However, in Mesmer's day doctoral theses were not expected to be original. Pattie suggests that Mesmer plagiarized most of his dissertation from other works, including De imperio solis ac lunae in corpora humana et morbius inde oriundis (1704) by Richard Mead, an eminent English physician and Newton's friend. This was not medical astrology.īuilding largely on Isaac Newton's theory of the tides, Mesmer expounded on certain tides in the human body that might be accounted for by the movements of the sun and moon. In 1766 he published a doctoral dissertation with the Latin title De planetarum influxu in corpus humanum ( On the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body), which discussed the influence of the moon and the planets on the human body and on disease. After studying at the Jesuit universities of Dillingen and Ingolstadt, he took up the study of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1759. He was a son of master forester Anton Mesmer (1701-after 1747) and his wife, Maria Ursula (née Michel 1701–1770). Mesmer was born in the village of Iznang (now part of the municipality of Moos), on the shore of Lake Constance in Swabia. Mesmer also supported the arts, specifically music he was on friendly terms with Haydn and Mozart. In 1843, the Scottish doctor James Braid proposed the term " hypnotism" for a technique derived from animal magnetism today the word " mesmerism" generally functions as a synonym of "hypnosis". Mesmer's theory attracted a wide following between about 17, and continued to have some influence until the end of the 19th century. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects this he called " animal magnetism", sometimes later referred to as mesmerism. Just five years later, France would descend into the chaos of a violent revolution.Franz Anton Mesmer ( / ˈ m ɛ z m ər/ German: – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. Relatedly, there is an incredibly lucid discussion of mass psychogenic illness, and mass hysteria more generally, including in cases of war and political upheaval. The report also contains a detailed account of how self-directed attention can generate what are known today as psychosomatic symptoms. Other phenomena reminiscent of the modern-day notion of priming, and the role of expectations more generally, are pointed out throughout the document. That seems to be what propelled them to make the study placebo-controlled and single-blind. Just to mention a few further insights, the commissioners were patently aware of psychological phenomena like the experimenter effect, concerned as they were that some patients might report certain sensations because they thought that is what the eminent men of science wanted to hear. Stephen Jay Gould called the work “a masterpiece of the genre, an enduring testimony to the power and beauty of reason” that “should be rescued from its current obscurity, translated into all languages”. Whatever the moral case may be, the report paved the way for the modern empirical approach in more ways than one. The typical session would last for hours and culminate in a curative “crisis” of nervous hiccups, hysterical sobs, cries, coughs, spitting, fainting, and convulsing, thus restoring the normal harmonious flow of the fluid. It appears that these blockages, in the ladies in particular, are generally in the lower abdomen, thighs, and sometimes “the ovaria”. Meanwhile, a charming man in an elaborate lilac silk coat is circulating, touching various parts of the patients’ bodies where the magnetic fluid may be hindered or somehow stuck. Through the low-lit room - adorned with mirrors to reflect invisible forces - there wafts incense and strange music, the other-worldly sounds of the glass harmonica (invented by a certain Benjamin Franklin). A rope attached to the tub is loosely coiled about them, and they are holding hands to create a “circuit”. From its lid emerge a number of bent iron rods against which the patients expectantly press their afflicted areas. Patients, mostly women, are sitting around a large wooden tub filled with magnetic water, powdered glass, and iron filings.
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