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Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l’examen du magnétisme animal, imprimé par ordre du roi.

In-8 (185 x 124 mm) de 1 ff.n.ch., 80 pp. Cartonnage moderne (Lobstein-Laurenchet). Norman, M-125; Duveen & Klickstein, 224. Première édition in-8 du célèbre rapport qui marque le début d'une longue controverse autour du magnétisme animal et du mesmérisme. Exemplaire portant bien la vignette aux armes royales sur le titre. Célèbre rapport, ici dans son retire de format in-8, signé par Benjamin Franklin, Majault, Leroy, Sallin, Bailly, Darcet, de Bory, Guillotin et Lavoisier. "In the spring of 1784 the French government, no longer able to ignore the challenges to established medicine and politics posed by Mesmer and his followers, appointed two separate commissions to investigate animal magnetism, the first consisting of nine members - five from the Académie des Sciences, four from the Faculté de Médecine - and the second composed of five members of the Société Royale de Médecine. The first commission, presided over by Benjamin Franklin (then the United States' Ambassador to France), decided to investigate animal magnetism as practiced by Eslon, since Eslon, unlike Mesmer, welcomed an official inquiry. After observing Eslon at work and performing several tests on his clients, the commission concluded that mesmeric 'fluid' did not exist, and that the convulsions and other effects produced by animal magnetism were merely the products of imagination an imitation. The commission’s report, edited by the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly, unleashed a storm of controversy that raged for many years” (Norman).
  • $664