Psychometry and thought-transference : with practical hints for experiments / By N.C., F.T.S. And an introduction. By Henry S. Olcott, P.T.S.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Psychometry and thought-transference : with practical hints for experiments / By N.C., F.T.S. And an introduction. By Henry S. Olcott, P.T.S. 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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    The case of Bishop Polk, who tasted brass or other metals from contact with his hand, has already been alluded to. This faculty of tasting by contact is not confined to metallic substances. Acid and alkali, sweet and sour, can be readily distinguished by a psychometer, and in many cases substances named, when held in the hand—if solids wrapped in paper, if liquids contained in phials —such, for instance, as sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard, cloves and other spices. AH such substances have their appropriate auras, which act through the nerve-aura of the sensitive. A number of instances might be quoted, but the case of the Bishop sufficiently illustrates this branch of the subject. The subject of taste naturally leads us on to that of medicines, which is one of the most interesting branches of Psychometry, as it has an important bearing on the science of Therapeutics. Also considerable attention has of late been devoted to it. It has even gained the notice of French physicians, who may be said to lead the fashion in Europe in the electro-biological branches of Medi- cine, as the Germans do in Physiology, and the English in Surgery. The first record which we find of this therapeutic action of the aura of drugs is in Br. Buchanan's book, which contains a docu- ment signed by forty-three out of a class of about one hundred and thirty medical students, who psychometrically experienced impres- sions of the actions of different materia medica specimens enveloped in paper and held in the hand, whilst they sat listening to a lecture. The substances were in most cases well-known drugs with power- ful actions—such as emetics, cathartics, and soporifics; and it was necessary that they should be, for if the students had not previ-* ously experienced their actions upon their own bodies, they could not be expected to recognise them psychometrically. In La Semaine Medicals for August 1885 there is an article on this subject by Doctors Bourru and Burot, of the French Marine Hospital at Rochefort, and in a pamphlet published by them in ] 886 under the title La Grande Hysterie cJiez VHomme, there is a further account of their researches. In making experiments in metalloscopy, or the action of metals applied to the body of a patient, they discovered that with a certain hystero-epileptic patient suffering from partial paralysis and loss of sensation, gold caused a burning, not only when in contact with the body, but also from a distance of some inches; and that iodide of potassium caused sneezing and yawning. They tried other metals and found that a plate of copper on the right forearm caused first a trembling of the forearm, then of the whole arm: that platinum on the side of the patient which was paralysed caused a violent itching and made him scratch himself: that steel caused a transfer of the paralysis from one side to the other with accelerated and laboured respiration. Continuiug their experiments they found cerfain substances produced a marked effect, others did not. Amongst the latter were silver, lead, zinc, glass, &c. Amongst the former were the metals alluded to above. They then tried vegetable drugs, and found that opium applied to the head produced profound sleep. At first they made their experiments with the drugs in contact with
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