Neurypnology; or, the rationale of nervous sleep, considered in relation with animal magnetism / Illustrated by numerous cases of its successful application in the relief and cure of disease. By James Braid.

  • James Braid
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Neurypnology; or, the rationale of nervous sleep, considered in relation with animal magnetism / Illustrated by numerous cases of its successful application in the relief and cure of disease. By James Braid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    e 6 VALUE AS A CURATIVE POWER. That we really have acquired in this process a valuable addition to our curative means, which en- ables us speedily to put an end to many diseases which resisted ordinary treatment, I think will be satisfactorily manifested by the eases which I have | recorded. Many of these cases have been seen by other medical men, and are so remarkable, so self-evident to every candid and intelligent mind, that it is im- possible, with any shew of propriety, to deny them. Most unwarrantable and novel attempts have been made, not only to extinguish the farther prosecu- tion of Hypnotism, but also to misrepresent all I had either said or done on the subject, and thus damage me, as well as Hypnotism, in public estima- tion. I am in possession of a mass of documen- tary evidence in proof of this, to an extent which could searcely be credited. But I shall not trowble my readers with details of all that has been done in order to prejudice my patients against me. As regards general principles, it has even been attempted, by garbled statements, to set forth such gross misrepresentations as could only be credited by parties totally ignorant of the subject. Thus it was alleged, that my mode of hypnotizing was no novelty ; on the contrary, that it was an unac- knowledged plagiarism, and that it was the opinion and practice of Bertrand and the Abbé Faria. Now, so far as I have been able to comprehend the mean- ing of Bertrand, which Colquhoun observes, “ it is rather difficult to comprehend,” he adheres “ to the theory of imagination, and imagination alone,”’ (Colquhoun’s Introduction, p. 94.) At p. 34, vol. iv. of
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