Experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America
Benjamin Franklin and Electricity
Wikipedia
Richard Lovett (1692 - 1780)
Richard Lovett, a lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral, was an early experimenter with medical electricity,
and the first English author to write about the subject, publishing John Read's letters describing the
the first experiments and machine made by Read.
Engraving
The Shocking Bag: Medical Electricity in mid-18th-Century London
John Wesley (1704-1791)
John Wesley was the son of a minister and
Oxford graduate, who followed in the steps of his father along both those paths. A friend of George
Whitefield, he came to America to preach, returning to England with an interest in the preaching to the
masses for which Whitefield was so renowned. John's brother Charles was one of the founders of a "holy club"
at Oxford that became known as Methodists for their methodical habits. Wesley is known as the founder of
the Methodist religion.
The Methodists were socially active, and Wesley became interested in the
potential of electricity for inexpensive medical care, setting up a program to distribute medicine to
London's poor.
Wikipedia
Pioneer Electrotherapist: A History of Medicine Study
Experimental Method in the Practical Theology of John Wesley
Revealing Sparks: John Wesley and the Religious Utility of Electrical Healing
Headstone
John Wesley
The Desideratum, or Electricity made Plain and Useful by a Lover of Mankind and of Common Sense, 1760
Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793)
This extremely famous French Revolutionary, if only for his death in his bathtub at the hands of
Charlotte Corday, was a physicist and experimenter who was born in Switzerland, studied in France,
and practiced in England. His specialty was the treatment of eye diseases with electricity.
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
Recherches physiques sur electricité, &c. (1782)
Recherches sur electricité medicate (1783)
Notions elementaires d'optique (1764)
Tiberius Cavallo (1749-1809)
Cavallo, the son of a physician, was a physicist who wrote extensively on the early
experiments with electricity. He was known contemporaneously as the inventor of
Cavallo's multipler.
Essay on the Theory and Practice of Medical Electricity
Wikipedia
Account of New Experiments
Lots of etchings
James Graham (1745 - 1794)
James Graham studied at the University of Edinburg, but didn't graduate. He moved
to Philadelphia and became interested in Franklin's experiments in electricity.
Convinced that it had utility for medicine, Graham returned to England and set up
an electrical medicine practice, eventually opening his Temple of Health. In later
life, he escewed electricity for mudbaths as the secret to longevity.
Sex Quack
Graham's Celestial Bed
general-anaesthesia.com