The phenomena of hypnotism or magnetism although known in some form or other at all times in human history—there is nothing new under the sun—became popularly known only at the end of the eighteenth century, when a Viennese physician of the name of Frederic Antoine Mesmer used them for the purpose of medical treatment, and advanced a theory of magnetic emanations.

Frederic Antoine Mesmer was born in 1734, and took his doctor's degree in Vienna in 1776. His inaugural dissertation was well calculated to indicate the bias of his mind; it was entitled, "Of the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body."

If we deny him the merit of being the discoverer of the agency associated with his name, we cannot refuse him the merit of having made a dexterous, practical, and able display of it. Mesmer has been represented in works of authority as an impostor and a cheat, and as owing his celebrity entirely to the silly credulity of imaginative people. Few persons, who have really taken the trouble to enquire into the matter would now hazard such an assertion; yet, whether from ignorance of the true cause of the phenomena he witnessed, or from a desire to mystify the subject, it must be admitted that he both did and 6aid many things which justified suspicion.

Mesmer had obtained from a Jesuit named Maximilian Held the secret of magnetic steel plates, which had been applied to the cure of disease with much success. Hehl thought their efficacy was in the metal itself, but Mesmer claimed that the cures he achieved were due to his method of applying them by particular manipulations, so-called "passes," which he learned from another priest named Gassner. Hence a controversy arose, which resulted in Mesmer being opposed by the scientific authorities, and he being obliged to quit Vienna.

In the year 1778, he arrived at Paris, whither his popularity appears to have preceded him; for we are told that upon his opening public apartments for the reception of patients, they were speedily crowded by the numbers who daily resorted to them, including all classes, from the peer to the peasant; and that hundreds were ready to testify to the cures wrought upon their own persons by the great magnetiser. Here, too, the official authorities were against him, as we shall see presently, and he, failing in health, and the French Revolution approaching, left Paris, first for Spa, to take the waters, and then he went to Mersburg, near the lake of Constance, where he died in 1815, at the advanced age of eighty-one.

Mesmer's first experiment was in 1773, when he cured a case of hystero-epilepsy by applying magnetised metal plates to the patient's limbs. Afterwards he discarded the plates, and his usual method was then to seat himself opposite to the patient with his knees touching, the patient regarding him fixedly while he gazed into his eyes. Then he touched with his hand that part of the body where the mischief lay. He practised only on sick people.

Filled with his theory and convinced, as was natural, of its importance to medicine, he offered it to the Faculty of Vienna, but was met with disdain.

As his method took time and a great deal of trouble, and his practice, when he moved to Paris increased enormously, Mesmer had to accommodate his method to a crowd, and he then conceived the idea of his famous "tub."

Mesmer's mode of applying the agency of "animal magnetism" to a crowd was as follows. In the centre of a dimly-lighted apartment, where the patients assembled, was placed a sort of oaken tub, called by him the magnetic baquet. The interior was filled With pounded glass, iron filings and bottles containing magnetised water. The cover to the vessel was pierced with numerous holes, into which were introduced polished rods, bent nearly at right angles, and which were capable of being moved. The patients were arranged in successive rows around this bucket, and each one held one of the iron rods, which he applied to the part of his body supposed to be the seat of the disease; a cord passed round their bodies, uniting them to each other, and sometimes a second chain was formed by placing the thumb of one patient between the thumb and forefinger of the next patient, and so on round the circle; each patient pressing the thumb of his neighbour. A pianoforte was placed in a corner of the room, and according to the movements, different airs were played upon it; singing being sometimes added. The magnetiser himself, armed with a metallic rod, walked among the patients, looking steadfastly at one; pointing with his rod to the presumed seat of disease of another; and occasionally applying pressure with the fingers over the hypochondriacal and abdominal regions; and these various manipulations were assiduously continued for a considerable time. The effect of this rapt attention and concentration of mind on highly nervous and especially hysterical subjects may be readily conceived. They gave way to emotional crises, as they were called, which were supposed to be necessary to effect a cure.

As Mesmer's discoveries arose out of the use of magnets, it is not surprising that he should consider a sort of magnetism as the agent by which the effect he witnessed was produced; this he called animal magnetism.

Mesmer's theory was that health and sickness depended on the flow of a magnetised fluid, which flow he could direct by his looks and touches.

Whatever the views or doctrines of Mesmer, present day critics should remember that they were the views of his time. Mesmer thought that every motion of the body, external and internal, whether in health or disease, takes place by the agency of the nerves. Now this opinion of Mesmer was held by all other physicians. Mesmer thought that the nerve-action itself depended on the action of a very subtle fluid; so thought all other physicians. Mesmer thought this fluid to be itself subject to various agents, some of which are external and others internal; all other physicians thought the same. Mesmer thought that the normal state of our functions, on which health depends, is maintained by the regular action of the nerves; other physicians thought so, too. Mesmer believed that the cure of diseases is effected by crises; other physicians also considered this to be the ease.

In what then, did Mesmer differ from the physicians of his age? In this: Mesmer thought that he had discovered the secret of directing at will, and by every means, the fluid which sets our nerves in action, and thereby of imparting to them such action as might be requisite either for the preservation of health or for the cure of disease. Mesmer, in fact, laid claim to having arrived at a better knowledge of the laws of life than the physicians who had preceded him". It was this which the Viennese physicians disputed and for which he was repulsed.

Mesmer's theory may have been a mistake, but there can be no doubt that the great end of all his proceedings was the application of a remedy for human suffering. Whatever may be said against Mesmer's theory, and the methods he employed, there can be no question that there was produced such a profound impression upon the system of the patient, as oftentimes to effect the relief or cure of a certain order of malady. Experience has augmented our knowledge; and we now know that the same curative effects may be produced without all those pretensions, which so greatly lead to the ideas of jugglery and imposture.

Moll has pointed out that an influence may be exercised on nerves at a certain, though perhaps very limited distance, which was admitted also by Alexander von Humboldt, and his opinion was concurred in by the well-known anatomist and clinician, Reil. More than once the hypothesis has been put forward of electric activities being called up by mesmeric passes (Rostan, J. Wagner). Tarchanoff has demonstrated that the application of gentle stimulus to the skin will excite in it slight electric currents, and that, moreover, a strong effort of concentration of the will, with the muscular contraction by which it is invariably attended, will also suffice to produce the same. Now, since mesmerists always insist on the necessity of strong tension of the will on the part of the mesmeriser while making his passes, may not a peripheral development of electricity be induced in his person, and passed on to that of the individual he is mesmerising?

If the first propagators of magnetism had followed the example of that ancient philosopher who contented himself with walking in the presence of one who denied motion—if they had restricted themselves to producing effects without endeavouring to account for them—the cause of magnetism might have had a more favourable reception. But they did not follow this course. Carried away by their enthusiasm, the partisans of Mesmer knew not how to set limits to their faith, they believed they could cure all diseases by one remedy: magnetism. Extending their views to the future, they thought themselves entitled to predict that the agent discovered by Mesmer would operate a considerable modification of our morals.

Not less astonishing than the enthusiasm of the magnetisers was the conduct of the scientific societies who were as incapable as they of preserving sufficient coolness to pronounce without prejudice their decisions respecting magnetism.

The one party denied all the effects of magnetism, or explained them on erroneous grounds; the other, on the contrary, adopted all that their leader had said and written, and thus carried their belief too far.

Mesmer's doctrines and practice were submitted to a commission of inquiry appointed by the Royal Academy of Medicine, whose report led to the conclusion that the effects produced, which were not denied, and which were admitted to be extraordinary, were simply resulting from the influence of imagination, failing to see that in that fact lay the germ of a great truth. Had they referred them to the influence of suggestion instead of the imagination, they would have been nearer the truth.

The opponents of magnetism had found out a word —imagination—which explained every phenomenon, and consequently saved them the trouble of investigating the subject minutely. If imagination could produce the extraordinary, not to say wonderful, results attributed to magnetism, surely they should have studied its powers carefully. As a member of the Academy pointed out, the only one who spoke in favour of mesmerism: "If Mesmer," he wrote, "possessed no other secret but that of being able to benefit health through the imagination, would this not always be a sufficient wonder? For if the medicine of the imagination is the best, why should we not make use of it ?"

We have it on the authority of the contemporary Baron du Potet de Sennevoy, that Paris was deluged with publications on magnetism, some 500 appeared in the space of eighteen months, so that the dispute was warmly argued on both sides, hence the commissioners were exasperated, and their decision was given against the phenomena of mesmerism. In addition, they persecuted the followers of the new doctrine, and a great number of physicians fell victims to their zeal for the propagation of magnetism. Over thirty doctors accused of believing and practicing magnetism were called up in one day to sign a document of declaration against magnetism under a penalty of being struck off the register of practicing physicians. A number of them would not tamper with their conscience, so they were struck off.

This act of intolerance, by a body which should have known better how to respect itself, contributed much towards increasing the number of those who favoured the new doctrine.

Mesmer was ridiculed on the stage, burlesque poems were published against his doctrine, and he himself was travestied in songs which were circulated throughout Paris. Magnetism was the subject of every conversation.

Yet he had his staunch supporters and his clientele was of the most distinguished character, and included many of the noblemen of the Court of Louis XVI. To do him honour, a hundred distinguished patients formed themselves into a committee, and subscribed a hundred Louis d'or each, to found a school for Mesmer to instruct pupils. These pupils afterwards spread the knowledge of magnetism all over France.

After the departure of Mesmer from Paris, magnetism was forgotten for a time. A conflict of very different magnitude soon arose in France, the Revolution, making everybody think of himself. The disciples of Mesmer, all possessed of wealth and rank, were obliged to expatriate themselves, to save their lives, but through their flight mesmerism was spread to Germany, Holland, England and even America.

In 1812 the Prussian Government sent Dr. Wolfart to Mesmer at his German retreat to examine animal magnetism. Wolfart became converted, and introduced mesmeric treatment in Prussian hospitals; subsequently he was appointed Professor in the Berlin University, and lectured on this subject.

It is doubtful whether somnambulism was really known to Mesmer. The accidental discovery of that stage is attributed to one of his disciples, the Marquis de Puysegur. It was while in the act of mesmerising a peasant, a young man of twenty-three, who after only a few passes fell into a profound sleep, unaccompanied by any of the other phenomena of mesmerism In this state the man was observed to speak to himself in an audible tone, relating his own affairs as if in conversation with another person. The mesmeriser, it is said, had such influence over him that he made him change his conversation at will, and perform the most extraordinary feats by word of command or by simply touching his body. This occurred in 1784, and the reputation of the Marquis was established in the province where he was residing, and it soon spread all over the country.

The Marquis de Puysegur revolutionized the application of mesmerism by first causing the subjects to sleep by means of gentle manipulation, instead of surrounding them with mysticism in dimly lighted apartments filled with sweet odors, and the strains of soft and mysterious music, as was the practice of Mesmer. This kindly Marquis—an excellent man with a benevolent heart that led him to devote his time, his talents, his fortune, to the relief of suffering humanity —conceived an idea of quite charming simplicity, which has been ridiculed ever since. This was to magnetise a big tree, so that people might sit under its shade and wait comfortably to be cured. Yet he developed in his subjects the power of clairvoyance, and demonstrated in it a number of ways, and he caused them to obey mental orders as readily as if the orders were spoken.

The followers of Puysegur soon became very numerous. They published new works, in which they developed the doctrine, supported by numerous facts. The phenomena of somnambulism added to the attractions of magnetism. If the enthusiasm with which it was received was less vivid on this second appearance of magnetism, it was, however, more lasting.

Abbe Faria opened, in 1814, a public institution for magnetism, and drew around him many scientific men. A few years later magnetism was practiced in different hospitals: Hotel Dieu, La Salpetriere (authorised by Esquirol), Val-de-Grace, etc., and University Professors acknowledged it in their treatises.

The interest in the subject had revived so far that the Royal Academy of Medicine, in 1825, was induced to order a new investigation on the ground that in animal magnetism, as in all other matters which are submitted to the judgment of erring humanity, new light may be thrown upon the subject by time, and experience, and dispassionate investigation—and that it is always right to review our opinions, and to test them afresh, whether for confirmation or abnegation, by a new and more rigorous examination. A committee was appointed, composed of the ablest and most cautious scientists in their body. For nearly six years that committee pursued its investigations, and in 1831 it submitted its report. So anxious were they to arrive at the truth, that some of the Commissioners themselves submitted to be hypnotised.

This report is interesting even at the present day, and some of the conclusions of the Committee may be quoted.

Conclusions of the Report of the Royal Academy of Medicine of France in 1831

"The contact of the thumbs or of the hands, frictions, or certain gestures made at a short distance from the body, and called passes, are the means employed to connect, or, in other words, to transmit the action of the magnetiser to the magnetised.

" The means which are external and visible are not always necessary, since, on several occasions, the will, fixedness of stare, have sufficed to produce magnetic phenomena, even without the knowledge of the magnetised.

"Magnetism has acted on persons of different sexes and different ages.

"The time necessary to transmit and communicate the magnetic action has varied from one hour to a minute.

" Sleep brought on with more or less readiness, and established to a degree more or less profound, is a real but not a constant effect of magnetism.

"We are satisfied that it has been excited under circumstances where those magnetised could not see, and were ignorant of the means employed to occasion it.

" Magnetism has the same intensity, it is as promptly felt, at the distance of six feet as of six inches, and the phenomena developed by it are the same in the two cases.

" The action at a distance does not seem capable of being exercised with success, except on individuals who have been already subjected to magnetism.

"During the process of magnetising, insignificant and momentary effects manifest themselves sometimes, which we do not attribute to magnetism alone; such as slight oppression, heat or cold, and some other nervous phenomena, which may be accounted for without the intervention of a particular agent, namely, through hope or fear, prejudice, and the expecting of something strange and new, the ennui occasioned by the monotony of the gestures, the silence and calm observed during the experiments, and, finally, through the imagination, which exercises so great a dominion over certain minds and certain organisations.

"A certain number of the effects observed have seemed to us to depend on magnetism alone, and are not reproduced without it. These are well attested physiological and therapeutical phenomena.

"We have not seen that a person magnetised for the first time fell into a state of somnambulism; sometimes it was not till the eighth or tenth sitting that somnambulism declared itself.

"We have constantly seen ordinary sleep, which is the repose of the organs of the sense, of the intellectual faculties, and of the voluntary movements, precede and terminate the state of somnambulism.

"We may conclude, with certainty, that this state exists, when it occasions the development of new faculties, which have received the denominations of clairvoyance, intuition, internal prevision; or when it produces a great change in the physiological state, as insensibility, a considerable and sudden increase of strength, and when this effect cannot be attributed to any other cause.

"When once a person has been made to fall into a magnetic sleep, there is not always a necessity to have recourse to contact, and to passes in order to magnetise anew. The look of the magnetiser, and his will alone, have the same influence on the person. In this case, one may not only act on the person magnetised, but even put him completely into somnambulism, take him out of it without his knowledge, out of his sight, at a certain distance, and through closed doors.

" There usually occur changes, more or less remarkable, in the perceptions and faculties of those individuals who fall into a state of somnambulism by the effect of magnetism.

"Some, amid the noise of confused conversations, hear only the voice of their magnetiser; several answer with precision the questions put to them either by the latter or by the persons near them; others hold on conversations with all the persons around them; however, they seldom understand what passes around them.

Most of the time they are entirely strangers to the external and unexpected noise made in their ears, such as the sound of copper vessels forcibly struck, the fall of any heavy substance, etc.

"The eyes are closed; the eyelids yield with difficulty to the efforts made with the hand to open them. This operation, which is not without pain, allows one to see the eyeball convulsed and directed towards the upper and sometimes towards the lower part of the orbit.

" Sometimes the sense of smell is, as it were, abolished. One may make them respire hydrochloric acid or ammonia, without their being inconvenienced by it, or without even suspecting it. The contrary occurs in certain cases, and they are sensible to odours.

" Most of the somnambulists that we have seen were completely insensible. One might tickle their feet, nostrils, and the angle of the eyes by the approach of a feather, pinch their skin so as to produce ecchymosis, prick them under the nails with pins put in to a considerable depth, without their evincing any pain or being at all aware of it. In a word, we have seen one person who was insensible to one of the most painful operations of surgery, and whose countenance, pulse, and respiration, did not manifest the slightest emotion.

" Whilst they are in this state of somnambulism the magnetised persons we have observed retain the exercise of the faculties which they have while awake. Their memory even appears to be more faithful and more extensive, since they remember what has passed during all the time, and on every occasion that they have been in the state of somnambulism.

"On their awakening they say that they have entirely forgotten all the circumstances connected with the state of somnambulism, and that they never remember them again. With respect to this point we can have no other surety than their own declarations.

"We have seen two somnambulists distinguish with their eyes shut the objects placed before them; they have told, without touching them, the colour and value of the cards; they have read words traced with the hand, or some lines of books opened by mere chance. This phenomneon took place even when the opening of the eyelids was accurately closed by means of the fingers.

"We met in two somnambulists the power of forseeing acts of the organism more or less distant, more or less complicated. One of them announced several days, nay several months beforehand, the day, the hour, and the minute when epileptic fits would come on and return; the other declared the time of the cure. Their previsions were realised with remarkable exactness.

" Considering that magnetism is a generator of physiological phenomena, and a therapeutic agent, it must find its place in the syllabus of medical subjects, and medical men only should practice it, or watch and superintend its employment."

The report concluded with the following address to the members of the Royal Academy:

" The Commission having arrived at the termination of its labours before the closing of this Report, asked itself whether amid all the precautions with which they had surrounded themselves to avoid all surprise; whether with the feeling of constant distrust with which they had always proceeded, they, in the examination of the phenomena observed by them, had scrupulously performed their duty 1 What other course, said we to ourselves, could we have followed? "With what distrust more marked or more cautions could we have been influenced ? Our conscience, gentlemen, has answered us aloud that you could expect nothing from us which we have not done. Then have we been honest, accurate, faithful observers ? It is for you who knew us for so many years, for you who see us constantly either in public life or in our frequent meetings, to answer this question. Your answer, gentlemen, we expect from the old friendship of some of you, and from the esteem of all.

"Certainly we do not presume to make you share our conviction regarding the reality of the phenomena observed by us, and which you have neither seen, nor followed, nor studied with us and as we did.

"We do not, then, claim from you a blind credence in all that we have reported. We conceive that a considerable portion of these facts are so extraordinary, that you cannot grant it to us; probably we ourselves would presume to refuse you ours, if you came to announce them at this tribunal to us, who, like you, had neither seen, observed, nor studied any of them.

"All we require is, that you judge us as we should judge you; that is, that you would be convinced that neither the love of the marvellous, nor the desire of celebrity, nor any interest whatever has guided us in our labours. We were animated by motives of a loftier character, more worthy of you—by the love of science, and by the necessity of justifying the hopes which the Academy had entertained of our zeal and devotion."

The effect of this Report was instantaneous and remarkable. The advocates of magnetism, as a therapeutic agent, and the believers in the occult features of the phenomena, such as clairvoyance and thought-transference, had scored a triumph. But it served only to exasperate the average scientist and to intensify his prejudices. The other members of the Academy were against the committee. An outcry was raised on all sides. The sanctuary of science became an arena in which the passions were let loose. The Academy refused to have the report printed, only a few lithographed copies being supplied to those who asked for it, and it rests to-day in silent oblivion in the manuscript archives of the institution. Another committee was soon after appointed, being composed of avowed enemies of magnetism, and headed by a member who had openly sworn hostility to the doctrine. The result was what might have been expected. After the examination of two subjects under circumstances which, in the light of what is now known, rendered failure inevitable, the committee made a very undignified report in 1837, announcing the failure to produce the occult phenomena promised, and impugning the intelligence of the former committee.

This third report, in 1837, practically killed mesmerism in France for a great number of years.