Who discovered hypnosis?

Hypnosis is the ability to influence the behaviour and feelings of other people. Even primitive peoples have practised it as a form of medicine. A Viennese doctor, Franz  Mesmer, used hypnosis to treat patients long ago. It came to be called mesmerism. But it was an English doctor, James Braid, who studied hypnotism scientifically and coined the words, hypnosis and hypnotism.