Charles Poyen (died 1844)[1] was a French mesmerist or magnetizer (a practitioner of a practice that would later inspire hypnotism).[2] Mesmerism was named after Franz Anton Mesmer, a German physician who argued in 1779 for the existence of a fluid that fills space and through which bodies could influence each other, a force he called animal magnetism.[3]
- ^ "Editorials and Medical Intelligence", The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 31(8), 25 September 1844, (164–168), 166–167. doi:10.1056/nejm184409250310804
- ^ Eric T. Carlson, "Charles Poyen Brings Mesmerism to America", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, XV(2), 1960 (121–132), 121–122. doi:10.1093/jhmas/xv.2.121 JSTOR 24620698
- ^ Craig Hazen, The Village Enlightenment in America: Popular Religion and Science in the Nineteenth Century, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000, 118.