< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hypnotism, originated, ardent discussions arising, even from the beginning over this pretended discovery. I received letters from Manchester entreating me to return, and I did so on a date when Dr. Braid had announced a demonstration. His experiments were given but unfortunately, on this occasion none of them succeeded; neither sleep nor catalepsy was obtained, and every moment I was appealed to. In the facts that were advanced on this occasion by Dr. Braid, there was in my opinion, absolutely nothing that was remarkable, and had not that gentleman been honorably known in the town, I should have supposed that he was mystifying his audience. The next day, and for six days consecutively, I experimented after his own fashion on fifty or sixty subjects and the results were practically nil. I then gave a magnetic seance and the results on Eugene and Mary were marked and positive.

The value of the quotation rests solely on the opportune remark that Braid was the first to apply the name hypnotism to animal magnetism. One should not forget that Eugene and Mary were two subjects whom Lafontaine carried with him from town to town and on whom he could rely for phenomena.

Though Braid survived his discovery by not more than eighteen years, he lived to know that it was well on the road to acceptance by the competent opinion of the time. In the latter part of his life he said, "I feel no great anxiety for the fate of hypnotism, provided it only has 'a fair field and no favour.' I am content to bide my time, in the firm conviction that truth for which alone I most earnestly strive, with the discovery of the safest, and surest, and speediest modes of relieving human suffering, will ultimately triumph over error" ('Magic, Witch' p. 53).

The enemies of Braid were as vociferous in their denunciation of him as his friends were earnest in their praise. And what may seem the greatest surprise and yet what seems to be a natural consequence of opposition, the Mesmerists themselves were the ones who were the loudest in opposing him. However, his method has stood the test of years and still prevails among those who practise the art now-a-days.

As was said before, the first exhibition that Braid ever attended was one given by this same Lafontaine. One fact, the inability of the patient to open his eyelids, arrested his attention. He considered this a real phenomenon and was anxious to discover the physiological cause of it.

In two days afterward, he says, I developed my views to my friend Captain Brown, as I had previously done to four other friends; and in his presence and that of my family and another friend, the same evening, I instituted a series of experiments to prove the correctness of my theory—namely that the continued fixed stare, by paralyzing nervous centers in the eyes and their appendages and destroying the equilibrium of the nervous system, thus proved the phenomenon referred to. The experiments were varied so as to convince all present, that they fully bore out the correctness of my theoretical views. My first object was to prove, that the inability of the patient to open his eyes was caused by paralyzing the upper muscles of the eyes, through their continued action during the protracted fixed stare, and thus rendering it
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