Those who are for the first time thrown into magnetic sleep generally feel after awaking as if a great change had taken place in them; they are apt to remain serious, and apparently plunged in deep thought for several days. If their case is in unskillful hands, nervous disorders are rarely avoided; phantastic visions may be seen, and convulsions and more threatening symptoms even may occur. Youth is naturally more susceptible to the influence of magnetism than riper years; really old persons have never yet been put to sleep. In like manner women are more easily controlled than men, and hence more capable of being magnetized than of magnetizing others. If men appear more frequently in the annals of this new branch of magic than women, this is due merely to the fact that men appear naturally, and so far at least voluntarily more frequently in public statements than women. The latter, moreover, are very rarely found able to magnetize men, simply because they are less in the habit of exerting their will for the purpose of influencing others; the exceptions were mostly so-called masculine women. Over their own sex, however, they are easily able to obtain full control. Among the curious symptoms accompanying the magic phenomena of this class, the following deserve being mentioned. A distinguished physician, Dr. Heller, examined the blood corpuscules of a person in magnetic sleep and found that their shape was essentially modified; they were raised and pointed so as to bear some resemblance to mulberries; at the same time they exhibited a vibrating motion. Another symptom frequently observed in mesmerism are electric shocks, which produce sometimes a violent trembling in the whole person before the beginning of magnetic sleep and after it has ceased. As many as four thousand such shocks have been counted in an hour; they are especially frequent in hysterical women and then accompanied by severe pain, in men they are of rarer occurrence. Finally, it appears from a number of well-authenticated cases that magnetic convulsions are contagious, extending even to animals. Persons suffering with catalepsy have more than once been compelled to kill pet cats because the latter suffered in a similar manner whenever the attacks came, and the same has been noticed in favorite dogs which were left in the room while magnetic cures were performed. This is all the more frequently noticed as many magnetizers look upon convulsions as efforts made by nature to restore the system to a healthy condition, and hence excite in their patients convulsions without magnetizing them fully.