Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887: Volume 1, Number 5 — John Shaqi
Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887: Volume 1, Number 5
Philosophy
Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887: Volume 1, Number 5
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
My own experiments upon the brain have been made for the development
and cultivation of science, or the assistance of the sick. I have not
had time to undertake the systematic cultivation and change of
character by such processes in the young; but when I see how quickly
and completely the condition of a patient may be changed, and all
cloudy, depressed conditions of the brain removed,--how easily I can
produce a state of insanity, idiocy, or pugnacity, and as quickly
remove it entirely,--I cannot doubt that a little perseverance in
cultivating the nobler qualities until they become by habit a second
nature will change even the most depraved, if the process be begun in
childhood or youth and steadily maintained, unless there be a great
organic deficiency in the brain, which cannot be remedied.
The teacher of the future, duly educated in anthropology, will lay
aside the rod, and will find in the scientific application of his
hands the means of overcoming acquired or even hereditary evils; and
special asylums will be established, in which the most degenerate
youth may be restored to honor, not by cerebral treatment alone, but
by all the appliances of industry, music, religion, and love, which
have already reformed so many youthful criminals at Lancaster, Ohio,
and given them to society as good citizens.
The method of direct operation on the brain, which was introduced by
my discovery in 1841, is that with which I am more familiar, but the
mesmeric method has long been known, and the modification of this,
which might be called the imaginative method, has been made familiar
during the last fifty years under the popular name of psychology, and
sometimes under the absurd name of electro-biology.
This method is simply that of assuming control of the subject when he
is in the passive state, and making him believe anything he is told,
as, for example, that a handkerchief is a snake, that a piece of money
is burning hot, or that he is a king, a hero, an orator, an
auctioneer, or anything else suggested by the fancy of the operator,
which is at once carried into personation by the subject. This is a
familiar, popular exhibition, which never fails to attract and amuse,
but has unfortunately not been applied to its philanthropic uses in
healing disease and elevating the character. If disease can be
overcome by making the subject believe a glass of pure water a
powerful restorative medicine, or by believing himself marvellously
well and vigorous; or if his vicious or indolent habits can be
overcome by making him for a time believe himself a religious saint or
an energetic business man,--such experiments should be made a powerful
adjunct in education, and in the reformation of criminals; and this
application has recently been made in France, which has the honor of
leading in this important philanthropy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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