Are we to give credit to the various observations that record the wonderful effects of animal magnetism; or should we reject them as the impostures of knaves, or the result of the credulity of fools? It is now nearly half a century since this method of relieving diseases has been introduced by modern practitioners. Thousands of disinterested and candid witnesses have corroborated their assertions, and testified to their veracity. How, then, are we authorized to treat this doctrine as visionary or fraudulent? The most learned bodies have not thought it derogatory to their dignity to investigate the matter; and, notwithstanding opposition, ridicule, and contempt, the practice obtains to the present day. It has, no doubt, been materially impeded in its progress by the invectives of occasional scepticism; but such will ever be the case with science, and those discoveries which accelerate its inevitable empire on the human understanding. Persecution may be considered as the harbinger of truth, or, at any rate, of that investigation which directs to it. Pythagoras was banished from Athens; Anaxagoras was immured in a dungeon; Democritus was considered a maniac, and Socrates condemned to death. An advanced and honourable old age did not protect Galileo against his barbarous persecutors. Varolius was decreed an infamous and execrable man for his anatomical discoveries, and our immortal Harvey was looked upon as a dangerous madman. Inoculation and vaccination were deemed impious attempts to interfere with the decrees of Providence.
Magnetism may be defined as a reciprocal influence which is supposed to exist between individuals, arising from a state of relative harmony, and brought into action by the will, the imagination, or physical sensibility. This influence is said to exist in a peculiar fluid, transmissible from one body to another under certain conditions of each individual, without which the expected results are not manifest. Under these conditions, the effects of animal magnetism are obtained by manual application, by gestures, words, and even looks, more frequently, as may be easily conceived, with nervous, weak, and impressionable individuals. By these means magnetizers affirm that they can effect cures when all other remedial endeavours have been of no avail, either when the patient is awake or in a state of artificial somnambulism.
The history of this doctrine is curious. The ancients fully admitted the power of sympathy in the cure of diseases; but generally attributed its action to the interference of Divinity, or the operation of sorcery and enchantment. A remarkable affinity can be traced between modern magnetism and its supposed phenomena, and the relations of the Pythian and Sibylline oracles, the wonders of the caverns of Trophonius and Esculapius, and the miraculous dreams and visions in the temples of the gods. Amongst the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans, we constantly discover traces of this supposed power of manual apposition, friction, breathing, and the use of the charms of music and mystic amulets. The Egyptian priesthood were considered as possessing a divine attribute in healing diseases. Prosper Alpinus, in his treatise on the medicine of the Egyptians, informs us that mysterious frictions were one of their secret remedies. The patients were oftentimes wrapped in the skins of animals, and carried into the sanctuary of their temples to be assisted by visions, that appeared either to them or to their physicians, who pretended that Isis was the immortal source of these celestial inspirations. The same divine assistance was firmly believed by the Hebrews. It was intimated to Miriam and Aaron that the Lord would make himself known to them in a vision, and speak to them in a dream; and we find in Deuteronomy that the signs and the wonders of prophets and dreamers of dreams were to be considered as the abominations of idolaters, who were to be put to death without pity. This anathema on false prophets was not unfrequently rigorously carried into execution, and we read inthe Book of Kings the destruction of all the worshippers of Baal. Ahab marched upon Ramoth-Gilead by the advice of his prophets.
The sympathetic power of corporeal apposition was illustrated when Elisha, to revive the widow’s child, stretched himself three times upon him and prayed to the Lord. When Elisha restored the child of the Shunamite to life he lay upon it, put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the child opened its eyes. Miracles were generally wrought by manual application or elevation. Naaman expected that Elisha would have stricken his hand over the place to cure his leprosy; and we find in the Scriptures that ourSaviourhealed the sick upon whom he laid his hands. Amongst the Greeks we again see the same ceremonies performed on all wonderful recoveries. Plutarch tells us that Pyrrhus cured persons with diseased spleens by passing his hand over the seat of the malady. Ælianus informs us that the Psylli performed their cures by stretching themselves upon the patients, and making them swallow water with which they had rinsed their mouths; and he also mentions that those who approached these mysterious agents were seized with a sudden stupor, and deprived of their intellects until they had left them. Apollonius brought a young girl to life by touching her, and leaning over her as though he were whispering some magic words in her ear; and Origenes affirms that there were sages who dispensed health with their mere breath. Vespasian restored sight to the blind by rubbing their eyes and cheeks with his saliva, and cured a paralytic by merely touching him: the same emperor kept himself in perfect health by frequently rubbing his throat and his body. From a passage of Plautus, it appears that this manual application was resorted to in his days to procure sleep. Mercury is made to say, “Quid si ego illum tractem, tangam ut dormiat;” to which Sosia replies, “Servaveris, nam continuas has tres noctes pervigilavi.”
Pliny maintains that there exist persons whose bodies are endowed with medicinal properties; but he admits, at the same time, that imagination may produce these salutary emanations. Celsus informs us that Asclepiades by friction could calm a phrensy; and further states, that when these frictions were carried to too great an extent, they brought on a lethargic state. Cælius Aurelianus recommends manualfrictions for the cure of pleurisy, lethargy, and various other maladies, describing the manner in which they are to be conducted: for instance, in epilepsy, the head and forehead are to be chafed, then the hand is to be carried gently over the neck and bosom; at other times, the extremities of the hands and feet are to be grasped, that “we may cure by the very act of holding the limb.”
That remedies were indicated in a state of somnambulism is affirmed by Tertullian, who thus speaks of one of the followers of Prisca and Maximilla, two women who foretold future events when they fell into an ecstatic swoon: “She conversed with angels, discovered the most hidden mysteries, prophesied, read the secrets of the heart, and pointed out remedies when she was consulted by the sick.” He thus describes ecstasy in his treatiseDe Anima: “It is not sleep, for during sleep all reposes; whereas in ecstasy the body reposes, while the soul is actively employed. It is therefore a mixed state of sleep and ecstasy which constitutes the prophetic faculty, and it is then that we have revealed unto us, not only all that appertaineth to honour, to riches, but the means of curing our diseases.” St. Stephen relates the case of a youth who was in such a lethargic state, that he was insensible to all painful agents, and could not be awakened; but when he recovered his senses, he declared that two persons, the one aged, the other young, had appeared to him and recommended sea-bathing. He complied with the instruction, and was cured. But the miracles of paganism were soon discredited, when the relics and tombs of saints were resorted to instead of the temples of the false gods; and priests assumed the power once held by their Chaldean and Egyptian predecessors, and the Druids of Gaul. The beatified were not only physicians during their life, but medicinal after death. St. Gregory of Tours tells us that St. Cosmus and St. Damian were not only able physicians during their blessed existence, but assisted all those who consulted them in their tombs, not unfrequently appearing to them in visions, and prescribing the proper remedies. A saint’s breathing upon a veil, and then placing it on the head of a demoniac, infallibly cast out the evil one; and St. Bernard never failed in his exorcisms, by making the possessed swallow some water in which he had dipped his hands. St. Martin stopped the most fearful hemorrhage by merely touching the patient with his garment. The shrines of St. Litardus, St.Anthony, and various other saints, lulled to sleep, and inspired with miraculous visions those who sought their aid.
However, as the progress of intellect dispelled the dark clouds that shrouded the middle ages in superstitious and credulous prejudices, philosophy endeavoured to investigate the nature of this mysterious agency, which priests had for so many centuries usurped as their special gift and property. Sceptic as to supernatural powers in the common occurrences of life, philosophers attributed these phenomena to some peculiar principle with which organized bodies were endowed, and hence arose the dawn of the doctrine of animal magnetism. So early as 1462, Pomponatius of Mantua maintained, in his work on incantation, that all the pretended arts of sorcery and witchcraft were the mere results of natural operations; he further gave it as his opinion, that it was not improbable but that external means, called into action by the soul, might relieve our sufferings; that there, moreover, did exist individuals endowed with salutary properties, and it might therefore easily be conceived that marvellous effects should be produced by the imagination, and by confidence, more especially when they are reciprocal between the patient and the person who assists his recovery; physicians and men of sense being well convinced that if the bones of any animal were substituted for those of a saint, the result would be the same. It need not be added that our author was violently persecuted for this heretical doctrine. Two years after, Agrippa, in Cologne, asserted that the soul, inflamed by a fervent imagination, could dispense health and disease, not only in the individual himself, but in other bodies. In 1493, Paracelsus expressed himself in the following language: “All doubt destroys work, and leaves it imperfect in the wise designs of nature. It is from faith that imagination draws its strength. It is by faith that it becomes complete and realized. He who believeth in nature, will obtain from nature to the extent of his faith. Let the object of this faith be real or imaginary, you nevertheless reap similar results; and hence the cause of superstition.”
Cardanus, Bacon, and Van Helmont pursued this study; and the latter physician, having cured several cases by magnetism, was considered a sorcerer, and was seized by the Inquisition. Magnetism, he observed, “is a universal agent, and only novel in its appellation, and paradoxical to those who ridicule every thing they do not comprehend, or attribute to Satanwhat they cannot understand. The name of magnetism is given to that occult influence which bodies possess on each other at various distances, either by attraction or by impulsion. The means or the vehicle of this influence is an ethereal spirit, pure, vital, (magnale magnum,) which penetrates all matter, and agitates the mass of the universe. This spirit is the moderator of the world, and establishes a correspondence between its several parts and the powers with which it is endowed. We can attach to a body the virtues that we possess, communicate to it certain properties, and use it as the intermediate means to operate salutary effects. I have hitherto withheld the revelation of this great mystery. There exists in man a certain energy, which can act beyond his own person according to his will or his imagination, and impart virtues and exercise a durable influence even in distant objects. Will is the first of powers.” Van Helmont fully admitted the wonderful faculties that somnambulism seemed to develop, and informs us that it was chiefly during his sleep that he was inspired with his doctrines. One might have imagined that these philosophic researches would have put an effectual stop to the progress of superstition, or rather of persecution; yet their promulgation could not save Urbain Grandier, and many supposed sorcerers, from a barbarous death.
It was in the beginning of the eighteenth century that various experiments were made with the loadstone in researches regarding electricity. In 1754, Lenoble had constructed magnets that could be used with facility in the treatment of various diseases. In 1774, Father Hell, a Jesuit and professor of astronomy at Vienna, having cured himself of a severe rheumatism by magnetism, related the result of his experiments to Mesmer. This physician was immediately struck with observations that illustrated his own theories respecting planetary influence. He forthwith proceeded to procure magnets of every form and description for the gratuitous treatment of all those that consulted him; and, while he widely diffused his doctrines, he sent his magnets in every direction to aid the experimental pursuits of others, and thus expressed himself on the subject in a memoir published in 1779: “I had maintained that the heavenly spheres possessed a direct power on all the constituent principles of animated bodies, particularly on thenervous system, by the agency of an all-penetrating fluid. I determined this action by theINTENSIONand theREMISSIONof the properties ofmatter and organized bodies, such as gravity, cohesion, elasticity, irritability, and electricity. I supported this doctrine by various examples of periodical revolutions; and I named that property of the animal matter, which renders it susceptible to the action of celestial and earthly bodies,ANIMAL MAGNETISM. A further consideration of the subject led me to the conviction that there does exist in nature an universal principle, which, independently of ourselves, performs all that we vaguely attribute to nature or to art.”
Mesmer, as might have been foreseen, became the object of persecution and of ridicule, and withdrew to Switzerland and Suabia. It was there that he met with a certain Gassner of Braz, who, having fancied that an exorcism had relieved him from a long and painful malady, took it into his head to exorcise others. He considered the greater part of the disorders, to which flesh is heir as the work of the devil, and he counteracted his baneful influence in the name of ourSaviour. He divided these diabolical visitations intopossessions,obsessions, andcircumsessions; the latter being trifling invasions. For the purpose of ascertaining whether his patients laboured under natural or infernal ailments, he conjured Satan to declare the truth. If, after three solemn interpellations, and signs of the cross, the devil did not answer, the disorder was considered as coming within the province of medicine; but if, on the contrary, the patient fell into convulsions, Gassner drew forth his stole and crucifix, and, in the name of the Redeemer, commenced rubbing and pinching, sometimes in the most indecorous manner, when females were submitted to his manipulations. When his attempts failed, he accused the patient of want of faith or of the commission of some deadly sin, which baffled his endeavours. His fame became so universal, that the Bishop of Ratisbon sent for him, and he exercised his art under his auspices. At one period, the town was so crowded with his patients, that ten thousand of them were obliged to encamp without the walls. It appears that this adventurer had the power of acting upon the pulse, and could increase or retard it, render it regular or intermittent, and was even reported to paralyze limbs and produce tears or laughter at will. It is scarcely credible, yet the celebrated De Haen, one of the most distinguished and learned practitioners in Germany, not only believed in the power of this Gassner, but actually attributed it to a paction with the devil.
Mesmer was not so credulous, and explained the miraculous cures of Gassner by the doctrines of the animal magnetism which he advocated. From Suabia he returned to Vienna, whence he was expelled as a quack; and in 1778 arrived at Paris, a capital that had patronised Cagliostro and St. Germain, and was ever ready to be deceived by ingenious empiricism. In 1779 he published a paper on the subject, in which he maintained twenty-seven propositions to establish his supposed influence between the celestial bodies, the earth, and animated matter, produced by a fluid universal, subtile, susceptible of receiving, transmitting, and communicating its impressions, on mechanical principles, until then unknown, and producing alternate effects of flux and reflux. This powerful agent, he said, acted chiefly on the nervous system. The human body, moreover, according to his notions, possessed properties analogous to the loadstone, and presenting an opposed polarity, subject to various modifications, which either strengthened or weakened it. The action of animal magnetism, according to him, was not confined to animal matter, but could be equally communicated to inanimate bodies at various distances. Mirrors could reflect and increase its power like the rays of light, and sound could propagate and increase it. This magnetic property, he further stated, could be accumulated, concentrated, and transported at pleasure, although there did exist animated bodies possessed of properties so opposite as to render this powerful agent inefficient. He found that the loadstone was susceptible of animal magnetism, and of its opposite virtues, without any apparent influence on its power over iron and the needle; whence he concluded that there existed a wide difference between animal and mineral magnetism.
Mesmer soon found a warm advocate of his doctrines in a Dr. D’Eslon, and animal magnetism became in fashionable vogue. Not only were men and animals subjected to their experiments, but this wondrous influence was communicated to trees and plants, and the celebrated elm-tree of Beaugency was magnetized by the Marquis de Puységur and his brother; while the enthusiastic D’Eslon absolutely went knocking from door to door to procure patients. Breteuil, who was then one of the ministers, offered Mesmer a yearly pension of thirty thousand francs, with a sum of three hundred thousand francs in cash, with the decoration of St. Michael, if he would consent to reveal the mysteries of his scienceto the medical faculty. This tempting offer our magnetizer indignantly rejected, and a secret society was instituted under the name of the Lodge and Order of Harmony. The charms and the power of youth and music were not neglected as auxiliaries to propagate the fashionable doctrine. Young men of elegant manners and athletic form were initiated in the practice of magnetizing, and thesalonsof Paris consecrated to this worship (for such it might have been termed) were crowded with the most fascinating women that the gay metropolis of France could produce. Most of these females, impassioned by nervous excitability, as loose in their morals as to outward appearance they were fervent in their devotions, abandoned themselves without reserve to the delightful sensations that magnetism and its surrounding machinery were said to afford. In their ecstasies, their hysteric attacks, their spasms, Mesmer, the high-priest, fancifully dressed, but in the height of fashion, with his useful acolytes, endeavoured to soothe and calm the agitation of their enchanting patients by all the means that Mesmerism could devise.
It soon became pretty evident that these phenomena were solely to be attributed to the influence of imagination; and Doppet, one of the most ardent disciples of the new creed, frankly avowed that “those who were initiated in the secrets of Mesmer entertained more doubts on the subject than those who were in thorough ignorance of them.” Notwithstanding this evidence brought forward against Mesmer’s fascinating practice, he was warmly eulogised even by high churchmen; and Hervier, a doctor of Sorbonne, did not hesitate to assert that the Golden Age was on the return; that man would be endowed with fresh vigour, live for the space of five generations, and only succumb to the exhaustion of age; that all the animal kingdom would enjoy a similar blessing; while magnetized trees would yield more abundant and delicious fruits. This belief of the good ecclesiastic arose, according to his own assertion, from his having been cured of some cruel disorder by magnetism, while all his intimate acquaintances insisted that he had never ceased to enjoy perfect health.
Such were the circumstances that attended the introduction of animal magnetism, which to this day is defended and maintained by ardent proselytes. Sound philosophy can only attribute its wonderful phenomena, many of which cannot be denied, to the influence of the imagination, and theall-powerful deceptive agency of faith. It is an incontrovertible fact, that the nervous system may be so worked upon, thrown by various secret and physical means into such a morbid condition, that results bordering upon the miraculous in the eyes of the credulous may be easily obtained. Every circumstance that appears to differ from the usual course of nature is deemed miraculous by the ignorant; and the Greek proverb θαύματα μωροίς, plainly maintains that miracles are only for the simple. In fact, who are the persons who in our times cry out “miracle,” but weak and timid men, worn out by excesses or age, labouring under the influence of terror; silly old women, who have not the power of reasoning; or nervous and enthusiastic females, who seek for some saving clauses in a pact between vice and virtue, depravity and religion.
All the wonders of the creation are miraculous, if we are to consider those phenomena that are, and most probably will ever remain, beyond our humble and miserable comprehension to be such. The manifestations of the Creator’s will are daily exhibited in stupendous forms that strike the ignorant with awe, while they lead the man of science to bow in grateful veneration to that Almighty power that has harmonized the creation for our wellbeing, if we would only obey the sublime dictates of his laws, without attempting to scrutinize their spirit by quibbling with their letter.
There can be but little doubt that the wonders of magnetism may be referred to the imagination; yet some of the phenomena must excite our surprise, and may occasion some degree of hesitation in invariably attributing its results to fancy. The Academy of Medicine of Paris having appointed a commission of twelve members to examine and report upon it, their inferences were as follow:
1. The effects of magnetism were not evident in healthy persons, and insomeinvalids.
2. They werescarcelyapparent in others.
3. Theyoftenappeared to be the result of ennui, monotony, and the influence of imagination.
4. Lastly,they are developed independently of these causes, very probably by the effects of magnetism alone.
The points of this report that I have printed in italics prove most clearly that the members of the commission, all of whom were decidedly adverse to the doctrine, were convinced, at least to a certain extent, by the experiments they hadwitnessed, of some singular powers residing in this mysterious science. Such must have been the case, since we find three members seceding from their associates, Laennec, Double, and Magendie, all well known as distinguished physiologists, somewhat inclined to pure materialism, and what may be termedmatter-of-factmen, who would hesitate in yielding their belief to any assertion that the scalpel could not demonstrate. Notwithstanding the protest of these gentlemen, the following were the conclusions of the commission:
1. Contact of the thumbs and magnetic movements are the means of relative influence employed to transmit magnetic action.
2. Magnetism acts on persons of different age and sex.
3. Many effects appear to depend on magnetism alone, and are not reproduced without it.
4. These effects are various. Sometimes magnetism agitates, at other times it calms. It generally causes acceleration of the pulse and respiration, slight convulsive movements, somnolency, and, in a few cases, somnambulism.
5. The existence of peculiar characters of somnambulism has not yet been proved.
6. It may, however, be inferred that this state of somnambulism prevails when we notice the development of new faculties, such asclairvoyanceand intuitive foresight, or when it produces changes in the physiological condition of the individual, such as insensibility, sudden increase of strength, since these effects cannot be attributed to any other cause.
7. When the effects of magnetism have been produced, there is no occasion on subsequent trials to have recourse topasses.[42]The look of the magnetizer and his will have the same influence.
8. Various changes are effected in the perceptions and faculties of those persons in whom somnambulism has been induced.
9. Somnambulists have distinguished with closed eyes objects placed before them. They have, then, read words, recognised colours, named cards, &c.
10. In two somnambulists we witnessed the faculty of foreseeing acts of the organism to take place at periods more or less distant. One announced the day, the hour, and the minute of the invasion and recurrence of an epileptic fit; theother foresaw the period of his recovery. Their anticipations were realized.
11. We have only seen one somnambulist who had described the symptoms of the diseases in three individuals presented to her.
12. In order to establish justly the relations of magnetism with therapeutics, one must have observed the effects on a number of individuals, and have made experiments on sick persons. Not having done this, the commissioners can only say, they have seen too few cases to enable them to form a decisive opinion.
13. Considered as an agent of physiological phenomena, or of therapeutics, magnetism should find a place in the range of medical science, and be either practised, or its employment superintended by a physician.
14. From the want of sufficient opportunities, the commission could not verify the existence of any other faculties in somnambulists; but its reports contain facts sufficiently important to conclude that the Academy ought to encourage researches in animal magnetism, as a curious fact of psychology and natural history.
This report was impugned by Mr. Dubois, in what he calls his rational conclusions, which of course maintain that those of the commission were irrational. However, in this paper he merely affirms his own incredulity, without supporting it upon any grounds of experiment or observation; and therefore his observations must be considered an individual attempt to refute the assertions of a body of scientific men, who, after diligently and maturely weighing the arguments in favour of a doctrine that they were previously disposed to condemn as unworthy of research, came to the conclusions that we have seen.
While the French Academy did not consider it beneath their dignity to investigate this doctrine, in other parts of Europe it attracted the attention both of the reigning monarchs and the most distinguished physicians. In Prussia, Hufeland, who had been one of the warmest opponents of magnetism, became a convert; and a clinical hospital was established in Berlin, by order of the government, to observe and record its phenomena. At Frankfort and Groningen, Drs. Passavant and Bosker published works on the subject; the latter having translated the critical history of Deleuze. At Petersburg, Dr. Stoffreghen, first physician of the Emperor, pronouncedhimself with several colleagues in its favour; and most of these distinguished men seemed to partake of the opinion of the justly celebrated Orfila, who certainly may be considered as an authority, and who thus expressed himself on the subject:
“If there exists trickery and quackery in animal magnetism, its adversaries are too hasty in refusing to admit all that has been asserted in regard to its effects. The testimony of enlightened physicians should be considered as proofs. If the magnetic phenomena appear extraordinary, the phenomena of electricity appeared equally marvellous in its origin. Was Franklin to be considered a quack when he announced that with a pointed metal he could command thunder? Whether magnetism acts in good or in evil, it is clearly a therapeutic agent, and it behoves both the honour and the duty of the Academy to examine it.”
Such is the present state of this curious science. To what credit it may be entitled, and how far it may become a useful medical agent, experience alone can decide. At the same time, it would be unjust to assert, in our present ignorance, that all the learned and independent men who support it are either fools or knaves.[43]
The deleterious qualities of certain fishes have long been the subject of medical conjectures. It is somewhat singular, and most difficult to account for, that the same fish should be wholesome in some waters, and deadly in others, although under the same latitude, and when, to all appearance at least, no local cause can be discovered to which we might reasonably attribute this fatal property. So powerful and prompt moreover, it is in its action that rapid death will ensue whenever a small portion of the fish has been eaten. Such, for instance, is generally the case with the yellow-bill sprat, theclypea thrissa.
Some naturalists attribute this poison to copper banks, on or near which the fish may feed. The absurdity of this opinion has been fully demonstrated; in the first instance, no such copper banks have been discovered in the West Indies, and these fish abound on the coasts of islands of coral formation. Moreover, it is not likely that this mineral should saturate the animal; and, even if it could produce this effect, the entire body would in all probability be affected, whereas the poison seems to lie in particular parts, chiefly in the intestines, the liver, the fat, &c. This is evident from the practice of fishermen, who can eat poisonous fish with impunity if they have taken the precaution to draw them carefully and salt them. In addition to these observations, the symptoms of the disease thus produced, by no means resemble those of mineral poisons. Dr. Chisholm, who pretends that copper banks do exist in the Windward Islands, is of this opinion. Admitting the facts, it may be asked, have the waters of these seas been impregnated by the copper? if they are not, how can its influence extend to its inhabitants? and why are particular fish only affected? Moreover, although it is well known that certain substances are deleterious to some animals and harmless to others, yet one might fancy that, if the coppery principal of an animal’s flesh could poison, it is not irrational to think that the same deadly substance would also destroy the animal. The presence of this mineral has never been detected by any chemical test; and, if the poison consisted in copper, how could salting the fish destroy it? In opposition to these objections, it has been maintained that fish may be rendered poisonous by feeding on the marineplants that grow upon these deadly banks. Now, unless it could be proved that copper is not injurious to fish, these same lithophyta and zoophyta would no doubt poison them.
However, it is more than probable that it is to a certain injurious food that these dangerous qualities are to be referred. Various plants that grow in these regions are of a poisonous nature to man, although, as I have just observed, they may not be so destructive to fish. The circumstance of the alimentary tube being more poisonous than any other part seems to warrant the conclusion; and I have observed in the West Indies, that the crabs that feed upon banks where the manchineel is to be found, frequently occasion serious, and sometimes fatal accidents. On the coast of Malabar, crabs are poisonous in the month of October, when theblue tithymaleabounds.
Whatever may be the causes of this deadly principle, the effects are most rapid. When a large quantity has been taken, the patient soon dies in strong convulsions; but frequently, when the quantity and the nature of the poison have not been sufficient to occasion death, the body becomes emaciated, the cuticle peels off, particularly on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, the hair drops, acute pains shoot through every joint, and the sufferer not unfrequently sinks under a lingering disease. In these cases change of climate has been found the most effectual remedy, and a return to Europe becomes indispensable.
The usual symptoms that denote the presence of the poison, are languor, heaviness, drowsiness, great restlessness, flushing of the face, nausea, griping, a burning sensation, at first experienced in the face and eyes, and then extending over the whole body; the pulse, at first hard and frequent, soon sinks, and becomes slow and feeble. In some cases the salivary glands become tumefied with a profuse salivation; and the body, and its perspiration, are as yellow as in the jaundice. These peculiar symptoms have frequently been known to arise after eating therock-fish.
The remedies that are usually resorted to are stimulants. Capsicum has been considered a powerful antidote; and the use of ardent spirits or cordials has also been strongly urged. It has been observed, that persons who had drunk freely, or who had taken a dram after eating fish that had disordered others, were, comparatively speaking, exempt from the severity of the disease. A decoction of the root of thesour-sop, and an infusion of the flowers of thewhite cedarand thesensitive planthave also been advised by several West India practitioners.
The practice of putting a silver spoon in the water in which fish is boiled, to ascertain its salubrity, is a popular test that cannot be depended on. Fishermen have observed that fish that have no scales are more apt to prove injurious; and those of uncommon size are looked upon as the most dangerous.
To ascertain whether the nature of the fishes’ food could thus render them poisonous, Mr. Moreau de Jonnês had recourse to many curious experiments. He took portions of polypes found in the waters reputed dangerous, more particularly theliriozoa Caribæa, themillepora polymorpha, thegorgonia pinnata, theactinia anemone, &c., and, having enveloped them in paste, he fed fishes with them; but in no one instance was any prejudicial result observed. He tried in the same manner thephysalis pelagicaof Lamark, which contains an acrid and caustic fluid; but the fish invariably refused it, nor would they touch fragments of the manchineel apple.
Oysters have been known to produce various accidents; and, when they were of a green colour, it has been supposed that this peculiarity was also due to copper banks. This is an absurdity; the green tinge is as natural to some varieties as to theesox belone, whose bones are invariably of the same hue as verdigrise. Muscles frequently occasion feverish symptoms, attended with a red, and sometimes a copper-coloured, efflorescence over the whole body. These accidents appear to arise from some peculiar circumstances. In Boulogne I attended a family in which all the children who had eaten muscles were labouring under this affection, while not another instance of it was observed in the place. In the Bahama Islands I witnessed a fatal case in a young girl who had eaten crabs; she was the only sufferer, although every individual in the family had shared in the meal. The idea of the testaceous mollusca avoiding copper-bottomed vessels, while they are found in abundance on those that are not sheathed, is absurd; this circumstance can be easily explained by the greater facility these creatures find in adhering to wood. There is every reason to believe, that the supposed poisonous oysters found adhering to the copper bottom of a ship in the Virgin Isles, and the occasional accidents amongst the men that ate them, were only so in the observer’s imagination, and that part of the ship’s company were affected by some other causes. Another report, equallyabsurd, was that of the fish having gradually quitted the Thames and Medway since coppering ships’ bottoms has been introduced! The following may be considered the fish that should be avoided:
I have known accidents arise from the use of the dolphin on the high seas; and, while I was in the West Indies, a melancholy instance of the kind occurred, when the captain, mate, and three seamen of a trading vessel died from the poison; a passenger, his wife, and a boy, were the only survivors, and were fortunately picked up in the unmanageable vessel.
The above catalogue of poisonous fishes is extracted from Dr. Dancer’s “Jamaica Practice of Physic,” and its correctness fell under my own observation in the Wrest Indies. The different systems and classifications of ichthyologists have produced much confusion, and may lead to fatal errors; I think it therefore advisable to submit to travellers, who may have to visit these unhealthy regions, the names of thetoxicophorousfishes according to the French momenclature.
A work, in which asynonymouscatalogue of all the fishes supposed to be poisonous might be found, would be highly desirable, as they generally bear different popular and scientific names, thus producing a dangerous confusion even amongst naturalists; how much more dangerous amongst seafaring people and voyagers!
I cannot conclude this article without noticing the singular properties of those electric fishes denominated thetorpedo-rayand thegymnote. They had been long known to naturalists, and the ancients attributed their destructive faculties to a magic power that Oppian had recorded in hisAlieuticon, where he describes a fisherman palsied through the hook, the line, and the rod. This influence being voluntary on the part of the animal, seemed to warrant the belief in its mischievous nature, since it allows itself sometimes to be touched with impunity, while at others it burrows itself under the sand of the beach, when the tide has receded, and maliciously benumbs the astonished passenger who walks over it. This singular fish, which is common in the Mediterranean Sea, has been described both by the Greek and Roman writers; amongst others, by Aristotle and Athenæus: and Socrates, in his Dialogues, compares a powerful objection, to the influence of the torpedo.
This voluntary faculty has been observed by Lacépède and Cloquet in the Mediterranean, and at La Rochelle. In torpedos kept in water for experimental purposes, Réaumur found that he handled them without experiencing any shock for some time, until they at last appeared to become impatient: he then experienced a stunning sensation along the arm, not easily to be described, but resembling that which is felt when a limb has been struck with a sudden blow. One of the experiments of this naturalist proved the extensive power of this faculty. He placed a torpedo and a duck in a vessel containing sea-water, covered with linen to prevent the duck from escaping, without impeding the bird’s respiration. At the expiration of a few minutes the animal was found dead, having been killed by the electric shocks of its enemy.
Redi was the first who demonstrated this faculty. Having laid hold of a torpedo recently caught, he had scarcely touched it, when he felt a creeping sensation shooting up to the shoulder, followed by an unpleasant tremor, with a lancinating pain in the elbow. These sensations he experienced as often as he touched the animal; but this faculty gradually decreased in strength as the animal became exhausted anddying. These experiments he related in a work entitled “Esperienze intorno à diverse cose naturali.” Florence, 1671.
In 1774, Walsh made some very interesting experiments at the Isle of Ré and La Rochelle, and clearly demonstrated this electric faculty in a paperOn the electric property of the torpedo. In one of them he found that this fish could produce from forty to fifty shocks in the course of ninety minutes. The electrified individuals were isolated; and at each shock the animal gave, it appeared to labour under a sense of contraction, when its eyes sunk deep in their sockets.
Thetrichiurus electricusof Linnæus, therhinobatus electricusof Schneider, and thegymnonotus electricusofSurinam, are the species of this singular fish with which experiments have chiefly been made. Thegymnonotusis a kind of eel, five or six feet in length, and its electric properties are so powerful that it can throw down men and horses. This animal is rendered more terrific from the velocity of his powers of natation, thus being able to discharge its thunder far and near. When touched with one hand the shock is slight; but when grasped with both, it is so violent that, according to the accounts of Collins Flag, the electric fluid can paralyze the arms of the imprudent experimentalist for several years. This electric action is analogous to that which is obtained by means of the fulminating plate, which is made of glass with metallic plates. Twenty-seven persons holding each other by the hands, and forming a chain, the extremities of which corresponded with the points of the fish’s body, experienced a smart shock. These shocks are produced in quick succession, but become gradually weaker as the fluid appears to be exhausted. Humboldt informs us, that, to catch this fish, wild horses are driven into the water, and after having expended the fury and the vigour of the gymnonotus, fishermen step in and catch them either with nets or harpoons. Here we find that the irritable or sensorial power is exhausted through the medium of electricity. These phenomena may be attributed to an electric or Voltaic aura; and the organ of the animal that secretes the fluid resembles in its wonderful structure the Voltaic apparatus. Both the gymnote and the torpedo obey the laws of electricity, and their action is limited to the same conducting and non-conducting mediums. The electric sparks proceeding from the gymnote have been plainly seen in a dark chamber by Walsh, Pringle, Williamson, and others. The fish has four electric organs, two large and two small ones, extending on each side of the body from theabdomen to the end of the tail. These organs are of such a size that they constitute one third of the fish’s bulk. Each of them is composed of a series of aponeurotic membranes, longitudinal, parallel, horizontal, and at about one line’s distance from each other. Hunter counted thirty-four of these fasciculi in one of the largest. Other membranes or plates traverse these vertically, and nearly at a right angle; thus forming a plexus or net-work of numerous rhomboidal cells. Hunter found no less than two hundred and forty of these vertical plates in the space of eleven inches.
This apparatus, analogous to the Voltaic pile, is brought into action by a system of nerves rising from the spinal marrow, each vertebra giving out a branch; other branches, rising from a large nerve, running from the basis of the cranium to the extremity of the tail. All these ramifications are spread and developed in the cells of the electric organs, to transmit its powerful fluid, and strike with stupor or with death every animal that comes within its reach. Lacépède has justly compared this wonderful mechanism to a battery formed of a multitude of folio-electric pieces.
The electric organ of themalapterus electricusis of a different formation. This fish, found in the Nile and in other rivers of Africa, is called by the Arabsraashor thunder. In this animal the electric fluid extends all round the body, immediately under the integuments, and consists of a tissue of cellular fibres so dense, that it might be compared to a layer of bacon; but, when carefully examined, it consists of a series of fibres forming a complex net-work. These cells, like those in the gymnote, are lubricated with a mucous secretion. The nervous system of this intricate machinery is formed by the two long branches of the pneumo-gastric nerves, which in fishes usually run under each lateral line. Here, however, they approach each other on leaving the cranium, traversing the first vertebra.
Linnæus had classed the torpedo in the genusray, and hence called itraia torpedo. Later naturalists have restored to it its ancient name, as given by Pliny, and termed ittorpedo, of which four species are described: theT. narke, or with five spots; theT. unimaculata, marked, as the name indicates, with one spot; theT. marmorata, and theT. Galvanni.
The ancients placed much faith in the medicinal properties of these fishes. Hippocrates recommends its roasted flesh in dropsies that follow liver affections. Dioscoridesprescribed its application in cases of obstinate headaches and rheumatisms. Galen and other physicians recommend the application of the living animal; and Scribonius Largus states that the freedman Anteroes was cured of the gout by this practice. To this day, in Abyssinia, fever patients are tied down on a table, and a torpedo is applied to various parts of the body. This operation, it is affirmed, causes great pain, but is an infallible remedy.
This noble faculty, the proudest attribute of mankind, justly called the mother of the Muses, is subject to be impaired by various physical and moral causes, while a similar agency can sometimes restore it to its pristine energy, or develope its powers when sluggish and defective. Memory may be considered as the history of the past chronicled in our minds, to be consulted and called upon whenever circumstances stances or the strange complication of human interests demand its powerful aid. Its powers and nature widely differ, and these varieties depend upon education, natural capacities, mode of living, and pursuits. Thus memory has been divided into that faculty that applies to facts, and to that more superficial quality that embraces a recollection of things, to which must be added the memory of localities and words: “Lucullus habuit divinam quamdam memoriam rerum, verborum majorem Hortensius,” said Cicero.
It is on this division that Aristotle founded his belief that the brute creation had not the faculty of reminiscence, although he allowed them to possess memory. According to his doctrine, reminiscence is the power of recollecting an object by means of a syllogistic chain of thought; an intellectual link with which animals do not seem to be gifted. Their memory appears solely to consist of the impressions received by the return of circumstances of a similar kind. Thus, a horse that has started on a certain part of a road will be apt to evince the same apprehension when passing the same spot. This is an instinctive fear, but not the result of calculation or the combination of former ideas. Reminiscence is the revival of memory by reflection; in short, the recovery or recollection of lost impressions.
The recollection of things or facts can alone bring forth a sound judgment. It implies a regular co-ordination of ideas, a catenation of reflections, in which circumstances are linked with each other. The chain broken, no conclusion can be drawn. Newton was wont to lose the thread of an important conversation when his mind was in search of an idea. This is the reason why the society of the learned is seldom entertaining to the generality of men. They are considered absent, while their brain is busily employed in pursuits perhaps of great importance; they must therefore be anything but agreeable to those who generally think through the medium of other persons’ brains.
The brain is considered to be the seat of memory. When it is injured, remembrance is impaired; and, on the other hand, an accident has been known to improve the recollective faculties. A man remarkable for his bad memory fell from a considerable height upon his head; ever after he could recollect the most trifling circumstance. The effects of different maladies will also produce various results on this faculty. In some instances names of persons and things are completely forgotten or misapplied; at other times, words beginning with a vowel cannot be found. Sudden fright and cold have produced the same effects. An elderly man fell off his horse in crossing a ford in a winter’s night; ever afterward he could not bring to his recollection the names of his wife and children, although he did not cease to recognise and love them as fondly as before the accident. Cold has been at all times considered injurious to memory; hence Paulus Æginus called Oblivion the child of Cold.
In fevers, and a state of great debility, in a disordered condition of the digestive functions, and various affections of the head, we generally find that the attention cannot long be applied to any one subject or a continued train of thoughts; all past circumstances are readily forgotten, while passing occurrences are most acutely observed and felt, excepting in cases of delirium, when we have the perception of surrounding objects or receive an erroneous impression of their nature and agency. In many cases of this nature, we find that conversation produces great excitement and increases the evil, for the subject of such intercourse is generally misconceived and distorted through the medium of a morbid conception, while the past, the present, and the future are grouped in a confused and most heterogeneous and incoherent jumble.
Philosophers have endeavoured to fix the seat of memoryin various portions of the brain. The ancients fancied that it was lodged in the posterior part of the cranium; having observed that when persons endeavoured to recollect any thing, they usually scratched the back part of the head. The Arabian physicians entertained a similar belief. Gratarola maintained that a great protuberance of the occiput indicated a good memory. Gall places it above the orbitary cavity of the eye, and even behind it. It has long been thought that persons with protuberant eyes had quick recollections. The physical condition of the brain has also been considered as materially affecting memory. What physiologists have called a moist brain was looked upon as unfavourable to its development; and it was therefore owing to the soft and pulpy condition of the cerebral organs in young children that the difficulty of impressing anything upon their minds arose; the same stupidity being observed in cases where water was supposed to be lodged in the brain. While this humid state was considered as injurious to memory, dryness of the organ was also esteemed an obstacle of a similar nature; and in old age it is by this state of siccity that failure in memory was attempted to be explained. This failure of memory as age advances may, however, be explained in a much more rational manner. Old people will bear in lively recollection the events that attended their childhood, their youth, and manhood; it is only recent occurrences that shed a transient impression on their minds. The cause of this may be considered to arise from the extremeimpressionabilitythat prevails in early life, when every organ is prompt in responding to each call upon its powers; when the charms of novelty tinge with a brighter, yet a more lasting lustre, all our pleasurable sensations; when grief had not yet wrung the young heart till its fibres became callous to future pangs, when perfidy and ingratitude have shown us that all is vanity, and calm philosophy has tutored our passions in the school of Adversity. Reason now sits upon the judgment-seat, and all that we then can wonder at that is, at any time we could have wondered at any thing. Why, then, are we to seek for a material theory of the mind, when our daily experience shows us that it is under the influence of so many moral agents?
We have, moreover, convincing proof that the brain may be materially affected, without any deterioration of the mental faculties. Dr. Ferriar mentions a man in whom the whole of the right hemisphere, that is, one half of the brain, was found destroyed, but who retained all his faculties till the verymoment of his death. Diemerbrook states another case where half a pound of matter was found in the substance of the brain. O’Hallaran relates the history of a man who had suffered such an injury of the head, that a large portion of his brain was removed on the right side; and extensive suppuration having taken place, an immense quantity of pus, mixed with large masses of the substance of the brain, was discharged at each dressing, through the opening. This went on for seventeen days, and it appears that nearly one half of the brain was thrown out, mixed with the matter, yet the man retained all his intellectual faculties to the very last moment of his dissolution, and through the whole course of the disease, his mind maintained uniform tranquillity. I attended a soldier at Braburne Lees, who had received a wound in the head during ball practice. The ball remained in the brain, and during three weeks large masses of brainular substance were brought away with pus. To the last day of his life he would relate, with every circumstantial particular, the neglect of the comrade by whom he had been wounded, and who fired while he was running to the target to mark the shots. It is somewhat singular, but suppuration of the brain is more offensive than the foulest ulcer, and it is with great difficulty that the pestilential effluvia can be tolerated. These cases plainly show that cerebral diseases have but little influence on the manifestations of the mind.
Amongst the many curious doctrines that have been started, to account for the operations of memory, some philosophers have compared it to the art of engraving; pretending that on those subjects where it requires much time and trouble to work an impression it was more durable, while it was only traced in a superficial manner on those brains that were ever ready and soft to receive this plastic influence. These several faculties they therefore compared to bronze or marble, to butter and to wax. Descartes, following up the phantasy, compared recollection to etching, and said that the animal spirits, being passed over the lines previously traced, brought them more powerfully to the mind; thus comparing the brain to the varnished copper-plate over which the engraver passes his mordants. Malebranche endeavoured to establish another doctrine, and compared our cerebral organ to an instrument formed of a series of fibres, so arranged, that when any recent emotion agitated one of these chords the others would immediately be thrown into vibration, renewing a past chain of ideas. As these chords became less flexible in oldage, of course these vibrations were more difficult to obtain. Recollection was also considered an attribute of each molecule of the brain; and Bonnet endeavoured to count how many hundred ideas each molecule was capable of holding during a long life.
The controversies of learned psychologists on the relation of memory and judgment, indeed on the analogies that exist between our several mental faculties, have been as various as they are likely to prove interminable. Without offending these illustrious controversionalists, we may endeavour to enumerate these faculties, which, despite the ingenuity of theorists, appear in a practical point of view to exercise a wonderful influence upon each other. The first may be considered the faculty ofperception, assisted by that ofattention, to which we are indebted for ourideas. These are preserved and called into action from the rich stores of the mind bymemory, justly called by Cicero the guardian of the other faculties.Imaginationis the faculty of the mind that represents the images of remembered objects as if they were actually present.Abstractionforms general deductions from the foregoing faculties; whilejudgmentcompares and examines the analogies and relations of the ideas of sense and of abstract notions. Finally,reasondraws inferences from the comparisons of judgment.
It is from the combination and the workings of these wonderful powers thatappetency,desires,aversions, andvolitionarise.Appetencyoccasionsdesires, and these, when disappointed or satiated, inevitably usher in aversions and antipathies; although, as we shall see in another article, our antipathies are frequently instinctive, and not arising from any combination of the faculties I have enumerated.
Dr. Gall has considered these mental faculties as fundamental; and in this view he was certainly correct, since they may be considered the source whence all other distinct capacities are probably formed by particular habits of study and the nature of our pursuits, independently of those specific capacities which appear to be innate, and, according to the system of the phrenologists, organic. Every man possesses these fundamental faculties in a greater or less degree, according to the obtuseness or the energies of his mind; but it is absurd to conceive that specific capacities can be brought into action without the agency of those which are fundamental. Let us take the instinct to destroy life, the sentiment of property, metaphysical sagacity, or poetic talent,—in short, any one ofGall’s various faculties; can we for one instant conceive that they are not under the influence ofperception,memory,imagination, andabstraction, although they may not be properly ruled byjudgmentand byreason? Instincts are equally under a similar influence, and are, according to circumstances, regulated by judgment in the various modes of life of animals. Phrenologists deny that instinct is a general faculty, and assert that it is an inherent disposition to activity possessed by every faculty, and that there are as many instincts as fundamental faculties. This is a postulation by no means clear. Instinct is an inherent disposition possessed by every animal, but not by every faculty. It is a disposition dependent upon the combination of all the mental faculties, according to the degree in which the animal may possess them: the reminiscences of animals prove it. We have instanced the horse, who endowed with the memory of locality, starts when passing by the same spot where he had started before. But here the memory of facts,memoria realis, and probably of words,memoria verbalis, are superadded to thememoria localis. The horse recollects the tree, the carrion, the object that startled him, whatever it might have been; but to this reminiscence are associated the chiding, the punishment he received from his rider. If this horse had possessed the faculties ofabstraction,judgment, andreason, he would not have started, to avoid a reiteration of punishment; but he started under the impression ofperception,attention, andmemory. Wherever there does not exist a combination of the faculties, the intellectual ones may be considered imperfect. We certainly may have a greater perception and memory of one subject than of others. Thus, a man with a musical organisation will recollect any tune he may have heard, though it may not have attracted theattentionof one who “hath no music in his soul.” We daily perceive different talents in children educated together. This is, no doubt, a strong corroboration of the doctrine of organic dispositions, which in reality no philosophic observer can deny; but to assert that these several dispositions are not regulated by what have been called the fundamental faculties, is, I apprehend, a position that cannot well be maintained; and we may be warranted in the conclusion that a particular faculty may be the result of the combined action of several faculties, if not of all; for, whether a man be a poet or a painter, a miser or a spendthrift, an affectionate father or an assassin, every one of the mental faculties that I have enumerated will to a certainextent be brought into action, however morbid that action may be.
All these disquisitions, however attractive they may be, when decked out with the fascination of the fancy, are the mere wanderings of metaphysical speculation, that never can be proved or refuted until we attain a knowledge of the nature and quality of the perceptions which material objects produce in the mind through the medium of the external senses. But while some of these speculations are idle and harmless, others may be fraught with danger, and occasion much misery to society. Let us for one moment conceive the possibility of our resolves and actions being dictated by a supposed phrenological knowledge,—a knowledge earnestly recommended to statesmen, and indeed to mankind in general;—what would be the result? A diplomatic bungler would be sent on an embassy, because a minister, or a sovereign, with a phrenological map before him, may fancy that he displays the faculty of circumspection, or the sense of things; and a chancellor of the exchequer be found in some needy adventurer who possessed the organ of relation of numbers!
I do not at all presume to invalidate the statements of Dr. Gall. The profession is highly indebted to him for his accurate description of the brain; and physiology must ever consider him as one of the brightest ornaments of science: but I do maintain, that to recommend his conclusions as a guide to society would be the most rash of visionary speculations; and, to my personal knowledge, no man was ever more mistaken in his estimate of the persons whom he met in society than the learned doctor himself. Of this I had frequent opportunities of convincing myself, when I met him in Paris in the circle of a Russian family which he daily visited. If I could admit, with a late ingenious writer, “that phrenology teaches the true nature of man, and that its importance in medicine, education, jurisprudence, and everything relating to society and conduct must be at once apparent,” I should certainly agree with him in recommending its study to parents, judges, and juries; but for the present, I am inclined to believe that, although it may prove a most interesting and valuable pursuit to the physiologist, it is by no means calculated to be thevade mecumof any liberal man.
The memory of various persons is amazing, and has been remarked in ancient times with much surprise. Cyrus knew the name of every soldier in his army. Mithridates, who had troops of twenty-two nations serving under his banners,became a proficient in the language of each country. Cyneas, sent on a mission to Rome by Pyrrhus, made himself acquainted in two days with the names of all the senators and the principal citizens. Appius Claudius and the Emperor Hadrian, according to Seneca, could recite two thousand words in the order they had heard them, and afterwards repeat them from the end to the beginning. Portius Latro could deliver all the speeches he had hastily written without any study.
Esdras is stated by historians to have restored the sacred Hebrew volumes by memory when they had been destroyed by the Chaldeans; and, according to Eusebius, it is to his sole recollection that we are indebted for that part of Holy Writ. St. Anthony, the Egyptian hermit, although he could not read, knew the whole Scripture by heart: and St. Jerome mentions one Neopolien, an illiterate soldier, who, anxious to enter into monastic orders, learned to recite the works of all the fathers, and obtained the name of the Living Dictionary of Christianity; while St. Antonius, the Florentine, at the age of sixteen, could repeat all the Papal Bulls, the Decrees of Councils, and the Canons of the Church, without missing a word. Pope Clement V. owed his prodigious memory to a fall on his head. This accident at first had impaired this faculty; but by dint of application he endeavoured to recover its powers, and he succeeded so completely, that Petrarch informs us he never forgot anything that he had read. John Pico de la Mirandola, justly considered a prodigy, could maintain a thesis on any subject,—de omni re scibili,—when a mere child; and when verses were read to him, he could repeat them backward. Joseph Scaliger learned his Homer in twenty-one days, and all the Latin poets in four months. Haller mentions a German scholar, of the name of Muller, who could speak twenty languages correctly. Our own literary annals record many instances of this wonderful faculty.
To fortify this function when naturally weak, or to restore it to its pristine energy when enfeebled by any peculiar circumstances, has been long considered an essential study both by the philosopher and the physician. Reduced to an art, this pursuit has received the name ofMnemonia; and at various periods professors of it, more or less distinguished by their success, have appeared in the several capitals of Europe.
It has been justly observed, that remembrance is to the past what our sensations are to the present, and our busyconjectures to futurity. Memory gives a lesson to mankind, by stripping past events of theirprestige; thus enabling us to view what passes around us with a more calm and philosophic resignation, while at the same time it tends to protect us, in the career lying before us, against the many contingencies that are likely to impede our path. Although it might appear desirable that we could obliterate from the mind the painful scenes of our past life, yet the wisdom of the Creator has deemed this faculty as necessary to our happiness as our utter ignorance of our future destiny. For let us mistake not by a hasty glance on this most important subject; the remembrance of past sufferings is not always painful. On the contrary, there is that which is holy in our past sorrows, that tends to produce a calm, nay a pleasurable sensation of gratitude. St. Theresa beautifully expressed this hallowed feeling when she exclaimed, “Where are those blissful days when I felt so unhappy!”Et olim meminisse juvabit.
Memory depends in a great measure on the vivacity with which these past scenes are retraced—I may say re-transmitted to the mind, in ideal forms “as palpable” as those that may be present. Therefore reminiscence may be said to result from a connexion between ideas and images recalled into being by a regular succession of expressive signs that the brute creation do not possess. Those characteristic signs and images that are generally circumstantial are co-ordained and classified in the mind, and tend materially in weak memories to produce an artificial mode of recollecting the past. This faculty is therefore matured by habit. A literary man, whose library is properly classed, will find the book he wants in the dark. The classification of his books is ever present to his mind. These circumstantial signs are always remembered by a sort of association in our ideas. Thus Descartes, who fondly loved a girl who squinted, was always affected with strabismus when speaking of her. When we first see a person in any particular costume, the individual is clad in the same apparel whenever brought to our minds, even after a lapse of many years, when fashion has banished even from general recollection the costume that memory thus retraces individually. From these observations it has been concluded that the most probable method of improving memory would be to regulate these associations by a proper classification. One link of this ideal chain will naturally lead to another. Many military men, to recollect any number, will associate it with that of a regiment, so far at least as the number ofregiments extend; and the recollection of this particular regiment will not only bring to his mind the number of the house he seeks, but various other circumstances connected both with the regiment and the number. For instance, I wish to recollect No. 87 in a certain street. I had, when the number was mentioned to me, attached it to the 87th regiment; and instantly I not only recollect that the 87th regiment are the Irish Fusiliers, but that they took an eagle at Barossa, where they distinguished themselves, and that the figure of that eagle is borne upon all the appointments of the corps. At the same moment, with the rapidity of lightning I recollect all the circumstances of the battle of Barossa; the different conversations I may have had at various times with the officers of the 87th; the town, the camp, the bivouac where I last had met them. Thus are innumerable circumstances instantaneously converging in a mental focus while simply seeking for the lodgings of an individual. This may be called the memory of locality, since it is locality that revives the recollection of it.
This train of thought has also been called the memory of association, and associations have been referred to three classes:—
I. Natural or philosophical associations.
II. Local or incidental associations.
III. Arbitrary or fictitious associations.
Dr. Abercrombie has admirably treated this subject, and I refer the reader to his interesting work.[44]The poet Simonides is said to have been the founder of the mnemonic art. Cicero informs us, that, supping one night with a noble Thessalian, he was called out by two of his acquaintance, and while in conversation with them the roof of the house fell in, and crushed to death all the guests he had left at table. When the bodies were sought for, they were so disfigured by the accident that they could not be recognised even by their nearest friends; but Simonides identified them all, by merely recollecting the seats they had held at the banquet.