II. On the Cerebral Development of Conveyancing Lawyers. By Mr E. J. HYTCHE.

In the "Metropolitan Magazine" is a sketch of Sir Edward Sugden, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The writer says that "his head is a small one; and marvellous it is that it should contain so much. If it were submitted to the cranioscopists, they would inevitably be at fault." A commentary on this remark is contained in a subsequent passage; for, after referring to those jurists who have evinced a knowledge of principles, as well as of facts, he thus proceeds: "Sir Edward is not a lawyer of this high order; he limits himself to known learning; and there is scarcely a decision from the first attempts at reporting down to the last case, of which he does not remember the law." No clearer analysis of his mental characteristics could be made; and none more clearly illustrates the position that small-headedness cannot consist with large-thoughtedness. As regards the development of Sugden, he has a small head; the temperament is chiefly nervous, and the organ of Eventuality predominates. We should, then, expect great mental vivacity; and for this he is conspicuous. We should also predicate his brain to be a store-house of facts, with the power of ready application; and the deduction and the fact accord. We should, in a word, expect to find a man well versed in details, and an able practitioner; and such is Sir Edward Sugden. But how different the tale told by the portraits of Coke and Bacon, and other great jurists, their large heads and massy frontal lobes giving legible expression to the greatness of the mind within!

It may be mentioned that conveyancers, in which department of law Sugden is pre-eminent, possess large organs of Eventuality and Concentrativeness. Their chief value depends on a thorough knowledge of precedents, and the power of the instant remembrance of those cases which are applicable to the questions submitted for their consideration. I have known conveyancers reply to such questions by citing cases which happened 200 years ago as readily as if they had

as clear evidences of insanity as any of these. In a large proportion of the cases, the insane man is desirous to keep the evidence of his mental alienation out of sight rather than to present it, while he who feigns insanity, generally presents it in caricature.

"I am aware that the plea of insanity is often made in criminal trials, and may be made so often as to excite public prejudice; but, till the subject is better understood, it cannot be too frequently or too thoroughly investigated. The old boundaries have been or will be broken up, and new principles will govern courts and juries in deciding upon the lives of their fellow-men."

occurred yesterday. The power of concentration is also requisite to continuously amass such facts. So when a title is investigated, it is necessary that the attention should be abstracted and fixed until the facts are mastered. I have thus known conveyancers to concentrate their attention until they had acquired the facts contained in papers which occupied several days to read. It therefore accords with their peculiarities to find English conveyancers possessing very large organs of Eventuality and Concentrativeness; and I have no hesitation in affirming, that for a man to succeed in that profession who has these organs feebly developed, is an impossibility.

OCTOBER 1843.

III. Facts relative to Mesmerism. By Mr CHARLES
MEYMOTT, Surgeon, London.*

Seeing that mesmeric symptoms have been very much exaggerated in the accounts given of them by various writers, and that, consequently, but few of them can be relied on for strict scientific accuracy, I shall confine my attention principally to those symptoms which have come under my own inspection; and as a great number of these were observed in the well-known cases of the O'Keys, a short account of them may not be without interest; at the same time, the truth of what I say can be attested by the many who witnessed them at the time I did. It may, perhaps, scarcely be necessary to mention, that the O'Keys were two sisters, and patients in the North London Hospital four or five years ago; and that they were under the care of Dr Elliotson, who thought proper to mesmerise them. The symptoms, I believe, were soon produced in both of them; the methods of producing them were those usually adopted for a similar purpose, and the symptoms pretty much the same as mesmeric patients usually exhibit, and for the most part were manifested in the manner anticipated by the operator, but not always, for in some instances there was complete failure in the expected results, which has never been satisfactorily explained. The following notes were taken by myself on the spot, and at the time of occurrence, viz. at the North London Hospital, on the 24th of April 1838.

Elizabeth O'Key came into the area of the theatre in her right senses; Dr Elliotson put her in the accustomed manner to sleep, from which, as usual, she woke in the state of mes* We insert this communication as tending to put mesmerists on their guard against imposition on the part of their subjects.-ED.

meric trance (that state in which most of the curiosities in mesmerism are seen). While she was making some observations, he suddenly darted his hand towards her face, which induced the coma, or sleep, again; she woke, as before, in a very short time; he then induced sleep by the following method-blowing in her face, passing his hand down quickly in front of her face and behind her back, or holding his hand extended towards her; she woke each time of her own accord, with a sudden start. He then passed his hand down in front of her face, with one finger extended; afterwards with two fingers extended, and afterwards with three. The effect was increased or diminished according to the number of fingers extended. After this he put her hands together, and bade her hold them fast, when he apparently forced her to separate them by the movements of his own hands, without touching hers; they seemed to separate in spite of her efforts to prevent them. She now mesmerised herself at the request of the Doctor; this she effected by waving her own hand towards her face, as though she were calling some one to come near her. This produced the sleep as usual. Some directions being written on a piece of paper by a gentleman* present, were given to Mr Wood (Dr Elliotson's assistant), who, having placed the girl near the door, with her back towards it, went out of the room, shutting the door after him, and then proceeded to follow the directions. (I may notice here, that this precaution had never, to my belief, been adopted before; it was usual not to be sufficiently careful in concealing from the patient or the bystanders what was about to be done, on the supposition that the former did not notice, and was incapable of taking advantage of, any thing which might be a clew to her actions.)

In the first place, he was to draw her downwards to the left side, which he endeavoured to do by passing his hand downwards in that direction. This was tried four separate times. At the end of each, after a short interval, she fell asleep with her head drawn backwards in a straight line. The girl not being equally susceptible at all times, they supposed she was but slightly so now, and in order to produce more susceptibility, Mr Wood came into the room, and moved his hands in several directions in front of her face, all of which movements she followed correctly; and when, standing behind her, he waved his hands over her head, she darted upwards out of her chair. This was repeated three different times, with the same result each time. Having now gained his object thus far, he went out of the room again, and did as he had done before. The first

* Professor Wheatstone, I think.

new effect seemed to me to be the same as before; some one, however, said she moved a little to the left; the motion must have been very slight, as Dr Elliotson himself did not notice it. This was considered a successful result of the first experiment. Mr Wood then proceeded with the second, which was to wave his hand upwards, in the expectation of her jumping upwards out of her chair, as she had done when he was in the room a few minutes before; she, however, much to the astonishment of the exhibitors, made a sidelong movement downwards to the right. It was tried several times after this, but without success. The doors were now thrown open behind her, and, the passage being cleared, he walked slowly away from her, with his hands extended towards her head. When he had, in this way, gone four or five yards from her, she started backwards towards him with a convulsive movement. He then put a piece of mill-board on her lap, and attracted one of her hands towards his whilst some one held the board, so that she could not see which hand he was attracting. This experiment was successful. Lastly, she was made to take hold of her "sister's hand, who also is easily influenced; they were then both put to sleep, but now it is difficult to rouse her; but as soon as the hands are separated, or her sister is awakened, the difficulty no longer exists. The two sisters were to have been galvanised, but Elizabeth was roused too much in the last experiment; that is to say, she was for the time brought to her right senses, and they allowed her to go away; and Jane O'Key was determined she would not undergo the shock, and succeeded in making her way out of the room, in spite of the many violent but ineffectual attempts made to detain her; and although they made her drop her head in sleep now and then by the usual means, yet the moment she was free from their handling, and while they were getting the apparatus to bear upon her, she each time darted away towards the door, until at last they were compelled to let her escape. It is worthy of remark, that it was usual for her (differing in this respect froin her sister) to remain asleep till some one roused her by rubbing her eyebrows."

I

It is but fair to state, that although there were so many failures on the day I witnessed these things, yet generally the experiments were successful; but it occurred to me at the time, and since, that when they were successful it was in consequence of the careless manner in which they were made. was induced, therefore, to examine the subject a little more closely. I thought the best plan was to have a patient of my own, that I might try my own experiments. Dr Williams was kind enough to allow me to mesmerise one of his patients in St Thomas's Hospital, in whom, after a time, I succeeded

in producing the symptoms usually seen in the third and fourth stages. The following is an extract from my notes of the case, after she had arrived at some degree of perfection.

"May 10.-Having previously cautioned the bystanders not to express anything in their looks or gestures by which she might gather what I was doing; having also put wool in her ears to prevent her hearing what was going on, and pulled her cap down well over the back part of her head, that she might not feel my hand touching by chance any loose hairs as it approached her head, I went behind her, holding my hand steadily towards her head, and nearly close to it, for three or four minutes, at the end of which time she fell into the mesmeric sleep as usual. I had previously told her what I was going to do.

" 11th.—I led her to suppose I was going to do the same as I had done yesterday; and, having taken the same precautions as before, I went behind her, but instead of remaining there, and holding up my hand; I went completely away from her. The effect, however, was the same as that produced yesterday.

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"16th. The usual effects were produced to-day by merely taking hold of her hand. It was now my wish to discover if these effects would be produced by the usual means, if they could be adopted without her knowledge. To ascertain this, great caution and some cunning were required, as she is very observant."

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The details of the precautions used in the experiment would be tedious; it is sufficient to state, that I was close behind her with my hand almost constantly within an inch of her head, with nothing between us, such as a screen or curtain, for the space of half an hour; that this was done entirely without her knowledge, although she was perfectly awake, and sitting on the side of her bed; and that no sleep, or any other mesmeric phenomenon, was produced. But as soon as I changed my place, and stood with my hand still extended, but within her sight, she went off as usual. I was unable to try any more experiments on her, as she shortly after left the hospital, and I saw no more of her.

In one or two other instances where I have endeavoured to produce the symptoms, I have altogether failed. One of these I will briefly relate. A short time after the occurrences just told, being full of mesmeric power, I went on a visit to a gentleman in the country; whilst staying there, I met with the following case:-A woman about twenty-five years old, who had been for some time subject to fits, which usually came on regularly once a week, leaving her with one of her legs in a state of insensibility, which lasted some time.