The power of the mind over the body : an experimental inquiry into the nature and cause of the phenomena attributed by Baron Reichenbach and others to a "new imponderable" / by James Braid.

  • Braid, James, 1795?-1860.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The power of the mind over the body : an experimental inquiry into the nature and cause of the phenomena attributed by Baron Reichenbach and others to a "new imponderable" / by James Braid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I now told him, that I had got a little instrument in my pocket, which although far less than his, I felt assured would prove quite as powerful, and I offered to prove this by operating ©n the same patient, whom I had never seen before, and who was in the mesmeric state when I entered the room. My instrument was about three inches long, the thickness of a quill, with a ring attached to the end of it. I told him that when put into her hands, he would find it catalepsize both hands and arms as his had done, and such was the result. Having reduced this by wafting, I took my instrument from her, and again returned it, in another position, and told him it would now have the very reverse effect—that she would not be able to hold it, and that although I closed her hands on it, they would open, and that it would drop out of them, and such was the case,—to the great surprise of my worthy friend, who now desired to be informed what I had done to the instrument to invest it with this new and apposite power. This I declined doing for the present; but I promised to do so, when he had seen some further proofs of its remarkable powers. I now told him that a touch with it, on either extremity would cause the extremity to rise and become cataleptic, and such was the result; that a second touch on the same point would reduce the rigidity, and cause it to fall, and such again was proved to be the fact. After a variety of other experiments, every one of which proved precisely as I had predicted, she was aroused. I now applied the ring of my instrument on the third finger of the right hand, from which it was suspended, and told the doctor, that when it was so sus¬ pended, it would send her to sleep. To this he replied 11 it never willbut I again told him that I felt confident that it would send her to sleep. We then were silent, and very speedily she was once more asleep. Having aroused her, I put the instru¬ ment on the second finger of her left hand, and told the doctor that it would be found she could not go to sleep, when it was placed there. He said he thought she would, and he sat steadily gazing at her, but I said firmly and confidently that she would not, After a considerable time the doctor asked her if she did not feel sleepy, to which she replied “ not at all;” could you rise