Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis (29 page)

The science of Mesmerism is a new physiological truth of
incalculable
value and importance; and, though sneered at by the pseudo-philosophers of the day, there is not the less certainty that it presents the only avenue through which is discernible a ray of hope that the more intricate phenomena of the nervous system, – of Life, – will ever be revealed to man. Already it has established its claim to be considered a most potent remedy in the cure of disease; already enabled the knife of the operator to traverse and divide the living fibre unfelt by the patient. If such are the results of its infancy, what may not its maturity bring forth?

Typically, the journal would publish long letters from correspondents who described in detail their successes with mesmerism on patients suffering ailments such as insanity, melancholy, epilepsy, or
hydrophobia, after all other remedies such as cupping and bleeding, or drugs such as calomel, opium, musk and so on, had been extensively used but had failed to bring about any relief. Here is one of the shorter and less dramatic reports, by Elliotson himself:

On June 16, 1838, a young gentleman, 16 years of age, was brought to me by his father-in-law from Wales, on account of epilepsy, under which he had laboured for a twelve-month; and he was none the better for medical treatment. The fits occurred once or twice a week, or once a fortnight; and consisted of sudden insensibility with violent convulsions, foaming at the mouth, frightful contorsions, suffusion of the face and eyes, the appearance of strangulation, biting the tongue, and at length a dead stupor. One half of the system, and generally the left, was not convulsed, but perfectly rigid, in the fit. The attacks originally occurred three or four times a day. It is not unusual for epileptic fits to occur much more frequently at first than when they are established. The first attack took place about half an hour after a javelin had fallen upon his head in a court of justice. He could now never attend a place of worship or other assemblage of persons without a fit. Even the tearing of a piece of cloth would bring one on, or any sudden noise. Neither he nor his friends, living remotely in Wales, knew anything of mesmerism. Instead of writing a prescription, I without saying anything began to make slow longitudinal passes before his face. He had not suffered an attack for a fortnight, so that the usual period for one was arrived. In a minute or two he looked strange, and a fit took place … I mesmerised him, and in five minutes he was still, though insensible for some minutes longer, just as happened ordinarily with him. After the fit, he had no head-ache, but giddiness and dimness of sight. I applied my hands at the back and front of his head, and it began to ache. I then mesmerised him again for five minutes, when the pain ceased, and he said his giddiness and dimness of sight were much less than usual after a fit. I advised that the cure should be attempted with mesmerism, and mesmerism only, stating that medicines were not likely to be of any service … The patient and his father-in-law at once consented, and I directed them to Mr. Symes of Hill Street, Berkeley Square, who,
knowing the truth and power of mesmerism, employs it in disease just like any other remedy.
From the day that I mesmerised him he never had another fit
. The following is a letter which I received from him at the end of nearly a twelvemonth…

And before turning to a detailed analysis of the effects produced on the boy by Symes's treatment, Elliotson says that now, five years after the original treatment, he is in perfect health.

Some of the reported cures are quite remarkable. In the volume for October 1848, Elliotson reported a cure of breast cancer. The patient presented with a large tumour, about five or six inches across, in her right breast, and with pains in the armpit (presumably the lymph nodes) too. She had considerable confidence in mesmerism, so Elliotson suggested using it. He meant that he would use it as a general anaesthetic during the operation, but she took him to mean that he would use it to cure the cancer. He allowed her to continue in this belief. At first, although mesmerism enabled her to sleep better at night, the tumour continued to grow. Six months later, although other doctors too had recommended surgery, the woman continued in her faith in mesmerism, especially as applied by Elliotson himself. To cut a long story short, as the months and then years rolled by, there was gradually remission of the tumour and of the related ailments from which the woman suffered, until the cancer had completely vanished.

Neither the medical establishment nor Elliotson had much time for psychological approaches. The value of post-hypnotic suggestion, for instance, was not fully appreciated until later in the century. George Barth's handbook, calling it ‘the mesmeric promise', devotes only one short paragraph to it. Elliotson believed that mesmerism was physical, that it made use of a previously unrecognized force which was as natural as magnetism or electricity; but this quasi-scientific argument split the ranks of the mesmerists, some of whom rejected such reductionism in favour of mysticism, and so denounced, for instance, Elliotson's association of mesmerism with phrenology, which was seen as a hard science. But for Elliotson and his physicalist colleagues, their theories seemed to be corroborated by accounts of mesmerizing animals. Surely no imagination could be involved in such cases. Since it was generally agreed that a certain invisible and
immaterial something passes from the operator to the subject, it came as no surprise to them to find that they could mesmerize inanimate objects such as glasses of water or chairs (which would then have a beneficial effect on a patient when sat upon).

Because of his physicalist views, Elliotson spent much of the rest of his life attempting to prove the validity of mesmerism against not only the narrow scientism of the medical establishment, but also the sensational spiritism of other mesmerists. The so-called ‘higher phenomena' of hypnotism were a problem for physicalist theories; that is no doubt one reason why Elliotson was somewhat reserved about them. Perhaps a fluidist could explain the phenomena associated with sympathy between operator and subject, and, at a stretch, clairvoyance at close quarters; but they were hard put with clairvoyance at a distance. So, for instance, in the fifth edition of his textbook
Human Physiology
(1840) Elliotson vilified Mesmer as ‘a very glutton in all that was marvellous', and although earlier he had believed that the O'Keys could prophesy the death or survival of patients in the hospital, he is at pains to distance himself from anything paranormal (though he would give some room to these ‘higher' phenomena in the
Zoist
). At the same time, he insists:

I have no hesitation in declaring my conviction that the facts of mesmerism which I admit, because they are not contrary to established morbid phenomena, result from a specific power. Even they are sometimes unreal and feigned, and, when real, are sometimes the result of emotion, – of imagination, to use common language; but, that they may be real and independent of all imagination, I have seen quite sufficient to convince me.

He then recounts such phenomena, noticeably omitting any of the O'Keys' more marvellous effects, except to admit that a patient may accurately diagnose her own ailments. But he says he's sceptical about whether they can do the same for others.

By 1843, no doubt as a result of his persecution, Elliotson was sounding more like a crusader. Not only did he start the
Zoist
in that year, but he also published a book with the confrontational title
Numerous Cases of Surgical Operations Without Pain in the Mesmeric State; with Remarks upon the Opposition of Many Members of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and Others to the Reception of the
Inestimable Blessings of Mesmerism
. And in the context of the radicalism of the mesmerists, it is significant that Elliotson dedicated the book ‘to those, however humble their rank, who prize truth above the favour of the ignorant or interested, and feel more satisfaction in promoting the comfort, the knowledge, the virtue, and therefore the happiness, of their fellow-men, than in promoting what is commonly called their own interest'.

This is a truly mind-boggling book (or pamphlet, since it is short). The first chapter describes in detail the 1842 amputation of a leg above the knee; the mesmerist was not Elliotson, but a barrister called W. Topham, while the surgeon was Mr Ward. The description is clinical. The patient, James Wombell, moaned a little, but remained still and asleep even while the surgeon was cutting the sciatic nerve. Afterwards he reported feeling no pain, although he did once hear the ‘crunching' of the saw on his thigh bone. He not only survived the operation, but lived for another thirty years.

The second section of the chapter records the reaction of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (the main body of the medical establishment at the time) on hearing the report of this operation. The first speaker declared that the patient had no doubt been trained not to express pain. Others reminded the audience that patients frequently underwent operations without being anaesthetized, and without expressing pain. (But not without
feeling
pain, Elliotson reminds us.) And so on and so forth. Elliotson sarcastically entitled this section ‘Determination of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, that this fact was not a fact'. The learned members one by one rose from their seats to pat one another smugly on the backs by denouncing the patient as an impostor. And at their next meeting they proposed to strike the record of the meeting from their minutes, which is rather similar to the way Trotsky was airbrushed out of Soviet photographs after his downfall and murder. Out of sight, out of mind!

Elliotson sensibly agrees with his critics that all the phenomena of mesmerism can occur naturally or under other circumstances, but points out that this does not detract from the value of mesmerism as a means of inducing somnambulism or ‘sleep-waking' artificially. The second and final chapter describes a number of other cases of anaesthesia, mostly involving surgical or dental operations, from all
over England, and ends with the famous case from Paris of Madame Plantin, which we looked at in
Chapter 4
.

One of the highlights of Elliotson's career came in 1846, when it was his turn to be invited to deliver the Harveian Oration before the Royal College of Physicians. There was a vigorous campaign of letter-writing to medical journals both before and afterwards by his enemies, deploring the fact, but there was nothing they could do about it. The College's protocol allowed the youngest member who has not previously had the privilege to deliver the Oration. They did, however, take the precaution of arranging a police presence on the premises, in case of any disturbance – an astonishing and unique sight in those august academic surroundings. Elliotson rose to the occasion and grasped the opportunity for a showcase piece of rhetoric. It is an extended plea for open-mindedness, showing how Harvey himself was at first ridiculed and despised for suggesting that the blood circulated around the body, how vaccination and inoculation met with considerable ridicule, and so on. ‘Let us never forget these things: never allow authority, conceit, habit, or the fear of ridicule, to make us indifferent, much less to make us hostile, to truth.' His conclusion is particularly orotund:

Never was it more necessary than at the present moment to bear all these things in mind. A body of facts is presented to us not only wonderful in physiology and pathology, but of the very highest importance in the prevention of suffering under the hands of the surgeon and in the cure of disease. The chief phenomena are indisputable: authors of all periods record them, and we all ourselves witness them, some rarely, some every day. The point to be determined is whether they may be produced artificially and subjected to our control: and it can be determined by experience only … It is the imperative, the solemn, duty of the profession, anxiously and dispassionately to determine these points by experiment, each man for himself. I have done so for ten years, and fearlessly declare that the phenomena, the prevention of pain under surgical operations, the production of repose and comfort in disease, and the cure of many diseases, even after the failure of all ordinary means, are true. In the name, therefore, of the love of truth, in the name of the dignity of our profession, in the name of the good
of all mankind, I implore you carefully to investigate this important subject.

Later in the 1840s, Elliotson was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the London Mesmeric Infirmary, but circumstances were already making him a relic of a bygone age. Braid, whose work we will shortly turn to, had decisively moved hypnotism away from the kind of physicalist theories that Elliotson had espoused, and in so doing had sounded the death knell of animal magnetism. The jewel in mesmerism's crown, surgical anasthaesia, was made redundant by the introduction of chemical anaesthetics. Moreover, the spiritist craze swept through Britain in the 1850s as it had through the United States, and mesmerism became more or less forgotten in the rush. Elliotson's long campaign eventually wore him down and by the 1860s he was often suffering from depression, and appears to have contemplated suicide. Dickens and other friends remained loyal to him throughout.

A reader of Dickens's novels would be forgiven for not guessing that Dickens had a passionate involvement with mesmerism. It finds little reflection in his books, apart from the occasional image of entrancement, as in
Oliver Twist
Fagin, perhaps, exerts some such hold over Oliver and the others in his lair. But Elliotson was his son Walter's godfather, his family doctor and a lifelong friend. Dickens's letters frequently allude to him or to the subject in general, and it was the occasional publication of these letters that informed his readers of his interest. On 27 January 1842, Dickens wrote to Robert Collyer in Boston:

With regard to my opinion on the subject of mesmerism, I have no hesitation in saying that I have closely watched Dr Elliotson's experiments from the first – that he is one of my most intimate and valued friends – that I have the utmost reliance on his
honour, character, and ability, and would trust my life in his hands at any time – and that after what I have seen with my own eyes and observed with my own senses, I should be untrue both to him and myself, if I should shrink for a moment from saying that I am a believer, and that I became so against all my preconceived opinions.