Seven lectures on somnambulism / translated from the German of Dr. Arnold Wienholt; with a preface, introduction, notes, and an appendix; to which is now added a letter to Professor Gregory ... relative to his recent exposition of the experiments of Baron Reichenbach. By J.C. Colquhoun, Esq., advocate.

  • Wienholt, Arnold, 1895?-
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seven lectures on somnambulism / translated from the German of Dr. Arnold Wienholt; with a preface, introduction, notes, and an appendix; to which is now added a letter to Professor Gregory ... relative to his recent exposition of the experiments of Baron Reichenbach. By J.C. Colquhoun, Esq., advocate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    in extensive practice, cures two-thirds or three-fourths of his patients by means of this useful specific. And if it can be proved that, in many morbid affections, the imagination acts a decided part in the cure, what would this circumstance prove against the advantages of animal magnetism ? If magnetism be the most effectual method of exciting the imagination, and i f this imagination be itself a remedy in diseases, then magnetism has a decided superiority over the ordi- nary methods of treatment. And supposing all this to be the case, can it be said that the imagination is less valuable as a remedy, than a portion of a mine- ral, an insect, the root of a plant, or the bark of a tree ?—In short, this objection is, in every view, most unfortunate, frivolous and absurd. For a considerable period after the discovery of animal magnetism, the opponents affected to consider the phenomena alleged to have been elicited by the practice as supernatural, miraculous, impossible and absurd; and they continually spoke of the magnet- ists as visionaries, mystics, impostors, quacks, liars, &c. to whom no credit ought to be given. Upon • investigation, however, it appeared that the pheno- mena, thus objected to and denied, had been observ- ed many ages before animal magnetism became known as a science, and that they had occasionally oc-