Louis XVI established a royal commission to scientifically evaluate the theories of the famous and highly popular German physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who claimed that the universe is pervaded by a subtle fluid that unites all bodies and attributed all illnesses to alterations in this fluid. The commission produced the Report of the Commissioners of Charges by the King on the Examination of Animal Magnetism, which remains a key document in the history of human reason and rationality. In it, figures of the caliber of Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier dismantled Mesmer’s theories with crystalline clarity and rigorous experimental scientific method, demonstrating the placebo effect through months of experiments. The Mesmerists never recovered from the blow they suffered.
