Blind since childhood, 18-year-old pianist Maria Theresa Paradis had been treated by leading Viennese physicians with blistering plasters, leeches, and electric shocks through her eyes, to no effect. To redeem his reputation and demonstrate animal magnetism’s effectiveness, Mesmer took on a difficult case. (Read more about the 20th-century fake doctor and his odd method of curing impotence.) After she failed to respond to them, Ingenhousz publicly denounced Mesmer as a fraud. Ingenhousz realized that Österlin only responded to objects that she believed were magnets or that were connected with Mesmer, but not other magnets he had hidden in the room. Mesmer then attempted to demonstrate the treatment’s success to physician Jan Ingenhousz. The one reply he received was dismissive. In 1775 Mesmer shared his discovery of animal magnetism with physicians and scientific academies, inviting their comments. The magnets in Father Hell’s therapy were superfluous, Mesmer argued, as Mesmer himself, or any object that he magnetized, could restore the flow. Health could be restored through contact with a conductor of animal magnetism. Disease resulted when the fluid’s flow became blocked. Mesmer began to base his medical practice on his belief that an invisible fluid ran through all living things. But after his encounter with Father Hell, Mesmer revised his “animal gravitation” theory to one of “animal magnetism.” This universal force was not external gravitation but rather an internal force. Mesmer asserted in his doctoral dissertation that the gravitational force of the planets, sun, and moon also affected the human body.

(Read more: Bloodletting is still being practiced in some countries today.) Mesmer applied this same magnetic therapy to Österlin and pronounced her cured. Finding traditional tactics unsuccessful, Mesmer followed the suggestion of Jesuit priest and astronomer Maximilian Hell, who attached magnets to his patients to treat disease. For two years, he had applied the standard medical remedies of the 18th century, including blistering and bleeding, to a 28-year-old patient, Franziska Österlin, whose maladies ranged from earaches to melancholy. Mesmer’s unorthodox treatment style began in late 1774.

Franz mesmer orgiznations