Researches on magnetism, electricity, heat, light, crystallization, and chemical attraction : in their relations to the vital force / By Karl, Baron von Reichenbach. Tr. and ed. at the express desire of the author, with a preface, notes, and appendix, by William Gregory. With three plates and twenty-three wood-cuts. Parts I and II, including the second edition of the first part, cor. and improved.

  • Reichenbach, Karl, Freiherr von, 1788-1869.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on magnetism, electricity, heat, light, crystallization, and chemical attraction : in their relations to the vital force / By Karl, Baron von Reichenbach. Tr. and ed. at the express desire of the author, with a preface, notes, and appendix, by William Gregory. With three plates and twenty-three wood-cuts. Parts I and II, including the second edition of the first part, cor. and improved. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    134/536 (page 80)
    es URN Be ws 80 THE HUMAN HAND ACTS removed the fingers. With the whole ten, it was so strong as to pass through the whole arm and into the head. I begged her physician to try the same experiment. He did so with the same results; only, although he was more than ten years my junior, the effect produced by his fingers was distinctly less powerful than that caused by mine. Father LAMBERT, the confessor of the patient, was accidentally present, and I begged him also to try. She found his fingers as powerful as mine. The nurse of the patient, Mlle. BARBARA PSCHIERL, also made the trial. Her fingers caused similar sensations, but much more feebly than those of men. I repeated these experiments, sub- stituting for the rod of German silver an iron wire, about five feet in length. When one end was held by the patient, and I applied five fingers to the other, the patient perceived a cur- rent of decided heat; and with my ten fingers, the sensation was stronger. It always quickly disappeared when I dropped the wire out of my hand. This fact was controlled by fre- quent repetitions. I next caused the sister of the patient, whose nervous system was also in some degree diseased, to apply her ten fingers to the end of the wire. The effect pro- duced was strikingly feeble. The fingers of another female were added to hers: the effect was sensibly stronger; but the whole twenty fingers together did not produce nearly as much effect as my ten fingers alone, although I have long been grey and bald. I tried also a copper wire, nearly ten feet in length. It conducted the force, but less rapidly, and somewhat more feebly than the iron wire. The same experiments, with many variations, were repeated with Mlle. REICHEL, and with simi- lar results: The action was very powerful in the case of Mlle. ATZMANNSDORFER: even M. STUDER, in perfect health, was so sensitive, that he perceived quite distinctly the action of my hands through metallic wires. It follows from all these experiments, that the force derived from the human hand may be conducted through other bodies, exactly like the crystalline force, and that such bodies are conductors in the same way for both forces. 82. I now wished to try whether bodies could be charged with the force from the hand. I began with Mlle. SruRMANN.