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The phenomena of electrical action by absorption and induction is just now awakening the attention of the scientific world. In Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia, latest edition, Vol. v, p. 188, he says: "The most important phenomena of magnetic action is that called induction, or the magnetizing action of a magnet on distant substances, animate and inanimate. We also find that this phenomena was discovered and put into practical use by Mesmer, a Vienna physician, in 1774, who found that he could influence and communicate at will to his patients, even at a distance from them, by means of electro-magnets generating a magnetic fluid or electric current."
The International Cyclopædia, Vol. ix, says: "By induction we mean the power that an electric current has to excite, to magnetize and to draw into actual contact with itself, properties and bodies near or in range with the current, but not in connection with the