A practical manual of animal magnetism : containing an exposition of the methods employed in producing the magnetic phenomena, with its application to the treatment and cure of diseases / by Alphonse Teste ; tr. from the 2nd ed. by D. Spillan.

  • Teste, Alph. (Alphonse), 1814-
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical manual of animal magnetism : containing an exposition of the methods employed in producing the magnetic phenomena, with its application to the treatment and cure of diseases / by Alphonse Teste ; tr. from the 2nd ed. by D. Spillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    with all the persons around them; however, they seldom understand what passes around them. Most of the time they are entirely strangers to the external and unexpected noise made in their ears, such as the sound of copper vessels forcibly struck, the fall of any heavy substance, &c. B. The eyes are closed: the eyelids yield with difficulty to the efforts made with the hand to open them. This operation, which is not without pain, allows one to see the eyeball convulsed, and directed towards the upper and sometimes towards the lower part of the orbit. C. Sometimes the sense of smell is, as it were, abolished. One may make them respire hydrochloric acid or ammonia, without their being inconvenienced by it, or without even suspecting it. The contrary occurs in certain cases, and they are sensible to odours. _D. Most of the somnambulists that we have seen were completely insensible. One might tickle their feet, nostrils, and the angle of the eyes by the approach of a feather, pinch their skin so as to produce ecchymosis, prick it under the nails with pins put in to a considerable depth, without their evincing any pain or being at all aware of it. In a word, we have seen one person who was insensible to one of the most painful operations of surgery, and whose countenance, pulse, or respiration, did not manifest the slightest emotion. 17. Magnetism has the same intensity, it is as promptly felt, at the distance of six feet as of six inches, and the phenomena developed by it are the same in the two cases. 18. The action at a distance does not seem capable of being exercised with success, except on individuals who have been already subjected to magnetism.