Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Electricity, Mesmerism, Homeopathy, Magic, Spiritualism, Psychology, Belief

    Laments the 'extraordinary power of deglutition' shared by members of genteel society and their appetite for the new 'Electro-Biology'. Describes Mr Punch's visit to 'an exhibition of this so-called "science"' in which 'very suspicious and unprepossessing' individuals' were, under the influence of Dr Darling, rendered unable to remember their location and 'induced to mistake' pure water for such liquids as champagne. Wryly reports that in a test of the phenomenon, the stiff arm of an electro-biologised 'patient' proved weaker than that of a 'compact and muscular gentleman'.