case where I have brought into this story facts connected
with medical matters, I have been most cautious to avail myself of
the authority of medical men. I will give here the words of Mr. James
Douglas upon this matter. After stating the fact that the story was
in part dictated to my dear friend Dr. Gordon Hake during a stay with
him at Roehampton, he says:--

Dr. Hake is mainly known as the 'parable poet,' but as a fact he was
a physician of extraordinary talent who had practised first at Bury
St. Edmunds and afterwards at Spring Gardens, London, until he partly
retired to be private physician to the late Lady Ripon. After her
death he left practice altogether in order to devote himself to
literature, for which he had very great equipments. As _Aylwin_
touched upon certain subtle nervous phases, it must have been a great
advantage to the author to dictate these portions of the story to so
skilled and experienced a friend. The rare kind of cerebral
exaltation into which Henry Aylwin passed after his appalling
experience in the cove, in which the entire nervous system was
disturbed, was not what is known as brain fever. The record of it in
_Aylwin_ is, I understand, a literal account of a rare and wonderful
case brought under the professional notice of Dr. Hake.

But I am now going to touch upon a much more important medical
subject. Since the appearance of _Aylwin_, I have received many
letters enquiring whether the transmission of hysteria from one
patient to another by means of a magnet is an imaginary experiment,
or whether it is based on fact. It has been impossible for me to
answer all these letters. But some of them, coming from loving
relatives of those who have suffered from hysteria, have been couched
in such earnest and pathetic words that they could not be left
unanswered, and this has caused me great inconvenience. I have
therefore determined to give the reader some tangible data upon this
subject. The extract from the _Daily Telegraph_ which appears on page
465 is a real extract, and records a real case of transmission of
hysteria. Upon the same subject I take the following admirable
remarks from an article in the _Quarterly Review_ for July 1890,
called 'Mesmerism and Hypnotism.'

_The Influence of Magnets_.--We have briefly referred to the action
of magnets on the muscles in speaking of the physiological phenomena,
but they possess other properties which hardly come under that head.
They have the