IX. _Trance-Diagnosis_.—From Boppard, where I was residing in the winter of 1845-6, I sent to an American gentleman residing in Paris a lock of hair, which Col. C—, an invalid then under my care, had cut from his own head, and wrapped in writing-paper from his own writing-desk. Col. C—was unknown even by name to this American gentleman, who had no clue whatever whereby to identify the proprietor of the hair. And all that he had to do and did was to place the paper, enclosing the lock of hair, in the hands of a noted Parisian somnambulist. She stated, in the opinion she gave on the case, that Col. C—had partial palsy of the hips and legs, and that for another complaint he was in the habit of using a surgical instrument. The patient laughed heartily at the idea of the distant somnambulist having so completely realized him. The mesmeric discrimination of disease involves three degrees. First, the clairvoyante placed in relation with the patient, either by taking his hand, or by handling a lock of his hair, or any thing impregnated with his Od, _feels all his feelings_, realizes his sensations, and describes what he sensibly labours under. Her account of the case thus obtained will be more or less happy, according to the extent of her previous knowledge respecting ordinary disease. Secondly, the clairvoyante, if in a higher state of lucidness, actually sees and inspects the interior bodily construction of the patient, whose inward organs are, as it would seem, lit with Od-light, for her examination. Or she sees them by their Od-light, being in mesmeric relation with the internal frame of the patient. Thirdly, the clairvoyante, if still more lucid, foresees what will be the progress of the malady; what further organic changes are threatened; what will be the patient’s fate. The first two points require no further comment. I reserve my comments upon the last for another head. X. _Mesmeric Treatment_.—Let me first advert to the use of artificial trance as an anæsthetic agent in the service of surgery. There is no doubt that, when a patient can thus be deprived of ordinary sensibility, the resource is preferable to the employment of chloroform. Not only is it absolutely free from risk, but its direct effect is to soothe and tranquillize; whereas chloroform is but a powerful narcotic, the effects of which are obtained through a brief stage of violent physical excitement. Then, at each dressing—at any moment, in short, when advisable—mesmerism may be again resorted to, which chloroform cannot. The honour of having been the first to employ mesmerism systematically, as an anæsthetic agent, belongs to James Esdale, M. D., Presidency Surgeon at Calcutta. The reports of his success, in a vast body of cases, many of the most serious description, are given in the _Zoist_.