Franz Anton Mesmer was born on 23rd May 1734, near Lake Constance, on what is now the German side. He received a good and varied education, which ended with a medical qualification at the age of 32. His dissertation was on the influence of heavenly bodies on people's health, which he supposed to be by means of "animal gravity". At the age of 40 he became interested in the effects of magnets on the body and believed that he had discovered an entirely new principle of healing involving "animal magnetism". This "animal magnetism" that he used was different from physical magnetism in that he believed that he could "magnetise" paper, glass, dogs and all manner of other substances.
