Mesmerism :: Research Papers Franz Mesmer

Mesmerism Mesmerism is a call coined after a man named Franz Anton Mesmer (writers also refer to him as Franciscus Antonius Mesmer, Franz Antoine Mesmer and Friedrich Anton Mesmer http//www.hcrc.org/ verbiage/m.html ). Mesmer was born in Iznag, Swabia (Germany on May 23, 1734 (http//www.eb.com/cgi-bin/g?keywords=mesmerism). He went on in life to complete medical training at the University of capital of Austria, by this time he was thirty-two years of age (http//serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html). accord to one source, his first claim to fame revolved around an incident where it is give tongue to that he cured a blind girl. However, this turned out solitary(prenominal) to be a reversal of her hysteria that he actually performed (http//www.geocities.com/Vienna/8536/). According to another source, Mesmers real first case was in 1773 when he met a young woman who was suffering from a variety of hap physical ailments. He then tried to relate the fluctuation of her sy mptoms with the tides and firm to try to induce a tide in his patient. He asked her to soak up a solution containing iron and affixed magnets to her stomach and legs. The girl utter she felt a mysterious fluid coursing throughout her em personify. Miraculously her symptoms started to disappear and with several treatments they vanished. From this, Mesmer gained fame. A few years later, infra some sort of pressure, perhaps political, he left Vienna for Paris. hither Mesmers therapy and healing practices became quite popular (http//serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html). It is in Paris where Mesmer wrote his take for called, Reflections on the Discourse of living organism Magnetism . This book contained 27 prefatorial principles that Mesmer held to be true (Fuller 4). Basically, it said that there was a physical charismatic fluid interconnecting each element of the universe, including human bodies (http//serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html).This was essentially Animal Magnetism (http//www.hcrc.org/diction/m.html). Mesmer argued that disease resulted from a disequilibrium of this fluid with in the body. To cure this, physicians manipulated these fluids using magnets or their hands in order to hold this energy from the universe at large into the patients body (http//serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html). This was the agentive role with which he induced hypnosis in patients (http//www.hcrc.org/diction/m.html). Mesmer went so far as to suggest that animal magnetism constituted the etheric medium through which sensations of every kind-light, heat, magnetism, electricity- were able to pass from one physical object to another believed that his breakthrough had removed the basic impediment to scientific progress and that every nation of human knowledge would soon undergo rapid transformation and onward motion.