Report of the commissioners charged by the king with the examination of animal magnetism

Franklin, Benjamin; Majault,; Roy, Le; Sallin,; Bailly, Jean-Sylvain; D'arcet,; Bory, De; Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace; Lavoisier, Antoine

doi:10.1080/00207140208410109

Cited by 40 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…Apparently oblivious to the hazards of therapist bias, nonspecific placebo effects, and demand characteristics identified by Franklin andLavoisier (1784/1996) more than 200 years ago, Callahan claims that hundreds of therapists have observed the effects of TFT before their very eyes. He apparently does not understand that uncontrolled anecdotal observations will persuade no one who is even remotely familiar with scientific method.…”

Section: Comments On Callahan's Articlementioning

confidence: 97%

Tertullian's motto and Callahan's method

McNally

2001

J Clin Psychol

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Section: Comments On Callahan's Articlementioning

confidence: 97%

Tertullian's motto and Callahan's method

McNally

2001

J Clin Psychol

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“…The "Report of the commissioners charged by the king with the examination of animal magnetism", published in 1784, was initiated by the French Academy of Science and the Paris Faculty of Medicine to investigate the claims of Franz Mesmer regarding animal magnetism and its use in treating various conditions (Franklin, et al, 2002). No evidence of "animal magnetism" was identified by the report, which concluded that imagination played a major role in hypnotic responses.…”

Section: Hypnotic Susceptibility and Imagery Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Can motor imagery and hypnotic susceptibility explain Conversion Disorder with motor symptoms?

et al. 2016

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“…As reported by the members of the commission themselves, "while the woman was permitted to see the operation, she placed her sensations precisely in the part towards which it was directed; that on the other hand, when she did not see the operation, she placed them at hazard, and in parts very distant from those which were the object of magnetism. It was natural to conclude that these sensations, real or pretended, were determined by the imagination" (133,178). Real mesmerism was found to work as well as sham mesmerism in a subsequent series of experiments, thus leading to the conclusion that the mesmeric fluid had no existence and any effect was attributable to imagination.…”

Section: A Placebos Were Introduced To Validate the Efficacy Of Medimentioning

confidence: 99%

Placebo and the New Physiology of the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Benedetti

2013

Physiological Reviews

355

320

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Modern medicine has progressed in parallel with the advancement of biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology. By using the tools of modern medicine, the physician today can treat and prevent a number of diseases through pharmacology, genetics, and physical interventions. Besides this materia medica, the patient's mind, cognitions, and emotions play a central part as well in any therapeutic outcome, as investigated by disciplines such as psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology. This review describes recent findings that give scientific evidence to the old tenet that patients must be both cured and cared for. In fact, we are today in a good position to investigate complex psychological factors, like placebo effects and the doctor-patient relationship, by using a physiological and neuroscientific approach. These intricate psychological factors can be approached through biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology, thus eliminating the old dichotomy between biology and psychology. This is both a biomedical and a philosophical enterprise that is changing the way we approach and interpret medicine and human biology. In the first case, curing the disease only is not sufficient, and care of the patient is of tantamount importance. In the second case, the philosophical debate about the mind-body interaction can find some important answers in the study of placebo effects. Therefore, maybe paradoxically, the placebo effect and the doctor-patient relationship can be approached by using the same biochemical, cellular and physiological tools of the materia medica, which represents an epochal transition from general concepts such as suggestibility and power of mind to a true physiology of the doctor-patient interaction. I.WHAT I. WHAT IS A PLACEBO RESPONSE? A. Placebos Were Introduced to Validate the Efficacy of Medical TreatmentsAncient physicians have always used bizarre and odd treatments to cure their patients, with scarce, if any, knowledge of anatomy and physiology. As the anatomical and physiological details of both the animal and the human body started emerging, the need of a scientific explanation of many medical treatments became an imperative objective of physicians and the scientific community. An important historical period whereby scientific skepticism emerged about the efficacy of some medical remedies is approximately in the second half of 1700 and involved treatments like mesmerism, perkinism, and homeopathy (178).To take mesmerism as an example, this was introduced in the second half of 1700 by Franz Anton Mesmer, who claimed to have discovered a healing fluid which he called animal magnetism. To assess the very nature and the efficacy of mesmerism in treating many diseases and symptoms, Louis XVI appointed a commission that was headed by Benjamin Franklin. This commission performed what can be considered one of the first blind assessments and sham (placebo) interventions in the history of medicine. Some women were blindfolded and asked where the mesmeric energy was being applied. As reported by the members of the commission th...

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Report of the commissioners charged by the king with the examination of animal magnetism

Cited by 40 publications

References 0 publications

Tertullian's motto and Callahan's method

Tertullian's motto and Callahan's method

Can motor imagery and hypnotic susceptibility explain Conversion Disorder with motor symptoms?

Placebo and the New Physiology of the Doctor-Patient Relationship

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