Report of the Commissioners on Animal Magnetism

...as if one were throwing a few drops of cold water on her face. It appeared that she experienced the same movements with her eyes closed. They held their fingers under her nose while having her close her eyes, and she said she would feel unwell if they continued. The seventh patient, Joseph Ennuyé, experienced effects of the same kind, but much less marked.

Mixed effects. Some feel something, others feel nothing.

Of these seven patients, there are four who felt nothing and the three others who experienced effects. These effects deserved to capture the attention of the Commissioners and demanded a scrupulous examination.

Third experiment. Patients from a more distinguished class are tested.

The Commissioners, in order to enlighten themselves and fix their ideas in this regard, decided to test patients placed in other circumstances—patients chosen from society who could not be suspected of any [vested] interest The Commissioners were concerned that poorer patients might fake symptoms to please the doctors or ensure continued treatment. and whose intelligence was capable of discussing their own sensations and reporting on them. Mesdames de B** and de V**, and Messieurs M** and R*** were admitted to the private baquet: a wooden vat or tub filled with "magnetized" water and iron filings, intended to concentrate the magnetic fluid with the Commissioners; they were asked to observe what they felt, but without paying too close or sustained an attention. Mr. M** and Mrs. de V** were the only ones who experienced anything. Mr. M** has a cold tumor: a historical term for a slow-growing swelling that lacks the heat or redness of an acute infection over the entire knee joint, and he feels pain in the kneecap. He declared, after having been magnetized, that he felt nothing in his entire body, except at the moment when a finger was moved in front of the diseased knee; he believed he then felt a slight heat in the spot where he habitually has pain. Mrs. de V**, suffering from...