[Magnetic trials in Berlin, 1789-1835: on the disembodiment of magnetic credibility].
From the 1780s to the 1830s, physicians at the Charité hospital in Berlin conducted clinical trials designed to test the therapeutic effectiveness of animal magnetism. This study draws on those trials to investigate the practical and discursive deployment of the magnetist's body. It argues that that body--and the moral problems it came to pose--were increasingly purged from medical practice and discourse. Whereas in the 1790s the plausibility of therapeutic claims about animal magnetism demanded recourse to the magnetic practitioner's body, by the 1830s the embodied evidence on which those claims rested had lost it's persuasive power and been relegated to the netherworld of quacks and charlatans.
Engstrom
Eric J
EJ
Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin. eric.engstrom@charite.de
D001604:Berlin; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis / Q000266:history*; D011781:Quackery / Q000266:history*