58. In the first place I shall endeavour to apply the laws obtained in the two preceding treatises to another series of
investigations which have reference here, and to give them a wider extension and better foundation. Beyond the memory of man, have been known certain enigmatical phenomena, produced by the magnet, in its effect on many sick persons, especially on somnambulists. In the last century, and indeed earlier, it was found that similar phenomena might be brought about by bare hands, and without a magnet. In the condition, up to this time, of our physical knowledge, it was impossible to discover any certain connexion between that force of the magnet, and this of the human hands, feet, &c., and equally in vain was it attempted to detect any regularity and subjection to law. The consequence of this was, that all those who were occupied with natural science passed by these subjects, and gave them no place in the school of physics. Isolated physicians and dilettante kept alive the tradition, or increased the heap of unconnected observations. For want of a better word, they called it animal magnetism.—an expression which is the more unsuitable, the less the phenomena signified by it agree with that which constitutes magnetism in the proper sense of the word. In the meantime, books have been written; few are good, many appear altogether one-sided, many are actually unreadable.
At first I avoided entering upon this literature; I wished to retain my powers of observation and judgment free and unbiassed, and to build my work from the beginning solely on the foundation of my own experience. It seemed to me
better to select my own path in the direction in which natural science usually advances, and which is never that of medicine. The medical man is chiefly concerned for a remedial agent, but the physicist looks solely for natural truths; one seeks the concrete, the other the abstract, and it is from this primary divergence that the two have hitherto been able to combine so little in their researches.
59. After I had demonstrated a force in crystals, which, with all its difference, at the same time bears an unmistakeable analogy to magetism; while the so-called animal magnetism, appearing in a shape similar to the former, on the other hand, allows us to perceive in certain resemblances an astonishing parallelism with magnetism, in spite of particular essential differences; this affinity of the conditions led me to the inquiries—whether and how much might be found to be common to all the phenomena, and whether at last some laws might not be discovered, upon which animal magnetism might rest, in the same way as the crystallic force. Since we imagine crystallization to be the connecting link between the inorganic and organic, the dead and ? the living, I believed I might encourage some hope finally to obtain, by way of experiment, a point of connection between animal magnetism and physics—perhaps even to procure it a resting-place for which it has hitherto striven in vain.
GO. To open a path to this, it seemed to me above all things necessary to make out, as clearly as possible, the part which the terrestrial magnetism plays in these matters. Since the magnet, since the crystallic force, exercises so decided an influence on sensitive persons, the power of the terrestrial magnetism, which directs the magnetic needle, cannot be without influence on the animal nerves. And I thus saw clearly that it was impossible to draw any scientific conclusion from any experiments, so long as this powerful factor, which must always interfere in the
phenomena, was not considered, measured, and brought into the account.
With this view I now tested both healthy and sick, in particular Mr. Schuh, Mr. Schmidt the surgeon, and Misses Nowotny, Sturmann, Maix, Reichel, Atzmannsdorfer, and others, under different circumstances and at different times.
Mr. Schuh, in his. present dwelling, had the strange custom of regularly turning round in bed, when he woke early in the morning; that is, he then placed his head where his feet had been during the night, after which he always went to sleep again. This sleep was always more refreshing than all the preceding night's sleep, contrary to the general rule, according to which, the earlier sleep, especially that before midnight, is the most strengthening. When he had not this after-sleep, he felt weaker all day; and thus this strange custom had for a long time been a necessity to him. I inquired about the position of the bed, and learned that the head was turned toward the south, and the foot toward the north. By my advice he assumed the opposite position when he went to bed at night; that is, with the head to the north and the feet to the south. From this day forward he never found the morning after-sleep necessary; the sleep was good, and strengthening; and he thenceforward gave up that custom.
Mr. Schmidt, the surgeon, of Vienna, had received a chill of the right arm on a railway journey, and for some time had suffered from acute rheumatism, with the most painful cramps running from the shoulder to the fingers. His physician treated him with the magnet, which rapidly quieted the cramps, but they always returned. I found him lying with his head directed toward the south. On my remarking this, they turned him round and brought him into the direction of the magnetic meridian, with his head to the north. Directly he came into this position he uttered expressions of pleasure; he declared that he felt refreshed
and strengthened. A pleasant uniform warmth diffused itself forthwith in the chilled part,—he felt the pass of the magnet incomparably more cooling and agreeable than before, and before I went away the stiffened arm and the fingers became moveable, and the pain had wholly dis-
appeared-
63. When I tried the position of Miss Nowotny with the magnetic needle, I found her almost exactly in the magnetic meridian—the head lying to the north. She had herself instinctively sought and wished for this direction, and it had been necessary to break down a stove to satisfy her desire. I asked her to lie with her head to the south, by way of experiment, to ascertain the result. It required some pains to induce her to do it, for I was obliged to repeat my wish three or four days running, and to make her appreciate the weight I laid upon this change, before I brought her to it. At length I found her one morning in this reversed position; she had assumed it a short time before my arrival. A very little time elapsed before the patient began to complain. She was uncomfortable; she turned over restlessly; her face became flushed; her pulse rose, became fuller; flow of blood to the head increased the headache; and discomfort of the stomach soon ensued. The bedstead, with the patient, was quickly turned round again, but stopped when moved a quarter of a circle. She now lay in the magnetic parallel, with her head to the west. This direction was completely unbearable to her, and still more adverse than the south-north position she had just left. This was at half-past ten A. AL She feared from her sensations, that if she remained she would soon faint, and begged to be quickly removed from this situation. She was then brought back into her original north and south direction. Immediately after this all the adverse conditions decreased, and in a few minutes had disappeared so perfectly that the patient became cheerful again. But not
merely an extreme discomfort seized the patient in the altered direction toward the heavens,—her reactionary sensations to all external things were transformed in the most striking manner. The usual passes of the magnet, performed by her physician, which she always found agreeable, then became unpleasant,—stronger ones intolerable; substances at other times disagreeable, like sulphur, were then almost indifferent; others, such as lead, even agreeable; in short, all diseased conditions assumed an altered form.
These observations were too full of import, and held out too great a prospect of immediate value for medical purposes, to be passed over without farther and more careful investigation. I concerted, therefore, with her physician for a farther inquiry on a future day. This took place on the 4th of April, 1844. When we came to the patient in the morning, we found that she had already been lying half an hour in the south-north position. She anxiously longed for our coming, and earnestly begged to be speedily released from her painful situation. All the above-mentioned phenomena were repeated in the same order of succession; her hand no longer followed the magnet, but was only weakly attracted by it—even the strongest did not produce any spasmodic clenching of the hand, and the reactions to different substances were disturbed just in the same way as before. In order to enable us to trace all these things conveniently by experiments, we had the patient dressed, and taken out of bed. I now placed her alternately on four chairs, which I had arranged in a square in the N.S., S.N., E.W., and W.E. positions, the feet being extended, the head thrown back, so that her position was half reclining. The north-south position was, as before, comfortable and pleasant; the south-north furnished, step by step, the same results as in the two preceding trials; they followed gradually, one after another, in the course of about half an hour. But
when the patient was brought into the west-east position, the phenomena presented themselves most distinctly, and so rapidly, that this position could scarcely be endured for a minute. The effect of the magnet on the senses ceased almost wholly at once; at the moment of entrance into the position, disagreeable heat came over her; then quickly followed, in order, an universal external and internal shivering, disquiet, flushing, acceleration of the pulse, determination of blood to the head, headache; finally, pain in the stomach, hummings in the ears, loss of sense, and approaching syncope. It was necessary to hasten to bring her back into the north-south position, unless we would run the risk of seeing her fall from the chair. The rapid disappearance of all these adverse symptoms after her return to the latter position was astonishing; in a few minutes her face became cheerful again, although it had just before expressed the most distressing sensations. After some interval of rest, we tried the east-west. I held my watch in my hand, and found that not more than a minute had elapsed before all the phenomena appeared in the same way and in the same order as they had in the west-east position, only somewhat milder. For the greater confirmation and more accurate observation of all these occurrences, the experiments were finally repeated, as we induced the patient to place herself once more in each of the different directions; the result was just the same.
Since Miss Nowotny's sickness had been protracted, slowly increasing, for eight years, I asked whether she had not observed, while the disease was in its milder stages, that she had felt more or less comfortable in different places. Inquiry was made, and it was remembered that in some of the houses in which she had resided during that interval, her condition had been either more quiet or more strikingly insupportable. I gave her brother a compass, and bade him see in what positions her bedstead, sofas, or working-
1 12 PHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL LAWS
seats had been placed in the various former residences. He actually found that in the Wohl-leben Street, her bedstead and sofa had accidentally been placed almost exactly in the magnetic meridian, and she herself had lain in the north-south position; while in the Marokaner Street her direction had been north-eastward and south-westward. In the Wohl-leben Street she had been comparatively easy, while in the Marokaner Street she had never been well, but had constantly struggled with the most painful illness. Even now, she knew not why, she could never bear to sit either across the bed, nor on her couch, nor yet to lie down on the latter: she could only remain lying in bed. The first brought her into the west-east position, the second into the east-west, the third into the south-north, and the fourth alone insured to her the indispensable north-south direction.
As between north and south, so also between east and west, a not inconsiderable distinction was subsequently discovered. In June, namely when she was already so much improved that she could sit up the greater part of the day, I tried her once more in the four positions. She could now remain for a good while in the south-north position; in the east-west also she was tolerably well for a little time; but in the west-east position she could not remain more than a minute without feeling the attacks, even to the irritation of the stomach. A few minutes' rest in the north-south direction wholly removed the evil effects of the few minutes in the west-east position. The west-east position was therefore by far the worst and most exciting of all. I add the remark, in reference to the position of the sun and terrestrial thermo-magnetism, that this last experiment was made about five o'clock in the afternoon.
64. Furnished with these experiences, I visited the sick Miss Sturmann at the hospital of the Vienna University. She was suffering from tubercle of the lungs, and they called
her condition eklampsia.1 - According to her account, her I lness had commenced about three years previously, when she was in her sixteenth year, after dancing very violently at several balls. I found her lying in a bed, in the west-east position. I tried a very strong magnet upon her, one which would support 50 lbs.; I passed it over her, laid it upon her head, and under her feet. It produced some weak reactions, but of little importance. I then asked her physician, Professor Lippich, to allow her bed to be moved into the north-south position of the magnetic meridian, which he was kind enough to order. In a moment everything changed. The patient immediately evinced pleasure; her former disquiet left her; a painful burning of the eyes, which she had suffered unceasingly, disappeared; instead of the previous insufferable heat, she felt only a comfortable coolness, and a general relief was visible. A night of unusually peaceful sleep followed, such as she had not experienced for a long time. Her bed was now kept permanently in this position, as she herself also earnestly requested. Another time I induced her to turn round in bed, and thus brought her into the south-north position; just as quickly as everything had turned to good before, all now returned again to evil; general disquiet and heat ensued, flushing of the face, determination to the head, followed, and the peculiar burning in the eyes at once reappeared. All this was removed again as soon as I allowed her to return to her north-south position. Now, when she was in the normal direction, I again took up the magnet. But what a difference ! She, who could scarcely feel it before, could not bear it now, when I removed the armature at a considerable distance from her. I placed myself with it at a distance
of four paces from her head; the patient gave me no answer, and when I examined her I found her in a state of unconsciousness, in tonic spasms. After her recovery from this, I took my place seven paces from the foot of her bed, and removed the armature: and here also she had scarcely spoken a word, before she became senseless, and fell into the same condition. A third time I removed, in the prolonged direction of the magnetic meridian, the whole length of the ward, which amounted to more than thirty feet from her bedstead and her feet. Not quite so quickly as before, she felt the magnet in some degree after I had removed the armature; but after I had remained about a minute in this position, she stopped speaking in the middle of a word that was upon her tongue. She had half said it, the rest died away on her lips. She had been suddenly attacked, and I found her lying rigid with spasms, and with clenched hands, her eyes open and cast upward, so unconscious that I could place my finger on her eyeballs without the lids moving. What an unexpected difference in the effect ! The same magnet which I had placed above her head and under her feet without any remarkable effect, so long as she lay in the magnetic parallel, now, when she was in the meridian, threw her into a state of unconsciousness at a distance of ten yards! at a distance of thirty feet attacked her in a deadly manner.2
Miss Maix, unable to walk, was kind enough to grant my request of allowing herself to be moved in a chair into the four directions. She is neither cataleptic nor somnambulist; never was so, but suffers from paralysis of the lower part of her body. In spite, therefore, of the cases being of totally different kinds in these sensitive patients, I nevertheless obtained exactly similar results here; the patient could only bear the north south direction, and the west-east was the most insupportable. This experiment was not performed in the morning, as with Miss Nowotny, but about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
In Miss Reichel's case, the physician took no notice of the position in regard to the heavens, and when I remarked about this to him, he said he thought the patient strong enough to be indifferent to its effects. I was not of the same opinion, and when I tested the patient, and made her occupy the four chairs, one after another, as great a difference presented itself as in most of the other sensitive patients. Finding her bed in the south-north position, I counselled her to have it moved into the north. south. She followed my advice, and found her night's rest much improved; now she could sleep, which had been extremely difficult before.
With Miss A tzmannsdorfer I tried the experiment at two different hours; once in the morning, when her illness was on the increase, the other time in the evening, in her recovery. In both cases the north-south position was the easiest, the west-east the most insupportable,
All these patients now recalled to mind how uncomfortable they always were in church, although they knew not the reason why. Catholic churches are all built from west to east, so that the congregation before the altar are in the west-east position; therefore in that direction which is the most insupportable to the sensitive. In this situation, therefore, they all often fainted, and were obliged to be
carried out of the church. Miss Nowotny subsequently could not bear to walk in the garden or in the streets from west to east, for any length of time.
These eight completely different cases all agreed in this point,—that for sensitive persons of the most varied kind, any other position but that with the head to the north and the feet to the south is in the highest degree uncomfortable, but the position in the parallel, with the head to the west in our northern hemisphere, is almost insufferable: perhaps the conditions are different in the southern hemisphere. The causes of these phenomena, as is seen at a glance, can only lie in the effect of that magnet, which is constituted by the terrestrial globe and its atmosphere; in other words, of the terrestrial magnetism. It here affects just like any other magnet, and from the present investigation we arrive at a law, which 1 will comprise in the following terms:—The terrestrial magnetism exercises in sensitive persons, healthy and sick, a peculiar exciting action, strong enough to interfere with their rest; in the healthy, to modify their sleep; in the sick, to disturb the circulation of the blood, the Auctions of the nerves, and the equilibrium of the vital force.
And since the magnetic conditions of the earth are subject to variations, and these variations are connected with the phases of the moon, among other things, in such a way that, as is well known, the intensity of the terrestrial magnetism in relation to that, attains its minimum when the moon is full; here evidently emerges from obscurity one of the causes to which the phenomena of somnambulism (snondsucht) are to be attributed. I cannot express myself on this until I have advanced to some more special developments.
If, then, terrestrial magnetism thus displays itself as a wonderfully powerful reagent upon our bodily condition, and more or less upon our health in general, its action in
the eight investigated cases being so great, that it to a great extent determined the healthy and sick condition, we are certainly justified—nay, compelled—to reason from these to other cases of sensitive disease, and must recognize that in many, perhaps all these cases, it will be impossible to effect cure by means of magnetism, when the patient is not first of all placed in the proper position towards the terrestrial magnetism: that this must, before all things, be sought out and borne in mind in all kinds of curative treatment, and that all magnetic phenomena in nervous patients—nay, perhaps in many other diseases—are greatly influenced by it. It furnishes the key to a vast number of errors and contradictions, which have presented themselves throughout the field of animal magnetism, from the time of Paracelsus and Mesmer to our own days, which were a stumbling-block to the best thinkers, and have everywhere brought contradiction into the facts and discord into opinions. For, when one and the same disease was treated in Vienna in the north-south position, in Berlin in the east-west, and at Stuttgart in the south-north, different results were obtained in each case: no agoement could be arrived at in the experiments. Nay, even when the same physician treats exactly the same complaint at different times, or simultaneously, but in different places, with the same magnetic means, if the beds of his patients happen accidentally to be placed in different directions, he necessarily will find effects produced differing as widely as possible from each other: he must be led away, and be wholly mistaken about magnetism: he must consider it full of caprice, and linefrom the impossibility of foreseeing and regulating the results, at length throw it aside as an intractable and unmanageable instrument. This, therefore, has been the melancholy history of magnetism. During ages, repeatedly taken up and laid aside again, now lies, almost unused, so remarkable, so profoundly efficient—nay, one may say, an incomparable
means of allaying suffering, where the human hand is so seldom capable of affording help. Physicians themselves call nervous diseases the scandals medicorum. At a not far distant time I confidently hope this will not be. Henceforth the all-powerful influence of terrestrial magnetism will be estimated and taken into account, and the whole question of magnetism will be subjected to regular study in its relation to medicine; progress will be made, and a dear understanding arrived at. The world will at length be able to hope for healing powers to be drawn from these extraordinary things, whence it has so long justly expected them. If any physician have here and there remarked, that his patients generally found themselves better in a position where the head was directed to any particular point of the compass, the matter, so far as I know, has never been reasoned upon to any extent; least of all, has its peculiar and mighty import been educed, or been traced back to its physical basis. Here, however, where I have merely to do with the relations of the subject to physics, beyond the limits of which it would be beside my purpose to stray, 1 have merely to remark, in reference to § 60, that after I had established by the foregoing experiments, the powerful co-operation of terrestrial magnetism in the magnetic influences upon sensitive persons, I made all the succeeding investigations with them solely in the magnetic north-south position, and that I regard this as the normal direction for all re-actions on living, sensitive, nervously diseased human bodies.
72. Now that by the researches from § 60 to this point, we have arrived at the theoretically and practically important fact, that terrestrial magnetism exercises uninterruptedly and universally a powerful influence on all sensitive bodies, and have been fortunate enough to bring these new deductions respecting the inward powers of dead and living nature under rule and law, we may return to 4 59, and take
up the thread to extend it further in another direction. This will be effected by tracing the effects of the magnet and crystals on sensitive organisms.
It is well known that a piece of pure iron, free from carbon, however often it may be rubbed with a magnet, will not acquire an independent power of attracting iron, will not even lift up iron-filings. It therefore does not receive any enduring magnetic power from the magnet, and physicists agree that the iron returns unchanged into its former condition, so soon as the magnet is removed. But this is not absolutely the case. Hitherto, it is true, we have possessed no reagent that would indicate any alteration in the condition of iron which had been in contact with a magnet; but the sensitive human nerves furnish one. For when I allowed Miss Nowotny to take in her hand a rod of pure iron before it was touched with a magnet, I myself not interfering, it was perfectly indifferent to her; but when I brought it into contact with a magnet, and then keeping my hands away removed this from the iron and again allowed her to take it, she found it very different from what it had been before; for now it was no longer indifferent, but gave her the same sensation as a weak magnet, some heat and curling of the fingers, and this persisted decreasingly for some time, till after eight or ten minutes it lost its newly gained strength, and again became indifferent. Miss Reichel felt a magnetic rod twenty inches long when removed to several rooms off. This was connected by cross pieces with an iron armature of exactly the same shape and size. When I removed the latter from the magnet and tried its unaided effect on Miss R.eichel's sensations, I was not a little astonished to see that when just removed from the magnet it was perceived almost at the same distance, reacting magnetically upon the sensitive patient even as the large magnetic rod itself. I made similar experiments with other
sensitive persons at various times. The curling of the fingers did not occur in all, but the other reactions of the magnet were met with universally, the patients finding the force of the latter conveyed to the iron in a weaker degree, yet still of considerable strength when the magnet was powerful. Therefore something must be left behind in the iron by the magnet; but this is not magnetism, and at present we are ignorant of its real nature.
When, as may be read in all books on animal magnetism, a glass of water is placed between the poles of a horse-shoe magnet, consequently in the magnetic current, and is, as it is called, magnetized, every sensitive patient can not only at once distinguish it from common water, but the glass brought immediately after the magnetization to the hand of a cataleptic patient, attracts this like a magnet, and solicits it to follow, just as I have described in my treatise on the peculiar fundamental force of crystals, 45 27 and 28. Something must therefore have passed from the magnet into the water and remained bound there, something which is not a magnet, which we cannot detect by any known chemical means, and cannot be recognised by any of the common senses.
Our celebrated botanist, Prof. Endlicher, visited the patient Miss Nowotny, and witnessed a curious experiment performed by her physician. Prof. Endlicher advised the latter to pass the magnet over himself, and then to react upon the patient. To his surprise, he now, as had never happened before, could attract the hand of the patient with his hand, cause it to attach itself, and follow everywhere, just as the magnetised glass of water had done. He retained this power for almost a quarter of an hour; by that time it had by degrees disappeared. The same unknonm something, which had been left in the iron rod by the magnet, and had likewise passed into the glass of water,
must therefore have been conveyed into the whole person of the physician; it manifested itself here, from the same cause to the same effect, in his fingers.
This experiment was subsequently repeated in a variety of forms; in particular cases the physician let his hand lie in Miss Nowotny's, while he rubbed the back of it with a strong magnet. The patient here said that she felt force increase in the hand of the physician, by starts, with each pass of the magnet. I have repeated the experiment with Miss Maix, and while I rubbed the back of my hand with the magnet as it lay in hers, I received the same account from her. I here recal to notice that this patient is not by any means a somnambulist, nor ever was.
In an earlier treatise 29) I was obliged to men-
tion, for the sake of historical consistency in my memoir, that a number of objects of all kinds, when rubbed with a magnet, subsequently exercised a reaction upon the patient, which was indeed weaker, but wholly of the same kind, as that which the magnet itself produced upon them. I spoke there merely of one patient; since then, I have had opportunities of testing many nervous patients in different conditions, among them many who considered themselves healthy and followed their occupations; they are easily detected, for all feel the magnet directly a single pass is made over them with the horse-shoe. All these persons, however, who may be found in hundreds in a large city by merely seeking, felt themselves affected exactly in the same way by all the objects which had been once rubbed over with the magnet, only in a weaker degree than by the magnet itself Any one who chooses may confirm this in any place, for there can scarcely be a country village so small as not to contain a nervously irritable person.
Since, then, it appears certain, and warranted by experiments and trials of very various kinds, that all persons who possess a certain degree of irritability of the nerves clistitxttly
feel the magnet like a cool or gently warm wind, without touching or seeing it, but on mere approximation, and by passes made in their vicinity; further, that all these feel in like manner, only weaker, all material objects, of whatsoever kind, when they have been previously placed for some time in the line of the magnetic current,—that is to say, have been magnetised; from these two inductions a third immediately follows, which hitherto there has been an objection to drawing,—nay, which some have, iu anticipation, resisted with all their might, and which seems to be especially an abomination to chemists,—namely, that all magnetised objects suffer some unknown temporary alteration through the magnet, be this what it may. Therefore, magnetised water even, however strange it may sound at first, is altered water.
78. If we now compare the effects of crystallic force, as I have explained them in my preceding treatise, with the above of the magnet upon other bodies, we see that the influence of both upon a third body is exactly the same, and so identical, that no character exists for any kind of distinction. I have there shown that the magnetic force and the crystallic force—each taken in its totality—are essentially different, and deport themselves, in reference to their similarity, like a part to the whole; for example, like the heating ray to the sunbeam, like sulphuric acid to alum; but the modification which they leave behind in other bodies, when these are withdrawn from their sphere of action, is exactly the same in both cases; and since these are perfectly exercised by the part, that is, by the crystallic force alone, we are compelled to conclude that this is wholly effected in the magnet by the crystallic force residing in it: therefore by this part of its ibrce. We find, consequently, the magnetic poles and the crystal poles agree wholly, and are perfectly alike in reference to their reaction on the animal nerves.
And now our investigations have brought us to the portal of the so-called animal magnetism, this noli-metangere may now be seized. When I passed a magnet down twice from head to foot, over the patient, Miss Sturmann, she lost consciousness, and fell into convulsions, mostly with rigid spasms. When I did the same with my large rock-crystal, the same result followed. But I could produce the same effect, when, instead of either of these, I used merely my empty hand. Therefore the crystallic force of the magnet and the crystal must reside in my hand.
To test this further, I undertook a series of researches which I will now recount. If this were the case, the force of my hand must produce all the same effects which the crystallic force can bring to pass, as I have recounted them in my last treatise; from the similarity of the properties must be concluded the difference or identity. Before all, it must be inquired whether and what agreement exists between the effect of crystals upon healthy and sick human bodies, and that of the human hand on the same. The results of passing my magnetic rod or my large rock-crystal over a sensitive person, have already been many times detailed; I may here confine myself to a comparison of the two effects upon the hand. When, on those persons who were sensitive enough to feel distinctly the passage of a large crystal along the inside of the hand, I slowly carried my right hand, with the fingers' points turned sideways, down through their left hands, in such a manner that one finger followed another, and thus so swept over them that all passed over in one and the same line, which was drawn from the wrist to the point of the middle finger, I found none who did not feel this in the same way, usually as a cool, more rarely as a warm wind, and not only as strongly, but usually even evidently more so than they had felt the passage of a crystal. I shall not speak
of the sick patients, for all whom I have named in my researches felt this as remarkably strongly as they usually did every magnetic pass of the hand. Miss Maix and Miss Nowotny felt each single finger. But even among the healthy there were not a few who displayed a very considerable sensibility to this reaction; nay, I even found some who, while they could not detect the passage of crystals with certainty, were so clearly aware of the successive passage of the fingers, that they could always accurately state it, with the face turned away. I am empowered to refer by name to my friend, M. Carl Schuh, here. He is a healthy and strong man, and felt the pass of the crystals very distinctly. When I, unnecessarily, and against my own rule, bound his eyes, and carried the row of fingers of my right hand slowly down over his left, he felt this so strongly and so distinctly, like a crystal, that he could accurately mark each single pass, and each time spoke precisely when my fingers had passed over a third part of the distance. Mr. Studer, whom I have already mentioned, perceived this just as distinctly; and many other persons, among whom I have permission to name one of the most vigorous, well-inured, and finest men, who has traversed Persia and Kurdistan, and twice penetrated from Egypt into the heart of Asia, therefore is a rare example of an iron constitution, namely, Mr. Kotschy, sometime fellow-traveller with Mr. Russeger. The effect showed itself more strongly upon him; the more agreeable temperature of the air was increased as soon as it became cold. The fingers, therefore, act upon the nerves exactly like a moderately strong crystal.
81. I next wished to undertake the comparative examination of the sources of the two forces. as to the capability of being conducted through other bodies. I made Miss Sturmann grasp one end of a German silver conductor in her right hand, without having previously touched it myself. I first allowed her a little time to accustom herself to the
feel of the conductor; then I placed upon the other end the slightly moistened tips of the fingers of my right hand. Instantaneously she experienced a warm sensation in the part in contact with her hand, which .passed upwards through this and ascended to her elbow. I placed the five fingers of my other hand upon it; the sensation was strikingly strengthened, and now propagated to the shoulder. I took my fingers away; the sensation rapidly decreased, not, however, disappearing suddenly; I put my fingers on and off alternately; the increase and decrease of the sensations produced kept pace. Another day I induced Dr. Lippich to do the same; his fingers produced the same effect. I made the same experiment with Miss Maix. I made her grasp the same conductor, without my -interference, and, after some pause to accustom her to the metal, placed first my five, then ten, fingers upon it. The warm sensation appeared and disappeared as I put my fingers on and took them off; with all ten it was so strong that it ascended through the whole arm to the head. I bade her physician make the same experiment; he did so, with the same results; however, although he was ten years younger than myself, the effect of his fingers was evidently weaker than that of mine. By accident, Father Lambert, of the Franciscans, her confessor, was present; I bade him try his power. She found his power equal to mine. I also desired the matron, Miss Barbara Pschierl, to try. Her fingers produced the same effect, but much weaker, than those of men. I repeated this experiment another time, with the modification of taking an iron wire, five feet long, instead of the German silver conductor. One end was grasped by the patient, accustomed to it for a few minutes; then the other end was touched with my five fingers, and the patient immediately said she felt a sensation of a flow of strong heat: when I placed ten fingers on it the sensation increased, while every time I let the wire
out of my hand it disappeared again. This was tested by numerous repetitions. After that, I had the ten fingers of a young lady, her sister, who was also weak and nervous, placed, instead of mine, upon the end of the wire; the effect was remarkably weak. The ten fingers of another girl were added: the effect was observably stronger, but all the twenty together did not act nearly so strongly as five of my fingers, although I have long been grey and bald. I also tested these conditions with a copper wire. It was ten feet long, and also conducted the force, but more slowly and rather more weakly than the iron wire. The same experiments, varied in many ways, were repeated by me, with the same results, on Miss Reichel. The effect was very strongly exhibited in Miss Atzmannsdorfer. But even the healthy Mr. Studer possessed so much sensibility, that he clearly felt the effect of my hands upon metal wires. It follows from all these experiments, that the force of the human hand may be conducted through other bodies, exactly like the crystallic force, and that these bodies are capable of conducting the two forces in the same way.
82. I now wished to investigate the capability of accumulation. First, in Miss Sturmann, I placed the German silver conductor near her, and let it remain a quarter of an hour. Then I told her to grasp it, and to accustom her full hand to it. She laid it down near, and left it. I now held it for some seconds in my hand, and again laid it down. When she grasped it again, she felt it warm, and so strongly charged, that the well-known sensation which the crystals had produced under other circumstances, ascended along the whole hand up to the elbow-joint. This was of course repeated, for confirmation, under different modifications. Her physician, Dr. Lippich, made a similar experiment. At my request, two exactly similar porcelain saucers were placed on a distant table; one he left untouched, the other he held for a short time in his fingers, and then laid it down, where
it remained a few minutes. They were now brought to the patient. She named the saucer which had been subjected to the effect of contact of the fingers, with the greatest ease and certainty After about ten minutes the effect had disappeared, and the two saucers felt exactly the same. I repeated the experiment with the conductor, in the same way, on Miss Maix. It afforded perfectly similar results; it was charged by my fingers, and the charge which had been found to endure five minutes by Miss Sturmann, was detected, gradually decreasing, for twenty minutes, by the more sensitive Miss Maix. The effect was perfectly similar in both, a sensation of warmth ascending from the hand to the arm, and agreeing completely with that which the rock crystal had produced under similar circumstances. I found just the same in Miss Reichel and Miss Atzmannsdorfer some months later. But a glass of water ever remained the most remarkable. When this was taken in the hand, enclosed below in the fingers, the other hand placed above, and the inside also closed by the fingers, and thus held for some ten minutes, it acquired for sensitive nervous patients the smell, the taste, and all the remarkable properties of the so-called magnetised water, which those may make a foolish outcry against who have never investigated the matter, to which number I myself once belonged, but of which all who have examined it and seen its effect can only speak with astonishment. This water wholly agreed in its essential properties with that which had been treated with the magnet or with crystals; therefore received an abundant charge from the fingers and hands, of that peculiar force residing in them, and retained it for some little time. Finally, I could, without selection, take any possible object in my hand, keep it there for some time, and give it to the patients: they then affirmed, of all which they had previously had in their hands, that they had undergone the same change as when they had been rubbed with magnet or crystal poles; and
this whether they knew of my interference, or it had been kept secret. From all these things it undoubtedly follows, that the force of the hands possesses the same capability of accumulation as the crystallic force.
That this charge gradually disappears again, appears from what has been stated already, and requires no especial proof. From these two things it further follows, that in the bodies which acquire a charge, and lose it gradually, must reside the same power of coercion for the force of the hands which they have shown for the cryslallic force. The magnitude of the charge of other bodies increased with the strength of the hand, and the capacity for charge displayed no limits but the proportionate strength of the charging body.
The question whether there exists a dualism of this force in animal bodies, as in the crystals, required to be subjected to comparative tests. Crystals are known to possess, in crystallographical respects, several axes, main and secondary, and in the compound systems several main axes. When 1 tried the sensitiveness of the patients on them, they all, as I have already stated in the preceding treatise, after a short investigation found me the main axes and its poles,— those two points, namely, at which the action of the crystallic force on the tips of their fingers was most strongly and strikingly concentrated. But in many, especially in sulphuret of iron, selenite, fluor spar, heavy spar, sphene, granite, &c., they would also discover other axes, the poles of which were much less strongly opposed, but still gave evidence of a marked dualism. All the patients agreed in these perceptions; and a selenite, which I took from one to the other in succession, and allowed them to feel between the fingers of both hands as it lay upon a table, afforded me the same results in all: each described a strong main axis, with its stronger and weaker pole, and far weaker secondary axes, and all at exactly the same points and lines: very frequently the main axis was not the longest, but a shorter,
particularly in selenite; and this agreement among all these mutually unknown observers was here the best possible warrant of the reality and correctness of their statements. Moreover, they may readily be tested elsewhere, for no populous town can be without suitable nervous patients. But even healthy sensitive persons, Mr. Sluder in particular, could, without much trouble, discover the poles of crystals with his fingers. The axes and poles always coincided with the axes and poles of crystallography, and thus it became more than probable that the crystallic force takes part in (if it does not wholly effect) the construction of crystals. Perhaps it is to crystals what the vital force is to organic structures. Yet I will not venture into conjectures here, but hold to that which displays itself as fact: the crystallic force exists in a polar condition in crystals, and contemporaneously in several axes of a crystal, only in unequal degrees of strength.
85. 1 next met with similar conditions in animal life itself. It has been assumed that in man there is a main axis, from above downwards, and the brain and the genitals have been regarded as the opposite poles. If I ventured to draw a conclusion from observations of the so-called animal magnetism, I should say that it is not the main axis, but a secondary. In the first place, it has been shown above that patients on whom the magnet acts, bear that position worst of all which gives a longitudinal direction in the magnetic parallel; the body becomes thus magnetically differenced according to the latitude, which it appears unable to bear. We know of something similar in exposure to cold; when it comes laterally, it is at once much more injurious and powerful than when it comes in front or behind. This has become more evident to me, through other circumstances, which I may here notice. When I gave the very sensitive Miss Maix my right hand, and placed it in her left, she felt it in the same manner as when I placed upright on her hand a little magnetic rod, or selenite four inches long, both with the nottlywes
But when I gave her my left hand, she found it very much more agreeable. If I laid my right hand in her left, and, at the same time, my left in her right, as is usual when one extends both hands at once to a friend, she said it seemed to her to run as in the " ring-game," (the name given in Vienna to tilting) up the right arm, through the heart and shoulders, down the left arm again, and through me till it reached her again, and thus incessantly around in a circle most painfully to her, and making her giddy. When I now crossed my hands, so that my right was in her right, and my left in her left, she would not bear it, and said that it produced such a painful sensation of a strange kind of contest and strife in her arms and through the heart, a sort of wave up the arms and down again, that it was altogether insupportable. And after she had snatched her hands from mine, she so decidedly refused to give them a second time, that I was obliged to give up the critical repetition which I always made in all other experiments.3
86. Since, then, it clearly results from all these experiments that it is by no means indifferent which of the hands is offered to a nervous patient in the various contacts, it follows with certainty that the two hands are not in the same condition in reference to the hidden power that resides in them; and, if I do not altogether misunderstand the last experiment, there existed a kind of course, like that of the galvanic current, from my left hand to her right, and onward from her left to my right—a motion which could not force its way, or, meeting with considerable obstacles, tried to break through in spite of them, when I placed the left hand in her left, and the right in her right. This difference of the two hands can be nothing else but the well-known polarization,
such as we are acquainted with in the magnet, and has been long known to us in crystals. In this point of view, the main axis passes transversely through man, and indeed through all animals; the longitudinal axis is to be regarded only as a secondary axis. In reality, we are transverse, and composed of two symmetrical halves. All cerebral organs, organs of sense, masticating apparatus, arms and hands, testicles, and feet, stand transversely opposed, and in this direction principally are we universally polar.
87. I subsequently investigated these interesting conditions in the same manner in Miss Atzmatinsdorfer. The same results were presented in the same way as those just detailed; when I took her two opposite hands, she felt the current up the right arm and down the left still more strongly than Miss Maix. When I gave her my crossed hands, scarcely a minute elapsed before she was so affected that she became quite ill. When I gave into her hand one of the German silver conductors on a long brass wire, and touched this with my right hand, she had the peculiar secondary sensation, which I had also met with in Miss Sturmann, that this body seemed to her to become light, almost like down; on the other hand, when I touched it with the left, it became heavy, and seemingly much heavier than it naturally was. Without wishing to enter more minutely into this at this moment, I nevertheless must mention it, insomuch that it furnishes another character to the opposition of the hands, in a kind of attraction and repulsion. Yet, different as she found my hands in their effect upon her, she perceived no less difference in her own. When I placed in one of her hands things like iron pyrites, selenite, reguline metals, charcoal, &e., they produced sensations very unlike those which they caused when I bade her transfer them into the other, although no kind of weakening of one or other half of the body in any way existed in her.
88. I have very recently gone through an investigation of
this particular with Miss Reichel, and traced it to further development than in any of the former sensitive persons, She found not only her right hand, but the whole right side, from head to foot, opposed in all its properties to the left; nay, the mere approximation towards her of my right or left hand affected her in an essentially different manner. I shall detail this more fully in a subsequent treatise; here, where we are concerned merely with the proof by facts of a magnetic polar difference in the transverse direction in the human body, I must be content to state that the observations on Miss Maix were repeated, found the same, and confirmed anew.
89.It appears from all these investigations, that all the symmetrically placed organs of the animal body, so far as;they were here investigated, but especially the hands, exhi:bited a difference which is caused by a magnetic polar ,opposition, and that consequently a dualism of the funda'mental free now under consideration exists between them, wholly in the way that we hace.fimnd it to occur in crystals.
90. I have shown above, § 41 and § 53, that the terrestrial magnetism has no observable influence upon crystals, and not the slightest directing power. The same holds good in relation to the force of the hands. The force which I exert actively with my hands is always equally effective in all places and positions that I assume. Neither can I per; ceive any influence upon me passively: I have tried lying down to sleep in various directions, but to whatever quarter of the heavens I turned, I slept equally well: and the perfectly healthy man, who perhaps never is sensitive, undoubtedly never feels the least influence of the terrestrial magnetism, however actively and variously this re-acts upon the sick. Neither can I detect in animals anything which indicates the least dependence upon terrestrial magnetism. If a free sense were devoted to this influence, we might expect to find it in larvae, which are blind. As silk is cultivated on my estates, I had many opportunities of observing the denent of these so low organisms in all stages and conditions. Yet, even in spinning and changing into the chrysalis, the animal never selected any definite direction, but placed its cocoon irregularly in all possible directions; not even a majority exhibited a preference for any particular direction during their dormant state. Therefore, the crystallie force and the force of the hands agree perfectly in this insensibility tu the universal magnetic force of the earth.
91. In reference to the remarkable direct attraction of the patients' hands, exerted so strangely by the magnet and crystals, it has already been stated, 5 74, that a man's band actually effects this, but only when it has previously been rubbed for some time with a strong magnet: he could not do it by his own force. But it has also appeared that he was not. very strong in magnetic force. At least, Miss Maix had found his appreciably weaker than those of Father Lambert and mine. I neglected, myself, to make a proper trial upon the cataleptic Miss Nowotny at the right time, because I was not then sufficiently aware of the value of it, On the other hand, I have seen this phenomenon in Miss Reichel and Miss Atzmannsdorfer many times, in the higher stages of their diseases, and in particular in the former, in the presence of many other persons. In the catalepsy which usually preceded her convulsive fits, her hand followed pretty readily the fingers of my vigorous young man, as also my own. I have often made her rise from the seat in a state of unconsciousness, and follow my fingers a considerable distance along the room. Even when I held before her, in this condition, things which possessed no polar distribution of their own, such as a piece of chalk cut to a point, I could lift up her hand with it, and if she, by chance, stood up in the cataleptic state, in her room, I could lead her some paces on. In this case it was the force of my lingers conducted through the chalk, and concentrated at its point, (according to the laws developed above, 5 81) where the chalk represented the sum of my fingers, and so perfectly took on their force and action, that it
attracted and drew on the hand of the patient, when I walked backward with it, just as my fingers had themselves done. I observed this attraction by my fingers in the same way during Miss Atzmannsdorfer's attacks. Miss Sturmann's attraction I did not witness myself, but it occurred in exactly the same degree in her, and I can trust the statements of her physician, Professor Lippich, as fully as my own experience. From all these different discoveries, it is certain that a mechanically attractive force,acting upon the hands of cataleptic patients, resides in the hands and fingers of healthy men, just as in the poles of crystals.
92. But the luminous phenomena, which I have still to enter into, form a brilliant point in this comparative examination. As I saw Miss Reichel for the first time after violent spasms, with closed eyes, playing in a sort of half sleep with the magnet flame, which always gave her great pleasure, I interposed my outstretched hand, in the darkness, between the magnet and the patient. She immediately began to play in the same manner with the tips of my fingers, and to talk to the bystanders of five little flames, which leaped up and down in the air. She did not perceive my hand itself, and took the movement of my fingers, on the points of which she saw the flames, for an independent movement of the latter. All present, one after another, raised their hands, and each desired to know wl'ether fire issued from his fingers. The patient saw it on all men's fingers, more or less strongly; but not one single girl's fingers emitted sufficient light, or at most but a feeble luminosity, and her own none. As long as Miss Reichel remained ill, these experiments were often repeated, frequently for the alleviation of her spasms, or even for the mere amusement of many spectators. But when she had got well, it appeared, as had not been reported at all before, that not only during sickness, but in health, she saw the magnet flames, the crystallic light, and the flames on the hand, whenever it was dark enough. In fact, she had possessed this power from her earliest age; even as a child her mother had often lifted her up, to let her convince herself that the imaginary fire which she often cried out about, did not really exist on the nails and hooks sticking in the walls. She even had two sisters who in like manner saw luminous appearances, in all places, of which other people could perceive nothing. Now, while I am writing, she serves me daily for investigations which I am making in this subject, on the connexion with electricity and magnetism, and of which we shall see after a time, from my reports, to what conclusions this has led, and will further lead. I was thus placed in a position to examine the luminous phenomena on the hands in the coolest and most comprehensive manner during a long period, and I am still daily continuing this examination.
The investigation on Miss Atzmannsdorfer gave essentially the same results, only she saw all the flame-like appearances larger: while the former patient, according to the degree of her diseased excitement, saw the finger flames from a little less to a little more than an inch long, the latter saw them, in the dark, two inches and more in length; thus almost the whole length of a finger. I shall give, with one of the succeeding essays, drawings of these beautiful appearances, as I obtained them from Miss Reichel. Here the purpose is fulfilled by the facts, warranted by several observers, that fiery brushes of light issue from the points of the fingers of healthy men, in the same manner as from the poles of crystals.
I have now compared the properties of the crystallic force, without exception, as enumerated in my earliest treatise, with the force that the human hand is capable of exercising: the parallel between the two is, as is evident, complete, and the agreement of the two forces, in their general expression, so perfect, that they evidently become identified. For the sake of clearness I here give the principal results seriatim, in a compressed form:—
Hands, passed over the sensitive, act upon them like crystal poles, ยข 79.
The force that here rules is conductible through all bodies, like the force of the crystal, § 80.
It maybe accumulated on other matters, likethe others, § 81. It disappears from the charged substance in a short time, like the other, § 82.
Matter has a coercive power over it, as over the other, § 83. The capacity of bodies to receive a charge is, for this, like that for the other, , 83.
It has a polar arrangement in the human body, as the other has in crystals, § 89.
It is as little influenced by terrestrial magnetism as the other, § 90.
It exerts mechanical attraction on the hands of the sensitive, like the other, § 91. It displays luminosity of the same nature and power as the other, § 93.
And thus we come back to the starting point of this section, § 79, namely, that the same force really resides in the human bands as manifests itself in crystals; that thus the crystallic force and the so-called animal magnetism are thoroughly identical, and therefore that the same laws which rule the former, are also fully applicable to the latter.
Notes: