THREE ELECTROTHERAPISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: JOHN WESLEY, JEAN PAUL MARAT AND JAMES GRAHAM* By W. J. TURRELL

OXFORD ENG. T would, I think, be difficult to find and exercise, and supports most things three men differing more widely in with physical reasons. He entirely condemns character and temperament than the eating anything salt or high-seasoned, as three whose names I have selected as also pork, fish, and stall-fed cattle, and representative of electrotherapy in therecommends for drink two pints of water eighteenthI century—John Wesley, the and one of wine in twenty-four hours, with eminent divine and credulous enthusiast; eight ounces of animal and twelve of vege- Jean Paul Marat, the revolutionist and table food in the same time. The book is scientist; and James Graham, the fanatical chiefly directed to studious and sedentary quack. persons.” It is impossible to read a life of John According to Tyerman’s “Life and Times Wesley (1703-1791) without being im- of Wesley,” this Dr. Cheyne was “educated pressed with his strong leaning both to the at Edinburgh, where his habits were tem- study and to the practice of medicine. His perate and sedentary; but, proceeding to thoughts appear to have been first drawn London, he associated with a number of in this direction by a perusal, at the age of young gentry, to retain whose friendship it twenty-one, of Dr. Cheyne’s work, “A was necessary to indulge to the utmost in Book of Health, and Long Life.” Wesley table luxuries. The result was, Cheyne may have been induced to read this book in became nervous, scorbutic, short-breathed, order to find a cure for the severe attacks lethargic, and listless; and was so enor- of epistaxis from which he suffered at this mously fat as to be nearly thirty-three stones period of his life. So violent had the hemor- in weight. His life became an intolerable rhage been on one occasion that, writing burden, and, to cure himself, he adopted a whilst in residence at Oxford, he says that milk and vegetable diet, by means of which he was only able to arrest the bleeding from he recovered his strength, activity, and his nose by the drastic procedure of stripping cheerfulness.” This book evidently made himself and plunging into the Thames. a great impression on Wesley, for in Vol. Wesley’s prejudice against the medical Ill of his “Works,” forty-six years later, profession appears to have arisen in the he states: “From ten to thirteen or fourteen, first place on account of the unfavourable I had little but bread to eat, and no great reception which this work of his favourite plenty of even that. I believe that this was medical author received at their hands. On so far from hurting me, that it laid the November 1st, 1724, he thus writes to his foundation of lasting health. When I grew mother, “I suppose you have seen the up, in consequence of reading Dr. Cheyne, famous Dr. Cheyne’s “Book of Health and I chose to eat sparingly and to drink water.” Long Life” which is, as he says he expected, In Vol. I of his “Works” he praises another very much cried down by the physicians. of Cheyne’s books “Natural Method of He refers almost everything to temperance Curing Diseases.” In reference to this book *A Paper read before the Royal Society of he regretfully comments, “What epicure Medicine Section of the History of Medicine, will ever regard it? for the man talks against January 19, 1921. good eating and drinking.” It was not, however, till the year 1746, In this book he made full use of his when he was forty-three years of age, that opportunities of attacking the qualified Wesley opened a dispensary at the Found- physicians of his time, and of course the ery, Moorfields, London, and systematically book met with much adverse criticism from started the practice of medicine. He was the medical profession. Dr. W. Hawes, the led to take this step owing to the necessities founder of the Humane Society, wrote a of the poor whom he encountered in his book with the special object of attacking preaching. He had already started a fund “Primitive Physic.” The following some- to provide them with clothes, and in his what lengthy title of Dr. Hawes’ book shows “Works” he tells how he formed the resolu- upon what grounds the attack was made: tion to start his dispensary: “At length I “An examination of the Rev. Mr. John thought of a kind of desperate expedient: Wesley’s Primitive Physic; showing that a ‘I will prepare and give them physic myself.’ great number of the prescriptions therein For six or seven and twenty years, I had contained are founded on ignorance of the made anatomy and physic the diversion of medical art, and of the power and operations my leisure hours; though I never properly of medicine; and, that it is a publication studied them, unless for a few months when calculated to do essential injury to the I was going to America, where I imagined I health of those persons who may place might be of some service to those who had confidence in it. By W. Hawes, M. D.” no regular physician among them. I applied Wesley extracted some of the prescriptions to it again. I took into my assistance an from “Primitive Physic” and subsequently apothecary and an experienced surgeon; published them at the price of two pence resolving at the same time, not to go out of under the title of “Receipts for the Use of my depth, but to leave all difficult and the Poor.” The success of “Primitive complicated cases to such physicians as the Physic” was so great that it reached patients should choose. I gave notice of twenty-three editions during Wesley’s this to the society; and in five months lifetime. medicines were occasionally given to above In 1758 Wesley published another medical five hundred persons.” book, entitled “Advices with respect to In opening this dispensary Wesley natur- Health. Extracted from a late Author.” ally met with much opposition from the A book of 218 pages. I have not seen a copy medical profession, and he retaliated on the of this work, and I am indebted to Tyer- attacks made against him in more vehement man’s “Life and Times of Wesley” for my language: “For more than twenty years,” information in regard to it. The “late he writes in a letter to Archbishop Seeker, author” was Dr. Tissot. Wesley, though “I have had numberless proofs that regular praising Tissot’s book on the whole, con- physicians do exceedingly little good.” demns “his violent fondness for bleeding, As is so often the case, this opposition his love of glysters, his uncleanly ointment appears to have been of considerable assis- for the itch, and his vehement recommenda- tance to him, for his dispensary was so tion of the Peruvian bark, as the only successful that within two months he infallible remedy either for mortifications opened a second one at Bristol. The progress or intermittent fevers. ” Wesley states that of these dispensaries led him to medical he took some pounds of the Peruvian bark authorship, for, in the following year, he when he was young, for a common tertian published his interesting book “Primitive ague, but with no effect, a cure being brought Physic: or an easy and natural Method of about unawares by drinking largely of curing most Diseases.” lemonade. Among several queer remedies added by Wesley is one of applying warm frequently refers. The most remarkable treacle to the soles of the feet as a cure for feature of his own book is the fervour with erysipelas. This book is especially interesting which he appeals for a trial of the curative as it contains the first reference to electrical effects of electricity. We have seen that he treatment to be found in any of Wesley’s had a very poor opinion of the medical works. He makes the claim that “electrify- men of his day; in his book “Primitive ing cures all sorts of sprains.” It was not Physic” he gives the following interesting till 1780—nearly twenty years afterwards— sketch of how they came to acquire a that he published anonymously his very monopoly of medical treatment: remarkable book: “The Desideratum; or, Physicians now began to be had in admira- Electricity made plain and Useful. By a tion as persons who were something more than lover of Mankind and Common Sense.” human. And profit attended their employ as There is little doubt that Wesley derived well as honour, so that they had now two his first information in regard to electrical weighty reasons for keeping the bulk of man- treatment from the works of Richard kind at a distance that they might not pry into Lovett, a lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral. the mysteries of the profession. To this end Lovett’s first book on this subject, entitled: they increased those difficulties by design, “The Subtile Medium: or, that Wonderful which began in a manner by accident. They filled their writings with abundance of technical Power of Nature, . . . showing its vari- terms, utterly unintelligible to plain men. They ous uses in the animal economy, particularly affected to deliver their rules and to reason upon when applied to maladies and disorders of them in an abstruse and philosophical man- the human body, ...” was published ner. They represented the critical knowledge at Worcester, in 1756. Lovett treated a of anatomy, natural philosophy (and what not? large number of diseases by electricity, Some of them insisting on that of astronomy including St. Anthony’s Fire, bronchocele, and astrology too) as necessary previous to contractions, epilepsy, feet violently dis- the understanding of the art of healing. Those ordered, gout, headache, mortification, who understood only how to restore the sick palsy, rheumatism, sciatica, sore throat, to health they branded with the name of and fistula Iachrymalis. His treatment Empiricks. appears to have been very thorough; in In the preface of “The Desideratum,” reference to hysteria and similar cases, he Wesley has another tilt at the doctors: writes: “Mr. Lovett is of opinion that the electrical In these complaints it is not to be done by method of treating disorders cannot be halves; not for a few minutes only (which is expected to arrive at any degree of perfec- sufficient in some others) particularly if it has tion till administer’d and applied by ‘the taken deep root; but the person ought to stand Gentlemen of the Faculty.’ Nay, then, or sit on the electrical stool for an hour in the Quanta de spedecidil All my hopes are at an morning and another in the evening each day; end. For when will it be administered and or, if two hours a day cannot be complied with, applied by them? Truly, ad Graecas Calen- let it be for two half hours. This may be prac- das. Not till the Gentlemen of the Faculty ticed with sometimes simply drawing off sparks, have more regard to the interest of their afterwards with some slight shocks, and then neighbors than their own. At least not till if the disorder requires it, to be increased with there are no apothecaries in the land, or till more. Such proceeding I seldom found to fail physicians are independent of them.” of the desired effect. Wesley concludes his book with the Wesley in “The Desideratum” closely following impassioned but rational appeal follows the practice of Lovett, to whom he to the medical profession: I would beg one thing (if it be not too great genuine belief in the efficacy of electrical a favour) from the Gentlemen of the Faculty, treatment, and their enthusiasm did a and indeed from all who desire health and free- great deal for the early development of a dom from pain, either for themselves or their science of which they were the first practi- neighbours. It is, that none of them would tioners in this country. Moreover, their condemn they know not what; that they would work and their writings survived them for hear the cause before they pronounce sentence; many years, and were frequently quoted that they would not peremptorily pronounce against electricity, while they know little or by their qualified successors. Priestly, in nothing about it. Rather let every candid man his very valuable book, ‘‘The History of take a little pains to understand the question Electricity,” thus comments on their work: before he determines it. Let him for two or three This account of the medical use of electricity weeks (at least) try it himself in the above by Mr. Lovett and Mr. Wesley is certainly named disorders. And then his own senses will liable to an objection, which will always lie show him whether it is a mere plaything or the against the accounts of those persons who, noblest medicine yet known in the world. not being of the faculty, cannot be supposed The instruments available for electrical capable of distinguishing with accuracy, either treatment at this period were the frictional the nature of the disorders, or the consequences machine for the generation of static elec- of a seeming cure. But, on the other hand, this very circumstance of their ignorance of the tricity : an instrument very like the modern nature of disorders, and consequently of the static or Wimshurst machine, except that best method of applying electricity to them, the electricity was generated by friction supplies the strongest argument in favor of its instead of by induction. These instruments innocence, at least. If in such unskilful hands had been much improved since their original it produced so much good, and so little harm, introduction by von Guericke about a hun- how much more good, and how much less harm dred years previously. There was also the would it possibly have produced in more skilful Leyden Jar which had recently been dis- hands! covered by von Kleist, the dean of the Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793), scientist, Cathedral at Camin. The Leyden Jar, by revolutionist, oculist, pulmonary specialist, permitting an accumulation of electricity, and electrotherapist, forms one of the most enabled them to a large extent to remedy interesting figures in the history of electro- the defective output of their machines, and therapy. This man of many parts spent ten thus to give stronger shocks, or as they years in London, practising part of that termed them “commotiones fortiores.” time in Conduit Street, Soho, which was the The methods adopted appear to have Harley Street of the period. In a letter to been three: (1) Sitting on the electrical his friend Phillippe-Rose Roume de Saint- stool or resin, corresponding to the present Laurent he states that he came to London method of static charge or bath; (2) drawing to educate himself in science and to off sparks from a person so charged, the avoid the dangers of dissipation. He Static sparks of the present day; (3) apply- frequently attended the meetings of the ing sparks to a patient from a charged London scientific societies, and on June Leyden Jar, a practice not used now. The 30th, 1775, was admitted to the degree of alleged cures which fill the greater part of M.D. St. Andrews. Wesley’s book were collected by him from Among other pamphlets published by all sources, and are for the most part of a him during his stay in London were two very absurd and unreliable character. on medical subjects: “An Enquiry into the Though unqualified practitioners, both Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Dis- Wesley and Lovett had a very real and ease of the Eye”: and “An Essay on Gleets.” He did not practise electrical treatment dur- Bertholon, for his paper entitled: “The ing his stay in England. Influence of the Electricity of the Atmos- On his return to Paris, he wrote to his phere on Diseases,” expressed their regret friend, Phillipe Saint-Laurent,1 on Novem- that he had not been more courteous to his ber 20th, 1783, that he met with great distinguished opponent Marat. Bertholon success in his practice as a physician, that made extravagant claims for the use of he had the good fortune to restore to electricity in all diseases, basing his theories health many sick persons of distinguished upon pure empiricism rather than upon rank, whose lives had been despaired of by actual experience. He contended that all their physicians. The fame of his surprising diseases were due either to an excess or a cures drew to him a prodigious crowd of deficiency of the electric fluid. The former sick persons; and his door was continually he treated by the electric bath or charge, assailed by the carriages of patients who the latter by drawing off the excess from came to consult him from every quarter. the back of the hand of the electrically His success gave umbrage to the doctors charged person. A somewhat similar theory of the faculty, who calculated with sorrow to that of Bertholon, and one but little the big amount of his profits. They consoled less absurd, was recently advanced in this themselves by slandering him; and though country by an electrical engineer, and, like a large number of persons w’hose friendship the absurdities of the past, it was not lack- for him was founded on esteem took up his ing in followers, even among medical men. defence, their voices were drowned by the Marat would have nothing to do with clamour of his opponents. Disgust, in- such nonsense; he showed definitely in separable from the practice of medicine, what diseases electricity should be used, he made him sigh once more for the retirement determined the method of its administra- of his library, he gave himself up entirely tion, and defined the efficiency of its action. to his favourite studies. Could he have Marat, indeed, makes no small claims for foreseen that he was going to make himself his book, “Memoires sur I’EIectricite medi- a fresh cause for envy? cale,” published in 1784: “One will not find As the result of thirteen months work in in this publication, any hypothesis, any retirement, he published his “New Dis- uncertain experiment, any doubtful princi- coveries on Fire.” Subsequently he pub- ple, any hazardous conclusion; it is upon lished his “Discoveries on Light,” which facts alone, but upon simple and constant involved him in a quarrel with the French facts that all my reasoning is based.” Marat, Academy of Science, and led in due course to some extent, at any rate, justified these to the publication of his pamphlet, “Dis- ambitious claims, for his work was certainly coveries on Electricity,” which he states on far more scientific lines than the writings had the approval of several famous physi- of his predecessors; or, even than the publi- cians. After he had worked at the physical cations of many of his successors. side of electricity, he arranged to work at Marat held that the use of electricity its medical side, “a scientific subject that was justified in the treatment of external greatly interested society.” indolent tumours, oedematous engorgement The writing of his book on this subject led of the limbs, cutaneous eruptions, paralysis, Marat to take part in a discussion, held by hemiplegia, rheumatism, sciatica, the colic the Academy of Lyon, on the value of elec- of painters, enamellers, and founders. He tricity in medicine. This disputation appears insisted that the duration of a treatment to have been rather acrimonious, for the should be definitely fixed, that there should judges, in awarding the prize to the Abbe be a dosage of electricity as well as of other 1 Marat, The People’s Friend. By E. Belfort Bax. medicines. A seance should last for twenty minutes or more; it should be repeated three panied with proper medicine and regimen, or four times a day. Strong shocks should under the direction of a skilled physician. ” not be used at all; they should be weak at On his return to England from America, first, and be gradually increased in strength. Graham practised electrical treatment at Marat’s writings, whether political or Bath, Bristol and London. In 1779, we scientific, reveal him as a man of over- find him at Aix la Chapelle, where he whelming self-conceit, obsessed by the idea treated Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire. that the hand of everyone was directed It apparently happened with Graham as it against him. Such a temperament as this, has happened with many Harley Street united, as it clearly was in the case of Marat, physicians of the past, that the patronage with outstanding ability, affords the nucleus of a duchess proved a stepping stone to for the development of the most extreme, fame and fortune, for in the autumn of the revengeful and bloodthirsty revolutionist. same year he established himself at the James Graham (1745-1794), of Edin- Temple of Health, Adelphi House, London. burgh, affords a striking example of an He fitted up this establishment with most electrical quack, a class which still flourishes elaborate electrical machines, including an in this country, tolerated by an indifferent electrical throne, insulated upon glass pillars. or indulgent government, and largely He claimed to have spent £10,000 upon the patronised by a gullible public. Graham installation. This palace did not long satisfy was the son of a saddler at Edinburgh, and his ambitions, and he soon afterwards opened is said to have studied medicine under “The Temple of Health and Hymen,” at Munro, Cullen, and Whytt at that Uni- Schomberg House, Pall Mall. It was here versity. There appears to be some doubt that he acquired his chief claim to fame whether he took his degree in medicine. by becoming associated with the notorious His pamphlets are mostly signed “James Emma Lyon, afterwards the celebrated Graham M.D.” but the “Dictionary of Lady Hamilton, the companion of Lord National Biography” states: “It is doubtful Nelson. Graham is said to have exhibited whether he qualified at Edinburgh, where, the “frail Emma” as the Goddess of Beauty, in 1783, he was described as the person and to have utilised her as a nude model calling himself Dr. Graham.” for his lectures on health. Graham practiced as an aurist and oculist Horace Walpole, in his Letters, writes of in America, and, perhaps, during a two Graham: “The most impudent puppet years’ stay at Philadelphia (1772-74) he show I ever saw, and the mountebank may have acquired his electrical knowledge himself the dullest of his profession, except from a study of Benjamin Franklin’s work. that he makes the spectators pay a crown But though he may have learned some apiece.” Southey describes him, as “half electricity from the experiments of Franklin, enthusiast, half knave.” he certainly did not learn his quackery Graham’s method of treatment consisted from that great man, for Franklin was most in placing his patients either in baths, or on cautious and reserved in his references to a “magnetic” throne through which electri- medical electricity. In a letter to Sir J. cal currents were passed. His chief specialty Pringle, read at the Royal Society, January was the treatment of sterility; its cure was 12, 1758, Franklin writes he “never knew any effected by sleeping in the “Celestial Bed” permanent advantage from electricity in at the modest fee of £50. palsies,” and goes on to say that “perhaps A copy of the Morning Chronicle, Thurs- some permanent advantage might be ob- day, April 24, 1783, contains the following tained if the electric shocks had been accom- advertisement of Graham’s establishment: Temple of Health and Hymen, Pall Mall. In the development of electrical treat- Dr. Graham begs respectfully to inform the ment, two names stand prominently for- Public that this evening and every evening ward, and it is somewhat surprising that this week, he will, at the very earnest request under such an aegis as theirs, electricity of many Gentlemen of the Navy and Army, did not share more actively in the therapeu- lately arrived from abroad, deliver his very tic methods of the past. celebrated Lecture on Generation &c.. . . Ad- mittance two shillings. A valuable pamphlet The most prominent and notable name will be given to every Lady and Gentleman as connected with medical electricity, is that they enter the Temple. Patients are electrified of Duchenne, of Boulogne, “the man who and Dr. Graham may be consulted as usual. played a preponderating part in the re- searches and discoveries upon which the Graham was an early exponent of the edifice of neuropathology has been erected.” virtue of the mud bath, a form of treatment We should not forget that the founda- of which he showed his personal apprecia- tions of Duchenne’s work rested upon that tion by burying himself in the earth for method of electrisation which “surpassed hours at a time. On one occasion he carried his expectations in yielding scientific and out this treatment in company with a practical results of the highest importance.” young lady from Newcastle. Having first The other name is that of Dr. Golding powdered their heads, they stripped to their Bird, a distinguished physician of Guy’s shifts, and were buried in the earth up to Hospital, who, in the autumn of 1836, their chins; they were likened by a spectator started an electrical department in that to two blooming cauliflowers. hospital; and who, in the spring of 1847, Graham decried flesh eating and alcoholic delivered a course of lectures before the excess; he stated that he never ate more Royal College of Physicians, “On Electri- than six pennyworth of food a day. He city and Galvanism in relation to Physiology advocated cold bathing, open windows, and and Therapeutics.” sleeping on hard mattresses. He asserted I will conclude by entirely associating that all diseases were caused by wearing myself with this opinion expressed more too many clothes. He appears to have carried than seventy years ago: this idea to extremes, for Southey records that “he would madden himself with opium, Electricity has by no means been fairly rush into the streets, and strip himself to treated as a therapeutical agent; for it has clothe the first beggar he met.” either been exclusively referred to, when all Towards the end of his career he suffered other remedies have failed—in fact, often from religious mania, and at Edinburgh exclusively, or nearly so, in helpless cases—or was confined to his house as a lunatic. Had its administration has been carelessly directed, Graham lived at the present time he would and the mandate, “Let the patient be electri- doubtless have been a leading Christian fied,” merely given without reference to the Scientist, for in one of his later pamphlets, manner, form, or mode of the remedy being for an instant taken into consideration. Con- he describes himself as “formerly a Physi- scientiously convinced that the agent in ques- cian, but now a Christian Philosopher.” tion is a no less energetic than valuable remedy Of such a kind then were the god-parents in the treatment of disease, I feel most anxious of electrotherapy. Can we wonder that to press its employment upon the practical this science, introduced to the notice of a physician, and to urge him to have recourse critical and captious profession by such to it as a rational but fallible remedy, and not to sponsors as these, passed through a troubled regard it as one capable of effecting impossi- and neglected childhood? bilities.