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.