En ningun lugar, en parte alguna: Estudios sobre la historia del magnetismo animal y del hipnotismo (review)

The title of this work was taken from the Spanish translation of Kein Ort. Nirgends, in which Christa Wolf imagines an encounter between Karoline von Günderrode and Heinrich von Kleist, two German Romantic suicidal poets. En ningún lugar is a collection of ten essays on animal magnetism and hypnosis, presented as part of a project carried out by the research division of the the School of Medicine of Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

As is well known, the theme is one of the most disturbing and ambiguous in medical thought history. In spite of the redeeming approach of The Discovery of the Unconscious, Henri F. Ellenberger's canonical work, there are still some dark areas waiting to be elucidated. As the editors have recognized, although animal magnetism and hypnotism emerged from medical theory and practice, they soon invaded other areas of culture. In the light of this development, the book's contents deal with several different themes. A mere listing of the chapters serves as a guide to the multidisciplinary approach and ambition of the project: "The Return of the Rejected: Romanticism and Animal Magnetism," by Luis Montiel (head professor of history of science at the School of Medicine of Universidad Complutense de Madrid); "The Teachings of Magnetizers (from Mesmer to Puysegur)," by Jean-Pierre Peter (head of studies at l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris); "Mesmer, Natural Science, and Medicine during Romanticism," by Dietrich von Engel-Hardt (professor of history of science at Lübeck University); "Doctor Klein's Novel: An Account of a Magnetic Therapy during German Romanticism," by Montiel; "A First Look on Magnetism's Dark Side: E. T. A. Hoffman's The Magnetizer (1813)," by Montiel; "Mathilde Frigard, Scientist and Criminal: History of Science Meets Crime Reportage," by Jacqueline Carroy (researcher at the Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris) and Natalie Richard (professor at l'Université de Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne); "Hypnotism: The Defeated Victor," by Ángel González de Pablo (head professor of history of science at the School of Medicine of Universidad Complutense de Madrid); "Hypnotism and Mental Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Spain," by Antonio Diéguez (specialist on mental health and researcher of the history of nineteenth-century Spanish psychiatry); "Hypnotism in Spain during the First Thirty Years of the Twentieth Century," by González de Pablo; and "Stop Death! A Threatening Archetype as a Literary and Film Resource," by Juan Luis Carrillo (professor of history of science at the School of Medicine of Sevilla).

Each chapter is rich in erudition and makes for very interesting reading; however, as is often the case in collective works, the whole turns out to be somewhat disconnected and the reader cannot help thinking of other themes that should have been included (for instance, Charcot's influence on medical and psychiatric thought). The reader also gets the impression that the first chapters act as some sort of introduction to the editors' main research theme—namely, the development of magnetism and hypnosis techniques in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Spain.

Furthermore, this kind of research needs to be placed inside a wider and extremely complex field: the history of Spanish psychiatry during the aforementioned era. This field has been explored by prominent figures who are seldom recalled by English-speaking researchers, the eminent and brilliant Cambridge professor Germán E. Berrios being the sole exception.