Archiv fur Magnetismus und Somnambulismus [IAPSOP]

Periodical:	*Archiv fur Magnetismus und Somnambulismus*

Summary:	From Pat Deveney's database: Archiv fur Magnetismus und Somnambulismus. 1787—1788 Irregular Strassburg, Germany. Language: German. Editor: Johann Lorenz Bockmann. Publisher: In der akademischen Buchhandlung. 1/1, 1787-1788. Johann Lorenz Bockmann (1741-1802) was a noted mathematician and physical scientist (a correspondent of Benjamin Franklin and the installer of the first lightning rod in Baden). He was also Councilor at the court of Karl Friedrich, Margrave of Baden, and was sent by him to Strasburg, where the Marquqis de Puysegur was then living, to investigate Mesmerism and especially its later developments, somnambulism and clairvoyance. His visit coincided with the high point of Mesmerism in Germany and, beginning as a skeptic, he soon became a convinced believer and active participant in the Harmonic Society of Strasburg and began publishing this irregular journal filled with reports from all around Germany of various magnetic healings and occurrences and with letters on the same from physicians to their patrons. Many local physicians were not amused and officially complained to the Margrave about Bockmann's journal and it soon was brought to an end while Mesmerism narrowly escaped being banned in Baden.
Other Sources:	National Library of Medicine; University of Texas; Cambridge University; Universitatsbibliothe Duisburg-Essen, etc.
Issues:	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N1 1787
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N2 1787
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N3 1787
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N4 1787
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N5 1787
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N6 1788
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N7 1788
	Archiv Fur Magnetismus Und Somnambulismus N8 1788
Claude-Generated Themes:	The Archiv für Magnetismus und Somnambulismus, published in 1787 and 1788, is among the very earliest periodicals devoted to animal magnetism, appearing within a decade of Mesmer's Paris practice and while the subject was still an open medical question in the German states. Its subject, named on the masthead and dominating the text, is magnetic somnambulism: the artificial sleep and the strange lucidity attributed to the sleeper, which would occupy the movement for the next century. What the surviving issues show is not a doctrine being expounded but a practice being defended. One passage argues that since medical opinions themselves differ widely, no physician is entitled to condemn a cure merely because a somnambule has proposed remedies departing from the usual ones. Another rebuts a hostile account of magnetism at Karlsruhe printed in a general journal, dismissing it as a swarm of half-truths. A third simply records a case: a village doctor briefed on a patient's condition, an antispasmodic and a mild purgative prescribed in a stated order. This is the German origin of the magnetic tradition caught in the act of arguing for itself. Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
Topics:	Mesmerism and Animal Magnetism