Dottor Marc Dufour — Il Testimone Scientifico di Donato/en
Page title: Doctor Marc Dufour — The Scientific Witness of Donato
The Doctor Marc Dufour is the Swiss physician who, in December 1880, invited Donato to experiment before about thirty medical colleagues in Lausanne, and who presided over that session. He is the person to whom Doctor Dufour's letter published in the journal Le Magnétisme is addressed, and which constitutes the first verified scientific account of Donato's method.
The session of December 1880
Donato describes this meeting as fundamental in his intellectual autobiography: «Doctor Marc Dufour, president of the Medical Society of the city of Lausanne and of the Canton of Vaud, asked me to come and experiment for him, before about thirty of his colleagues.»
The date — December 1880 — is crucial. Donato explicitly cites it as preceding all published works in France on the question of magnetism in the way he had understood and publicly taught it. The Lausanne session is therefore the first moment in which the Donato method was observed and certified by an official medical commission.
Dufour's letter published in the journal
In the journal Le Magnétisme, Donato publishes a letter from Doctor Dufour (written in 1880, published in 1881 with a reprint in 1886) in which the physician describes with scientific precision the phenomena observed during the sessions. Dufour lists:
Movements produced in subjects without the involvement of their will, by automatic imitation — the subjects repeated Donato's gestures, expressions, and words.
The interruption of voluntary movements: Donato prevents subjects from continuing to count, whistle, walk, or strike with a fist.
Analgesia: the subject does not feel a pin passing through the skin of the arm.
Induced hallucinations: sensation of burning, cold, taste of strong wine when drinking clear water.
Selective amnesia: subjects who forget their own name or a number, while still being able to speak.
Catalepsy: muscles in a state of extreme rigidity, «hard rather than contracted».
Post-somnambulistic amnesia: the subject, once conscious, is completely unaware of what they did in the somnambulistic state.
Dufour specifies that he does not pronounce on the nature of the action — fluid, will, etc. — but certifies the reality of the phenomena.
Scientific importance
Dufour is the first physician of academic rank to systematically and unprejudicedly put in writing the phenomena of fascination observed on healthy subjects. His observations are the empirical foundation on which Donato builds his theory of fascination as a phenomenon distinct from classical hypnosis.
Documented anecdotes
The sessions that Dr Dufour observed and described show the concrete power of Donato's method. In one of them, Donato projected the subject's arm above his head, inviting him to strike it: the arm remained locked in the air by a contracture, while the doctors noted swollen neck veins, a purple face, and sweat on the forehead — real physiological signs of effort. To demonstrate to the doctors that his penetrating gaze was not indispensable, Donato positioned himself behind the subject, or prostrated himself on the ground with his eyes not visible, and still obtained the fall with a simple imperative gesture. Subject Tanner reported: «I felt drawn towards the ground, I fell in spite of myself.» The same subject could not withdraw his hand from Donato's, «held like iron by a magnet», nor whistle until Donato touched his neck.
- Source of the anecdotes: account of the sessions before the doctors, letter from Dr Dufour 1880/1881 (ISI-CNV Drive).
Sources
- Donato (Alfred d'Hont), Le Magnétisme — Journal de Psycho-Physiologie, Paris 1886 — fasc. 1-50, fasc. 50-104, fasc. 104-154, fasc. 154+
- Letter from Dr Marc Dufour to Donato, 1880, published in the journal
See also
- Donato — Il Padre della Fascinazione
- Il Metodo di Donato — Tecnica Precisa della Fascinazione
- La Fascinazione come Fenomeno Psicofisiologico — Donato e la Scienza
- Donato — La Rivista Le Magnétisme (1880-1886)
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