Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris

The subject of the following pamphlet has excited the extremest attention in France, has for years filled their Journals and Mercures, and has employed some of their best pens and their brightest wits. By some it has been applauded as the greatest of philosophical discoveries, and by others decried as the juggle of an unprincipled impostor. The English nation has too much curiosity for every thing that occupies the neighbour kingdom, from whom we have long since been used to receive the laws of politeness and etiquette, and who have lately seemed to take the lead of us in philosophical discovery, for the present translation not to prove an acceptable present to a large and respectable class of our countrymen. It has been thought proper, in order that the most uninformed reader may find in this little compilation, every species of information upon the subject, to prefix to it a brief account of the progress of this system.

M. Mesmer, the inventor of the animal magnetism, is a German physician. The first thing by which he distinguished himself, appears to have been the publication of a Dissertation upon the Influence of the Stars on the Human Body, printed at Vienna 1766, and publicly defended by him as a thesis in that university. In 1774 father Hehl, a German philosopher, strongly recommended the use of the loadstone in the art of medicine. M. Mesmer became very early a convert to the principles of this writer, and actually carried them into practice with distinguished success. In the midst however of his attention to the utility of the loadstone, he was led to the adoption of a new set of principles, which he conceived to be much more general in their application and importance. In conformity to these principles he laid aside the use of the loadstone, and proceeded with his cures in the method which he afterwards published to the world. This apostacy involved him in a quarrel with father Hehl and the celebrated Ingenhouz, by whom he had formerly been patronized; and as their credit in Vienna was extremely high, and their exertions against him indefatigable, his system almost immediately sunk into general disrepute. To parry their opposition he appealed in 1776 to the academy of sciences at Berlin. Here however his principles were rejected as “destitute of foundation and unworthy the smallest attention.” Undismayed by these important miscarriages, he made a progress through several towns of Germany, still practising the methods of the animal magnetism, and from time to time publishing an account of the cures he effected, which did not fail to be followed by a detection from his enemies. In the mean time, resolved, as it should seem, if possible not to deprive his country of the benefits of so valuable a discovery, he returned a second time to Vienna, and made another essay with no greater success than the former.

Decided in his conduit by these uninterrupted defeats, he left Germany and arrived at Paris in the beginning of the year 1778. Here one of the first connexions he formed was with M. A. J. S. D., author of the Dictionnaire des Merveilles de la Nature, from which work many of the following particulars are extracted. It is observed by this Writer, that “in spite of the apparent cautiousness and reserve of M. Mesmer, and even in spite of the little success of his first experiments, he could not refuse him credit for sincerity in his conduct, and solidity in his reasonings; and he was convinced, that the failure did not originate in the fault of his agent, but the indisposition of the subjects upon which it was employed.” In April 1778, M. Mesmer retired to Creteil with the patients he had collected, and in a few months almost all of them returned to Paris perfectly restored. One of them in particular was a paralytic, deprived of the use of her limbs, and who now walked with all the ease and firmness in the world. In November M. A. J. S. D. introduced M. Mesmer to the house of a family of distinction, and who were actuated with the extremest curiosity respecting all discoveries which had the benefit of humanity for their object. Here he made an experiment so remarkable that it is necessary to extract it somewhat at length.