Mesmerism in India, and its practical application in surgery and medicine / by James Esdaile.

Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mesmerism in India, and its practical application in surgery and medicine / 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.

    13/328 (page 9)
    EDITOR'S PREFACE. Appearing before the public as the Editor of a work on Mesmerism, I trust I may be pardoned for alluding to the circumstances under which I have been called upon to undertake such a duty. Several months ago my brother, a medical officer in the service of,, the East India Company, sur- prised me by announcing that he had now found something to dispel the ennui of Indian life, and that his mission was to become the Apostle of Mesmerism in India. More than twelve years ago, my attention had been arrested by reading M. Cloquet's account of his having removed a cancerous breast from a lady while in the mes- meric trance, and by his certifying her insensi- bility to pain. Knowing the eminence of M. Cloquet as a surgeon, and his reputation as a man of veracity, I was constrained to believe in the reality of the mysterious agent denominated Mes- merism, or Animal Magnetism; and my belief