The introduction of mesmerism, as an anaesthetic and curative agent, into the hospitals of India / by James Esdaile.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The introduction of mesmerism, as an anaesthetic and curative agent, into the hospitals of India / by James Esdaile. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    4G I well remember Mr. Grant's frequent exclamation, Well! 1 am ashamed to have lived so long in ignorance of this great wonder. If, as Dr. Simpson very truly says, and no one denies, the mesmeric phenomena can sometimes be produced by the inde- pendent action of the mind on the body, I think, on the other hand, that from the facts observed by me and others, we are entitled to hold that this is not the only origin of the mesmeric symptoms, but that mesmerism, as practised hy me, is a genu- ine physical influence excited by one individual over another. Or at least, that it was not suggestion or imagiiiation that en- abled me to perform nearly three hundred painless capital operations ; every precaution having been used to exclude them as detrimental to the desired result. Nor can I see how suggestion and imagination enabled me to entrance madmen, and a person in a state of intense natural coma. If asked, what then is mesmerism ? I would respectfully answer, that the bodily phenomena compose only one half of the evidence that must be examined, before we can hope to form any satisfactory theory of the nature of the mesmeric influence. And as I have, on the present occasion, pm-posely restricted myself to the practical department of the subject, I am precluded from suj^porting my views by a reference to in- numerable physiological and psychical phenomena elucidating the nature of the mesmeric power. Indeed, till the more gross facts are generally admitted, it would be time wasted to take into consideration the higher mesmeric phenomena, and to reason from a review of the whole subject. I shall therefore content myself with having shewn for the present, what mes- merism is not. II. ktIV J. PILLANS, PRINTER.S, EDINBURGH.