Numerous cases of surgical operations without pain in the mesmeric state; with remarks upon the opposition of many members of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and others to the reception of the inestimable blessings of mesmerism / By John Elliotson.

  • Elliotson, John, 1791-1868.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Numerous cases of surgical operations without pain in the mesmeric state; with remarks upon the opposition of many members of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and others to the reception of the inestimable blessings of mesmerism / By John Elliotson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of laughter we should have at this glorious folly ! and to hear the philosopher of Pisa labouring before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations to draw the new planets out of the sky/’ When the assertion that the blood circulated first attracted public attention, not only were those who believed the fact vilified as vision ary, credulous, and ignorant, by the medical profession, and therefore by the mass of the public who thought the doctors must be proper judges of the matter, giving them credit for more knowledge, sense, and honesty than they possessed; and lampooned both here and on the Continent, and nicknamed circulators ; Harvey himself losing his practice, while his loquacious and shallow opponents, now forgot ten, flourished; no doctor beyond the age of forty, at the time, ever believing the circulation to the day of his death: but books were written to prove by reasoning that the facts of the circulation could not be facts. Among the rest was one entitled:— Ergo motus san guinis non circularis. Candidate, Simon Boullot:—a thesis read in the University of Paris before the President, Hugo Chasles, 1482. Another, Ergo sanguinis motus circularis impossibilis, 1472. Candidate, Francis Bazin; President, Philip Hardouin de St. Jaques.* But if Galileo and Plarvey, the philosophers of facts, were pronounced visionary and credulous, so was Bacon, who urged men to avoid fancying and to busy themselves with observation, experiment, and induction. When Elizabeth thought of making him her attorney-general, Cecil represented him to her “as a man of mere speculation , as one wholly given up to philosophical enquiries, new indeed and amusing , but fancifid and absurd , and therefore more likely to distract her affairs than to serve her with proper judgement,” in short, as an inferior practitioner, though at length Lord Chancellor.f Sir Benjamin Brodie need not fear his company if he cease to scorn mesmerism, for he will find himself with Cuvier and La Place. Cuvier thus writes:J—“The effects produced upon persons who, before the operation (of mesmerising) was begun, were in a state of * In 1723, a thesis was printed against inoculation : —Ergo variolas inoculare nefas ; and in 1691, a thesis declaring the enormous wigs of that day to be healthier than our own hair : Ergo coma adscititia nativâ salubrior. 1691, Candidate, H. Petr. Mattot ; President, Pet. Paul Guyard. Authors, and presidents, and doctrines, have all vanished into thin air. t See the Life, prefixed to his works. $ Anatomie Comparée . Tom. ii. p. 117.