[26] De l'anorexie hystérique. Archives générales de médecine, April 1875.
[27] Leçons sur les maladies du système nerveux, t. I., 2d edition. Paris, 1876, p. 178.
APPENDIX.
The following letter embraces the proposition made to Miss Fancher, to which allusion is made in the text:
To The Editor of the Herald:—
I have read the letter of Professor Henry M. Parkhurst, published in a recent issue of the Herald, relative to the "mind reading" or clairvoyance of Miss Mollie Fancher, of Brooklyn, and it does not satisfy me that the young lady in question possesses any such power. It would have been very easy for her to have opened the envelope without disturbing the seal and to have read the contents. Now, there has been a great deal of talk about Miss Fancher's case. I have received just fifty-seven letters asking me to investigate it, and the press has reiterated the invitation over and over again. I have stated very explicitly that I regard the whole matter as a humbug of the most decided kind, but I have never asserted the impossibility of the young lady's alleged performances. On the contrary, I hold nothing to be absolutely impossible outside the domain of mathematics. But possibilities and realities are very different things, and I certainly will not accept as true any such phenomena as those asserted to have been associated with Miss Fancher unless they are proven.
I have already declared my readiness to investigate Miss Fancher, and, a few days since, in the Sun, proposed a test which will be perfectly satisfactory to me and many others who, at present, are in accordance with me in my estimation of this young lady. Permit me now to state it definitely, specifically, and once for all. I will place a certified check for a sum of money exceeding $1,000 inside of a single paper envelope. I will lay the package on a table in the room in which she is. If she chooses she may take it in her hands and place it in contact with any part of her body. I will allow her half an hour to describe the check. If she reads it—number, date, on whom drawn, amount, signature, etc.—accurately, she may have the check as her own property, or I will give the amount expressed in the check, in her name to any charitable institution she may designate, or otherwise dispose of it in accordance with her wishes.
The only conditions I exact are these:—