Later French Commissions
secondary literature · 2011
LINK
SUMMARY
Chapter from Frank Podmore's history of mental healing, reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection, covering the official French inquiries into animal magnetism after the 1784 royal commission: the Académie Royale de Médecine commission of 1826-1831 (the Husson report, which reported some magnetic effects such as induced sleep but did not validate the claimed clairvoyant diagnosis), and the Burdin prize of 1837, which offered a money reward for a somnambulist who could read without using the eyes and which was never awarded. Crossref record: book-chapter, Cambridge University Press, issued 2011-05-19, pp. 103-121, ISBN 9780511973215.
NOTES
Podmore’s ‘Later French Commissions’ is the case’s source for the eventual institutional disconfirmation of magnetic somnambulism’s strongest claims. It records that when the Académie Royale de Médecine examined the somnambulists of the 1820s under controlled conditions, the committee acknowledged some effects of magnetizing but declined to confirm clairvoyant diagnosis, and that the Burdin prize for ‘reading without eyes’ went unclaimed. The chapter DOI (10.1017/cbo9780511973215.007) and the 2011 Cambridge Library Collection reissue (ISBN 9780511973215, pp. 103-121) were confirmed on Crossref.