Doctor Mesmer was born on May 23, 1734 in Iznang, a small village in Austria. Soon after receiving a medical degree at Vienna University, he married a wealthy widow and established himself as a comfortably well-off physician in Vienna. At 40, Mesmer came across an absolutely extraordinary medical case of a young woman who suffered from severe headaches, convulsions, partial paralysis and delirium. None of the medicines Mesmer prescribed her helped and so Mesmer ventured an experiment based on his admiration for the great medieval doctor Paracelsus who people said knew the secret of eternal youth and had discovered the so-called philosophical stone that turned metals into gold. Well that did not happen the night before of course and was not entirely true either… Rumor also had it that one day Paracelsus fled through the window to avoid the wrath of his landlady angered by his failure to pay rent. But even though Paracelsus never lived to celebrate his 50th birthday, he was an outstanding medic boldly using and as daringly disproving the ancient medical maxims. 

Of the many ideas left behind by the great medieval doctor, Mesmer was particularly interested in one that described the use of magnets for medicinal purposes. As soon as Miss Esterlein was hit by another paroxysm of pain, Mesmer attached powerful magnets to her chest. The young lady’s body contorted in violent convulsions... A few moments later, however, the fit was over, even though it normally lasted for hours… Dr. Mesmer repeated the procedure several more times and the shortly after the young lady completely cured!

Buoyed by his initial success, Mesmer opened a clinic, hysterical women started flowing to from all across the country eager to get cured. Latching on to Mesmer’s method, the Edinburgh-based doctor James Graham  opened in London in 1780  health-building institution he pompously called  The Health Castle – a 100-pound a night facility only very rich people could afford back in those days.  The Health Castle was a far cry from the Vienna clinic, but it did not last long because, branded as a charlatan, Mesmer had to give up medical practice and, like Paracelsus before him, he packed up his belongings and left the country.  After spending some time traveling in Switzerland and Bavaria, he eventually rented an apartment in Place Vandomme in Paris. 

Before long he was again the talk of the whole city with local big shots, popular writers and high-born aristocrats all lining up to gain his attention. Mesmer was literally rolling in money lavished on him by his hysterical patients of the fair sex. You can never be completely happy though and, in a short while, after undergoing a course of treatment at Mesmer’s clinic, a group of members of the Paris Medical Academy said a nervous breakdown and stomachache were the only two things they experienced as a result of Mesmer’s treatment.  To make things worse, they unanimously denounced his method. 

To add scientific weight to his work, Mesmer moved to the Montmartre and started tending to patients of the lower classes of the Parisian society.  His theory of animal magnetism was getting increasingly popular now…

Before very long Mesmer’s method started being questioned again and a new commission was set up to investigate his work. The panel featured such scientific luminaries of the time as Benjamin Franklin, the then US Ambassador to Europe, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the man who discovered oxygen, Jean Sylvain Bailly an astronomer,  and the physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotine  who later invented a new method of execution.  The academy commission denounced Mesmer’s method of animal magnetism just like it once did Fulton’s steamship, Franklin’s lightning rod and many other revolutionary inventions. Devastated by the verdict, Mesmer fled to his native Austria in a bid to sit out the crisis and prepare a strong comeback.  His plans of returning to Paris were thwarted by the outbreak of the French Revolution though. The onetime darling of the Paris aristocrats, he was barred from getting back there, despite his oft-declared support for the revolutionaries. Moreover, Mesmers’s pro-revolutionary sentiment became the reason of his ultimate banishment from Austria. He eventually settled down in a small town near Zurich, Switzerland, where he lived very quietly, so quietly that his many followers thought for a whole 20 years that their idol had long been dead. A village doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer devoted the final years of his life to music. He died in 1815 at the age of 81.  This in a nutshell, is the life story Fate reserved for the outstanding 18th century doctor Franz Anton Mesmer, the dedicated follower of the great Paracelsus…