Mesmer

Mesmer, Anton Friedrich (1733-1815), author of the doctrine of animal magnetism, was born at Meersburg, near Constance. He took the degree of doctor of medicine at Vienna in 1766, his thesis being Be planetarium inftuxu. In 1775 he published a Letter to a Foreign Boctor (Storck), in which he maintained that all bodies are susceptible to the communication of the magnetic fluid, which penetrates everything. He experimented on a patient, convinced some doctors, and created a rage for magnetism in Paris; but the refusal of a pension in exchange for the revelation of his discovery aroused suspicion, and in 1785 a commission, consisting among others of Franklin and Lavoisier, pronounced his claims to be spurious.