BUCHANAN'S. JOURNAL OF MAN
Many Authors
BUCHANAN'S
JOURNAL OF MAN.
VOL. I. JULY, 1887. NO. 6.
CONTENTS OF JOURNAL OF MAN.
Magnetic Education and Therapeutics--The So-Called Scientific
Immortality--Review of the New Education--Victoria's Half
Century--Outlook of Diogenes--A Bill to Destroy the Indians
MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE--The Seybert Commission; The Evils
that need Attention; Condensed Items--Mesmerism in
Paris--Medical Freedom--Victoria's Jubilee; Delightful Homes
Outlines of Anthropology Continued--Cranioscopy--Illustrated
MAGNETIC EDUCATION AND THERAPEUTICS.
EXTRACTS FROM AN ESSAY BY DR. CHARLES DU PREL, IN SPHINX, TRANSLATED
FOR THE JOURNAL OF MAN.
"In the _Wiener Allgemeiner_ I spoke of the possibility of
moral education by means of magnetism, which has been carried
out." * * *
"Dr. Bernheim, a Professor of the Medical Faculty in Nancy who
is a champion of hypnotism has written a book on 'Suggestion and
its Application in Therapeutics,' in which a great many hypnotic
cures are recorded."
* * * * *
"Dr. ---- quotes Franklin against magnetism but Sprengel in his
Pharmacology says 'Franklin, sickly as he was, took no part
whatever in the investigation.' The Academy again investigated
(1825-31) somnambulism, discovered by Puysegur, Mesmer's
scholar. In their report of two year's investigation, eleven M.
D.'s unanimously pronounced in favor of all important phenomena
ascribed to somnambulism. A fairly complete synopsis of their
report will be found in my 'Philosophy of Mystics.'"
* * * * *
"Du Potet first studied medicine, but disgusted by the poor
results of Pharmacology he embraced magnetism. He performed a
series of mesmeric experiments in the Hotel Dieu of so potent a
nature that twenty M. D.'s of that celebrated hospital signed
the minutes of these proceedings. People ran after Du Potet,
pointing at him and crying 'The man who cures.'"
* * * * *
"The respect for medical therapeutics never has been at as low
an ebb as just now. The public cannot be blamed for this lack of
respect, for they have daily experiences of the ill results of
medicine. Even high medical authorities are of the opinion that
we have to-day a disintegration of medical principles worse than
ever. More uncertain than therapeutics is the manner of
diagnosing to-day! The public is well aware that each doctor has
something different to say or prescribe. I have a personal case
in point. During eighteen months I consulted seven different
doctors, and got seven different contrary diagnoses as well as
contradictory modes of treatment, and this, too, in the city of
Munich, which is hardly secondary to any other city for its
medical talent. Is there any cause to blame the public for
running to the magnetizers? I should do so myself if my magnetic
susceptibility was greater. In such magnetizers as even Mesmer,
Dr. B. can see nothing but charlatans, but I desire to make him
aware that a physician whose reputation he is cognizant of,
Prof. Nussbaum in Munich, said to his audience in College,
'Gentlemen, magnetism is the medicine of the future.' As I am
writing this I have been disturbed by a visitor desiring the
address of a reliable magnetizer, as the physician recommended a
magnetizer, as he was at his wits end."
"In our medicine the adjunct sciences alone are scientific, and
we must respect their high grade; but therapeutics we have none.
Hence Mesmer should be called a benefactor to mankind, for he
has pointed out the correct way. He, with Hippocrates, says that
not the physician but nature cures--that the real therapeutics
consists only in aiding the _vis medicatrix naturæ_. In this
direction the professors at Nancy and Paris are laboring. They
have given the experimental proof that _if the idea of an
organic change of the body is instilled into the mind of the
hypnotized, then such change will take place_. In this we have
a foundation for a PSYCHIC THERAPEUTICS which we hope will soon
put an end to the anarchic condition of medicine of the present
day. But the greatest curse to science of old, and which makes
its appearance even to-day, is that _the old ideas are the
greatest enemies of the new_."
"Unfortunately it is the same in the thought realm as in
lifeless nature, _vis inertiæ_--the law of indolence, according
to which nature remains in its condition to all eternity, until
she is forced into some new condition from a new cause. This
_vis inertiæ_ is harder to conquer in the thought realm than in
lifeless nature, for Mesmer appeared a hundred years ago, and
yet to-day they call him "a perfect charlatan." Braid, thirty
years ago, started hypnotism, but only after Hansen made a
multitude of experiments for profit and pleasure in the largest
cities of Germany, did the physicians wake up to the idea of
investigating it. They teach nothing of mesmerism or hypnotism
at the universities. Yes, even one year ago a professor of
medicine confessed to me, should I pronounce the word
somnambulism I'd be ruined. This is the manner in which ideas
are kept from medical students."
"If medicine, in its results, could look with pride on its
therapeutics, it might be explained. But a therapeutics that
allows thousands of children to sink yearly into untimely graves
from all manner of diseases, that allows a large proportion of
grown persons to be decimated yearly by epidemics, that in its
psychiatry is perfectly impotent to stop the rapid increase of
insanity, that notoriously cannot cure a migraine, a cold, yea,
not even a corn,--such a system ought surely to have some
modesty, and be only too glad to accept improvements that tend
to ameliorate this condition."
CONDITION OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
These remarks of Dr. Du Prel, though somewhat exaggerated, are
probably based on truth in their reference to the backward condition
of the medical profession in Europe, and of all that portion in
America which is essentially European, and governed by European
authority. But the healing art in America has been to a great extent
emancipated by the spirit of American liberty, and in its actual
results among liberal physicians is far in advance of the European
system. One signal proof of this was given at Cincinnati in 1849, when
that city was visited by a terrible epidemic of Asiatic cholera, which
swept off five thousand of its inhabitants. The mortality of cholera
under old school practise had been from twenty-five to sixty per
cent., the latter having been realized in hospitals at Paris. Under
the practice taught in our college at that time, the mortality in
1,500 cases did not exceed six per cent.
The atmosphere of freedom in this country, and the absolute medical
freedom (until within a few years the colleges have procured medical
legislation to help their diplomas, and their graduates) have given a
progressiveness and practicality to American physicians which are
beginning to be recognized abroad.
Dr. Lawson Tait is eminent in the treatment of women in England. In
the _Medical Current_ of April 20th, he is quoted as expressing a
regret that his time and money had not been directed to the Western
instead of the Eastern Hemisphere, when picking up his medical
knowledge. He predicted that 'ere long it will be to the medical
colleges of America rather than to those of Europe that students will
travel.' Then he goes on to say:
"American visitors abroad who have given weeks and months to see
me work, have one and all impressed me with their possession of
that feature of mind which in England I fear we do not possess,
the power of judging any question solely upon its merits, and
entirely apart from any prejudice, tradition, or personal bias.
No matter how we may struggle against it, tradition rules all we
do; we cannot throw off its shackles, and I am bound to plead
guilty to this weakness myself, perhaps as fully as any of my
countrymen may be compelled to do. I may have thrown off the
shackles in some instances, but I know that I am firmly bound in
others, and my hope is that my visit to a freer country and a
better climate may extend my mental vision."
POWER OF MAGNETISM AND SUGGESTION.
The suggestion of Du Prel as to the hypnotic teaching in France, that
an idea impressed on the mind of the hypnotized will be realized in
the body is the basis of a great deal of therapeutic philosophy. It is
true in practice just to the extent of human impressibility. A
cheerful physician or friend, by encouraging words impresses the idea
of recovery and thus sometimes produces it. Judicious friends never
speak in a discouraging manner to the invalid. The success of mind
cure practitioners is based on this principle. They endeavor to
impress on the patient's mind the idea of perfect health, but they
know too little of the whole subject to know how to place the patient
in that passive and receptive condition in which the results are most
promptly and certainly produced.
Such methods are limited in their effect in proportion to human
impressibility and cannot possibly supersede all use of remedies which
reach thousands of cases in which mental operations would be entirely
futile. But the power of animal magnetism over all diseases and
infirmities of mind and body has been so often demonstrated that its
neglect is a deep disgrace to the medical colleges. A correspondent of
the _Daily Telegraph_ gives the following illustration of its power
over drunkenness:
"About eighteen months ago I was conversing with my friend B.,
who is an enthusiastic believer in mesmerism, and has repute as
an amateur practitioner. My contention was that his favorite
science (?) had contributed absolutely nothing to the world's
good to cause its recognition by either scientists or
philosophers. 'Can you give me,' said I, 'one instance in which
you have conferred an actual benefit by the practice of your
favorite art?' He related several, from which I selected the
following:--'There lives by my parsonage,' said my friend B., 'a
man who for many years, had been a confirmed drunkard.
Repeatedly were his wife and children forced to flee from him,
for when in his drunken frenzies, he attempted to murder them.
Again and again have I striven to induce him to flee from his
horrible vice, but my efforts were always futile. One day he
called to see me when he was suffering acutely from the effects
of drink. I resolved to place him under mesmeric influence. This
I did, and while subject to me made him promise not to touch
strong drink again, and if he attempted to break his pledge,
might the drink taste to him filthy as putrid soapsuds. I then
restored him to his normal state, and he left me. He kept his
unconsciously given promise. In the course of a couple of years
this man raised himself from a condition of poverty to the
comfortable position of a thriving market gardener. 'Not a
fortnight since,' resumed my friend, 'my neighbor's wife
laughingly said to me, 'There is no fear of my husband ever
drinking again, sir. You know he has to be in the market very
early in the morning with his vegetables. Yesterday morning,
while he was drinking a cup of coffee at the hotel an old mate
said to him, 'Why don't you drink some spirits; are you afraid?'
To show his mate that he was not afraid, he ordered a glass of
brandy, but no sooner did he put it in his mouth than he spat it
out again, saying the 'filthy stuff tasted like rotten
soapsuds.' My friend B. said, that, till he told me, to no one
had he mentioned the fact, and that what he did to his poor
neighbor he did in order to see if it were possible to use
mesmerism as a remedial agent in cases of drunkenness."
The power of control over the impressible condition (which is so
easily developed into hypnotism) has been recently illustrated in
France, and reports of the phenomena published in the _London News_,
concerning which Mr. Charles Dawbarn has published the following in
the _Banner of Light_:
"According to the reports published in the _Daily News_ of
London, Eng., an attempt has been made by physicians in Paris,
France, to determine the duration of an hypnotic influence. Some
of my readers may not be aware that 'hypnotism' is a word coined
by the medical faculty to replace the term 'mesmerism,' which
they consider disreputably associated with
