Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism

Whilst each Commission implicitly accepted that there was no collusion, pretence, or extensive subject training involved on the part of d'Eslon, they both (independently) concluded that all of the phenomena they had observed during each of their investigations could be directly attributed to "contact",[9][10] "imagination",[11] and/or "imitation".

[15] Consequently, to accurately understand the contemporary significance of the Commissions' work, and the matters that they severally and collectively examined (and, as well, those which they did not) it is important to identify the wide range of significant tensions, disputes, and circumstances prevailing at the time, which prompted the need for an official investigation of the particular nature and type that was undertaken, and the sort of (implicit) issues – in addition to the more specific questions of medicine and of science – that their inquiries would, hopefully, address.

Moreover, in order to gain a balanced understanding of the contemporary significance of the Commissions – as stand-alone historical events – appointed at a specific time, in specific circumstances, with specific goals and, further, in order to apprehend the nature of their investigations, their findings, and the immediate consequences of their reports, a complex of different factors need to be examined (as has been suggested by Craver & Darnden, 2013): Prior to his arrival in Paris in 1777 – with a letter of recommendation from Chancellor von Kaunitz of the Habsburg monarchy to the Austrian Ambassador to France, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau (who, in turn, introduced Mesmer to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy (1720–1800), the Director of the Academy of Sciences) – Mesmer was already known to Marie Antoinette.

At the conclusion of the interview, Mesmer reluctantly agreed to the proposed conditions: that a number of his (previous and current) patients be examined by a team of "commissioners" – it was also stipulated that, as a "requirement" of the King, Mesmer was to "remain in France", until his "doctrines" and his "principles" had been thereby "established", and that he was "not [to] leave except by permission of the King" – and that, if the commissioners' reports were "favourable", the government would issue "a ministerial letter" to that effect (Pattie, 1994, p. 110).

As discussed at considerable length by Spanos and Gottlieb (1979) there were not only a wide range of controversial secular and religious issues relating to the similarities and differences between the induction, manifestations, and immediate and long-term consequences of the "crises" that were (sporadically) produced by the 'magnetic' interventions, and the exorcisms of the Roman Catholic Church, but, also, of greater significance, to the occasional (apparently veridical) reports of post-magnetic "clairvoyance"[25] – a condition that was one of the classic indications for an exorcism whenever it was considered to be "demonically inspired" (as distinct from those cases in which it was considered to be "divinely inspired" (Spanos and Gottlieb, 1979, p. 538)).

Mesmer left Austria in 1777, in controversial circumstances, following his treatment of the young Austrian Pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis for her blindness, and established himself, in Paris, in February 1778.

[60] Mesmer was also well aware of the extent to which, through the "distortion" caused by these "substantive words" (mot substantif) – which inappropriately "personified" (personnifia) these metaphysical abstractions (p. 16) – one is induced to believe in the actual physical existence of the "substance" itself.

It is significant that Mesmer (1799) describes how, once he had formulated the abstract, overarching (metaphorical) construct/concept of "animal magnetism" as the therapeutic agent (a quarter of a century earlier) – and with his hope that this newly described "principle of action" (principe de action), when considered as an agent, "could become a means of healing and, even, one of preserving/defending oneself against disease" (p. 7, Mesmer's emphasis)[61] – the primary focus of his enterprise had become the threefold quest for the acquisition of an understanding of: Mesmer held the materialist position – that his therapies, which involved easily understood, systematic natural principles, were "physiological", rather than "psychological" interventions[62] – in contrast to the supernatural positions of, say, the exorcist Johann Joseph Gassner (1727–1779),[63] the mystic José Custódio de Faria, a.k.a.

"Abbé Faria" (1756–1819), and the magnetists, such as d'Eslon, and, later, Charles Lafontaine (1803–1892),[66] whose demonstrations of "animal magnetism" were attended by James Braid in November 1841, Charles-Nicolas d’Eslon (1750–1786) [fr], "a disciple of the [eminent French] surgeon J.L.

On 28 December 1783, d'Eslon wrote a letter to the Journal de Paris, which not only described the difficulties he had experienced with Mesmer, but also announced that he was opening his own (entirely independent) clinic.

[81] Once d'Eslon had been expelled from the rank of docteur-régent, his membership of the Faculty of Medicine was never reinstated; and unlike Mesmer, he remained in Paris following the publication of the reports of the two Commissions.

[93] In its initial conception, Mesmer's "baquet" was "a vat containing bottles of magnetized water from which steel bars escaped through which the 'magnetization’ took place in the [subjects or patients], who were arranged around the tub holding their hands" (Morabito, loc.cit.).

Given Mesmer's regular (analogical) references throughout his works to the efficient grinding activities of smoothly functioning mills – speaking of how the windmills are driven by the wind, and watermills by the flow of water.

[98] – he usefully extended those analogies to explain the circumstances in which "crises" occur, especially in relation to the magnitude of the "crises": i.e., the dramatic circumstances of the sudden restoration of the lost function of a watermill installation – a direct consequence of the magnitude of the force of the flow of water that has been applied (through the currently stationary waterwheel) to the milling mechanism, which is, in and of itself, directly related to the extent to which the (now-operative) milling mechanism was formerly stationary, out of order, or, even, jammed: Noting that some of those who were "magnetized" by d'Eslon over an extended time "fell into the convulsive movements that have been called Crises" – and noting that these "convulsive movements" (mouvemens convulsifs) were "viewed [by d'Eslon] as evidence of the particular agent to whom they are attributed" – the "Society" Commissioners' Report, in its discussion of the "Crises",[102] identified a number of common characteristics among the majority of those who displayed these "convulsive movements":[103] In the last section of its Report, the "Franklin" Commission, in addition to its remarks on the impact of the phenomena associated with a "crisis", made a number of significant observations on the perceived dangers of experiencing, or simply observing, a "crisis" in a number of domains, including: One interesting aspect of a number of the pro-d'Eslon and pro-Mesmer responses to the Commissions' Reports, collectively, was that they provided figures on the level to which the author in question had observed individual patients manifest full-blown "magnetic crises" as a consequence of their exposure to an extended sequence of standard "magnetic" treatments.

In order to foster and promote orthopraxia,[114] the materialist "mesmerists" used qualitative (rather than quantitative) constructs – centred on Mesmer's abstract and metaphorical overarching analogies with gravity, terrestrial magnetism, and hydraulics – to explain the application of their techniques and to describe their therapeutic rationale.

"[121] Already, in his earlier (18 September 1780) interaction with the Paris Faculty of Medicine, Mesmer had refused to have his therapeutic interventions on a set of entirely "new" patients directly scrutinized, claiming that his already-achieved "cures" were an objective matter of record.

The intricate structure and detailed procedures of the investigations were designed by Lavoisier;[137][138] and great care was taken to eliminate what James Braid would later identify as "sources of fallacy".

[141] When they visited d’Eslon's establishment, the Commissioners discovered that, not only did d’Eslon's standard therapeutics involve (his version of) Mesmer's "baquet", but also a musical (and, from time to time, vocal) accompaniment as a standard part of his treatment: And, moreover, given that the overarching metaphorical "principle" of Mesmer had been (inappropriately) reified ("substantified") by d'Eslon – and, also, given that "the existence of [d'Eslon's] alleged magnetic fluid was only based on the effects on the patients: in other words, the existence of a [substantial] physical entity [was being] inferred not from instrumental measurements and/or quantitative considerations, but by the psychophysical reaction of a living body" (Bersani, 2011, p. 61) – it is significant that, The conduct and rationale of the commission's investigations is described in considerable detail in its Report.

They also quote Mesmer's own "characterization" of his principle[150] – namely, that "In the influence of the magnetism, Nature holds out to us a sovereign instrument for securing the health and lengthening the existence of mankind".

[161] Clearly "recogniz[ing] that publicly endorsing the curative effects of a technique that had no demonstrable basis in the science of the late 18th century could lead to a proliferation of medical quackery" (McConkey & Perry, 2002, p. 328) and, based on their own "experiments" and "observations", the Commissioners concluded that "the true causes of the effects attributed to this new agent known by the name of animal magnetism, [and] to this fluid which is said to circulate in the body and to communicate itself from one individual to another" were "touch, imagination, [and] imitation":[162][163] The Commission found no evidence of any kind to support d'Eslon's claim for the existence of a "magnetic fluid": A second (brief) report – which had been presented privately to the King on 11 August 1784,[166] but not made public until 1800 (i.e., in the time of The Consulate period of French First Republic) – specifically addressed the perceived moral dangers occasioned by the physical practices of the animal magnetists: In concluding their report, they stress that they had not observed any "real cures" (guérisons réelles) from d'Eslon's treatments – which were, they noted, both "very long" and "unfruitful" – and, also, stress that, among d'Eslon's patients, those who had been under his treatment for 18 months to 2 years, without any benefit, ceased to present for any further treatment, having exhausted their patience (p. 152).

Noting that all of their investigations were jointly conducted with the four members of the Paris Faculty, and that all nine shared the same "interest in [discovering] the truth", they stressed that all the findings of their combined efforts were "unanimous" (p. 2).

Noting that the "greater" and "more extraordinary" a discovery, the more difficult it was to settle on suitable proof, they reported that, as physicists, they were unable to detect the presence of d'Eslon's supposed (substantial) "fluid" (p. 6).

The first of the two reports, made by four of the five Commissioners (of 39 pages) – namely, Charles-Louis-François Andry, Claude-Antoine Caille, Pierre Jean Claude Mauduyt de La Varenne, and Pierre-Isaac Poissonnier – was presented to the King on 16 August 1784.

37–39) were, in brief, that they had found no evidence of d'Eslon's "magnetic fluid", that there were "no grounds for any belief in animal magnetism", that "the effects attributed to it are due to known causes", including not only the influence of "contact", "imagination", and/or "imitation", but also the influence of "the environment of the treatment room with its closed windows, fetid air, dim light, and the sight of other patients [and their responses to their treatments]"[172] – and, as Laurence notes, that "the [observed] results .

Noting that, in his view, "a longer use of this agent will make its real action and degree of usefulness to be better understood", de Jussieu concluded: The release of the reports generated a proliferation of publications, many of which were simply addressing issues relating to either "mesmerism" or "animal magnetism" in general – such as, for instance, those of Jean-Jacques Paulet (1784), and Michel-Augustin Thouret [fr] (1784) – while others, such as those of Charles Joseph Devillers, himself a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences – who (at Devillers, 1784, pp.

The Faculty identified some thirty of its docteurs-régent, including François Louis Thomas d'Onglée and Charles-Louis Varnier,[178] who "openly favored animal magnetism or were suspected of so doing".

would hardly be possible [to implement]", because, apart from those within the medical profession who had been trained by himself and by Mesmer, "a large number of other people had, as a result of their own study, begun to practice it" (Pattie, 1994, p. 171).

[198] The detailed studies of Stephen Jay Gould (1989) and John Kihlstrom (2002), drew disciplinary attention to nature and the form of the commission's extended examination as a watershed moment in the history of science – subsequent to which things were never the same.

[200] Inspired by these studies, a number of other scholars, in other scientific domains – such as, for example, Shermer (1996), Kaptchuk (1998), Green (2002), Best, Neuhauser, and Slavin (2003), Herr (2005), Lanska & Lanska (2007), Kaptchuk, Kerr & Zanger (2009), Davies Wilson (2014), Jensen, Janik & Waclawik (2016), Zabell (2016), Donaldson (2017), and Rosen et al. (2019) – have also identified the commission's examination as a previously unrecognized "classic" example of a controlled trial.

[215] As a consequence of the debunking by Colquhoun, Braid, and others, phreno-magnetism – which, in yet another case of "prima facie plausibility", had (initially) seemed to promise such a wide range of valuable therapeutic and moral applications[216] – "soon morphed into theatrical performances demonstrating the ‘reality’ of phrenology to credulous audiences, with lecturers pressing specific locations on the cranium of their [magnetised] subjects, and their subjects immediately displaying responses appropriate to the characteristics of each phrenological zone" (Yeates, 2018, p. 56) [see, for example, figure at right].