Second half-yearly report ... from 1st March to 1st September, 1849 / [by James Esdaile, with a letter from him to J. Elliotson] ... to which is added, remarks on the conduct of the English medical journalists ... in refernce to [mesmerism] ... By Dr. Elliotson.

  • Mesmeric Hospital (Calcutta, India)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second half-yearly report ... from 1st March to 1st September, 1849 / [by James Esdaile, with a letter from him to J. Elliotson] ... to which is added, remarks on the conduct of the English medical journalists ... in refernce to [mesmerism] ... By Dr. Elliotson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    out of a hundred patients in any^ hospital in Calcutta under our control^ in the course of 15 or 20 days, and a new source of health and comfort might thus be afforded to the inmates of our general hospitals. Hereupon certain persons will raise a cry that—^ He wishes to throw the accumulated experience of ages, as well as physic, to the dogs, and to rely upon mes- merism exclusively as the Universal Medicine.^ Yet these reckless misrepresenters well know that they are the advocates of an exclusive system of medicine, and pretenders to final knowledge, while my sole object has been to unite and not to dissociate mesmerism from medicine, and that my constant aim has been to add this ncAV healing knowledge to what we already possess, being painfully oppressed with a sense of the miserable impotency of our present resources in combating the host of evils that human flesh is heir to. ‘^The following are a few examples of the unaided power of mesmerism in subduing or relieving diseases which often baffle the skill of the most experienced physician. “ Sreenath Sen, aged 80, looks 50; came to the hospital crawling along with the help of a pole: his feet were per- manently turned out at right angles, and could not be moved inwards: all his joints were stiff and ached, and he looked more like a decrepid ourang outang than a man. He had suffered from rheumatism for the last six years, and for two years had been in his present state. After fifteen days’ mes- merising, he began to improve, and at the end of two months his feet had resumed their natural position and freedom of motion; all his other aches had disappeared and he left the hospital walking freely and alertly. Lunkoo, aged 35, has had the shaking palsy for a year, being the sequel of a severe fever. He cannot stand without support on both sides; his body shakes continually; the hands are half closed and cannot be shut or opened farther; he can only raise his hands half way to his head, and his speech is nearly inarticulate. He can now, at the end of two months, walk after a fashion with the help of a stick, shut and open his bands forcibly, and raise his arms to the natural extent above his head; he speaks much better and the shaking of his body is much diminished. “ I do not expect to cure this man, but I am confident physic would have done him no good. Palsy arising from old age or organic disease is of course as incurable by mesmerism as by every thing else, but there seems to be some excitability left in this man’s nervous system, and it may be still farther roused bv the mesmeric stimulus. t/ “ Sheik Bucksh, aged 40, complaining of pain in the head