elty and the excitement
that had half intoxicated me as a child were fast being dissipated. The
true conception of this infamous thing soon dawned upon me. The awakening
was full of anguish--the anguish of hope, as well as the anguish of grief.
I then first knew Dr. Kane, and with that acquaintance entered the new
light into my life."

CHAPTER X.

SPIRITUALISTIC BOOMERANGS.

In nearly all of the so-called investigations of the "rappings" produced
by the "Fox Sisters," there was an absolute absence of genuine scientific
inquiry. Only once in this critical stage of their career, did they submit
to experiment and examination by doctors of unquestioned repute and
learning. The result of this investigation has been held up by
professional spiritualists as a triumphant proof that the source of
"rappings" was beyond any mortal finding out. The fact is that the doctors
hit upon the right principle at the inception of the inquiry, but were
misled into a wrong application of it, an error which the "mediums," of
course, encouraged up to a certain point, so that they might gain prestige
afterwards by refuting it. Following out this policy, Mrs. Underhill has
incorporated in her book the testimony of the doctors, heedless of the law
of destiny, that truth must prevail finally.

I propose to take this same statement of the doctors, based as it is upon
an erroneous assumption and a correct theory, and show how strongly it
sustains and plainly corroborates the explanation of the "rappings" now
given by Mrs. Kane and Mrs. Jencken.

The gentlemen who made this notable investigation are usually spoken of as
the "Buffalo doctors." They were members of the faculty of the University
of Buffalo. Austin Flint, who afterward held the highest medical rank in
the metropolis, was the most prominent of the three. The other two were
Drs. Charles A. Lee and C. B. Coventry.

The theory that they advanced was that the mysterious noises were produced
by some one of the articulations of the body. Their assumption was that it
was the great joint of the knee which produced them. Had they worked upon
their theory alone, and left all assumption aside, until actual evidence
had led up to them; or, even had they investigated other joints of the
lower limbs, besides that of the knee, they must have inevitably arrived
at the correct conclusion. Unfortunately, however, the idea which so beset
them as to render their labor abortive, arose from the ac