Page - 358 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 8358 characterized by harmony among these features, disturbances may arise, which can be counteracted by expert resort to “universal attraction, animal gravity, or animal magnetism [the existence of magnetic fluids in all bodies],” as Mesmer was subsequently to claim.46 Even while in Vienna, Mesmer became gradually aware of the public appeal and commercial potential of the implications of these ideas, apparently adum- brating novel ways of resolving the ancient problem of restoring harmony be- tween the cosmos and the human body by resorting to the new science. Though on a lesser scale than in London or Paris, the eighteenth century was the first great age of popular science in Vienna, too, with regular reports in the press— besides those mentioned, only Hell himself contributed many dozens of brief accounts and explanations on a wide range of topics from eclipses through “northern lights” to earthquakes—public lectures, demonstrations, and exper- iments. Especially captivating was the contemplation of the invisible forces of nature surrounding the inhabitants of the world of Enlightenment: gravity and electricity, fluids and gases, capable of being harnessed to applications from lifting man in the air to curing bodily disorders. Mesmer—characterized as of- fering a caricature of empiricist natural science by “magnifying […] the eleva- tion of feeling as the ultimate arbiter of truth”47—launched a medical practice in Vienna soon after the publication of his thesis. For several years, however, his approach to medicine seems to have remained “basically orthodox,”48 and he earned prosperity and social standing mainly thanks to marrying a wealthy widow in 1768. It was in 1774–75 that he first treated a patient—a Miss Franzis- ka Österlin, suffering from hysteria—with magnetized steel attached to her feet and heart, with dubious results. He then managed to obtain testimonials of successful treatment from several prominent individuals, but as these failed to obtain him public recognition among both physicians and academicians (he was even denounced as a fraud by Van Swieten’s successor as court physi- cian, Jan Ingenhousz [1730–99]), Mesmer decided on the “therapeutic gamble” of curing a blind pianist, Maria Theresia Paradis (1759–1824).49 It was the 46 George J. Bloch, ed., Mesmerism: A Translation of the Original Medical and Scientific Writ­ ings of F. A. Mesmer (Los Altos: W. Kaufmann, 1980), 14–20, cited in Simon Schaffer, “The Astrological Roots of Mesmerism,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Bio­ medical Sciences 41 (2010): 158–68, here 160. Mesmer did not, however, use the term “ani- mal magnetism” until 1775, see below. 47 Riskin, Science in the Age of Sensibility, 191. 48 Douglas Lanska and Joseph T. Lanska, “Franz Anton Mesmer and the Rise and Fall of Ani- mal Magnetism,” in Brain, Mind and Medicine, ed. Harry A. Whitaker, Christopher Upham Murray Smith, and Stanley Finger (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2007), 301–20, here 302. 49 Lanska and Lanska, “Franz Anton Mesmer,” 303–5.