And here we find physicians, not mesmerists, comparing these phenomena, and others of the same class, with the effects observed by animal magnetizers. Dr. Montègre, already quoted, says,—"The phenomena of magnetism, and those presented by cases of possession and of fascination, connect themselves with those observed among the convulsionists, not only by the most complete resemblance, but also by the cause which determines them. There is not a single phenomenon observed in the one case that has not its counterpart in the others."[51]
Calmeil, while admitting that the "nervous effects produced by animal magnetizers bear a close resemblance to those which have been observed at Loudun, at Louviers, and during other convulsive epidemics," offers the following, in explanation of the physical phenomena connected with the "Great Succors":—
"The energetic resistance, which, in the case of the convulsionists, the skin, the cellular tissue, and the surface of the body and limbs offered to the shock of blows, is certainly calculated to excite surprise. But many of these fanatics greatly deceived themselves, when they imagined that they were invulnerable; for it has been repeatedly proved that several of them, as a consequent of the cruel trials they solicited, suffered from large ecchymoses on the integuments, and numerous contusions on those portions of the surface which were exposed to the rudest attacks. For the rest, the blows were never administered except during the torments of convulsion; and at that time the tympany (météorisme) of the abdomen, the state of spasm of the uterus in women and of the alimentary canal in both sexes, the state of contraction, of orgasm, of turgescence in the fleshy envelopes, in the muscular layers which protect and inclose the abdomen, the thorax, the principal vascular trunks, and the bony surfaces, must essentially contribute to weaken, to deaden, to nullify, the effect of the blows. Is it not by means of an analogous state of orgasm, which an over-excited will produces, that boxers and athletes find themselves in a condition to brave, to a certain point, the dangers of their profession? In fine, it is to be remarked, that, when dealing blows on the bodies of the convulsionists, the assistants employed weapons of considerable volume, having flat or rounded surfaces, cylindrical or blunted. But the action of such physical agents is not to be compared, as regards its danger, with that of thongs, switches, or other supple and flexible instruments with distinct edges. Finally, the contact and the repeated impression of the blows produced on the convulsionists the effect of a sort of salutary pounding, and rendered less poignant and less sensible the tortures of hysteria. It would have been preferable, doubtless, to make use of less murderous succors; the rage for distinction as the possessor of a miraculous gift, even more perhaps than the instinctive need of immediate relief, prompting these convulsionary theomaniacs to make choice of means calculated to act on the imagination of a populace, whose interest could be kept awake only by a constant repetition of wonders."[52]
Calmeil, of all the medical authors I have consulted, appears to have the most closely studied the various phases of the St.-Médard epidemic.[53] Yet the explanations above given seem to me quite incommensurate with the phenomena admitted.
Some of the patients, he says, suffered from ecchymosis and contusions. In plain, unprofessional language, they were beaten black and blue. That is such a result as usually follows a few blows from a boxer's fist or from an ordinary walking-stick. But when the weapon employed is a rough iron bar weighing upwards of twenty-nine pounds, when the number of blows dealt in succession on the pit of the stomach of a young girl exceeds a hundred and fifty, and when these are delivered with the utmost force of an athletic man, is it bruises and contusions we look for as the only consequence? Or does it explain the immunity with which this frightful infliction was received, to call it a salutary pounding? The argument drawn from the turgescence of the viscera and other organs, from the spasmodic contraction of the muscles and the general state of orgasm of the system, has doubtless great weight; but does it reach far enough to explain to us the fact, (if it be a fact, and as such Calmeil accepts it,) that a girl, bent back so that her head and feet touched the floor, the centre of the vertebral column being supported on a sharp-pointed stake, received, day after day, with impunity, directly on her stomach and bowels, one hundred times in succession, a flint stone weighing fifty pounds, dropped suddenly from a height of twelve or fifteen feet? Boxers, it is true, in the excited state in which they enter the ring, receive, unmoved, from their opponents blows which would prostrate a man not prepared, by hard training, for the trial. But even such blows, in the end, sometimes prove mortal; and what should we say of substituting for the human fist a sharp-pointed rapier, and expecting that the tension of the nervous system would render impenetrable the skin of the combatant? Finally, it is to be admitted, that flexible weapons, especially if loaded, as the cat-o'-nine-tails, still used in some countries as an instrument of military punishment, occasionally is, with hard, angular substances, are among the most severe that can be employed to inflict punishment or destroy life. But what would even the poor condemned soldier, shrinking from that terrible instrument of torture which modern civilization has not yet been shamed into discarding, think of the proposal to substitute for it the andiron with which Montgéron, at the twenty-fifth blow, broke an opening through a stone wall,—the executioner-drummer being commanded to deal, with his utmost strength, one hundred and sixty blows in succession, with that ponderous bar, (a bar with rough edges, no cylindrical rod,) not on the back of the culprit, but on his unprotected breast?
No wonder that De Gasparin, with all his aversion for the supernatural, and all his disinclination to admit anything which he cannot explain, after quoting from Calmeil the above explanation, feels its insufficiency, and seeks another. These are his words:—
"How does it happen, that, after being struck with the justice of these observations, one still retains a sort of intellectual uneasiness, a certain suspicion of the disproportion between the explanation and the phenomena it seeks to explain? How does it happen, that, under the influence of such an impression, many suffer themselves to be seduced into an admission of diabolical or miraculous agency? It happens, because Dr. Calmeil, faithful to the countersign of all learned bodies in England and France, refuses to admit fluidic action, or to make a single step in advance of the ordinary theory of nervous excitement. Now it is in vain to talk of contractions, of spasms, of turgescence; all this evidently fails to reach the case of the St.-Médard succors. To reach it we need the intervention of a peculiar force,—of a fluid which is disengaged, sometimes by the effect of certain crises, sometimes by the power of magnetism itself. Those who systematically keep up this hiatus in the study of human physiology are the best allies of the superstitions they profess to combat.... Suppose that study seriously undertaken, with what precision should we resolve the problem of which now we can but indicate the solution! Habituated to the wonders of the nervous fluid, knowing that it can raise, at a distance, inert objects, that it can biologize, that it can communicate suppleness or rigidity, the highest development of the senses or absolute insensibility, we should not be greatly surprised to discover that it communicates also, in certain cases, elasticity and that degree of impenetrability which characterizes gum-elastic."[54]
De Gasparin further explains his theory in the following passage:—"The great difficulty is not to explain the perversion of sensibility exhibited by the convulsionists. Aside from that question, does it not remain incomprehensible that feeble women should have received, without being a hundred times crushed to pieces, the frightful blows of which we have spoken? How can we explain such a power of resistance? A very small change, operated by the nervous fluid, would suffice to render the matter very simple. Let us suppose the skin and fibres of the convulsionists to acquire, in virtue of their peculiar state of excitement, a consistency analogous to that of gum-elastic; then all the facts that astonish us would become as natural as possible. With convulsionists of gum-elastic,[55] or, rather, whose bony framework was covered with muscles and tissues of gum-elastic, what would happen?"
He then proceeds to admit that "a vigorous thrust with a rapier, or stroke with a sabre, as such thrusts and strokes are usually dealt, would doubtless penetrate such an envelope"; but, he alleges, the St.-Médard convulsionists never, in a single instance, permitted such thrusts or strokes, with rapier or sabre, to be given; prudently restricting themselves to pressure only, exerted after the sword-point had been placed against the body. He reminds us, further, that neither razors nor pistol-balls, both of which would penetrate gum-elastic, were ever tried on the convulsionists; and he adds,—"Neither flint stones nor andirons nor clubs nor swords and spits, pressed against it, would have broken the surface of the gum-elastic envelope. They would have produced no visible injury. At the most, they might have caused a certain degree of internal friction, more or less serious, according to the thickness of the gum-elastic cuirass which covered the bones and the various organs."[56]
I am fain to confess, that this imagining of men and women of gum-elastic, all but the skeleton, does not seem to me so simple a matter as it appears to have been regarded by M. de Gasparin. Let us take it for granted that his theory of a nervous fluid, which is the agent in table-moving,[57] is the true one. How is the mere disengaging of such a fluid to work a sudden transmutation of muscular and tendinous fibre and cellular tissue into a substance possessing the essential properties of a vegetable gum? And what becomes of the skin, ordinarily so delicate, so easily abraded or pierced, so readily injured? Is that transmuted also? Let us concede it. But the concession does not suffice. There remain the bones and cartilages, naturally so brittle, so liable to fracture. Let us even suppose the breast and stomach of a convulsionist protected by an artificial coating of actual gum-elastic, would it be a safe experiment to drop upon it, from a height of twelve feet, a flint stone weighing fifty pounds? We are expressly told that the ribs bent under the terrible shock, and sank, flattened, even to the backbone. Is it not certain, that human ribs and cartilages, in their normal state, would have snapped off, in spite of the interposed protection? Must we not, then, imagine osseous and cartilaginous fibre, too, transmuted? Indeed, while we are about it, I do not see why we should stop short of the skeleton. Since we understand nothing of the manner of transmutation, it is as easy to imagine bone turned to gum-elastic, as skin and muscle and tendon.