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“More Subtle than the Electric Aura”: Georgian Medical Electricity, the Spirit of Animation and the Development of Erasmus Darwin's Psychophysiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2012

Paul Elliott
Paul Elliott
Affiliation:
Paul Elliott, PhD, School of Humanities, University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby, DE22 1GB, UK
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Type
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Information
Medical History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 195 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1 E Darwin, ‘Remarks on the opinion of Henry Eeles, Esq., concerning the ascent of vapour’, Philos. Trans., 1757, 50: 240–54; R Porter, ‘Erasmus Darwin: doctor of evolution?’, in J R Moore (ed.), History, humanity and evolution: essays for John C. Greene, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 39–69; P Elliott, ‘Abraham Bennet, F.R.S. (1749–1799): a provincial electrician in eighteenth-century England’, Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond., 1999, 53: 59–78; C U M Smith and R Arnott (eds), The genius of Erasmus Darwin, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004; P Bertucci, ‘Sparks of life: medical electricity and natural philosophy in England, c.1746–1792’, DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2001, pp. 172–211; D King-Hele, Erasmus Darwin: a life of unequalled achievement, London, Giles de la Mare, 1999, quotation p. 302.

2 E Darwin, The botanic garden, 2nd ed., 2 vols., London, J Johnson, 1789–1791; idem, Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life, 2nd ed., 2 vols, London, J Johnson, 1794–1796; idem, Phytologia: or The philosophy of agriculture and gardening, London, J Johnson, 1800; idem, The temple of nature: or The origin of society, London, T Bensley for J Johnson, 1803.

3 King-Hele, op. cit., note 1 above; D King-Hele (ed.), The collected letters of Erasmus Darwin, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

4 King-Hele, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 196–9; R Schofield, Lunar Society of Birmingham, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963; A E Musson and E Robinson, Science and technology in the industrial revolution, Manchester University Press, 1969; P Sturges, ‘The membership of the Derby Philosophical Society, 1783–1802’, Midland Hist., 1978, 48: 212–29; P Elliott, ‘Science, medicine and industrial technology in the English provinces in the early nineteenth century: the Derby philosophers and the Derbyshire General Infirmary’, Med. Hist., 2002, 46: 65–92; P Elliott, ‘The Derbyshire “Darwinians”: the persistence of Erasmus Darwin's influence on a British provincial literary and scientific community, c.1780–1850’, in Smith and Arnott (eds), op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 179–92; J Uglow, The Lunar men, London, Faber and Faber, 2003.

5 J Priestley, History and present state of electricity, 1st ed., London, printed for J Dodsley, J Johnson, B Davenport, and T Cadell, 1767, p. x (2nd ed., 2 vols, London, 1777); P F Mottelay, Bibliographical history of electricity and magnetism, London, Griffth, 1922; S Schaffer, ‘Natural philosophy and public spectacle in the eighteenth century’, Hist. Sci., 1983, 21: 1–43; idem, ‘The consuming flame: electrical showmen and Tory mystics in the world of goods’, in J Brewer and R Porter (eds), Consumption and the world of goods in the eighteenth century, London, Routledge, 1993, pp. 489–526; P Fara, Sympathetic attractions: magnetic practices, beliefs and symbolism in eighteenth-century England, Princeton University Press, 1996; idem, An entertainment for angels: electricity in the Enlightenment, Cambridge, Icon Books, 2002; J Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th centuries, 2nd ed., New York, Dover Publications, 1999; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 12–94; M B Schiffer, Draw the lightning down: Benjamin Franklin and electrical technology in the age of Enlightenment, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003; G Pancaldi, Volta: science and culture in the age of Enlightenment, Princeton University Press, 2003.

6 G Adams, An essay on electricity, London, 1784, pp. 259–65; W Henly, ‘Experiments and observations in electricity’, Philos. Trans., 1777, 67: 85–143, pp. 130–1, 134–5, quotation p. 130.

7 B Franklin, ‘An account of the effects of electricity in paralytic cases’, Philos. Trans., 1758, 50: 481–3; J Wesley, The desideratum: or, Electricity made plain and useful, 4th ed., London, printed by R Hawes, 1778; J Ferguson, An introduction to electricity in six sections, London, W Strahan and T Cadell, 1770, pp. 115–31; Adams, op. cit., note 6 above, pp. 258–81; T Cavallo, Essay on the theory and practice of medical electricity, 2nd ed., London, 1781; S Licht, ‘History of electrotherapy’, in S Licht (ed.), Therapeutic electricity and ultraviolet radiation, New Haven, E Licht, 1967, pp. 1–70; M Rowbottom and C Susskind, Electricity and medicine: history of their interaction, San Francisco, San Francisco Press, 1984; Heilbron, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 495; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1; Schiffer, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 107–60; S Finger, Doctor Franklin's Medicine, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, pp. 92–114.

8 Cavallo, op. cit., note 7 above, pp. 15–16, 105–24.

9 Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 212–49; Geoffrey Sutton, ‘Electric medicine and mesmerism’, Isis, 1981, 72: 375–92; Schiffer, op. cit., note 5 above.

10 W Hey, ‘An account of the effects of electricity in the amaurosis, by Mr. Hey, surgeon at Leeds, communicated by Dr. Hunter, FRS’, Medical Observations and Inquiries, London, 1776, 5: 1–31; J Birch, ‘A letter to Mr. George Adams’, in G Adams, Essay on electricity, 4th ed., London, 1792, pp. 519–73.

11 Wesley, op. cit., note 7 above; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 154–68; P Bertucci, ‘Revealing sparks: John Wesley and the religious utility of electrical healing’, Br. J. Hist. Sci., 2006, 39: 341–62.

12 Hey, op. cit., note 10 above, pp. 19–23; Adams, op. cit., note 6 above, pp. 258–9; J Graham, A sketch or short description of Dr. Graham's medical apparatus, London, 1780, cited by Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 188; J Graham, The guardian goddess of health, London, [1780?]; R Porter, ‘The sexual politics of James Graham’, Br. J. 18th-Cent. Stud., 1982, 5: 199–206; idem, ‘Sex and the singular man: the seminal ideas of James Graham’, Stud. Voltaire 18th Cent., 1984, 228: 1–24; B B Schnorrenberg, ‘A true relation of the life and career of James Graham, 1745–1794’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 1991, 15: 58–75; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 184–91, quotation, p. 188. I am indebted to Emily Tarlton of the School of Geography, Nottingham, for drawing my attention to the Pegge quotation.

13 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, pp. 534, p. 10.

14 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 32.

15 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 534.

16 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 678, 710.

17 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 104–5.

18 E Darwin, Commonplace book, original at Down House Museum, Kent, microfilm copy, Derby Local Studies Library, Derby, pp. 97, 147; Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, pp. 54–5; A Duncan (ed.), Medical commentaries, Edinburgh, 1791, vol. 6, pp. 369–71.

19 Darwin, op. cit., note 18 above, p. 27; Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit, note 2 above, vol. 1, pp. 348–52, vol. 2, pp. 40, 138–9.

20 Darwin, op. cit., note 18 above, p. 85; Cavallo, op. cit., note 7 above, pp. 41, 125.

21 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, pp. 207–8.

22 Ibid., pp. 334–5.

23 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, pp. 38–9; vol. 2, pp. 345–6, 390–1; see also, Cavallo, op. cit., note 7 above, pp. 46–7, 51–2, 125.

24 King-Hele (ed.), op. cit. note 3 above, pp. 170–1, 174–5; J Whitehurst, ‘An account of a cure by electricity’, letter to Sir John Pringle (read 23 Dec. 1779), ms. Journal book of the Royal Society, vol. 29 (1777–1780), pp. 552–3, archives of the Royal Society, London.

25 Darwin, op. cit., note 18 above, p. 79; King-Hele, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 147–8.

26 Sutton, op. cit., note 9 above; Elliott, op. cit., note 1 above.

27 King-Hele (ed.), op. cit., note 3 above, p. 557.

28 A Foreman, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, London, HarperCollins, 1999, pp. 299–302.

29 King-Hele, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 299, 307.

30 Ibid., p. 71; Hey, op. cit., note 10 above, pp. 1–2, 3–4.

31 King-Hele (ed.), op. cit., note 3 above, p. 557.

32 Ibid., p. 559.

33 Ibid., pp. 558.

34 Ibid., pp. 556–7.

35 Ibid., pp. 557.

36 H E Hoff, ‘Galvani and the pre-Galvanian electrophysiologists’, Ann. Sci., 1936, 1: 157–72; R W Home, ‘Electricity and the nervous fluid’, J. Hist. Biol., 1970, 3: 235–51; G N Cantor, ‘The theological significance of ethers’, in G N Cantor and M J S Hodge (eds), Conceptions of ether: studies in the history of ether theories, 1740–1900, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 135–56.

37 King-Hele (ed.), op. cit., note 3, pp. 24–5; D King-Hele, Charles Darwin's The life of Erasmus Darwin, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 24. Charles contemplated publishing the letters to Reimarus junior, but eventually decided that it was not worth it.

38 R Smith, ‘The background of physiological psychology in natural philosophy’, Hist. Sci., 1973, 11: 75–123; K M Figlio, ‘Theories of perception and the physiology of mind in the late eighteenth century’, Hist. Sci., 1975, 13: 177–212; Hoff, op. cit., note 36 above; Home, op. cit., note 36 above; King-Hele (ed.), op. cit., note 3 above, p. 92. Haller's concept of irritability and arguments, such as the fact that a ligature on the nerve could take away sensation and motion yet not an electrical fluid, greatly influenced Darwin's discussion of the problem in the Zoonomia.

39 J Hunter, ‘Anatomical observations on the Torpedo’, Philos. Trans., 1773, 63: 481–9; idem, ‘An account of the gymnotus electricus’, Philos. Trans., 1775, 65: 395–407; T Cavallo, A complete treatise on electricity in theory and practice, 4th ed., 3 vols, London, C Dilly, 1795, vol. 3, pp. 3–5; W C Walker, ‘Animal electricity before Galvani’, Ann. Sci., 1937, 2: 84–113; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 192–9.

40 M Pera, The ambiguous frog: the Galvani–Volta controversy on animal electricity, trans. J Mandelbaum, Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 64–6; Alexander Volta, ‘Account of some discoveries made by Mr. Galvani of Bologna, with experiments and observations of them … to Mr. Tiberius Cavallo, FRS’, Philos. Trans., 1793, 83: 10–44; Cavallo, op. cit., note 39, above, pp. 1–75; Hoff, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 157–9; Walker, op. cit., note 39 above, pp. 109–11.

41 Pera, op. cit., note 40 above, pp. 80–6.

42 Ibid., pp. 123–31.

43 Elliott, op. cit., note 1 above; S L Jacyna, ‘Galvanic influences: themes in the early history of British animal electricity’, Bologna Studies in History of Science, 1999, 7: 167–85; Pancaldi, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 160–4.

44 E Halévy, The growth of philosophic radicalism, trans. M Morris, Boston, Beacon Press, 1955, pp. 439–43; Porter, op. cit., note 1 above; CUM Smith, ‘All from fibres: Erasmus Darwin's evolutionary psychobiology’, and R Simili, ‘Two special doctors: Erasmus Darwin and Luigi Galvani’, both in Smith and Arnott (eds), op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 133–44, 145–60.

45 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, p. 30.

46 Porter, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 46.

47 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, p. 33.

48 Darwin, Botanic garden, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, Economy of vegetation, note to canto I, line 401, p. 39; Darwin, Temple of nature, op. cit., note 2 above, additional note, p. 7.

49 Darwin, Botanic garden, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 39.

50 F Fontana, Treatise on the venom of the viper, 2 vols, London, printed for J Cuthell, 1795, vol. 2, p. 283; Catalogue of the library of the Derby Philosophical Society, Derby, 1793; M P Earles, ‘The experimental investigation of viper venom by Felice Fontana (1730–1805)’, Ann. Sci., 1960, 16: 255–68.

51 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, pp. 7, 10.

52 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 64–5.

53 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 65.

54 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 66–7, 120–2; Home, op. cit., note 36 above.

55 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, p. 66.

56 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 109–10; see also Henly's comments on vegetable electricity, op. cit., note 6 above, pp. 130–1, 134.

57 Darwin, Phytologia, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 39–40, 132–6.

58 Ibid., pp. 312–14.

59 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, pp. 471–2.

60 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 109.

61 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 109.

62 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 109.

63 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 111.

64 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 113, 114.

65 Cavallo, op. cit., note 7 above, pp. 10–11, 21–3, 115–17; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 192–5.

66 Quoted in Bertucci, op, cit., note 1 above, p. 210.

67 Cavallo, op. cit., note 39 above, pp. 48–67; Bertucci, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 200–2.

68 Elliott, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 64–8.

69 J Graham, A short inquiry into the present state of medical practice, London, 1776; Fara, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 17–19, 57, 159–61.

70 Sutton, op. cit., note 9 above; Fara, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 195–207.

71 T Cavallo, A treatise on magnetism in theory and practice, 2nd ed., London, 1795, pp. 102–4.

72 Darwin, Zoonomia, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, p. 54, 109, vol. 2, p. 472.

73 Rules of the Derby Society for Political Information, Derby, 1791; Address to the friends of free enquiry and the general good, Derby, 1792; State trials, compiled by T B Howell, London, 1793, XII, 34 Geo. III, pp. 954–70; Derby Mercury, 19 December 1793; E Fearn, ‘The Derbyshire reform societies, 1791–93’, Derbyshire Archaeol. J., 1968, 88: 47–59.

74 The golden age, a poetical epistle from Erasmus D----n, MD, to Thomas Beddoes, MD, London, printed for F and C Rivington, 1794, pp. 7–9.

75 ‘The loves of the triangles’, The Anti-Jacobin or Weekly Examiner, 4th ed., 2 vols, London, 1799, vol. 2, p. 275. The work was partly composed by George Canning.

76 T Brown, Observations on the Zoonomia of Erasmus Darwin, MD, Edinburgh, Mundell, 1798, preface, pp. xvii, xvii–xviii; H C Warren, A history of the association psychology, New York, Constable, 1921, pp. 68–80.

77 Brown, op. cit., note 76 above, pp. 20, 22.

78 M Shelley, Frankenstein: or The modern Prometheus, ed. M Butler, Oxford University Press, 1994, original preface, p. 3, preface to 1831 edition, p. 195.

79 I Inkster, Scientific culture and urbanisation in industrialising Britain, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1997, p. 122; ‘Abstract of the late experiments of Professor Aldini on galvanism’, Journal of Natural Philosophy, 1802, 3: 298–300; ‘Galvanism’, Philosophical Magazine, 1802, 14: 364–8; G Aldini, An account of the late improvements in galvanism, London, printed for Cuthell and Martin, 1803; idem, General views on the application of galvanism to medical purposes, London, Callow, 1819; A Ure, ‘An account of some experiments made on the body of a criminal immediately after execution with physiological and practical observations’, Quarterly Journal of Science, 1819, 6: 283–94; I Morus, Frankenstein's children: electricity, exhibition and experiment in early nineteenth-century London, Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 126–30.

80 Quoted in Morus, op. cit., note 78 above, p. 129.

81 O Temkin, ‘Basic science, medicine and the Romantic era’, in idem, The double face of Janus and other essays in the history of medicine, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1977, pp. 345–72; T H Levere, Poetry realized in nature: Samuel Coleridge and early nineteenth-century science, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 45–52; A Desmond, The politics of evolution: morphology, medicine and reform in radical London, Chicago University Press, 1989, pp. 117–20, 255–7; M Butler, introduction to Frankenstein, op. cit., note 78 above, pp. xv–xxi; L S Jacyna, ‘John Abernethy (1764–1831)’ and ‘Sir William Lawrence (1783–1867)’, Oxford DNB online, accessed 4/1/2007.

82 Frankenstein, op. cit., note 78 above, appendix B, pp. 198–228.

83 J Secord, ‘Extra-ordinary experiment: electricity and the creation of life in Victorian England’, in D Gooding, T Pinch and S Schaffer (eds), The uses of experiment, Cambridge University Press, 1989; Morus, op. cit., note 79 above, pp. 110–51, 231–55.