Showing posts with label victorian medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label victorian medicine. Show all posts

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Hypnotism: Magnetism, Mesmerism, Suggestive Therapeutics: Now Available!




This work is one of the better things that LW DeLaurence wrote. Containing fewer self-advertizements and a lot more how-to content, it dispels some myths about mesmerism and hypnotism, and proposes about a dozen methods by which various suggestive states can be induced- including the famous trick of hypnotizing a chicken using a chalk line or a finger (it apparently does indeed work.)

While some of the methods are now known not to function (at the time this was written- and it alludes to it explicitly!- the French were experimenting with spinning wheels and lights to induce anesthesia- one of the earliest- maybe THE earliest literary reference to this trope!) others are accepted even today. Some of its content would later be adapted into the 20s and 30s era "how to hypnotize your friends" style pulp works.

112 pages.

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

What Your Neighbor's Say: Now Available!




This little booklet is one of the most bizarre things I've ever edited. It manages to combine Victorian-Era quack medicine (various and often psychotropic pills and tablets) with a fairly decent dream interpretation section (similar to that of Tousey's "Napoleon's Oraculum) and multiple "recipes for invalids." It also contains some folkish material, specifically regarding the preservation of linens, cleaning kitchenware, and fire safety.

The testimonials and ads for Dr. Pierces' medicines are amusing but not generally connected to the more interesting dreams-and-folkishness content.

36 pages.