8. In the hand of L’Air de Lamotte. On the top of the page, a secretary of Vicq d’Azyr’s drafted a partial reply: “La Societé se fera un devoir de lui faire parvenir ceux qui sont déjà imprimes elle sera trés flattée s’il Veut bien les accueillir.” Beneath this, another hand noted “Bien” and “Répondu”.

9. This 15-page report (cited in XXVI, 523n) had been submitted to the Société royale de médecine more than a year earlier (April, 1783) and printed at that time for distribution to the members. For unknown reasons the Jour. de Paris brought it to the public’s attention on May 4, 1784, through an article whose author is not known. Praising the report as a model study (without reference to its date), the article described the work and stated, by way of conclusion, that electricity, magnetic fluid, and animal magnetism (which had not been the focus of the report) were all worthy objects of medical investigation.

Andry and Thouret’s study was made at the request of the abbé Le Noble (XXVI, 523); it tested the medical efficacy of lodestones that the abbe had donated to the society. The authors were experts in the field, having published in 1780 a massive study of the history and practice of therapeutic magnetism (for which see the following note). They found the curative powers of the abbe’s magnets to be unquestionable, though they did not understand the process. Likening the potential of magnetic fluid to the promising field of medical electricity, they argued for further research.

1. Vol. 2 of Histoire de la Société royale de médecine … (10 vols., Paris, 1779–98) was published in 1780. Only one volume had appeared since then, vol. 3 for the year 1779, published in 1782. That volume contained the 1780 paper by Andry and Thouret mentioned in the previous note: “Observations et Recherches sur l’usage de l’aimant en médecine, ou, mémoire sur le magnétisme médicinale.” The paper was also issued as a separate extract.