Mesmer
FRIEDRICH ANTON, or FRANZ, a German physician; born near Constance, Baden, May 23, 1734. He was bred for the priesthood at Dillingen and Ingolstadt, but took up the study of medicine at Vienna, and took his doctor's MESOPOTAMIA degree in 1766 with a treatise on the influence of the planets. About 1772 he began to investigate the curative powers of the magnet, and was led to adopt the opinion that there exists a power, similar to magnetism, which exercises an extraordinary influence on the human body. This he called animal magnetism (see MESMERISM), and published an account of his discovery, and of its medicinal value, in 1775. He died in Meersburg, Baden, Mar. 5, 1815.
MESMERISM (mez'-), the system popularized by Mesmer, and by him called animal magnetism. Mesmer delighted in mysterious surroundings, and affected a strange weird style of dress; but one of his disciples, the Marquis de Puysegur, showed that sleep might be induced by gentle manipulation alone, thus removing mesmerism from the sphere of mystery. The chief phenomena are a hypnotic state induced by the patient gazing fixedly at some bright object, or by passes made by the operator; muscular rigidity, sometimes to such an extent as to admit of the body resting supported only by the head and heels on two chairs, insensibility to pain, and perverted sensation, as exhibited in a slightly hypnotized patient drinking water and imagining it to be delicious wine or nauseous medicine at the will of the operator. See HYPNOTISM.
MESNE (men), an English law term, meaning middle, intermediate, intervening; as, a mesne lord, that is, one who holds lands of a superior, which or part of which he sublets to another person; in this case he intervenes between the two, being a tenant of the superior lord, and lord to their inferior tenant.
MESOPOTAMIA (-tā'miä), in ancient geography, a country of western Asia, situate between the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was called, in the Old Testament, Aram Naharaim, Naharaim, or or "Syria Syria between the two waters," Aram, i. e., "Syria of the Plain," and is first mentioned in the Scriptures as the country where Nahor and his family settled (Gen. xxiv: 10). It was long part of the seat of the very ancient Babylonian dominion, and subsequently of the Mede, Persian, and Macedonian. The Romans obtained possession of Mesopotamia in 165. Jovian surrendered it to the Persians in 363. The Carmathians overran it in 902, and the Turks conquered it between 1514-1516. Modern Mesopotamia is largely peopled by Arabs, and comprised of the two pashalics of Bagdad and Diarbekr.
Many years before the World War Ger- MESOZOIC many longed for Mesopotamia, which would place her in a position to strike at India and Egypt. În 1897 a German company obtained a concession from the Sultan for a railroad from Konieh to Bagdad and Basra, on the Persian Gulf.
Great Britain remonstrated, and diplomatic exchanges continued until the World War broke out. A British force invaded Mesopotamia in 1915, and after defeating the Turks, General Townshend occupied Kut-el-Amara, 100 miles from Bagdad. General Sir John Nixon, commanding the expedition, ordered General Townshend to advance on Bagdad, but when within 18 miles of that city the Anglo-Indian force met with a heavy defeat, and fell back on Kut, where they were besieged for 143 days and surrendered on April 28, 1916. The Turks subsequently defeated three Russian and British invasions. A British army under General Maude was more successful in 1917. Kut was recaptured on Feb. 23, and Bagdad fell March 7-10, but it was not until October of 1918 Unat the Turk was completely vanquished in Mesopotamia. In 1919 Great Britain was given practically a protectorate over the country.