Mesmerism as an Anæsthetic

Mesmerism in antient times

From the earliest ages the apparent power of some men to influence the minds and bodies of others has been known. Certain diseases were said to be affected by the touch of the hand of certain persons, who were supposed to communicate a healing virtue to the sufferer, and these practices were often connected with religious and magical rites. This method of healing was practised in antient times by the Chaldæans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, Greeks and Romans. Their priest-physicians are said to have effected cures and to have thrown people into deep sleep in the precincts of the temples. Such influences were at that time held to be due to supernatural power, a belief which was no doubt fostered by the priesthood. In the middle of the seventeenth century an Irishman named Valentine

Healing by “stroking”

Greatrakes aroused great interest in England by his supposed power of being able to cure scrofula by stroking the patient with his hand. Most of the distinguished scientific men of the day, such as Sir Robert Boyle, witnessed and attested his cures, and thousands of sufferers crowded to him from all parts of the country. Since his time other men have come forward with similar claims, notably one Gassner, a Roman Catholic priest of Swabia, who in the early part of the eighteenth century attracted attention by stating that he could cure the majority of diseases by exorcism. His method had an extraordinary influence over the nervous systems of his patients, who in the end generally confessed themselves cured.

Mesmer’s experiments

In 1766, Mesmer, who was a pupil of Hehl, professor of astronomy at Vienna, and an advocate of the efficacy of the magnet for the cure of disease, met Gassner, and observed that the priest effected cures without the use of magnets and by manipulation alone. This led him to believe that some kind of occult force resided in himself, by means of which he could influence others. He held that this force permeated the universe, and more especially affected the nervous systems of men. In 1778, he removed to Paris, and shortly afterwards the French capital was thrown into a state of great excitement by the fact that human beings could be placed in a state of artificial sleep or trance, which was then called “mesmerism.”

Mesmer’s disciples claimed that even painful operations could be performed on patients in this condition without consciousness of pain.

Braid’s researches on hypnotism

Braid, who made a further investigation of the subject, dissented from the mes­mer­ists as to the cause of the phenomenon, and called the condition “hypnotism.” In 1846, the Deputy-Governor of Bengal appointed a committee to observe and report on the surgical operations Esdaile operates on hypnotised patients that were then being performed in India by Esdaile upon his patients, while under the influence of alleged mesmeric agency. The Committee reported on various experiments carried out under their observation, some of which had apparently been performed with great success. But from further investigation it was apparent that the method was uncertain, and success seemed to be due to the peculiar susceptibility of the patient operated upon. These experiments are worth recording, as they indirectly led to the practice of administering certain vapours to produce anæsthesia.

Robert Collier one of the first pioneers

One of the pioneers in the practice of inhalation was Robert H. Collier, who was a believer in mesmerism. In 1835 he was present at a lecture given by Dr. Turner, Professor of Chemistry at University College, London, and in the course of some experiments in the inhalation of ether was himself rendered unconscious, and also observed that his fellow-students who had inhaled it were insensible to pain. Four years later he went to America, and, while visiting his father’s estate near New Orleans, he was called to one of the negroes who had become insensible by inhaling fumes from a vat of rum, and who, in falling, had dislocated his hip. Finding the muscles flaccid, Collier reduced the dislocation without exciting the least sensation of pain in the patient. A little later he performed two operations upon patients while under mesmeric influence, with apparent success. These facts led him to connect the phenomenon of mesmerism with narcotism produced by inhalation, and in 1840 he commenced a lecturing tour throughout America on the subject. Three years later he returned to this country, and at Liverpool, where he landed, gave his first lecture, which he illustrated by experiments in mesmerism, and also showed the possibility of rendering a subject unconscious by the fumes of alcohol in which poppy-heads and coriander had been macerated. The theory he advanced, and attempted to prove throughout, was that the so-called mesmeric influence was identical in action with that of narcotic vapours.

Uses his alcoholic mixture as an anæs­the­tic in 1842

He claimed to have administered the fumes of his alcoholic mixture to a Mrs. Allen, of Philadelphia, in 1842, and while under its influence he extracted a tooth without causing her pain. Collier’s lectures excited general attention at the time, and there is little doubt that they gave a fresh impetus to research on the subject of anæsthesia by inhalation. He must therefore be regarded as an important pioneer, who, had he given up his ideas of mesmerism and proceeded systematically with his plan of making the body insensible by inhaling the vapour of alcohol, would have had no one to dispute with him in priority.