Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

Nervous Sleep: The Scientification of Mesmerism

This essay will evaluate the extent to which James Braid (1795-1860) reinvented Mesmerism
through his attempt to make trance-therapy more palatable for the 19th century medico-
scientific community. Did Hypnotism offer a greater understanding of the phenomena, or was
it simply Mesmerism in disguise? There already exist detailed works regarding; the practice
of Mesmerism analysed on its own terms1; its relation to the (much later) development of
psychoanalysis2; and its (non-accidental) temporal position at the end of the Enlightenment
period in France3. However, there is a distinct lack of modern historical literature pertaining
to the continuity between Mesmerism and Braid’s Hypnotism. This – coupled with pure
curiosity – has been the motivation for this study.

A Brief History of Suggestion

Before commencing with this investigation, it is important to make a comment on its

historiographical style; this essay will deliberately and unashamedly use the modern concept
of ‘psychological suggestion’ to analyse medical interventions of the past. This approach will
be taken in order to attempt to elucidate how the medical contemporaries of James Braid
would have seen things.

‘Suggestion’ is a phenomenon so broad that its story could start at any point, in any culture in
recorded human history. However for our purpose, with the hope of ending up with the
practice of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), I will mention a couple of famous and
influential cases, starting in the medieval period. From around the time of Edward the
Confessor (1042-1066), the kings of France and England – by virtue of their direct
appointment by God – were credited by their subjects with miraculous medical abilities; a
“Royal Touch”. Through the “laying on of hands”, the monarch had the power to cure
1
Goldsmith, M L. Franz Anton Mesmer: The History of an Idea. A. Barker, Limited, 1934.
2
Chertok, Leon, and Raymond de Saussure. The Therapeutic Revolution: From Mesmer to Freud. Translated by
R H Ahrenfeldt. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1979 [1973].
3
Darnton, Robert. Memerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France. Cambridge Massachussetts: Harvard
University Press, 1968.

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ordinary peasants of their ailments, particularly of “the Kings Evil” (scrofula). This power
was bestowed through the rite of coronation, which “by re-enacting the baptism of the body,
identified the monarch with the supernatural authority of Jesus Christ”4

The Irishman Valentine Greatrakes (1628-1682) was another faith healer – though not
“royal” by any stretch of the imagination – who is also alleged to have cured ailments
through the “laying on of hands”. In his case it was not a coronation which bestowed him
with his powers; on the contrary, it was his objective to “prove that healing powers were not
restricted to the monarchy”5 Rather, it was through the sheer force of religious impulse that
he managed to inspire a mass fidelity in his healing powers. The evident success of these
practitioners, in particular Greatrakes, shows us something of the power that the beliefs and
expectations of the subject of treatment (patient, sufferer, victim ...) had on the outcome of
their disease. In this context we can begin to understand the healing ‘tradition’ in which
Mesmer worked, and how he used his powers of (what we would now call) suggestion to
elicit the bizarre, though surprisingly effective results.

Mesmer was born in Constance, and trained to be a physician in Vienna. His doctoral thesis
commented on the influence of astronomical bodies on human health, coupling the theory of
the ‘aetherial medium’ of space, with the Galenic idea of ‘animal spirits’ which transmitted
nerve impulses. The ‘animal spirit’ theory had been famously championed by René Descartes
in the previous century. Isaac Newton (1643-1727) had also written about the ‘animal spirits’
in his Optical Queries, arguing that it was “analogous to if not identical with the subtle ether
that filled the wide spaces of the universe.”6 The idea that humans were immersed in a
substance which was also responsible for linking the ‘will’ to muscular movement was too
tantalising to resist for Mesmer. His next great leap was to ‘realise’ that the will of one person
could then transmit the influence of their will to affect the fluid of another’s nervous system –
Mesmer’s clinical procedure in a nutshell.

Though his now famous animal magnetism (from the Latin for "breath", animus) was the
subject of immediate suspicion and envy by the Viennese medical elite, it is difficult to

4
Miller, Jonathan. The Body in Question. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978, p.61
5
Ibid., p.68
6
Miller, Jonathan. “Magnetic Mockeries.” Social Research 68, no. 3 (2001): 717-740, p.723

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understand exactly what objections they could have raised; we must not take for granted the
existence of ‘scientific’ medicine at this time, for this only really began in the 19th century.7
Mesmer’s ‘animal-magnetism’ – unlike the practices of, say, bloodletting and purging – only
had the misfortune of not being founded firmly within the Galenic tradition. In fact, for all its
semblances of quackery, Mesmer saw his method as a direct therapeutic application of
Newtonian mechanics. Newton had believed that his aethereal medium, that “subtle spirit
which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which spirit the
particles of bodies attract one another”8 was the medium which transmitted magnetism, light,
and gravity.9 Mesmer was forced to flee Vienna in 1778 by the medical establishment, and set up
an enormously successful ‘clinic’ in the Place Vendôme in Paris.

The French Royal Commission and Braid

Mesmer’s belief in the ability to transform a damaged body through an application of the will
was seized upon by those who were seeking a similar transformation of society in pre-
revolutionary France.10,11 This association naturally aroused the suspicion of the authorities,
and in 1784 King Louis XVI (1754-1793) commissioned an investigation into Mesmer’s
activities. This was headed by the ageing Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), and among the
other contributing scientists were Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) and Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
(1738-1814).

Mesmer had refused to take part, so an animal magnetist disciple of his, Charles Deslon
(1750-1786), agreed to give demonstrations. After several (what we would call “blind”12)
tests involving magnetised substances which failed to produce convulsions, and non-

7
See Foucault, Michel. La naissance de la clinique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1963 for a
controversial yet detailed study.
8
Newton, Isaac. 'General Scholium' from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. London: The
Newton Project, 1729, p.393
9
Newton, Isaac. Opticks: or, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light. Also two
treatises of the species and magnitude of curvilinear figures. London, 1717 [1704].
10
Darnton, Robert. Memerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France. Cambridge Massachussetts: Harvard
University Press, 1968.
11
The film, Mesmer, directed by Roger Spottiswoode (1994) also emphasises this aspect.
12
It is thought by some that this is the first “placebo” therapeutic trial ever conducted in the history of science.

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

magnetised substances which produced them13, the official report concluded that
« l'imagination sans magnétisme produit des convulsions... le magnétisme sans imagination
ne produit rien... Les expériences sont uniformes et sont également décisives ; elles autorisent
à conclure que l'imagination est la véritable cause des effets attribués au magnétisme »14.
24,000 copies of this document were published, and the Faculté de Médecine forced its
members to sign a pledge denouncing the practice, « qu'aucun docteur ne se déclarera
partisan du magnétisme animal, ni par ses écrits ni par sa pratique »15 It seems as if the main
objection of the Commision was against the usage of the magnetic fluid theory, though
peculiarly, Franklin and Lavoisier are both known to have accepted its existence – Lavoisier
had even used it to explain the propagation of heat. By Miller’s analysis, this “can only mean
that the commissioners had no objection to the fluid as such and that they drew the line when it
came to using the fluid as an explanation for the effect of mind on matter.”16

Some contemporaries – anticipating Braid’s studies half a century later – had the foresight to
ask the question of why, since it clearly had a powerful effect on the body, the medicine of
the imagination should not be used; « si la médecine d'imagination est la meilleure, pourquoi
ne ferions-nous pas de la médecine d'imagination? »17 One of the scientists on the
Commission, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1749-1836), refused to sign the report and
produced his own contre-rapport which argued that « l'influence physique de l'homme sur
l'homme » should not be neglected.18

A similar investigation took place in England in 1799 into Elisha Perkin’s (1741-1799)
‘Tractors’, metal rods that “drew out” a disease. John Haygarth (1740-1827) repeated the
results with wooden substitutes (painted to have a metallic facade), and again attributed the
effects to the “imagination”.19

13
Darnton, Robert., op cit., p.65.
14
Bailly, Jean-Sylvain. Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme animal. Paris:
Moutard, 1784.
15
de Sennevoy, Jules Dupotet. Cours de magnétisme en sept leçons. Paris, 1840.
16
Miller, Jonathan (2001)., op cit., p.726
17
Deslon, Charles. Observations sur le Magnétisme Animal. Paris, 1780, p.47
18
de Jussieu, Antoine Laurent. Rapport de l'un des commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme
animal. Paris, 1784, p.35
19
Haygarth, John. On the Imagination as a Cause & as a Cure of Disorders of the Body. Bath: Crutwell, 1800.

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

From these examples – of which there are more – we can see that up to the time of James
Braid (1795-1860), the “imagination” was a popular medical explanation for the mysterious
interaction between mind and body. Braid was the first to seriously try and explain how the
mesmerist exerted this influence. He first became interested in the phenomenon in 1841 after
attending a public séance given by the Swiss mesmerist Charles Lafontaine (1803-1892),
apparently “as a complete sceptic, from an anxiety to discover the source of fallacy.”20 He
was convinced that the effects were real, though stuck to his scientific convictions and
became fascinated with finding a physiological explanation for them.

Regarding the magnetic fluid, he came to the same sceptical conclusions as the French
Commission, though unlike them did not throw the baby out with the bathwater; after
independent experimentation, the “gentleman scientist” eventually became convinced of what
he called the power of suggestion on the part of the mesmerist. In Neurypnology (1843) Braid
outlined his method, which stressed the importance of fixing the subject’s gaze, and
enforcing ‘monotony’.21 The phenomenon was given a new face through the more ‘clinical’
method, and “rechristened”22 as hypnosis (from the Greek Ὕπνος, “sleep”, and suffix -ωσις,
“to put to”) or nervous sleep.

... the sole object which I had in view, in undertaking the experimental
investigation of animal magnetism, was to devise a simple and satisfactory mode
of demonstrating that the real cause of the phenomena manifested was subjective
[i.e. psychological] or personal, and not objective, or the result of any magnetic
fluid or force passing from the operator to the patient; and, as I succeeded by this
attempt in producing all the ordinary and useful phenomena, (useful in a curative
point of view, I mean) more speedily and certainly than by the ordinary
Mesmerising methods, whilst I never succeeded in producing clairvoyance and
the higher phenomena, I thought it better to discuss the phenomena producible by
a method under a new name, and adopted the term hypnotism, or nervous sleep.23

20
Braid, James. Neurypnology; or, The rationale of nervous sleep considered in relation to animal magnetism
or mesmerism and illustrated by numerous cases of its successful application in the relief and cure of disease.
London: J. Churchill, 1843, p.2
21
Ibid.
22
Hudson, Thomas Jay. The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A Working Hypothesis for the Systematic Study of
Hypnotism, Spiritism and Mental Therapeutics. London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1893, p.87
23
Braid, James. Braid: Magic, witchcraft, animal magnetism. London: John Churchill, 1852, p.24

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Why was Braid’s influence so profound both within the medical establishment, and among
“alternative therapists” who continue their activities today? We can start to answer this
complicated question by observing how deftly he managed to avoid the Charybdis of making
his practice so ‘clinical’ as to result in ineffective therapy (as compared with Mesmerism),
and the two-headed (in this case) Scylla of being spurned by the medical profession for
invoking the ‘occult’, and society as a whole for associating with revolutionary themes in the
politically sensitive aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. The latter point is well illustrated by
the demise of the career of the UCL professor and founding senior physician of UCH, John
Elliotson (1791-1868), who evidently lacked Braid’s guile. Both men had a similarly high
level of esteem within the profession before their mesmeric ‘conversions’; Braid was a very
successful surgeon by the standards of the time, and among Elliotson’s achievements was
being the first to use and promote the use of Laennec’s stethoscope in Britain.24

For some, there is “no chapter in the history of Medicine more astounding and bewildering”25
than the very public scandal which embroiled Elliotson between 1836 and 1839. Thomas
Wakley (1795-1862) , the founding editor of The Lancet and one of the greatest contributors
to the destruction of Elliotson’s career, wrote:

Mesmerism is too gross a humbug to admit of any further serious notice. We

regard its abettors as quacks and imposters. They ought to be hooted out of
professional society.26

This short essay will not go into the details, although a brief mention is important for our
question; by showing how things could have gone so terribly wrong as they did for Elliotson,
this episode highlights exactly what Braid did so well. There are two main differences in the
way in which the two men went about their business. Firstly, Braid practised his experiments
on private patients in his own clinic, whereas Elliotson practised publicly on patients at UCH.
Secondly, and more importantly for our enquiry, Braid, unlike Elliotson who maintained the

24
Rosen, G. “John Elliotson: Physician and Hypnotist.” Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 4
(1936): 600-603, p.601
25
Clarke, J F. “A Strange Chapter in the History of Medicine.” Chap. XIV in Autobiographical recollections of
the medical profession. London: J. & A. Churchill , 1874, p.155
26
Wakley, Thomas. “Editorial.” The Lancet 1 (1842-1843): 192.

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

fluidic theory, dressed up his new mesmerism in scientific terminology and attempted
physiological explanations.

Figure 1:
An anti-Elliotson
pamphlet from
1842
Source:
Wellcome
Images,
originally
published by
Hancock, E.
(London)

Braid’s Scientific Mesmerism

Braid told his subjects to “think only of sleep” while getting them to fix their gaze on “a
bright object” which was placed in a position above the head to cause “the greatest possible
strain upon the eyes”27 Of course Braid never claimed to have discovered the phenomena of

27
Braid, James. (1843) Neurypnology , p.27

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Mesmerism; rather, a “method by which these phenomena could be reliably elicited,

controlled, studied, and applied to therapeutic aims”28 However, as du Prel notes, this was by
no means as new a method as it seems:

While the magnetists produced this artificial sleep by means of passes, and
because Braid had his subjects stare at shining objects, one might assume that he
was the discoverer of this ... such, however, was not the case ... His predecessor
was the infamous Cagliostro, who produced ... unconsciousness by having them
stare at mirrored surfaces. This by the way was also an ancient art of sorcerers.29

If Braid did not ‘reinvent’ the method, then surely his innovation was to come up with a new
theoretical framework within which the phenomena could be understood. This indeed seems
to have been the case. Braid attempted a physiological explanation of hypnosis, and perhaps
it is this aspect which rendered his program scientifically palatable.

His description of the hypnotic state as “a physiological state of the brain and the spinal
cord”, after “the continued effort of the will, to rivet the attention to one idea, [which]
exhausts the mind”30 was still very vague by modern standards. The decreased heart rate and
respiratory rate allegedly resulted in “a rapid exhaustion of the sensorium and the nervous
system ... and a feeling of giddiness, with slight tendency to syncopy, and a feeling of
somnolency, ensue; and thus and then the mind slips out of gear.”31 The resulting decrease in
blood oxygenation and the accretion of carbonic acid is said to have caused this
“derangement of the state of the cerebro-spinal centres”32

If we are to be taken in by this, and conclude that Braid did indeed give birth to a new
‘science’, then we should be able to find elements of his work which are commensurable with

28
Kravis, Nathan Mark. “James Braid's Psychophysiology: Turning Point in the History of Dynamic
Psychiatry.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 10, no. 145 (1988): 1191, p.1193
29
du Prel, K. Studiën uit het gebied der geheime wetenschappen, part I: feiten en problemen. Amsterdam: N. V.
Spirit Boekhandel en Uitg. Mij., 1921 [1890], p.27. Translated in (Rosenfield 2008)
30
Braid, James. Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed: In a Letter to the Rev. H. Mc. Neile ... in Reply to a
Sermon Preached by Him in St. Jude's Church, Liverpool, on Sunday, April 10th, 1842. Manchester: Simms and
Dinham; Galt and Anderson, 1842 . 12 pages.
31
Braid, James. (1842) Satanic Agency
32
Braid, James. (1843) Neurypnology, p.19

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

phenomena outside of his therapeutic interests; for example in explaining the normal states of
the body when not under hypnosis. Indeed he did make a distinction between ‘ordinary sleep’
– in which the attention is diffused and meandering, and the muscles are relaxed – and
‘hypnotic sleep’, where the attention is highly concentrated, and there is a phase of "tonic
rigidity" of the muscles, along with the other physiological effects mentioned
above. Ordinary sleep, viewed in this way, was “the emblem of death”33 in contrast to the
highly concentrated state of hypnotic sleep. As for the cause of ordinary sleep, Braid
attributed it to the exhaustion of all of the ‘phrenological’ faculties; in direct contrast,
hypnosis occurred when only one faculty is over-concentrated. Interestingly, he remarked
that “inordinate attention to one subject caused dreaming instead of sound sleep”34, linking
dreaming – at least in cause – to the hypnotic state.

In passing into natural sleep, any thing held in the hand is soon allowed to drop
from our grasp, but, in the artificial sleep now referred to, it will be held more
firmly than before falling asleep. This is a very remarkable difference.
The power of balancing themselves is so great that I have never seen one
of these hypnotic somnambulists fall. The same is noted of natural
somnanmbulists.35

A Psychologic Shift

Over the next decade, Braid shifted from an emphasis on physiology to psychology in
explaining the influence of the hypnotist – a change in attitude that has been seen by some
historians as a reaction to accusations from magnetists such Elliotson and Von Reichenbach,
“who claimed that he was merely promoting a disguised form of mesmerism.”36 He began to
restrict the criteria for the hypnotic phenomenon, pushing it further away in practice – as well
as in theory – from Mesmerism (with its ‘passes’, eliciting ‘convulsions’, ...), and into the
domain of sleep, in which it has remained up until the modern day, both in practice and in the
popular imagination.

33
Braid, James. Neurypnology (1843) p.43
34
Braid, James. Neurypnology (1843) p.124
35
Ibid., p.131
36
Kihlstrom, John F. “Hypnosis: A Sesquicentennial Essay.” International Journal of Clinical and
Experimental Hypnosis 4, no. 40 (2008): 301-314, p.309

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

I am well aware that, in correct phraseology, the term hypnotism ought to be

restricted to the phenomena manifested in patients who actually pass into a state
of sleep, and who remember nothing on awaking of what transpired during their
sleep. All short of this is mere reverie, or dreaming, however provoked; and it,
therefore, seems highly desirable to fix upon a terminology capable of accurately
characterizing these latter modifications which result from hypnotic processes.37

‘Passes’ were both too Mesmeric in method, and too ‘physical’ as an explanation. Braid
began to regard them “as only of secondary importance, and attached more value to
suggestion”38 He stated that the value of ‘passes’ and other mechanical methods was now
“altogether a suggestive one and that he used them just as he would use audible
suggestion.”39 The mechanical process was thereby placed inside the body; it was no longer
necessary to physically lever it from the outside, as the mesmerists did. For Braid,
psychological suggestion from the hypnotist was sufficient to trigger this process: “the
operator acts like a mechanic who would set in motion the forces in the patient’s own
organism”40

The phenomena in question are as much psychological as physiological in their

nature.41

From this point of view, we can see that Braid achieved far more than simply ‘rescuing’ the
phenomena of Mesmerism; his work started a dialogue which allowed ‘ideas’ into the causal
nexus of physiology, putting the inner mental life of the patient firmly beneath the medical
gaze. Braid’s influence on the understanding of sleep and dreaming was not just felt within
his lifetime; perhaps his legacy was even greater in this respect. Of the conflicting schools of
hypnosis in late 19th century Paris – Nancy and Salpêtrière – the latter felt Braid’s influence
most keenly, especially through the works of Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) and an
enthusiastic young Viennese medical student of his – a certain Sigismund Schlomo Freud.42

37
Braid, James. “The Physiology of fascination and the critics criticised.” In Foundations of hypnosis: From
Mesmer to Freud, edited by M M Tinterow, 365-389. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1970 [1855].
38
Robertson, Donald. “Braid's Mature Theory of Hypnotism.” In The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete
Writings of James Braid, the Father of Hypnotherapy, 31. UKCHH Ltd, 2008.
39
Robertson, Donald., op cit., p.50
40
Braid, James. (1860) On Hypnotism, p.236
41
Ibid., p.231
42
Chertok, Leon, and Raymond de Saussure. The Therapeutic Revolution: From Mesmer to Freud. Translated
by R H Ahrenfeldt. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1979 [1973].

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

Figure 2: Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière by Pierre Aristide André Brouillet (1857-1914) showing
Charcot demonstrating hypnotism on a ‘hysterical’ patient (supported by Joseph Babinski). Source:
Paris Descartes University, Paris

Word count: 2956

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magnétisme animal. Paris: Moutard, 1784.

Braid, James. Braid: Magic, witchcraft, animal magnetism. London: John Churchill, 1852.

—. Neurypnology; or, The rationale of nervous sleep considered in relation to animal

magnetism or mesmerism and illustrated by numerous cases of its successful application in
the relief and cure of disease. London: J. Churchill, 1843.

Braid, James. “On Hypnotism.” The Lancet 1 (1845): 627-628.

—. Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed: In a Letter to the Rev. H. Mc. Neile ... in Reply
to a Sermon Preached by Him in St. Jude's Church, Liverpool, on Sunday, April 10th, 1842.
Manchester: Simms and Dinham; Galt and Anderson, 1842 .

Braid, James. “The Physiology of fascination and the critics criticised.” In Foundations of
hypnosis: From Mesmer to Freud, edited by M M Tinterow, 365-389. Springfield, IL:
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Chertok, Leon, and Raymond de Saussure. The Therapeutic Revolution: From Mesmer to
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de Sennevoy, Jules Dupotet. Cours de magnétisme en sept leçons. Paris, 1840.

Deslon, Charles. Observations sur le Magnétisme Animal. Paris, 1780.

du Prel, K. Studiën uit het gebied der geheime wetenschappen, part I: feiten en problemen.
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Foucault, Michel. La naissance de la clinique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1963.

Goldsmith, M L. Franz Anton Mesmer: The History of an Idea. A. Barker, Limited, 1934.

Haygarth, John. On the Imagination as a Cause & as a Cure of Disorders of the Body. Bath:
Crutwell, 1800.

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Joseph Brown, University College London 29/03/2015

Hudson, Thomas Jay. The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A Working Hypothesis for the
Systematic Study of Hypnotism, Spiritism and Mental Therapeutics. London: G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1893.

Kihlstrom, John F. “Hypnosis: A Sesquicentennial Essay.” International Journal of Clinical

and Experimental Hypnosis 4, no. 40 (2008): 301-314.

Kravis, Nathan Mark. “James Braid's Psychophysiology: Turning Point in the History of
Dynamic Psychiatry.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 10, no. 145 (1988): 1191.

Miller, Jonathan. “Magnetic Mockeries.” Social Research 68, no. 3 (2001): 717-740.

—. The Body in Question. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978.

Newton, Isaac. 'General Scholium' from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
London: The Newton Project, 1729.

—. Opticks: or, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light. Also
two treatises of the species and magnitude of curvilinear figures. London, 1717 [1704].

Robertson, Donald. “Braid's Mature Theory of Hypnotism.” In The Discovery of Hypnosis:

The Complete Writings of James Braid, the Father of Hypnotherapy, 31. UKCHH Ltd, 2008.

Rosen, G. “John Elliotson: Physician and Hypnotist.” Bulletin of the Institute of the History
of Medicine 4 (1936): 600-603.

Rosenfield, Saul Marc. A Critical History of Hypnotism. XLibris, 2008.

Mesmer. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode. 1994.

Wakley, Thomas. “Editorial.” The Lancet 1 (1842-1843): 192.

13