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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    delirious state, and arose to walk, muttering and staggering about in a singular manner; and on being taken back to bed, she fell into a deep sleep, which usually lasted four or five hours, we were told. We were next addressed by Dr. E., who said that he would now show us that the mesmeric power was not so rare and singular a gift as was imagined, but a general law of Nature, which might be evolved by most people who took the necessary degree of trouble; and to prove this, he would desire one of his hospital assistants to mes - merise a woman across the room, a distance of thirty feet, I should think. The woman was placed with her back to the wall, and a young man placed himself before her, at the other end of the room. In a very short time she acted exactly like the first woman; her eyes began to twinkle; she swayed from side to side, and then fell down in a trance, from which no one could awake her—not even the doctors, who again examined the man who had been operated upon before leaving, and no one succeeded, I believe, in extracting a sign of sensibility. VVe were now requested to go to another hospital, where there was more space for the company. We found it to be the Jail Hospital,