---
title: "Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism"
chunk: 16/17
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_on_Animal_Magnetism"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:45:20.529918+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The "classic" structure of the investigations undertaken by the "Franklin" Commission inspired – among many others over the ensuing years – the (1799) investigations of Chester physician John Haygarth (1740–1827) into the efficacy of Perkins' "tractors".
In the process of discussing the experiments he had conducted (with medical colleagues as witnesses) with (dummy) "wooden tractors" on 7 January 1799, and with Perkins' "true metallick tractors" on 8 January 1799, Haygarth emphasized his considerable debt to the (earlier) "Franklin Commission" enterprise:

It need not be remarked, how completely the trial illustrates the nature of this popular illusion, which has so wonderfully prevailed, and spread so rapidly; it resembles, in a striking manner, that of Animal Magnetism, which merited the attention of Dr. Franklin, when ambassador from America, and of other philosophers at Paris. If any person would repeat these experiments, they should be performed with due solemnity. During the process, the wonderful cures which this remedy is said to have performed ought to be particularly related. Without these indispensable aids, other trials will not prove as successful as those which are above reported. The whole effect undoubtedly depends upon the impression which can be made upon the patient's Imagination.

This method of discovering the truth, distinctly proves to what a surprising degree mere fancy deceives the patient himself; and if the experiment had been tried with the metallick Tractors only, they might and most probably would have deceived even medical observers. Yet this test of truth was perfectly candid. A fair opportunity was offered to discover whether the metallick Tractors possessed any efficacy superior to the ligneous Tractors, or wooden pegs.

== Four vestiges of the magnetization-by-contact practice ==
In relation to the findings of both Commissions – that there was no evidence for d'Eslon's claims, and that d'Eslon's magnetization-by-contact practices had no place within the "medical penumbra" – and despite the consequent, and widespread demedicalization of both d'Eslon's magnetization-by-contact and of animal magnetism in general, there remained a small number of historically significant vestigial remnants of d'Eslon's magnetization-by-contact, the boundary-work of which, for a short while, operated at the frontier of the "medical penumbra" (Brockliss and Jones, 1997) in the (vain) hope of producing an "expansion of the medicable" (such that they would be admitted to conventional medical practice), which were (later) abandoned by their original advocates.

=== Phreno-magnetism ===
In 1843, Robert Hanham Collyer (1814–1891), an American physician and former pupil of John Elliotson, announced that he had discovered the existence of phreno-magnetism in November 1839; and, prior to Collyer's later retraction, two others claimed to have independently confirmed the veracity of Collyer's "discovery": the architect, Henry George Atkinson (1812–1890), at London, in November 1841, and the chemist, Charles Blandford Mansfield (1819–1849), at Cambridge, in December 1841.
Phreno-magnetism, as a practice, involved the physical activation (termed "excitation") of specific "phrenological organs", via the operator's 'magnetisation', directly through the particular cranial area supposedly corresponding to that specific phrenological "organ". It was claimed that, in a suitable subject, whenever an operator "excited" a particular phrenological "organ" the subject would manifest whatever sentiments were considered appropriate to that "organ".

Four years later, by mid-1843, further experiments that had been conducted by Collyer himself had conclusively proved to his own satisfaction that he was mistaken, and Collyer concluded that there was no such thing as phreno-magnetism at all.
Unaware, at the time, of Collyer's retraction, James Braid made a careful examination of "phreno-hypnotism" in December 1842; and continued his comprehensive experimentation until August 1844 – when he concluded, along with John Campbell Colquhoun (Colquhoun, 1843), that there was no foundation for phrenology, in general, and for phreno-magnetism, in particular.
As a consequence of the debunking by Colquhoun, Braid, and others, phreno-magnetism – which, in yet another case of "prima facie plausibility", had (initially) seemed to promise such a wide range of valuable therapeutic and moral applications – "soon morphed into theatrical performances demonstrating the 'reality' of phrenology to credulous audiences, with lecturers pressing specific locations on the cranium of their [magnetised] subjects, and their subjects immediately displaying responses appropriate to the characteristics of each phrenological zone" (Yeates, 2018, p. 56) (see, for example, the figure above).

=== The "zones" of Albert Pitres ===

Around 1885, the neurologist Albert Pitres – the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bordeaux, and an associate of  Charcot at the Salpêtrière hospital – claimed that he had discovered a system of "zones" on the surface of the body, the stimulation of which induced (or terminated) the hypnotic state; namely:

zones hypnogènes, or "hypnogenetic zones" which, he said, when stimulated, threw people into the hypnotic state, and
zones hypno-frénatrices, or "hypno-arresting zones", which, he said, when stimulated, abruptly threw people out of that same hypnotic state.
Pitres further claimed that, despite the location of the specific "zones" differing from individual to individual, the location of the relevant "zones" remained constant for each individual: that is, they had a "habitual position" ("position habituelle" (Pitres (1891), p. 497).
There is no evidence that there was ever any independent verification of Pitres' claims.

=== The psychoanalytic couch of Sigmund Freud ===