ists went round, placed themselves en rapport with the patients, embraced them between their knees, and gently rubbed them down along the course of the nerves, using gentle pressure over different regions of the chest and abdomen. The effect of such treatment on delicate women might have been foretold, but it was not left to work alone.

The house which Mesmer inhabited was delightfully situated; his rooms spacious and sumptuously furnished; stained glass and coloured blinds shed a dim, religious light; mirrors gleamed at intervals along the walls; a mysterious silence was preserved, delicate perfumes floated in the air, and occasionally the melodious sounds of the harmonica or the voice came to lend their aid to his magnetic powers. His salons became the daily resort of all that was brilliant and spirituel in the Parisian fashionable world. Ladies of rank, whom indolence, voluptuous indulgence, or satiety of pleasure, had filled with vapours or nervous affections; men of luxurious habits, enervated by enjoyment, who had drained sensuality of all that it could offer, and gained in return a shattered constitution and premature old age, came in crowds to seek after the delightful emotions and novel sensations which this mighty magician was said to dispense. They approached with imaginations heated by curiosity and desire; they believed, because they were ignorant; and this belief was all that was required for the action of the magnetic charm. The women, always the most ardent in enthusiasm, first experienced yawnings, stretching, then slight nervous spasms, and finally, crises of excitation, according as the assistant magnetizers (jeunes hommes, beaux et robustes comme des Hercules) multiplied and prolonged the soft passes or attouchemens by which the magnetic influence was supposed to be communicated. The emotions once begun were soon transmitted to the rest, as we know one hysterical female, if affected, will induce an attack in all others similarly predisposed in the same apartment. In the midst of this strange scene entered Mesmer, clothed in a long flowing robe of lilac-coloured silk, richly embroidered with golden flowers, and holding in his hand a long white wand. Advancing with an air of authority and magic gravity, he seemed to govern the life and movements of the individuals in crises. Women panting were threatened with suffocation, they must be unlaced; others tore the walls, or rolled themselves on the ground, with strong spasms, in the

throat, and occasionally uttering loud shrieks,—the violence of the crises must be moderated. He approached, traced over their bodies certain lines with his wand; they became instantly calm, acknowledged his power, and felt streams of cold or burning vapours through their entire frames according to the direction in which he waved his hand.-Foreign Quarterly Review on the Report of the French Royal Academy, and the Royal Academy of Medicine.

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