mony to certain facts of trance conditions, so called, and cures.
The following is given on the authority of Dr. Tuke, who says, "It is afforded by a highly respectable surgeon and attributed by him to mesmerism." It is the case of Edward Wine, aged seventy-five, who had been paralyzed two years in one arm and leg. The left arm was spasmodically fixed to the chest, the fingers drawn toward the palm of the hand and wasted, quite incapable of holding anything; walked with a crutch, drawing the left leg after him. After several mesmerizing operations the surgeon put "a nosegay in his coat and posted him off to church, and he tells me he walked like a gentleman down the aisle, carrying his stick in his lame arm."
The noted Mr. Braid in many authentic instances restored lost sight, greatly improved the condition of the paralyzed, in some instances entirely curing the patient, and had very little difficulty with most cases of rheumatism. Dr. W. B. Carpenter investigated many of these cases.
But what is mesmerism, magnetism, electro-biology, etc.? It is a subjective condition. The notion that a magnetic fluid passes from the body, or that passes are of utility in producing the state except as they act upon the mind of the candidate, was exploded long since; and both in Europe and America the discovery of the real principle was accidental and made by a number of persons. About fifty years ago an itinerant lecturer on these phenomena, who had great success in experiments, used an old-fashioned cylinder electrical machine. The "subjects" took hold of the wire. He gave them a slight electrical shock, and "concentrated his will upon them." Those that were susceptible passed into the trance state. On a certain occasion, when trying the experiment with several
