Part 13

Another period of excitement due to accounts of vampirism comprised the middle of last century, when all Europe was deeply agitated on the subject. The Emperor of Germany and other monarchs appointed committees of learned men to investigate the matter; theologians and skeptics, philosophers and physicians, took up the discussion, and hundreds of volumes were published on the mysterious question, but no satisfactory result was ever obtained. Many declared the whole a fable or merely the effect of diseased imaginations, others looked upon it as a malignant and epidemic disease, and not a few as the unmistakable work of the devil. Learned men searched the writings of antiquity, and soon found more traces of the fearful disease than they had expected. They discovered that in Thessaly, Epirus, and some parts of the Pieria, men were reported by ancient writers as wandering about at night and tearing all whom they met to pieces. The Lamiae of the Greeks and the Strigae of the Romans evidently belonged to the same category, while the later Tympanites of the Greeks were persons who had died while under the ban of the church and were therefore doomed to become vampires. The Slavic population of Moravia and Bohemia was in those days especially rich in instances of vampirism, and so many occurred in Hungary that the Emperor Charles IV. intrusted the investigation of the matter to a prince of Wuertemberg, before whom a number of cases were fully authenticated. Men who had died years before, were seen to return to their former homes, some in the daytime, some at night, and the following morning those whom they had visited were found dead and weltering in their blood. In a single village seventeen persons died thus within three months, and in many instances, when bodies were disinterred, they were found looking quite alive. At this time the Sorbonne at Paris also took up the subject, but came to no conclusion, save that they disapproved of the practice of disinterring bodies, "because vampires, as cataleptics, might be restored to life by bleeding or magnetic treatment," according to the opinion of the learned Dr. Pierard. (Revue Spirit., iv.)

Here we come at last to the grain of truth around which this mass of popular superstition has gradually accumulated, and the ignorance of which has caused hundreds of innocent human beings to die a miserable death. There can be no doubt that cases of "suspended animation" or apparent death have alone given rise to the whole series of fearful tales of vampirism. The very words of a recital belonging to the times, and to the districts where vampirism was prevalent, prove the force of this supposition. Erasmus Francisci states that, in the duchy of Krain, a man was buried and then suspected of being a vampire. When disinterred his face was found rosy, and his features moved as if they attempted to smile; even his lips opened as if gasping for air. A crucifix was held before his eyes and a priest called out with a loud voice: "Peace! This is Jesus Christ who has rescued thy soul from the torment of hell, and suffered death for thee!" The sound seemed to penetrate to his ear, and slowly a few tears began to trickle down his cheeks. After a short prayer for his poor soul, his head was ordered to be cut off; a suppressed cry was heard, the body turned over as if still alive, and when the head was severed a quantity of blood ran into the grave. It was as clear a case of a living man who had been buried before death as has ever been authenticated. Nor are such cases as rare as is popularly believed. High authorities assure us that, for instance, after imperfect poisoning, in several kinds of suffocation, and in cases of new-born children who become suddenly chilled, a state of body is produced which presents all the symptoms of complete suspension of the functions of life. Such apparent death is, according to the same high medical authority, a period of complete rest, based upon a suspension of the activity of the heart, the lungs, and all spontaneous functions, extending frequently to the sense of touch, and the intellect even. At the same time the natural heat of the body sinks until it seems to have disappeared altogether. The duration of this exceptional state is uncertain, at times the patient awakes suddenly, and in full possession of all his faculties; in other cases external means have to be employed to restore life. Among many well-authenticated cases of this kind, two of special interest are mentioned by Dr. Mayo. Cardinal Espinosa, the minister of Philip II. of Spain, died after a short period of suffering. His rank required that he should be embalmed, and his body was opened for the purpose. At the moment when lung and heart were laid open to view, the surgeon observed that the latter was still beating, and the Cardinal, awaking, had actually strength enough to seize with his hand the knife of the operator. The other case is that of a well-known French writer, the Abbe Prevost, who fell down dead in the forest of Chantilly. His apparently lifeless body was found, and carried to a priest's house in the neighborhood. The surgeon ascribed his death to apoplexy; but the authorities ordered a kind of coroner's inquest, and the body was opened. During the operation the Abbe suddenly uttered a cry of anguish--but it was too late!

If a certain number of such cases of apparent death has really given rise to the faith in vampirism, then it is equally possible to suppose, that this kind of trance--for which there may exist a special predisposition in one or the other race--may become at times epidemic. Persons of peculiar nervousness will be ready to be affected, and a locality in which this has occurred may soon obtain an unenviable reputation. Even where the epidemic does not appear in full force, a disturbed state of the nervous system will be apt to lead to dreams by night, and to gossip in the daytime, on the fatally attractive subject, and the patient will soon dream, or really imagine, that a person who has died of the disease has appeared to him by night, and drawn his strength from him, or, in his excited fancy, sucked his life's blood. By such means even the popular way of speaking of nocturnal visits made by the "vampire's ghost" is not so entirely unfounded as would appear at first sight, and the superstition is easily shown to be not altogether absurd, but to be based upon a small substructure of actual truth.

It is remarkable, however, that the Germanic race has never furnished any instances of vampirism, although their ancient faith in a Walhalla, where their departed heroes feast sumptuously, and their custom to place food in the graves of their friends would have seemed most likely to reconcile them to the idea that men continue to live in their graves.

How sadly persistent, on the other hand, such superstitions are among the lower races, and in specially ignorant communities, may be gathered from the fact that, as late as 1861, two corpses were disinterred by the peasants of a village of Galicia, and decapitated. The people believed them to be vampires, and to have caused a long-protracted spell of bad weather!

ZOANTHROPY.

Even more fearful yet than vampirism is the disease, very common already in the days of antiquity, which makes men think that they have changed into beasts, and then act as such, according to the logic of insanity. Petronius is probably the first to mention, in his "Feast of Trimalchio," a case of lycanthropy, when Niceros relates how someone who was journeying with him threw off his garments, changed into a wolf and ran away into the forest. When he returned home, his account continues, he found that a wolf had fallen upon his flock, but had been wounded by a servant in the neck with a lance. Thereupon he goes to inquire after his fellow-traveler, and finds him sick in bed with a physician by his side, who binds up an ugly wound in his neck. The well-known writer took this episode from the Arcadians, a rude nation of shepherds, whose flocks were frequently attacked by wolves, and among whom stories of men changed into wild beasts, were quite current. Nor must we forget, among historic personages, the daughter of King Proetus of Argos, who believed herself changed into a cow; and of Nebuchadnezzar, who according to his own touching account "was driven from meat, did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's claws." (Daniel iv. 33.) The early days of Christianity are naturally full of incidents of this kind, but what is remarkable, zoanthropy was then already treated as a mere delusion. The holy man Macarius once saw a large procession approaching his hermitage in Egypt; it was headed by a number of persons who led a large and imposing-looking woman by a bridle, and followed by a crowd of people of all ages. When they came near they told his disciples that the woman had been changed into a mare, and had thus remained for three days and nights without food--would the saint pray over her and restore her to her natural condition? The delusion was so forcibly contagious that the disciples also forthwith saw a mare, and not a woman, and refused to admit the animal to the presence of the hermit! Fortunately the latter had retained his self-control; he rebuked his followers, saying: "You are the real beasts, that imagine you see something which does not exist. This woman has not been changed, but your eyes are deluded." Then he poured holy water over her, and at once everybody saw her once more in her natural shape. He dismissed her and her escort with the words: "Go more frequently to church and take the holy sacrament; then you will escape such fearful punishment."

During the Middle Ages a similar disease existed in many parts of Europe; men were changed into dogs or wolves, sometimes as a divine punishment for great crimes, at other times in consequence of a delusion produced by Satan. Such unfortunate men walked on all fours, attacked men and beasts, but especially children, killed and devoured them. They actually terrified many people into believing as confidently in this delusion as they believed in it themselves! For this is one of the specially fearful magic phenomena of zoanthropy that it is apt to produce in healthy persons the same delusion as in the sufferer. Many cases also are recorded of persons lying in deep sleep, produced by narcotic ointments, who, seeing visions, fancied that they were acting like wolves. In the year 1598 such a disease raged as an epidemic in the Jura mountains, till the French Parliament determined to make an end of it by treating all the afflicted either as insane or as persons possessed by the devil and therefore deserving instant death. Among Slavic nations and the Magyars lycanthropy is so closely connected with vampirism that it is not always easy to draw the line between the two diseases. There can be no doubt, however, that it is merely a variety of possession, arising from the same unhappy state in which dualism is developed in the soul, and two wills contend with each other for superiority to the grievous injury of mind and body. The only distinctive feature is this, that in lycanthropy not only the functions of the brains but also those of the skin are disordered, and hence an impression arises that the latter is hairy and shaggy after the manner of wild beasts.

The German Waehrwolf (were-wolf or man-wolf) is the same as the lycanthropos of the Scythians and Greeks and the versipellis of the Romans; he was in German mythology connected with Woden. Hence, probably, the readiness with which the disease during the Middle Ages took hold of the minds of Germans; but at that period nearly all the nations of Europe firmly believed in the reality of such changes.

As late even as the beginning of the sixteenth century cases of this kind occurred in France, where the possessed were known as loups-garoux. A young man of Besancon was thus brought before the Councilor of State, De l'Ancre, at Bordeaux, and accused of roving like a wild animal through the neighboring forests. He confessed readily that he was a huntsman in the service of his invisible master, the devil, who had changed him into a wolf and forced him to range by the side of another more powerful wolf through the country. The poor fellow shared the usual fate of his fellow-sufferers, who were either subjected to a sharp treatment of exorcism or simply executed as heretical criminals.

In our day lycanthropy is almost entirely limited to Servia and Wallachia, Volhynia and White Russia. There, however, the disease breaks out frequently anew, and popular belief knows a variety of means by which a man may be changed into a wolf; the animal differs, however, from a genuine wolf in his docked tail and his marked preference for the blood of young children.

In Abyssinia there exists, according to Pearce, a belief that men are occasionally changed into hyenas--the wolves of that country--but this sad privilege is limited to workers in clay and iron, called Booda among the Amharas, who wear a gold earring of special form as a distinction from other inferior castes.

It will thus be seen that, like all other varieties of possession, zoanthropy also is simply a kind of insanity, and our amusement at the marvelous conduct of werewolves will vanish, if we recall the entire change produced in man by the loss of reason. In that sad condition he endures fatigue, cold or heat, and hunger as no healthy man ever can learn to do; he does not mind the severest castigation, for his body is almost insensible, it ceases to be susceptible to contagious diseases and requires, in sickness, double or treble doses of medicine. If we once know the precise nature of an insane person's hallucination, his actions will be apt to appear quite consistent, and thus lycanthropy also not only produces the fine connection of a change into a wolf, but causes the sufferer to conduct himself in all his ways like the animal which he represents.

VIII.

MAGNETISM.

"Great is the power of the hand."

--ST. AUGUSTINE, Op., iv. 487.

Mesmer, who was the first to make the anaesthetic effects of certain passages of the hand over the bodies of patients known to the public, sought originally to explain them by the agency of electricity; but as early as 1773 he ascribed them to magnetism. From that day he employed magnets, and by passing them over the affected parts of his patients, he performed remarkable cures for many years in the city of Vienna. He looked upon the magnet as the physician, which cured the patient in the same way in which it attracted iron. Soon after, however, he became acquainted with the famous Father Gassner, of Ratisbon, who had obtained precisely the same results, without a magnet, by simple manipulations, and, henceforth, he also treated his patients with the hand only; but he retained the old name, looking now upon himself, and others who were endowed in the same manner, as possessing the powers of a strong magnet. In the meantime one of his pupils, the Marquis de Puysegur, had quite accidentally discovered the peculiar nature of somnambulism, and with rare foresight profited by the moments of clear consciousness which at times interrupted the trance, in order to learn from his patients themselves the means of curing their diseases. He had from that moment devoted all the leisure of his life to the study of these singular but most beneficial phenomena, employing only the simplest manipulations in place of the more exciting means used by Mesmer, and doing an immense amount of good by his judicious cures.

Mesmer, in the course of time, adopted the better method of his former pupil, and now his system was complete. He used magnetism for purely practical purposes: he cured diseases by throwing well-qualified persons into the peculiar sleep produced by magnetizing them, and availed himself of the effects of this half-sleep upon their varied constitutions, for his curative purposes. At the same time, however, he ascribed the influence which he claimed to have over persons whom he had thus magnetized, to a most delicate, all-pervading medium; this, he maintained, was the sole cause of motion, light, heat, and life itself in the universe, and this he stated he was communicating by his process of magnetizing in a sufficient degree to his patients to produce startling but invariably beneficial results. It is well known how his removal from Vienna, where he had begun his remarkable career, to Paris, increased in almost equal proportions the number of enthusiastic admirers, and of bitter adversaries. In spite of an unfavorable judgment rendered by a committee of the Academy in 1784, his new doctrines spread rapidly through all the provinces; so-called Harmonic Societies were formed in almost every town, and numerous institutions sprang up founded upon the new system of magnetizing patients. It is curious that of the nine members of that committee, among whom Franklin was not the least renowned, only one, the great savant Jussieu, refused to sign the report "because it was founded upon a few isolated facts," and sent in a separate memoir, in which he described animal heat as the universal agent of life. Equally curious objections were made by others; thus in another report of the Academy, the king was requested to prohibit the practice of magnetism, because it was "dangerous to the morals of the people," and in the great hospital of the Charite, magnetic treatment was forbidden, because "the new system had caused for a long time warm discussions between the best informed men of science!" Urged by repeated petitions, the Academy appointed, in 1825, a second committee to investigate the matter, which finally reported a firm conviction of the genuineness and efficacy of magnetism, and recommended a further examination of this important branch of psychology and natural science. A permanent committee was thereupon directed to take charge of the matter, before which a very large number of important facts were authenticated; but in 1840, and subsequently, once more, unfavorable reports were laid before the august body and adopted by small majorities.

In England magnetism met with fierce and violent opposition, the faculty being no little incensed by this new and unexpected competitor for fees and reputation. Dr. Elliotson, a professor in the University of London, and director of a large hospital, had actually to give up his place, because of the hostility engendered by his advocacy of the new doctrine. Afterwards the controversy, though by no means less bitter, was carried on with more courtesy, and the subject received, on the whole, all the attention it deserved. Germany alone has legally sanctioned magnetism as a scientific method within the range of the healing art, and the leading powers, like Prussia, Austria, and Saxony, have admitted its practice in public hospitals. Unfortunately, much deception and imposture appeared from the beginning in company with the numerous genuine cases, and led many eminent men to become skeptics. The Russian government has limited the permission to practice by magnetic cure to "well-informed" physicians; but the Holy Curia, the pope's authority, after admitting magnetism, first as a well-established fact, has subsequently prohibited it by a decree of the Inquisition (21st April, 1841) as conducive to "infidelity and immorality." In spite of all these obstacles, magnetism, in its various branches of somnambulism and clairvoyance, of mesmerism and hypnotism, is universally acknowledged as a valuable doctrine, and has led to the publication of a copious literature.

Magnetizers claim--and not without some show of reason--that their art was not unknown to antiquity, and is especially referred to in Holy Writ. They rest their claim upon the importance which has from time immemorial been ascribed to the action of the hand as producing visions and imparting the gift of prophecy. When Elisha was called upon to predict the issue of the war against Moab, he sent for a minstrel, "and it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him." (2 Kings iii. 15.) In like manner "the hand of the Lord was upon Ezekiel" among the captives by the river of Cheber and he prophesied (Ezekiel i. 3); years after he says again: "The hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening" (xxxiii. 22), and once more: "the hand of the Lord was upon me" (xl. 1). It is evident that according to biblical usage in these cases the manner of acting attributed to God is described after the usage prevailing among men, and that the "hand upon men" represented the usual method of causing them to fall into a trance. But this placing the hand upon a person was by no means confined to cases of visions; it was employed also in blessings and in sacrifices, in consecrations and miraculous cures. Daniel felt a hand touching him, which "set me upon my knees and the palms of my hands" (Dan. x. 10), while soon after the same hand "strengthened him" (17); and even in the New Testament a high privilege is expressed by the words: "The hand of the Lord was with him." (Luke i. 66.) In other cases a finger is substituted for the hand, as when the magicians of Pharaoh said: "This is the finger of God" (Exodus viii. 19), and the two tables of testimony are said to have been "written with the finger of God" (Exodus xxxi. 18); in the same manner Christ said: "If I with the finger of God cast out devils." (Luke xi. 20.) What makes this reference to finger and hand in Eastern magic and in biblical language peculiarly interesting is the fact that neither Greeks nor Romans ever referred in like manner to such an agency. It is evident that these nations, possessing the ancient wisdom of the East and the revealed knowledge of the chosen people, were alone fully acquainted with the power which the hand of man can exercise under peculiar circumstances, and hence looked upon it in God also, as the instrument by which visions were caused and miracles performed. Hence, no doubt, also the mysterious hand, which from time immemorial has been used as one of the emblems of supreme power, often called the hand of justice, but evidently emblematic of the "hand of God," which rests upon the monarch who rules "by the grace of God." Magnetizers connect all these uses made of the hand with their own method, which consists almost invariably in certain passes made with the whole hand or with one or more fingers.

Whatever may be thought of this connection between the meaning of the "hand" in biblical language, and the magnetism of our day, there can be no doubt as to the fact that the ancients were already quite familiar with the phenomena which have startled our century as something entirely new. The so-called temple-sleep of the Greeks was almost identical with modern somnambulism; the only essential difference being that then the gods of Olympus were seen, and lent their assistance, in the place of the saints of the Middle Ages, and the mediums of our own day. Incense, mineral waters, narcotic herbs, and decoctions of Strychnos or Halicacabum, were, according to Pliny, employed to produce the peculiar sleep. ("Hist. Nat." l. xxi. ch. 31.) The patients fell asleep while lying on the skins of recently killed animals in the Temples of AEsculapius, and other beneficent deities, and in their sleep had dreams with revelations prescribing the proper remedies. The priests also, sometimes, dreamt for their visitors--for a consideration--or, at least, interpreted the dreams of others. Even magnetism by touch was perfectly familiar to the ancients, as appears from words of Plautus: "Quid, si ego illum tractim tangam, ut dormiat?" (What if I were to touch him at intervals so that he should fall asleep?) Plutarch even speaks of magnetizing by touching with the feet, as practised by Pyrrhus. Other writers discovered that the Sibyls of Rome, as well as the Druids of the Celts, had been nothing more than well-trained somnambulists, and ere long distinct traces of similar practices were found in the annals of the Egyptians also.

One of the earliest cases, which was thoroughly investigated, and carefully watched, is reported by Dr. Petetin, of Lyon, in his famous "Memoir on Catalepsy and Somnambulism." (Lyon, 1787.) His patient was a lady who had nursed her child with such utter disregard of her own health that her whole system was undermined. After an attack of most violent convulsions, accompanied with apparent madness, she suddenly began to laugh, to utter a number of clever and witty sayings, and finally broke out into beautiful songs; but a terrible cough with hemorrhages ended the crisis. Similar attacks occurred with increasing frequency, during which she could read, with closed eyes, what was placed in her hand, state hour and minute on a watch by merely touching the crystal, and mention the contents of the pockets of bystanders. She stated that she saw these things with varied distinctness; some clearly, others as through a mist, and still others only by a great effort. The reporter expresses his belief that the stomach in this case performed all the functions of the senses, and that the epidermis, with its network of fine nerves, acted in place of the usual organs. Petetin was also the first to enter into direct relations with his somnambulist; he could induce her at will to become clairvoyant, and make himself understood by her whenever he directed his voice toward the only sensitive part. Gradually, however, it was discovered that the degree of close communication (rapport) between the two parties depended as largely on the correspondence of character between them as on the energy of will in the magnetizer and the power of imagination possessed by the patient. Deleuse, one of the professors of the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, gave much attention to the subject, and in his numerous publications maintained the existence of a magnetic fluid by the side of the superior power with which some men are endowed, and that both were employed in influencing others. He was frequently, and violently, attacked on the score of his convictions, especially after several cases of cunning deception had become known. For very soon the innate desire for notoriety led many persons to pretend somnambulism, and skillfully to imitate the phenomena of clairvoyance, displaying, as is not unfrequently the case, in these efforts a skill and a perseverance which would have secured them great success in any legitimate enterprise. A number of volumes appeared, mostly in Germany, professing to contain accounts of marvelous cures achieved by magnetism, which upon examination proved to be altogether fictitious. France, however, abounded more than any other country with impostors, and every kind of deception and cheating was carried on there, at the beginning of this century, under the cloak of mesmerism. Young girls, stimulated by large rewards, and well trained by hospital surgeons, would submit to brutal treatment, and profess to reveal, during well-simulated trances, infallible remedies for grievous diseases. The followers of Mesmer degraded his art by making it a merry pastime or a lucrative exhibition, without regard to truthfulness, and without reverence for science. Even political intriguers, and financial speculators, availed themselves of the new discovery; precisely as in our day spirit-rapping and kindred tricks are used. In England, and in the Union, mesmerism fared little better; especially with us, it soon fell into the hands of quacks and charlatans who made it a source of profit; at the same time it assumed various new names, as, electro-biology, hypnotism, and others.

The idea that somnambulism was the effect of angelic or demoniac influences was once largely entertained, but has long since given way to more scientific views. But it cannot be said that the true nature of the active principle has yet been fully ascertained, and so far the results of mesmerism must be classed among magic phenomena. What is alone clearly established is the power which the strong will of the magnetizer evidently exercises over the patient, and the fact that this energy acts through the hands as its organs. The patient, on his side, undergoes by such an exercise of a foreign will a complete change of his individuality; the action of his brain is modified and he falls into magnetic sleep. Many intelligent somnambulists have distinctly stated that they obey the will of their master and not his hands; that manipulation, in fact, merely serves to communicate this will to their inner sense. Whether the connection which evidently exists between the two parties is established merely for moral agencies or by an infinitely subtle fluid, which may possibly be the Od of Baron Reichenbach--this question remains as yet undecided. So much only is quite certain that neither the will alone suffices to produce the magic phenomena of magnetism, nor heat and electricity, as the physicist Parrot maintained; as little can electro-magnetism, unaided, be the cause of such results, though the great Robiano stoutly asserted its power; man is a dualism of spirit and body, and both must be influenced alike and together, in order to obtain perfect mastery. The most plausible explanation yet offered by men of science is, that by the will of the magnetizer his own nervous and mental system assumes a certain condition which changes that of the subject into one of opposite polarity, paralyzes some of his cerebral functions and causes him to fall into a state resembling sleep. The stronger and healthier man affects the nervous system of a feeble and less healthy man according to his own more or less strongly marked individuality, and the spiritual influence naturally develops itself in the same proportions as the material influence. Hence the thoughts and feelings, the convictions and the faith of the magnetizer are reflected upon the mind of his subject. Even Mesmer himself had not yet reached this point; he was, up to his death, content to ascribe the power of the magnetizer to the waves of an universal fluid set in motion by the superior energy of specially endowed persons. According to his doctrine thoughts were conveyed by means of this mysterious fluid in precisely the same manner in which light and sound are borne onward on the waves of the air that surrounds us. They proceed from the brain and the nerves of one person and reach those of another person in this imperceptible manner; to dispatch them on their errand, volition is required; to receive them, willingness and a certain natural predisposition, since there are men incapable of being reached in this way, as there are others who are deprived of sight or hearing. As the conveying fluid is far more subtle than the thinnest air, permeates the whole universe and bears a close resemblance to the fluid which sets our nerves in motion, there is no other limit to the effects of volition on the part of the so-called magnetizer than the strength of his will. If he possesses this in a sufficiently high degree, he can affect those who are subject to his superiority even at the greatest distance. Moreover, if his influence is sufficiently effective the somnambulist acquires new and heretofore unknown powers; he sees the interior of his own body, recognizes its defects and diseases, and by a newly-awakened instinct, perceives what is necessary to restore its perfect order. Such were the views of Mesmer.

Besides this theory a number of others have been published from time to time, by men of science of almost all countries--even modern philosophers, like the German Schopenhauer, having entered the lists in defense of their favorite ideas. The most striking view published in recent times, is found in the works of Count Robiano, a learned abbe and a brilliantly successful magnetizer. He ascribes all the phenomena of somnambulism to the purely physical activity of the nerves, and proposes to call his new physical science neururgy. He identifies the nervous fluid with galvanism and voltaic electricity, and asserts that by a galvanic battery all the results can be obtained which mesmerism claims as its own. He also states that galvanic rings, bracelets, belts and necklaces cause immediately somnambulism in well-qualified persons, while carbon held before the nostrils of somnambulists in deep sleep, awakes them instantly, and at the same time releases limbs held in cataleptic rigidity. Alabaster, soda, and wax have similar effects, but less promptly, and the wind from a pair of bellows has equal power. According to his theory, currents of what he calls the galvanic-neururgic fluid, are capable of producing all the well-known symptoms and phenomena of thought from idiocy to genius, and from unconscious sleep to the highest excitement; the process by which these results can be obtained is a suspension of the vital equilibrium by disease, intoxication, abstinence, long-continued fasting and prayer and the like. If the marvelous fluid is unequally distributed through the system, catalepsy ensues. The novelty and force of Robiano's doctrines attracted much attention, but a series of experiments conducted by eminent men soon proved that galvanism alone produced in no instance somnambulism, but invariably required the aid of volition, which the learned Italian in his modesty had probably underrated, if not altogether overlooked.

It is a matter more of curiosity than of real interest that the Chinese have--now for nearly eleven hundred years--believed in an inherent power possessed by every human being, called yu-yang, which is identical with an universal yu-yang. According to this view, every person endowed with the proper ability can dispose of his own yu-yang and diffuse a portion of it over others, so as to cure their infirmities. The French missionary Amyot communicated this to Puysegur (Du Magnetisme Animal, Paris, 1807, p. 387), and looked upon the yu-yang as the universal vital power which produces everything.

Before we dismiss any such theory--in China or nearer home--with a supercilious smile, it is well to recall the reception which the first revelation of electricity in the human body met among our savants. The doctrine had to pass through the usual three stages of contempt, controversy and final adoption. John Wesley, more than a hundred years ago, said of it: "With what vehemence has it been opposed! Sometimes, by treating it with contempt, as if it were of little or no use; sometimes by arguments such as they were, and sometimes by such cautions against its ill effects, as made thousands afraid to meddle with it." Now, every elementary text-book teaches that all created living bodies are electric, and that some persons, animals, and plants are so in a very high degree. To establish this truth poor puss has had to suffer much in order to give out electric sparks, and the sensitive plant has had to show how its leaves

"With quick horror fly the neighboring hand,"