Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were able to repeat long passages from books that they had never read but once, and had not seen for many years.''^’’’ Similar effects have been produced by animal magnetism, which, as every one knows, powerfully affects the imagination. During this state of “extase,” caused by magnetism, the memory has been often sur- prisingly perfected; and some have been rendered able to speak in a language they had long forgotten. This state was always accompanied by symptoms that showed an increased determination of blood to the head. All had slight convulsions, the face became red, the eyes bright, and after a while humid.^® Like effects are produced by disease. They are not rare, says M. Bertrand, in all diseases which greatly excite the brain. M. Moreau (de la Sarthe) says, in the Encyclopedie Methodique, (Art. Medecine Men- tale,) that he had the care of a child twelve or thirteen years of age, who knew only the first elements of the do in recalling knowledge, is to restore to us what we have actually lost; no degree of cerebral e.xcitement can give us what we never previously possessed R. M.] 27 See interesting accounts of the Possedes j Trombleurs des Ce- venues; Convulsionaires de Saint-Medard; Malades e.xorcises par Gasner, &c., iu Magnetisrae Animal par Bertrand. 28 Bertrand. Magnetisme Animal.—[Any thing with respect to Animal Magnetism must be received with caution. The great ma. jority of scientific men view it in the light of a pure imposture; and yet a Committee of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris drew up a report favourable to its pretensions, to which such men as Cloquet and Itard liave not scrupled to adhibit their names. Georget, too, long-an opponent, became at length favourable to the claims of Animal Magnetism. Still, wise and able men have been deceived be- fore now, even iu matters of fact: and, till much stronger evidence is given to jlie world tlian has liiiherto been adduced, people may well