cence, larger than a man's fist, at the end of his penis, and the body of the organ is also much enlarged. I entranced him in a few minutes, on the first trial, and in the presence of Major Riddell, Captain Anderson, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Jackson, dissected out the organ, but was obliged to sacrifice the glans, as it was a cartilaginous degeneration of all the structures of the part :- the man did not awake till I was amputating the organ, after a long dissection. Wonderful to say, he relapsed into the trance again in a few minutes, and remained for twenty minutes, quite rigid, and insensible, with his eyes wide open, and the pupils dilated, in a full noonday light, to which they were wholly insensible. This is not the only instance in which the eyes have been wide open during the trance, and would not remain shut when I closed them, showing, I conceive, the absolute extinction of muscular power. In most cases, the muscles of the eyeball continue to act involuntarily, after the rest of the muscular system has gone to rest, and on opening the eyelids, the ball of the eye is seen rolling round the orbit, like an agitated magnetic needle. Under the most intense degree of the influence, the muscles of the eye, and iris, also lose their contractibility, and the eye becomes as motionless and insensible

That the second

to light as that of a dead man. trance was not a faint, we all satisfied ourselves, not only from the general rigidity of the body, but from the regular natural pulse.

Sept. 17th. In the presence of the Reverend Mr. Fisher and Dr. Heathcote, I to-day operated for cataract on a man while in the mesmeric trance. The pupil was so much dilated that Dr. H. asked if belladonna had been applied? After depressing the lens, and withdrawing the needle, the lens rose again, and such was the continued dilation of the pupil, that it passed into the anterior chamber, and came in contact with the cornea; the man being insensible all the time.

Sept. 18th.-To-day, in the presence of the Reverend Mr. Bradbury, I entranced a man for the first time, in the hope of subduing an inflammation of one eye, by removing all pain and irritation, and thereby allowing the restorative powers of nature to act undisturbed: he was entranced sitting on a stool, in order to lessen the flow of blood to the head. We counted his pulse beforehand; it was 100 in the minute; respiration 20; thoracic movement natural; temperature higher than usual. After twenty minutes, his

pulse had sunk to 70, his respiration to 18, and, by comparing his chest with that of a man lying alongside of him, we ascertained that there was not a vestige of thoracic movement. All above the diaphragm was as fixed as the trunk of a statue, and the temperature of his body had become lower than natural.

If these tests are not considered an "experimentum crucis,” I am at a loss to imagine what will be reckoned more satisfactory by the human physiologist. It appears to me, that when we see the involuntary organs of the body revolutionised, it is absurd to attribute it to the effect of the will.

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CHAP. IV.

Somnambulism.-Definition.—Singular Introduction to it. Suspected Child-Stealing by its Means. - First Experiment in making a Somnambulist. Trial of Mesmeric Skill in a Court of Justice. — Men stolen out of Court. — Truth of Mesmerism publicly proved. — Natural Sleep, and its Varieties, can be imitated by Artificial Means.—Mesmeric Sleep. Mesmeric Day-mare. -Mesmeric Sleep-walking. - Mesmeric Sleep-waking. Mesmeric Dreaming.· How to make Somnambulists.— Imitative Stage of Somnambulism.—Communicative Stage of Somnambulism.—Mesmeric Catalepsy. Mesmeric Coma. —Natural Clairvoyance.— Mesmeric Clairvoyance.- Nature of the Mesmeric Power. - Illustrative Examples.

BEFORE submitting to the reader the results of my observations on somnambulism, I beg leave to prefix the following summary of the appearances recognised as distinctive of the somnambulistic state in Europe. It is given in the Brit. and For. Med. Review, already quoted:-"Somnambulism is a condition in which certain senses and faculties are suppressed, or rendered thoroughly impassive, whilst others prevail in most unwonted exaltation; in which an individual, though asleep, feels and acts most energetically, holding an anomalous species

of communication with the external world, awake to objects of attention, and most profoundly torpid to things at the time indifferent; a condition respecting which, most commonly, the patient on awaking retains no recollection; but, on any relapse into which, a train of thought and feeling related to, and associated with, the antecedent paroxysm, will very often be developed."

I intended to have reserved this branch of the subject till I had examined it in all its purely medical bearings; but I was forced, by most extraordinary circumstances, to enter prematurely into this difficult and obscure field of experiment, in order to enable me to give my evidence in a court of justice; and in describing my experiments, I hope it will be borne in mind, that I had never seen a somnambulist, or thought of making one, up to this date. My first essay was as extemporaneous and accidental as the production of mesmeric coma, on the first occasion I tried to mesmerise :-the facts are simply these.

June 17th. - About a fortnight ago, I was driving through Hooghly Bazaar, and saw a crowd collected before the police office. On asking what was the matter, I was told that a man had been apprehended in the act of stealing a boy, and that the parties were inside the guard