Magnetic Magic

The most controversial new medical treatment in Vienna today is that of Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who claims to cure both physical and mental illness through the invisible forces of "animal magnetism." Although many reputable physicians insist that this magnetism does not exist, Mesmer points to the case of Franziska Oesterlin, 28, a friend of his wife's, whom he successfully treated two years ago for hysterical convulsions, pains in the ears, toothache, fainting spells, retention of urine, and delirium. Newspaper reports of that case brought Viennese flocking to his office.

Mesmer, 42, studied at the University of Vienna, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation On the Influence of the Planets. He argued that celestial bodies exert a gravitational force on an invisible magnetic fluid that exists in all living organisms. Some people fall ill because they are deficient in this fluid, Mesmer says, but can be cured by a transfer of fluid from another body.

Mesmer undertakes to perform this transference. He emerges from behind heavy drapes accompanied by gentle harmonies from a hidden orchestra (a noted patron of music, Mesmer has commissioned an opera, Bastien und Bastienne, from a local prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Mesmer then installs up to 30 patients around a tub equipped with magnetic rods for the transfer of the fluid. In recent weeks, he has stopped using magnets and now says he can transfer the fluid through his own hands.

Skeptics insist that Mesmer's cures are a result of his patients' hopes and imagination. If that is true, his treatment might simply be called Mesmerism.

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