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Benjamin Franklin, Mesmerism, and the First Use of Placebos in Science

Writer's picture: FibonacciMDFibonacciMD

The Curious Case of Dr. Mesmer's Mesmerism and

How Benjamin Franklin Helped Introduce the Placebo Effect


MEDICAL HISTORY

Patients in Paris receiving Mesmer's animal magnetism therapy.
Patients in Paris receiving Mesmer's animal magnetism therapy.

In the late 1700’s, German born, Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer claimed to have a miracle cure using animal magnetism that eventually became known as mesmerism. 


Treating patients with the armonica and magnetic water

He was curing patients of various maladies using magnets.  He soon discovered the magnets were unnecessary and he could magnetize water by placing his hands over it, and he then claimed cures for illnesses such as sleep walking and throat spasms.  He initially had his patients swallow iron filings but soon stopped that.  After a failed attempt to cure blindness in a famous pianist, he fell out of favor in Vienna and moved to Paris.  He refined his technique and would “magnetize water” with his hands and place the bottle in a wooden tub (baquet) that patients would sit around.  Iron rods stuck out of the tub that patients could grab on to or touch to body parts.


Coincidentally, Mesmer started using the armonica (or glass harmonica) which was invented by Benjamin Franklin at his sessions. The armonica could produce eerie sounds similar to the sound that is made when rubbing the rim of a moist glass with a finger. 


As word of cures spread, his practice became larger.  He started going to private parties where it was reported that his mostly upper-class women patients would frequently scream, faint, or convulse (also called crises) after being mesmerized. 


Actual baquet (tub) used for mesmerism  (from the Lyon Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine et de la Pharmacie)
Actual baquet (tub) used for mesmerism (from the Lyon Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine et de la Pharmacie)

Benjamin Franklin, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and Joseph-Ignace Guillotin investigate mesmerism


Blinded Experiments

Mesmer eventually came to the attention of King Louis XIV, who appointed two commissions to look into mesmerism.  One was led by Benjamin Franklin who happened to be in Paris as the U.S. ambassador.  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, considered to be the father of modern chemistry, and Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who invented the guillotine as a way to make the death penalty more humane, were also on the commission.


They designed several “blinded” experiments where the subject did not know if they were truly being mesmerized or not, designed to determine if mesmerism was real, and used placebos for the first time in scientific experimentation.


In one case they told a woman that the Mesmer practitioner was behind a closed-door directing animal magnetism to her although he wasn’t.  The woman responded by going into convulsions.  Another woman was given water to drink she told had been magnetized, but wasn’t.  She fainted, and then without telling her, she was given water to drink to revive her that had been magnetized, with no effect.  A different woman was mesmerized by a practitioner behind a paper curtain without telling her, which had no effect.  However, later when the practitioner did the same moves with the woman aware, she collapsed within a few minutes.  They magnetized one tree in Franklin’s garden, and then had a 12-year-old boy, who hadn’t seen which tree was magnetized, hug trees which weren’t magnetized. The boy reportedly collapsed at the 4th unmagnetized tree.


A mesmerist using animal magnetism on a woman who responds with convulsions.  Wood Engraving, 1845.
A mesmerist using animal magnetism on a woman who responds with convulsions. Wood Engraving, 1845.

The Placebo Effect

The commission came to the conclusion that the source of mesmerism cures was people’s belief that it would work, not due to the actual process of using animal magnetism.  They also noted that the male mesmerizer, was frequently in very close physical contact with the mostly female patients with knees and faces right up against each other, and there was also physical touching.  They thought this close contact could possibly impair the morals and health of susceptible women.  The commission recommended that the practice of mesmerism be banned.


Comments: 

Benjamin Franklin, who was considered one of the greatest scientists of his day, played a part in the creation of the placebo-controlled experimental model, and the repudiation of a treatment that in itself relied on the placebo effect.


If you enjoyed this article, click here to read The Placebo Effect; Nuisance or Medical Treatment?


References 


Initially posted October 2024

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