On December the 6th Mr. Greenhow found his patient quite well, and about to leave the place of her imprisonment, and start on a series of friendly visits. He declared, notwithstanding, that firstly, her _physical condition_ was not essentially different from what it had been all through; secondly, that the change in her _sensations_ arose from the iodine suddenly and miraculously becoming more effective, and not from mesmerism. Such is the medical history, so interesting to all physiological students and to all sufferers of the same class, of Harriet Martineau's five years' illness and recovery. My business is simply to state facts, and I need not here undertake any dissertation upon mesmerism. It is sufficient to add that only those who are unaware of the profundity of our ignorance (up to the present day) about the action of the nervous system, and still more about what _life_ really is, can be excused for rash jeering and hasty incredulity in such a case as this. Harriet Martineau knew that she was well again, and it seemed to her a clear duty to make as public as possible the history of how her recovery had been brought about. She did so by six letters to the _Athenaeum_; and these were reprinted in pamphlet form. Mr. Greenhow was thereupon guilty of one of the most serious professional faults possible. He also published an account of _The Case of Miss H. M._, in a shilling pamphlet, giving the most minute and painful details of her illness, and respecting no confidence that had been reposed in his medical integrity. The result of this conduct on his part was that his patient felt herself compelled to break off all future intercourse with a man capable of such objectionable action. It may be added here that the cure was a permanent one.[13] She enjoyed ten years of health so good that she declared it taught her that in no previous period of her life had she ever been well. It may be as well to say that she never wavered in her assurance that her cure was worked by mesmerism, and that the cure was complete. All dispute about her firm conviction on this point may be set at rest by the following extracts from LETTERS TO MR. ATKINSON. [Extract.] July 6, 1874. Notices of my mesmeric experience in illness have revived an anxiety of mine about what may happen when I am gone, if certain parties should bring up the old falsehoods again, when I am not here to assert and prove the truth. I don't in the least suppose you can help me, any more than Mrs. Chapman, whom I have got to look over a box of papers of mine deposited with her. But I had rather tell you what is on my mind about it.