United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
However this may be, the austerity of Mesmer did not prevent his being most violently angry when he learnt at Spa that Deslon continued the magnetical treatments at Paris. He returned in all haste. Mesmer quitted France a second time about the end of 1781, in quest of a more enlightened government, who could appreciate superior minds.
A young man was taken to Franklin's garden at Passy, and when it was announced to him that Deslon, who had taken him there, had magnetized a tree, this young man ran about the garden, and fell down in convulsions, but it was not under the magnetized tree: the crisis seized him while he was embracing another tree, very far from the former.
Jumelin, who, let it be observed, obtains the same effects, the same crises as Deslon and Mesmer, by magnetizing according to an entirely different method, and not restricting himself to any distinction of poles; they select persons who seem to feel the magnetic action most forcibly, and put their imagination at fault by now and then bandaging their eyes. What happens then?
The commissioners go in the first place to the treatment by M. Deslon, examine the famous rod, describe it carefully, relate the means adopted to excite and direct magnetism. Bailly then draws out a varied and truly extraordinary table of the state of the sick people. His attention is principally attracted by the convulsions that they designated by the name of crisis.
Deslon selected, in the treatment of poor people, two women who had rendered themselves remarkable by their sensitiveness around the famous rod, and took them to Passy. These women fell into convulsions whenever they thought themselves mesmerized, although they were not. At Lavoisier's, the celebrated experiment of the cup gave analogous results.
We read of M. Deslon, a disciple of Mesmer, about 1783, that he was 'condemned by the Faculty of Medicine, without any examination of the facts. The Inquisition proceeded more fairly than these scientific obscurantists.
If magnetism is a real and powerful cause, we have no need to think about it to make it act and manifest itself; it must, so to say, force the attention, and make itself perceived by even a purposely distracted mind." The commissioners, magnetized by Deslon, felt no effect. After the healthy people, some ailing ones followed, taken of all ages, and from various classes of society.
Urged by the queen, Damas wished to attempt it, and long after he assured an English friend that he regretted that he did not lead the charge, in defiance of the king's optimism, and of his reluctance to be saved by the sword. He said to Deslon in German, "Mount and attack!" But Deslon saw that it was too late. Goguelat threatened to cut his way out, and was unhorsed by a pistol shot.
As night wore on, a number of officers collected: Choiseul and Goguelat, after their long ride from Pont de Somme-Vesle; the Count de Damas from Clermont; and at last Deslon, a captain of the German horse that Bouillé chiefly trusted. Choiseul's men, and some of those quartered at Varennes, were faithful, and it was thought possible to clear the street.
Word Of The Day