The Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century 313Despite Whytt’s caveat, William Cullen (1784), the influen-
tial nosologist, considered all diseases, but especially psychic
diseases, to be neuroses. For many years the term neurosis,
first coined by Cullen, referred to a biological disorder of the
nervous system, but one not localized to a specific part of the
nervous system. According to Cullen, life is maintained by
brain energy flowing from the central nervous system to
muscles and solid organs; disease results if the energy is
inadequate. The debate about the presence or absence of a
neurological disorder underlying the neuroses continued well
into the late nineteenth century.
From Magnetism and Mesmerism to Hypnosis
The sixteenth century saw the development of magnetism, a
theory and treatment of disease concurrent with, but outside
that of traditional medicine. William Gilbert (1544–1603),
English scientist and physician to the queen of England, dis-
covered the physical force of magnetism. Gilbert’s discov-
ery gave rise to the notion of a cosmic magnetic life force
that permeates the universe and controls psychological
and physiological functioning, and magnets gained popular-
ity as a means of manipulating this force to cure physical
and mental disease. During the eighteenth century this cos-
mic force was redefined as the force of gravity posited by
Newton and was regarded as a vital principle of life. The
practice of magnetism to treat disease, rationalized by
Newton’s theory, became particularly popular in Germany
and Austria. The notion relating magnetic force’s influence
on the balance of bodily spirits received renewed emphasis
with the popularity of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815)
whose theory of disease and its cure combined century-old
notions from humoral theory with the idea of occult natural
forces borrowed from Newtonian physics. Mesmer identi-
fied a “subtle and mobile fluid” as the medium of the force
of universal gravity and the primeval agent of nature. He de-
scribed it as bathing the entire universe, surrounding and
penetrating all bodies that exist and particularly exercised
on the nervous system. All illness, physical and psychologi-
cal, results from an imbalance of the fluid’s distribution
within the body. Certain privileged individuals are capa-
ble of directing this fluid in the bodies of sick people to re-
store its balance. Mesmer established a medical practice in
Vienna and began using magnets to treat disease in 1774,
but soon discovered that he did not need magnets—he could
produce the same effects by passing his hands downward
over his patient’s body toward the feet, even at a distance.
He concluded that he, himself, must have an accumulation
of “animal magnetism” in his body that he could transmit to
the patient.
Mesmer moved to Paris and in 1778 established a treat-
ment salon. His famous tub, placed in the center of the
salon, contained wine bottles filled with “magnetized”
water covered with an iron lid pierced through with holes.
From each of the holes issued a long movable iron rod that
the patients applied to the parts of their body afflicted with
pain or disease. The patients sat in a circle around the tub
as close together as possible; they held each other by the
hand and pressed their knees together in order to facilitate
the passage of the magnetic fluid from one to another. Well
built, handsome young men circled the patients, pouring
onto them fresh streams of invisible “magnetic” fluid from
the tips of their fingers; they also rubbed the patients down
their spines and gazed into their eyes. All this passed in si-
lence except for occasional swelling notes from a glass
harmonica or a hidden singer. After an hour or two of this,
one or more of the patients began to convulse in epileptic-
like fits. At this point, Mesmer himself appeared, dressed
in a richly embroidered silk robe and waving a wand, and
the remaining patients, some sobbing, others laughing or
screaming, all subsided into somnambulistic trances. When
the patients regained consciousness, they described feeling
streams of cold or burning vapor passing through their bod-
ies and reported that their ailments were cured (Tinterow,
1970). Mesmer’s therapeutic technique, known as mes-
merism gained great popularity, but was vigorously criti-
cized by the leading members of the academic, scientific,
and medical establishments of the day, and by the clergy,
some of whom claimed he was in league with satanic forces
(Darnton, 1968).
In 1784, by order of King Louis XVI, a joint commission
was appointed from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris and the
Royal Academy of Science to investigate the claims of the
Mesmerists. Benjamin Franklin presided over the commis-
sion (chosen because of his investigations of electricity),
which included the French scientists Lavoisier and Guillotin.
The commission did not question Mesmer’s results but did
dispute the claim that Mesmerists could manipulate a mag-
netic fluid. They concluded that Mesmer’s claimed forces did
not exist and that the Mesmerists’ apparent successes could
be explained by suggestion and imagination.
Although the commission’s report invalidated the extrav-
agant claims made by Mesmer and his followers, the facts
of his apparent cures were left unexplained. James Braid
(1795–1860), a British surgeon, like most reputable physi-
cians, had dismissed the mesmerists’ practice as mere
chicanery and the behavior of their mesmerized subjects as
voluntary simulation. However, after attending several public
exhibitions of mesmerism he became convinced the phenom-
ena he was observing were real. Braid experimented with