James Manby Gully
Along with his partner James Wilson, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" (as it was then called) clinic in Malvern, Worcestershire, which had many notable Victorians, including such figures as Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as clients.
He is also remembered as a suspect in the Charles Bravo poisoning case, and as a recipient of payments from the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
[6] Despite this record of compensation the Dictionary of National Biography states that "the fortune which should have fallen to him as his father's heir vanished on the passing of the Emancipation Act.
[3] Gully showed an interest in the idea of transmutation of species, and translated an evolutionary treatise on Comparative Physiology by the embryologist Friedrich Tiedemann.
Dr Wilson was one of the few Englishmen who stayed at the hydropathic establishment of Vincent Priessnitz, at Gräfenberg, Austria (now Lázně Jeseník, Czech Republic) before Captain R. T. Claridge, whose name became synonymous with hydropathy due to his 1842 book Hydropathy; or The Cold Water Cure, as practiced by Vincent Priessnitz... and his lecture tours.
[13][14] Nevertheless, in an earlier 1842 publication, Wilson acknowledged having read Claridge's work, and unconditionally praised his "enthusiastic" promotion of hydropathy.
[16][17] In 1843, Wilson and Gully published a comparison of the efficacy of the water-cure with drug treatments, including accounts of some cases treated at Malvern, combined with a prospectus of their Water Cure Establishment.
The exercise, plain food and absence of alcohol together with the congenial company of other wealthy patrons proved generally beneficial.
[3] Charles Darwin suffered repeated episodes of illness involving stomach pains from 1838 onwards, and had no success with conventional treatments.
After reading Gully's book The Water-Cure in Chronic Disease, he rented a villa at Malvern for his family and started a two-month trial of the treatment on 10 March.
When his illness returned much as when he had first seen Gully he found a new hydrotherapist, Dr. Lane, whose more relaxed regime did not include clairvoyance, mesmerism or homeopathy.
Emma arranged for Dr. Gully to attend and endorse Ayerst's treatment, but by then the eczema was too raw to bear any water.
[2] He separated the sexes strictly at his clinics, as he believed that many female psychological complaints (depression, anxiety, hypochondria, hysteria) were due to the pressures Victorian women were under to be chaste, ambitionless, efficient, selfless givers, at the expense of their own mental well-being.
[citation needed] While Gully believed in the value of homeopathic medicines in some cases, adding a footnote about his positive experiences with homeopathy to later editions of his water-cure book and stating that "It is well and wise to observe and investigate these things before laughing at them”,[39] he seems to have regarded the use of homeopathic remedies as an adjunct to his use of hydrotherapy,[40] and does not appear to have agreed with the fundamental principles of homeopathy, writing in 1861, "It may shock the homœopathic world when I say that I never much cared for the doctrine of "like curing like"; and that I do not believe it to be of the universal application that they suppose".
[41] Like many of his educated contemporaries both in the UK,[42] and in the USA[43] Gully showed an interest in several popular movements of the day, such as women's suffrage, mesmerism and diagnostic clairvoyance.
[44] In later life he came to believe in spiritualism, being friend and protector to the medium Daniel Dunglas Home,[45] was present at some of the manifestations of "Katie King" with Sir William Crookes and was President of the British Spiritualist Association in 1874.
