Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 Part 5

To what, then, can we resort, when the failures of Pathology and Vivisection are admitted, and we perceive the limited extent of the uncertain results of Craniology? Shall we not be compelled to resort to the same methods of investigation in the brain, which have been so successful in establishing the physiology of the nerves, viz.: direct experiment in exciting and arresting the action of the various ma.s.ses of nervous fibre. Every sound physiologist must perceive that we are compelled to resort to experiment, or else to rest contented in ignorance of the true cerebral physiology. Muller, perceiving this, remarks, "The principle for the advancement of the physiology of the nerves then remains the same, viz.: experiment on the living nerves."

We therefore experiment on the living brain in that cla.s.s of persons who are susceptible of being thus influenced; hence arises the last and most perfect method of cultivating Anthropology, by means of HUMAN IMPRESSIBILITY.

Our system of Anthropology relies, for its demonstration, upon human impressibility. Impressibility in its general sense, or the power of being affected by external agents, is proportional to the development of life. Inorganic matter is affected only mechanically or chemically--vegetation is powerfully affected by causes which would have no perceptible influence on stones or metals, and animals are affected by remote objects, by sounds, by the voice, and by other influences which do not affect vegetables. Animals of a higher grade are affected by many moral influences which produce no effect on the inferior cla.s.ses, and man, having the fullest development of all, is continually receiving a variety of influences from nature and society, to which animals are wholly insensible. As man is superior to animals in impressibility, so is the man of genius or the man of superior moral sentiments more easily affected by everything that addresses the intellect or the sentiments, than the ignorant and selfish cla.s.ses of society. Superior impressibility is then the result of a superior development of the organs which feel the various impressions. In the highest order of genius capacities exist which recognize a thousand subtle influences and beauties in Nature of which common minds are unconscious, and the psychic influence of a human being is instantly and thoroughly recognized.

For the purpose of a.n.a.lytical experiments upon the human functions, we require the development of a faculty which shall feel the influences we use. We look to the various forms of Sensibility. The organ of physical sensibility is situated in the temples, immediately over the cheek bone. It feels the influences of the various objects which affect the sense of feeling in all its modifications. Heat and cold, moisture and dryness, sound, light, and all the imponderable fluids produce their effects upon this region, and the more it is developed, the more powerfully are we affected by such agencies.

The portion of Sensibility which feels the influences of the human nervaura, is the highest portion of the organ, where it connects with Modesty, Somnolence, and Ideality. This we regard as the special organ of Nervauric Impressibility, because it renders the system so sensitive to the nervaura, as to be strongly affected whenever it is applied.

Mental impressibility is dependent upon intellectual organs, which feel the influences of mind. The power of recognizing mental action is dependent upon the internal part of the front lobe, located just above the root of the nose. This organ gives physiognomical talent, and a ready tact in appreciating the expression of mind through the eye, countenance, and gestures. It is a channel of mental sympathy, as displayed in the intercourse of society, and in the experiments of animal magnetism. By means of this organ, a general relation is established between the mind of the operator and that of the subject, which may exist without the capacity for local impressions, which would develop particular organs. It is devoted, however, to active perception rather than to pa.s.sive impression. The faculty of being mentally impressed depends also upon the region of Spirituality and Marvellousness.

Mental and nervous impressibility being dependent upon these organs, it follows that a large development of the front lobe favors Impressibility, and that the occipital organs tend to diminish it.

Impressibility lies in a group of organs which sustain it, and may be expected to accompany its development. Sensibility, Somnolence, Dreaming, Ideality, Modesty, Humility, Organic Sensibility, Relaxation, etc., are its natural accompaniments; hence it will be found most abundantly in those cla.s.ses of society which are most remarkable for refinement, sensitiveness, modesty, diffidence, humility, or submissiveness, disease, languor, debility, and intellectual excitement. Religious excitement, love, mirthfulness, thoughtfulness, imagination, benevolence, sympathy, sincerity, faith, philanthropy, hope, epicurism, intemperance, ardor, spirituality, effeminacy, imitation, romance and, in short, all amiable, sensitive, intellectual, refining, relaxing influences may be regarded as promotive of impressibility, and their opposites as calculated to destroy it.

It is fortunate that disease promotes impressibility, for it enables the sick to be relieved by manipulation, and it causes medicines to operate more efficiently upon morbid const.i.tutions or organs, which has been fully demonstrated by the h.o.m.oeopathic School of therapeutics. But impressibility does not imply disease, although it may make the system more accessible to slight morbific agencies. We find individuals occasionally, of the highest tone of health and bodily vigor, who are highly impressible. Nor does it imply mental weakness, for it is highly congenial to intellectuality, and is occasionally found among the strongest and most cultivated minds.

Nervous Impressibility is that condition in which the nervaura has a powerful influence--in which the action of the brain and all the vital functions of the const.i.tution may be controlled and indefinitely changed by the application of the hands of another individual--in which we are susceptible of being totally revolutionized in character by application of the fingers to the various organs, so as to become, for the time being, miserable or gay, philosophical, felonious, murderous, angry, stupid, insane, idiotic, drowsy, hot, cold, credulous, sceptical, timid, courageous, vain, indolent, sensual, hungry, diffident, haughty, avaricious, etc.; and in which the muscular strength, secretions, circulation, pulse, respiration, senses, and morbid or healthy conditions of the frame may be changed or controlled by the nervaura emitted from the hand of the operator acting upon the brain of the subject.

The number of individuals who can be thus affected is different in different places. In southern climates they are more numerous than in northern--in the pleasant weather of summer more than in winter--in lecture rooms, ball rooms and places of fervid religious worship, more than in the street and market place, where the intellectual and moral faculties are less predominant. In the Southern States of the Union, thirty or forty per cent. of the population will give at once distinct evidence of impressibility. In the more northern, about ten per cent.

will give indications of an influence from the hand. A moderate degree of impressibility which is almost universal in the South, belongs to more than half in the North.

Impressible subjects may be selected by the development of the organs of Impressibility, and the general predominance of the frontal and coronal regions of the brain over the occipital. The qualities already mentioned as favoring impressibility may be studied in the character, or observed in the development, as they occupy the entire anterior half of the head, giving _breadth to the temples_, with height and projection to the forehead. An enlarged pupil of the eye will be one of the best symptoms, and, in connection with a calm, spiritual, gentle expression of countenance rarely fails to indicate impressibility.

To test impressibility apply the fingers upon the organ of Somnolence, an inch horizontally behind the brow, with a very gentle contact; your subject, after a few minutes, will manifest a sensitiveness of the eye, and will wink oftener than usual--his winking will be repeated and prolonged, until his eyelids droop or remain closed--he is now somnolent and dreamy; and this condition may be prolonged until it becomes the Mesmeric Somnolence, or may be promptly removed by brushing the excitement off with the fingers.

A very simple test of impressibility consists in pa.s.sing the ends of the fingers over the palm of the hand of the subject, within one or more inches, and ascertaining whether he can recognize its pa.s.sage by any impression. If impressible he will perceive a cooling sensation as the fingers pa.s.s. A more perfect demonstration is to let your subject stand erect before you, and apply both hands gently over the forehead and moral organs, or upon the temples; then very slowly withdraw them, and continue this process until you perceive that as your hand is withdrawn, the head seems inclined to follow it as if attracted; some will move thus but an inch or two, others will be drawn forward and compelled to follow you wherever you go, or may be drawn down and prostrated upon the floor. You may accomplish the same upon the back of the head or body--the hand or any other part which is free to move; but the forehead is the best region, because the front lobe is the seat of Impressibility, and the operation cultivates that quality, by drawing excitement into the brain, and especially the front lobe, thus debilitating the muscular system and power of resistance.

Apply the fingers upon the organ of Relaxation, below the cheek bone, and your subject, if standing, will become enfeebled, unsteady in att.i.tude, and incapable of supporting as great weight as before in his extended hand. This will be counteracted by touching the region of Energy.

The most painful experiments may be made by placing the hands upon the temples and face, so as to cover the regions of Sensibility, Disease, Relaxation, and Irritability--the effect of which would be to produce bodily weakness, sickness, pain, distress and general prostration; a condition, which if not relieved, might result in severe disease, but which may be counteracted by dispersing the excitement upward and backward, and by stimulating Health, Energy and Hardihood.

By grasping a metallic rod firmly in the hand while the other end of it rests in the relaxed hand of an impressible person, you may transmit a current of nervaura, which he will recognize gradually entering his arm at the hand, pa.s.sing slowly up to the shoulder, and then diffusing itself over the body.

One may test his own impressibility by placing the palm of the hand in contact with any portion of the head or body of a vigorous const.i.tution for about twenty minutes, and observing the different impressions imparted by different localities. If the hand be held in contact with an individual suffering from some active form of disease, resting upon the forehead or the pit of the stomach, the morbid symptoms will be very perceptibly transferred to any one of an impressible const.i.tution; but I would not recommend the experiment to any but those who are embarra.s.sed by a const.i.tutional scepticism, which hinders their believing anything which is not impressed upon their own senses.

An easy method of testing our susceptibility is by holding some active medicinal substance between the hands while sitting at ease (without knowing what the properties of the substance are), and holding other active substances at different times, to compare the effects which they produce upon the const.i.tution. After such experiment, if the effects should in any case be greater than we desire, the influence should be removed by dispersive pa.s.ses on the hands and down the arms.

JOURNAL OF MAN FOR 1888. $1.

In view of all the circ.u.mstances I have very reluctantly decided to postpone the enlargement of the JOURNAL to 1889. The demand for promised volumes is more urgent than the necessity for enlargement, and the demand for personal instruction in the new therapeutics also consumes a great deal of time.

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The January Number ends the first volume of the JOURNAL OF MAN. Back numbers can be supplied to new subscribers who do not delay too long.

Number 1, Volume 2, for February, will be sent to all subscribers, but a remittance will be expected before the March number is sent.

PSYCHOMETRIC PRACTICE.

Mrs. C. H. Buchanan continues to apply her skill in the description of character and disease, with general impressions as to past and future.

Her numerous correspondents express much gratification and surprise at the correctness of her delineations. The fee for a personal interview is $2; for a written description $3; for a more comprehensive review and statement of life periods, with directions for the cultivation of Psychometry, $5.

MEDICAL ORTHODOXY

Is realizing the reaction of public opinion against all forms of monopoly. There is some plausibility in the demand that all who heal should educate themselves, if we had a true system of education, which we have not. But there is no justice in the demand that those whom nature has gifted with great healing powers should be prohibited from exercising their natural gifts, or giving advice to their neighbors, whenever they happen to know anything that is useful. To interfere with such acts of benevolence, which are really the performance of a religious duty, is a crime, and it is none the less criminal when it is the act of legislators, who are careless enough to allow themselves to be made the tools of an avaricious monopoly, which would make it a crime for a farmer's wife to give her neighbor's children a blackberry cordial or h.o.a.rhound syrup. When the law makes benevolence a crime, laws and legislators become objects of contempt, and a dangerous spirit of rebellion is fostered.

In Illinois a law has been obtained from a careless and unthinking legislature, which makes all healing a crime, when not performed by graduated, licensed and registered pract.i.tioners, but the law is so odious that it is not enforced against those who are not administering medicines. In Iowa an equally disgraceful law has been obtained, designed to establish a similar monopoly, but the prosecution against a lady for a.s.sisting a patient with her prayers resulted in her acquittal, and the medical societies have been paralyzed as to its enforcement. Dr. R. C. Flower, of Boston, has made several addresses to large audiences in that State, in opposition to medical legislation, and the report of his very spirited and effective lecture in the Des Moines _Register_ shows that he carried his audiences with him, and roused enthusiasm in opposition to the law. Dr. F. related some terrific cases of malpractice by eminent physicians, and portrayed the horrible effects of the law in upholding quackery.

The present law of Mississippi is a disgrace to the civilization of that State. It would authorize the prosecution of any one who helped the sick, even by prayer, if the benevolent party was not protected by a medical license.

In Alabama the law gives to the old school State medical a.s.sociation the entire control of medical practice, and the power to examine and license every one who does any practice. Under this law graduates of Eclectic colleges who are outside of the medical ring, have been prosecuted for non-compliance with the law, but the prosecution was defeated. Mississippi and Alabama need to be Americanized. Medical bigotry has carried them back to the dark ages, for there is not a country in Europe to-day which is not more enlightened and liberal in its medical legislation than these two States.

Monopoly is one of the most formidable enemies of American liberty. It is now a.s.suming the form of "Trust" combinations to raise prices, but there is no monopoly so grasping as the medical,--none which a.s.sumes to suppress compet.i.tion by law.

The plea of promoting education is as false as a proposal to elevate the pulpit by compelling every clergyman to pa.s.s through a Roman Catholic college. The existing medical colleges hold the same relation to the practice of the healing art as the Sectarian Theological Seminary to the practice of Christianity. One may be a very good Christian without the help of a theological seminary, or a very good doctor without the help of a medical college, but no one can be a first-cla.s.s physician who goes through a medical college and adheres strictly to all the knowledge and all the ignorance administered by professors, without learning anything from other sources.

MAYO'S ANaeSTHETIC.

The suspension of pain, under dangerous surgical operations, is the greatest triumph of Therapeutic Science in the present century. It came first by mesmeric hypnotism, which was applicable only to a few, and was restricted, by the jealous hostility of the old medical profession. Then came the nitrous oxide, introduced by Dr. Wells, of Hartford, and promptly discountenanced by the enlightened (?) medical profession of Boston, and set aside for the next candidate, ether, discovered in the United States also, but far inferior to the nitrous oxide as a safe and pleasant agent. This was largely superseded by chloroform, discovered much earlier by Liebig and others, but introduced as an anaesthetic in 1847, by Prof. Simpson. This proved to be the most powerful and dangerous of all. Thus the whole policy of the medical profession was to discourage the safe, and encourage the more dangerous agents. The magnetic sleep, the most perfect of all anaesthetic agents, was expelled from the realm of college authority; ether was subst.i.tuted for nitrous oxide, and chloroform preferred to ether, until frequent deaths gave warning.

Nitrous oxide, much the safest of the three, has not been the favorite, but has held its ground, especially with dentists. But even nitrous oxide is not perfect. It is not equal to the magnetic sleep, when the latter is practicable, but fortunately it is applicable to all. To perfect the nitrous oxide, making it universally safe and pleasant, Dr. U. K. Mayo, of Boston, has combined it with certain harmless vegetable nervines, which appear to control the fatal tendency which belongs to all anaesthetics when carried too far. The success of Dr. Mayo, in perfecting our best anaesthetic, is amply attested by those who have used it. Dr. Thorndike, than whom Boston had no better surgeon, p.r.o.nounced it "the safest the world has yet seen." It has been administered to children and to patients in extreme debility. Drs. Frizzell and Williams say they have given it "repeatedly in heart disease, severe lung diseases, Bright's disease, etc., where the patients were so feeble as to require a.s.sistance in walking, many of them under medical treatment, and the results have been all that we could ask--no irritation, suffocation, nor depression. We heartily commend it to all as the anaesthetic of the age." Dr. Morrill, of Boston, administered Mayo's anaesthetic to his wife with delightful results when "her lungs were so badly disorganized, that the administration of ether or gas would be entirely unsafe." The reputation of this anaesthetic is now well established; in fact, it is not only safe and harmless, but has great medical virtue for daily use in many diseases, and is coming into use for such purposes. In a paper before the Georgia State Dental Society, Dr. E. Parsons testified strongly to its superiority. "The nitrous oxide (says Dr. P.) causes the patient when fully under its influence to have very like the appearance of a corpse," but under this new anaesthetic "the patient appears like one in a natural sleep." The language of the press generally has been highly commendatory, and if Dr. Mayo had occupied so conspicuous a rank as Prof. Simpson, of Edinburgh, his new anaesthetic would have been adopted at once in every college of America and Europe.

Mayo's Vegetable Anaesthetic.

A perfectly safe and pleasant subst.i.tute for chloroform, ether, nitrous oxide gas, and all other anaesthetics. Discovered by Dr. U. K.

Mayo, April, 1883, and since administered by him and others in over 300,000 cases successfully. The youngest child, the most sensitive lady, and those having heart disease, and lung complaint, inhale this vapor with impunity. It stimulates the circulation of the blood and builds up the tissues. Indorsed by the highest authority in the professions, recommended in midwifery and all cases of nervous prostration. Physicians, surgeons, dentists and private families supplied with this vapor, liquefied, in cylinders of various capacities. It should be administered the same as Nitrous Oxide, but it does not produce headache and nausea as that sometimes does. For further information pamphlets, testimonials, etc., apply to

DR. U. K. MAYO, Dentist, 378 Tremont St., Boston, Ma.s.s.