The introduction of mesmerism, as an anaesthetic and curative agent, into the hospitals of India / by James Esdaile.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The introduction of mesmerism, as an anaesthetic and curative agent, into the hospitals of India / by James Esdaile. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    will accept private practice, can be reduced to the category of quacks, I do not well see; and if we are fools, we ought to be encouraged to write ourselves down such, as the speediest and most effectual way of exposing us. I am convinced, Gentlemen, that you and I are agreed in one point, namely, liking to be allowed to judge for ourselves, and that you will not submit to be hoodwinked and led by the nose, by the persons we pay to keep us well informed of new facts, and the progress made in our profession all over the world. To pretend that there is a Free Medical Press in Grreat Britain at this moment, is a mockery and a delusion. And the proof of this is, that medical men who pledge their un- blemished private and professional reputation for the truth of their statements, are not allowed to be heard by you in your Professional Organs, if what they advance is contrary to the prejudices and foregone conclusions of the Editors ; and the men who give you the security of a good name for their good faith, are vilified, and the attempt is made to starve them into silence and submission, by nameless and irresponsible Avxiters, who erect themselves for the nonce, into the philosophers and guides of the medical world, though in general practically un- acquainted with the subject they pretend to decide upon. In vindication of what I have now said, permit me to pre- sent you, Gentlemen, with a bouquet'^ of night flowers culled from the pages of different Medical Journals. The mesmero-mania has nearly dwindled in the metropo- lis into senile fatuity; but lingers in some of the provinces with the gobe-mouches and chaw-bacons, who, after gulping down a pound of fat pork, would, with well-greased gullets, swallow su.ch a lot of mesmeric mummery as would choke an alligator or a boa-constrictor.—Medico-GMrurgical Review^ 1843. The science of mesmerism, like the science of fortune- telling, will always carry on a precarious existence, wherever there are clever girls, philosophic Bohemians, weak women, weaker men : but it can no longer afE-ont the common sense of the Medical profession, or dare to show its face in the scien- tific Societies after the last exposure.—Lancet^ 1838.