The public method of magnetising was performed in a large room, in the centre of which stood a circular box, large enough to admit of fifty persons standing round it. Out of the lid came numerous branches of iron, one to each patient. The patients applied this branch to the part affected, and a cord, passed round their bodies, connected one with the other, and each patient pinched the thumb of his neighbour. A piano-forte played different airs, with various rapidity, the sound of which was also a conductor of magnetism. The bucket in the centre was the grand reservoir, from which the fluid was diffused through the branches of iron inserted in the lid. All this was purely imaginary, for, on being tested with an electrometer and needle of iron, it was evident the bucket contained no substance either electric or magnetical. By degrees, however, the several ranks of patients round the bucket became affected with drowsiness, convulsions, or hysterics, and nothing was more astonishing than the combination of effects at one view. The patients appeared entirely under the government of the person who distributed the magnetic virtue. This system at length was thought to deserve the attention of government, and a committee, partly physicians and partly members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, with Dr. Benjamin Franklin at their head, were appointed to examine it. M. Mesmer refused communication with them, but M. Deslon, the most considerable of his pupils, consented to disclose to them his principles. The result of the investigation was made known by a report from the commissioners. They decided that, instead of being a novelty, Mesmer’s was merely an ancient and worthless system, which had long been abandoned by the learned. The commissioners afterwards made experiments on single subjects, and upon themselves. After repeated experiments, not one of the commissioners felt any sensation that could be ascribed to the action of magnetism. Of fourteen sick persons, operated upon in private, five only appeared to feel any effect from the operation. In fact, magnetism did not appear to them to have any existence for those subjects who submitted to it with any degree of incredulity.