Editing Vitalism (section)

== Mesmerism ==
{{main|Animal magnetism}}
[[File:Franz Anton Mesmer.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Franz Mesmer]] proposed the vitalist force of ''[[animal magnetism|magnétisme animal]]'' in animals with breath.]]

A popular vitalist theory of the 18th century was "[[animal magnetism]]", in the theories of [[Franz Mesmer]] (1734–1815). However, the use of the (conventional) English term ''animal magnetism'' to translate Mesmer's '''magnétisme animal''' can be misleading for three reasons:
* Mesmer chose his term to clearly distinguish his variant of ''magnetic'' force from those referred to, at that time, as ''mineral magnetism'', ''cosmic magnetism'' and ''planetary magnetism''.
* Mesmer felt that this particular force/power only resided in the bodies of humans and animals.
* Mesmer chose the word "''animal''," for its root meaning (from Latin ''animus''="breath") specifically to identify his force as a quality that belonged to all creatures with breath; viz., the animate beings: humans and animals.

Mesmer's ideas became so influential that King [[Louis XVI]] of France appointed two commissions to investigate [[mesmerism]]; one was led by [[Joseph-Ignace Guillotin]], the other, led by [[Benjamin Franklin]], included [[Jean Sylvain Bailly|Bailly]] and [[Lavoisier]]. The commissioners learned about Mesmeric theory, and saw its patients fall into fits and [[trance]]s. In Franklin's garden, a patient was led to each of five trees, one of which had been "mesmerized"; he hugged each in turn to receive the "vital fluid," but fainted at the foot of a 'wrong' one. At Lavoisier's house, four normal cups of water were held before a "sensitive" woman; the fourth produced convulsions, but she calmly swallowed the mesmerized contents of a fifth, believing it to be plain water. The commissioners concluded that "the fluid without imagination is powerless, whereas imagination without the fluid can produce the effects of the fluid."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Best |first1=M. |last2=Neuhauser |first2=D. |last3=Slavin |first3=L. |title=Evaluating Mesmerism, Paris, 1784: the controversy over the blinded placebo controlled trials has not stopped |url= http://qhc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/12/3/232 |journal=Quality & Safety in Health Care |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=232–3 |year=2003 |pmid=12792017 |pmc=1743715 |doi=10.1136/qhc.12.3.232}}</ref>