Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine : her life, her ecstasies, and her stigmata, a medical study / by F. Lefebvre ; translated from the French ; edited by J. Spencer Northcote.

  • Lefebvre, Ferdinand J. M., 1821-1902.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine : her life, her ecstasies, and her stigmata, a medical study / by F. Lefebvre ; translated from the French ; edited by J. Spencer Northcote. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    jects who had. no suspicion of it. To verify the facts, commissions were apjDointecl composed of very zealous partisans of magnetism, who earnestly desired the success of the attempts ; it cannot there- fore be alleged of them, as was done of the Academical Commissions, that they were unfavourably dis]30sed, and determined not to see. Yet all these attempts ended in disappointments. To give some idea of the precautions that were taken, I will relate how we pro- ceeded in one of these cases. ' M. N assured us that from his house, situated in the Rue des Vieux-Augustins, he every evening magnetised his daughter-in- law, and placed her in a state of somnambuhsm; she Hving on the Boulevard de I'Hopital. This young person, when in a state of som- nambulism, confirmed this declaration, and added that each evening, when she was in that state, she saw the fluid coming to her from M. N , passing in a straight line through the buildings, and traversing in five minutes the space between the two dwellings (of course this speed is far less than that of light and electricity). The commission was divided into two sections; wliich, on the same day and at the same hour, went, one to the house of M. N and the other to the young lady's house. It had been agreed previously that the members of the first section should choose any moment they pleased for inviting the magnetiser to send the subject to sleep, and afterwards for awakening her; and that those of the second should simply note what x^assed at the abode of the young lady. It would have been desirable to leave the latter in ignorance of the proposed experiment, but the commissioners were obhged to inform her of the fact, in order to account for their visit; but neither she nor the com- missioners who were with her knew at what moment the magnetisa- tion would take j)lace. She knew she was going to be magnetised, and that was all. She joined in the conversation with apparent freedom of mind. After a certain time she manifested the x^remoni- tory symptoms of inagnetic sleep, and then she slex)t. Upon being interrogated whilst in this state, she declared that she could see what was passing at the house of M. N , and that she plainl^^ distinguished the current which came from him to her. The com- missioners remained neutral and did notliing. She awoke of her own accord. An hour afterwards she had a second attack of som- nambulism, and then she awoke again. An exact note was taken of the beginning and end of each sleejD. In the mean time, u]3on the request of the other section, M. N had once only magnet- ised and then unmagnetised [her] to awaken her; but both these operations had taken place precisely in the interval between the two sleeps of the young lady. She had gone to sleep and awoke twice without being magnetised; and when really magnetised, she