Suffering from serious illness in the early 1840s, the writer Harriet Martineau turned to the popular alternative therapy of mesmerism. She attributed her apparent cure to this, and published this account of the treatment as a book in 1845. This reissue also includes her doctor's defence of his standard treatments.
This account of Harriet Martineau's apparent cure by the popular treatment of mesmerism reveals Victorian interest in alternative therapies.