I remember Dr. Elliotson relating to me, as an instance of the utility of the magnetic influence, a curious case to which he had been called. The brother of a young girl had, as a practical joke, suddenly fired off a pistol behind her head. She was of course painfully startled, with the result of becoming affected by a fit of hiccough so persistent, that no means could be found or suggested of making it cease. It was absolutely impossible for the girl to swallow anything. She was becoming exhausted, and the case assumed a really alarming aspect. It was at this conjuncture that Elliotson was called in. He succeeded in putting her into a magnetic sleep, with of course perfect calm, after which the hiccough returned no more. But by far the most curious and interesting of Elliotson’s cases was one, of which a good deal was, I think, said and printed in those days, but of which very few persons, probably, saw as much as I did--the case of the two Okey girls. They were both patients, I believe for some form of catalepsy, in a hospital of which Dr. Elliotson was one of the leading physicians. Dr. Elliotson was obliged to throw up his position there, because those who were in authority at the hospital were bitterly opposed to his magnetising experiments and practice. And about the same time, or shortly afterwards, the Okey girls were dismissed for a cause which seems grotesquely absurd, but the story of which is strictly true. These girls, of, I suppose, about thirteen and fourteen, being in the very extraordinary condition which a prolonged course of magnetising had produced (of which I shall speak further presently) were in the habit of declaring that they “saw Jack” at the bedside of this or that patient in the hospital. And the patients of whom they made this assertion invariably died! That the presence of such prophetesses in the hospital was undesirable is intelligible enough; but what are we to think of the motives, presentiments, instincts, intuitions of mental or physical nature which prompted such guesses or prophecies?