Report of the Commissioners on Animal Magnetism

...contested, when one can doubt the effect of medications whose existence is not a problem?

The cure cited most often in favor of Magnetism The theory proposed by Franz Mesmer that an invisible "animal magnetic fluid" could be manipulated to heal the body. is that of Baron ; both the Court and the city were equally well-informed of it. We will not enter here into a discussion of the facts; we will not examine whether the remedies previously employed might have contributed to this cure. We admit, on the one hand, the extreme danger of the patient's condition, and on the other, the ineffectiveness of all the means of ordinary medicine Refers to standard 18th-century medical practices such as bloodletting, purging, and herbal pharmacy.; Magnetism was put into use, and Baron *** was completely cured. But could not a crisis of Nature Original: "crise de la Nature." In historical medicine, a "crisis" was a turning point where the body naturally expelled the "morbific" (disease-causing) matter. alone have brought about this cure? A woman of the people, very poor, living in Gros-Caillou A working-class district in Paris near the Eiffel Tower's current location., was stricken in 1779 with a very well-defined malignant fever; she constantly refused all assistance, asking only that a vessel beside her be kept full of water. She remained quietly upon the straw that served as her bed, drinking water all day and doing nothing else. The disease developed, passed successively through its different stages, and ended in a complete recovery (c). Mademoiselle G, living at the King's Small Stables Original: "Petites-écuries du Roi." These were the royal stables in Versailles or Paris, often housing staff and officials., had two glands in her right breast that troubled her greatly; a

(c) This detailed observation was presented to the Faculty of Medicine of Paris in a first-of-the-month assembly original: "prima mensis." These were the regular business and reporting meetings of the medical faculty. by M. Bourdois de la Mothe, a charity physician of Saint-Sulpice, who visited the patient every day without fail.