Page - 360 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 8360 medicine,”53 which would have been one more reason for him to expect that Hell—whom he continued to mention with gratitude and respect—would be a long-term partner in his ventures. It may have been known to Mesmer that on his celebrated astronomical expedition Hell and his associates also carried out geomagnetic observations and tackled issues like diurnal variation, mag- netic storms, and northern lights (though Hell’s vigorous refutation of contem- porary suggestions of a relatedness between the latter two phenomena was published in the Ephemerides of the following year).54 It is small wonder that he was baffled when Hell, in another quick response, effectively disavowed him—“I could hardly have suspected that in his letter Dr. Mesmer would call me an eyewitness of certain experiments unknown to me”—and went on to elaborate on his firm conviction that the therapies worked because of physical magnetism, not cosmic harmony.55 In fact, this was more than he was willing to acknowledge earlier. Despite his attempts at the medical use of magnets in both Cluj in the 1750s and Vienna in the 1760s, none of the editions of Hell’s treatise on the application of steel magnets contained any mention of such uses, and in a 1765 letter to Weiss he was expressly skeptical about the possible healing power of his magnets: I am happy that my Father Colleague [i.e., Weiss] has become a colleague of mine even in medical subjects. For even I have here turned a magnetic doctor and experienced the effect [of magnets] on various persons. How- ever, the effect of this artificial magnet in easing the pain of toothache, I ascribe not to magnetism (which can have no influence on the teeth unless these were made of iron or steel), but to the coldness of the steel. Next time I will test this with a piece of steel that is not magnetized, and I think the effect will be the same; my Honorable Father Colleague can make the same experiment, pretending that the metal that is applied is magnetic, so that the pain of the patient is not disturbed by persuasion.56 53 Franz Anton Mesmer, Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal (1779), in F.­ A. Mesmer, Le magnétisme animal, ed. Robert Amadou (Paris: Payot, 1971), 93. Cf. Schaffer, “Astrological Roots of Mesmerism,” 160. 54 Hell, Theoria nova. Cf. Aspaas and Lynne Hansen, “Geomagnetism by the North Pole.” 55 Maximilian Hell, Schreiben über die allhier in Wien entdeckte Magnetencur, an einer seiner Freunde (Vienna, January 12, 1775), in Sammlung der gedruckten und geschriebenen Nach­ richten, 26 and passim. 56 Hell to Weiss in Trnava, dated Vienna, May 7, 1765. Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 2:198. The reference to Weiss’s activities as a healer is obscure.