Letters from England, Volume 2 (of 3)

by Robert Southey

The mode of healing is termed Treating;—it is a process made use of by the operator to create, if partially obliterated, or to increase, if become languid, the natural action and re-action in any part of the body; and to assist nature by imitating and re-establishing her own law, when she is become inadequate to the task. This process is the opposite to the last; in that the examiner attracted the atoms from the patient to himself, but in this he must propel the atoms from himself to the patient. By a steady exertion of compound volition we have it in our power to propel the particles which emanate from our own body, against and into whatever part of any other form we fix our intention upon, and can force them in any direction and to any distance. Thus, by a continual and regular succession of particles directed vigorously in a rapid stream against those atoms which are stopt in their passage and accumulated into a heap, we break down the impediments, push off those atoms which we detach, direct them into the circulating currents for evacuation, and save the system from all the evil consequences which its impeded functions were occasioning. This is like throwing handfuls of shot at a heap of sand in a rivulet, which, as the grains of sand are separated from each other, washes them along before it. As all obstructions are not equally hard or compact, they are not all destroyed with the same facility. A single look will often prove sufficient for a recent accumulation of particles, for an accidental contraction, or a sudden distention, whereas those of long standing and of a more serious nature demand frequent, long, and judiciously-varied treatment.

The general process of treatment is an influence of mind over organized matter, in which unorganized matter is the occasional instrument. The mind should be able to perform this work without any particular motions of the body, or of its extremities. But, says the professor, inexperience, and the frequent disturbances which occur to divert the attention, induce us to adopt some mode of action, the constant repetition of which may attract, rouse, or recall the mind to its subject, when it becomes languid, or diverted from its employment. Hence, he adds, we generally employ our hands in the act of treating, and write, as it were, our various intentions on each part by the motions we make towards it: or, in fact, we trace on the diseased part with our current of emanations the various curative intentions of our mind or spirit.

The Pathology is soon explained. The impressions produced upon the fingers of the examiner by the stone will be heaviness, indolence, and cold. Burns and scalds produce heavy dull pricking at first, when inflammation has taken place great heat and sharp pricking, but indolent numbness from the centre. Rheumatic headache occasions pricking, numbness, and creeping or vermicular motion, heat if the patient be strong, cold if he be relaxed. Inflammation caused by confined wind produces intense heat, pricking and creeping; the heat is occasioned by the inflammation, the pricking by the wind acting against the obstructed pores, and the creeping by the motion of the wind from one part to another. Pus communicates to the hand of the examiner such a feeling of softness as we should expect from dipping the hand in it, but combined with pricking from the motion which the wind contained in it makes in its endeavours to escape. Diseased lungs make the fingers feel as if dough had been permitted to dry on them, this is called clumsy stiffness. Pleurisy occasions creeping, heat and pricking; deafness, resistance and numbness. Contracted nerves announce themselves to the examiner by a pressure round his fingers, as if a string was tightly bound round them; cases of relaxed habit by a lengthened debilitated sensation; diseased spleen, or ovaries, by a spinning in the fingers' ends, as if something were twirling about in them. The impression which scrofula produces upon the practitioner is curious and extraordinary: at every motion which he makes, the joints of his fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders crack. Worms excite creeping and pinching; bruises, heaviness in the hands, and numbness of the fingers.

The Modus Operandi must now be exemplified, premising, according to the professor's words, that the operator's own emanations become for him invisible fingers, which penetrate the pores, and are to be considered as the natural and only ingredients which are or can be adapted to the removal of nervous, or of any other affections of the body.

Instead therefore of lithotomy, the stone may thus be cured without danger or pain. This invisible power must be applied to the juices which circulate in the vicinity of the stone: and they must be conducted to the stone and applied to its surface, that the stone may be soaked in them for the purpose of dissolving the gum which makes the particles of sand cohere. If the hands are employed in this process, the mind must conceive that the streams of atoms which continually rush forth from the fingers, are continued on, and lengthened out into long invisible fingers which become continuations of our natural ones; and which, being composed of minute particles, are perfectly adapted to pass through the pores of another form, and to be applied, as we should apply our visible fingers, to the very part on which it is intended to act. The last process is Action: by striking those very emanating particles that constitute that invisible elongation of the part of our own body which it is intended to employ, whether it be the hand, the eye, or any other part,—by striking them forcibly in constant and rapid succession against the stone, the particles of sand, having been rendered less tenacious by the soaking, loosen, and fall apart, and are washed out of the body by the natural evacuation.

One instance more will suffice. In cases of indigestion the sensations produced by the ropy humour in the stomach are a thick gummy feel on the fingers; and when they are gently moved they meet with a slight degree of resistance. To judge of the depth of this slimy humour the fingers must be perpendicularly dipt in it to the bottom of the stomach; the consequence will be the impression of a circular line as if a string surrounded each finger, marking the depth to which they had sunk. Now to remove this derangement, the coat of the stomach must be cleared, which is done by the invisible fingers scraping all the internal surface.

You have here the whole sum and substance of a secret for which a hundred guineas were originally paid by aspirants, and which was afterwards published at five guineas by subscription. The list of subscribers contains the names of some nobles and of one bishop; but it is short, and for that reason I suppose the second and third parts, which were to contain new systems of anatomy and midwifery, as improved by this new science, were never published.

It follows incontrovertibly from the principles which have been advanced, that as the practitioners in this art heal diseases, so they can communicate them; that they can give the itch by shaking with invisible hands, and send a fit of the gout to any person whom they are disposed to oblige. The Indian jongleurs, who, like these English impostors, affect to feel the same pain as the patient, lay claim to this power; but it did not answer the purposes of imposture here to pretend to a power of doing mischief.

[18] Read it; for it will cost you less to read it than it did me to write it.—Tr.