ch
is disengaged, sometimes by the effect of certain crises, sometimes by
the power of magnetism itself. Those who systematically keep up this
hiatus in the study of human physiology are the best allies of the
superstitions they profess to combat.... Suppose that study seriously
undertaken, with what precision should we resolve the problem of which
now we can but indicate the solution! Habituated to the wonders of the
nervous fluid, knowing that it can raise, at a distance, inert objects,
that it can biologize, that it can communicate suppleness or rigidity,
the highest development of the senses or absolute insensibility, we
should not be greatly surprised to discover that it communicates also,
in certain cases, elasticity and that degree of impenetrability which
characterizes gum-elastic."[54]

De Gasparin further explains his theory in the following passage:--"The
great difficulty is not to explain the perversion of sensibility
exhibited by the convulsionists. Aside from that question, does it not
remain incomprehensible that feeble women should have received, without
being a hundred times crushed to pieces, the frightful blows of which we
have spoken? How can we explain such a power of resistance? A very small
change, operated by the nervous fluid, would suffice to render the
matter very simple. Let us suppose the skin and fibres of the
convulsionists to acquire, in virtue of their peculiar state of
excitement, a consistency analogous to that of gum-elastic; then all the
facts that astonish us would become as natural as possible. With
convulsionists of gum-elastic,[55] or, rather, whose bony framework was
covered with muscles and tissues of gum-elastic, what would happen?"

He then proceeds to admit that "a vigorous thrust with a rapier, or
stroke with a sabre, as such thrusts and strokes are usually dealt,
would doubtless penetrate such an envelope"; but, he alleges, the
St.-Medard convulsionists never, in a single instance, permitted such
thrusts or strokes, with rapier or sabre, to be given; prudently
restricting themselves to pressure only, exerted after the sword-point
had been placed against the body. He reminds us, further, that neither
razors nor pistol-balls, both of which would penetrate gum-elastic, were
ever tried on the convulsionists; and he adds,--"Neither flint stones
nor andirons nor clubs nor swords and spits, pressed against it, would
have broken the surface of the gum-elastic envelope. They would