And how should it be
otherwise, since it is highly ridiculous to imagine that violent
agitations, spasms, convulsions, etc. which are obviously symptoms of a
diseased state of body, and which must increase rather than diminish the
disposition to nervous diseases, can be the means of improving the
constitution and ultimately of prolonging human life? Every attentive
person must have observed, that too frequent intercourse between nervous
and hypochondriac patients is infectious; and if this be the case,
public assemblies, for exhibiting magnetised individuals, can neither be
safe nor proper. It is no small proof of the good sense of the people of
this country, though they have at different times fallen into nearly
similar delusions, that the professors of animal magnetism did not long
maintain their ground; they were soon exposed to public ridicule on the
stage, and shortly became annihilated in their own absurdities.
Other plans for the prolongation of life, little less absurd than
animal magnetism, which have, like every other imposture, "fretted their
hour," deserve to be noticed.
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