book, a box, and a bunch of keys, and he could not distinguish
between them. In each case he saw something, he said, like a
shadow, but he could not tell what. He could not read one letter of
the largest print by means of eyesight; but he was very adroit in
reading by touch, in books prepared expressly for the blind,
running his fingers over the raised characters with great rapidity,
and thus acquiring a perception of them. Whatever trifling degree
of vision he possessed, could only be exercised on very near
objects: those which were at a distance from him, he perceived not
at all. I ascertained that he could not see a cottage at the end of
our garden, not more than a hundred yards off from where we were
standing.

"These points being satisfactorily proved, I placed my patient in
the proper position, and began to mesmerise. Five minutes had
scarcely elapsed, when I found that I produced a manifest effect
upon the boy. He began to shiver at regular intervals, as if
affected by a succession of slight electric shocks. By degrees this
tremour subsided, the patient's eyes gradually closed, and in about
a quarter of an hour, he replied to an enquiry on my part--'Ich
schlaffe, aber nicht ganz tief'--(I sleep, but not soundly.) upon
this I endeavoured to deepen the patient's slumber by the mesmeric
passes, when suddenly he exclaimed--his eyes being closed all the
time--'I see--I see your hand--I see your head!' In order to put
this to the proof, I held my head in various positions, which he
followed with his finger; again, he told me accurately whether my
hand was shut or open. 'But,' he said, on being further questioned,
'I do not see distinctly.--I see, as it were, sunbeams (sonnen
strahlen) which dazzle me.' 'Do you think,' I asked, 'that
mesmerism will do you good?' 'Ja freilich,' (yes, certainly,) he
replied; 'repeated often enough, it would cure me of my blindness.'

"Afraid of fatiguing my patient, I did not trouble him with
experiments; and his one o'clock dinner being ready for him, I
dispersed his magnetic sleep. After he had dined, I took him into
the garden. As we were passing before some bee-hives, he suddenly
stopped, and seemed to look earnestly at them: 'What is it you
see?' I asked. 'A row of bee-hives,' he replied directly, and