MODERN SCIENCE.-No. II.

THE MAGNETOSCOPE.

IN our FIRST Number, we directed attention, at some length, to this curious discovery of Mr. J. O. RUTTER, of Brighton, and promised to watch its progress. Mr. Rutter, it would seem, is privately experimenting still; and the result of his studies will, no doubt, transpire at a fitting season. We have meantime received from Messrs. Longman and Co., a volume, by Mr. Rutter, entitled Magnetoid Currents.' In this are some very interesting particulars of his invention, explained by diagrams. To these we direct the especial attention of the inquirer after truth.

At the end of the volume, is a Letter by Dr. King, of Cambridge. There is much matter for active thought in this letter, and we feel pleasure in diffusing it widely. Fools there are many, who rail at what they can not comprehend. This ever has been, ever will be the case. Still there are some who can and will "think." Let such peruse the following

LETTER TO MR. J. O. RUTTER.

"MY DEAR SIR,-I have taken so warm an interest in your experiments, from the time that you gave your Lecture at the Albion Rooms, Brighton, that I should like to be permitted to add a postscript to your little book, in which I may express some sentiments and views which my profession has suggested to me, and which, even if they occurred to you, you might not wish to bring before the public at present. A few words from me would not implicate you in my opinions, and they might be suggestive to others, who may be inclined to trace the consequences of your primary facts to their legitimate conclusions.

"To me, no scientific truth is interesting unless it has, directly or indirectly, a moral bearing. It has been usual to separate science and morals, as if they had no real connection with each other; but to me it has always appeared impossible to do so. The moment creation is viewed as a work of mind and personality, it becomes a question of good and evil ends, of right and wrong; and every new discovery in the laws of physics raises our ideas of the spirituality of man, and of the high moral position he is some day destined to occupy by his benevolent Creator. When Volta first saw the dead frog leap from the table, by its contact with two metals, he little supposed the sublime inferences to which that circumstance would lead, by furnishing a new instrument for interrogating nature, and in forming, by the electric wire, a new mode of communication in civilised countries, by annihilating space

and time. Undoubtedly, the order and harmony of creation were always a proof to reflective minds of power, intelligence, and omnipresence; but there is some.. thing in uniformity which has a tendency to conceal from us its cause, to deprive it of free-will, and to ascribe it to a necessity and a fate. But when we discover new modes of operation in this will, and view discoveries as new modifications of the same will, we are not only impressed with the novelty, but we are disposed to argue back to old facts and laws as manifestations of that will, and to wonder at our previous insensibility to such stupendous phenomena.

"It is the same with the discoveries which

you have been permitted to make in the inand energies, as connected with every object fluences of magnetic and electric currents in nature, and with the human body in particular. We have long known the wonderful properties of the true magnet, and we have considered its applicability to navigation as one of the grandest discoveries of science; but there we stopped. Of late years, the magnetism of the earth has been a subject of curious and interesting research; and the late discovery of the relation of oxygen to the magnet, opened still sublimer views of the economy of nature, and of our intimate dependence upon the physical world. We imagined we were upon the threshold of greater truths, drawn from the infinity of nature, and more closely touching upon our moral constitution. The discovery of double electric currents, along insulated wires, having different properties, and called (for convenience), positive and negative, paved the way to our comprehending how the human body might be the subject of similar currents. The road had also been prepared by Bell's discovery of the true anatomy of the nerves, and their double formation. are now enabled to comprehend how the vitality of the body may be closely dependent upon magnetic and electric currents, both inherent in the body itself as a vital structure, and as a recipient of such agencies

from the earth.

We

"Of the truth of these facts your experiments leave us in no doubt. The human body, when insulated, has an inherent independent vitality, but this is then confined to itself. In order to operate upon other bodies, it requires to be in connection with the earth. In this state it becomes a real magnet, surrounded by a magnetic aura, and possessing magnetic polarities, by which it influences and is influenced by other living bodies. To what extent these influences act, and in what way they modify our physical and mental phenomena, must be left for further investigation. What you have already discovered is of great importance in

a medical point of view, and seems to promise an abundant harvest for the future. You have discovered that the body has a point of rest and repose in the upright posture, and that this point changes in the recumbent. The electric or magnetic currents pass through the limbs in the upright posture in one direction, and in the recumbent posture in a different one. They pass in one direction in the upper extremities, and in an opposite direction in the lower extremities, and so insure the unity of the body. When the hands and feet are closed, the currents circulate without interruption, and the body is in a state of quiet and repose. When the hands and feet are separated, they are analogous to the poles of a Voltaic battery, and the energies of the body are in full activity. These are important physiological facts, now for the first time demonstrated. They harmonise with medical observations which have often been made, but never before explained. In seeking rest after fatigue, we always sit with our legs crossed. sleeping, we lie on one side of the body, because then the legs are in contact. Infants always cross their feet in sleep, when they are free to do so, and are always restless when they cannot do it. They instinctively seek the position of repose. That repose which we vainly seek for by opiates in fevers and severe illness, would probably be obtained more naturally and effectually upon the principle of these currents. I have known cases where rest has been produced by the accidental application of the principle; but, from ignorance of the law, the example has not been followed out in its other applications. Your discoveries will encourage us to do so, and probably become an important accession to the medical art.

In

"Another wonderful circumstance in this

discovery, is the susceptibility of the Magnetoscope to the electric influences upon the body of the operator. It is the most delicate test hitherto contrived of electric actions upon the human subject. We have long known that the body is a peculiar electric mechanism, but we were ignorant of its nature and laws, or how its actions were to be ascertained and tested. We now possess in this instrument a subtle electrometer, from which nothing can escape. Whatever is applied to the left hand of the operator, while his right hand holds the Magnetoscope, will indicate its presence by a corresponding motion of the pendulum. Every substance, mineral or vegetable, crystallised or amorphous, will give its own proper motion. How far these motions may be found to indicate the medical properties of substances will appear hereafter, when sufficient investigations have been made. present, we can clearly see that each sub

At

"The discovery of the magnetism of the body enables us to give them a much higher signification-it raises man as a living being above mere matter, and approximates the corporeal to the incorporeal and the spiritual; at the same time that it makes Divine Power, immaterial, incomprehensible, more intelligible and demonstrable that and omnipotent, by whose fiat and volition all these wonders are performed.

"Many are accustomed to talk of man's something abstract, distant, and uncertain. responsibility, and a future judgment, as of But here, in this magnetic aura, we possess sponsibility is bound up with all our actions a present reality, and a proof that reand principles. For we may now say with truth, that as a man's mind is, so will be his circumambient aura, in its influence upon himself and others for good or for evil.

view I take of your beautiful, and, as I think, "I may be thought too fanciful in the sublime discovery: but no reflecting mind will deny that we stand in need of some new principle or truth, to enable us to turn to full account those which we have already received. The disunion which pervades those who ought to be of one heart and one spirit, and the language used towards each other by those who profess to be in search of common truth, are painful spectacles to a considerate mind, and for which I see no remedy but in the development of some new principle of a moral, more than of a scientific nature, which, by its superior influence, shall give the passions of man that rest which they can never hope for from the bitterness of controversy.

"The many delightful hours which you and I have spent over your experiments, calling forth common feelings of wonder were endowed and thankfulness that we with faculties capable of comprehending and appreciating such mysteries, fortify my habitual hope that a time may come, and will come, when all who are engaged in the pursuit of truth and excellence may be actu ated by a kindred spirit, and that as truth is one, so the hearts of those who seek it may also be one. When first I saw your machine prove the polarity of a decillionth of a grain of silex, and when I first saw it respond to the billionth of a grain of quinine, I was seized with the same kind of awe as when I first studied the resolution of the nebula, and when I first saw the globules of blood and the filaments of the nerves through the microscope. Truly, as Paley says, 'in His hands great and little are nothing.'

"I have often asked myself what was to be the next new wonder after the electric wire

In 1800, Dr. Spurzheim commenced his labors along with Dr. Gall, and in that year assisted, for the first time, at one of his courses of lectures. He entered with great zeal into the consideration of the new doctrine; and to use his own words, "he was simply a hearer of Dr. Gall, till 1804, at which period he was associated with him in his labors, and his character of hearer ceased."

Vienna on March 6, 1805, to go direct to Berlin, and thereafter visited the following places: Berlin, Potsdam, Leipsic, Dresden, Halle, Jena, Weimar, Goettingen, Brauerschweig, Copenhagen, Kiel, Hamburgh, Bremen, Münster, Ambourg, Marbourg, Stuttgard, Carlsruhe, Lassterdam, Leyden, Dusseldorf, Frankfort, Würtztall, Freybourg en Brisgaw Doneschingue, Heidelberg, Manheim, Munich, Augsbourg, Ulm, Zurich, Bern, Bâle, Muhlhause, Paris. In these travels, "I experienced everywhere," says Gall," the most flattering reception. Sovereigns, ministers, philosophers, legislators, artists, seconded my design on all occasions, augmenting my collection, and furnishing me everywhere with new observations. The circumstances were too favorable to permit me to resist the invitations which came to me from most of the Universities."

"This journey afforded me the opportunity of studying the organisation of a great number of men and I had the advantage of observing the differof eminent talents, and of others extremely limited, ence between them. I gathered innumerable facts in the schools, and in the great establishments of education, in the asylums for orphans and foundlings, in the insane hospitals, in the houses of correction, in prisons, in judicial courts, and even in places of execution; the multiplied researches on suicides, idiots, and madmen, have contributed greatly to correct and confirm my opinions."

From November, 1807, Dr. Gall made Paris his permanent home.

In November, 1807, Dr. Gall, assisted by Dr. Spurzheim, delivered his first course of Public "His assertions," says CheLectures in Paris.

Gall and Spurzheim quitted Vienna in 1805, to travel together, and to pursue in common their researches.

IN the period which elapsed betwixt the interdiction of Dr. Gall's lectures in 1802, and the time when he and Dr. Spurzheim left Vienna, the doctrine had made a rapid progress, not only in general diffusion, but in solid and important additions; a fact of which any one may be sa tisfied, by comparing the publications by Dr. Gall's auditors already mentioned, with those by his hearers in the different towns in Germany, visited in the course of his and Dr. Spurzheim's travels. The following works, in particular, afford evidence of the state of the science in 1805:

BISCHOFF.-Exposition de la Doctrine de Gall sur le Cerveau et le Crane, suivie de Remarques de Mr. Hufeland sur cette Doctrine.Berlin, 2de. Edit. 1805. BLOEDE.-Le Doctrine du Gall sur les Fonctions de Cerveau. Dresde, 2de. Edit. 1805. From 1804 to 1813, Dr. Gall and Dr. Spurzheim were constantly together, and their researches were conducted in common. They left

one

supper!"

In 1808, they presented a joint memoir, on the Anatomy of the Brain, to the French Institute. We present you, said they, in their memoir, "Une description du Systeme Nerveux, moins d'après sa structure physique, et ses formes mécaniques que d'après des Vues Philosophiques et Physiologiques que des hommes habitués à des considérations superieures ne refuseront point d'accueillir." The Institute was then in all its glory. In proportion as Bonaparte had cannonaded, it had grown enlightened. As the hero was the referendary of military justice, so was it the Areopagus of scientific truth. The chief of the anatomical department was M. Cuvier; and he was the first member of this learned body to whom Drs. Gall and Spurzheim addressed themselves.

M. Cuvier was a man of known talent and acquirements, and his mind was applicable to many branches of science. But what equally distinguished him with the versatility of his understanding, was the suppleness of his opinions. He received the German Doctors with much politeness. He requested them to dissect a brain privately for him and a few of his learned

friends; and he attended a course of lectures, given purposely for him and a party of his selection. He listened with much attention, and appeared well disposed towards the new doctrine; and expressed his approbation of its general features, in a circle which was not particularly private.

About this time, the Institute had committed an act of extraordinary courage, in venturing to ask permission of Bonaparte to award a prize medal to Sir H. Davy for his admirable galvanic experiments, and was still in amazement at its own heroism. Consent was obtained; but the soreness of national defeat rankled deeply within. When the First Consul was apprised that the greatest of his comparative anatomists had attended a course of Lectures by Dr. Gall, he broke out as furiously as he had done against Lord Whitworth; and at his levée rebuked the wise men of his land for allowing themselves to be taught chemistry by an Englishman, and anatomy by a German. A "hint" sufficed. The wary citizen altered his language. A commission was named by the Institute to report upon the labors of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim: M. Cuvier drew up the report. In this he used his efforts, not to proclaim the truth, but to diminish the merits of the learned Germans. Whenever he could find the most distant similarity between the slightest point of their mode of operating, and anything ever done before, he dwelt upon it with peculiar pleasure; and lightly touched upon what was really new. He even affected to excuse the Institute for taking the subject into consideration at all, saying that the anatomical rescarches were entirely distinct from the physiology of the brain, and the doctrines of mental manifestations. Of this part of the subject, Bonaparte, and not without cause, had declared his dislike; and M. Cuvier was too great a lover of liberty not to submit his opinion to that of his Consul. His assertion, too, that the anatomy of the brain has nothing to say to its mental influence, he knew to be in direct opposition to fact; but even the meagre credit which he did dare to allow to the new mode of dissection, he wished to dilute with as much bitterness as he could. So unjust and unsatisfactory, so lame and mutilated did the whole report appear, that the authors of the new method published "an Answer," in which they accused the committee of not having repeated their experiments. Such was the reception which the science of Phrenology met with from the Academy of the groat nation.

Napoleon was unquestionably a good judge of character, and had his favorite rules in deciding upon the motives' and designs of men. It was not in his nature to be either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the doctrines of Gall. Conscious of his own superiority, and eminently proud and selfish, it is not to be supposed that he would favor a system which opened to all the origin and nature of human actions. In admitting such a theory as that of Gall, he would himself become a subject of remark and investigation by his own consent; and, however well he might have liked the principles of organology, for his own exclusive use, his spirit could never have sanctioned the practice of them in others.

That this position may be made more apparent, we will quote the following conversation from the Mémoires du Docteur F. Antommarchi, ou les derniers Momens de Napoléon. He does not hesitate to express his aversion to all those philosophers who pretend to interpret the internal man by the external organisation.

Lady Holland had sent a box of books, in which was also contained a bust in plaster, the head of which was covered with divisions and figures according to the craniological system of Dr. Gall. " There doctor," said Napoleon, "that lies in your province; take and study it, and you shall then give me an account of it. I should be glad to know what Gall would say of me if he felt my head." I immediately set to work; but the divisions were not exact, and the figures misplaced, and I had not been able to put them to rights when Napoleon sent for me. I went, and found him in the midst of a mass of scattered volumes, reading Polybius. He said nothing to me at first, and continued to run over the pages of the work he held in his hand; he then threw it down, came to me, and taking me by the ears, and looking me steadily in the face, "Well! dottoraccio di capo Corso, you have seen the bust?"Yes, sire." Meditated the system of Gall?"— Very nearly.—“ Comprehended it?”—I think so. "You are able to give an account of it?"Your majesty shall judge.*"To know my tastes and to appreciate my faculties, by examining my head?"-Even without touching it (he began to laugh)." You are quite up to it?"-Yes, sire. "Very well; we shall talk about it when we have nothing better to do."

It is a pis-aller, which is just as good as any other; and it is sometimes amusing to notice to what extent folly can be carried.

He now walked up and down, and then asked, "What did Mascagni think of these German reveries? Come, tell me frankly, as if you were talking to one of your brethren.'

Mascagni liked very much the manner in which Gall and Spurzheim develop and point out the different parts of the brain; he himself adopted their method, and regarded it as eminently fitted for discovering the structure of this interesting viscus. As to the pretended power of judging from protuberances, of the vices, tastes, and virtues of men, he regarded it as an ingenious fable, which might seduce the gens du monde, but could not withstand the scrutiny of the anatomist."

"That was like a wise man; a man who knows how to appreciate the merit of a conception, and to isolate it from the falsehood with which charlatanism would overcharge it: I regret not having known him."

Corvisart was a great partisan of Gall; he praised him, protected him, and left no stone unturned to push him on to me, but there was no sympathy between us. Lavater, Cagliostro, Mesmer, have never been to my mind; I felt, I cannot tell how much aversion for them, and I

Verily the Dottoraccio's modesty was very great, and his understanding very gigantic in its dimensions. Few men, except himself, could have studied, comprehended and mastered, in as many months as he required hours, a science which, in its application and details, is perhaps the most extensive that is known!-ED. K. J.

took care not to admit any one who kept them among us. All these gentlemen are adroit, speak well, excite that fondness for the marvellous which the vulgar experience, and give an appearance of truth to theories the most false and unfounded. Nature does not reveal herself by external forms. She hides, and does not expose her secrets. To pretend to seize and to penetrate human character by so slight an index is the part of a dupe or of an impostor; and what else is that crowd with marvellous inspirations, which agitates the bosom of all great capitals? The only way of knowing our fellow-creatures is to see them, to haunt them, and to submit them to proof. We must study them long if we wish not to be mistaken; we must judge them by their actions; and even this rule is not infallible, and must be restricted to the moment when they act; for we almost never obey our own character; we yield to transports-we are carried away by passion; such are our vices and virtues, our perversity and heroism. This is my opinion, and this has long been my guide. It is not, that I pretend to exclude the influence of natural dispositions and of education; I think, on the contrary, that it is immense; but beyond that, all is system, all is nonsense."

Sovereigns, remarks Dr. Gall, are always deceived, when they ask advice from the ignorant, the jealous, the envious, the timid, or from those who, from age, are no longer accessible to new opinions. Napoleon acquired his first notions of the value of my discoveries during his first journey to Germany. A certain metaphysical jurisconsult, E- at Leipzic, told him that the workings of the soul were too mysterious to leave any external mark. And, accordingly, in an answer to the report of the Institute, I had this fact in view when I terminated a passage by these words:" And the metaphysician can no longer say, in order to preserve his right of losing himself in a sea of speculation, that the operations of the mind are too carefully concealed to admit of any possibility of discovering their material conditions or organs." At his return to Paris he scolded sharply those members of the Institute who had shown themselves enthusiastic about my new demonstrations. This was the thunder of Jupiter overthrowing the pigmies! On the instant, my discoveries were nothing but reveries, charlatanism, and absurdities; and the journals were used as instruments for throwing ridicule-an all-powerful weapon in France-on the self-constituted bumps!

We should here remark, that although Gall, merely from seeing the bust of Napoleon placed along side of those of the generals of the Aus trian armies, predicted the immortal victories of Italy, yet he never received from the Emperor the smallest mark of attention!

Keeping in view the strong and adverse feelings of Napoleon, in relation to Phrenology, we may account for the imperfect Report of Cuvier. The report, it should be .observed, related only to the anatomical discoveries of Gall and Spurzheim; not to their peculiar doctrines of the functions of the brain. Cuvier, however, admitted, in the Annual Report, that their "Memoir was by far the most important which had occupied the attention of the class."

That Cuvier was a phrenologist, there can be, if any, little doubt; neither his Report, nor any of his works, warrant us in supposing the contrary. Although political causes had a tendency to influence Cuvier against the doctrines of Gall,nevertheless, these two celebrated men were made to understand and esteem each other, and, towards the end of their carcer, they did each other justice. Gall had already one foot in the grave when Cuvier sent him a cranium, " which," he said, "appeared to him to confirm his doctrine of the physiology of the brain." But the dying Gall replied to him who brought it, " Carry it back, and tell Cuvier, that my collection only wants one head more-my own, which will soon be placed there as a complete proof of my doctrine." (To be Continued Weekly).

"Five Sundays in February."

It has been recently stated, that "there would not be such an event as five Sundays in February for seventy years." But I can with confidence affirm that it is "incorrect," and that Sunday falls on the 29th of February every 28 years (or as I call it every septennial leap-year, as there are seven leap find when the 29th of February is Sunday, years in the above-mentioned time). To divide any year you like by 28; and if nothing remains, there want four years to the time when it will so happen; but if the remainder is four, that year on the 29th of February will be Sunday. Thus the 29th of February, 1824, was Sunday, as was also the 29th of February this year; and the 29th of February, 1880 and 1908, will be Sunday; and every 28 years the calendar of the almanac is exactly the same as it was 28 years previously. Thus the months and years roll onward till they arrive at "the septennial leap-year," whence they stop, and again their course pursue; every event (of course not moveable feasts) falling on the same day and date of the month, as it did 28 years before. Thus St. James's day was on Thursday, July 25, 1811; and on the same day and date of the month, in 1839. James's day was on Sunday, July 25, in 1824, and will be on Sunday, July 25, this year (1852), there being just 28 years between.

T. GOLDING.

The Mastodon.

St.

A NEARLY perfect skeleton of that extinct creature, the Mastodon, is now being exhibited in the Islington Bazaar. The bones were dug up, many years ago, in the State of New York; and the deficiencies, which are but trifling, having been supplied by wood, the skeleton appears perfect. The huge structure of bones stands fully fifteen feet high, and the general impression conveyed is that the living creature must have been nçarly double the size of an elephant.