Punch,  23 (1852), 255.

Professor Puffy at the Christmas Cattle-Show

Anon

Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Mesmerism, Animal Magnetism, Nutrition, Belief, Magnetism, Animal Behaviour, Comparative Philology


    Speculates on the possibility that animals 'can indulge in polite conversation' and recalls a meeting with a mesmerist 'whose OD force [...] Makes you see your stomach instead of your eyes' and who is capable of making people believe that their crude items of food are in fact of high quality. Explains how the mesmerist took him to the Baker Street cattle show where he immobilised a 'two-year-old-boar' with a glance and caused a pig to speak. The pig points out that St Anthony cured animals by 'sprinkling and stroking' and relates other myths concerning the ability of animals to speak. Adds that electro-biology is now 'spread through the land' and that the stomach has 'quite lost its relish for eating and drinking' owing to its 'new task of thinking'.



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