[37] After all Patence was only an imitator in this particular. In the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1735, there is a reference to the “Unborn Doctor of Moorfields,” who flourished very early in the eighteenth century. This man upon being asked to explain his mysterious title, replied, “Why, I wasn’t born a doctor, was I?”
[38] This refers to the regular mode of eminent Surgeons, who seldom cut for Fistulæ or Piles, but in the presence of their assistants: because some patients have died under the operation, and others some days after.
CHAPTER XV.
GRAHAM AND HIS CELESTIAL BED.
In the year 1775 there commenced practice in London one of the most extraordinary empirics of any time, whose name was Graham. He was the son of a saddler in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, where he was born in 1745. Having graduated as a doctor of medicine at the University of the modern Athens, he practised for some time at Pontefract. After a short residence in that town, Dr Graham went to America, where he figured as a philanthropic physician, travelling for the benefit of mankind, to administer relief in the most desperate diseases to patients whose cases had hitherto puzzled ordinary physicians. And here he picked up a deal of experience, which he put to the test on his return. Having the advantage of a handsome person, a polite address, an agreeable conversation, and great fluency of speech, he obtained admission into the first circles, particularly in New England, where, as he himself stated, he reaped “golden opinions.” Returning to England, he made an excursion through the country, and according to his own account, was eminently successful in curing many individuals whose cases had been considered desperate. In 1775 Graham settled in London, opening a house in Pall Mall, “nearly opposite the King’s Palace,” where he devoted his attention specially to disorders of the ear and eye, and inserted advertisements to that effect in the daily papers. These advertisements, though by no means couched in so bombastic a style as Graham’s later productions, still have an undeniable spice of quackery about them. They are, however, rather too lengthy for insertion. One of them which appeared on February 9, 1776, after stating that from motives of delicacy the Doctor made it an invariable rule never on any account to mention the cure, however extraordinary, of any person, poor or rich, gives the following particulars of his practice:—
Dr Graham began to practise in London, Feb. 1, 1775, and the following is the general state of his Practice in disorders of the Eye and Ear: from that time to November 1, being a period of nine Months, cures or relieved 281; refused as incurable on their first Application, 317; after a short Trial (by desire) found incurable 47; dismissed for Neglect, etc. 57; country, foreign, and other Patients, events unknown, 381.
After residing in London for some time, he visited Scotland, and was employed by people of the first quality, who were tempted to put themselves under his care by the fascination of his manner and the fame of his wondrous cures. So popular was he that he might have settled in Edinburgh to great advantage, but he preferred returning to England. He fixed his abode in London, where he set on foot one of the most original and extravagant institutions that could well be imagined, the object of which was, according to the ipsissima verba of one of the Doctor’s advertisements, “the propagation of a much more strong, beautiful, active, healthy, wise, and virtuous race of human beings, than the present puny, insignificant, foolish, peevish, vicious, and nonsensical race of Christians, who quarrel, fight, bite, devour, and cut one another’s throat about they know not what.” The idea was original and singular in the highest degree; but he founded his hopes on a perfect knowledge of human nature, and the success which attended his experiment proved that he had calculated with judgment. It has been assumed by some that he really believed in his own statements. That must have been the result of repeating them so often, and in this particular he was by no means singular. In May 1779 he opened what he called “The Temple of Health” in the Adelphi, the purposes of which may be best understood from one of his advertisements which appeared in the Morning Herald and other newspapers pretty constantly between 1778 and 1781:—
Temple of Health, Adelphi.
To their Excellencies the Foreign Ambassadors, to the Nobility, Gentry, and to Persons of Learning and of Taste.