The Mesmerist

Physician John Elliotson and his friend Thomas Wakley, founding editor of The Lancet, were well-known medical pioneers in Victorian London. Yet when Elliotson championed the new a€~sciencea€ of mesmerism, which purported to dull surgical pain, their friendship a€" and Elliotsona€s credibility a€" were severely tested. Against a backdrop of Victorian lecture theatres and hospital wards, the two distinguished men publicly clashed over a technique which, for all its successes and failures, is still little understood.