Details
MESMER, Franz Anton (1734-1815). Dissertatio physico-medica de planetarum influxu. Vienna: Ghelen, 1766.
8o (168 x 102 mm). Collation: A-C8. 24 leaves. Original plain blue wrappers. Provenance: Bibliotheca Ducumb? (inscription on title-page).
FIRST EDITION OF MESMER'S DOCTORAL THESIS, THE ORIGIN OF HIS THEORY OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. Mesmer's treatise on the gravitational influence exerted by the planets and speculation about invisible fluids derived both from Cartesianism and from the later queries in Newton's Opticks. Newton makes reference again to these fluids in the final paragraph of his Principia, commenting on "the most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies." The immediate source, however, of Mesmer's fluid "was Richard Mead's De imperio solis ac lunae in corpora humana et morbis inde oriundis (London, 1704 [see lot 659]), a work upon which Mesmer's thesis drew heavily. Mead had argued that gravity produced 'tides' in the atmosphere as well as in water and that the planets could therefore affect the fluidal balance of the human body." This "animal gravitation" Mesmer associated with health, and physical soundness was the result of "harmony" between the organs of the body and the planets. Mesmer traced his theory of animal magnetism to this thesis. EXTREMELY RARE. Pattie, "Mesmer's medical dissertation and its debt to Mead's De imperio solis ac lunae," in: Journal of Historical Medical & Allied Sciences II (1956), pp. 275-87; Tischner 1; Norman M1.
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FIRST EDITION OF MESMER'S DOCTORAL THESIS, THE ORIGIN OF HIS THEORY OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. Mesmer's treatise on the gravitational influence exerted by the planets and speculation about invisible fluids derived both from Cartesianism and from the later queries in Newton's Opticks. Newton makes reference again to these fluids in the final paragraph of his Principia, commenting on "the most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies." The immediate source, however, of Mesmer's fluid "was Richard Mead's De imperio solis ac lunae in corpora humana et morbis inde oriundis (London, 1704 [see lot 659]), a work upon which Mesmer's thesis drew heavily. Mead had argued that gravity produced 'tides' in the atmosphere as well as in water and that the planets could therefore affect the fluidal balance of the human body." This "animal gravitation" Mesmer associated with health, and physical soundness was the result of "harmony" between the organs of the body and the planets. Mesmer traced his theory of animal magnetism to this thesis. EXTREMELY RARE. Pattie, "Mesmer's medical dissertation and its debt to Mead's De imperio solis ac lunae," in: Journal of Historical Medical & Allied Sciences II (1956), pp. 275-87; Tischner 1; Norman M1.