James Graham, the quack

When is someone labelled a "quack"?  Is it when they don't believe in their own treatments but continue to sell them?  Is it when their treatments don't work?  Is it when the treatments don't stand the test of time?  Or is it a way of discounting something they are promoting that we don't agree with?


left: Dr. James Graham
Rambler's Magazine, 1 March 1783
right: Emma Lyon, age 17
2-3 years after her time at the Temple of Health
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lyon
(Source: British Museum) 

"Dr." James Graham is our quack of choice, both because of the wide variety of "cures" he offered and because he was known as "the Emperor of Quacks" (Schwab, Linda.  "'This Curious and Important Subject': John Wesley and The Desideratum" in Madden, Inward, 193).
Graham believed in his treatments.  Although he claimed to be a physician and did study medicine in Scotland, he did not graduate (Porter, Bodies, 203).  It was commonly accepted for quacks to call themselves "Dr."

Graham gave lectures and wrote tracts, advertising his theories, his medicines and his Temple (Smith, Ginnie.  "Prescribing the rules of health: Self-help and advice in the late eighteenth century" in Porter, Patients, 268).  He opened his Temple of Health and Hymen in 1780 to promote sexual health.  It included an opulent 9'x12' bed which promised "immediate conception" for infertile couples and "superior ecstasy" for thrill-seekers.  The bed's ambiance was assisted by silk sheets, pivots, magnets, statues, music, "balmy and ethereal spices" and glass pillars. (Olsen, 277, 265).  It was called the "Celestial Bed" and cost 50 pounds a night to use (Porter, Bodies, 204), almost $6,500 today! (http://www.futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=500&currency=pounds&fromYear=1783, accessed 21 November 2012).
He claimed sex made one healthy, for "[t]he genitals are the true pulse, and infallible barometer of health."  His "Lecture on the Generation, Increase and Improvement of the Human Species" about sex was given accompanied by several scantily clothed young women, including Emma Lyon [who later became Emma, Lady Hamilton, the mistress of Lord Nelson].  However, he was an equal opportunity promoter of sexual satisfaction, for he believed women were just as lusty as men (Porter, Bodies, 77).
However, masturbation, according to Graham could lead to "debility of body and of mind, -- infecundity, -- epilepsy, -- loss of memory, -- sight, and hearing, -- distortions of the eyes, mouth and face, -- feeble, harsh and squeaking voice, -- pale, sallow and blueish black complexion, -- wasting and tottering of the limbs, -- idiotism, -- horrors, -- innumerable complaints -- extreme wretchedness -- and even death itself." (Porter, Roy. English Society in the 18th Century. (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 286-87, quoted in Olsen, 36-37.)  Graham wanted to sanitize and spiritualize procreative sex, and people came to the Temple in the hundreds (Smith, 270).
Before setting up the Temple, Graham had practised for a period of time in America, where he met Benjamin Franklin and became convinced of the helpfulness of medical electricity.  He included electrical machines, Leyden jars (which store electrical charges) and even an "electrical throne" in his Temple.  Electrical therapy was newly fashionable at the time (Porter, Bodies, 203-04).

More on Graham tomorrow.