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vol. title: Miscellaneous Scraps from January 1st 1878 vol. period: 1875-1878 pages in vol.: 153 |
Psychometry
The “Science of Soul Measurement” as Expounded by Dr. Joseph R. Buchanan—Some Curious and Entertaining Experiments—An Opening for Investigators.
In a drawing-room in West Thirty-seventh street Tuesday evening about twenty persons were assembled as guests of Dr. Robert S. Newton, the president of the Eclectic Medical College in this city, to witness some experiments performed by Dr. Joseph R. Buchanan, a professor in the same institution. As long ago as 1842 Dr. Buchanan attracted the attention of men of science, journalists and amateur investigators by a series of lectures given in this city on what he was pleased to term the new science of “Neurology,” which he illustrated by experiments much more striking to the ordinary sense than those used last evening, but perhaps not so agreeable to a refined subject. At that time, also, the Evening Post was made the medium for conveying to an inquiring public the result of a number of tests made in private for the edification of an investigating committee of which Mr. Bryant was chairman. For reasons which he does not explain, the doctor has consigned the old name of his science and his old methods of demonstration to the same limbo with his youthful enthusiasm to convert the world; his science has been christened afresh, appearing under the name “psychometry,” and his lectures are now delivered for the most part from his chair in the Medical College, and their morals pointed chiefly with experiments suggested by the research of successive classes of young men and women in materia medica and practical therapeutics.
In a brief introductory address Dr. Buchanan expounded the leading idea of his theory of “soul measurement.” It is his notion that everything in nature may be brought into dynamic relation with the human mind by contact with certain particularly susceptible parts of the body, whence the nervous system diffuses its influence. There are persons, for example, who no sooner lay hold with the hand of a brass door knob or key than they are conscious of a metallic taste in the mouth, and that taste is so well defined in some cases as to leave no question what metal is touched. A like impression is given also to persons of a certain temperament when the object is so securely wrapped in paper as to defy recognition by any common process. Medicines are found to act with even greater potency than metals; a sensation is often conveyed to the other organs of the body through the hands even when the medicine producing it has to exert its influence through the glass of an enveloping bottle.
Here the speaker proceeded to a simple experiment. Unfolding some little sheets of brown paper, which he said he had saturated with a certain unnamed medicine in liquid form and afterward dried, he placed one between the closed palms of each person present, with instructions not to hold it so tight as to preclude the circulation of air between the palms, but tight enough to encourage the generation of natural warmth. In a few moments a number of the subjects announced that they felt a thrilling or stinging sensation passing up the arms to the shoulders, and thence to the head, and seating itself in the temples. It effect was first stimulant, and afterward sedative. One lady complained of narcotism and nausea, but was restored to her normal condition upon the removal of the paper and a rapid manipulation of her palms by Dr. Buchanan. After a diagnosis of the effects produced by the drug, the latter was announced to be cannabia. The persons who had been found to possess the most susceptible temperaments were then tried with another set of papers similarly prepared, but containing hydrastus. An equally satisfactory result followed.
But, argued the lecturer, psychometry is not limited in its scope to this order of phenomena. Each man or woman who writes upon a piece of paper infuses into both paper and writing a subtle fluid which in its turn acts upon the person who receives the letter. Persons have been known to visit a postoffice, and, before opening the letters they find there addressed to themselves, to give a very fair description of the physical, mental and moral traits of the writer of each epistle, and also of the temper in which he wrote it. To corroborate this statement as far as a simple experiment could be expected to disarm skepticism, the doctor produced several pieces of a letter written by an em’nent person, and giving one fragment to each of a number of subjects, he first instructed them to hold the handwriting either against the brow or enclosed in the hand, and then catechised them as to the impressions made upon the mind. Sex, age, occupation, manners, address, stature, habit—all the various points that go to make up the description of a human being were touched on, and the questions answered with remarkable correctness, the portrait being made to fit Dr. Caldwell, the father of phrenology in the United States. The next autograph tried was that of Thomas Carlyle, who was pictured with a good deal of accuracy. Later, a member of the company produced a paper which he deemed a good one for such a test, and one of the ladies who had manifested uncommon impressibility was made the subject. Inquiry elicited the fact that the writer was a man of rather delicate constitution and a strong impulse to investigation; indefatigable in collecting testimony; naturally skeptical, but very firm in his belief when convinced; a writer rather than a speaker; past middle life; of literary tastes and pursuits; and with a name known among cultured people rather than to the world at large. These, with many more features, contributed to the upbuilding of Alfred Russel Wallace, the English man of science.
The most noteworthy event of the evening, however, was the production of two letters written by one person to the host, Dr. Newton. Two ladies were set to work on these, and one brought out the fact that the writer was a woman, while the other insisted that she felt a masculine as well as a feminine influence proceeding from her note. Dr. Buchanan questioned her sharply on this point, but she persisted in the statement. He then took the paper from her and examined it, when, truly, there appeared an endorsement on it made by its male recipient, hitherto unnoticed. Another letter from the same source, and unincumbered with endorsements, was exchanged for this, and the test proceeded. The writer was described as thoroughly feminine in instinct, and in delicate health. Upon this point the two subjects were again divided in impression, one saying that she believed the writer was very near her death and exceedingly despondent, and the other regarding her as not dangerously ill, and rather cheerful than otherwise. Both agreed that she wrote poetry of a flowery order, was domestic in her tastes and a good housekeeper, and possessed of “all the graces.” The letters, being opened, revealed the signature of the late Phœbe Cary ; and when the disputed point was referred to it was found that one of the letters was written shortly before her death, when she was suffering from a morbid feeling not at all natural to her, and seemed possessed of the idea that—to use her own words—“she had not a friend in the world.”
We have given here simply an account, as impartial as possible, of the experiments made by Dr. Buchanan on Tuesday, without pretending to pass judgment upon their value to science As far as could be seen the tests were conducted with the greatest fairness. If the doctor is able to substantiate the claims made by him in behalf of his theory, the influence of his discoveries on medical science will suggest themselves to every mind. If he is not, the theory and the claims will fall of their own weight, and go the way of false things. In favor of the operator’s personal honesty his reputation for many years ought to avail much; but only the most searching tests, made under the severest restrictions, will prove to the world a real scientific discovery, and we trust that some of our more eminent investigators will take part in a work of scrutiny which, even if it results in no good, can do no possible harm.
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Editor's notes