[History of healing; animal magnetism]

From 1791, patients in our country were treated according to the theory of animal magnetism or mesmerism, elaborated by the physician Mesmer (1734-1815). An invisible substance was supposed to be the medium linking cosmic phenomena with life on earth. By distributing this substance harmoniously over a patient's body, a magnetizer could cure that patient. Subsequently, it was also believed that the treatment induced somnambulism (or hypnosis) and gave the patient 'inner vision': insight into his own ailment and consequently, into the desired treatment. Owing to lack of good long-term results, magnetism after a few years was dropped from the regular circuit.