A practical manual of animal magnetism : containing an exposition of the methods employed in producing the magnetic phenomena, with its application to the treatment and cure of diseases / by Alphonse Teste ; translated from the second edition by D. Spillan.

  • Teste, Alph. (Alphonse), 1814-
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical manual of animal magnetism : containing an exposition of the methods employed in producing the magnetic phenomena, with its application to the treatment and cure of diseases / by Alphonse Teste ; translated from the second edition by D. Spillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    more heat of imagination, than probably I possess, have car- ried him away. Would that I, as also those who, like me, shall be engaged in animal magnetism, could contribute to re- store composure to the mind of those who witness our extra- ordinary experiments, and that by our own composure. Let us, however, alter Mesmer's example, make efforts to restrain ourselves; and, certainly, powerful efforts are required to pre- vent ourselves from being exalted to the very extreme point, when we see all the surprising and beneficial effects which a man with a kind heart and a desire to do good may produce by means of animal magnetism. I enter then on the subject, and with no inconsiderable ardor. After ten days' rest at my estate, without attending to any thing but my repose and my gardens, I had occasion to enter the house or my steward. His daughter was suffering from a violent toothache ; I asked her in jest if she wished to be cured; she, of course, consented. I had not been ten minutes magnetising her, when her pain was completely gone; and she felt no return of it after. Another woman was cured on the following day of the same affection, and in as short a time. This slight success made me try to do some good for a peasant, about twenty-three years of age, who had been keep- ing his bed for four days in consequence of inflammation on his chest. I went to see him : it was last Tuesday, the fourth of this month, at eight o'clock in the evening; the fever had just become lighter. I made him get out of bed and magnet- ised him. What was my surprise to see at the end of half a quarter of an hour this person fall into a tranquil sleep in my arms, without pain or convulsion. I urged on the crisis, which caused him some giddiness in the head: he spoke aloud of his ordinary affairs. When I thought his ideas must affect him disagreeably, I arrested them, and began to inspire him with others of a more pleasant and lively turn. It required no great efforts on my part to accomplish this. Then I saw him quite happy, fancying that he was dancing at a file, &c. 1 cherished these ideas in him, and thereby I forced him to move himself with considerable activity on his chair, as it were to dance to an air which, by singing mentally, I made him repeat quite loud. By these means I made the patient sweat pro-