Mesmerism and Popular Culture in Early Victorian England

For example Winter Alison , “Ethereal epidemic: Mesmerism and the introduction of inhalation anaesthesia to early Victorian Britain”, Social history of medicine, iv (1991), 1–27.

Hall S. T. , Mesmeric experiences (London, 1845), 24.

Shiach Morag , Discourse on popular culture: Class, gender and history in cultural analysis 1730 to the present (Cambridge, 1989); Burke Peter , Popular culture in early modern Europe (London, 1978); Yeo Eileen , “Culture and constraint in working-class movements”, in Yeo Eileen and Yeo Stephen (eds), Popular culture and class conflict 1590–1914: Explorations in the history of labour and leisure (Brighton, 1981); Anderson Patricia , The printed image and the transformation of popular culture (Oxford, 1992).

Burke , op. cit., 270–81; Sennett Richard , The fall of public man (London, 1986).

Baer Marc , Theatre and disorder in late Georgian London (Oxford, 1992), 176. Baer has also related this change to the growing distinction between public and private space in the nineteenth century, as discussed, for instance, in Daunton M. J. , “Public place and private space: The Victorian city and the working-class household”, in Fraser Derek and Sutcliffe Anthony (eds), The pursuit of urban history (London, 1983), 212–33.

See, for instance, Harker David , Fakesong: The manufacture of British “folksong” 1700 to the present day (Milton Keynes, 1985).

Burke , op. cit. (ref. 3).

Shiach , op. cit. (ref. 3), 73.

Yeo Richard , “Science and intellectual authority in mid-nineteenth century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the natural history of Creation”, Victorian studies, xxviii (1984), 5–31; Secord J. A. , “Extraordinary experiment: Electricity and the creation of life in early Victorian England”, in Gooding David Pinch Trevor and Schaffer Simon (eds), The uses of experiment: Studies in the natural sciences (Cambridge, 1989), 337–83; idem, “Behind the veil: Robert Chambers and Vestiges”, in Moore J. R. (ed.), History, humanity and evolution: Essays for John C. Greene (Cambridge, 1989), 165–94; Morus I. R. , “Different experimental lives: Michael Faraday and William Sturgeon”, History of science, xxx (1992), 1–28.

Anne Secord discusses this issue in the introduction to her contribution to this volume.

There is a substantial body of secondary literature on animal magnetism and mesmerism, the most recent of which include Alan Gauld's compendious History of hypnotism (Cambridge, 1992) and Crabtree's Adam From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic sleep and the roots of psychological healing (New Haven, 1993).

Winter Alison , ‘“The island of Mesmeria’: The politics of mesmerism in early Victorian Britain”, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1993.

“Cerebral physiology”, Zoist, i (1843), 5–25, p. 17.

See, for example, Jewson Nicholas , “Medical knowledge and the patronage system in 18th-century England”, Sociology, viii (1974), 369–85; Jewson Nicholas , “The disappearance of the sick man from medical cosmology”, Sociology, x (1976), 225–40; Nicolson Malcolm , “The metastatic theory of pathogenesis and the professional relations of the eighteenth-century physician”, Medical history, xxxii (1988), 277–300; Fissell Mary , Patients, power and the poor in eighteenth-century Bristol (Cambridge, 1992); and Porter Roy , “The rise of physical diagnosis”, in Bynum W. F. and Porter Roy (eds), Medicine and the five senses (London, 1993), 179–97. On some of the complications involved in writing the history of the patient's ‘narrative’, see Jordanova Ludmilla , “Has the social history of medicine come of age?”, Historical journal, xxxvi (1993), 437–49, pp. 442–4; see also Lawrence Susan , “Educating the senses: Students, teachers and medical rhetoric in eighteenth-century London”, in Bynum and Porter (eds), op. cit. (ref. 14), 154–78, and Roger Cooter and Steve Sturdy, “Science, scientific management and the medical revolution in Britain c. 1870–1948”, unpublished paper, joint meeting of the History of Science Society and the British Society for the History of Science in Toronto, 1992.

Over the past decade, historical work on this issue has begun to reveal the complex nature of the development of physical techniques in medicine, and to show what can be gained by no longer viewing this development within a narrow story of inexorable technological progress. See Nicolson Malcolm , “The introduction of percussion and stethoscopy to early nineteenth-century Edinburgh”, in Bynum and Porter (eds), op. cit. (ref. 14), 134–53; Porter , op. cit. (ref. 14); Borell Merriley , “Training the senses, training the mind”, in Bynum and Porter (eds), op. cit. (ref. 14), 244–61; and Lawrence Chris , “Ancients and moderns: The ‘new cardiology’ in Britain 1880–1930”, Medical history, supplement 5 (1985), 1–33.

For accounts of the very active extreme evangelical groups of the 1820s and 1830s — the period when reformers like Elliotson were beginning to put their models of medical professionalization into practice — see Harrison J. F. C. , The second coming: Popular millenarianism 1780–1850 (London, 1979); Drummond A. L. , Edward Irving and his circle (London, 1937); Oliver W. H. , Prophets and millenialists: The use of Bible prophecy in England from the 1790s to the 1840s (Auckland, 1978).

Gooding David , “In nature's school: Faraday as an experimentalist”, in Gooding David and James Frank (eds), Faraday rediscovered (London, 1985), 105–36; Morus I. R. , “Different experimental lives: Michael Faraday and William Sturgeon”, History of science, xxx (1992), 1–28.

Liston himself deprecated the fact that surgical students did not think of the surgeon's mastery of the knife as a complex skill to be achieved, and in rectifying this situation, wished to simplify surgical technology and techniques. See Liston's correspondence with Miller James , Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, MSS 6084–95, and Richardson Ruth , Death, dissection and the destitute (London, 1987), 41–42, p. 49.

Clarke J. F. , Autobiographical recollections of the medical profession (London, 1874), 163n–164n: “She was, I believe, one of the foremost actors in the farce of the ‘unknown tongues’ … in the séances of that remarkable preacher Edward Irving” at Islington Green, after he left Hatton Garden. On Irving's meetings, see the (hostile) account by Baxter Robert , Narrative of facts, characterising the supernatural manifestations, in members of Mr. Irving's congregation (London, 1833). In presenting these speculations regarding O'Key's own understanding of the significance of “altered states”, I do not wish to minimize the enormous difficulties that surround historical reconstructions of this kind, but merely to present the few clues, however problematic, which do give some slight indication of O'Key's own understanding of the experiments discussed in this essay.

Baer, op. cit. (ref. 5), ch. 5, “Audiences as actors”.

“University College Hospital. Animal magnetism”, The lancet, ii (1838), 282–8, p. 283.

Ibid., pp. 286–7. Jim Crow was a character in the pantomime routines performed by Jefferini at Sadler Wells in the second half of the 1830s, and, most likely, by other pantomime performers at London music halls. See Salberg Derek , Once upon a pantomime (Luton, 1981), 15–16, and Frow Gerald , “Ohyes it is!”: A history of pantomime (London, 1985), 63–87, for more general information on similar pantomime routines during this period.

“University College Hospital. Animal magnetism” (ref. 21), 283.

ibid., 287–8.

“University College Hospital. Animal magnetism. Sixth report of experiments and facts”, The lancet, ii (1837–38), 585–590, p. 590.

“University College Hospital. Animal magnetism. Fifth report of experiments and facts”, The lancet, ii (1837–38), 546–9.

Ms MR/1/16, University College Library, p. 30: “Dr Faraday suggested various means for rousing her [including cauterizing]… her arm was tried without any effect — he [ambiguous whether this refers to Faraday or Elliotson] then instantly awoke her by the usual way[.]” It is significant that this experiment was carried out not on O'Key but on the younger, very shy Hannah Elizabeth Hunter. By February O'Key was already very active in Elliotson's private experiments, and Faraday may have regarded Hunter as a more reliable (because more passive) experimental subject.

Clarke, op. cit. (ref. 19), 175. There are many comparisons of O'Key's behaviour and Irvingite phenomena. See, for example, [ Wakley Thomas ], “The experiments on the two sisters O'Key”, The lancet, ii (1837–38), 873–7, p. 876.

“University College Hospital. Animal magnetism. Fourth report. — Remarks and experiments”, The lancet, ii (1837–38), 516–19, p. 517.

Compare with the account given by Ruth Richardson on the inability of Benthamite reformers effortlessly to impose their models of the body, epitomized by Bentham's auto-icon, on the poor, in her wonderful study of the Anatomy Acts, Death, dissection and the destitute (London, 1987).

There are no extant records of this Institute before the late 1840s, but a few authors mention visiting it, for example the diary entry for 6 Nov. 1844 of George William Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of Carlisle, then known as Lord Morpeth. See Howard papers, Castle Howard, J19/8/6; also Smethurst Thomas , “Mesmerism unmasked”, Medical times, ix (1843–44), 145–7.

Others cited in the press include Duncan Catlow Darling Capern Stone Hall Storer , and Lewis Sandby George , Mesmerism and its opponents (London, 1844), 112; Janson H. U. , “Exeter mesmeric record”, Woolmer's Exeter and Plymouth gazette, 11 August 1849; “Abstract of a lecture on electro-biology”, Edinburgh medical and surgical journal, lxxvi (1851), 239; Gregory William , Letters to a candid enquirer on mesmerism (London, 1851); “Mr. Spencer Hall and the new organs”, Phrenological journal, xviii (1844), 8–14; “Lectures on phrenology”, ibid., xx (1847), 87; “Phreno-magnetic cases”, ibid., xvii (1844), 172–7. Several of these lecturers are referred to in Cooter Roger , Phrenology in the British Isles: An annotated historical biobibliography and index (Metuchen, N.J., and London, 1989).

Sandby , op. cit. (ref. 32), 86.

Williams Raymond , The country and the city (London, 1985), 151, evokes the sense of public consensus in his discussion of Wordsworth's description of inhabitants of the nineteenth-century metropolis as having “One sense for moral judgments/as one eye/for the sun's light”. Of course, the relationship between the country and the city, and the meaning of these terms, was a perennial issue. For one of the most recent discussions of the construction of London as the scientific centre during this period see Morus I. R. Schaffer S. J. , and Secord J. A. , “Scientific London”, in Fox C. (ed.), London — world city 1800–1840 (New Haven, 1992), 129–42, pp. 141–2.

Hall S. T. , “The Sherwood Forrester”, Chambers's journal, xi (1842), 6–7.

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 2), 80.

“The lecture mania”, Zoist, i (1843–44), 95–100, p. 99.

Davey William , Illustrated practical mesmerist curative and scientific (London, 1862), p. vi.

See also Hall's tactful “Gross stupidity in a professional man”, Phreno-magnet, i (1843), 165. Similarly, a Dr Owens compared the lecturers to the ancient Roman itinerants, thereby giving a classical pedigree for the work that he and others did in supplying “the intellectual wants of the community”. Owens J. D. , “Dr. Owens on mesmeric experiments”, Medical times, xi (1844–45), 450–1, p. 451.

For example, Josiah Buchanan, editor of the Journal of man, and La Roy Sutherland, editor of The magnet. On American mesmerism see Fuller R. C. , Mesmerism and the American cure of souls (Philadelphia, 1982).

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 2), 10n.

Hall, op. cit. (ref. 2), 4. Mesmeric phenomena reminded him, with his Quaker background, of the “unusual clearness yet expansion of spirit, like that described by the primitive Quakers in their meetings” (Mesmeric experiences, 16). For other Quaker accounts see Warrenne W. , “Curative power of mesmeric influence proved by its successful application in a variety of extreme cases”, Medical times, xii (1845), 385–6; also Lloyd W. , of the Society of Friends, Naburn , “Case of lock-jaw in a youth successfully cured”, Zoist, xi (1851–52), 52–54.

Hall, op. cit. (ref. 2), 18. This rhetoric was used to validate mesmeric experimentation throughout the ranks of Victorian society. For example, H. U. Janson linked the electricity's “fundamental” characteristic — the fact that even the “most illiterate and ignorant person can operate by electric power” — to an argument for the validity of amateur experiments in mesmerism. George Sandby, [untitled book of press-cuttings], library of the Society for Psychical Research, now held in Cambridge University Library, 36.

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 2), 4; Davey , op. cit. (ref. 38), 92–93. For similar representations of other lecturers see [Anon.], “Messrs. Jackson and Davey”, Zoist, xi (1851–52), 304–10; Cobbold Mr , “Letter to the Editor” of the Norfolk chronicle, 7 April 1849, in Sandby, op. cit. (ref. 43).

On this issue see Johnson Richard , “‘Really useful knowledge’”, in Clarke John Crichter Chas , and Johnson Richard (eds), Working class culture: Studies in history and theory (London, 1989), 75–102.

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 2), 22.

“The lecture mania”, Zoist, i (1843–44), 95–100.

The picture of the house where Hall was born appeared opposite the title page of his Phreno-magnet. It was somewhat deceptive, given that most of Hall's lectures were given in factory towns.

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 2), 6–7.

Hopkinson James , Victorian cabinet maker: The memoirs of James Hopkinson 1819–1894, ed. by Goodman J. B. (London, 1968), 52.

ibid., 53–55.

Gee J. S. , “Letter to the Editor of the Mesmerist”, Mesmerist, i (1843), 64; Spurr J. , “Phrenological investigations”, Phreno-magnet, i (1843), 52–54; “Mr Potchett's phreno-magnetic notes”, ibid., 177–9. “Phrenopathy and suggestive somnambulism”, ibid., 175–7. Horne J. , [untitled], Mesmerist, i (1843), 30–32.

Other accounts of mesmerism among the working classes include Powell J. H. , Life incidents and poetic pictures (London, 1865). Powell was an Owenite who became a spiritualist after mesmeric forays in the 1840s; Wallis T. W. , Autobiography (Louth, 1899), claims that he practised mesmerism; see also “A Factory Girl”, The unfortunate genius (London, 1853). For converts from itinerant mesmerists among the middle classes, see “Exeter mesmeric record — no. XXI”, Woolmer's Exeter and Plymouth gazette, 23 Dec. 1848; Sandby , op. cit. (ref. 32), 88–97.

The Phreno-magnet (1843), edited by Hall ; the Mesmerist (1843); the Phreno-magnetic vindicator (1843), edited by Beggs Thomas ; Journal of zoomagnetism, edited by Colquhoun J. C. Each journal disappeared the same year it was founded.

An excerpt of the report of the Scottish Curative Mesmeric Association is printed in an appendix to Davey's Illustrated practical mesmerist (London, 1862).

Harriet Martineau to Richard Monckton Milnes, 2 July 1844. Houghton Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge, 16⁶⁸.

Martineau Harriet , Letters on mesmerism (London, 1845). See also Cooter Roger , “Dichotomy and denial: Mesmerism, medicine and Harriet Martineau”, in Benjamin Marina (ed.), Science and sensibility: Gender and scientific enquiry (Oxford, 1991), 144–74.

Hall to Morpeth, 5 June 1845, Papers of George William Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard, J19/1/39/65. One significant feature of this claim is the control Hall exercised over his texts by printing them by hand. Since, as James Secord has shown, one of the most dramatic consequences of steam technology was the need for capital in publishing, Hall was asserting his independence from the hegemony of the steam press. See Secord J. A. , “Evolution for the people”, unpublished conference paper, Annual Meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Study of Biology, Evanston, July 1991.

In this respect Hall's printing practices resembled the automatic writing of spiritualist mediums, with respect to the ways in which they legitimized the texts they created. On the ways in which automatic writing validated claims about nature, see Owen Alex , The darkened room: Women, power and spiritualism in late nineteenth-century England (London, 1989); Oppenheim Janet , The other world: Spiritualism and psychical research in England 1850–1914 (Cambridge, 1985).

Hall S. T. , The forester's offering (London, 1841), “Preface”.

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 2), 78. This is not to say that being mesmerized was always to be placed in a subordinate role; rather, that in attempting to assert equal relations with gentlemanly mesmerists, Hall made himself vulnerable by accepting the role of the subject. See also Howard G. W. F. , Diary, 19 April 1845, Howard papers, J19/8/7 10.

Howard G. W. F. , Diary, 4 June 1845, Howard papers, J19/8/7 38.

Greg W. R. , The creed of Christendom (London, 1851), p. ix.

Inkster Ian , “Marginal men: Aspects of the social role of the medical community in Sheffield 1790–1850”, in Woodward John and Richards David (eds), Health care and popular medicine in nineteenth-century England: Essays in the social history of medicine (London, 1977), 128–63.

See Anne Secord's discussion of this issue in relation to working-class science in her contribution to this volume.