Part 22
Mrs. De Loutherbourg’s system of cure was extremely simple, as this example will show: ‘Mrs. Hook, Stable Yard, St. James’s, has two daughters, born Deaf and Dumb. She waited on the Lady above mentioned, who looked on them with an eye of benignity, and healed them. (I heard both of them speak.)’
Her husband’s plan was rather more clumsy. He imposed hands. ‘A News-Carrier at Chelsea cured of an Abscess in his Side. Mr. De Loutherbourg held his hand on the Abscess half a minute, and it broke immediately.’
Perhaps these cures were not permanent, for ‘Mr. De Loutherbourg told me he had cured by the blessing of God, two Thousand since Christmas. But, as our Lord said, of the ten healed, one only returned to thank him; so many hundreds have acted, that have never returned to Mr. De Loutherbourg.’
One of the most impudent of these quacks was named Benjamin Douglas Perkins, whose father claimed to be the inventor of the metallic tractors, which were rods made either of a combination of copper, zinc, and gold, or of iron, silver, and platinum, and he explains, in the specification to his patent, that ‘the point of the instrument thus formed, I apply to those parts of the body which are affected with diseases, and draw them off on the skin, to a distance from the complaint, and usually towards the extremities.’
He charged the moderate sum of five guineas a set for these precious instruments, and made a good thing out of them. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and, as a proof that his charlatanism was believed in, this benevolent society subscribed largely, and built for him the _Perkinean Institution_, an hospital where the poor could be treated on his system, free of cost.
He was an adept in the art of puffing, and his ‘Testimonials’ are quite equal to those of modern times. I will only cite two. ‘My little infant child was _scalded_ with hot tea on the forehead, about three and a half inches in length, and three-fourths of an inch in breadth, which raised a vesicle before I had time to apply anything to it. The _Tractors_ were solely used, and the whole redness disappeared. The Blister broke, &c.’
‘A lady fell from her horse, and _dislocated_ her ancle, which remained several hours before it was reduced, by which it became very much _swelled_, _inflamed_, and _painful_. Two or three applications of the _Tractor_ relieved the pain, and in a day or two she walked the house, and had no further complaint.’
Then also was Dominicetti, who, in 1765, established a house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, for medicated baths, but he hardly belongs to the magnetisers. Then there was Katterfelto, but he, too, hovers on the borderland of quackism--vide the following one of hundreds of advertisements.[102]
‘By particular Desire of many of the First Nobility. This PRESENT EVENING and TO-MORROW, At late COX’S MUSEUM, Spring Gardens,
A SON of the late Colonel KATTERFELTO of the Death’s Head Hussars, belonging to the King of Prussia, is to exhibit the same variety of Performances as he did exhibit on Wednesday the 13th of March, before many Foreign Ministers, with great applause.
MR. KATTERFELTO
Has had the honour in his travels to exhibit before the Empress of Russia, the Queen of Hungary, the Kings of Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland.
MR. KATTERFELTO’S
Lectures are Philosophical, Mathematical, Optical, Magnetical, Electrical, Physical, Chymical, Pneumatic, Hydraulic, Hydrostatic, Styangraphic, Palenchic, and Caprimantic Art.
MR. KATTERFELTO
Will deliver a different Lecture every night in the week, and show various uncommon experiments, and his apparatus are very numerous, and elegantly finished: all are on the newest construction, many of which are not to be equalled in Europe.
MR. KATTERFELTO
Will, after his Philosophical Lecture, discover various arts by which many persons lose their fortunes by Dice, Cards, Billiards, and E.O. Tables, &c.’
He was a charlatan _pur et simple_, and to his other attractions he added a performing black cat,[103] ‘but Colonel Katterfelto is very sorry that many persons will have it that he and his famous BLACK CAT were DEVILS but such suspicion only arises through his various wonderful and uncommon performances: he only professes to be a moral and divine Philosopher, and he says, that all persons on earth live in darkness, if they are able, but won’t see that most enterprizing, extraordinary, astonishing, wonderful, and uncommon exhibition on the Solar Microscope. He will this day, and every day this week, show, from eight in the morning till five in the afternoon, his various new Occult Secrets, which have surprized the King and the whole Royal Family: and his evening lecture begins this, and every night, precisely at eight o’clock; but no person will be admitted after eight; and after his lecture he will exhibit many new deceptions. His Black Cat will also make her appearance this evening at No. 24, Piccadilly. His exhibition of the Solar Microscope has caused him lately very grand houses; also his wonderful Black Cat at night; many thousands could not receive admission lately for want of room, and Katterfelto expects to clear at least above £30,000, in a year’s time, through his Solar Microscope and surprizing Black Cat.’
He also invented a sort of lucifer-match.[104] ‘Dr. Katterfelto will also, for 2/6_d._ sell such a quantity of his new invented _Alarum_, which is better than £20 worth of Phosphorus matches, and is better in a house or ship than £20,000, as many lives may be saved by it, and is more useful to the Nation than 30,000 Air Balloons. It will light 900 candles, pistols or cannons, and never misses. He also sells the very best Solid, Liquid, and Powder Phosphorus, Phosphorus Matches, Diamond Beetles, &c.’ Katterfelto died at Bedale, in Yorkshire, 25th of November, 1799.
There also lived Dr. Graham, who was not heard of before 1780, and he was an arch quack. About that year he took a mansion in the Royal Terrace, Adelphi, which he fitted up sumptuously. It was inscribed ‘Templum Æsculapio Sacrum,’ and was called both the ‘Temple of Health,’ and the ‘Hymeneal Temple.’ Here, in air heavy with incense, he lectured on electricity and magnetism. He was a past master in the art of puffing, and published several books in glorification of himself. In one, called ‘MEDICAL TRANSACTIONS at the Temple of Health in London, in the course of the years 1781 & 1782,’ he gives a wonderful list of cures worked by his ‘Electrical Æther, Nervous Æthereal Balsam, Imperial Pills, Liquid Amber, British Pills,’ and his ‘Bracing, or Restorative Balsam,’ which, in order to bring within the reach of ordinary people, he kindly consented to sell at half-price, namely, ‘that the bottles marked, and formerly sold at one guinea, may _now_ be had at only half-a-guinea; the half-guinea bottles at five shillings and threepence; the five shilling at half-a-crown, and the two-and-sixpenny vials at _only one shilling and threepence_.’
In this book, too, are some choice specimens of poetry, all laudatory of Dr. Graham, one of which is worth repeating, as a specimen--
‘_An_ ACROSTIC, _by a_ LADY.
D EIGN, to accept the tribute which I owe, O ne grateful, joyful tear, permit to flow; C an I be silent when good health is given? T hat first--that best--that richest gift of heaven! O Muse! descend, in most exalted lays, R eplete with softest notes, attune his praise.
G en’rous by nature, matchless in thy skill! R ich in the God-like art--to ease--to heal; A ll bless thy gifts! the sick--the lame--the blind, H ail thee with rapture for the cure they find! A rm’d by the DEITY with power divine, M ortals revere HIS attributes in thine.’
In this temple of ‘Health and Hymen’ he had a wonderful ‘Celestial Bed,’ which he pretended cost sixty thousand pounds. He guaranteed that the sleepers therein, although hitherto childless, should become prolific; but it was somewhat costly, for the fee for its use for a single night was one hundred pounds. Still, he had some magneto-electric beds, which, probably, were as efficacious, at a lower rate, only fifty pounds nightly. The title-page of a pamphlet on his establishment is noteworthy.
‘IL CONVITO AMOROSO, Or a Serio--comico--philosophical LECTURE on the _Causes, Nature, and Effects of Love and Beauty_, At the Different Periods of Human Life, in Persons, and Personages, Male, Female, and Demi-Charactêre; And in Praise of the Genial and Prolific Influences of the
CELESTIAL BED!
As Delivered by HEBE VESTINA, The Rosy Goddess of Youth and of Health! from the _Electrical Throne! in the Great Apollo-Chamber_,
At the TEMPLE of HYMEN, in LONDON,
Before a glowing and brilliant Audience of near Three Hundred Ladies and Gentlemen, who were commanded by VENUS, CUPID, and HYMEN! to assist, in joyous Assembly, at the Grand Feast of very FAT THINGS, which was held at their Temple, on Monday Evening, the 25th of November, 1782; but which was interrupted by the rude and unexpected Arrival of his Worship MIDAS NEUTERSEX, Esq^{re.} ... just as the Dessert was about to be served up.
Published at the earnest Desire of many of the Company, and to gratify the impatient and very intense longings of Thousands of Adepts, Hibernian and British;--of the Cognoscenti;--et de les Amateur ardens des _delices exquise_ de Venus!
To which is subjoined, a description of the Stupendous Nature and Effects of the Celebrated
CELESTIAL BED!’
The ‘VESTINA, or Goddess of Health,’ was no mean person. She began life as a domestic servant, and was named Emma Lyons. She was a good-looking, florid, buxom wench, and, after having played her part as priestess at the ‘Temple of Health and Hymen,’ became the wife of the dilletante Sir William Hamilton, English Minister at Naples, and was afterwards notorious for her connection with Lord Nelson.
Graham wrote in 1790, ‘A short Treatise on the All cleansing--all healing--and all invigorating Qualities of the SIMPLE EARTH, when long and repeatedly applied to the naked Human Body and Lungs, for the safe, speedy, and radical Cure of all Diseases, internal as well as external, which are, in their Nature or Stage, susceptible of being cured;--for the preservation of the Health, Vigour, Bloom, and Beauty of Body and of Mind; for rejuvenating the aged and decaying Human Body;--and for prolonging Life to the very longest possible Period, &c.’
For the benefit of those who would try the doctor’s earth-cure, I extract the following: ‘I generally, or always, prefer the sides or tops of hills or mountains, as the air and the earth are the more pure and salubrious; but the air and earth of ordinary pasture or corn-fields, especially those that are called upland, and even good clean garden-ground, or the higher commons, especially fallow corn-fields, are all salutary and good.
‘As to the colour and nature of the earth or soil, I prefer a good brown or reddish blooming mould, and light, sandy, crumbly, mellow and marrowy earth; or that which feels when I am in it, and crumbling with my hands and fingers, like bits of marrow among fine Flour; and that which has a strong, sweet, earthly smell----’
So that my readers now know exactly what to do.
He had a fairly comprehensive idea of modern hygiene, as will be seen from the following extract from ‘General Instructions to the persons who consult Dr. Graham as a Physician’:
‘It will be unreasonable for Dr. Graham’s Patients to expect a complete and a lasting cure, or even great alleviation of their peculiar maladies, unless they keep the body and limbs most perfectly clean with very frequent washings,--breathe fresh, open air day and night,--be simple in the quality and moderate in the quantity of their food and drink,--and totally give up using the deadly poisons and weakeners of both body and soul, and the cankerworm of estates called foreign Tea and Coffee, Red Port Wine, Spirituous Liquors, Tobacco and Snuff, gaming and late hours, and all sinful, unnatural, and excessive indulgence of the animal appetites, and of the diabolical and degrading mental passions. On practising the above rules--on a widely open window day and night--and on washing with cold water, and going to bed every night by eight or nine, and rising by four or five, depends the very perfection of bodily and mental health, strength and happiness.’
He wrote many pamphlets, some of them on religious matters, and the fools who patronised him paid him large fees; yet his expenses were very heavy, and his manner of living luxurious, so that we experience but little wonder when we find the ‘Temple of Health’ sold up, and that Graham himself died poor--either in, or near, Glasgow.
Early in the century there were (in surgery) two noted quacks, namely, Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Read, and Roger, or, as he called himself, Doctor, Grant--both oculists. Read originally was a tailor, and Grant had been a tinker and Anabaptist preacher. The list of cures of both are marvellous--Grant even advertising in the _Daily Courant_, of July 20, 1709, that he had cured, in five minutes, a young man that had been born blind. But at that time, when people believed in their sovereign being able to cure scrofula by touching the patient with a gold coin, a little faith went a long way.
But quackery was not confined to the masculine gender--the ladies competed with them in the field. Notably Mrs. Map, the bone-setter of Epsom, of whom Mr. Pulteney writes so amusingly to Swift on December 21, 1736: ‘I must tell you a ridiculous incident; perhaps you have not heard it. One Mrs. Mapp, a famous she bone-setter and mountebank, coming to town with a coach and six horses, on the Kentish road, was met by a rabble of people, who, seeing her very oddly and tawdrily dressed, took her for a foreigner, and concluded she must be a certain great person’s mistress. Upon this they followed the coach, bawling out, “No Hanover w----! No Hanover w----!” The lady within the coach was much offended, let down the glass, and screamed louder than any of them, “She was no Hanover w----! she was an English one!” Upon which they cried out, “God bless your ladyship!” quitted the pursuit, and wished her a good journey.’
This woman sprang into notoriety all at once. The first authentic account of her is on page 457 of the _London Magazine_ for 1836, under the date of August 2: ‘The Town has been surprized lately with the fame of a young woman at _Epsom_, who, tho’ not very regular, it is said, in her Conduct, has wrought such Cures that seem miraculous in the Bone-setting way. The Concourse of People to _Epsom_ on this occasion is incredible, and ’tis reckon’d she gets near 20 Guineas a Day, she executing what she does in a very quick Manner: She has strength enough to put in any Man’s Shoulder without any assistance; and this her strength makes the following Story the more credible. A Man came to her, sent, as ’tis supposed, by some Surgeons, on purpose to try her Skill, with his Hand bound up, and pretended his Wrist was put out, which upon Examination she found to be false; but, to be even with him for his Imposition, she gave it a Wrench, and really put it out, and bad him _go to the Fools who sent him, and get it set again_, or, if he would come to her that day month, she would do it herself.
‘This remarkable person is Daughter to one _Wallin_, a Bone-setter of _Hindon, Wilts_. Upon some family Quarrel, she left her Father, and Wander’d up and down the Country in a very miserable Manner, calling herself _Crazy Salley_. Since she became thus famous, she married one Mr. _Hill Mapp_, late servant to a Mercer on _Ludgate Hill_, who, ’tis said, soon left her, and carried off £100 of her Money.’
She was not long making her way in the world, for we read in the same magazine, under date, September 19, 1736: ‘Mrs. _Mapp_, the famous Bone-setter at _Epsom_, continues making extraordinary Cures. She has now set up an Equipage, and this Day came to _Kensington_ and waited on her Majesty.’
The _Gentleman’s Magazine_, under date of August 31, 1736, gives a similar account of her private life, adding that her husband did not stay with her above a fortnight, but adds that she was wonderfully clever in her calling, having ‘cured Persons who have been above 20 years disabled, and has given incredible Relief in most difficult cases.’
‘Mrs. _Mapp_ the Bone-setter, with Dr. Taylor the Oculist, being present at the Playhouse in _Lincoln’s Inns Fields_, to see a Comedy call’d the Husband’s Relief, with the Female Bone-setter, and Worm Doctor; it occasioned a full House, and the following
EPIGRAM.
‘While _Mapp_ to th’ Actors shew’d a kind regard, On one side _Taylor_ sat, on t’other _Ward_: When their mock Persons of the Drama came, Both _Ward_ and _Taylor_ thought it hurt their _fame_; Wonder’d how _Mapp_ cou’d in good Humour be-- _Zoons_, crys the Manly Dame, it hurts not _me_; Quacks without Arts may either blind or kill, But _Demonstration_ shews that mine is _Skill_.
And the following was sung upon y^e Stage:
You Surgeons of _London_ who puzzle your Pates, To ride in your Coaches, and purchase Estates, Give over, for Shame, for your Pride has a Fall, And y^e Doctress of _Epsom_ has outdone you all.
What signifies Learning, or going to school, When a Woman can do without Reason or Rule, What puts you to Non-plus, and baffles your Art, For Petticoat-Practice has now got the Start.
In Physick, as well as in Fashions, we find The newest has always its Run with Mankind; Forgot is the bustle ‘bout Taylor and Ward, Now _Mapp’s_ all y^e Cry, and her Fame’s on Record.
Dame Nature has giv’n her a Doctor’s Degree, She gets all y^e Patients, and pockets the Fee; So if you don’t instantly prove her a Cheat, She’ll loll in her Chariot while you walk y^e Street.’[105]
At this time she was at her acme--but if an anonymous writer in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for March, 1873, p. 82, is to be believed, she died December, 1837, ‘at her lodgings near Seven Dials, so miserably poor, that the parish was obliged to bury her.’
In No. 572 of the _Spectator_, July 26, 1714,[106] is a very amusing article on the quacks of Queen Anne’s time:
‘There is scarce a city in Great Britain but has one of this tribe, who takes it into his protection, and on the market-day harangues the good people of the place with aphorisms and receipts. You may depend upon it he comes not there for his own private interest, but out of a particular affection to the town. I remember one of these public-spirited artists at Hammersmith, who told his audience that he had been born and bred there, and that, having a special regard for the place of his nativity, he was determined to make a present of five shillings to as many as would accept of it. The whole crowd stood agape and ready to take the doctor at his word; when, putting his hand into a long bag, as everyone was expecting his crown piece, he drew out a handful of little packets, each of which, he informed the spectators, was constantly sold at five shillings and sixpence, but that he would bate the odd five shillings to every inhabitant of that place; the whole assembly immediately closed with this generous offer, and took off all his physick, after the doctor had made them vouch for one another, that there were no foreigners among them, but that they were all Hammersmith men.
‘There is another branch of pretenders to this art, who, without either horse or pickle herring,[107] lie snug in a garret, and send down notice to the world of their extraordinary parts and abilities by printed bills and advertisements. These seem to have derived their custom from an eastern nation which Herodotus speaks of, among whom it was a law that whenever any cure was to be performed, both the method of the cure, and an account of the distemper, should be fixed in some public place; but, as customs will corrupt, these, our moderns, provide themselves with persons to attest the cure before they publish or make an experiment of the prescription. I have heard of a porter, who serves as a Knight of the post[108] under one of these operators, and, though he was never sick in his life, has been cured of all the diseases in the Dispensary. These are the men whose sagacity has invented elixirs of all sorts, pills and lozenges, and take it as an affront if you come to them before you have been given over by everybody else. Their medicines are infallible, and never fail of success; that is, of enriching the doctor, and setting the patient effectually at rest.
‘I lately dropt into a coffee-house at Westminster, where I found the room hung round with ornaments of this nature. There were Elixirs, Tinctures, the Anodyne Fotus, English Pills, Electuaries, and, in short, more remedies than I believe there are diseases. At the sight of so many inventions, I could not but imagine myself in a kind of arsenal or magazine, where a store of arms was deposited against any sudden invasion. Should you be attacked by the enemy sideways, here was an infallible piece of defensive armour to cure the pleurisy; should a distemper beat up your head-quarters, here you might purchase an impenetrable helmet, or, in the language of the artist, a cephalic tincture; if your main body be assaulted, here are various kinds of armour in case of various onsets. I began to congratulate the present age upon the happiness man might reasonably hope for in life, when death was thus in a manner defeated, and when pain itself would be of so short a duration, that it would just serve to enhance the value of pleasure.
‘While I was in these thoughts, I unluckily called to mind a story of an ingenious gentleman of the last age, who, lying violently afflicted with the gout, a person came and offered his services to cure him by a method which, he assured him, was infallible; the servant who received the message carried it up to his master, who, inquiring whether the person came on foot or in a chariot, and being informed that he was on foot: “Go,” says he, “send the knave about his business; was his method infallible as he pretends, he would, long before now, have been in his coach and six.” In like manner I concluded that, had all these advertisers arrived to that skill they pretend to, they would have no need, for so many years successively, to publish to the world the place of their abode, and the virtues of their medicines. One of these gentlemen, indeed, pretends to an effectual cure for leanness: what effects it may have had upon those who have tried it, I cannot tell; but I am credibly informed that the call for it has been so great, that it has effectually cured the doctor himself of that distemper. Could each of them produce so good an instance of the success of his medicines, they might soon persuade the world into an opinion of them.
‘I observe that most of the bills agree in one expression, viz., that, “with God’s blessing,” they perform such and such cures: this expression is certainly very proper and emphatical, for that is all they have for it. And, if ever a cure is performed on a patient where they are concerned, they can claim a greater share than Virgil’s IAPIS in the curing of ÆNEAS; he tried his skill, was very assiduous about the wound, and, indeed, was the only visible means that relieved the hero, but the poet assures us it was the particular assistance of a deity that speeded the whole operation.’