[288] I had the good fortune in the year 1854 myself to witness some extraordinary feats of this kind, performed here by Signor Regazzoni from Bergamo, in which the immediate, _i.e._ magical, power of his will over other persons was unmistakeable, and of which no one, excepting perhaps those to whom Nature has denied all capacity for apprehending pathological conditions, could doubt the genuineness. There are nevertheless such persons: they ought to become lawyers, clergymen, merchants or soldiers, but in heaven's name not doctors; for the result would be homicidal, diagnosis being the principal thing in medicine.--Regazzoni was able at will to throw the somnambulist who was under his influence into a state of complete catalepsy, nay, he could make her fall down backwards, when he stood behind her and she was walking before him, by his mere will, without any gestures. He could paralyze her, give her _tetanos_, with the dilated pupils, the complete insensibility, and in short, all the unmistakeable symptoms of complete catalepsy. He made one of the lady spectators first play the piano; then standing fifteen paces behind her, he so completely paralyzed her by his will and gestures, that she was unable to continue playing. He next placed her against a column and charmed her to the spot, so that she was unable to move in spite of the strongest efforts.--_According to my own observation_, nearly all his feats are to be explained by his _isolating the brain from the spinal marrow_, either completely, in which case the sensible and motor nerves become paralyzed, and total catalepsy ensues; or partially, by the paralysis only affecting the _motor_ nerves while sensibility remains--in other words, the head keeps its consciousness, while the body is apparently lifeless. This is precisely the effect of strychnine: it paralyzes the motor nerves only, even to complete _tetanos_, which induces death by _asphyxia_; but it leaves the sensible nerves, and with them consciousness, intact. Regazzoni does this same thing by the magic influence of his will. The moment at which this isolation takes place is distinctly visible in a peculiar trembling of the patient. I recommend a small French publication entitled "Antoine Regazzoni de Bergame à Francfort sur Mein," by L. A. V. Dubourg (Frankfurt, Nov. 1854, 31 pages in 8vo.) on Regazzoni's feats and the unmistakeably genuine character they bear for everyone who is not entirely devoid of all sense for organic Nature.