An Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism

a variety of cases, the new magnetic mode of treatment; and among the number of his patients was M. Bauer, the celebrated professor of mathematics at Vienna, who put himself under his care and publicly attested to the cure Mesmer effected.

The erroneous reports which were soon circulated abroad concerning the method he adopted induced Mesmer to address a letter to the different scientific academies in Europe, in which he gave an account of his discovery and solicited their attention to the subject. The Académie des Sciences de Berlin was the only one that deigned to answer his letter, and in doing so, passed on him the laconic sentence: "Qu'il n'était qu'un visionnaire" (That he was nothing but a visionary). It appears that Mesmer himself could not understand the apathy with which his discovery was treated.

"The system," said he, "which led me to the discovery of animal magnetism was not the work of a single day. Long trains of reflection had successively accumulated in my mind. Nothing but my own perseverance gave me the necessary courage to encounter the prejudices of reason and philosophy without considering myself guilty of great temerity. The cold manner in which the first notions I ventured to publish were received surprised me; it was altogether so unexpected. Derision seemed to me particularly misplaced, proceeding as it did from the learned—and especially the medical—world, since my system, even had it been entirely destitute of truth, would at least have been as reasonable as any of the systems which are adorned with the name of universal principles. This failure of success induced me to revise my former opinions, and so far from losing by this scrutiny, they reappeared to me clad in the brightest colors of evidence. Indeed, everything..."