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"In fact," added M. de Foissac, "I go further, and assert that their inspirations are allied to the genius which animated Hippocrates!" In the mean time experiments were carried on in various hospitals of Paris. The epileptic patients at the Salpetriere were magnetised by permission of M. Esquirol. At the Bicetre also the same resuits were obtained.
Foissac as follows: "On the eighth Floréal of the year IV. the courier and postillion who were taking the mail from Paris to Lyons were attacked and murdered, at nine in the evening, in the forest of Senart.
"In a country," said I, "like France, where the point of honour stands above every thing, it is impossible Foissac can escape condemnation if he be culpable." "Perhaps you are right, Bourrienne," rejoined he; "but the blow is struck; the decree is issued. I have given the same explanation to every one; but I cannot so suddenly retrace my steps. To retro-grade is to be lost.
So much was said and written between the years 1820 and 1825, and so many converts were made, that the magnetisers became clamorous for a new investigation. M. de Foissac, a young physician, wrote to the Academie Royale du Medicine a letter, calling for inquiry, in which he complained of the unfairness of the report of Messrs.
Magnetism, forsooth! 'Twas a decided case of botheration! A deaf and dumb lad, eighteen years of age, and subject to attacks of epilepsy, was magnetised fifteen times by M. Foissac.
"In a country," said I, "like France, where the point of honour stands above every thing, it is impossible Foissac can escape condemnation if he be culpable." "Perhaps you are right, Bourrienne," rejoined he; "but the blow is struck; the decree is issued. I have given the same explanation to every one; but I cannot so suddenly retrace my steps. To retro-grade is to be lost.
It has been supported by a succession of men, such as Tenon, Dufau, Foissac, de Lapouge, and Richet in France; Tiedemann and Seeck in Germany; Guerrini in Italy; Kellogg and Starr Jordan in America. The case is indeed overwhelming.
Foissac gives various strange examples of the persistent, inexplicable, fundamental, pre-ordained, irreducible iniquity in which many existences are steeped.
Before this committee, M. de Foissac produced his famous somnambulist; but she failed in exhibiting any one of the phenomena her physician had so confidently predicted: she was easily thrown into the state of sleep, by long habit and the monotony of the passes and manipulations of her magnetiser; but she could not tell the diseases of persons put en rapport with her.
It asks us, for instance, what attitude we should adopt towards men who are incontestably unlucky; men whose evil star has such pernicious power that it infallibly brings disaster to whatever comes within the range often a very wide one of its baleful influence. Ought we unhesitatingly to fly from such men, as Dr. Foissac advises?
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