I had lunch yesterday with Lee Jackson webmaster of the peerless Victorian London website.

His forthcoming novel, The Mesmerist’s Apprentice, concerns a 19th Century quack who uses mesmeric techniques to assist in surgery and childbirth. It’s a cracking read, and I’d recommend the book to anyone who likes a bit of cloak-and-dagger sleuthery.

The story draws on a real trend for hypnotic medicine in London during the 1830s and ‘40s. Few options existed for alleviating pain at the time, and a credulous public could be easily hoodwinked by impressive claims.

Mesmerist-in-Chief was John Elliotson, who practiced a form of hypnosis at UCL. With time, his procedures raised the hackles of the medical institutes and he was soundly discredited by Thomas Wakeley, founder of The Lancet.

Undeterred, Elliotson went on to found the London Mesmeric Infirmary, on Weymouth Street, Fitzrovia. Under his stewardship, mesmerism managed to attract a cloud of credibility around itself, as evinced by this contemporary press cutting:

BIRTHS

bq. On the 19th ult. at Rotherhithe (in the unconsciousness of mesmeric sleep, induced by Mr. Chandler), the wife of Mr. Thomas Moss, of a son.

bq. The Times, February 2nd, 1848

After two decades, Elliotson’s standing diminished and the practice was closed down. According to Lee Jackson, but for the twists in fortune and fashion, we might still have a mesmeric hospital in London. After all, the scientifically questionable Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, founded around the same time, continues to this day in Queen Square.