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Thornton W. Burgess - "The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver"

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Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions

C >> Charles Mackay >> Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions




At the second meeting, M. Berna was requested to paralyze the
right arm only of the girl by the tacit intervention of his will, as
he had confidently assured the Commissioners he could. M. Berna, after
a few moments, made a sign with his eye that he had done so, when M.
Bouillard proceeded to verify the fact. Being requested to move her
left arm, she did so. Being then requested to move her right leg, she
said the whole of her right side was paralyzed -- she could neither
move arm nor leg. On this experiment the Commissioners remark: "M.
Berna's programme stated that he had the power of paralyzing either a
single limb or two limbs at once, we chose a single limb, and there
resulted, in spite of his will, a paralysis of two limbs." Some other
experiments, equally unsatisfactory, were tried with the same girl. M.
Berna was soon convinced that she had not studied her part well, or
was not clever enough to reflect any honour upon the science, and he
therefore dismissed her. Her place was filled by a woman, aged about
thirty, also of very delicate health; and the following conclusive
experiments were tried upon her:-

The patient was thrown into the somnambulic state, and her eyes
covered with a bandage. At the invitation of the magnetiser, M. Dubois
d'Amiens wrote several words upon a card, that the somnambule might
read them through her bandages, or through her occiput. M. Dubois
wrote the word Pantagruel, in perfectly distinct roman characters;
then placing himself behind the somnambule, he presented the card
close to her occiput. The magnetiser was seated in front of the woman
and of M. Dubois, and could not see the writing upon the card. Being
asked by her magnetiser what was behind her head, she answered, after
some hesitation, that she saw something white -- something resembling
a card -- a visiting-card. It should be remembered that M. Berna had
requested M. Dubois aloud to take a card and write upon it, and that
the patient must have heard it, as it was said in her presence. She
was next asked if she could distinguish what there was on this card.
She replied "Yes; there was writing on it." -- "Is it small or large,
this writing?" inquired the magnetiser. "Pretty large," replied she.
"What is written on it?" continued the magnetiser. "Wait a little-I
cannot see very plain. Ah! there is first an M. Yes, it is a word
beginning with an M." [The woman thought it was a visiting-card, and
guessed that doubtless it would begin with the words Monsieur or
Madame.] M. Cornac, unknown to the magnetiser, who alone put the
questions, passed a perfectly blank card to M. Dubois, who substituted
it quietly for the one on which he had written the word Pantagruel.
The somnambule still persisted that she saw a word beginning with an
M. At last, after some efforts, she added doubtingly that she thought
she could see two lines of writing. She was still thinking of the
visiting-card, with a name in one line and the address on the other.

Many other experiments of the same kind, and with a similar
result, were tried with blank cards; and it was then determined to try
her with playing-cards. M. Berna had a pack of them on his table, and
addressing M. Dubois aloud, he asked him to take one of them and place
it at the occiput of the somnambule. M. Dubois asked him aloud whether
he should take a court card. "As you please," replied the magnetiser.
As M. Dubois went towards the table, the idea struck him that he would
not take either a court or a common card, but a perfectly blank card
of the same size. Neither M. Berna nor the somnambule was aware of the
substitution. He then placed himself behind her as before, and held
the card to her occiput so that M. Berna could not see it. M. Berna
then began to magnetise her with all his force, that he might
sublimate her into the stage of extreme lucidity, and effectually
transfer the power of vision to her occiput. She was interrogated as
to what she could see. She hesitated; appeared to struggle with
herself, and at last said she saw a card. "But what do you see on the
card?" After a little hesitation, she said she could see black and
red (thinking of the court card).

The Commissioners allowed M. Berna to continue the examination in
his own way. After some fruitless efforts to get a more satisfactory
answer from the somnambule, he invited M. Dubois to pass his card
before her head, close against the bandage covering her eyes. This
having been done, the somnambule said she could see better. M. Berna
then began to put some leading questions, and she replied that she
could see a figure. Hereupon, there were renewed solicitations from M.
Berna. The somnambule, on her part, appeared to be making great
efforts to glean some information from her magnetiser, and at last
said that she could distinguish the Knave. But this was not all; it
remained for her to say which of the four knaves. In answer to further
inquiries, she said there was black by the side of it. Not being
contradicted at all, she imagined that she was in the right track; and
made, after much pressing, her final guess, that it was the Knave of
Clubs.

M. Berna, thinking the experiment finished, took the card from the
hands of M. Dubois, and in presence of all the Commissioners saw that
it was entirely blank. Blank was his own dismay.

As a last experiment, she was tried with a silver medal. It was
with very great difficulty that any answers could be elicited from
her. M. Cornac held the object firmly closed in his hand close before
the bandage over her eyes. She first said she saw something round; she
then said it was flesh-coloured -- then yellow -- then the colour of
gold. It was as thick as an onion: and, in answer to incessant
questions, she said it was yellow on one side, white on the other, and
had black above it. She was thinking, apparently, of a gold watch,
with its white dial and black figures for the hours. Solicited, for
the last time, to explain herself clearly -- to say, at least, the use
of the object and its name, she appeared to be anxious to collect all
her energies, and then uttered only the word "hour." Then, at last, as
if suddenly illumined, she cried out that "it was to tell the hour."

Thus ended the sitting. Some difficulties afterwards arose between
the Commissioners and M. Berna, who wished that a copy of the proces
verbal should be given him. The Commissioners would not agree; and M.
Berna, in his turn, refused to make any fresh experiments. It was
impossible that any investigation could have been conducted more
satisfactorily than this. The report of the Commissioners was quite
conclusive; and Animal Magnetism since that day lost much of its
repute in France. M. Dupotet, with a perseverance and ingenuity worthy
a better cause, has found a satisfactory excuse for the failure of M.
Berna. Having taken care in his work not to publish the particulars,
he merely mentions, in three lines, that M. Berna failed before a
committee of the Royal Academy of Medicine in an endeavour to produce
some of the higher magnetic phenomena. "There are a variety of
incidental circumstances," says that shining light of magnetism,
"which it is difficult even to enumerate. An over-anxiety to produce
the effects, or any incidental suggestions that may disturb the
attention of the magnetiser, will often be sufficient to mar the
successful issue of the experiment." ["Introduction to the Study of
Animal Magnetism," by Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy, London, 1838, p.
159.] Such are the miserable shifts to which error reduces its
votaries!

While Dupotet thus conveniently forbears to dwell upon the
unfavourable decision of the committee of 1837, let us hear how he
dilates upon the favourable report of the previous committee of 1835,
and how he praises the judgment and the impartiality of its members.
"The Academie Royale de Medicine," says he, "put upon record clear and
authenticated evidence in favour of Animal Magnetism. The Comissioners
detailed circumstantially the facts which they witnessed, and the
methods they adopted to detect every possible source of deception.
Many of the Commissioners, when they entered on the investigation,
were not only unfavourable to magnetism, but avowedly unbelievers; so
that their evidence in any court of justice would be esteemed the most
unexceptionable that could possibly be desired. They were inquiring
too, not into any speculative or occult theory, upon which there might
be a chance of their being led away by sophistical representations,
but they were inquiring into the existence of facts only -- plain
demonstrable facts, which were in their own nature palpable to every
observer." ["Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism," p. 27.]
M. Dupotet might not unreasonably be asked whether the very same
arguments ought not to be applied to the unfavourable report drawn up
by the able M. Dubois d'Amiens and his coadjutors in the last inquiry.
If the question were asked, we should, in all probability, meet some
such a reply as this: -- "True, they might; but then you must consider
the variety of incidental circumstances, too numerous to mention! M.
Berna may have been over anxious; in fact, the experiments must have
been spoiled by an incidental suggestion!"

A man with a faith so lively as M. Dupotet was just the person to
undertake the difficult mission of converting the English to a belief
in magnetism. Accordingly we find that, very shortly after the last
decision of the Academie, M. Dupotet turned his back upon his native
soil and arrived in England, loaded with the magnetic fluid, and ready
to re-enact all the fooleries of his great predecessors, Mesmer and
Puysegur. Since the days of Perkinism and metallic tractors, until
1833, magnetism had made no progress, and excited no attention in
England. Mr. Colquhoun, an advocate at the Scottish bar, published in
that year the, till then, inedited report of the French commission of
1831, together with a history of the science, under the title of "Isis
Revelata; or, an Inquiry into the Origin, Progress, and present State
of Animal Magnetism." Mr. Colquhoun was a devout believer, and his
work was full of enthusiasm. It succeeded in awakening some interest
upon a subject certainly very curious, but it made few or no converts.
An interesting article, exposing the delusion, appeared in the same
year in the "Foreign Quarterly Review;" and one or two medical works
noticed the subject afterwards, to scout it and turn it
into ridicule. The arrival of M. Dupotet, in 1837, worked quite a
revolution, and raised Animal Magnetism to a height of favour, as
great as it had ever attained even in France.

He began by addressing letters of invitation to the principal
philosophers and men of science, physicians, editors of newspapers,
and others, to witness the experiments, which were at first carried on
at his own residence, in Wigmore-street, Cavendish-square. Many of
them accepted the invitation; and, though not convinced, were
surprised and confounded at the singular influence which he exercised
over the imagination of his patients. Still, at first, his success was
not flattering. To quote his own words, in the dedication of his work
to Earl Stanhope, "he spent several months in fruitless attempts to
induce the wise men of the country to study the phenomena of
magnetism. His incessant appeals for an examination of these novel
facts remained unanswered, and the press began to declare against
him." With a saddened heart, he was about to renounce the design he
had formed of spreading magnetism in England, and carry to some more
credulous people the important doctrines of which he had made himself
the apostle. Earl Stanhope, however, encouraged him to remain; telling
him to hope for a favourable change in public opinion, and the
eventual triumph of that truth of which he was the defender. M.
Dupotet remained. He was not so cruel as to refuse the English people
a sight of his wonders. Although they might be ungrateful, his
kindness and patience should be long enduring.

In the course of time his perseverance met its reward. Ladies in
search of emotions -- the hysteric, the idle, the puling, and the
ultra-sentimental crowded to his saloons, as ladies similarly
predisposed had crowded to Mesmer's sixty years before. Peers, members
of the House of Commons, philosophers, men of letters, and physicians
came in great numbers -- some to believe, some to doubt, and a few to
scoff. M. Dupotet continued his experiments, and at last made several
important converts. Most important of all for a second Mesmer, he
found a second D'Eslon.

Dr. Elliotson, the most conspicuous among the converts of Dupotet,
was, like D'Eslon, a physician in extensive practice -- a thoroughly
honest man, but with a little too much enthusiasm. The parallel holds
good between them in every particular; for, as D'Eslon had done before
him, Dr. Elliotson soon threw his master into the shade, and attracted
all the notice of the public upon himself. He was at that time
professor of the principles and practice of medicine at the University
College, London, and physician to the hospital. In conjunction with M.
Dupotet, he commenced a course of experiments upon some of the
patients in that institution. The reports which were published from
time to time, partook so largely of the marvellous, and were
corroborated by the evidence of men whose learning, judgment, and
integrity it was impossible to call in question, that the public
opinion was staggered. Men were ashamed to believe, and yet afraid to
doubt; and the subject at last became so engrossing that a committee
of some of the most distinguished members of the medical profession
undertook to investigate the phenomena, and report upon them.

In the mean time, Dr. Elliotson and M. Dupotet continued the
public exhibition at the hospital; while the credulous gaped with
wonder, and only some few daring spirits had temerity enough to hint
about quackery and delusion on the part of the doctors, and imposture
on the part of the patients. The phenomena induced in two young women,
sisters, named Elizabeth and Jane Okey, were so extraordinary that
they became at last the chief, if not the only proofs of the science
in London. We have not been able to meet with any reports of these
experiments from the pen of an unbeliever, and are therefore compelled
to rely solely upon the reports published under the authority of the
magnetisers themselves, and given to the world in "The Lancet" and
other medical journals.

Elizabeth Okey was an intelligent girl, aged about seventeen, and
was admitted into the University College hospital, suffering under
attacks of epilepsy. She was magnetised repeatedly by M. Dupotet in
the autumn of 1837, and afterwards by Dr. Elliotson at the hospital,
during the spring and summer of 1838. By the usual process, she was
very easily thrown into a state of deep unconscious sleep, from which
she was aroused into somnambulism and delirium. In her waking state
she was a modest well-behaved girl, and spoke but little. In the
somnambulic state, she appeared quite another being; evinced
considerable powers of mimicry; sang comic songs; was obedient to
every motion of her magnetiser; and was believed to have the power of
prophesying the return of her illness -- the means of cure, and even
the death or recovery of other patients in the ward.

Mesmer had often pretended in his day that he could impart the
magnetic power to pieces of metal or wood, strings of silk or cord,
&c. The reader will remember his famous battery, and the no less
famous tree of M. de Puysegur. During the experiments upon Okey, it
was soon discovered that all the phenomena could be produced in her,
if she touched any object that had been previously mesmerised by the
will or the touch of her magnetiser. At a sitting, on the 5th of July
1838, it was mentioned that Okey, some short time previously, and
while in the state of magnetic lucidity, had prophesied that, if
mesmerised tea were placed in each of her hands, no power in nature
would be able to awake her until after the lapse of a quarter of an
hour. The experiment was tried accordingly. Tea which had been touched
by the magnetiser was placed in each hand, and she immediately fell
asleep. After ten minutes, the customary means to awaken her were
tried, but without effect. She was quite insensible to all external
impressions. In a quarter of an hour, they were tried with redoubled
energy, but still in vain. She was left alone for six minutes longer;
but she still slept, and it was found quite impossible to wake her. At
last some one present remarked that this wonderful sleep would, in all
probability, last till the tea was removed from her bands. The
suggestion was acted upon, the tea was taken away, and she awoke in a
few seconds. ["Lancet," vol. ii. 1837-8, p. 585.]

On the 12th of July, just a week afterwards, numerous experiments
as to the capability of different substances for conveying the
magnetic influence were tried upon her. A slip of crumpled paper,
magnetised by being held in the hand, produced no effect. A penknife
magnetised her immediately. A piece of oilskin had no influence. A
watch placed on her palm sent her to sleep immediately, if the metal
part were first placed in contact with her; the glass did not affect
her so quickly. As she was leaving the room, a sleeve-cuff made of
brown-holland, which had been accidentally magnetised by a spectator,
stopped her in mid career, and sent her fast to sleep. It was also
found that, on placing the point of her finger on a sovereign which
had been magnetised, she was immediately stupified. A pile of
sovereigns produced sleep; but if they were so placed that she could
touch the surface of each coin, the sleep became intense and
protracted.

Still more extraordinary circumstances were related of this
patient. In her state of magnetic sleep, she said that a tall black
man, or negro, attended her, and prompted the answers she was to give
to the various perplexing questions that were put to her. It was also
asserted that she could use the back of her hand as an organ of
vision. The first time this remarkable phenomenon was said to have
been exhibited was a few days prior to the 5th of July. On the latter
day, being in what was called a state of loquacious somnambulism, she
was asked by Dr. Elliotson's assistant whether she had an eye in her
hand. She replied that "it was a light there, and not an eye." "Have
you got a light anywhere else?" -- "No, none anywhere else." -- "Can
you see with the inside as well as the out?" -- "Yes; but very little
with the inside."

On the 9th of July bread with butter was given to her, and while
eating it she drank some magnetised water, and falling into a stupor
dropped her food from her hand and frowned. The eyes, partially
closed, had the abstracted aspect that always accompanies
stupefaction. The right-hand was open, the palm upwards; the left,
with its back presented anteriorly, was relaxed and curved. The bread
being lost, she moved her left-hand about convulsively until right
over the bread, when a clear view being obtained, the hand turned
suddenly round and clutched it eagerly. Her hand was afterwards
wrapped in a handkerchief; but then she could not see with it, and
laid it on her lap with an expression of despair.

These are a few only of the wonderful feats of Elizabeth Okey.
Jane was not quite so clever; but she nevertheless managed to bewilder
the learned men almost as much as her sister. A magnetised sovereign
having been placed on the floor, Jane, then in the state of delirium,
was directed to stoop and pick it up. She stooped, and having raised
it about three inches, was fixed in a sound sleep in that constrained
position. Dr. Elliotson pointed his finger at her, to discharge some
more of the mesmeric fluid into her, when her hand immediately relaxed
its grasp of the coin, and she re-awoke into the state of delirium,
exclaiming, "God bless my soul!"

It is now time to mention the famous gold-chain experiment which
was performed at the hospital upon Elizabeth Okey, in the presence of
Count Flahault, Dr. Lardner, Mr. Knatchbull the professor of Arabic in
the University of Oxford, and many other gentlemen. The object of the
experiment was to demonstrate that, when Okey held one end of a gold
chain, and Dr. Elliotson, or any other magnetiser, the other, the
magnetic fluid would travel through the chain, and, after the lapse of
a minute, stupify the patient. A long gold chain having been twice
placed around her neck, Dr. Elliotson at once threw her into a state
of stupor. It was then found that, if the intermediate part of the
chain were twisted around a piece of wood, or a roll of paper, the
passage of the fluid would be checked, and stupor would not so
speedily ensue. If the chain were removed, she might be easily thrown
into the state of delirium; when she would sing at the request of her
magnetiser; and, if the chain were then unrolled, her voice would be
arrested in the most gradual manner; its loudness first diminishing --
the tune then becoming confused, and finally lost altogether. The
operations of her intellect could be checked, while the organs of
sound would still continue to exert themselves. For instance, while
her thoughts were occupied on the poetry and air of Lord Byron's song,
"The Maid of Athens," the chain was unrolled; and when she had reached
the line, "My life, I love you!" the stupor had increased; a cold
statue-like aspect crept over the face -- the voice sank -- the limbs
became rigid -- the memory was gone -- the faculty of forecasting the
thoughts had departed, and but one portion of capacity remained --
that of repeating again and again, perhaps twenty times, the line and
music which had last issued from her lips, without pause, and in the
proper time, until the magnetiser stopped her voice altogether, by
further unrolling the chain and stupifying her. On another trial, she
was stopped in the comic song, "Sir Frog he would a wooing go," when
she came to the line,

"Whether his mother would let him or no;"

while her left hand outstretched, with the chain in it, was moving up
and down, and the right toe was tapping the time on the floor; and
with these words and actions she persevered for fifty repetitions,
until the winding of the chain re-opened her faculties, when she
finished the song. ["Lancet," vol. ii. 1837-8, p.617.]

The report from which we have extracted the above passage further
informed the public and the medical profession, and expected them to
believe, that, when this species of stupefaction was produced while
she was employed in any action, the action was repeated as long as the
mesmeric influence lasted. For instance, it was asserted that she was
once deprived of the motion of every part of her body, except the
right forefinger, with which she was rubbing her chin; and that, when
thrown into the trance, she continued rubbing her chin for several
minutes, until she was unmagnetised, when she ceased. A similar result
was obtained when she was smoothing down her hair; and at another time
when she was imitating the laughter of the spectators, excited beyond
control by her clever mimicry. At another time she was suddenly thrown
into the state of delirious stupor while pronouncing the word "you,"
of which she kept prolonging the sound for several minutes, with a
sort of vibrating noise, until she was awakened. At another time,
when a magnetised sovereign was given to her, wrapped up in paper, she
caught it in her hand, and turned it round flatwise between her
fingers, saying that it was wrapped up "very neatly indeed." The
mesmeric influence caught her in the remark, which she kept repeating
over and over again, all the while twirling the sovereign round and
round until the influence in the coin had evaporated.

We are also told of a remarkable instance of the force of the
magnetic power. While Elizabeth Okey was one day employed in writing,
a sovereign which had been imbued with the fluid was placed upon her
boot. In half a minute her leg was paralyzed -- rooted to the floor --
perfectly immovable at the joints, and visited, apparently, with pain
so intense that the girl writhed in agony. "The muscles of the leg
were found," says the report, "as rigid and stiff as if they had been
carved in wood. When the sovereign was removed, the pain left her in a
quarter of a minute. On a subsequent day, a mesmerised sovereign was
placed in her left hand as it hung at her side, with the palm turned
slightly outwards. The hand and arm were immediately paralyzed --
fixed with marble-like firmness." No general stupor having occurred,
she was requested to move her arm; but she could not lift it a
hair's-breadth from her side. On another occasion, when in a state of
delirium, in which she had remained three hours, she was asked to
describe her feelings when she handled any magnetised object and went
off into the stupor. She had never before, although several times
asked, given any information upon the subject. She now replied that,
at the moment of losing her senses through any manipulations, she
experienced a sensation of opening in the crown of her head; that she
never knew when it closed again; but that her eyes seemed to become
exceedingly large; -- three times as big as before. On recovering from
this state, she remembered nothing that had taken place in the
interval, whether that interval were hours or days; her only sensation
was that of awakening, and of something being lifted from her eyes.

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