The most comprehensive source about British mesmerism of the period, and an invaluable reference for contemporary ideas and developments not only in mesmerism (hypnosis) but also in phrenology, neurology and psychiatry. “It was round The Zoist, and hence of course round Elliotson, that British mesmerism centered during its period of most active expansion, from 1843 until the early 1850s.... More serious and more educated adherents subscribed, contributed and sent in cases; interested outsiders turned to it to find out more.... Setting aside articles on phrenology, mesmeric cures of disease fill the greatest percentage of its pages, followed by cases of surgical operations performed with mesmeric anesthesia” (Gault, A history of hypnotism, 207-208). One of the most prolific contributors to the journal was Scottish surgeon James Esdaile, who performed over a hundred painless operations on mesmerized patients in the 1840s while stationed in India; a partial list of these operations, including the amputation of an arm and breast and the removal of 17 scrotal tumors, is included in the 1846 volume of The Zoist. Digital facsimiles of all volumes are available from Google Books. The link to vol.1 is here.

Esdaile performed a variety of surgical operations on Hindus, upon many of whom he appears successfully to have induced hypnotic anesthesia. However, his similar attempts with Europeans were not so successful.