Initial rejection

The first reaction of Spanish medicine to animal magnetism was very much influenced by the reports of two French Royal Commissions published in 1784. At the beginning of that year, the French medical profession had become alarmed by the spread of the controversial doctrine of Franz Anton Mesmer . The Commissions were established at the request of Charles d'Eslon , an influential doctor (at that time personal doctor to the Count d'Artois, the king's brother) and a former disciple of Mesmer. In response to increasing hostility from professional colleagues, he asked the government to investigate the animal magnetism that he practised in his clinic, in order to silence voices critical of his practice (Gauld, 1992: 7).

Despite the fact that some distinguished members of the nobility were enthusiastic followers of animal magnetism, the French government viewed it with apprehension because of the reputation for democracy that mesmeric societies enjoyed, as was also the case with certain masonic lodges. Mesmer was not a political character, but his call for harmony between man and universe could readily be applied to the new harmony of moral and political order. Thus, when Breteuil, the minister of the Maison du Roi, set up the Royal Commissions in March 1784 to investigate the claims of animal magnetism, he may well have had other hidden motives, apart from supporting d'Eslon's claims (Gauld, 1992: 8-9).

One of the Commissions was made up of four professors from the Faculty of Medicine and five members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and the other consisted of five scholars appointed by the Royal Society of Medicine. Both Commissions worked principally with d'Eslon, but Mesmer, who considered their methods unacceptable, did not co-operate. The first Commission addressed evidence for the existence of animal magnetism and the magnetic fluid. The Commission made the observation that magnetic effects could be obtained without magnetism by making patients believe that they were magnetized, whereas these effects were not seen when the subjects had been magnetized without knowing it. It therefore concluded that there was nothing to prove the existence of either phenomenon, and that the effects observed during mesmeric treatments were attributable solely to heightened imagination (Rapport des commissaires chargés pour le Roi . . ., 1784a). The second Commission's task was to verify the therapeutic results of animal magnetism. To this end, it divided magnetically-treated patients into three groups: one consisted of those with clearly identified illnesses; another of those with vague symptoms; and the third group was formed by m e l a n c h o l i c s . This Commission also reached a negative conclusion -albeit with the sole dissenting vote of the botanist Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836) -declaring that none of the patients from the first group had been cured, and that although several of the other two groups claimed to have improved, the improvement could not be attributed to the specific effect of animal magnetism (Rapport des commissaires de la Société Royale de Médecine …, 1784b). 6 The negative conclusions of the Commissions seem to have pleased the French government, judging by the fact that they printed numerous copies which were widely distributed (Gauld, 1992: 29). The publicity they received inevitably caused repercussions in other European countries. In Spain, one of the first important responses was Disertación médica de el magnetismo animal, expounded by Florencio Delgado before the Royal Society of Medicine and other Sciences of Seville in 1786, and published the following year [START_REF] Delgado | Disertación médica de el magnetismo animal: si es remedio en algunas enfermedades, cuáles, y su modo de aplicación[END_REF]). Delgado's dissertation, divided into twenty-three short chapters grouped in three parts, was little more than a summary of the first report published by the members of the French Faculty of Medicine and Royal Academy of Sciences. The first part concisely explained the doctrine of animal magnetism, based around the existence of a universally extended magnetic fluid (Delgado, 1787: 237-44). The second part described the two main ways in which magnetism was applied, intended to modify the magnetic fluid of magnetized subjects: individual, in which the magnetizer makes a series of passes over a particular patient; and public, in which, with the aid of the baquet, several people receive magnetic treatment simultaneously (Delgado, 1787: 245-54). And the third part evaluated its curative properties, that is to say, whether or not magnetism was a valid remedy, briefly relating the experiments collected in the French report (Delgado, 1787: 252-66). Finally, as might be expected, Delgado reached the same conclusion as the Royal Commissioners: that the existence of the alleged magnetic fluid cannot be proved, and that the curative effects of magnetism are due to the patients' imagination: Animal magnetism is not, nor can it be, a remedy for any maladies, and its action is ineffective […] If some real cures were effected after the application of magnetism, they could be the mere effect of nature, and not by virtue of this supposed essence [magnetic fluid], which should be seen as a chimera […] Its force, in truth, lies in the fantasy of hypersensitive brains. 7 (Delgado, 1787: 265-6) Spanish medicine, therefore, following official French dictates, also recognized some possible therapeutic effects of animal magnetism, but by considering the fluid that supposedly caused them as a chimera, it concluded that these cures could not, in fact, be due to animal magnetism, but were the fruit of the patient's imagination -an imagination that was, moreover, viewed with contempt, for its spurious character precluded any medical approach. 8 Following this critical initial reception, the rejection of magnetism remained the dominant attitude of Spanish doctors during the following decades. This estrangement was emphasized in the medical dictionaries from the early nineteenth century. One of the best known was Antonio Ballano's Diccionario de medicina y cirugía (1805)(1806)(1807). Here the entry on 'Mesmerism' stated: 'It is evident that Mesmer has done no more than to revive chimerical ideas, praised in other times and forgotten in our day' (Ballano, 1807: 389). These antagonistic opinions remained unchanged in the later edition of the D i c c i o n a r i o of 1815-1817 (Ballano, 1817: 389) and they were even compounded in its Suplemento, published between 1820 and 1823 by Manuel Hurtado de Mendoza and Celedonio Martinez Caballero (1821: 583-4), who wrote:

There is no need to suppose an animal magnetism, whose reality cannot be demonstrated, nor a universal fluid that penetrates arbitrarily everywhere, to explain all the apparent facts, all the natural cures and revelations, and all the popularly known states of somnambulism, or rather of semi-ecstasy and hysterical catalepsy […], their cures and other genuine results obtained should be attributed to nervous communications and wellknown ways or means […] of illusion which have always been brought to bear on minds. (original italics) Thus, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the two main arguments against animal magnetism continued to be the lack of evidence for magnetic fluid and the attribution of the therapeutic effects of magnetism and somnambulism to deluded imagination.

First attempts to introduce animal magnetism

The unanimous initial rejection of magnetism only began to change in the second decade of the nineteenth century. An indication of this change was the publication in 1816 by Ignacio Graells of his Noticias del magnetismo. This was printed, as Graells acknowledged, because of the scarcity of material so far written in Spanish on the subject, and because 'this doctrine is producing general excitement in this Court [Madrid], it already has some followers, [and] magnetic episodes are frequently repeated' (Graells, 1816: 23). These first medical attempts to consider animal magnetism in Spain were related to the close but ambivalent relationship with France during the War of Independence (1808-14), 9 and to the influence of certain French works on the subject, such as Histoire critique du magnétisme animal (1813) by the botanist and librarian of the Museum of Natural History, Joseph Deleuze (1753Deleuze ( -1835)).

Nevertheless, the enthusiasm for magnetism among Spanish doctors was rather limited and did not approach the popularity it had achieved in France, where the magnetic movement was in high social fashion around 1820 (López Piñero and Morales Meseguer, 1970: 119-20). It even managed to gain the approval of Étienne J. Georget (1795Georget ( -1828)), one of the main members of the school of Jean-Étienne-Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840), and Léon L. Rostan (1790Rostan ( -1866)), one of the most outstanding neurologists of the time and colleague of Georget at the Salpêtrière. 10 Graells could not be compared with Georget or Rostan, for he was a simple general practitioner working in Carabanchel de Abajo, a small town near Madrid. His Noticias was a simple work, divided into two contrasting parts. The first gave a brief account of the increasing interest in magnetic practices in Madrid. Taking Deleuze as the only supporter of his views (Graells, 1816: 12-13), Graells disputed the reports of the Royal Commissions of 1784 on the grounds that their members 'were so prejudiced against the doctrine of animal magnetism, that they did not deign to examine its effects' (p. 12). In the second part of Noticias, Graells -as he admitted -simply transcribed, more or less literally, individual chapters on mineral and animal magnetism taken from a certain Diccionario de las maravillas de la naturaleza 1 1 (pp. 23-4).

But although the quality of Graells' N o t i c i a s was very far from the painstaking approach of Deleuze, Georget or Rostan, this humble doctor still pointed out the important fact that animal magnetism does have therapeutic effects and that those effects had been disparaged by the French Royal Commissions because of their invalidation of magnetic fluid. Although Graells was completely convinced, from his own experience, of the therapeutic effects of Mesmerism, he was nevertheless cautious about its practice, because he wanted: Spaniards to proceed with less frivolity, and to be more cautious and circumspect than our neighbours in their decisions, setting them in this as in all else an example of moderation and common sense, to be able to embrace it or to reject it on solid grounds. (Graells, 1816: 23) Despite the moderation and common sense, this tentative appearance of Mesmerism in Spanish medicine was short-lived. In 1814, after the departure of the French troops, Fernando VII returned to Spain and a brief constitutional period, 1820-23, was followed by the so-called 'Ominous Decade' (1823-33) during which absolutism was restored and any thinking suspected of liberalism was repressed. Magnetism, with its aura of a liberal doctrine, was affected by this repression, as can be seen by the governmental prohibitions of the practice of animal magnetism which occurred throughout Spain. For example, in 1827 the provincial government of Manresa made an order 'to discover with all diligence whether there is anyone in that district using or protecting the sham of animal magnetism, and in that case to take action against him' (Gobierno militar y político de Manresa, 1827: 3). 12 Nor were the 1830s very conducive to magnetic practices in Spain. The situation was not helped by the first Carlist War, a civil war in Spain (1833-40), or by further negative conclusions on magnetism and somnambulism established by the Paris Academy of Medicine in 1831 and 1837. 13 For example, a paper in the Gaceta Médica de Madrid in June 1834 compared animal magnetism with the utopian socialism of Saint-Simon (1760-1825), describing both as fleeting 'whims of fashion' (Anonymous, 1834: 16). Nonetheless, the author expressed some hope in its future possibilities: divested of the absurdities they may contain, these doctrines will still produce useful results: it cannot be denied that Saint-Simon's doctrine has aired some extremely interesting ideas of political economy […] and magnetism too seems destined to draw our attention to the hitherto incomprehensible modifications of the nervous system. (Anonymous, 1834: 16) Although there is noticeably greater scepticism, the cautious expectations of magnetism that Graells expressed in 1816 are still discernible in these comments nearly 20 years later.

Reluctant acceptance

The 1834 article thought that, so far, Spain had not suffered from the 'contagion' of the doctrine of animal magnetism, that 'sensationalist system which has spread its roots progressively throughout Europe and provoked the most ardent controversy in the medical world' (Anonymous, 1834: 16). But from 1840 onwards the 'contagion' began to make itself felt. This change was probably stimulated by exiles, who had fled to France and England during Ferdinand's 'Ominous Decade' and on their return brought with them the ideas in vogue in those countries. And these included magnetism, in spite of its rejection in official medical circles. Evidence of its persistent popularity in France was the publication of three journals: Journal du magnétisme animal (1839-42) published by Jean Joseph Adolphe Ricard; Revue magnétique ( 1 8 44-66) published by Aubin Gauthier; and, most important, Journal du magnétisme (1845-60) published by J. D. Dupotet de Sennevoy. Similarly, in Britain the magnetic journal The Zoist, founded by John Elliotson (1791-1868), was published from 1843 to 1856. In addition, the late thirties and early forties were the golden age of the travelling demonstrators of magnetism. The best known were Dupotet, C. Lafontaine (1803-1892) and Ricard, whose public magnetic demonstrations achieved a great reputation and considerable media reaction in France and Britain (Gauld, 1992: 163-5).

The clamour caused by magnetism in other countries reached the Spanish medical press from 1840 onwards. Some of the articles published at this time seemed to be receptive to its possibilities. For example, Boletín de Medicina, Cirugía y Farmacia recounted one of Lafontaine's typical theatrical magnetic demonstrations held in London, which produced different phenomena of anaesthesia and telepathy among the audience (LL. RR., 1841: 235-7). Nevertheless, most articles continued to cast serious doubt on animal magnetism, pointing out the fakery of magnetic vision through opaque bodies (Anonymous, 1841), the fraud of the new methods and products announced by the magnetizers (F. R., 1845) or their uselessness in the treatment of epilepsy (Vinader Doménech, 1844).

Despite this fierce criticism, the popularity of magnetism increased, leading in the mid-1840s to the first Spanish translations of treatises on animal magnetism: those of Ricard (1844), Alphonse [START_REF] Teste | Manual práctico de magnetismo animal, o exposición metódica de los procedimientos empleados para producir los fenómenos magnéticos y su aplicación al estudio y al tratamiento de las enfermedades[END_REF] and Aubin [START_REF] Gauthier | Tratado práctico del magnetismo animal o sea, explicación del magnetismo y de todos los principales procederes empleados por los más célebres magnetizadores[END_REF]. All of them were standard works on magnetic theory and practice, and they became authentic reference books in Spain. A translation was also published of Rostan's article on Mesmerism (originally published in 1825 in the Dictionnaire de médecine), which in Spanish was called Del magnetismo animal [START_REF] Rostan | Del magnetismo animal, translator not known [probably R. Comellas[END_REF]).

Teste's manual was translated by Mariano Cubí y Soler (1801-75) and his follower Magín Pers y Ramona (1803-88). Cubí, who returned to Spain from the USA in 1842, was the main architect of the development of phrenology in Spain (Granjel, 1950: 203). Phrenology maintained that the faculties of individuals could be learnt by the inspection and feeling of their cranial protuberances, which supposedly bore a relation to the encephalic locations of these faculties. Despite opposition from the religious authorities, phrenology 14 had a certain esteem in its own right in Spanish medicine 15 but it also had an important effect in supporting the influence of magnetism. 16 In fact, Cubí included an appendix dedicated to animal magnetism ('Magnetismo humano') in his Elementos de frenología (Cubí y Soler, 1849).

'Magnetismo humano', although brief, was the most complete work on animal magnetism published in Spain in the first half of the nineteenth century. In it, Cubí followed the model of Teste's treatise, but introduced several contributions from his own personal experience: 'I consider myself to be one of the men who has magnetized most and who has seen most magnetize' (Cubí y Soler, 1849: 177). 17 Although not explicitly stated, there are in effect three main sections in 'Magnetismo humano'. In the first (pp. 159-69), the author defined magnetic fluid and the magnetic state, 18 gave a brief history of magnetism and emphasized that magnetism does not affect spirituality, free will or the immortality of the soul. This latter point was made to avoid his earlier experience of offending the religious authorities with the publication of his Sistema completo de frenología (1844). The second part (pp. 169-74) was devoted to explanations of what he considered to be the three main techniques of hypnotic induction; first, the technique of Deleuze, making passes; second, that of Jose Custódio de Faria (1756-1819), better known as Abbé Faria, who used verbal commands; and his own, which he called 'the Cubí method', a mixture of Deleuze's and Faria's methods. 19 In the third section of 'Magnetismo humano', Cubí described the phenomena of magnetism and lucid and non-lucid somnambulism (Cubí y Soler, 1849: 176-87).

In his works Cubí also mentioned some combined techniques, though he did not use the specific term phrenomesmerism. Phrenological examinations were conducted by means of a tactile examination of the cranial contours to 'read' the faculties of the underlying encephalic phrenological organs. But magnetizers, more ambitiously, tried in addition to 'stimulate' those particular cerebral organs. This was done in such a way that, when the magnetizer touched, or even indicated without actually touching, a certain zone of the skull of a previously magnetized subject, the person in the state of trance showed the feelings corresponding to the encephalic phrenological organ thus excited. Cubí's use of phrenomesmerism was already referred to in his notes to the translation of Teste's manual (Teste, 1845: 214-15), but he made more extensive reference to this practice in a later work, La frenología y sus glorias: lecciones de frenología (Cubí y Soler, 1853: 235). 20 Despite his enthusiasm for magnetism, Cubí, who was not a medical doctor but a philologist, only considered its therapeutic possibilities in passing (Cubí y Soler, 1849: 183). This limited therapeutic concern was not shared, of course, by the doctors who came to magnetism from phrenology, for example Telesforo Pérez and Ramón Comellas, who both published in 1846. Pérez wrote a brief article in the Boletín de Medicina, Cirugía y Farmacia. C o m e l l a s went into more detail in a pamphlet entitled Reseña sobre el magnetismo animal dedicada a los médicos y al público español, claiming that magnetism had direct beneficial effects on diseases affecting the nervous system (epilepsy, hysteria, hypochondria, monomania, catalepsy, neuralgia, rheumatism, blindness, some types of deafness and of paralysis) and indirectly, basically by the suppression of pain, on many others (Comellas, 1846: 20-7). Both authors (Pérez without mentioning it, and Comellas doing so very often) used as their main reference Rostan's 'Mesmérisme', the Spanish translation of which had been published in the previous year. And both, like Rostan, explained the effects of animal magnetism by the theory of emanation (Comellas, 1846: 10-12;Pérez, 1846: 21). 21 The second main therapeutic indication of magnetism, pain control, was partly jeopardized from 1846 onwards by the introduction of anaesthesia with ether. 22 Medical papers of the time compared ether-induced anaesthesia with magnetic anaesthesia, and these comparisons throw light on the actual practice of magnetism. One such paper in El Telégrafo Médico described the numerous operations carried out with the aid of magnetic sleep by the Scottish surgeon James Esdaile (1808-59) in the Native Hospital of Hooghly, in Bengal (Anonymous, 1847: 334-5), as well as the series of twelve operations carried out with mesmeric anaesthesia by Loysel in Cherbourg between October 1845 and June 1847, and witnessed by many people (Anonymous, 1847: 336-7).

A third area of interest was in the therapeutic possibilities of lucid somnambulism, including the ability to recognize, at least up to a point, either one's own afflictions or those of other people supposedly in magnetic communication with the somnambulist. This procedure was led by French magnetizing doctors such as Rostan (1845: 90-1) but, at least until 1846, Spanish doctors practising magnetism had unanimously ignored the lucid therapeutic capacities of the somnambulist state, branding them as 'confused' (Comellas, 1846: 8) or 'exaggerations' (Pérez, 1846: 22). However, subsequently this began to change, possibly as a result of the increasing influence of animal magnetism in medicine and the consequent increase of experimentation with it. The first text to propound the value of therapeutic somnambulism was signed by the initials 'R. J. y G.' (identity not established, but probably not a doctor) and entitled Nociones prácticas del magnetismo animal. This short work included three brief dialogues between a magnetizer and a somnambulist. The second of these described the lucid divination by the somnambulist of his own disease and the self-prescription of a series of remedies; and the third dealt with clairvoyant divination and treatment of a third party by the somnambulist (R. J. y G., 1846: 10-13). The following year, Juan Andrés Enríquez (1847) published a series of four articles entitled 'Magnetismo animal: curiosas observaciones de sonambulismo'. These described, at length and rather disjointedly, different clairvoyant phenomena and a process of premonitory divination and lucid treatment of her own ailment (a menstrual disorder) in a young patient whom Enríquez had previously magnetized into a somnambulistic state.

These sporadic news items about lucid somnambulist therapies in medical publications of the 1840s did not, however, modify the majority opinion that still considered them as dreams, deliriums or illusions (see, for example, Cubí y Soler, 1849: 182-4). But perceptions of the possibilities of somnambulism underwent a change from 1853, as a result of a magnetic phenomenon that excited European and Spanish society: the so-called 'table-turning'. 23 This phenomenon consisted of the formation of a 'magnetic chain', placing the hands of each participant on a table with the thumbs superposed and the right little finger on the left little finger of the person located to the right, thus forming a closed circle. After a few minutes the table would begin to turn in an anti-clockwise direction. Instead of a table, any object could be used (an upside-down top hat was among the favourites) or even a person. The Spanish medical press made several references to this, for example, Anonymous (1853), Delgras and Ramos Borguella (1853), Nieto (1853), [START_REF] Quintana | Movimiento giratorio[END_REF], but El Heraldo Médico was the professional journal which gave the greatest attention to the phenomenon. This journal included articles and letters bringing together news about it published in the Spanish and foreign political press (e.g., Gutiérrez de la Vega, 1853a) and in the foreign medical press (e.g., Gutiérrez de la Vega, 1853b), as well as explanations of the event given by French doctors (Piégu, 1853). But in particular it published descriptions of the first-hand experiments carried out by Spanish doctors and their attempts to explain this marvel (Alarcón Salcedo, 1853aSalcedo, , 1853b;;[START_REF] Torres | Fenómenos magnéticos[END_REF]Vérges, 1853aVérges, , 1853b)), almost always attributed to a nervous or zoomagnetic fluid akin to electricity, supposedly radiated by the subjects forming the magnetic chain.

The phenomenon of turning tables was considered as proof of the supposed existence of zoomagnetic fluid and its ability to radiate outside the body. This led to increased therapeutic uses of magnetism during the mid-1850s for nervous pathology (Fernández López, 1852) and for pain (J. B.-A de G. y A., 1853). In addition, the therapeutic possibilities of somnambulism were also regarded more seriously, as evidenced by Joaquín Quintana (1856: 275), a doctor in Cabra (Córdoba):

It is necessary to agree that magnetism reunites all the necessary conditions to impose itself on an area of pathology, more or less extensive, in relation to the importance of vital disturbances […] And note that, so far, I refer only to magnetism considered in itself as a means of treatment, and in no way to the amazing medical prospects afforded by somnambulism […] From this new viewpoint [of somnambulism], I see a considerable expansion of the circle of therapeutic operations; and magnetism will become a great treasure, which on more than one occasion the wise doctor will be able to turn to account.

Thus, the years 1853-56 saw the culmination of the process that started around 1840, whereby it was admitted within Spanish medicine that the therapeutic effects observed in magnetized patients were due effectively and specifically to animal magnetism, were not reproducible without it, and were not mere fantasies arising from an overexcited and misleading imagination (recall the rejected conclusions of the Commission of the Paris Academy of Medicine in 1831; see Note 13). The cause of animal magnetism was helped considerably by the fashionable interest at that time in supposedly magnetic effects such as table-turning. These phenomena (childish and banal, but nevertheless widespread and popular) seemed to constitute tangible proof of the existence of the zoomagnetic fluid (analogous to the electrical fluid) which acted as the medium of animal magnetism.

Critical revision

From about 1856 onwards, Spanish medicine moved into a period of reflection and critical assessment of magnetic doctrines. Typical of this standpoint was Pedro Mata y Fontanet (1811-77), a strong somaticist and determinist figure who was crucial to the development of Spanish forensic medicine and psychiatry [START_REF] Doménech | Las ideas de Pedro Mata en el campo de la psicología de su tiempo[END_REF].

Mata analysed animal magnetism (which he usually referred to as artificial somnambulism) in three lectures delivered at the Athenaeum in Madrid in 1856 and 1857, and published in 1864 in his Tratado de la razón humana en sus estados intermedios. 24 Mata started from the premise that artificial or magnetic somnambulism is similar to natural somnambulism, with the single difference that in the former it is the magnetizer who plunges the subject into a dream state by dominating his or her will (Mata, 1864a: 341). Next, he distinguished magnetic phenomena from the explanations that had been given about them. He maintained that the phenomena of magnetic or artificial somnambulism are 'actual fact' (Mata, 1864a: 338) and that they are the same phenomena which occur in natural somnambulism; the most significant of these are: more or less profound numbness, partial wakefulness of certain senses and organs, heightening of external and internal senses, enhancement of the memory, visions or hallucinations, and predictions or prophecies (although never completely accurate) (Mata, 1864c: 387). Mata did not mention the more outlandish features of somnambulism, 25 but he had no doubts about magnetic phenomena and some aspects of lucid somnambulism.

However, Mata strongly disagreed with the explanation given for the production of magnetic phenomena: the notion of magnetic fluid (Mata, 1864a: 339). For him, what caused the subject to fall into the state of magnetic somnambulism was his or her own imagination. Somnambulism was merely an alteration or a 'wound' of the imagination:

All the magnetizer does is to wound the magnetized subject's imagination; and he does not wound it with fluids, nor with substances radiating from his hands, eyes or other parts, nor with any kind of spiritual emanation, nor other nonsense of the sort; it is wounded as fantasy is always wounded, with ideas generated by its presence and its emulation or its pretensions in the brain of the somnambulist; and it is the latter's own ideas, produced like any other, which immerse him in the somnambulistic state. (Mata, 1864c: 396) 26 Mata distrusted the therapeutic results of magnetic practices, which he described as doubtful. As a forensic doctor, he was not aiming to test the curative capacity of artificial somnambulism but instead to explore the criminal responsibility of the magnetized subject and the magnetizer in crimes committed by a somnambulist under the influence of his magnetizer. Although he reached no clear conclusion about this at the end of his lectures, he did recommend the prohibition of its practice:

So that legislation and administration of justice may finally put an end to all the difficulties of this kind [in relation to criminal responsibility], I believe that […] the Penal Code would do well to prohibit those practices, demanding responsibility of magnetizers for everything which may arise from their magnetizations with respect to what the law sets out. (Mata, 1864c: 416) Mata's thinking illustrates very clearly two of the fundamental characteristics of animal magnetism as perceived in this period of revision: first, that magnetic phenomena are unquestionably actual facts, although not specifically produced by magnetic practices, since they can also take place in natural somnambulism; and second, that the means by which those phenomena occur is through the affecting -the 'wounding' -of the subject's imagination. These two ideas were certainly similar to those expressed by the French Royal Commissions and were reflected in Delgado's 1787 Disertación, except that the reality of magnetic effects was now acknowledged. There was also a recognition of their medium, the imagination, whose power is 'as strong as it is mysterious', as d'Eslon put it (see Note 8). Subsequently, the question of the imagination would be more carefully scrutinized and questioned; and before long new notions such as suggestion or the unconscious would appear. 27 Therefore, in the late 1850s, as Mata's work shows, Spanish medical thinking moved from a consideration of the physical effect of the magnetic fluid to the psychological study of influence and imagination as the means of producing magnetic phenomena -in other words, early signs of the transformation of magnetism into hypnotism. The anaesthetic experiments carried out by Paul Broca (1824-80), surgeon at the Necker Hospital in Paris who followed Braid's hypnotic method, started to impact on the Spanish medical world from about 1860. This influence was the crucial factor in effecting the transformation in Spain.

Epilogue

From this survey, the following conclusions can be drawn: animal magnetism had marginal importance within Spanish medicine as a whole; it was carried out almost exclusively by less prominent doctors; only belatedly, and at arm's length, did any of the great medical personalities, such as Mata, show any interest in it. Animal magnetism in Spain was affected by developments in France. The main Spanish works on Mesmerism (by Delgado, Cubí, Comellas, Graells, Mata and Quintana) were greatly influenced by French publications, and most of the Spanish ones were assessments or clarifications of French works based on their own experiences of animal magnetism. Nevertheless, medical magnetism in Spain, unlike that in France, was very moderate and careful. There were persistent calls among Spanish authors for the moderate practice of therapeutic magnetism and for restraint, in contrast to the excesses of the French magnetizers. Therapeutic applications were therefore limited to the control of pain and the improvement of chronic nervous affections, and Spanish doctors only occasionally suggested the therapeutic use of lucid somnambulism.

Three stages can be distinguished in the development of medical animal magnetism in Spain. First, from 1786 to 1840 magnetic treatments were considered illusory because the theoretical medium which caused them (the magnetic fluid) was seen as a mere chimera. This stage also witnessed sporadic governmental prohibitions of magnetic practices, reacting against the liberal aura surrounding animal magnetism. Claims made by some doctors during this period about magnetic cures were uncommon and went practically unnoticed. The second stage lasted from 1840 to 1856. After the arrival of phrenology in Spain in the early 1840s, magnetism achieved a certain degree of acceptance. Magnetic healing was no longer seen as something illusory, and came to be considered as specifically originated by animal magnetism, and not reproducible without it. Similarly, magnetic fluid, through its comparison to electrical fluid, was regarded as real, especially with the popularity of alleged magnetic phenomena around 1853. The third stage, from 1856 to 1860, was basically a period of review and evaluation of magnetic practices, motivated by the importance given at that time to the question of the criminal responsibility of the magnetized subject and the magnetizer. Magnetic phenomena were now considered as positive facts (in the sense that they were substantiated), but not specific to magnetism. The lack of a specific character for magnetic phenomena led to the abandonment of the concept of magnetic fluid and an increased interest in the role of the imagination, and in 1856-57 the notion of physical fluid became transformed into psychological influence -a precursor of the transformation of magnetism into hypnotism in Spanish medicine.

only a few lines are devoted to the development of hypnotism in Spain. Of all these works, only those of Balaguer [START_REF] Balaguer Perigüell | Del magnetismo animal al hipnotismo en la Valencia del siglo XX[END_REF][START_REF] Diéguez Gómez | Hipnotismo y medicina mental en la España del siglo XIX[END_REF] and Pons [START_REF] Barba | Since the pioneering works of Montserrat-Esteve[END_REF] contain any information about animal magnetism carried out in Spain. 6. The reports were reprinted in an edited version in [START_REF] Bourdin | Histoire académique du magnétisme animal[END_REF]. The first report is also obtainable under Bailly (1784) at: http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/histmed/ medica/magnetisme.htm (the second report is mentioned there in error). Also, on this website some indispensable sources for the history of animal magnetism can be consulted online. Further details of the well-known history of the Royal Commissions are to be found, for example, in Barrucand, 1967: 16-19, andGauld, 1992: 25-38. But the most complete analysis of the Commissions is still that of Rausky, 1977: 123-49. 7. All the translations were made by the author. 8. D'Eslon never denied, however, that imagination was responsible for most of the magnetic effects, but unlike most of his colleagues he thought that it could and should be studied, and used in therapy. Thus, the report of the first French Royal Commission points out that: 'D'Eslon believes he is able to demonstrate that the greatest part of the effects of animal magnetism is due to the imagination; and he has said that it may be that this novel agent [the magnetic fluid] is none other than imagination itself, whose power is as strong as it is mysterious […] He has commented to the commissioners that imagination, thus directed to the relief of suffering humanity, would constitute a great benefit of medical practice; and, persuaded of the truth of the power of the imagination, he invited to them to study its development and its effects in his clinic.' (Bailly, 1784: 73-4). 9. Graells (1816: 6) notes that: 'The first person to practise Mesmerism in Madrid was an artillery officer, taken prisoner during our glorious defence against France, whose unfortunate experience gave him the opportunity to familiarize himself with this doctrine […] The news has spread from mouth to mouth, and our magnetizer already has some disciples.' 10. Georget (1821, I: 267-301) devoted a chapter of his book, De la physiologie du système nerveux et spécialement du cerveau, to magnetism, and Rostan was the author of the article on magnetism which appeared in 1825 in the Dictionnaire de médecine, the basic reference work for the anatomoclinical school [START_REF] Rostan | Mesmérisme[END_REF]. 11. Unfortunately I have been unable to find this dictionary. 12. In this 3-page proclamation, there is reference to other governmental prohibitions introduced in Algeciras and Cádiz; magnetism is branded as 'erroneous and detrimental to our Holy Catholic religion', and its followers are 'denounced for their revolutionary ideas' (Gobierno militar y político de Manresa, 1827: 2). 13. In 1826 the Paris Academy of Medicine appointed another commission to re-evaluate animal magnetism and, after five years of experiments, they stated in their conclusions (1831) that 'it seems to us that a great number of observed effects depend only on magnetism and are not reproducible without it. They are well-verified psychological and therapeutic phenomena.' (López Piñero, 2002: 43). The report was badly received by the Academy as a whole, which agreed that it should not be printed. This was the result of a petition from the academic Castel, who affirmed that 'if the facts announced by the commission are real, they demolish half of physiological knowledge; it is dangerous, then, to propagate them by means of the press' (Quintana, 1856: 274). In 1837 D. J. Berna asked for and obtained the appointment by the Paris Academy of Medicine of another commission to examine two somnambulists whom he presented: their phenomena were supposedly going to achieve the definitive acceptance of magnetism. The commission concluded that Berna had been victim of a hoax (Quintana, 1856: 274). For more information on these later commissions, see : Gauld, 1992: 133-8;López Piñero and Morales Meseguer, 1970: 120-2. 14. Cubí was forced to defend himself before the Ecclesiastical Court of Santiago from the accusation that phrenology was a doctrine inimical to the Church (Cubí y Soler, 1847). 15. Cubí forged an enthusiastic relationship with phrenology in North America, and after returning to Spain in 1842 he devoted himself to spreading this doctrine throughout the country. His mission was far from unsuccessful, for in 1846 there were 19 phrenological societies throughout the national territory (Granjel, 1950: 220). But, in spite of this rapid promulgation, the development of phrenology in Spain came rather late, and coincided with the beginning of its general decline -as early as 1842 the physiologist Pierre Flourens (1794-1867) had launched the first serious attack against phrenological theories with his Examen de la phrénologie [START_REF] Flourens | Examen de la phrénologie[END_REF]. 16. The first performance of the comedy Frenología y Magnetismo by Manuel Bretón de los Herreros (1796-1873) was staged in Madrid in 1845; this gives some idea of how widely phrenological and magnetic practices had spread within society at that time (Granjel, 1986: 108). 17. Cubí devoted himself to magnetism immediately after his return to Spain in 1842.

However, his objective was never magnetism in itself, but its use to achieve advances in phrenology and to make his phrenological lectures more pleasant (Granjel, 1950: 208-9). 18. The magnetic fluid was, according to Cubí y Soler (1849: 159), analogous to the nervous fluid, and the magnetic state was analogous to the state produced by opium, ether or chloroform and resided in a condition of the nervous fluid produced by an external physical agent. Cubí described the magnetic state in the following words: 'a slight headache, a little tightness of the neck, some sort of peculiar sensation in the body or the limbs' (p. 175). 19. Cubí described his method as follows: 'With the patient sitting upright, I place my hands on his temples, with my thumbs on his eyebrows. In this position, I stare the patient in the eyes so fixedly, with such concentration and authority that it seems to me that I have him completely under my control. After half a minute or a minute at most, I say to him, in a commanding voice, like Faria's: sleep. When I utter this word to him, I pass my thumbs over the eyelids of the patient and immediately place my hands on his closed eyes and his forehead, without allowing him to open them. If the patient does not fall asleep at once, which frequently happens, I repeat, in a commanding voice, sleep. If this does not produce the desired effect, I put my hands on his head, I put my little fingers in his ears, or I make some passes over him; but the whole operation does not take more than three minutes.' (Cubí y Soler, 1849: 173) 20. Phrenomesmerism in Spain, as Cubí's example shows, had nowhere near the significance reached in the USA and particularly in Britain (on the latter, see Winter, 1998: 109-36).

Elliotson was one of the firmest defenders of this practice, which was a commonly accepted proposition of the works appearing in the journal The Zoist (Gauld, 1992: 226-8). James Braid (1795Braid ( -1860)), who was not in favour of the magnetic fluid, oddly enough used phrenomesmerism in a very similar way to Elliotson and devoted a whole chapter of his book Neurypnology to these points (Braid, 1843: 79-149), although later, from 1844, he dismissed them completely. In France, however, as in Spain, phrenomesmerism had a much smaller following. So it is mentioned very occasionally in the Journal du magnétisme and nearly always with reference to British magnetizers, not French (e.g., Anonymous, 1845).

21. The idea that the curative forces operated by means of the action of the will of the magnetizer passing his magnetic fluid to the interior of the patient's organism was already to be found in Mesmer's works. This concept was extended by Antoine Chastenet de Puységur (1752-1809) and developed mainly by Deleuze (1813, I: 81-94). Rostan's version of the theory of emanation, which he never claimed to be original (Rostan, 1845: 56), was identical to that of Deleuze, except that for Rostan the magnetic fluid had a similar character to electricity which Deleuze (1813, I: 84) did not recognize since he affirmed that 'most somnambulists have an aversion to electricity'. According to Rostan, the brain of the magnetizer would secrete a fluid very like the electrical one. This agent does not remain imprisoned in the skin or muscles of the magnetizer, but bursts into the exterior with a certain force, creating a 'nervous atmosphere' around itself. This 'active nervous atmosphere' of the magnetizer mixes with the 'passive nervous atmosphere' generated by the receptive will of the magnetized subject. The mixture of the two nervous atmospheres (in which magnetic rapport resides) generates some kind of modification in the nervous system of the subject and explains the communication of desires, will and even of the thought of the magnetizer to the magnetized subject. Up to here, more or less, the two Spanish doctors agreed with the French. But Rostan took the theory of emanation further than Pérez or Comellas ventured. For Rostan this mixture of nervous atmospheres was also an agent which was to some degree able to penetrate solid bodies. This would explain the magnetization of somnambulists through solid bodies, like doors or partitions, and also the phenomenon of clairvoyance or vision through opaque bodies (Rostan, 1845: 54-6). 22. On the diffusion of chemical surgical anaesthesia in Spain, see Vitoria, 1981. 23. Several works, almost all pamphlets of a few pages, were published from 1853 in French, English and German on the question of 'turning tables' (see the entry 'table-turning' in Crabtree, 1988: 522). 24. On the flow of ideas on somnambulism as a whole produced in these lectures, see Rosselló, Rosselló, Horrach and Perelló, 1995. 25. In fact, Mata's second lecture, which dealt with animal magnetism, was addressed to criticizing the excesses of the theory of Baron K. von Reichenbach (1786-1869) and the force which he called 'Od' (Mata, 1864b). 26. On the divergence and similarities between the imaginationists and the fluidists in animal magnetism, see Méheust, 1999: 340-4. 27. Although Mata did not refer to it, in the same year as he gave his lectures, Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) dedicated a work, Über Lebensmagnetismus (1857), to the psychological interpretation of magnetic phenomena through his notion of the unconscious, developed previously in his Psyche, zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele (1846).

Acknowledgements

This study was prepared within the research project HUM2004-0077/HIST granted by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.

I am grateful to: the staff of the Library of the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), without whose continuing help this work would not have been possible; the Historical Library of the Uriach Foundation (Barcelona), for providing extremely useful information and invaluable bibliographical material; and the Erickson Institute of Madrid, where in the last two years I have learnt to appreciate and to know hypnosis (and magnetism) in practice.