Joseph Ennemoser

Who was Joseph Ennemoser?

Joseph Ennemoser was a South Tyrolean physician and stubborn late proponent of Franz Mesmer's theories of animal magnetism. He became known to English readers through a translation of his History of Magic.

Ennemoser, the child of poor parents, was born in Egghof bei Rabenstein and raised by his grandfather. He attended high school in Merano and Trento, and from 1806 studied medicine in Innsbruck. On the outbreak of war in 1809 he became a secretary to Andreas Hofer, and later continued his studies in Erlangen and Vienna. In 1812 he moved to Berlin, where he met Christian Friedrich von Petersdorff and Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow. In the summer of 1812 he went to London together with several Tyroleans in order to appeal for support in the fight against Napoleon. From 1813 he was in the Lützow Free Corps as an active leader of a group of Tyrolean marksmen which gained fame at Lauenburg and Jülich. In September 1813 he was promoted to second lieutenant.

After the First Treaty of Paris in 1814, he completed his studies in Berlin and became a supporter of Franz Anton Mesmer and his theory of animal magnetism. In 1819 he became professor of medicine in Bonn, leaving in 1837 for Innsbruck and then in 1841 settling in Munich, where he earned a great reputation as a "magnetic physician." He died in Egern by Lake Tegernsee in southern Germany.