Frankenstein's Cat.pdf - University of Cincinnati

THE REICHENBACH AFFAIR
mental operations of the observer, through which he
receives and communicates the impressions on which
he bases his conclusions and deductions, it is in the
nature of things that persons whose nervous systems
are not in a perfectly healthy state are not particularly
trustworthy observers, and, as a result, you will understand
why the new science of Od has not found entry
into the domain of true scientific research. The discoverer
of Od has neither seen nor experienced any of its
phenomena for himself, nor have unbiased persons
with healthy senses ever experienced them. His sensitives
are not in a condition which allows them to describe
by themselves what they see and experience around them,
rather they must be guided to their peculiar conclusions
by the questioner himself, though he cannot and never has
seen the phenomena for himself. No sensible person can
believe that the existence of a new natural force can be
established on the basis of so false a method, through the
visual and tactile sensations of enervated and sick persons.
! As for Gregory, after completing his translations of
Reichenbach, he would go on to write his own book on
the subject, published in 1851 under the title of Letters to
a Candid Enquirer on Animal Magnetism, of which one
book reviewer wrote (21, 28):
Dr. Gregory regards all objections raised against his
favorite science as illogical and absurd in the extreme;
that he admits, almost without question, all the lower as
well as the higher phenomena: that clairvoyance, prevision,
retro-vision, intro-vision, and transference of senses,
present to him no insurmountable difficulties. He is an
enthusiastic advocate of, and a firm believer in animal
magnetism, under whatever name it is presented to
him. Being more of a chemist than a physician, he is
less qualified than many other members of his profession
to form sound opinions and a correct judgement ...
Gregory’s premature death, seven-years later at age 55,
finally ended his involvement in the affair.
!
6. Attacks by the Medical Community
Roughly 60 years had passed since the French Academy
of Sciences had appointed a commission to investigate the
claims of Mesmer concerning animal magnetism and his
so-called universal fluid. Composed of nine prominent
physicians and scientists, including the American, Benjamin
Franklin, and the great French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier,
the commission had rapidly concluded that there was no
compelling evidence for Mesmer’s fluid and that the socalled
manifestations of animal magnetism were instead
largely the result of imagination and suggestion (18).
In a similar fashion, the results of Reichenbach’s
Figure 8. James Braid (1795-1860).
experiments soon came under attack, not so much from
other chemists, as from members of the medical profession
specializing in physiology and psychology,
who soon called into question the reliability of Reichenbach’s
so-called sensitives and the role played by
suggestion in obtaining the results he had reported. In
Germany this criticism came from several of the leading
medical “materialists” of the day, including Karl
Vogt (1817-1895), Jacob Moleshott (1822-1893), and
Emil DuBois-Reymond (1818-1896), with the latter
declaring that Reichenbach’s work was nothing less
than “an absurd romance.”
! In England, the primary critic of Reichenbach, and
the counterweight to the enthusiasms of Gregory, was
the Scottish-born physician James Braid (figure 8).
Braid is best remembered today for his 1843 book
Neurypnology in which he first introduced the term
hypnotism and extensive evidence for the hypothesis
that the phenomena of mesmerism were due to suggestion
rather than to a magnetic fluid of some sort (29).
Not surprisingly, Braid viewed Reichenbach’s work as
a thinly disguised attempt to revive Mesmer’s ideas
and in 1846 he published a rebuttal in the form of a
booklet with the lengthy title of The Power of the Mind
Over the Body: An Experimental Enquiry into the
Nature and Cause of the Phenomena Attributed by
Baron Reichenbach and Others to a New Imponderable
in which he presented compelling evidence that, like
mesmerism itself, the results reported by Reichenbach’s
sensitives were due largely to the use of leading
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