“More Subtle than the Electric Aura”: Georgian Medical Electricity, the Spirit of Animation and the Development of Erasmus Darwin's Psychophysiology

This paper examines the importance of medical electricity in Georgian England, the contexts and rationale for the use of electrical treatments, and the relationship between medical electricity and natural philosophy. It focuses upon the application of medical electricity by thephysician andnatural philosopherErasmusDarwin, and the role of electricity in his philosophy and psychophysiology. The electrician Tiberius Cavallo complained that electrical therapywasnotaseffectiveas itmighthavebeenbecausemedicalpractitionerswho employed it had insufficient knowledge of natural philosophy, whilst natural philosophers who used it had insufficient experience of medicine. Darwin’s employment of electrical treatments is recorded in his commonplace book, correspondence and other documents, whilst in theZoonomia he tried to discern the philosophical principles ofmedicinemodelled upon the Linnaean and Newtonian systems. Furthermore, as Paola Bertucci has shown in a stimulating thesis on medical electricity, Cavallo obtained much of his medical knowledge from close medical friends such as the physician James Lind and the surgeonMiles Partington. Darwin, however, was a leadingmedical practitioner, natural philosopher and electrical experimenter, who was elected fellow of the Royal Society partly for his meteorological electrical work during the 1750s. Furthermore, he was a close friend of three of the most important electricians in Georgian England, Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Priestley and AbrahamBennet, andplayedaconsiderable role inencouraging thephilosophical researches of the two latter philosophers. Darwin promoted natural philosophy through his publications and membership of scientific associations such as the Lunar Society and the Derby Philosophical Society and was celebrated by Coleridge as ‘‘the first literary character in Europe’’ with a ‘‘greater range of knowledge than any other’’.