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of Liebig regarding the laws of animal and vegetable growth and decomposition, Baron Reichenbach of Vienna commenced a series of observations upon the physiological effects of the magnet, in order to understand and reduce to certainty the pretended sensibility of certain persons to the power of the magnet and of crystals. The series of papers illustrating the observations of the Baron were composed for the periodical of Liebig, the Annalen.

These observations were begun in 1844, and continued, almost without intermission, for a series of years upon a vast number of subjects, under the advice and criticism of some of the most learned and judicious savans of Germany. Their results are contained in the volume before us, translated in England, and republished, a few months since, in New-York.

researches, that cold and heat, electricity, medicines, and food, are not the only ma terial agents that react upon the human nervous system. He was enabled to detect remarkable and uniform effects from magnets upon a very large number of persons. He gives a list of not less than sixty individuals, some of high standing in the scientific and social world, and of all ages, sexes, and conditions, affected by the magnet, and who felt its approach and movement over their bodies, without contact.

This point established, he proceeded to an examination of the lights seen by the sensitive over magnets. His first experiment was upon a person confined to a dark room with illness, who saw a phosphores cence or luminosity upon the furniture of the chamber. With this subject, he was enabled to detect fiery bushes and clouds of light issuing from the poles of an open magnet; and by a repetition of the experiment upon fifty or sixty different individuals, during several years of investigation, he established the luminosity of the magnet beyond a doubt or question.

The old observation of the effects of a magnet upon certain highly nervous and sensitive temperaments was repeated by the Baron, whose laboratory and scientific apparatus allowed him to pursue all the necessary investigations without hindrance or interruption. He soon discovered that This luminosity presented phenomena to great numbers of persons-in fact, a much the more sensitive class of subjects, espe larger proportion than would be supposed, cially to somnambulists and the cataleptic, of the healthy as well as of the sick, and of when awake and observant, of a brilliant males as well as females, many of them and regular character; and the Baron finalrobust persons, who had hardly known ill-ly discovered, not only that all the subness-were susceptible to an influence then called "magnetic," because it was supposed to have its residence in the magnet.

jects whom he tested in his dark chamber agreed in their representations, but that the perfection in which they saw the lights The magnet, which ought to be a large (called by him "odic lights") was in proone, capable of supporting at least ten portion to their natural sensibility of sight, pounds, is drawn downwards from the face heightened only, in some instances, by to the knees, and produces peculiar sensanervous illness. His final and most satistions of cold or warmth, "resembling a factory series of experiments enabled him cool or a gently warm breath of air." to analyze these lights, reducing them to Sometimes this feeling is attended with the prismatic colors, and assigning the sensations of pricking or creeping in the places of each at the poles of excited bars skin. In men more rarely, in women and of iron, according to the points of the comchildren very frequently, these sensations pass. are strongly perceived. Nervous depression from any cause, especially among wo-"glow," and "smoke," was more delicate men and men of sedentary habits, produces the most vivid susceptibility. These sensations, in extreme cases, where there is a disposition to catalepsy and somnambulism, or to any variety of hysteria, some-perfectly, according to the varying suscep times rise to an extraordinary intensity, and throw the subject into rigid spasms.

By these experiments, the Baron satisfied himself, and those who followed his

The appearance of the "odic flames,"

and pure than that of common fire, and the colors like those of steely iridescence, or sometimes of the rainbow; not that they actually varied, but were seen more or less

tibility of the eyes that beheld them. The differences were only of more or less. When great flames were seen rising from the poles of powerful magnets, or other

bodies, "odically" excited, rising some- | reciprocal. Other experimenters have cartimes to the height of five or six feet, and ried this to much greater lengths than the illuminating the chamber, their descriptions Baron; subjects have been operated upon, were the same by different observers. The who would rush forward the moment the entire magnet appeared in a state of incan- magnet was brought within forty feet of descence or translucent glow, and the long them, and grasp its poles, falling, at the flames shot out from the poles and curved samfe moment, into a state of sleep, or of cataupwards, showing a force that threw them leptic spasm. Reichenbach's experiments out, and a tendency upwards. These flames upon a variety of subjects having fully fluctuated when one of them was made to satisfied him of the power exercised by the rush against another; they moved also with odic force in magnets over the nerves of the the currents of air, showing their connec- human body, he entered next upon an tion with particles of air. examination of the "force residing in crystals."

It was found that the magnetic poles must be separated and distinct, for, when joined, the great flames disappeared, and only the glow remained. Electro-magnets presented the same appearances.

The next series of experiments was made with crystals. The crystal has always been a tool of magic and delusion; we have now one at least of its "magical" properties brought within scientific limits.

To ascertain whether the odic force might not reside also in other substances, the Baron undertook an experiment which absolutely shocks "the scientific mind," as he remarks, which was no other than the magnetization of water!

words, a glass over which a powerful magnet had been held for a few minutes) from common water. The glass of magnetized water. exercised the same, but a much feebler attraction upon the hand of the subjects, and gave them peculiar pricking and warm sensations in the act of drinking.

His subjects, however, without the slightest consideration for the feelings of the scientific societies, and of the "scientific First, however, we must direct the atten- mind" in general, did not fail to distinguish tion of the reader upon another property of immediately a glass of water which had magnets, by which their analogy with crys-been immersed in the odic flames (in other tals was powerfully confirmed. It had been observed by the older physicians, that the hands of cataleptic patients adhered to magnets. This adhesion was wholly unexplained. Preparatory to his investigation of the odic force in crystals, the Baron undertook to elucidate the phenomena of physiological attraction. The subjects upon which he experimented experienced an irresistible desire to grasp the poles of powerful magnets with their hands. In the state of catalepsy or rigid spasm, the hands moved powerfully toward the magnet, (the patient being in a state of unconsciousness,) and grasped their poles with unnatural force, the fingers closing over, and seeming to adhere to the metal bar. These phenomena were the same when the subject was awake and fully conscious. The subject seemed to be impelled by an irresistible and agreeable attraction, as if the hands were drawn by a thousand fine threads, to approach and seize the poles of the magnet, from which a gentle, cool wind seemed to flow, playing over and enveloping the hands. The hand adhered to the magnet, as though it were a piece of it, and could be moved in any direction; but did not exert the slightest power over the magnet, to affect it in any discoverable way. The attraction was not

The Baron having thus developed a new fact of the ancient "magic," immediately prepared a number of substances, minerals, metals, and animal matters, including the human hand itself, by simply rubbing them with, or placing them in, the odic flame or sphere of a powerful magnet. Forty or fifty different substances, taken out of his cabinet without arrangement or choice, were treated in this way; and the magnetized were invariably and instantly distinguished from the unmagnetized, by the more susceptible patients. These experiments were made with singular care and perseverance, and yielded always the same results. Regular crystals and groups of crystals, with some exceptions, were found susceptible of receiving odic force in a greater or less degree. Not a single confused uncrystallized substance was among those that received the force. In general, the more regular and perfect the crystallization, the more decided was the effect upon

the subject. The general conclusion was, | tions of warmth, usually pleasurable. The that the property of retaining and origin- points and bases of crystals are, therefore, ating this force did not belong as much to oppositely endowed with this force: the the substance as to the form of bodies. evidences of polarity given by the Baron are complete.

Finally, it was discovered that this force resides permanently in regular and perfect crystals, and appears at their poles. Its manifestations are different at opposite poles of the same crystal. More than half the persons examined by the Baron, among his acquaintances, were found sensitive to crystals. On these being drawn perpendicularly along the inside of the hand, they invariably communicated the sensation of a warm or cool wind blown through a quill: the sensation delicate and fine, but in cataleptic subjects powerful, and causing the hand to close upon the crystal.

Further investigation showed that this property was transiently communicated to various substances by merely passing the crystal over them with the point downward. The power that was permanent in the crystal and magnet was transient in other masses of matter.

The effect of the crystals and magnets upon the susceptible cataleptic patients was not impeded by the interposition of other substances, but passed through them; requiring, however, a short period of time for transmission, whereas magnetism permeates instantly. In all respects, the odic force was found to differ entirely from magnetism, though the magnetic condition of iron was found favorable to its development. The odic poles, distinguished by the color of their light, and by the cold and hot sensations produced by them, could be reversed in the same magnet by change of position, an effect which sufficiently distinguished the new force, to say nothing of its permanent residence in crystals, where magnetism has no place. The crystallic or odic force was found to have no attractive power over any besides living substance, the organized human body, principally upon the hands, slightly upon the feet. The mouth was very sensitive to the odic effects.

The next series of experiments undertaken by Baron Reichenbach enabled him to discover certain laws of the operation of the odic force upon the human system, of which the phenomena hitherto imperfectly observed have given rise to the absurd hypotheses of "Animal Magnetism." It was already known to him that the new force was strictly polar, and that it was referred regularly to certain quarters of the heavens. He now found that the earth itself polarizes the human body, odically, from north to south, and from east to west. A conjecture, which was afterwards strongly corroborated, had presented itself, that the Aurora Borealis is in fact an odic light, arising from the odic polarity of the earth. He found that many of his susceptible patients were painfully affected by lying with the head toward the west or south; some of them becoming violently ill in these positions, sitting or lying for any length of time, but that a change of position relieved these symptoms, and that they were entirely obviated by placing the head to the north or north-east. The symptoms are minutely detailed, but we must hasten on to the more important and interesting observations which follow; observing only that the Baron dwells much upon the importance of keeping the north and south position in the treatment of nervous diseases; more especially with the bed-ridden. He considers, indeed, that it is important for all delicate and sedentary persons to sleep with the head to the north.

The experiments on the effect of human hands are, perhaps, the most interesting and important of the series. At these the very learned and excellent botanist, Professor Endlicher, was often present. Professor Endlicher found, that after he had passed the magnet over his own person, the hand of the cataleptic subject attached itself An examination of these crystals in a to his, just as it had done to the magnet, dark room, after the eyes of the subjects to the crystals, and to the glass of water. had become thoroughly accustomed to the He, on the other hand, perceived no attracdarkness by a confinement of several hours, tion in his own hand toward that of the established the existence of odic flames subject. A great variety of experiments shooting from the points of crystals. The followed, all demonstrating the communibase of the crystal gave cool sensations, cability of the odic force, not only to inor(called negative.) The points gave sensa-ganic matter, but to the human body, by

the passes of a crystal, or of a magnet; i.e., | ments upon sunlight and moonlight, and by causing the odic aurora to play over other sources of heat and light, and all of the surface, and penetrate the substance of them were found to be powerful sources of the body. odic force.

The subject was placed in the usual dark chamber, and a long wire conducted from the outer air to the hand. When the sunlight acted upon the wire, or upon a plate of copper or other metal to which it was attached in the outer air, a stream of odic flame issued from the end in the hand of the subject in the dark chamber. A sensation of cold was also communicated by the wire in the hand, showing that the sun

An examination was now made in the dark chamber, and the sensitive eyes of the subject perceived the hand of the operator surrounded and penetrated by a luminosity, and streams of light (odic flames) issuing from the tips of the fingers. Above water "magnetized" there was also a visible luminosity, and above all substances that could be made to receive and retain the odic force. It was found, further, that the human hand, without odization, produced the well-light communicates a negative odic polarity. known and now familiar effects upon the susceptible; and, what was still more remarkable, that these effects passed along and through rods of glass and iron, and other materials serving as conductors of odic force. And further, to reduce all these phenomena to a single law, bodies touched with the hand were found to be magnetized; and if any thing had been held in the hand of the operator, it was immediately distinguished from another that had not been thus treated. In these experiments, every precaution was, of course, taken to avoid error and delusion, as might be expected from so skilful and practised a savan as the Baron Reichenbach.

Next follows the remarkable discovery of the same odic polarity in the human body as in magnets and crystals. An odie circle was established that was powerfully felt by the patients, by merely grasping both the hands in left and right, and holding them, while the operator stood face to face with the subject. In fine, all the phenomena of the new power, previously observed in crystals and in magnets, were now found in the human body. The two hands, presented crossed to a susceptible patient, produced illness after a time; the right hand odically opposing the right, and the left hand the left.

The Baron found the left side of the body, in general, negative, and producing sensations of cold; while the right side communicated warmth. The miscalled "Animal Magnetism" was finally identified, in these experiments, with the force residing in magnets and crystals, and in the earth itself.

In the fourth treatise or book of this truly extraordinary work, we find experi

When, on the other hand, moonlight, instead of sunlight, fell upon the outer end of the conductor, a sensation described as "heat" (the positive odic quality) was communicated in the same manner. Iron, laid in the sunshine, became odic, and acted upon the subject like odized water or a crystal, though it showed no sensible magnetic property. It was found that the odic power of the magnets used in these experiments was quickly and perfectly restored by laying them in sunshine. In fine, substances of every kind, including the human body, were thus affected by the sun's rays, though in various degrees, and made powerful exhibitions of odic light in a dark chamber, or through a conductor carried from out of doors. This conduction through a wire forty feet in length, required some time to develop itself, the flame requiring a minute or more to rise from the end of the wire in the dark chamber.

It is impossible to follow all the experiments of Reichenbach on the conduction of the odic force; it was found that all substances were capable, in different degrees, of receiving it; that it was generated more especially by sunlight, by the moon's rays, by the stars; the planets giving sensations of heat, like the moon, and the fixed stars of cold, like the sun, to the eyes of odically susceptible persons.

After several hundreds of experiments, it was finally established that all the internal changes of matter, by friction, heat, electricity, galvanism, magnetism, crystallogenic force, and especially chemism, generated an odic influence which could be felt by conduction through wires of any length, through glass rods, and through the human body; in fine, that all bodies were odic conductors,

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