While attending a performance by travelling Swiss magnetic demonstrator Charles Lafontaine at the Manchester Athenæum in England, Scottish surgeon and 'gentleman scientist' James Braid first obsvered the operation of animal magnetism.

When he along with fellow members of the medical community, who were paret of the viewing audience were invited by Lafontain on stage to examine the physical condition of his magnetised subjects, Braid much to his astonishment deduced that the subjects were indeed, in quite a different physical state.