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| "A new way of preserving health and beauty" Rambler's Magazine, 1 July 1786 (Source: British Museum) |
Another of Graham's treatments was earth-bathing. In the drawing above, Graham stands leaning on his cane supervising his earth-bathing establishment. An assistant is ready to shovel dirt, while three naked women are in various stages of being buried and a clothed one observes. The best mud was "fresh, icy, cold earth brought from the top of Hampstead Hill,' but if one was too busy a chunk of turf strapped under the shirt was somewhat helpful. He would lecture while buried naked up to the neck, which was "quite enough to call up the chaste blushes of the modest ladies," according to an observer. He stayed buried for days, fasting and lecturing almost continually (Porter, Bodies, 204-05).
The temple, medicines, use of electricity, and earth-bathing all seem to have been based on his universalist beliefs, which were semi-mystic. Each were to be used in conjunction with a changed moral lifestyle. Graham promoted "regimen, or your general manner of living and conducting yourselves" as being more important than "loads of harsh, nauseous, and unnatural medicines from doctors and apothecaries" (Graham, James. The Guardian of Health, Long-life, and Happiness: or Dr Graham's General Directions as to Regimen, etc. To which are added, the Christian's Universal [sic](Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1790), 1, quoted in Smith, 269). However, he also sold medicines with the caution that patients understand
"It will be unreasonable for Dr Graham's Patients to expect a complete and lasting cure, or even great alleviation of their peculiar maladies, unless they keep their body and limbs most perfectly clean with very frequent washings -- breathe fresh open air day and night, -- be simple in the quality and moderate in the quantity of their food and drink -- and totally give up using the deadly poisons and canker worms of estates, called foreign Tea and Coffee, Red Port Wine, Spiritous Liquors, Tobacco and Snuff, gaming and late hours, and all sinful, unnatural, and excessive indulgence of the animal appetites, and of the diabolical and degrading mental passions. On practising the above rules ... depends the very perfection of bodily health, strength, and happiness." (Graham, James. A Short Treatise on the All-Cleansing, All-Healing, and All-Invigorating Qualities of the Simple Earth (Newcastle, 1780), 18, quoted in Smith, 269-70.)
Graham sold both physical and moral beauty (Smith, 271). However, he did it with a spiritual message. Ginnie Smith writes, "Graham's constant references to coolness, cleanliness, and frequent washings with 'cold living water' were ritualistic, puritanical incantations against hot regimen [a type of treatment to balance the humours by making the body warmer] and associated evils. The Prayer for his Christian Universal Church, which had as its aim 'to unite every affinity that there is between the elements and man ... between man and everything that there is in the universe', called for a life of 'temperance and moderation, in perfect purity, cleanness, and self-denial of body, internal and external'. Sexual chastity and physical purity together made up a religiously oriented 'pollution theory', through which 'cleanness' would bring the spiritual and physical body materially closer to God[.]" (Smith, 270.) Kind of hard to reconcile this with his Celestial Bed, isn't it?
This is why he is considered to be such a quack -- he underscored his products with a religious emphasis that was not widely accepted. He attempted to make money off of his Temple, his mud-bathing houses, his medicinal remedies (while not guaranteeing them unless there was a drastic lifestyle change), and the use of electricity, yet presenting it all as spiritual practices.
There were many people who thought John Wesley was both a medical and religious quack (Madden, Deborah. 'A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine': Religion and Culture in John Wesley's Primitive Physic (New York: Rodopi, 2007), 12). After all, didn't he promote health with a spiritual emphasis?
Graham sold both physical and moral beauty (Smith, 271). However, he did it with a spiritual message. Ginnie Smith writes, "Graham's constant references to coolness, cleanliness, and frequent washings with 'cold living water' were ritualistic, puritanical incantations against hot regimen [a type of treatment to balance the humours by making the body warmer] and associated evils. The Prayer for his Christian Universal Church, which had as its aim 'to unite every affinity that there is between the elements and man ... between man and everything that there is in the universe', called for a life of 'temperance and moderation, in perfect purity, cleanness, and self-denial of body, internal and external'. Sexual chastity and physical purity together made up a religiously oriented 'pollution theory', through which 'cleanness' would bring the spiritual and physical body materially closer to God[.]" (Smith, 270.) Kind of hard to reconcile this with his Celestial Bed, isn't it?
This is why he is considered to be such a quack -- he underscored his products with a religious emphasis that was not widely accepted. He attempted to make money off of his Temple, his mud-bathing houses, his medicinal remedies (while not guaranteeing them unless there was a drastic lifestyle change), and the use of electricity, yet presenting it all as spiritual practices.
There were many people who thought John Wesley was both a medical and religious quack (Madden, Deborah. 'A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine': Religion and Culture in John Wesley's Primitive Physic (New York: Rodopi, 2007), 12). After all, didn't he promote health with a spiritual emphasis?
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