One of the earliest cases, which was thoroughly investigated, and carefully watched, is reported by Dr. Pététin, of Lyon, in his famous "Memoir on Catalepsy and Somnambulism." (Lyon, 1787.) His patient was a lady who had nursed her child with such utter disregard of her own health that her whole system was undermined. After an attack of most violent convulsions, accompanied with apparent madness, she suddenly began to laugh, to utter a number of clever and witty sayings, and finally broke out into beautiful songs; but a terrible cough with hemorrhages ended the crisis. Similar attacks occurred with increasing frequency, during which she could read, with closed eyes, what was placed in her hand, state hour and minute on a watch by merely touching the crystal, and mention the contents of the pockets of bystanders. She stated that she saw these things with varied distinctness; some clearly, others as through a mist, and still others only by a great effort. The reporter expresses his belief that the stomach in this case performed all the functions of the senses, and that the epidermis, with its network of fine nerves, acted in place of the usual organs. Pététin was also the first to enter into direct relations with his somnambulist; he could induce her at will to become clairvoyant, and make himself understood by her whenever he directed his voice toward the only sensitive part. Gradually, however, it was discovered that the degree of close communication (_rapport_) between the two parties depended as largely on the correspondence of character between them as on the energy of will in the magnetizer and the power of imagination possessed by the patient. Deleuse, one of the professors of the _Jardin des Plantes_, in Paris, gave much attention to the subject, and in his numerous publications maintained the existence of a magnetic fluid by the side of the superior power with which some men are endowed, and that both were employed in influencing others. He was frequently, and violently, attacked on the score of his convictions, especially after several cases of cunning deception had become known. For very soon the innate desire for notoriety led many persons to pretend somnambulism, and skillfully to imitate the phenomena of clairvoyance, displaying, as is not unfrequently the case, in these efforts a skill and a perseverance which would have secured them great success in any legitimate enterprise. A number of volumes appeared, mostly in Germany, professing to contain accounts of marvelous cures achieved by magnetism, which upon examination proved to be altogether fictitious. France, however, abounded more than any other country with impostors, and every kind of deception and cheating was carried on there, at the beginning of this century, under the cloak of mesmerism. Young girls, stimulated by large rewards, and well trained by hospital surgeons, would submit to brutal treatment, and profess to reveal, during well-simulated trances,