Dr
James Manby Gully (
14 March 1808 –
1883), was a Victorian medical doctor, well known for practising
hydrotherapy, or the "water cure". Along with his partner James Wilson, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" (as it was then called) clinic in
Malvern, Worcestershire, which had many notable Victorians, including such figures as
Charles Darwin and
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as clients.
He is also remembered as a suspect in the Charles Bravo poisoning case.
Early life and education
James Manby Gully was born in
Kingston, Jamaica, the son of a wealthy coffee
planter. When he was 6 he was taken to
England to attend school in
Liverpool, then went on to the College de St. Barbe in
Paris. He became a medical student at the
University of Edinburgh in 1825, as did Charles Darwin in the same year. After three years at Edinburgh, Gully became an
externe at L'École de Médecíne in Paris, then returned to Edinburgh to take his
MD in 1829.
Career
Gully began his practise as a
physician in
London in 1830, and went on to write and translate numerous medical books and papers, becoming a fellow of the
Medical and Chirurgical Society of London and a fellow of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. He edited the
London Medical and Surgical Journal and the
Liverpool Medical Gazette. Gully showed an open interest in the dangerously radical idea of
transmutation of species, and translated an
evolutionary treatise on
Comparative Physiology by the embryologist
Friedrich Tiedemann.
He was continually dissatisfied with the medical treatments of the time, and in 1837 met Dr.James Wilson who then spent some time on the continent and returned in 1842 enthused with the idea of hydrotherapy. The two set up a partnership and opened a "water cure" clinic at Malvern offering a regimen similar to that at Vincent Priessnitz's Gräfenberg clinic. In 1846 Gully published The Water Cure in Chronic Disease, describing the treatments available at the clinic. He became a member of the British Homoeopathic Society in 1848.
The fame of the establishment grew, and Gully and Wilson became well-known national figures. Two more clinics were opened at Malvern. Famous patients included Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Florence Nightingale, Lord Tennyson and Samuel Wilberforce. With his fame he also attracted criticism:
Sir Charles Hastings, a physician and founder of the British Medical Association, was a forthright critic of hydropathy, and Dr Gully in particular.
The Water Cure treatment
Dr. Gully's patients at Malvern were woken at 5 am, undressed and wrapped in wet sheets then covered with blankets. An hour of later buckets of water were thrown
upon the patients who then went on a five mile walk, carrying an alpenstock and a
Gräfenberg flask of mineral water, stopping at wells for the waters. They returned to the Malvern pump room for a breakfast of dry biscuits and water. They then had the day to spend bathing in a range of kinds of baths, or in some cases wore a wet sheet called the "Neptune Girdle" round their middle at all times, removing it only at meal times. Dinner which was always boiled mutton and fish was followed by a few hours in a dry bed. The exercise, plain food and absence of alcohol together with the congenial company of other wealthy patrons proved generally beneficial.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin suffered repeated episodes of illness involving stomach pains from 1838 onwards, and had no success with conventional treatments. In 1849 after about four months of incessant vomiting he followed the recommendation of his friend Captain
Sulivan and cousin
Fox, and after reading Gully's book rented a villa at Malvern for his family and started a two month trial of the treatment on
10 March. Gully agreed with Darwin's self diagnosis of nervous dyspepsia, and set him a routine including being heated by a spirit lamp until dripping with perspiration, then vigorous rubbing with cold wet towels and cold foot baths, a strict diet, and walks. Darwin enjoyed the attention and the demanding regime which left him no time to feel guilty about not working. His health improved rapidly and he felt that the water-cure was "no quackery". He had no faith in the homœopathic medicines Gully gave him three times a day, but took them obediently. They stayed on until
30 June, and at home he continued with the diet, and with the water treatment aided by his butler.
When his sickness returned in September Darwin had a day visit to Malvern, then recuperated at home. In June 1850 after losing time to illness (without vomiting) he spent a week at Malvern. Later that year he wrote to Fox about the credulity of his "beloved Dr Gully" whose daughter had been ill, and had treated her with a clairvoyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep, John Chapman as homœopathist and himself as Hydropathist, after which Gully's daughter recovered. Darwin explained to Fox his wrathful scepticism about clairvoyance and homeopathy. When Darwin's own young daughter Annie had persistent indigestion he confidently took her to Gully on 24 march 1851, and after a week left her there to take the cure, but a fortnight later was recalled by Dr Gully as Annie had bilious fever. Dr. Gully was attentive and repeatedly reassured them that she was recovering, but after a series of crises Annie died on 23 April. Gully gave the cause of death as a "Bilious fever with typhoid character".
Darwin kept records of the effects of the continuing water treatment at home, and in 1852 stopped the regime, having found that it was of some help with relaxation but overall had no significant effect, indicating that it served only to decrease his psychosomatic symptomatology. In 1855 Darwin wrote to a friend that "Dr. Gully did me much good", but he did not want to return to Malvern. When his illness returned much as when he had first seen Gully he found a new hydrotherapist, Dr. Lane, whose more relaxed regime did not include clairvoyance, mesmerism or homeopathy. After a similarly speedy recovery Darwin became a complete convert. In 1863 his illness worsened seriously at a time when Lane was not available, and Emma Darwin persuaded her husband to return to Gully. His cousin Fox had told him that Gully had suffered a mental breakdown and was unavailable. In his reply Darwin had mentioned having had eczema, and wrote "Gully will be a great loss & I hardly know whom to consult there. I must be under some experienced man, for I could not stand much hard treatment. They arrived at Malvern on 2 September, but Darwin felt that he was being fobbed off with the supervising physician, Dr. Ayerst. Emma arranged for Dr. Gully to attend and endorse Ayerst's treatment, but by then the eczema was too raw to bear any water. Darwin had a complete breakdown, and on 13 October left the spa worse than when he'd arrived. His serious illness continued until the Spring of 1866.
Beliefs and causes
Gully was an articulate and popular public speaker and writer. He was also a firm believer in a number of women's causes. He advocated
women's suffrage, and preached
temperance, due to the detrimental affects of alcohol on the husbands of many Victorian women. Gully separated the sexes strictly at his clinics, as he believed that many female psychological complaints (depression, anxiety, hypochondria, hysteria) were due to the pressures Victorian women were under to be chaste, ambitionless, efficient, selfless givers, at the expense of their own mental well-being.
While Gully believed in the value of homeopathic medicines in some cases, adding a footnote about his positive experiences with homeopathy to later editions of his water-cure book and stating that "It is well and wise to observe and investigate these things before laughing at them”, he seems to have regarded the use of homeopathic remedies as an adjunct to his use of hydrotherapy, and does not appear to have agreed with the fundamental principles of homeopathy, writing in 1861, "It may shock the homœopathic world when I say that I never much cared for the doctrine of "like curing like"; and that I do not believe it to be of the universal application that they suppose". Like many of his educated contemporaries both in the UK, and in the USA Gully showed an interest in several popular movements of the day, such as women's suffrage, mesmerism and diagnostic clairvoyance, and in later life he came to believe in spiritualism.
Affair with Florence Bravo
In
1872, he met a young woman named Florence Ricardo (later
Florence Bravo). They became secret lovers. The following year, after travelling with Gully to
Kissingen in
Germany, Florence became pregnant. Gully performed an abortion.Thereafter, their relationship became purely
Platonic.
Florence subsequently met and fell in love with Charles Bravo, whom she married in 1875. On hearing the news from a third party, Gully reportedly tore the letter to shreds. Just a few short months later, on April 18 1876, Charles Bravo died of poisoning. The culprit was never discovered; Gully was a suspect, along with Florence herself, but although he testified at the inquest, nothing further came of the case. In 1923, Sir Harry Poland QC, who was involved for the crown in the case, stated that "Dr. Gully was in no way implicated".
Published works
- A systematic treatise on comparative physiology, introductory to the Physiology of man. Vol. I / [Friedrich Tiedemann]; translated, with notes, from the German, James Manby Gully and J. Hunter Lane, 1834
- A formulary for the preparation and medical administration of certain new remedies / Translated from the French ... with annotations and additional articles, James Manby Gully, 1835
- Lectures on the moral and physical attributes of men of genius and talent, James Manby Gully, 1836
- An exposition of the symptoms, essential nature, and treatment of neuropathy, or nervousness, by James Manby Gully, 1837
- The simple treatment of disease deduced from the methods of expectancy and revulsion, James Manby Gully, 1842
- The water cure in chronic disease : an exposition of...chronic diseases of the digestive organs, lungs, nerves, limbs, & skin; and of their treatment by water, etc, James Manby Gully, 1846
- The water cure in chronic disease. An exposition of the causes, progress, and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs, lungs, nerves, limbs, and skin : and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means, James Manby Gully, 1847
- The water-cure in chronic diseases: an exposition of the causes, progress, and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs, lungs, nerves, limbs, and skin, and of their treatment by water, and other hygenic means, James Manby Gully, 1854
- A guide to domestic hydro-therapeia: the water cure in acute disease, James Manby Gully, 1869
- Drawings descriptive of spirit life and progress. By a child twelve years of age, ed. James Manby Gully, 1874
Notes
Further reading
- Death at the Priory: Love, Sex, and Murder in Victorian England by James Ruddick; Atlantic Books, 2002
- Dr. Gully's Story by Elizabeth Jenkins; Coward, McCann, Geoghegan, Inc, 1972
References
External links
