Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/42

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38
THE MESMERIC PERIOD

told her at that time . . . I am quite confident that the lady and Mr. Quimby had never met before and that there was nothing previously concerted. I am also confident that she took no drug to induce stupor. In ten minutes after commencing, she was put into a state of apparent natural sleep, breathing and pulse natural, color of countenance unchanged. Mr. Q. asked her if she felt well. ‘Yes.’ I immediately, in the presence of several noted citizens who were called in at their request, began to remove the polypus, and did it thoroughly. . . . I was operating perhaps 4 or 5 minutes at least. During the whole time she evinced not the slightest symptom of pain, either by any groaning, sighing or motion whatever, but was in all these respects like a dead body. I felt convinced that I [could] have amputated her arm. In about ten minutes after she was waked up, but said she was unconscious that anything had been done, complained of no pain, and found that she could now breathe freely through her nose, that previously had been entirely closed up, for several months. . . . Mr. Quimby . . . is an intelligent gentleman and worthy of the utmost confidence.”

Another communication, addressed to Nathan Hale, Dr. Jacob Bigelow, and Dr. John Ware, of Boston, dated Belfast, Nov. 6, 1843, has been deprived of its signature through much handling. It is intended to show the authenticity of the experiments performed by Quimby and his subject. The writer, who is careful in stating facts, says that the subject told him even his own thoughts which the writer kept to himself, also words that he simply visualized. Lucius when blindfolded told minute facts concerning things at a distance of half a mile which no one in the room knew, facts which he could not know by “any means within the limit of common experience.” The writer says:

“I have good reason to believe that he can discern the internal structure of an animal body, and if there be anything morbid or defective therein detect and explain it. The important advantage of this to surgery and medicine is obvious enough. He, that is, his intellect, can be in two places at the same time. He can go from one point to another, no matter how remote, without passing through the intermediate space. I have ascertained from irrefragible experiments that he takes ideas first directly from the mind of the person in communication with him, and, second, without reference to such