Dr James Graham
Encyclopedia
Dr James Graham was a pioneer in sex therapy
with a genius for spectacle, best known for his electro-magnetic musical Grand State Celestial Bed. It was designed to make the feeble fertile and produce perfect babies. For several centuries Graham was dismissed as a quack, but he is better understood as a medical entrepreneur. Quackery
, in the context of eighteenth-century medicine, is best defined by a practitioner’s advertising techniques and geographical mobility rather than their medical skills or success. Graham was certainly an expert in “puffing” himself, but he also genuinely believed in the efficacy of his unusual treatments.
, where he trained in medicine. Like 90% of medical students of his time, he left medical school without taking a degree. Probably with the help of William Buchan, future author of the best-seller Domestic Medicine, Graham set up as an apothecary in Doncaster
, Yorkshire
, and in 1764 he married Mary Pickering of Ackworth.
In 1770 James Graham left England for America, travelling around the middle colonies as an oculist and aurist, before settling in Philadelphia. Here he learned the principles of electricity from Ebenezer Kinnersley, Benjamin Franklin
's friend and collaborator, and began to develop the prototype of his Celestial Bed.
Leaving America around the time of the first rumblings of the American Revolution
, Graham worked briefly in Bristol and then Bath, before setting up practice in London, where Horace Walpole consulted him about his gout. After travelling in Holland, Germany and Russia in 1776, Dr Graham set up practice in Bath. Graham’s persuasive advertisements promoting cures using "Effluvia, Vapours and Applications ætherial, magnetic or electric" attracted his first celebrity patient, the famous bluestocking
historian Catharine Macaulay. She became the subject of scandal in 1778 when she married James Graham’s 21-year-old brother William, who was less than half her age. Dr Graham was instantly propelled to national fame.
. Here he displayed his extraordinarily elaborate electro-magnetic apparatus, treated patients with musical therapy and pneumatic chemistry
as well as electricity
and magnetism
, published marriage guidance material, gave medical lectures and sold medicines such as “Electrical Aether” and “Nervous Aetherial Balsam.” He performed with the help of a succession of Goddesses of Health, displayed as models of physical perfection. The young Emma Hamilton (then known as Emy Lyon), who eventually became Lord Nelson's mistress, is thought to have been employed as the goddess Vestina. His gigantic porters were quickly nicknamed Gog and Magog
, after the Guildhall Giants. The Temple of Health was a huge success and Graham became the talk of London, featuring in satirical plays, poems, prints and newspaper skits. During the 1780s he was publicly associated with well-known society figures such as Charles James Fox
, John Wilkes
, the Duke of Richmond, Admiral Keppel, the Duchess of Devonshire
, leading courtesans such as Mary Darby Robinson ("Perdita") and Elizabeth Armistead
, and other borderline showmen including Dr Katterfelto, Philip Astley and Philip de Loutherbourg.
, in Pall Mall
, designed to house the newly-built Celestial Bed. His "wonder-working edifice" was 12 by, and canopied by a dome covered in musical automata, fresh flowers, and a pair of live turtle doves. Stimulating oriental fragrances and "aethereal" gases were released from a reservoir inside the dome. A tilting inner frame put couples in the best position to conceive, and their movements set off music from organ pipes which breathed out "celestial sounds", whose intensity increased with the ardour of the bed's occupants. The electrified, magnetic creation was insulated by 40 cut glass pillars. At the head of the bed, above a moving clockwork tableau celebrating Hymen
, the god of marriage, and sparkling with electricity, were the words:
At Schomberg House, Graham gave his famous Lecture on Generation, a frank explanation of how to conceive which saw sex as a patriotic act and procreation as a national duty. Cold water washing of the genitals was recommended as essential to good sexual health, and prostitution
and masturbation
were castigated. Graham gave more discreet marriage guidance in a pamphlet called "A Private Advice."
Graham’s excessive spending soon got him into financial difficulties. He vacated the Adelphi Temple of Health in July 1781, and concentrated on trying to recoup his costs at Schomberg House. He found it hard to keep out of debt, however, and although he made a succession of spectacular comebacks, by March 1784 he was forced to sell most of his possessions. He returned to Edinburgh, his reputation ruined, to display the remains of his apparatus in a temporary Temple of Health on South Bridge Street.
In 1786, Graham gave public exhibitions of earthbathing in Panton Street in London, and lectured buried up to the neck in earth.
In July 1788, Graham was "born again." He renounced his past, including his electrical treatments. Graham founded a new church in his home in Lochend’s Close in Edinburgh's Old Town, but was soon overcome by a form of religious mania (later identified by Freud as the Messiah Complex
) that seems to have dogged him for some time.
Graham travelled widely around Britain exhibiting his earthbathing therapy, and at the end of 1792, he began to experiment with extended fasting to prolong his life.
Graham died very suddenly at his home in Edinburgh in 1794, his death recorded in Old Parish Records as having taken place on 24 December, although other sources suggest he died on his birthday, 23 June.
Sex therapy
Sex therapy is the treatment of sexual dysfunction, such as non-consummation, premature ejaculation , erectile dysfunction, low libido, unwanted sexual fetishes, sexual addiction, painful sex, or a lack of sexual confidence, assisting people who are recovering from sexual assault, problems commonly...
with a genius for spectacle, best known for his electro-magnetic musical Grand State Celestial Bed. It was designed to make the feeble fertile and produce perfect babies. For several centuries Graham was dismissed as a quack, but he is better understood as a medical entrepreneur. Quackery
Quackery
Quackery is a derogatory term used to describe the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices. Random House Dictionary describes a "quack" as a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, or...
, in the context of eighteenth-century medicine, is best defined by a practitioner’s advertising techniques and geographical mobility rather than their medical skills or success. Graham was certainly an expert in “puffing” himself, but he also genuinely believed in the efficacy of his unusual treatments.
Early life
James Graham, son of a saddler, was born on 23 June 1745 in EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, where he trained in medicine. Like 90% of medical students of his time, he left medical school without taking a degree. Probably with the help of William Buchan, future author of the best-seller Domestic Medicine, Graham set up as an apothecary in Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, and in 1764 he married Mary Pickering of Ackworth.
In 1770 James Graham left England for America, travelling around the middle colonies as an oculist and aurist, before settling in Philadelphia. Here he learned the principles of electricity from Ebenezer Kinnersley, Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
's friend and collaborator, and began to develop the prototype of his Celestial Bed.
Leaving America around the time of the first rumblings of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, Graham worked briefly in Bristol and then Bath, before setting up practice in London, where Horace Walpole consulted him about his gout. After travelling in Holland, Germany and Russia in 1776, Dr Graham set up practice in Bath. Graham’s persuasive advertisements promoting cures using "Effluvia, Vapours and Applications ætherial, magnetic or electric" attracted his first celebrity patient, the famous bluestocking
Bluestocking
A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. However it subsequently was applied primarily to intellectual women, and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed...
historian Catharine Macaulay. She became the subject of scandal in 1778 when she married James Graham’s 21-year-old brother William, who was less than half her age. Dr Graham was instantly propelled to national fame.
Temple of Health
During a research tour of Europe in the summer of 1779 Dr Graham acquired a new patron in Lady Spencer, mother of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. In May 1780, Graham opened his first Temple of Health, housed in a magnificent building in the centre of the Adam brothers’ speculative development at the AdelphiAdelphi
The name Adelphi comes from the Greek word adelphoi, meaning "brothers".Adelphi may refer to:-United States:*Adelphi, Iowa*Adelphi, Maryland*Adelphi, New York*Adelphi, Ohio*Adelphi, Texas-Hotels:...
. Here he displayed his extraordinarily elaborate electro-magnetic apparatus, treated patients with musical therapy and pneumatic chemistry
Pneumatic chemistry
Pneumatic chemistry is a term most-closely identified with an area of scientific research of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. Important goals of this work were an understanding of the physical properties of gases and how they relate to chemical reactions and,...
as well as electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
and magnetism
Magnetism
Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...
, published marriage guidance material, gave medical lectures and sold medicines such as “Electrical Aether” and “Nervous Aetherial Balsam.” He performed with the help of a succession of Goddesses of Health, displayed as models of physical perfection. The young Emma Hamilton (then known as Emy Lyon), who eventually became Lord Nelson's mistress, is thought to have been employed as the goddess Vestina. His gigantic porters were quickly nicknamed Gog and Magog
Gog and Magog
Gog and Magog are names that appear primarily in various Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures, as well as numerous subsequent references in other works. Their context can be either genealogical or eschatological and apocalyptic, as in Ezekiel and Revelation...
, after the Guildhall Giants. The Temple of Health was a huge success and Graham became the talk of London, featuring in satirical plays, poems, prints and newspaper skits. During the 1780s he was publicly associated with well-known society figures such as Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
, John Wilkes
John Wilkes
John Wilkes was an English radical, journalist and politician.He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives...
, the Duke of Richmond, Admiral Keppel, the Duchess of Devonshire
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire , formerly Lady Georgiana Spencer, was the first wife of the 5th Duke of Devonshire, and mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire. Her father, the 1st Earl Spencer, was a great-grandson of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. Her niece was Lady Caroline Lamb...
, leading courtesans such as Mary Darby Robinson ("Perdita") and Elizabeth Armistead
Elizabeth Armistead
Elizabeth Armistead was a courtesan and, later, the spouse of statesman and politician Charles James Fox. Her relationship with and marriage to Fox was one of the most famous and controversial of their age....
, and other borderline showmen including Dr Katterfelto, Philip Astley and Philip de Loutherbourg.
Celestial Bed
In June 1781 Graham launched the Temple of Hymen in new premises at Schomberg HouseSchomberg House
Schomberg House is a mansion on the south side of Pall Mall in central London which has a colourful history. Only the street facade survives today. It was built for Meinhardt Schomberg, 3rd Duke of Schomberg, a Huguenot general in the service of the British crown...
, in Pall Mall
Pall Mall, London
Pall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...
, designed to house the newly-built Celestial Bed. His "wonder-working edifice" was 12 by, and canopied by a dome covered in musical automata, fresh flowers, and a pair of live turtle doves. Stimulating oriental fragrances and "aethereal" gases were released from a reservoir inside the dome. A tilting inner frame put couples in the best position to conceive, and their movements set off music from organ pipes which breathed out "celestial sounds", whose intensity increased with the ardour of the bed's occupants. The electrified, magnetic creation was insulated by 40 cut glass pillars. At the head of the bed, above a moving clockwork tableau celebrating Hymen
Hymen
The hymen is a membrane that surrounds or partially covers the external vaginal opening. It forms part of the vulva, or external genitalia. The size of the hymenal opening increases with age. Although an often practiced method, it is not possible to confirm with certainty that a girl or woman is a...
, the god of marriage, and sparkling with electricity, were the words:
"Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth!"
At Schomberg House, Graham gave his famous Lecture on Generation, a frank explanation of how to conceive which saw sex as a patriotic act and procreation as a national duty. Cold water washing of the genitals was recommended as essential to good sexual health, and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
were castigated. Graham gave more discreet marriage guidance in a pamphlet called "A Private Advice."
Graham’s excessive spending soon got him into financial difficulties. He vacated the Adelphi Temple of Health in July 1781, and concentrated on trying to recoup his costs at Schomberg House. He found it hard to keep out of debt, however, and although he made a succession of spectacular comebacks, by March 1784 he was forced to sell most of his possessions. He returned to Edinburgh, his reputation ruined, to display the remains of his apparatus in a temporary Temple of Health on South Bridge Street.
Earthbathing and religion
Over the next few years, Graham developed a new medical therapy, which he called "earthbathing."In 1786, Graham gave public exhibitions of earthbathing in Panton Street in London, and lectured buried up to the neck in earth.
In July 1788, Graham was "born again." He renounced his past, including his electrical treatments. Graham founded a new church in his home in Lochend’s Close in Edinburgh's Old Town, but was soon overcome by a form of religious mania (later identified by Freud as the Messiah Complex
Messiah complex
A messiah complex is a state of mind in which an individual holds a belief they are, or are destined to become, a savior. The messiah complex does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ....
) that seems to have dogged him for some time.
Graham travelled widely around Britain exhibiting his earthbathing therapy, and at the end of 1792, he began to experiment with extended fasting to prolong his life.
Graham died very suddenly at his home in Edinburgh in 1794, his death recorded in Old Parish Records as having taken place on 24 December, although other sources suggest he died on his birthday, 23 June.
Publications
James Graham published his first medical tract in 1775, and continued to promote his ideas in print throughout his life. His publications were distinguished by their flowery and hyperbolical rhetoric, and their humane and progressive views on war, slavery, women’s education, farming, religious tolerance and diet. (He was a passionate vegetarian.) Although he was regarded as an eccentric, most of his opinions on these subjects are now taken for granted, and Graham was amazed that his efforts to improve the human species were not better appreciated.In fiction
James Graham is the subject of the novel The Temple of Hymen by Jacqui Lofthouse (London: Penguin Books, 1996).Sources
- Lydia Syson, Doctor of Love: Dr James Graham and His Celestial Bed, (London: Alma Books, 2008)
- Lesley Hall & Roy Porter, The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995)
- Peter Otto "The Regeneration of the body: Sex, Religion and the Sublime in James Graham's Temple of Health and Hymen". Romanticism on the Net 23 (September 2001)