Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris / translated from the French with an historical introduction.

  • France. Commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme animal.
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris / translated from the French with an historical introduction. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    125/128 (page 105)
    V i 105 ] cions. Its effedis are the more to be ap- prehended, fince it not only aggravates the diforder of the nerves by renewing their fymptoms, and caufing them to degene- rate into habit •, but if a diftemper of this kind be contagious, as it maybe fufpeded to be, the method of provoking nervous convuliions and of exciting them m pub- lic aifemblies is a means to diffufe them in great towns, and even to afHid with them generations to come, fince thedifeafes and the habits of parents are tranfmitted to their poflerity. The commiffioners having convinced themfelves, that the animal magnetic fluid ' is capable of being perceived by none of our fenfes, and had no adion either upon themfelves or upon the fubjeds of their feveral experiments; beingaffured,that the touches-and compreflions employed in its application rarely occafioned favourable changes in the animal oeconomy, and that the impreflions thus made are always hurt- ful to the imagination; in fine having de- monftrated by deciflve experiments, that the imagination without the magnetifm produces convulflons, and that the mag- netifm without the imagination produces nothing; they have concluded with an unanimous voice refpeding the exiftence and the utility of the magnetifm, that the exiftence of the fluid is abfolutely deftitute I of