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.

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    on the person till his arras become cataleptic ; all expression then vanishes, and even when the person answers on subjects of deep interest to him- self, no sign of mental emotion ever disturbs his countenance. This statue-like serenity of features may be singularly broken by concentrating his attention, and desiring him to do whatever you do: he then becomes an imitative automaton, mimicking most servilely, and exactly, the actions and words of the mesmerist, or any one substituted for him, and who attracts his attention. Even at this stage, I have not established any rapport between the parties, but have only desired the person who took my place to call upon the somnam- bulist repeatedly by name, till he answered, and then to give clear and short orders, which were obeyed as readily as my own. There is much misapprehension prevalent, I am convinced, about the necessity of rapport in the physical and lower mental phenomena of Mesmerism: most of my experiments have been made on patients first entranced by my assistants, and my subsequent control over their movements was often acquired without touching them; it being only necessary for me to attract their exclusive attention. July 29th. — I made a man senseless and cata- leptic, at a great distance, in the presence of a