Outlines of medical proof ; with remarks on its application to certain forms of irregular medicine / by Thomas Mayo.

  • Mayo, Thomas, 1790-1871.
Date:
1850
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    without any admixture of evil. But I conceive that there is much in these extracts to justify my opinion, as expressed in the text, that weakness remaining after fever^^ scarcely warrants all this subjugation to an influence so intense as the above. I had wished to liave confined myself to tlie strictures conveyed in the text, and thus far commented on in the present note : but Dr. Elliotson, in his indiscreet regard for mesmerism, has himself chosen farther to withdraw the veil from its defects, and I am compelled to follow him. Now I prefer to do this in the words, as well on the principles, of Dr. Maitland, from whose work I subjoin the following important remarks. My object,^^ Dr. Maitland observes,* is to direct the reader’s attention to mesmerism as a matter of fact, and not to discuss the consequences wliicli may arise from the use or abuse of it. Still, it is impossible to avoid taking notice of an uneasy and anxious suspicion which must have arisen in the minds of some readers. I think it will be sufficient, and doing justice to all parties, to quote the deli- berate opinion of Dr. Elliotson, as recorded by him in the Zoist, for April 1845. I have invariably observed, says Dr. Elliotson, without a single exception, in all my mesmeric ex- perience, from the time of the Okeys, in 1837, to this very day, that the mesmeric state has, even if characterised by affection, and the most intense affection too, apparently nothing sexual in it, but is of the purest kind, sim])le friendship; and, indeed, exactly like the love of a young child to its mother,—for it seems characterised by a feeling of safety when with the mesmeriser, and of fear of others. Those who think they have seen anything else must have seen with the eyes of a prurient impm*e imagination, nnless the unjustifiable expe- riment of mesmerising amativeness has been made.”—Zoint, No. ix. page 55. * Illustrations ami Inquiries relating to Mesmerism, page 40-11.
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