.Franz Anton Mesmer, a German physician who pioneered the medical field of hypnotic therapy, dies in obscurity in Meersburg, Swabia (now Germany).
(Born in 1734)
Mesmer deve ter muitas boas histórias mas a que mais me agrada é a da comissão (onde se incluía Lavoisier, o melhor cérebro que a França alguma vez produziu) que foi criada para decidir da veracidade dos alegados poderes do magnetismo animal:
In 1784, King Louis XVI appointed a committee of physicians and scientists to investigate his work; among the commission's members were the American statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin and the French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier.
The commission reported that Mesmer was unable to support his scientific claims, and his practice subsequently declined. In 1778, he left Paris and retired to obscurity in his native Swabia.
A história interessante é, claro, o que a comissão científica decidiu fazer, e como o fez.
The Royal Commission based their investigation on the fol-
lowing premise: “Animal Magnetism can exist without being
useful, but it cannot be useful if it does not exist”.
The presence of a magnetic force was quickly dismissed using an elec-
trometer. They also conducted several clever, blinded experi-
ments testing the therapeutic effect of various concealed objects
that were “magnetized” by D’Eslon. Any treatment effects or
cures were ascribed either to imagination, psychological causes
or fraud.
In: http://www.utmj.org/issues/83.2/anton.pdf
A inteligência é muito bonita.
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