Med. [f. the surname Braid.] The process of producing sleep or trance by causing the patient’s attention to be intensely concentrated on some visual object; this process, which had long been practised under the name of MESMERISM, was first scientifically applied, and its effects accounted for, by Dr. James Braid in 1842.
(Braid’s own name for the process was HYPNOTISM, which is still the one most frequent in scientific use; the popular term MESMERISM is not employed by medical writers, as it is understood to imply an explanation of the phenomena differing from that of Braid.)
1882. Bastian, in Quain’s Dict. Med., 132. Braidism certainly deserves more attention than it has received. Ibid., 973. The too ready adoption of hypnosis or Braidism may do harm rather than good.
