l organized bodies through the medium of a subtle and
mobile fluid, which pervades the universe, and associates all things
together in mutual intercourse and harmony." This influence, he said,
was particularly exercised on the nervous system, and produced two
states, which he called _intension_ and _remission_, which seemed to
him to account for the different periodical revolutions observable in
several maladies.

Eight years later he met Father Hell, and after trying some
experiments with his metallic plates was astonished at his success. He
continued working with Hell for some time, but they finally
quarrelled, and shortly afterward he stumbled upon his theory of
animal magnetism. After this he no longer used the magnet in healing.
The Academy of Science at Berlin examined his claims, but their report
was far from favorable or flattering. Nevertheless, writing to a
friend from Vienna, he said: "I have observed that the magnetic is
almost the same as the electric fluid, and that it may be propagated
in the same manner, by means of intermediate bodies. Steel is not the
only substance adapted to this purpose. I have rendered paper, bread,
wool, silk, stones, leather, glass, wood, men, and dogs--in short,
every thing I touched--magnetic to such a degree, that these
substances produced the same effects as the loadstone on diseased
persons. I have charged jars with magnetic matter in the same way as
is done with electricity." About this time he was nominated a member
of the Academy of Bavaria.

Leaving Vienna and travelling through Swabia and Switzerland, he met
Gassner and witnessed some of his cures. Mesmer claimed that they were
performed by his newly discovered magnetism. He arrived in Paris in
1778 and found this city more receptive to his arts. He at first
established himself in an humble quarter of the city and began to
expound his theory. The following year he published a paper in which
he summed up his claims in twenty-seven assertions to which he rigidly
held through his life. His doctrines were well received, and acquired
an impetus at the beginning by the conversion of one of the leading
physicians of the faculty of medicine, Deslon, the Comte d'Artois'
first physician.

Pupils and patients now flocked to him. The crowd was so great that
Mesmer employed a _valet toucheur_ to magnetize in his place. This was
not sufficient; he then invented the famous _baquet_, or trough,
around which thirty persons might sim