Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/599

Rh hypnotic power was discovered in a person, he at once considered himself as one who possessed attributes which placed him above the plane of society. Suggestion was of course practised as it always has been, but the true idea of what the power consisted of was unknown. At last, toward the close of the century, Frederick Anton Mesmer rose before the world as a disciple of a new force which was destined to turn the scale on to the side of science and forever after to present hypnotism in a new light.

Frederick Anton Mesmer was born at Weil, near the point at which the Rhine leaves the Lake of Constance, on May 23, 1733. He studied medicine at Vienna under eminent masters, although at first his parents had destined him for the church. Interested in astrology, he imagined that the stars exerted an influence on beings living on the earth. He identified the supposed force first with electricity and then with magnetism; and it was but a short step to suppose that stroking diseased bodies with magnets might effect a cure. In 1776, meeting Gassner in Switzerland, he observed that the priest effected cures without the use of magnets, but by manipulation alone. This led Mesmer to discard the magnets, and to suppose that some kind of occult force resided in himself by which he could influence others. Mesmer's first practical work with magnets was in 1779, when he magnetized a young lady complaining of various functional disorders. This emotional young lady 'felt internally a painful streaming of a very fine substance, now here, now there, but finally settling in the lower part of her body and freeing her from all further attacks for six hours.' She was extremely sensitive to any of Mesmer's suggestions, but would obey no one but him. Thus we see the primeval workings of animal magnetism, afterwards called hypnotism.

Mesmer removed to Paris in 1778, and in a short time the French capital was thrown into a state of great excitement by the marvelous effects of what he called mesmerism. Mesmer soon made many converts; controversies arose; he excited the indignation of the medical faculty of Paris, who stigmatized him as a charlatan; still the people crowded to him.

While at Paris his practise became so enormous that it was impossible for him to handle all his patients. So he invented a scheme by which a number of his patients could be magnetized at once. He had troughs filled with bottles of water and iron filings, around which the patients stood holding iron rods which issued from the troughs. All the subjects were tied to each other by cords so that they could not break away and thus spoil the contact. Perfect silence was necessary and soft music was heard. The patients were affected variously, according to the suggestion Mesmer gave them. Some became hysterical, others crazed, some became affectionate and embraced