PART B: MODERN HISTORY

Section 2. Franz Anton Mesmer

Franz Anton Mesmer was born the son of a game warden on May 23, 1734, at Iznang on Lake Constance. He studied at Dillingen and Ingolstadt and received his Ph.D. following which he studied law. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1766 after presenting a paper entitled, De Planetarum Influx (On the influence of the Planets). Two years following his graduation, Mesmer married the wealthy widow of an army Lieutenant Colonel, Marie Anna Von Posch, on January 10, 1768. Mesmer, unable to swallow Father Gassner's hypothesis that patients were possessed by demons, believed that in some way the metal crucifix held by the Father was perhaps responsible for magnetizing the patient and hence developed his ideas and explanation of the results into a theory of animal magnetism, which he first tested in 1773 by treating a 28 year old female, Franziska Osterlin, who eventually married Fredrich Von Posch, Mesmer's stepson. Mesmer published his first account of the magnetic cure in 1775, under the title of, Schreiben Uber die Magnetiker. Although his fame continued to spread, he was forced to leave Vienna following the famous Paradis case, in which Dr. Von Stoerck and Dr. Barth opposed him. In 1777 Maria Theresa Paradis, a blind child pianist, and favorite of the Empress, recovered her sight after treatment by Mesmer despite the fact that she had been under the care of Europe's leading eye specialist, Dr. Von Stoerck for ten years without improvement. Influenced by jealous doctors, the child's mother took her away from Mesmer's care before the cure was complete. In an emotional scene, the mother struck
the child across the face because she did not wish to leave Dr. Mesmer's clinic and the hysterical blindness reasserted itself.

Nevertheless, Mesmer's influence was still great enough to secure a recommendation from the Austrian Foreign Minister to the Imperial Embassy in Paris, to which he moved early in February 1778. He founded a clinic with D'Eslon on the Place Vendome, and published his famous book, Memoirre Sur La Decouverte Du Magnetisme Animal in 1779.

In 1784 the French Government investigated Mesmer, and pronounced him a fraud. However, Benjamin Franklin, who was a member of the investigating committee, wrote the minority report, which stated the phenomenon was worthy of further consideration.

Other members of the commission were Jussieu, famous for his connection with the Twilleries; Guillotin, the inventor of the Guillotine which bears his name; and Lavoisier, the well-known French chemist whose name is still familiar to Americans as the brand name of a mouth wash! Esdaile's fascinating description of the investigation states he believed the verdict was fair enough considering the nature of the evidence placed before them. He goes on to say: ...but yet, (such is human fallibility), in this case summum jus was also summa injuria; truth was sacrificed to falsehood, as I think will clearly appear from a short analysis of their proceedings. This will probably not be time wasted, as I have heard intelligent gentlemen say that the report of the French philosophers still decided their opinions. They had a series of axioms in Mesmerism presented to them, whose truth they were to examine and the efficacy of certain processes was to be proved to their satisfaction by experiment.

The Mesmerist's object seems to have been to try to convince the commission that he had a secret worth knowing, and yet to continue to keep it to himself by hiding its extreme simplicity under a load of complicated machinery and various kinds of mummery. D'Eslon, the pupil of Mesmer, propounded his laws of animal magnetism after this fashion:

I. Animal magnetism is a universal fluid, constituting an absolute polonium in nature, and the medium of all mutual influence between the celestial bodies, and betwixt the earth and animal bodies. This only a gigantic assertion.

II. It is the subtlest fluid in nature, capable of flux and of reflux, and of receiving, propagating, and continuing all kinds of motion.

III. The animal body is subjected to the influences of this fluid by means of the nerves, which are immediately affected by it. We see no other way at present.

IV. The human body has poles, and other properties, analogous to the magnet. The first proposition has never been proved, and takes everything for granted; there is only likelihood in the second.

V. The action and virtue of animal magnetism may be communicated from one body to another, whether animate or inanimate. True, as regards to the relations between animate bodies; and these can also impregnate inanimate substances.

VI. It operates at a great distance, without the intervention of anybody. True VII. It is increased and reflected by mirrors, communicated, propagated and increased by sound, and may be accumulated, concentrated, and transported

VIII. Notwithstanding the universality of this fluid, all animal bodies are not affected by it; on the other hand there are some though but few in number, the presence of which, destroys all the effects of animal magnetism. The first part correct, the last not improbable.

IX. By means of this fluid, nervous diseases are cured immediately, and others medially; and its virtues, in fact, extend to the universal cure and preservation of mankind True, to so great a degree, that we do not yet know how far it may go.

<< Previous    1  2  [3]  4  5  ...14    Next >>