Eighteenth Century Waifs

by John Ashton

So also the Catholic and Apostolic Church (Irvingites) teach this practice as a dogma, vide their catechism,[100] ‘What are the benefits to be derived from this rite?’ ‘St. James teaches us again that the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and, if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.’ After this, who can say that the age of faith is passed away?

With them, also, is a great function for the benediction of oil for anointing the sick; the rubric for which is as follows:[101] ‘In the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist on a Week-day, immediately before the elements are brought up and placed on the Altar, the Elder or Elders present shall bring the vessel containing the oil to the Angel, who shall present it uncovered upon the Altar; and then kneeling down at the Altar, and the Elders kneeling down at the access to the Sanctuary, the Angel shall say this Prayer of Benediction.’

Here follows a not very long prayer, in which the Almighty is intreated to impart to the oil the virtue which is dogmatically asserted that it possesses, in the catechism. The rubric then continues, ‘The oil which has been blessed shall remain on the Altar until after the Service, and shall then be delivered by the Angel to the senior Elder, that it may be reverently carried to the Sacristy, and there deposited in the proper place by the Angel.’

In the ‘Order for anointing the Sick’ (p. 602), the rubric says: ‘This rite shall be administered only to such as have, in time past, received the Holy Communion, or to whom it is intended presently to administer the Communion; also, only in such cases of sickness as are of a serious or dangerous character. In order to the receiving of the rite, opportunity should, if possible, be previously given to the sick person to make confession of his sins.

‘A table should be provided in the sick person’s room, with a clean cloth thereon, upon which may be placed the vessel of holy oil.... The Elder in charge shall be accompanied, when possible, by the other Elders, the Pastor, and the Deacon.’

A somewhat lengthy service follows, and in the middle is this rubric: ‘Then the Elders present shall anoint the sick person with the oil on the head or forehead, and, if the sick person request it, also on any part affected.’ And it winds up with the subjoined direction, ‘All the holy oil that shall remain after the anointing shall be forthwith consumed by Fire.’

I had intended to confine my subject entirely to English quacks, but the name of Mesmer is so allied to quackery in England that I must needs refer to him. He was born at Merseburg in Germany on May 23, 1733, and died at the same place March 5, 1815. He studied medicine, and took a doctor’s degree in 1766. He started his extraordinary theory in 1772 by publishing a tract entitled, ‘De Planetarium Influxu,’ in which he upheld that tides exist in the air as in the sea, and were similarly produced. He maintained that the sun and the moon acted upon an etherial fluid which penetrated everything, and this force he termed Animal Magnetism. But there is every reason to believe that he was indebted for his discovery to a Jesuit father named Hel, who was professor of astronomy at Vienna. Hel used peculiarly made steel plates, which he applied to different portions of his patient’s body. Hel and Mesmer subsequently quarrelling about the prior discovery of each, the latter discontinued the use of the plates, and substituted his fingers. Then he found it was unnecessary to touch his patient, but that the same magnetic influence could be induced by waving his hands, and making what are called mesmeric passes at a distance.

But the Viennese are a practical race, and his failures to cure, notably in one case, that of Mademoiselle Paradis (a singer), who was blind, caused charges of deceit to be brought against him, and he was told to leave Vienna at a day’s notice. He obeyed, and went to Paris, where he set up a superb establishment, fitted up most luxuriously. The novelty-loving Parisians soon visited him, and here, in a dimly lit room, with pseudo-scientific apparatus to excite the imagination, and a great deal of corporal manipulation, tending to the same purpose, to the accompaniment of soft music or singing, hysterical women went into convulsive fits, and laughed, sobbed, and shrieked, according to their different temperaments.

Having reached this stage, Mesmer made his appearance, clad in a gold embroidered robe of violet silk, holding in his hand a magnetic rod of wondrous power. With slow and solemn steps he approached his patients, and the exceeding gravity of his deportment, added to their ignorance of what might be coming next, generally calmed and subdued those who were not insensible. Those who had lost their senses he awoke by stroking them, and tracing figures upon their bodies with his magnetic wand, and, on their recovery, they used to testify to the great good his treatment had done them.

A commission of scientific and medical men sat to make inquiry into ‘Animal Magnetism,’ and they reported adversely. He then endeavoured to get a pecuniary recognition of his services from the French Government, but this being declined, he retired to Spa, where, the bubble having been pricked, he lived for some time in comparative obscurity.