Report of the Commissioners on Animal Magnetism

symptoms, are likewise gathered in the public treatment rooms.

Nothing is more astonishing than the spectacle of these convulsions; when one has not seen it, one can form no idea of it: and in seeing it, one is equally surprised by the deep repose of one portion of these patients, and by the agitation that animates the others; by the varied symptoms which repeat themselves; and by the sympathies that are established. One sees patients seeking each other out exclusively and, rushing toward one another, smiling, speaking to each other with affection, and mutually soothing their crises. All are submissive to the one who magnetizes; they may appear to be in a deep sleep, yet his voice, a look, or a sign draws them out of it. One cannot help but recognize, in these constant effects, a great power which agitates the patients and masters them, and of which the magnetizer seems to be the depository The "magnetizer" refers to the practitioner, such as Dr. Deslon or Mesmer himself, who was believed to channel a universal fluid into the patient..

This convulsive state is improperly called Crisis in the theory of Animal Magnetism A proposed invisible natural force (fluid) that could be used to heal; the precursor to modern hypnosis.: according to this doctrine, it is regarded as a salutary crisis original: "crise". In 18th-century medicine, a "crisis" was the turning point of a disease where the body supposedly expelled the "morbid matter.", of the kind that Nature operates, or that the skilled Physician has the art to provoke to facilitate the cure of diseases. The Commissioners will adopt this expression in the remainder of this report, and whenever they use the word crisis, they will always mean the state of either convulsions or a kind of lethargic drowsiness produced by the procedures of Animal Magnetism.

The Commissioners observed that among the number of patients in crisis, there were always many women