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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    we believe that she had previously studied anatomy for this very occasion ? When Arndt’s somnambulist asked for paper, and, with her eyes not only firmly closed, but actually kept closed by the magnetiser, wrote down an air with the greatest readiness, and without a single line encroaching upon another, must we not be convinced that vision was exercised, upon this occasion, in an unusual manner ? Similar instances have been recorded, by com- petent observers, in such abundance, that the scepticism which would deny the reality of such facts must proceed from the grossest ignorance and incapacity, or from the most wilful spirit of obstinate perversion. We are aware that the mere practical physician, espe- cially when by disposition and habits he has become averse from philosophical speculation, is peculiarly liable to misapprehend the phenomena of animal magnetism. When in the course of a long empirical practice, he has once become habituated to a certain routine of appear- ances and symptoms, he grows more and more indisposed to admit the reality of any fact which transcends the bounds of this limited sphere. For this reason, when he happens to meet with any such phenomenon, and cannot altogether deny or account for it, he immediately proceeds to stretch it out on the procrustean bed of his own partial theory, lops off what he conceives to be the excrescences, and retains only as much as he imagines can be explained upon his own contracted physiological views. Fraud and deception are favourite modes of explaining all diificul- ties ; but if such explanations are to be admitted in the case of th«>most upright and competent observers, and the most unambiguous facts, what becomes of all medi- cal evidence ? and how can one physician lay claim to superior credibility at the expense of the most honest and intelligent of his professional brethren ? Of Miss Martineau’s case I entertain a very dif- ferent opinion from that of Dr Forbes. My reasons are partly such as very naturally arise in the mind of a law^- yer, when he comes to weigh evidence. The case as stated by Miss Martineau is, prima facie^ a good one.