id from the branches toward the trunk, and from the trunk
toward the root. This done, he caused circular seats to be erected round
it, and cords suspended from it in all directions. When the patients had
seated themselves, they twisted the cords round the diseased parts of
their bodies, and held one another firmly by their thumbs to form a direct
channel of communication for the passage of the fluid.

M. de Puysegur had now two "hobbies"--the man with the enlarged soul and
the magnetic elm. The infatuation of himself and his patients cannot be
better expressed than in his own words. Writing to his brother, on the
17th of May 1784, he says, "If you do not come, my dear friend, you will
not see my extraordinary man, for his health is now almost quite restored.
I continue to make use of the happy power for which I am indebted to M.
Mesmer. Every day I bless his name; for I am very useful, and produce many
salutary effects on all the sick poor in the neighbourhood. They flock
around my tree; there were more than one hundred and thirty of them this
morning. It is the best _baquet_ possible; _not a leaf of it but
communicates health!_ all feel, more or less, the good effects of it. You
will be delighted to see the charming picture of humanity which this
presents. I have only one regret--it is, that I cannot touch all who come.
But my magnetised man--my intelligence--sets me at ease. He teaches me
what conduct I should adopt. According to him, it is not at all necessary
that I should touch every one; a look, a gesture, even a wish, is
sufficient. And it is one of the most ignorant peasants of the country
that teaches me this! When he is in a crisis, I know of nothing more
profound, more prudent, more clearsighted (_clairvoyant_) than he is."

In another letter, describing his first experiment with the magnetic tree,
he says, "Yesterday evening I brought my first patient to it. As soon as I
had put the cord round him he gazed at the tree; and, with an air of
astonishment which I cannot describe, exclaimed, 'What is it that I see
there?' His head then sunk down, and he fell into a perfect fit of
somnambulism. At the end of an hour, I took him home to his house again,
when I restored him to his senses. Several men and women came to tell him
what he had been doing. He maintained it was not true; that, weak as he
was, and scarcely able to walk, it would have been scarcely possible for
him to have gone down stairs and walked to the t