Abstract of 'Researches on magnetism and on certain allied subjects', including a supposed new imponderable / By Baron von Reichenbach. Translated and abridged from the German by William Gregory.
- Carl Reichenbach
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Abstract of 'Researches on magnetism and on certain allied subjects', including a supposed new imponderable / By Baron von Reichenbach. Translated and abridged from the German by William Gregory. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![the arm and collar-bone ; and the pain continued, as before, for some time. He could scarcely be persuaded to submit longer to the use of the tractors, although he confessed that, ‘ on the whole, he had received much benefit.’ ” “ On the 24th of May, I requested permission to attempt the relief of a patient of Mr New’s, by the new operation. He had great stiifness and occasional pain in his shoulder. Mr Gaisford, therefore, began to treat him in the usual man¬ ner, with the pieces of pencil. In a few minutes he was seized with a tremor in his limb, and so violent a shivering fit| that it was judged prudent to desist for the present. Next day I wished to repeat the trial; but he positively refused, alleging that his arm was quite well, and therefore it would be putting him to useless pain. It is worthy of remark, that this man’s countenance betrayed very evident symptoms of apprehension ; and it was the general opinion of the by¬ standers, that the dread of experiencing a second time so severe a discipline induced him to make use of his arm so freely.” [The above are two cases, out of ten, described in a letter to Dr Haygarth by Mr Richard Smith of the Bristol Infir¬ mary in 1799. In all of these cases distinct effects were produced ; and in most of them the patient was cured, or at least relieved. It is instructive to observe how the anxiety to disprove the peculiar efficacy of the patent metallic tractors blinded Mr Smith and Dr Haygarth to the obvious interpre¬ tation of these experiments, namely, that not only iron, but many other substances, could produce the remarkable sensa¬ tions and effects described by them. No evidence is adduced to shew that these effects wmre really produced by the imagi¬ nation. This seems to have been taken for granted. But even granting imagination to have had these effects, surely it was the duty of medical men to investigate the phenomena —to ascertain the laws wffiich regulate them—and to en¬ deavour to discover the means of applying this knowledge to practical purposes. Although we have no proof that imagi¬ nation, in the sense in which the word is used by Dr Hay¬ garth, is the agent which produces these phenomena, we may, in one sense, admit that it plays an important part. If, by imagination, we merely mean the action of the nervous system, as affected by external causes, we can hardly doubt that, in all these cases, the effect was produced through the medium of the nervous system. At all events, it is interest¬ ing to compare Mr Smith’s cases, above cited, with some of those described by Baron von Reichenbach in the preceding pages. The close coincidence between them cannot fail to strike the attentive reader.—W. G.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30351017_0123.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
