Outlines of medical proof : revised and corrected, with remarks on its application to certain forms of irregular medicine / by Thomas Mayo.

  • Thomas Mayo
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of medical proof : revised and corrected, with remarks on its application to certain forms of irregular medicine / by Thomas Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    80/88 page 76
    The nature of my present purpose confines me in my remarks on mesmerism to those of its phenomena which may concern the treatment of disease. 1 do not embrace in ray estimate its transcendental phenomena; either the impartment of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, to persons en rapport, or the so-called clairvoyance,* or the phrenolo- gical excitement of organs. Now in regard to all these points, I strongly advise a further prosecution of inquiry; but this, in my opinion, for reasons which I think will occur to my reader, ought to be non-medical. Such an inquiry must be beneficial; it must either evolve new laws of a very important class of phenomena, or if it terminate in discredit- ing them, it will afford a wholesome warning, as to sources of error, in the admission of evidence. The credulous and the incredulous alike require to be reminded of some preliminary considerations before they enter upon such an inquiry. The first have to guard against the love of the improbable, incidental to minds “ that long to be deceived,” wherever the subject matter stimulates the imagination. The incredulous may be reminded, that it is probable that some improbable phenomena should turn out to be truths, if ever it should be given to us to fathom the laws to which the phenomena of mind are subjected.
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