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Doctor Franklin’s Medicine The Electrical Cure Stanley Finger Washington University

Doctor Franklin’s Medicine The Electrical Cure Stanley Finger Washington University. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Born in Boston, January 17, 1706 Formal Schooling Ages 8-10 Printer’s Apprentice, 1717 Leaves for Philadelphia, 1723 England: 1757-1775

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Doctor Franklin’s Medicine The Electrical Cure Stanley Finger Washington University

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  1. Doctor Franklin’s Medicine The Electrical Cure Stanley Finger Washington University

  2. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) • Born in Boston, January 17, 1706 • Formal Schooling Ages 8-10 • Printer’s Apprentice, 1717 • Leaves for Philadelphia, 1723 • England: 1757-1775 • France: 1776-1785 • United States: 1785-1790

  3. Franklin’s ReputationAccording to the USPS Printer-Writer Postmaster Statesman-Diplomat Scientist (Experimental Natural Philosopher) ----- *This list should include Man of Medicine!

  4. Franklin Stamps, 2006

  5. Medical Interests • Hospitals • Medical Schools • Hygiene • Exercise • Fresh Air • Smallpox Inoculation • Lead Poisoning • Malnutrition • Child-rearing • Mesmerism • Music Therapy • Prosthetics (e.g., bifocals, long-arm) • Medical electricity

  6. Why Medicine? From Poor Richard's Almanack: “The noblest question in the world is, What Good may I do in it?” "What is Serving God? 'Tis doing Good to Man."

  7. Some Landmarks in Electricity • William Gilbert coins word, 1600 • Otto von Guericke’s sulphur globe, 1660s • Francis Hawksbee’s glass tubes, 1709 • Pieter van Musschenbroek’s Leyden Jar, 1745

  8. Early Electrical Machine

  9. Leyden Jars

  10. Franklin on Electricity • Spencer’s Electrical Demonstrations, 1743 • Collinson’s Gift to Library Company, 1746(?) • Theory of Points, 1747 • Plus-Minus Electricity Theory, 1747 • Lightning Rod, 1750 • Oneness of Lightning and Electricity, 1750-52 • Experiments and Observations on Electricity, 1751

  11. Depictions of the Kite Experiment1752

  12. Electricity and the Palsies Trials with the “Common Paralytic Disorder”

  13. The First Call for Medical Electricity:Johann Krüger of Halle, 1743 "But what is the usefulness of electricity? For all things must have a usefulness; that is certain. Since electricity must have a usefulness, and we have seen it cannot be looked for either in theology or in jurisprudence, there is obviously nothing is left but medicine. . . .The best effect would be found in paralyzed limbs."

  14. Medical Electricity Apparatus

  15. James Logan (1674-1751) Came to PA as William Penn’s secretary in 1699. Well known Pennsylvania businessman, public figure, book collector, and student of mathematics and natural philosophy. “Common paralytick disorder” in 1750. Franklin administered electrotherapy. It did not have beneficial effects.

  16. Jonathon Belcher (1682-1757) Governor of MA + NH, then NJ. Common Paralytic Disorder, 1750, age 69. Asks “my country man Franklin … come and make the operation himself.” Apparatus breaks in transit. “I have however made some use of the rest of the apparatus and with Mr. Burr’s assistance have been electrify’d several times but at present without any alternation in my nervous disorder.”

  17. 7 Craven St., London

  18. John Pringle

  19. Franklin’s 1757 Report to the Royal Society “I never knew any Advantage from Electricity in Palsies that was permanent."

  20. Deborah Read Franklin (1708-1774)

  21. Franklin to Mather Byles, 1788 "I wish for your sake that Electricity had really prov'd what at first it was suppos'd to be, a Cure for the Palsy.”

  22. On Deafness(Caused by Smallpox) To Humphrey Stenhouse, 1765 "I wish I could give you any Encouragement to hope Relief in your Case by means of Electricity. NO instance of the kind has fallen within my Knowledge. On the contrary, I have try’d it on some Patients, but without the least Success."

  23. A Tumor or Brain Abscess? Lady Mary Catherine was the 12-yr.-old daughter of the Duke of Ancaster. Pringle to Franklin in March 1767: “His Grace and the Duchess are in the greatest distress about their daughter, who has been long in a most Miserable condition with spasms and convulsions. After all that we have done the distemper remains obstinate … the present spasm has shut the Young Lady's jaw and deprived Her both of speech and swallowing. … I ventured to name You as the person the most proper for directing the operation.” The girl died in April, just before her thirteenth birthday.

  24. “Poor Richard” (1732): “He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines.” Q. Did Franklin draw this conclusion about medical electricity? Ans. Not at all!

  25. Hysteria Just as a diseased body could affect the mind, a sick mind can wreck havoc with the body. John Wesley: “The slow and lasting passions, such as grief and hopeless love, bring on chronical diseases.”

  26. Case C.B. • Franklin and Cadwalader Evans team up to treat C.B. in 1752 • Probably Evan’s 24-year-old sister • Hysterical symptoms for 10+ years • Case Published in 1757

  27. Evans on C.B. “She was tortur'd almost to madness with a cramp in different parts of the body; then with more general convulsions of the extremities, and a choaking deliquium; and, at times with almost the whole train [of] hysteric symptoms.”

  28. C.B.’ Letter "About this time there was a great talk of the wonderful power of electricity. Accordingly I went to Philadelphia, the beginning of September 1752, and apply'd to B. Franklin, who I thought understood it best of any person here.” 

  29. C.B.’ Letter “I receiv'd four strokes morning and evening ... the symptoms gradually decreased, till at length they entirely left me. ... B. Franklin was so good as to supply me with a globe and bottle, to electrify myself everyday for three months. I now enjoy such a state of health, as I wou'd have given all the world for.”

  30. Why Did Franklin Think Electricity Worked? As an 18th-Century Physician: • Tightened flaccid nerves • Increased the flow of the nerve juices • Removed obstructions

  31. Why Did Franklin Think Electricity Worked? As A Psychologist “As Charms are nonsense, Nonsense is a Charm.” (Poor Richard, 1734)

  32. Why did Franklin Think Electricity Worked for Hysteria? As an Empiricist Like most non-university trained “amateurs” in medicine, Franklin was not theory-driven. He took a trial and error approach and was concerned only with whether something worked.

  33. Melancholia • Franklin does not suggest treating melancholia with electricity because it is a stimulant. • It also had nothing to do with C.B.’s related condition, hysteria. • Instead, it stems from some electrical accidents.

  34. Franklin and Melancholia Franklin discovered that he and others could endure strong shocks to the head with only a small memory loss for the event. And his friend Jan Ingenhousz felt better after an electrical accident involving his head!

  35. Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799)

  36. Ingenhousz’s Joy “My mental faculties were at that time not only returned, but I felt the most lively joye in finding, as I thought at the time, my judgment infinitely more acute. ... I found moreover a liveliness in my whole frame, which I never had observed before.”

  37. Ingenhousz’s Proposal "This experiment ... has induced meto advise som[e] of the London mad-Doctors, as Dr Brook, to try a similar experiment o[n] mad men, thinking that, as I found my self, my mental faculties impro[ved] and as the world well knows, that your mental faculties, if not improved [by] the two strooks you received, were certainly not hurt, by them, it might perhaps be[?] a remedie to restore the mental faculties when lost."

  38. Franklin’s Response "I communicated that Part of your Letter to an Operator, encourag'd by the Government here [in Paris] to electrify epileptic and other poor Patients, and advis'd his trying the Practice on Mad People according to your opinion.

  39. Word Spreads Within a few years of the Ingenhousz and Franklin proposals, people begin applying shocks to the heads of “mad” patients: John Birch in London, 1787 Giovanni Aldini in Bologna, 1801 T. Gale, New York State, 1802

  40. Curing Melancholic Madness Birch, Aldini, and Gale: • Used weaker shocks and did not produce unconsciousness or major convulsions. • But had significant successes. • And never mentioned the origins of the new therapeutic idea!

  41. Dr. Franklin’s Reasoned Conclusions Medicine must be based on experiments, not unsubstantiated opinions or theories Generalizing without facts should be avoided. Thus, medicine should follow the rules set for Baconian And good Enlightenment science. Medical electricity is neither a panacea nor a quack remedy. This is shown by clinical “Tryals” for various disorders.

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