have added
to them some members of the Academy of Sciences. M. de Breteuil then
recommended Messrs. Le Roy, Bory, Lavoisier, Franklin, and Bailly, to
form part of the mixed commission. Bailly was finally named reporter.

The work of our brother-academician appeared in August, 1784. Never was
a complex question reduced to its characteristic traits with more
penetration and tact; never did more moderation preside at an
examination, though personal passions seemed to render it impossible;
never was a scientific subject treated in a more dignified and lucid
style.

Nothing equals the credulity of men in whatever touches their health.
This aphorism is an eternal truth. It explains how a portion of the
public has returned to mesmeric practices; how I shall still perform an
interesting task by giving a detailed analysis of the magnificent
labours published by our fellow-academician sixty years ago. This
analysis will show, besides, how daring those men were, who recently, in
the bosom of another academy, constituted themselves passionate
defenders of some old women's tales, which one would have supposed had
been permanently buried in oblivion.

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_. He remarked that in the number of persons in the
crisis state, there were always a great many women, and very few men; he
does not imagine any deceit, however; holds the phenomena as
established, and passes on to search out their causes.

According to Mesmer and his partisans, the cause of the crisis and of
the less characteristic effects, resided in a particular fluid. It was
to search out proofs of the existence of this fluid, that the
commissioners had first to devote their efforts. Indeed, Bailly said,
"Animal magnetism may exist without being useful, but it cannot be
useful if it does not exist."

The animal magnetic fluid is not luminous and visible, like electricity;
it does not produce marked and manifest effects on inert matter, as the
fluid of the ordinary magnet does; finally, it has no taste. Some
magnetizers asserted that it had a smell; but repeated experiments
proved that they were in error. The exis