METHUSELAH ARCHIVE / SOURCES / WELLCOME-PUYSEGUR-MEMOIRES-PLATE

Plate from Puységur's Mémoires: a subject entering somnambulism by the magnetized elm at Buzancy

period print · 1820
type:period print
year:1820
citation:Plate from A.-M.-J. Chastenet de Puységur, *Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire et à l'établissement du magnétisme animal* (Paris: J.G. Dentu, 1820). Wellcome Collection, image L0016301. Public Domain Mark.
LINK
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/v69xf8ck
SUMMARY
Illustrated plate from Puységur's *Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire et à l'établissement du magnétisme animal* (the Wellcome-digitized 1820 Paris edition, J.G. Dentu). It shows figures seated and standing around a large tree on an estate, the magnetized elm at Buzancy; the engraved French caption reads that a subject 'looked at the Tree' and 'entered into perfect somnambulism'. Wellcome Collection image L0016301, marked Public Domain Mark. Held and catalogued by the Wellcome Collection (work v69xf8ck).
NOTES

The plate is the case’s lead artifact: a scene from Puységur’s own Mémoires depicting the magnetized elm at Buzancy and a subject passing into the lucid ‘magnetic sleep’ that is the centre of this case. Its printed caption (in French) describes the moment a patient looks at the tree and enters ‘somnambulisme parfait’. The Wellcome Collection holds and catalogues the digitized 1820 edition (work v69xf8ck, image L0016301) under the Public Domain Mark.