"
Some conversation here, however, struck me as curious; the more so as I
had heard the subject slightly touched upon at Paris; but faintly there,
as the last sounds of an echo, while here they are all loud, all in
earnest, and all their heads seemed turned, I think, about something, or
nothing, which they call _animal magnetism_. I cannot imagine how it has
seized them so: a man who undertakes to cure disorders by the touch, is
no new thing; our Philosophical Transactions make mention of Gretrex the
stroaker, in Charles the Second's reign. The present mountebank, it is
true, seems more hardy in his experiments, and boasts of being able to
cause disorders in the human frame, as well as to remove them. A
gentleman at yesterday's dinner-party mentioned, that he took pupils;
and, before I had expressed the astonishment I felt, professed himself a
disciple; and was happy to assure us, he said, that though he had not
yet attained the desirable power of putting a person into a catalepsy at
pleasure, he could throw a woman into a deep swoon, from which no arts
but his own could recover her. How difficult is it to restrain one's
contempt and indignation from a buffoonery so mean, or a practice so
diabolical!--This folly may possibly find its way into England--I should
be very sorry.
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