German physician
He convinced half of Europe that invisible magnetic fluid flowed through bodies and could cure disease by waving magnets near patients. The theory was junk, but the trance states he induced were real — and gave us hypnosis.
Franz Anton Mesmer was a German physician with a side interest in astronomy who, in the late 18th century, theorized that a natural energy he called "animal magnetism" transferred between all objects, living and dead. He built a practice around manipulating this invisible force to treat illness, and between 1780 and 1850 the method found a wide following across Europe. The magnetic fluid didn't exist, but the phenomena he triggered did: in 1843, Scottish doctor James Braid studied Mesmer's technique and renamed the trance state "hypnotism." The word "mesmerism" survives as a synonym. Mesmer al…
Sourced, dated quotes from Franz Mesmer
You are at the head of the committee which the government sent to M. d'Eslon's house, in order to witness the evidence of my discovery, and to judge its efficacy. When Mr.
In the large curative establishment founded by Mesmer at Vienna, he employed, besides magnetism, electricity, metals and a variety of woods.
The secret of healing, he maintained, lies in the knowledge of correspondences and affinities between kindred atoms.
The Academy disbelieved her most eminent Scientists and proclaimed Mesmerism a delusion...
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