Second half-yearly report ... from 1st March to 1st September, 1849 / [by James Esdaile, with a letter from him to J. Elliotson] ... to which is added, remarks on the conduct of the English medical journalists ... in refernce to [mesmerism] ... By Dr. Elliotson.

  • Mesmeric Hospital (Calcutta, India)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second half-yearly report ... from 1st March to 1st September, 1849 / [by James Esdaile, with a letter from him to J. Elliotson] ... to which is added, remarks on the conduct of the English medical journalists ... in refernce to [mesmerism] ... By Dr. Elliotson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hindoo, a rich man, and who had received an English edu- cation, begged me to operate upon him without the know- ledge of his friends, from whom he had concealed his com- plaint. If eating beef and drinking brandy are genuine tests of Christianity, young BengaF is a most zealous and devoted convert; the importation of brandy having been doubled in amount of late j^ears in consequence of his pious libations. My patient eonfessed to drinking two bottles of brandy in the twenty-four hours, and this was doubtless not the limit of his capacity for alcohol. “ He was desired to go to the hospital daily to be mes- merised for one hour, and on the first day he was effectually subdued. On the third day, I operated upon him, and he lay like a dead fish, with his eyes open and turned up, for an hour and a half, and then awoke gloriously drunk, declar- ing that ^ he cared for no man,^ &c., with true drunken independence. He had intrusted his secret only to one ^ antient, trusty, drouth}^ crony,^ who accompanied him, and from whom I learned that he drank six glasses of raw brandy before coming to the hospital at 11 o^clock. The loss of blood, about 2 lbs., also aided the brandy, no doubt, in dis- turbing the equilibrium of his brain; but he fell asleep at tw^o o^clock, slept till five o^clock, and then awoke in the full possession of his senses, without any pain, and unconscious of the operation and his subsequent delirium. Now if he had been kept under the mesmeric influence till five o^clock, giving him the necessary time to exhale the alcohol from his blood, would he not have awoke in all likeli- hood in the possession of his senses ? The antimesmeric philosophers will get rid of all such speculations by declaring it to have been a brandy operation from first to last; and I hope Professor Millar will try to repeat it in the Edinburgh Infirmary—the dose is six glasses of ^ Castellan Brandy^ before II o^clock.* By this mail, I have the pleasure to send you ten copies of my last Beport, to be sent to the newspapers and journals. I have again twitted the medical journals with their cowardice, and you might try whether any of them dare yet let the truth appear in their pages. If they still continue the burking system, it will be heaping coals of fire upon their heads for their final judgment by the public. It is nearly impossible to get John Bull to think for himself, but he hates a coward, and may be worked on this tack. I run a risk of turning tyrant myself, for I now meet with no opposition. Believe me, very truly yours, ^Mth October, 1849. James Esdaile. * See No. XXV,, p, 103.—ZowL B