"Animal Magnetism"

[{ brad brace } <bbrace@xxxxxxxxxx>]

FRANZ MESMER: Viennese physician, Dr. Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer
(1734-1815), a highly controversial and often reviled pioneer in the
medical practice of hypnotic therapy. 
      Mesmer would use various hypnotic procedures to induce a trance-like 
state in his patients, during which he claimed their bodies would no longer 
offer resistance to inborn curative forces he called "animal magnetism." 
His theory relied largely on the notion that the gravitational attraction 
of the planets also produces a magnetic effect on human bodily fluids and 
that disease was the result of "obstacles" in the fluid's flow through the 
body. These obstacles, he reasoned, could be broken by "crises" (trance 
states often ending in delirium or convulsions) that would restore the 
harmony to a sick person's fluid flow.
      His dramatic and often flamboyant use of hypnosis to induce trances 
in his patients so captured the attention of his contemporaries that his 
procedures found their way into the language in the word "mesmerism." But 
despite building a successful practice, Mesmer was considered a fraud by 
the majority of his fellow Viennese physicians.
      In 1778 he decided to remove himself to Paris, where he quickly built 
a lucrative practice. But again he was opposed by the medical profession, 
who persuaded Louis XVI to appoint a commission of scientists and 
physicians to investigate his methods. The commission, which included the 
American inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin, reported that Mesmer was 
unable to support his scientific claims and that his results were due to 
his good salesmanship and his patient's imagination. "Animal magnetism," 
they stated, was nothing but the faith of the patient. The report 
essentially ended Mesmer's career, and he retired soon thereafter to 
Switzerland, where he died in relative poverty and obscurity at the age of 81.
      Whatever may be said about his therapeutic system, Mesmer did often 
achieve a close rapport with his patients and seems to have actually 
alleviated certain nervous disorders in them, and the further investigation 
of the trance state by his followers eventually led to the development of 
legitimate applications of hypnotism.



The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project                >>>> since 1994 <<<<

+ + +         serial           ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace
+ + +      eccentric          ftp://ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace
+ + +     continuous       ftp://ftp.teleport.com/users/bbrace
+ + +    hypermodern      ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace
+ + +        imagery   ftp://ftp.pacifier.com/pub/users/bbrace

      News://alt.binaries.pictures.12hr ://a.b.p.fine-art.misc
  Reverse Solidus: http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
                   http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
           Mirror: http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/

 { brad brace }   <<<< bbrace@xxxxxxxxxx >>>>  ~finger for pgp

Note: all "Teleport" addresses (web/ftp/email) are being eliminated: 
no thanks to Earthlink scum. Please choose from listed alternates.