He certainly had the good professor Gregory completely fooled at one remove... (I didn't realise until I looked back at the title page for the credits that this tome on Animal Magnetism (plus the Odylic Force, phrenology, and various other pseudoscientific phenomena swallowed wholesale by the credulous academic) was written by a Professor of Chemistry rather than by a professional mesmerist -- interestingly, I had already ended up rewriting my chapter to have my practitioner be a respectable lecturer in geology who had dabbled in such matters in his youth, when they were more fashionable. Apparently a disposition towards the earth sciences was entirely accurate as a piece of characterisation!)
I couldn't believe what I was reading, but on further investgation it turns out there are actually quite a few mentions of the 'snail telegraph' around. It didn't seem to occur to M. Allix or to Professor Gregory, quite apart from anything else, that the unfortunate snails could only survive such long periods without eating by entering a state of aestivation, and that a snail sealed up in such a manner would be far from amenable to demonstrating the desired 'disturbance'!
As a potential scam it's certainly bizarre that anyone would even *hope* to be able to use it to obtain a potential financial backer. However, the Gwyneth Paltrows of this world continue to demonstrate that you can market anything to anyone if you make it sound mystic enough...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-01-14 10:22 pm (UTC)I couldn't believe what I was reading, but on further investgation it turns out there are actually quite a few mentions of the 'snail telegraph' around. It didn't seem to occur to M. Allix or to Professor Gregory, quite apart from anything else, that the unfortunate snails could only survive such long periods without eating by entering a state of aestivation, and that a snail sealed up in such a manner would be far from amenable to demonstrating the desired 'disturbance'!
As a potential scam it's certainly bizarre that anyone would even *hope* to be able to use it to obtain a potential financial backer. However, the Gwyneth Paltrows of this world continue to demonstrate that you can market anything to anyone if you make it sound mystic enough...