Franz Mesmer, German Physician
Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer (May 23, 1734 - March 5, 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy, who theorized that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects that he called animal magnetism, sometimes later referred to as mesmerism. Mesmerism is considered to be a form of vitalism and shares features with other vitalist theories that emphasize the movement of life energy through distinct channels in the body. There were those who thought he was a charlatan and others who believed he had made a great discovery. Mesmer tried and failed to get either the Royal Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society of Medicine to provide official approval for his doctrines. In 1779, he wrote an 88-page book entitled: Memoire sur la decouverte du magnetisme animal, to which he appended his famous 27 Propositions that outlined his theory. In 1784 King Louis XVI appointed commissioners to investigate animal magnetism. The commission concluded that there was no evidence for mesmerism and whatever benefit the treatment produced was attributed to imagination'. Mesmer lived to be 80 years old
