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

  • Esdaile, James, 1808-1859.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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

    18/54 (page 14)
    perfectly passive while I drove a pin into the small of his back. Latterly, his back began to arch backwards, and he was now in a state of u opisthotonos ,” the nape of his neck resting on the back of the chair, and his breech on the edge of the seat. Being now convinced that we had got something extraordi nary, I went over to the adjacent court-house, and begged the judge and collector of the district to come over to the hospital. We found him in the same position I had left him in, and no hallooing could attract his attention. Fire was applied to his knee without his shrinking in the least, and liquor ammonias, that brought tears into our eyes in a moment, was inhaled by him for some minutes without causing an eyelid to quiver. I now bent his head forward, and placed his eyes in front of a mid-day Indian sun. On opening the eyelids, the pupils were seen to be dilated as if by belladonna, and the light produced no effect whatever upon the iris . We were all now quite satis fied that total insensibility of all the senses existed, and left him. He awoke after three hours, and had no recollection of anything that had happened. On the 6th April, the inflammation was very high, and the part exquisitely tender to the touch. I therefore attempted to mesmerise him again, and in three quarters of an hour the coma was established, and I squeezed the inflamed part with as little effect as if it had been an India rubber bottle. When he had recovered from the first operation, I deter mined to perform the second one under the mesmeric influence, if possible, and invited all the European gentlemen in the neighbourhood to be present. Our success was complete. He was operated on at 3 o’clock p.m., and did not awake till 12 o’clock at night. The same insensibility of the iris and of the inflamed part was repeatedly witnessed, and conclusively proved on the second occasion also. The limbs, throughout these experiments, were as flexible as those of a person killed by lightning, and the joints were all as passive as door-hinges. From a careful survey of all the attending circumstances of this case, I felt confident— I. That it was morally and physically impossible that the man could be an impostor, inasmuch as he could not imitate