nce-bishop of Ratisbon by exorcism. Then Mesmer
observed that, without employing magnets, Gassner obtained very much the
same kind of effects upon the human body which he had produced with
their aid. The fact was not lost upon him. He threw away his magnets,
and henceforth operated with the hand alone. In 1777, his reputation a
little damaged by a failure in the case of the musician Paradies, Mesmer
left Vienna, and the following year betook himself to Paris. The great
success which he obtained there drew upon him the indignation and
jealousy of the faculty, who did not scruple to brand him with the
stigma of charlatanism. They averred that he threw difficulties in the
way of a satisfactory examination of his method; but perhaps he had
reason to suspect want of fairness in the proposed inquiry. He refused,
from the government, an offer of twenty thousand francs to divulge his
method; but he was ready to explain it, it is true, under a pledge of
secresy, to individuals for one hundred louis. But his practice itself
gave most support to the allegations against him. His patients were
received and treated with an air of mystery and studied effect. The
apartment, hung on every side with mirrors, was dimly lighted. A
profound silence was observed, broken only by strains of music, which
occasionally floated through the rooms. The patients were arranged
around a large vessel, which contained a heterogeneous mixture of
chemical ingredients. With this and with each other, they were placed in
relation, by holding cords or jointed rods; and among them moved slowly
and mysteriously Mesmer himself, affecting one by a touch, another by a
look, a third by continued stroking with the hand, a fourth by pointing
at him with a rod.

What followed is easily conceivable from the scenes referred to in my
last letter, which are witnessed at religious revivals. One person
became hysterical, then another; one was seized with catalepsy, then
others; some with convulsions; some with palpitations of the heart,
perspirations, and other bodily disturbances. These effects, however
various and different, went all by the name of "salutary crises." The
method was supposed to produce, in the sick person, exactly the kind of
action propitious to his recovery. And it may easily be imagined that
many patients found themselves better after a course of this rude
empiricism; and that the impression made by these events, passing daily
in Paris, must have been ve