THE MAGNETISERS.

Bailly has thus described the scenes of which he was a witness in the course of this investigation. “The sick persons, arranged in great numbers and in several rows around the baquet, receive the magnetism, by all these means: by the iron rods which convey it to them from the baquet—by the cords wound round their bodies—by the connexion of the thumb, which conveys to them the magnetism of their neighbours—and by the sounds of a piano-forte, or of an agreeable voice, diffusing the magnetism in the air. The patients were also directly magnetised by means of the finger and wand of the magnetiser moved slowly before their faces, above or behind their heads, and on the diseased parts, always observing the direction of the holes. The magnetiser acts by fixing his eyes on them. But above all, they are magnetised by the application of his hands and the pressure of his fingers on the hypochondres and on the regions of the abdomen; an application often continued for a long time—sometimes for several hours.