ditto.-Acute Inflammation of Eye ditto.-Return of Nervous Headache prevented. Rev. Mr. Fisher's Report.-How to make a Convert.-Tooth drawn in the Trance.-Convulsións cured by ditto.-Arms straightened in ditto.—Sense of Formication removed.-Lumbago, Sciatica, Pain in Crural Nerve, cured.-Palsy of an Arm ditto.Hemiplegia greatly benefitted.-Tic cured.—Rheumatism ditto.-Mesmerism as a Disease. Resembles Hysteria.-Ignorant Charges of Imposture.-The Public abused.-The Public disabused.Folly and Unfairness of its would-be Guides.-Spontaneous Development of the Mesmeric Disease.-Mesmerising by doing nothing taught by the Mesmerists themselves.— A natural Consequence of frequent Mesmerising.—Examples of Mesmerising by doing nothing.-Hysteric Theory. -Hope to hear of Hysteria as a Remedy soon.-Rational Mode of studying Mesmerism.

FOR practical purposes, the physical effects of Mesmerism may be divided into simple somnolence, semiinsensibility, and total insensibility, or coma: of the first, nothing more need be said, and abundant examples of the others will be given in my "Journal of Practical Mesmerism."

Although accepting thankfully whatever nature deigned to offer in answer to my inquiries, in the various cases in which I consulted her; yet they were not presented to the vis medicatrix naturæ, at haphazard, and without selection. My first case was indeed a "pomegranate full of many kernels," and offered so many facts from which great practical deductions could be drawn, that I only followed out the indications of nature in all my subsequent proceedings; so that my operations have not been “A mighty maze, and all without a plan."

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I. I was certain (if life is not a phantasmagoria) that in the mesmeric trance, the muscles of the whole body had been as plastic, and obedient to my command, as clay in the hands of the potter; and I felt satisfied that if the same state of things could be brought about, muscular spasms and contractions would disappear before this great solvent. The straightening of limbs, long contracted, very soon verified this inference.

II. Having, in this case, witnessed the total extinction of nervous irritability, I was led to conclude, that in a like state of things, nervous pains would vanish before this supreme anodyne. The cure of nervous headaches immediately demonstrated the truth of this idea.

III. The insensibility to pain convinced me that the most painful surgical operations might be performed without the knowledge of the patient, and this has been done to an extraordinary extent, so much so, as to be a daily matter of course.

IV. I had seen high local inflammation, and sympathetic fever suspended during the trance in my first patient, and that the artificial inflammation (which it was my object to excite, for the cure of hydrocele,) did not develop itself, while the mesmeric influence was in activity, and that the pulse and temperature had become natural: thence I inferred, that inflammation was probably incompatible with such a state of the constitution, and I soon succeeded in curing acute inflammation of the eye and testis, by no other means than the mesmeric trance.

As regards the certainty of my conclusions, it required no great sagacity to believe the evidence of my senses, and to go and do as nature bid me. A fact in nature being once ascertained, and all its accessories carefully observed, we may be confident of re-producing it, at will, by fulfilling the necessary conditions, if the phenomenon is under human control. I therefore tried to bring about the same condition of body, by the means required to be used by nature, before she will condescend to interfere in our favour, feeling convinced that if she did interfere, it would be with unerring wisdom, and unapproachable skill; and that what had been feebly begun by her weak, but obedient creature, would be triumphantly completed by her laws, when brought into action; the way for them being merely prepared, in the manner pointed out by experience.

"Nature is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God;" and the Author of nature has ordained, that such effects should often follow such predisposing

causes.

Mesmeric coma will in the following pages chiefly figure in surgical operations, and is not so often required in the treatment of medical cases; but when it can be induced, it is extremely important in instantly extinguishing nervous pains, arresting convulsions, and aiding the natural resolution of inflammation, by its anodyne and restorative powers; and if it could be induced in the commencement of some of the most fatal diseases, it would probably arrest their progress, for it revolutionises the whole system, and every other constitutional affection is for the time suspended.

In chronic inflammation it is a useful discutient, gently stimulating the nerves, and capillary vessels of the part, to more healthy action; and for this purpose, local Mesmerism is only required.

The chronic exhibition of Mesmerism as a general tonic, in diseases of debility promises to be of great service, especially in functional derangement of the nervous system, and I am hopeful that we have at last got a direct nervous remedy, hitherto, a "desideratum" in medicine.

In palsy from weakness of the nerves, it promises to assist us greatly, and Dr. Elliotson has recorded many cures of cases he could not have managed before. All who venture to confess the truth to themselves, know how miserably impotent for the cure of palsy, and nervous diseases generally, are the medical means hitherto employed. If we succeed, we often cannot tell why, and the connection of cause and effect is very uncertain. But in the chronic treatment