THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3016, 24 February 1881, Page 4

THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION.

A celebrated physician, author of an excellent work on the force of imagination, being desirous to add experimental to his theoretical knowledge, made application to the Minister of Justice in Prance some time since to be allowed an opportunity of proving what he asserted by an experiment, on n criminal condemned to death. The Miuistov complied with his request, and delivered over to him an nssassin, a man who had been born of distinguished parents. The physician told him that several persons who had taken an interest in his family had obtained leave of the Minister that he shonld suffer death in come other way than on the scaffold, to avoid the disgrace of a public execution ; and that the easiest death he could die would be by blood letting. The criminal agreed to the proposal, and counted himsalf happy in being freed from the painful exhibition which, he would otherwise have been made of, and rejoiced at thus being enabled to spare the feelings of his friends and family. At the time appointed the physician repaired to the prison, and the patient having been extended on a table, his eyes bound, and everything being ready, he was slightly pricked near the principal veins of the legs and arms with the point of a pin. At the four corners of the table were four little fountains, filled with water, from which issued small streams falling into basins placed there to receive them. The patient, thinking that it was his blood that trickled into the basins, became -weaker and weaker by degrees, and the remarks of the medical men in attendance in reference to the quality and appearance of the blood (made with that intention) increased the delusion, and he spoke more and more faintly, until his voice was at length scarcely audible. The profoimd silence which reigned in the apartment, and the constant dropping of the fountain, had so extraordinary an effect on the brain of the poor patient, that all his vital energies were soon gone, although before a very strong man, and he dier "-ui-ut having lost a single drop of bio..-.!