Médecine, Musique, Maçonnerie et mesmérisme. I. M.M.M.M. 1e partie. Du règne de Louis XV jusqu’à la Révolution française

Abstract

At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, numerous books were published and organized in Paris several important exhibitions on the history of Freemasonry in France where the question of complex links was tackled, more or less directly. Masonry, medicine and music, and in particular, at the end of the Enlightenment, through the “animal magnetism” of Franz-Anton Mesmer, very close links which remained in France after the Revolution of 1789. But while many historians of medicine, music and masonry have dealt with these questions, most of them are content to address only one of their aspects, for example, studying the works of a doctor or those of a musician without indicating that he was a freemason or, conversely, dealing with the role that this character held in Freemasonry, not to mention his practice of medicine or music. For the most famous among them who have had the right to personal biographies, they develop more or less their activities in these different fields, for example those of Mesmer in the field of medicine and of course those of Mozart, with which this doctor, himself a freemason, had particularly close relations, in that of music; but other doctors or musicians less well-known Lessons are simply forgotten. We will study successively these reports in two successive memories: the first will be devoted to the period that extends in France from the reign of Louis XV and the second from the Revolution of 1789 until the end of the Third Republic. We will try not to forget more of these characters who have held more modest roles in the history of medicine or music during these two periods.