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Doctor Franklin

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Governor of MA NH, then NJ. Common Paralytic Disorder, 1750, age 69. ... I now enjoy such a state of health, as I wou'd have given all the world for. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Doctor Franklin


1
  • Doctor Franklins Medicine
  • The Electrical Cure
  • Stanley Finger
  • Washington University

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

3
Franklins 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 Guerickes sulphur globe, 1660s
  • Francis Hawksbees glass tubes, 1709
  • Pieter van Musschenbroeks Leyden Jar, 1745

8
Early Electrical Machine
9
Leyden Jars
10
Franklin on Electricity
  • Spencers Electrical Demonstrations, 1743
  • Collinsons 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
(No Transcript)
13
  • Electricity and the Palsies
  • Trials with the Common
  • Paralytic Disorder

14
The First Call for Medical ElectricityJohann
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."

15
Medical Electricity Apparatus
16
James Logan (1674-1751)
  • Came to PA as William Penns 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.

17
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. Burrs assistance have
    been electrifyd several times but at present
    without any alternation in my nervous disorder.

18
7 Craven St., London
19
John Pringle
20
Franklins 1757 Report to the Royal Society
  • I never knew any Advantage from Electricity in
    Palsies that was permanent."

21
Deborah Read Franklin (1708-1774)
22
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.

23
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 tryd it on some Patients,
  • but without the least Success."

24
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.

25
  • Poor Richard (1732)
  • Hes the best physician that
  • knows the worthlessness of the
  • most medicines.
  • Q. Did Franklin draw this conclusion about
    medical electricity?
  • Ans. Not at all!

26
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.

27
Case C.B.
  • Franklin and Cadwalader Evans team up
  • to treat C.B. in 1752
  • Probably Evans 24-year-old sister
  • Hysterical symptoms for 10 years
  • Case Published in 1757

28
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.

29
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. 

30
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.  

31
Why Did Franklin Think Electricity Worked?
  • As an 18th-Century Physician
  • Tightened flaccid nerves
  • Increased the flow of the nerve juices
  • Removed obstructions

32
Why Did Franklin Think Electricity Worked?
  • As A Psychologist
  • As Charms are nonsense, Nonsense is a Charm.
  • (Poor Richard, 1734)

33
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.

34
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.

35
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!

36
Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799)
37
Ingenhouszs 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.

38
Ingenhouszs Proposal
  • "This experiment ... has induced me to advise
    some of the London mad-Doctors, as Dr Brook, to
    try a similar experiment on mad men, thinking
    that, as I found my self, my mental faculties
    improved 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."

39
Franklins 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.

40
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

41
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!

42
Dr. Franklins 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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