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James Graham — Visionary or Quack?
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continues throughout the patient’s life and into the terminal stages. One of the aims of a palliative care team is to improve the quality of the patient’s life. This aim is in common with all physiotherapists working with other progressive incurable diseases. Advanced cancer, however, has its own particular set of symptoms and complications which require a distinctive approach to palliation. Physiotherapists working in this area find they have a wide variety of challenging situations to deal with. Some patients, for example, have neurological symptoms such as neuropathies and strokes, others have orthopaedic problems such as pathological fractures. Almost all such patients have mobility problems requiring assessment. In addition, they are much in need of advice and reassurance in dealing with walking aids, wheelchairs and so on. The practical skills of our profession
- including
our experience of assessment, handling, moving and touching skilfully - have become central to the palliative approach. Other more personal attributes are also essential, including the skills involved in counselling, comforting and supporting both patients and carers. There has to be strength, too, for example, in the ability to recognise when it is kinder, more appropriate and more acceptable for the patient to withdraw from physiotherapy treatment. The following quotation appears in several textbooks about cancer care, and probably provides a useful motto for those engaged in this kind of work - ‘To cure sometimes, to relieue often, to comfort always’ (Hippocrates).
Lydia Gillham BA MCSP
DiflP
m
Secretary - Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Oncology and Palliative Care
HI STORICAL PERSPECTlVE
James Graham
- Visionarv or Quack?
Allen Mason One of the most colourful characters of the 18th century was undoubtedly James Graham, once referred to as the ‘archetypal electrical quack’. Graham was born in Edinburgh in 1745 and claimed to have studied medicine at the university there. Whether he gained any sort of qualification remains doubtful, although he practised for a while in America as an oculist and aurist, where he became acquainted with the electrical experiments of Benjamin Franklin. On his return to England, Graham set up in practice in Bath where one of his patients was the celebrated Catherine Macauley who later married his younger brother William. In 1778, Graham travelled on the Continent, meeting Franklin in Paris, and gaining testimonials from a number of aristocratic patients including the then Duchess of Devonshire. In 1779, he opened the Temple of Health on the Royal Errace, Adelphi in London. A huge golden star and the motto ‘Templum Aesculapio Sacrum’ hung over the door; while the entrance hall was filled with walking sticks and crutches supposedly discarded by former patients. Here, amid lavish furnishings and decorations, Graham sold his ‘nervous aetherial balsam’ and his ‘imperial pills’, and demonstrated the wonders of the ‘electrical aether’. He also gave public lectures in the great ‘Apollo apartment’ on a variety of subjects, such as ‘The causes, nature and effect of Love and Beauty’ and ‘The generation, increase and improvement of the Human Species’. Many of his lectures were enlivened by the presence of beautiful scantily clad models; and it is said that
Physiotherapy, March 1992, vol78, no3
Emma Lyon, the future Lady Hamilton, was once employed there as the Goddess of Health. Graham is perhaps best remembered, however, for his or Celestial famous Medico-magnetico-musico-electrical Bed. This was a magnificantly ornate structure with an impressive array of electrical devices, magnets, fans, gears and levers; all set on 40 pillars of polished glass. This allowed one to ‘bask in a genial, invigorating tide of the celestial fire, combined with the powerful influences of music, magnets, and the balmy odours of aromatic aetherial essences’. Graham claimed that a night in this most wonderful bed would, for childless couples, assure them of a ‘healthy, a beautiful, and a virtuous offspring.’ But Grahani soon fell from favour with the public and he was forced to seek cheaper premises in Pall Mall. He fell further into debt, however, became something of a religious fanatic and finally died in Edinburgh in 1794. Like many unorthodox practitioners, Graham was an expert psychologist. His Celestial Bed may not have been based on sound scientific or medical principles, but he had a good understanding of the efficacy of a congenial atmosphere, soft lights aiid sweet music. Author Allen Mason MSc MCSP DipTP is a senior lecturer in the division of health sciences, School of Health and Community Studies, Sheffield City Polytechnic.
Note It is hoped that ‘Historical Perspective’ will be a regular feature in the months leading up to the Centenary of the founding of the Society of Trained Masseuses. Contributions which illuminate and colour the establishment and development of the profession should be sent to the scientific editor.
continues throughout the patient’s life and into the terminal stages. One of the aims of a palliative care team is to improve the quality of the patient’s life. This aim is in common with all physiotherapists working with other progressive incurable diseases. Advanced cancer, however, has its own particular set of symptoms and complications which require a distinctive approach to palliation. Physiotherapists working in this area find they have a wide variety of challenging situations to deal with. Some patients, for example, have neurological symptoms such as neuropathies and strokes, others have orthopaedic problems such as pathological fractures. Almost all such patients have mobility problems requiring assessment. In addition, they are much in need of advice and reassurance in dealing with walking aids, wheelchairs and so on. The practical skills of our profession
- including
our experience of assessment, handling, moving and touching skilfully - have become central to the palliative approach. Other more personal attributes are also essential, including the skills involved in counselling, comforting and supporting both patients and carers. There has to be strength, too, for example, in the ability to recognise when it is kinder, more appropriate and more acceptable for the patient to withdraw from physiotherapy treatment. The following quotation appears in several textbooks about cancer care, and probably provides a useful motto for those engaged in this kind of work - ‘To cure sometimes, to relieue often, to comfort always’ (Hippocrates).
Lydia Gillham BA MCSP
DiflP
m
Secretary - Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Oncology and Palliative Care
HI STORICAL PERSPECTlVE
James Graham
- Visionarv or Quack?
Allen Mason One of the most colourful characters of the 18th century was undoubtedly James Graham, once referred to as the ‘archetypal electrical quack’. Graham was born in Edinburgh in 1745 and claimed to have studied medicine at the university there. Whether he gained any sort of qualification remains doubtful, although he practised for a while in America as an oculist and aurist, where he became acquainted with the electrical experiments of Benjamin Franklin. On his return to England, Graham set up in practice in Bath where one of his patients was the celebrated Catherine Macauley who later married his younger brother William. In 1778, Graham travelled on the Continent, meeting Franklin in Paris, and gaining testimonials from a number of aristocratic patients including the then Duchess of Devonshire. In 1779, he opened the Temple of Health on the Royal Errace, Adelphi in London. A huge golden star and the motto ‘Templum Aesculapio Sacrum’ hung over the door; while the entrance hall was filled with walking sticks and crutches supposedly discarded by former patients. Here, amid lavish furnishings and decorations, Graham sold his ‘nervous aetherial balsam’ and his ‘imperial pills’, and demonstrated the wonders of the ‘electrical aether’. He also gave public lectures in the great ‘Apollo apartment’ on a variety of subjects, such as ‘The causes, nature and effect of Love and Beauty’ and ‘The generation, increase and improvement of the Human Species’. Many of his lectures were enlivened by the presence of beautiful scantily clad models; and it is said that
Physiotherapy, March 1992, vol78, no3
Emma Lyon, the future Lady Hamilton, was once employed there as the Goddess of Health. Graham is perhaps best remembered, however, for his or Celestial famous Medico-magnetico-musico-electrical Bed. This was a magnificantly ornate structure with an impressive array of electrical devices, magnets, fans, gears and levers; all set on 40 pillars of polished glass. This allowed one to ‘bask in a genial, invigorating tide of the celestial fire, combined with the powerful influences of music, magnets, and the balmy odours of aromatic aetherial essences’. Graham claimed that a night in this most wonderful bed would, for childless couples, assure them of a ‘healthy, a beautiful, and a virtuous offspring.’ But Grahani soon fell from favour with the public and he was forced to seek cheaper premises in Pall Mall. He fell further into debt, however, became something of a religious fanatic and finally died in Edinburgh in 1794. Like many unorthodox practitioners, Graham was an expert psychologist. His Celestial Bed may not have been based on sound scientific or medical principles, but he had a good understanding of the efficacy of a congenial atmosphere, soft lights aiid sweet music. Author Allen Mason MSc MCSP DipTP is a senior lecturer in the division of health sciences, School of Health and Community Studies, Sheffield City Polytechnic.
Note It is hoped that ‘Historical Perspective’ will be a regular feature in the months leading up to the Centenary of the founding of the Society of Trained Masseuses. Contributions which illuminate and colour the establishment and development of the profession should be sent to the scientific editor.