Following the challenges about the validity or accuracy of Mesmerism by the medical profession, few reputable physicians practiced mesmerism until the middle of the nineteenth century, or early 1840's, when James Braid, a Manchester, England, surgeon, experimenting with the phenomenon, decided that it was not at all due to "animal magnetism" or to any other mysterious influence that passed from the physician to the patient.
Braid noticed that a trance produced by "fixing attention" was similar to that of animal magnetism but at first thought it was a different condition.
Later he concluded the two were identical. Early in his work, he believed that the fixation of the eyes on a bright object brought on a trance but, with more experience, he concluded that suggestion was the real explanation.
It was Braid who coined from the Greek element hypnos, meaning "sleep", the words hypnotism and hypnosis to describe this new science and the trance condition that was produced. He maintained that through the aid of hypnotism important physical and psychical effects could be obtained.
So, it was James Braid (1795-1860), a Scottish surgeon and hypnotist, who inaugurated modern hypnotic techniques in his book, Neurypnology, studying the subject with a seriousness that led to the inclusion of hypnotism in the treatment of nervous disorders by his successors.
At first he called the procedure "neuro-hypnosis" and then, believing sleep was involved, he suggested "hypnosis". Realizing that hypnosis was not really "sleep", he later tried to change the name to monoideaism (or monoideism, "a marked preoccupation with one idea or subject"), but the term hypnosis has remained ever since.
For many years, Braid practiced in London, using suggestion therapy and performing operations by using hypnotic anesthesia (typically anaesthesia is the British spelling).