As
you will, I am sure, feel some incredulity, I have cut out the
paragraph, and here it is pasted at the bottom of this page:--
'The chief French surgeons and medical professors have, for some
time, been carefully studying the effect of mesmerism on the female
patients of the Salpetriere Hospital, and M. Marini, a clinical
surgeon of that establishment, has just effected a series of
experiments, the results of which would seem to open up a new field
for medical science. M. Marini tried to prove that certain hysterical
symptoms could be transferred by the aid of the magnet from one
patient to another. He took two subjects: one a dumb woman afflicted
with hysteria, and the other a female who was in a state of hypnotic
trance. A screen was placed between the two, and the hysterical woman
was then put under the influence of a strong magnet. After a few
moments she was rendered dumb, while speech was suddenly restored to
the other. Luckily for his healthier patients, however, their
borrowed pains and symptoms did not last long.'
And Mivart was able to give me some more extraordinary instances of
the transmission of hysterical seizures from one patient to
another--instances where permanent cures were effected.
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