be philosophically disregarded by the members of our profession, but that they are bound to meet it in the only way in which alleged facts can satisfactorily be either verified or confuted,-by observation and experiment. When it is positively affirmed that the mesmeric processes will sometimes render a patient utterly insensible to the surgeon's knife, when detailed illustrations of this fact are recorded almost every day, how can we fairly reject such statements, unless we go to nature, observe for ourselves, and demonstrate the source of the monstrous fallacy that is deluding members of the profession and the public alike? Indeed, we hesitate not to assert that the testimony is now of so varied and extensive a kind, so strong, and in a certain proportion of cases so seemingly unexceptionable, as to authorize us, nay, in honesty, to compel us to recommend that an immediate and complete trial of the practice be made in surgical cases. If experience like that which Dr. Esdaile relates to us be but true in one tenth, nay, one hundredth of its particulars, we hold that a case is made out demanding searching inquiry. If mesmerism, even in its humbler pretensions, be absolutely untrue, let it be proved to be so. If careful observations and repeated experiment lead to the detection of some hitherto hidden cause of error and mistake that has deluded and mystified the more honest class of mesmerists, what a service will be rendered to humanity and to truth if this can be proclaimed on perfectly just and adequate grounds! In how much better a position shall we be after investigation for confuting the imposture, if such it shall turn out ultimately to be, than in continuing to treat the subject with contemptuous disregard! Of one thing let us rest assured, not only the public, but the more sober thinking of the profession will, ere long, hold those at a disadvantage, who, in opposition to facts, apparently well authenticated, can or will but adduce mere unsupported argument, or ridicule.

There would appear to be two conditions attaching to any novel practice in medicine, independently of the authority by which it comes reconmended, that should influence its title to a fair trial; first, the extent of the anticipated benefit, and, second, the degree of possible mischief attending its employment. Now the promised advantages of mesmerism in surgical operations correspond with these requirements in an eminent degree. If the statements be corroborated, and if insensibility can be produced artificially, surely the immense acquisition both to operator and patient is obvious at once; and, according to all the evidence that exists upon this subject, mischief very rarely follows the practice of mesmerism in the event either of success or of failure. "I beg to state," says Dr. Esdaile, "that I have seen no bad consequences whatever ensue from persons being operated on in the mesmeric trance. Cases have occurred in which no pain was felt, even subsequent to the operation, and the wounds healed by the first intention; and in the rest I have seen no indication of any injurious consequences to the constitution. On the contrary, it appears to me to have been saved, and that less constitutional disturbance has followed than under ordinary circumstances." If then good is possibly to ensue, and mischief is but little to be feared from the experiment, why not candidly make it? Assuredly experiments in therapeutics are constantly made on grounds far less reasonable. If a single practitioner of any eminence recommend some novel and heroic treatment

XLIV.-XXII.

13

in serious disease, multitudes are ready to try it; however perilous to the patient the trial, a priori, may appear. Although, at the present day, it is pretty well made out that pneumonia, in many instances, will come to a successful issue with very little depletion, some dozen years since large numbers of the profession, especially in France, did not hesitate, on the recommendation of M. Bouillaud, to bleed coup sur coup; and, about twenty years ago, when Dr. Armstrong bled largely, and administered heroic doses of calomel in the incipient stage of fever, many persons felt themselves authorized in adopting the treatment experimentally. Yet, in these instances, a degree of risk to the patient was incurred in the attainment of the possible benefit, and there was, moreover, an uncertainty in deciding upon the exact nature of the result, which, as regards mesmerism in surgery, would not be experienced. Again, we say, let it be tried upon patients about to be submitted to the knife; if true, let us have the benefit of it, and if false let the falsehood be demonstrated.

Experiments relating to the treatment of medical diseases by any doubtful remedy could not result in the same decided issue, as in the example of mesmerism applied in operative surgery. We may observe, however, that when full satisfaction has been obtained respecting the efficacy of certain processes in the production of coma and insensibility, it would naturally be expected that, in various morbid states, the induction of such conditions may aid the restorative powers of the system; at any rate, in . the present acknowledged paucity of positive therapeutical agents in numerous diseases, especially in those prominently affecting the nervous functions, the trial might very reasonably be made. We think sufficient evidence exists to prove the power of the mesmeric passes-or, we would rather say, the passes of mesmerists-as also of Mr. Braid's hypnotic fascination, in occasionally conciliating sleep, in nervous cases, after the failure of ordinary medical means. We may attach no importance to the mesmerism employed in such cases as involving specific agency; the patients may have been made to sleep very likely by the process operating as an appropriate lullaby, and the improvement have thus followed. It is, however, satisfactory to know that, under such circumstances, we can sometimes provoke sleep, and thereby effect a mitigation of human suffering.

We have before said that Dr. Esdaile exhibits a full and undoubting faith in most of the phenomena usually recorded as characterizing mesmerism; and thus, in reasoning upon the assumed resultant benefit in medical cases, he constantly avails himself of the theory of animal magnetism. In speaking of the curative agency, he holds it to be due to the transference of a vital fluid from the person of the mesmeriser to that of the mesmerised. We have too recently devoted a portion of our pages to this point, to reopen the discussion upon the present occasion; we can only observe that, after a careful perusal of Dr. Esdaile's book, we do not see that he has strengthened one whit the idea of exoteric animal influence of objectivity-in mesmerism. We do not deny the reality of animal magnetism; we assert, however, that it is not proved, at least to our satisfaction.

In dealing with the subject of mesmerism, we are but desirous of coming at the truth we have already given our reasons for thinking that the

time is come when, so far as it may be false, it can only be put down by calm and unprejudiced inquiry. From the curious and extraordinary accumulation of records amassed by the animal magnetisers, we have from the beginning been very much persuaded that, at the foundation of all the extravagances of the mesmeric disquisitions, there would ultimately be discovered some truth. So far back as the year 1839, after presenting to the reader a brief historical account of animal magnetism, we stated that we could not "be so far influenced by the impostures occasionally practised under the name of magnetism, as wholly to deny that some of the phenomena, from time to time produced by all aspirers to the art, seem to result either from some principle heretofore unknown and not yet correctly designated, or from some modification of recognized principles in the animal economy, which cannot yet be accurately limited or defined." In our article of last year, we entered into a more careful investigation of the particular facts, attempting some discrimination of the most probably true from the almost certainly false. In the former category we included the artificially produced sleep, coma, altered sensibility, spasm, or temporary paralysis of muscles, &c.—THE SIMPLE PHENOMENA OF MESMERISM; our admission of the reality of these conditions rested, first, upon their antecedent probability, as being, in most respects, analogous to abnormal states sometimes arising spontaneously as disease; secondly, upon the fact of the evidence attesting them corresponding with all just requirements; and, lastly, on the circumstance of having ourselves either seen them or been grossly duped in spite of a very rigid scrutiny. In like manner-exactly on the same grounds-we admitted the reality of mesmeric somnambulism, to the exclusion of clairvoyance and the other phenomena comprehended in the term lucidity. These latter, however, as well as the theory of animal magnetism, we only rejected as unproved; because, unlike the simple mesmeric phenomena so designated, we had sought for the reality in vain, and because the evidence, when fully and fairly tested, had always appeared to us to break down-feeble and inconclusive at the best. Within the last eighteen months we have not been indifferent spectators of what has been going on with respect to these matters; we have read, and we have ourselves investigated, with minds open to conviction and indifferent to every consideration but that of truth, and our conclusions remain unchanged. We must reiterate that, in our judgment, after making all due abstraction of the roguery and deceit notoriously prevalent in many mesmeric exhibitions, there is but a reality in the simple phenomena as just enumerated; that the induction of these does not necessarily imply the existence of exoteric animal influence; but that, as formerly maintained by M. Bertrand in France, and still more recently by Mr. Braid in this country, the mesmeric states most probably, in all cases, arise from sensible-not occult-impressions; and that the higher phenomena, which imply the receipt of intelligence otherwise than through the customary channels, are not only in the highest degree improbable, but are utterly unsupported by the requisite force of evidence.

ART. XIII.

The Brain and its Physiology; a Critical Disquisition on the Methods of determining the Relations subsisting between the Structure and Functions of the Encephalon. By DANIEL NOBLE, M.R.C.S. 1846. Post 8vo, pp. 459.

London,

"THE doctrine of the functions of the brain constitutes, most assuredly, a subject of discussion inferior to no other branch of science, either in interest, extent of its objects, or in general importance; and in physiology it must, for many reasons, be esteemed the highest department."

With this prologue to our author's introductory chapter we need scarcely express our hearty concurrence; and notwithstanding that we have on former occasions treated somewhat in full the subject of the physiology of the brain, both in its phrenological aspect and in connexion with the physiology of the nervous system in general, we feel called upon, by the peculiar position of the question at the present time, to enter again into a somewhat detailed examination of it; with the hope of throwing some new light upon it from our own resources, and of being thus able to assist in clearing the path to further discovery. Nothing can be better than the spirit with which Mr. Noble sets out upon his undertaking, as will be evident from the following extract, which follows a notice of the imperfect views current upon the subject amongst physiologists in general:

"And yet there is no good reason why an inquiry into the functions of the brain, and of its various parts, should not be successfully prosecuted; for there is no obscurity in this department of physiological research, which is not common to many others. Cerebral physiology has its own obstacles and its own difficulties, like any other branch of science, requiring certain mental peculiarities and favorable opportunities for their removal and dissipation; but still, under just circumstances, the discovery, not only of the general office of the brain, but of the functions of its particular parts, is an object of pursuit for the philosopher as legitimate, and as likely to reward the labour of investigation, as the solution of any other physiological problem. This attempt will be found useless, or productive of imperfect or contradictory results, only so long as the method pursued is defective or faulty. All sciences, physiological not less than those purely physical, have sustained both error in their development and retardation in their progress, wherever they have been cultivated, without the guidance of sound principles in the investigation. Under such circumstances talent has but led to confusion, and industry has yielded no fruit." (p. 10.)

But what are the sound principles of investigation" which are to guide us in this difficult department of physiology? Are they those which have been found successful in other branches of physiological inquiry, and which would naturally occur to us as our safest indicators in the exploration of a new and unexplored path? Or are we to discard these tried and faithful guides, and to rely exclusively upon others, which have been long since demonstrated to be insufficient to conduct us to a valid conclusion, in almost every other portion of the inquiry into the functions of the human structure? At this starting point, we regret to find ourselves so far from agreeing with Mr. Noble, that our further paths must be widely divergent. For the main object of his work is to prove, that the physio

logy of the brain of man must be first evolved by the comparison of the relative development of its different parts, in different individuals of the human race, with the proportionate manifestation of the various powers, propensities, &c., in the characters of these individuals respectively; and that the validity of the inferences derived from comparative anatomy must be tested by their coincidence with those thus deduced from observation on man. We, on the other hand, are prepared to maintain that comparative anatomy is here, as elsewhere, our most trustworthy guide; and that the validity of any inferences drawn from observation of the coincidence between the development and the functional manifestations of the various parts of the human encephalon, must be tested by their conformity with its obvious and decided indications.

We must do Mr. Noble the justice to say that he makes out what will doubtless appear to a large proportion of his readers a most excellent case. He hits away, right and left, at comparative anatomists and vivisectors, and at physiologists who pin their faith upon them; and demolishes all their assertions and arguments with such cleverness, and so completely to his own satisfaction, that none but those who have previously made themselves well acquainted with the subject are likely to do otherwise than accord with him. His confidence in the fundamental correctness of the method of Gall is so great, that he unhesitatingly undertakes to defend it against all comers; his admission of possible improvements in it being so limited as not at all to affect the ardour in which he upholds it, as affording the only sound exposition of the functions of the encephalon.

But he doos not give us any sufficient explanation why, in this particular case, we are to abandon that philosophical method of studying physiology upon the basis of comparative anatomy; the advantages of which are every day becoming more apparent. His arguments on this point may be reduced to these two:-the supposed difficulty of determining the real analogies of the several parts of the nervous system, in animals constructed upon different types;-and the want of materials for a reasonable psychology of the lower tribes of animals. Now in regard to the first point, we do not hesitate to say that the difficulty is more apparent than real. Mr. Noble has made the most of it, by pointing out the discordance on this subject in the writings of comparative anatomists; but this discordance was much greater in the infancy of the science than it is now, and it is gradually giving way to a very satisfactory harmony of opinion, as the principles upon which the investigation must be conducted are being gradually evolved. Such discrepancies are common to the early stage of all sciences. It would be equally to the purpose to quote the early mistakes of Gall, the unadmitted novelties of Vimont, the host of new organs established (to their own satisfaction) by the mesmero-phrenologists, but not admitted by their more conservative leaders, or the discrepancies between the London, Edinburgh, and Parisian professors of the science, in proof of the impossibility of drawing any safe or valid deductions from the method of observation which they advocate. And concerning the second objection we have to remark that, with regard to the broad distinctions between reflex (or excito-motor), instinctive (or sensori-motor), and intelligent (or volitional) actions-which distinctions, as we shall presently show, are of fundamental importance in the inquiry, we think that ample