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.
77/128 page 65
![Heichenbach. I have already obtained pretty decisive evi¬ dence, that the approach of the pole of a crystal acts on crystallising solutions just as Mr Hunt describes the pole of a magnet to do. Should my results be confirmed, they will furnish physical evidence, independent of sensitive persons, of the existence of a force in crystals. 1 am continuing these researches, and will make known the results as soon as I am fully satisfied of their accuracy.—-W. G.] It was thus easy to calculate that chemical action must have a powerful reaction in producing the new force. The author hopes, that it will supply a means of concentrating that force, and rendering it better adapted for further researches than hitherto, he having been as yet confined to the sensi¬ bility of sensitive persons : and, above all, that it may furnish a more convenient reagent for detecting it, and a measure of its relative power in different cases. 153. Let us now cast a glance back to the magnetic baquet: this strange contrivance now loses its enigmatic character, no doubt, at the cost of becoming more ridiculous. It is no¬ thing but an accidentally thrown together slow and long continued source of chemical action ; from which flows the desired force, just as a slow fire gives out heat. It is a slow current, derived from chemical action, of the influence resid¬ ing in magnets, in crystals, in the human hand, &c., and in this case is called Animal Magnetism. Now, we see why the baquet, when stirred up after a long interval, when it has become dull, again acquires new vigour ; because new sur¬ faces for solution are produced ; also, why every new physi¬ cian makes his own hotchpotch, and yet obtains the same results ; because it is indifferent what substances are present, provided they can act chemically on each other; and, finally, how one, who used a baquet of water and glass obtained little, and others who followed him, obtained no results : be¬ cause glass and water, although a magnetic incantation may have been pronounced over them, do not act together. The whole scaffolding of the baquet, which, since the time of Mesmer, has not a little contributed to render animal mag¬ netism ridiculous, will now fall to pieces; and any slow che¬ mical action (perhaps an open voltaic circuit may prove the best), manageable as to power, and convenient in form and size, will replace it. 154. But the considerations, which present themselves in connection with chemical action, lead us to another, perhaps a more interesting, path of inquiry. They point to the source from which, in all probability, the organism draws its so- called magnetic force : to the hearth, where the flaming E](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30351017_0077.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
