Part 15

The details of Mesmer's early doings are of special value, for in them we may expect to discover the true nature of the man and his system; our knowledge of them is derived mainly from the account, written some thirty-five years after the events, by a not too discerning eyewitness. They give a sufficiently definite picture of his manner and methods. Magnets and electric machines, passes and strokings, fantastic dress and equally fantastic manipulations, he utilized even before he became well known. The method was always the same; calling out pains and paroxysms and crises, and in turn allaying the symptoms thus aroused until the patient was pronounced cured. From the first, too, he was anxious to secure the recognition of authoritative bodies of scientific men. Early in 1775, Mesmer proposed his theory for acceptance to several learned societies, but received no encouragement. His use of magnets (which he probably derived from the astronomer, Hell) had aroused the opposition of his fellow-practitioners, and his professed cure of a protégé of Maria Theresa involved him in a somewhat unseemly dispute, ultimately necessitating his departure from Vienna. In February, 1778, he came to Paris, where he entered upon a remarkable but brief career, terminating somewhat abruptly in 1784.

Mesmer has left us a narrative of his doings during the first three of these years--a record devoted almost exclusively to a wearisome account of his controversies with the various learned societies of Paris. He appealed to the French Academy of Sciences and to the Royal Medical Society, announcing a most wonderful physical discovery, to describe which suitable words were as yet lacking. Mesmer wished these societies to sanction his discovery, not to act as judges of its truth, of which he says there can be no reasonable doubt. He offered them a series of dogmatic propositions, setting forth the nature of animal magnetism, and apparently desired the cures to be considered a subordinate part of the issue. He was, however, continuously engaged in curing disease. His most valuable convert was M. Deslon, a member of the Medical Faculty of Paris, a man of considerable influence, who at once espoused Mesmer's cause with unlimited enthusiasm. He invited a dozen of his colleagues to meet Mesmer at dinner, and had read to them an exposition of the system of animal magnetism. The company seem not to have been very deeply impressed; for it was with difficulty that Deslon induced three of them to associate themselves with him in an investigation; and they soon deserted him, when their requests for simple, unambiguous tests and their explanation of the observed effect as due to an overstimulated imagination, were alike disregarded. The point at issue in these tests seems to have been whether Mesmer in his own person possessed an influence or magnetic radiation, which brought him into rapport with his magnetically sensitive subjects; but Mesmer apparently regarded any test that reflected the skeptical attitude of the investigators as unbecomingly suspicious. Deslon, however, remained a staunch believer in the new system, and defended its cause before the Faculty of Medicine, dwelling upon the honor of having it presented to them, and the eternal glory they would merit by accepting "the most important discovery at which the human mind had ever marveled." But the Faculty voted to reject the propositions, and Deslon lost his seat in their body.

This adverse action, together with Mesmer's threat to leave France, seems to have swelled the enthusiasm in his behalf to enormous proportions. He tells us that he received a letter from the queen urging him not to shirk his duty to mankind by leaving France at this juncture, that he was visited by a high official in behalf of the king offering him an annuity of 20,000 livres, with an additional 10,000 livres for the rental of an establishment for operating his cures. Mesmer insisted upon the formal and irrevocable admission of the existence and utility of his discovery as preliminary to all negotiations, and demanded, in addition to the annuity, the gift of an estate; but this was a step farther than royal protection would venture.

Our information regarding the latter portion of Mesmer's Parisian career is meagre. In 1781 Deslon published his work on "Animal Magnetism," in which he repeats with undiminished enthusiasm his praises of Mesmer, describes the marvelous cures he has witnessed and prophesies the eventual triumph of the system. Shortly thereafter Mesmer went to the Spa; Deslon remained in Paris and began to treat patients by animal magnetism and with great success. He formed a special private class of educated men and women, from each of whom he received ten louis d'or per month. Upon hearing of this, Mesmer hurried back to Paris and found his former adherents divided into Mesmerists and Deslonists. He then (October, 1782) denounced Deslon as one who had betrayed his secrets and was misrepresenting the system. Through the efforts of friends, an inner circle--the first of the "Loges d'Harmonie"--was formed, consisting of one hundred members, each of whom paid one hundred louis d'or for the privilege of hearing Mesmer's exposition of his whole secret. Dissensions and discussions continued to arise; one of his hearers said "that those who know the secret are in greater doubt than those who are ignorant of it;" and M. Berthellot, the chemist, who in paying his fee reserved the right of criticism, was so irritated at the pedantic and ridiculous treatment to which he was subjected, that he upset the "baquet" and left the room in a violent rage. Matters went on in this way, with frequent propositions of a scientific examination, and as frequent refusals on the part of Mesmer to have further dealings with scientific societies, until, in 1784, the famous commission was appointed by the throne.

This commission was composed of four members of the Faculty of Medicine, MM. Borie (who at his death was succeeded by M. Majault), Sallin, Darcet, Guillotin, to whom were added five members of the Academy of Sciences, MM. Franklin, Leroy, Bailly, Lavoisier, and de Bory. Their report describes in scrupulous and careful detail everything that they witnessed at the house of Deslon, who carefully and circumstantially assured them that Mesmer's procedures and his own were quite the same; and who allowed them the greatest freedom in examinations and tests. They tried the treatment themselves, but felt no effects. They emphasized the fact that public performances in which excitement and contagion have full play are more successful than private ones, and that the subjects most easily influenced are to be found among the ignorant rather than among the educated classes. They blindfolded one of their subjects, and pretended to perform the usual passes, while they really did nothing; yet the expected results ensued. It was believed that when the subject came in contact with a tree that had been magnetized, the symptoms of an approaching crisis would be manifested; accordingly they had a tree in Franklin's garden magnetized, but their subject went to four other trees and at each exhibited the usual phenomena. From such experiments, ingeniously devised and varied, the commissioners concluded that the effects witnessed were due to an overstimulated imagination, to an anticipation of the result, to excitement and contagion. "Let us represent to ourselves," they say, "the situation of a person of the lower class, and in consequence ignorant, attacked with a distemper and desirous of a cure, introduced with some degree of ceremony to a large company partly composed of physicians, where an operation is performed upon him, totally new, and from which he persuades himself beforehand that he is about to experience prodigious effects. Let us add to this that he is paid for his compliance, that he thinks he shall contribute more to our satisfaction by professing to experience sensations of some kind, and we shall have definite causes to which to attribute these effects."

There was presented at the same time a secret report by the same commission, dwelling upon the dangers to morality inherent in these practices. A commission appointed by the Royal Medical Society reported to the same effect. They found in all their experiments that an expectation of the result was necessary to its accomplishment, and they directed attention anew to the entire lack of proof of any of Mesmer's propositions regarding the magnetic fluid. To this second report there was one dissenting voice, that of Jussieu, the botanist, who, while rejecting all belief in animal magnetism, yet curiously regarded heat, as developed by friction, as an essential factor of the phenomena. Furthermore, M. Thouret reported, by request of the same society, upon the literature and history of the doctrine, and traced the notions which Mesmer advanced to older writers; and showed the similarity of his practices to those of former astrologers and mystics. In opposition to these reports, of which more than twenty thousand copies were issued, Mesmer denounced the government, the scientific societies, the medical profession, and all who had opposed him. His attitude may be inferred from the closing words of a letter to Franklin. "I am like you, Sir, one of those whom one cannot oppress without danger, one of those men, who, because they have done great things, dispose of insult as other men dispose of authority. If any one like you, Sir, cares to try it, I have the world as my judge, and if the world can forget the good I have done, and prevent the good I wish to do, I have posterity as my avenger."

These adverse reports were most influential in terminating Mesmer's career in Paris; but in this they were assisted by other events. Several deaths at the "baquet" alarmed his adherents, and were promptly turned to account by his opponents. The death of M. Court de Gébelin, an author and prominent man of the day, was the occasion of the characteristic comments of the period; and especially so as he had recently and publicly announced his indebtedness for renewed health to Mesmer. One of the journals noted his death thus: "M. Court de Gébelin vient de mourir, guéri par le Magnetisme animale;" another suggested for his epitaph:--

"Ci gît ce pauvre Gébelin, Qui savait grec, hébreu, latin; Admirez tous son héroïsme, Il fut martyr de magnetisme."

A comedy entitled "Docteurs Modernes" brought the "baquet" upon the stage, ridiculed Mesmer and his procedures, and hinted with no great delicacy at the abuses to which the popularity of his treatment might give rise. In England the system was thus satirized:

THE WONDERFUL MAGNETICAL ELIXIR

Take of the chymical oil of Fear, Dread, and Terror, each 4 ounces; of the rectified Spirits of Imagination 2 pounds;

Put all these ingredients into the bottle of fancy, digest for several days, and take forty drops at about nine in the morning, or a few minutes before you receive a portion of the Magnetic Effluvia. They will make the effluvia have a surprising effect, etc., etc.

In 1785 there appeared a mock funeral oration upon Mesmer, travestying with endless extravagance his pretensions and methods. Caricature was a favorite mode of attack; and the examples that have escaped destruction vividly preserve the spirit and the local color of the times. Yet both learned and unlearned opinion was divided, and the press was the medium of eulogy as well as of denunciation. Of still greater importance were the discoveries of the Marquis de Puységur, one of Mesmer's disciples, which diverted the interest in animal magnetism into a new channel; and, finally, the turmoil of the French Revolution drove Mesmerism into obscurity, and Mesmer to a retreat in the town of Frauenfeld, near the lake of Constance. Our last picture of Mesmer shows him living in simple seclusion, complaining of the world's treatment of him, performing cures among those about him, and cherishing to the end his belief in animal magnetism. He died March 5, 1815, at Meersburg, where he lies buried.

IV

The system of animal magnetism Mesmer summed up in a series of twenty-seven propositions presented entirely without proof, asserting the existence of an "universally diffused subtle fluid, appearing in all portions of the celestial system, and affecting the animal economy by insinuating itself into the nerves; it has properties analogous to that of the magnet, may be reflected like light, propagated like sound, and may be increased, opposed, accumulated, transmitted to another object, and transported; furthermore this principle, which is, in a way, a sixth sense artificially acquired, will cure nervous disease directly, and others indirectly by provoking salutary crises, thus bringing the art of healing to perfection." Mesmer's methods varied at different stages of his career. The use of magnets as the main or exclusive factor in his cures, he seems to have abandoned before going to Paris; at first he made the passes with his hands, or with an iron rod, directing his fingers toward his patient, and emphasizing these movements by strokings and rubbings. The object of these manipulations was to concentrate and send out the magnetism with which his body was saturated. This magnetism he could transfer to others or to inanimate objects. "I have magnetized paper, bread, wool, silk, leather, stone, glass, water, different metals, wood, men, dogs,--in one word, all that I have touched, so that these substances produced the same effects on the patients as the magnets." When his increasing success no longer allowed him to attend personally to all his patients, he employed a valet toucher, or imparted the curative properties to water, to a tree, etc. At the height of his career he devised the "baquet," which he describes as a "small open vessel on a three-legged support, from which emerged some bent iron rods, the points of which could be easily applied to the outer parts of the body, such as the head, breast, stomach, etc." The baquet and other paraphernalia served to concentrate and impart the fluid that issued abundantly from Mesmer's person. An eyewitness thus describes the results of the treatment: "Some patients experienced pains and fever; others fell into unusual and severe convulsions, frequently lasting for three hours; others became faint and dazed, and but few remained unaffected. There were manifested the most violent involuntary distortions of the limbs; partial suffocation, heaving of the abdomen, wild glances, were observed; one patient utters piercing cries, another has fits of laughter, while a third bursts into tears. Nothing can break this spell save the command of the magnetizer, and whether the patients be in the wildest frenzy or in the deepest stupor, a word, look, or nod of the master is sufficient to bring them to consciousness. This violent condition was technically termed a crisis, and deprived the patients of all consciousness so that none could at all remember what had been felt, heard, or done while in this condition; and yet they were so sensitive that one could not come in contact with them, not even touch the chair on which they sat, without causing fright and convulsions which only the master could pacify." As the cures progressed, the patients lost their sensitiveness to the magnetic fluid. The scenes about the baquet have come to be the most usual association with the name of Mesmer. The dimly lit room, the odor of incense, the mellow tones of the organ, the hushed silence and anxious expectancy; the entrance of Mesmer, wand in hand, clad in striking robes, to initiate the crises that then spread by the contagion of nervous disorder; all these reflect the intellectual and social conditions of the time, and are most naturally interpreted as the adaptation of a shrewd adventurer to his environment.

In the light of this account it becomes clear that while an altered condition of the nervous system and a state of increased suggestibility were constantly manifested in Mesmer's _salle des crises_, yet Mesmer did not at all appreciate the nature of the process by which the effects were produced, nor the condition which he brought about in his patients. In brief, Mesmerism in the hands of Mesmer was clearly only an antecedent of hypnotism. Yet certain of the more detailed descriptions of the scenes about the baquet unmistakably indicate that some of Mesmer's subjects went into a true hypnotic condition; that as many or more were the victims of more or less complex hysterical attacks is equally clear. But to this aspect of the phenomena, Mesmer was entirely inattentive. His attention was devoted to the elaboration of the physical agencies which in his view were the cause of the phenomena, and to the production of the rather violent symptoms of the crisis which he always regarded as an essential part of the curative procedure. He elaborated the baquet, filled it with bottles and glass and iron filings and water arranged in fanciful ways, and in some mystical sense suggestive of magnetic influences. Mesmerism thus consisted of the induction of crises by animal magnetism, as concentrated in Mesmer's person and assisted by the baquet, by passes and physical manipulations. Farther than this Mesmer never went in his comprehension of the phenomena that we now know as hypnotism. Indeed, when he was confronted with Puységur's subjects in the somnambulic state, he regarded the production of this true hypnotic condition as foolish, and considered it to be only a subordinate phase of the magnetic crisis. Towards the close of his life, and when the turmoil and the glory of his Parisian career were memories of the past, when he had had abundant opportunity for reflection and for the observation of the altered condition which the status of Mesmerism had assumed, Mesmer still maintained unaltered the dogmas of animal magnetism.

In criticism of the attitude of the commission, it may certainly be held that they underestimated the significance of what they saw and used the term "imagination" in a sense both vague and uncritical; and yet the tenor of their conclusions was as wholesome as it was justifiable. They were primarily concerned with the correctness of the proposed explanation of the phenomena, and with the value of the curative procedures; and on these points their verdict is logically reached and forcibly stated. The psychic element in the guidance of conduct as in the treatment of diseases they were prepared to acknowledge, but not as an indorsement of animal magnetism. "In searching for an imaginary cause for animal magnetism, the actual power which man exercises over his fellow-beings without the immediate and evident intervention of a physical agent, is recognized." Their tests evidence their appreciation of the efficacy of suggestion, a power which they admit "can be elaborated to an art." While it may properly be urged that the report contributed to the postponement of the scientific study of this class of phenomena, its admirable logical qualities entitle its authors to the gratitude and honorable remembrance of mankind. Indeed, in deference to the excited state of public opinion of the time, they subjected themselves and others to most painstaking tests, assuming the burden of disproof, and treating Mesmer's arbitrary attitude with more than scientific fairness. Their verdict not only destroyed Mesmer's pretensions, but held out a rational, though in our present lights an inadequate, interpretation of the phenomena, then so sensationally presented to an excited and distraction-loving public.

V

Before the commissioners had completed their examination, the aspect of animal magnetism was, in the hands of a French nobleman, undergoing an entire change. The Marquis A. M. J. Chastenet de Puységur, born in 1752, came of a distinguished family, and himself took an important part in the Revolution; his death was the result of a romantic but imprudent act of devotion to the royalist cause, on the occasion of the coronation of Charles X. in 1825. He was one of Mesmer's select pupils, and himself a good subject at the baquet; and likewise remained a firm supporter of the doctrines of animal magnetism. He had constructed a baquet at his estate at Buzancy, and was applying the "Mesmeric" practices among his dependents. It happened on the fourth of May, 1784, that he had magnetized his subject, Victor, in the usual way, when (to continue with his own words) "what was my surprise to see at the end of a quarter of an hour this man sleeping peaceably in my arms without convulsion or pain.... He spoke and seemed occupied with his own thoughts.... I perceived that these were affecting him unpleasantly, and I stopped them and suggested pleasanter ones, which indeed was not difficult. Soon I saw that he was happy, imagining that he had drawn a prize or was dancing at a fête, etc.; these ideas I fostered, and thus forced him to move about on his chair as if dancing to a melody, which I made him repeat aloud, by humming it myself." Upon awakening, Victor remembered nothing of what had happened. In this observation there are clearly recognizable an altered mental condition, a sleep-like unconscious state, loss of memory upon awakening, and suggestibility of sensations, ideas, and movements,--all important characteristics of a true hypnosis. Indeed, this may be considered as the first clearly recorded and uncomplicated production of the condition which made possible the study of hypnotism.

The phenomena thus presented might readily have been the starting-point of a scientific investigation of this peculiar state, had not a subsequent observation unfortunately directed the experiments into a different channel. When Victor was again thrown into this "magnetic crisis" or sleep,--as Puységur at first termed it,--he began to speak, describing his ailments, directing what should be done to effect his cure, and giving similar prescriptions, when questioned in regard to the treatment of others. This strange condition, which by its analogy to sleep-walking came to be termed "artificial somnambulism," was destined to mark a turning-point in the history of the topic. It was evident, almost from the outset, that the baquet and the other paraphernalia, the crises, pain, and contortions were rendered quite unnecessary. The patients had become their own physicians, prescribing such simple remedies as were familiar to them by use or hearsay, and predicting the time of appearance and the nature of the symptoms, such as they had witnessed about the baquet or in everyday life. Within two months of the first observation, 62 cures had been effected under Puységur's direction, 300 patients were in attendance, and 10 somnambulists had been discovered; before the close of the year (1784) Puységur published a volume detailing his cures, his correspondence, and his theory of animal magnetism.