It has been mentioned that in many so-called cataleptic cases, a condition of violent spasm is constantly present, except when the patient falls into an alternative state of trance. The spontaneous supervention of trance relieves the spasm.
I mentioned, too, in the fifth letter of this series, the case of Henry Engelbrecht, who, after a life of asceticism, and a week of nearly total abstinence, fell into a death-trance. On waking from it, he felt refreshed and stronger.
These results are quite intelligible. In trance, the nervous system is put out of gear. The strain of its functions is suspended. Now, perhaps for the first time since birth, the nervous system, a part or the whole, experiences entire repose. The effect of this must be as soothing to it, as is to a diseased joint the disposing it in a relaxed position on a pillow. In this state of profound rest, it is natural that the nervous system should recruit its forces; that if previously weak and irritable, it should emerge from the trance stronger and more composed; that the induction of trance many days repeated, and maintained daily an hour or more, should finally enable the nerves to recover any extent of mere loss of tone, with its dependent morbid excitability, and to shake off various forms of disorder dependent upon that cause. So might it be expected, that epilepsy, that hysteric and cataleptic fits, that nervous palsy, that tic-doloreux, when caused by no structural impairment of organ, should get weak under the use of this means—other means, of course, not being thereby excluded, which peculiar features of individual cases render advisable. And experience justifies this reasonable anticipation. And it is found practically that, for purely nervous disorders, the artificial induction of trance is, generally speaking, the most efficient remedy. Nay, in cases of a more serious complexion, where organic disease exists, some unnecessary suffering and superfluous nervous irritability may be thus allayed and discarded. Even more may be said in favour of the availability of this practice. There are few diseases of any kind, and of other parts, in which the nervous system does not, primarily or secondarily, become implicated. And so far does disease in general contain an element which often may be reached and modified with salutary effect, through the means I am now advocating. When the prejudices of medical men against the artificial induction of trance have subsided, and its sanative agency has been fairly tried, and diligently studied, there is no doubt it will take a high rank among the resources of medicine.
In surgery, artificial trance is capable of playing a not less important part than in medicine.
For, as it has been already mentioned, an ordinary feature of trance is the entire suspension of common feeling. As long as the trance is maintained, the patient is impassive to all common impressions on the touch; the smartest electric shock, a feather introduced into the nose, burning, or cutting with a knife, excite no sensation. So that surgical operations may be performed without suffering during trance just as in the stupor produced by the ether inhalation. Then, as trance soothes the nerves, the patient, over and above the extinction of pain, is in a fitter state than otherwise for the infliction of physical violence. Likewise the trance may be induced not only at the time of the operation, but with equal safety on all the subsequent occasions when the wound has to be disturbed and dressed,—so that, in addition, all the after suffering attendant upon great operations may be thus avoided. The drawback against the method, is the uncertainty there exists of being able to induce trance artificially in any given case. But the trial is always worth making; and the number who can, with a little patience, be put thus as it were to sleep, is undoubtedly greater than is imagined.
The most celebrated case in which an operation has been performed upon a patient in the state of artificial trance, is that of Madame Plantin. She was sixty-four years of age, and laboured under scirrhus of the breast. She was prepared for the operation by M. Chapélain, who on several successive days threw her into trance by the ordinary mesmeric manipulations. She was then like an ordinary sleep-walker, and would converse with indifference about the contemplated operation, the idea of which, when she was in her natural state, filled her with terror. The operation of removing the diseased breast was performed at Paris on the 12th of April 1829, by M. Jules Cloquet: it lasted from ten to twelve minutes. During the whole of this time, the patient in her trance conversed calmly with M. Cloquet, and exhibited not the slightest sign of suffering. Her expression of countenance did not change, nor were the voice, the breathing, or the pulse, at all affected. After the wound was dressed, the patient was awakened from the trance, when, on learning that the operation was over, and seeing her children round her, Madame Plantin was affected with considerable emotion: whereupon M. Chapélain, to compose her, put her back into the state of trance.
I copy the above particulars from Dr Foissac's "Rapports et Discussions de l'Academie Royale de Medicine sur le Magnetisme Animal."—Paris, 1833. "My friend, Dr Warren of Boston, informed me that, being at Paris, he had asked M. Jules Cloquet if the story were true. M. Cloquet answered, "Perfectly." "Then why," said Dr Warren, "have you not repeated the practice?" M. Cloquet replied, "that he had not dared: that the pre judice against mesmerism was so strong at Paris, that he probably would have lost his reputation and his income by so doing."
Here, then, we discover two purposes of partial, indeed, but signal utility, compassable by the induction of trance, at the very outset of our inquiry into its utility. It will appear by-and-by that this resource promises to afford yet farther assistance to the physician. In the mean time, let us look at a relation of the subject which may appear more interesting to the general reader.
It has been mentioned that, in ordinary trance, the relations of consciousness to the nervous system are altered; that the laws of sensation and perception are suspended, or temporarily changed; that the mind appears to gain new powers. For a long time we had to trust to the chance turning up of cases of spontaneous trance, in the experience of physicians of observation, for any light we could hope would be thrown on those extraordinary phenomena. Now we possess around us, on every side, adequate opportunities for completely elucidating these events, if we please to employ them. The philosopher, when his speculations suggest a new question to be put, can summon the attendance of a trance, as easily as the Jupiter of the Iliad summoned a dream. Or, looking out for two or three cases to which the induction of trance may be beneficial, the physician may have in his house subjects for perpetual reference and daily experiment.
A gentleman with whom I have long been well acquainted, for many years Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in a northern county, of which the last year he was High Sheriff, has, like M. de Puységur, amused some of his leisure hours, and benevolently done not a little good, by taking the trouble of mesmerising invalids, whom he has thus restored to health. In constant correspondence with, and occasionally having the pleasure of seeing this gentleman, I have learned from him the common course in which the new powers of the mind which belong to trance are developed under its artificial induction. The sketch which I propose to give of this subject will be taken on his descriptions, which, I should observe, tally in all essential points with what I meet with in French and German authors. The little that I have myself seen of the matter, I will mention preliminarily; the most astounding things, it appears to me safer to shelter under the authority of Petetin, who, towards the close of the last century, in ignorance of mesmerism, described these phenomena as they came before him spontaneously in catalepsy.