How the "Prince of charlatans" James Graham earned electricity

James Graham, founder of the Temple of Health, was able to capitalize on his ability to stage shows and feel fashion trends.
Imagine the end of the 18th century. The public sought to attend an exhibition of solar microscopes. The miniature world was projected onto the wall like a magical light show. Ladies and gentlemen may have witnessed the creation and operation of Sir William Hamilton's apparatus. The car imitated the appearance and sound of a volcanic eruption. William Hamilton is a volcanologist who has devoted much time to the study of Vesuvius.

It was an age of scientific discovery and entertainment, when the rationalistic ideals of the Enlightenment were faced with passion and romanticism. Exhibitions demonstrated the superiority of science over nature, but at the same time it was the grandeur of nature that fascinated the audience.

James graham

Recently discovered electricity was considered "the youngest daughter of science." Aristocrats from high society held "electric parties." They tried to surprise and shock each other with electric experiments on them. Special flasks swirled and shone in different colors. King Louis XV specifically hired a court electrician, experimental physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet, who conducted impressive electrical experiments to entertain the courtyard. Once, Nolle built a chain of 180 monks and passed a current through it. For observers, electricity was something from the category of unusual, miraculous, a kind of "ethereal fire", capable of connecting thunder and lightning to the human body.

But let's move on to James Graham, the man whom the British Medical Journal called "one of the most heinous deceivers in the history of quackery." James Graham, handsome and elegant, managed to capitalize on his talent, organize real shows and closely monitor fashion trends.

In 1780, he opened the Temple of Health Medical Center on the fashionable Pall Mall Street in London. The main attraction of his center was Graham’s widely publicized “medical-electric apparatus”, proudly calling him “the largest, most enormous, most useful and magnificent that now exists or has ever been in the world.”

James Graham Book Cover

The entrance to the Temple of Health at the entrance was strewn with discarded canes, ear tubes, glasses and crutches, which visitors supposedly left unnecessary, completely recovering from their ailments in the clinic. The air smelled of pleasant aromas, musicians playing, hidden under the stairs. Visitors walked past one electric miracle after another: glass jars of silicon glass glowing with sparks, gilded dragons breathing electric fire, a gilded throne on which Graham's patients sat and received healing currents. Amid all this abundance, Emma Hart, the future mistress of Vice Admiral Nelson, dressed in gloomy Greek clothes portrayed the goddess of youth, Hebe.

Someone coming really needed treatment, and most were interested in looking at unusual exhibits and listening to the owner of the clinic. He was distinguished by remarkable eloquence and was able to captivate and captivate the audience. He gave lectures, after which he led the audience in shock. The fact is that conductors were connected to each chair, which emitted current at the right time, people jumped up from unusual sensations, and at that moment a “wonderful spirit” appeared from out of nowhere with a bottle of essential balm and distributed it to guests.

James Graham's Sky Bed

Another famous feature was James Graham's "heavenly bed." Filled with flowers and fragrances, she stood on four tall stained-glass legs, through which life-giving electricity was transmitted. The bed guaranteed conception. "Any gentleman and his lady who want to have offspring can spend the evening in a" heavenly bed "for a nominal fee of fifty pounds sterling and enjoy all the heavenly pleasures that are possible," Graham wrote in the brochure. The bed could be set at any angle.