References
- L. Lewis Wall reviewed this incredible case in The Strange Case of Mary Toft (Who was delivered of sixteen rabbits and a Tabby cat in 1726) Medical Heritage 1985 1 199 212 An earlier work, not cited by Wall, by S. A. Seligman ‘Mary Toft—The Rabbit Breeder’, Medical History, 5 (1961), 349–60, recounted the adventure in a similar way. See also Lord Onslow's letter to Sir Hans Sloane, cited in the British Medical Journal, 25 July 1896, p. 206. The broader political and social components of this case have yet to be delineated.
- Blondel's , Hereafter James . 1727 . The Strength of Imagination in Pregnant Women examined London will be referred to as The Strength. His comment regarding the Toft case appeared in Power of the Mother's Imagination over the foetus examined (London, 1729), p. ii. Hereafter, The Power.
- The twelfth chapter of Turner's De Morbis Cutaneis. A Treatise of Diseases incident to the Skin London 1714 Turner appears to have used the terms fancy and imagination synonymously and interchangeably in his writings on the maternal imagination. According to his preface Turner received an imprimatur from the College of Physicians of London for this work in 1712, and had it published two years later by Rebecca Bonwicke. Hereafter, this work will be referred to as ‘Spots and Marks’.
- Hereafter . The Force
- One case, purportedly from ancient times, involved a child of ‘Ethiopian Complexion’ who was delivered to white parents. Physicians and philosophers explained the child's colour as the result of the mother's ‘Intent viewing’ of a picture of an Ethiopian that hung in her bedchamber throughout her pregnancy. Many authors, including Daniel Turner, attributed this case to Hippocrates. M. D. Reeve, in a recent work covering much of the Renaissance literature on ‘Conceptions’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, No. 215 1989 93 93 n.s., No. 35 has shown that this case did not originate with Hippocrates; rather its misattribution to the father of medicine can be traced to De viribus imaginationis, the 1608 writing of Thomas Fienus. I am indebted to Amal Abou-Aly for this reference. James Blondel, Turner's opponent also argued that no such case existed in the Hippocratic Corpus. Yet, a similar case which Reeve described as the ‘Andromeda effect’ appeared in Aethiopica, a work of Heliodorus. Discussion of the Biblical passage will follow.
- Such authorities as Galen, Michel de Montaigne, and René Descartes addressed the power of the mother's imagination. J. W. Ballantine's comprehensive search of the medical and philosophical literature from antiquity through the early twentieth century for reference to this maternal power remains the most complete bibliographic source to date. See the section on maternal impressions, the general nineteenth-century term describing the effects of the mother's imagination in his Manual of Antenatal Pathology and Hygiene, vol. 2: The Embryo Edinburgh 1904 105 128 Many of the works published since 1904 are included in the bibliography of my thesis ‘“Out of Sight, Out of Mind?”: The Daniel Turner-James Blondel Debate over Maternal Impressions’ (M. A. Thesis, The Johns Hopkins University, 1987), pp. 83–95.
- The widespread appeal of popular medical writings such as Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and Aristotle's Masterpiece may have helped perpetuate a belief in the power of the mother's imagination. Janet Blackman discussed the popularity of the latter in Popular Theories of Generation: The Evolution of Aristotle's Works, the Study of an Anachronism Health Care and Popular Medicine in Nineteenth Century England Woodward J. Richards D. New York 1977 56 88
- For example, Johann Conrad Brunner, in 1683, criticized Johann Conrad Peyer's belief that maternal influences were capable of marking the foetus. See Cole F.J. Early Theories of Sexual Generation Oxford 1930 57 58 61. Francesco Maria Nigrisoli also argued against the common belief in the power of the maternal imagination in his Considerazioni Intorno alla generazione de' viventi (Ferrara, 1712), p. 5.
- Blondel, The Strength, title page. Blondel's use of ‘vulgar’ in the sense of the common people is similar to Thomas Browne's discussion of such errors in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors London 1646 Browne did not, however, include the power of the mother's imagination as an erroneous belief.
- 1646 . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors London preface
- 1646 . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors 10 – 10 . London
- 1646 . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors London
- 1646 . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors 14 – 14 . London J. Du Plessis described and illustrated the contemporary case of a child born ‘in all respects like a Lobster’ due to its mother's longing when unable to pay the ‘Exorbitant Price’ for the shellfish in Leadenhall market. See his A Short History of Human Prodigious & Monstrous Births of Dwarfs, Sleepers, Giants, Strong Men, Hermaphrodites, Numerous Births, and Extream Old Age &c., British Library, Sloane MS 5246, stencilled p. 13.
- 1646 . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors 28 – 29 . London As later described, Blondel was a Huguenot. Following the principles of his faith, Blondel would likely have opposed Malebranche's attempt to reconcile Cartesian physics and philosophy to the Catholic doctrine. See T. L. Hankins, ‘The Influence of Malebranche on the Science of Mechanics during the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 28 (1967), 193.
- 1646 . Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors 34 – 34 . London
- Blondel's preference of a strict scriptural interpretation rather than supposition is indicative of the sustained influence of Frederick Spanheim, his Leiden Professor of Theology. See Sassen's F.L.R. The Intellectual Climate in Leiden in Boerhaave's Time Boerhaave and his Times Lindeboom G. Leiden 1970 2 3 in Blondel's appreciation of his instructor is identifiable by the dedication of his medical thesis, Disputatio Medica Inauguralis de Crisibus (Leiden, 1692), to Spanheim.
- Blondel . The Strength 34 – 36 . According to the biographical entry in Ollivier and Raige-Delorme Dezeimeris's Dictionnaire Historique de la Médecine (Paris, 1828), I, p. 418, Blondel was well versed in the Dead Languages, particularly Hebrew, and he wrote a large number of theological works. Reeve (footnote 5), 97, claimed some aspects of Blondel's account were ‘more accurate than any I have found in the commentaries’. Samuel Kottek, in his ‘La Force de L'Imagination chez les femmes enceintes. ‘A propos d'un texte biblique apporté par J. Blondel en illustration à ce théme controversé’, Revue D'Historie de la Medécine Hébraique, 27 (1974), 43–48 elaborates on Blondel's Biblical citations.
- Blondel . The Strength 20 – 20 . 22
- Blondel . The Strength 21 – 21 . He further recommended such deceitful vagrants to be tried by the ‘Coventry Act’. Although J. Du Plessis (footnote 13), 52, described how deformed children were often left to beg on the streets, he also tells of one poor London couple who got a ‘Hansom Lively Hod [sic]’ from showing, for money, the lifeless skeleton the wife reputedlly delivered.
- Blondel . The Strength 14 – 14 .
- Blondel . The Strength 95 – 95 .
- All of these examples were drawn from Blondel's The Strength 94 106
- Turner . Spots and Marks 105 – 105 . For example, he described that when people experience sorrow, ‘their Spirits move slow and dull, both in the Brain and into the Praecordia [around the heart], hence from their languid Influx, the Circuit of the Blood is retarded through the Ventricles’, ibid., p. 104.
- Turner . Spots and Marks 114 – 114 . This case was also included in the works of Schenkius and Pare.
- Turner . Spots and Marks 114 – 114 . attributed to Bartholin
- Turner . Spots and Marks 116 – 116 . ‘J'B.’ was most likely the MP, Sir James Bateman (1660–1718), from Soho Square, London.
- In a later publication, Turner detailed several hundred cases which he attended as a London surgical practitioner roughly between 1694 and 1711. Turner's view of London surgical practice as a corrupt trade, dominated by untrained and unskilled pretenders is documented in his Apologia Chyurgica: A Vindication of the Noble Art of Surgery London 1695 and The Present State of Chyrurgery (London, 1703). I am producing a biography of Turner as part of my dissertation.
- Perusal of surgical texts from this period suggests that surgical practitioners were employed to treat skin disorders and venereal disease, incise and dress boils and swellings, reduce fractured bones and dislocated joints, ‘couch’ cataracts, extract teeth, repair ruptures and fistulae, amputate limbs, and ‘cut’ for bladder stone. Turner claimed that a surgeon was ‘the most proper Person to be consulted’ for disorders requiring ‘Manual Operation’ in the preface to his Syphilis. A practical Dissertation on the Venereal Disease London 1724 Attempts by officials of the Barber-Surgeons Company of London to expand their realm of care legally has been documented in many traditional surgical histories, for example, Cecil Wall, The History of the Surgeons Company, 1745–1800 (London, 1937), pp. 25–6.
- Turner . Spots and Marks 122 – 122 .
- Turner . Spots and Marks 122 – 122 .
- Turner . Spots and Marks 122 – 122 .
- Thompson , C.J.S. 1968 . The Mystery and Lore of Monsters 63 – 63 . New York in claimed that London was the Mecca for every variety of monster, and Colin Clair, in Human Curiosities (London, 1968), p. 93, stated that by the early 1700s, inhabitants of this city had acquired a taste for monsters that reached ‘the proportions of a disease’.
- Altrick , Richard . 1978 . The Shows of London Cambridge, Massachusetts in his delightful provides many well-documented accounts, see especially pp. 36, 42, and 49.
- From Robert Boyle's description of a monstrous calf in the first issue of the Philosphical Transactions in 1665/6, through the first third of the eighteenth century, monsters were frequently reported to the Royal Society. Katherine Park and Lorraine J. Daston discuss several of these reports in Unnatural Conceptions: The Study of Monsters in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France and England Past & Present 1981 92 46 51
- See Blondel The Strength 3 3 John Maubray claimed that the birth of monsters ‘signify and portend something extraordinary or more than NATURAL to us Mortals’ in his popular The Female Physician, The Whole Art of New Improv'd Midwifery (London, 1724), p. 372. See also Daniel Defoe's popular A System of Magick (London, 1727). Although Keith Thomas concluded that traditional belief in magic had significantly declined by the end of the seventeenth century, he noted that remnants of these beliefs continued to linger in the eighteenth century. See his Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971), especially pp. 633, 656–68.
- The lack of references to this chapter before 1727 is corroborated by Turner's view that until 1727 his work ‘never gave offence, at least that I have heard’. See Turner's ‘An Answer to a Pamphlet on the Power of Imagination in Pregnant Women’, also printed under the title A Defence of the XIIth Chapter of the First Part of a Treatise De Morbis Cutaneis affixed to Turner's Discourse Concering Gleets London 1729 3 3 The latter publication was available for my use. Henceforth, A Defence. Turner's opponent, James Blondel, also claimed that he was the ‘First, who has ever writ on this Side of the Question’, See his The Power, 143.
- See Wilson A. The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century Cunningham A. French R. London 1990 4 39 in
- Standard biographical entries state that he was born in Paris in 1665, and that his father, a French legal counsellor, desired a similar career for his son. The most informative sources for Blondel that I have found are Eloy N.F.J. Dictionnaire Historique de la Médecine London 1778 I 360 360 Dezeimeris (footnote 17), 418; A. Rees, The Cyclopedia or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature (London, 1819), IV, section BLO; and Dictionary of National Biography. Although I found few records of his medical education in Leiden, he was presumably exposed to the same teaching as his classmate, Herman Boerhaave. See Lindeboom's Herman Boerhaave, the Man and his Work (London, 1968), especially pp. 23–30, and also Sassen (footnote 16), 1–16.
- Anita Guerrini has studied Newton's influence on contemporary medical writing. See, for example, her Archibald Pitcairne and Newtonian Medicine Medical History 1987 31 70 83 and ‘Isaac Newton, George Cheyne and the “Principia Medicinae”’, in The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, edited by R. French and A. Wear (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 222–45.
- Dezeimeris . 1828 . Dictionnaire Historique de la Médecine 418 – 418 . Paris Neither university nor municipal archives in Oxford substantiate speculations that he practised there. The Huguenots continued to gain numerical and political strength in early-eighteenth-century London. Since the 1689 Toleration Act of William and Mary, Huguenot assemblages as organized factions of protestant dissent received increasing support from the English. See R. D. Gywnn, Huguenot Heritage: The History and Contribution of the Huguenots in Britain (London, 1985). Blondel was ‘Certified’ as a member of the French Church on Threadneedle Street in 1700, and resided in one of the large Huguenot areas of ‘Northeastern’ London. Livre des Temiograges, 1669–1719 De L' Englise de Threadneedle Street transcribed and edited by W. Minet and S. Minet (London, 1909), p. 24. Blondel was also recorded in The Registers of the French Church, Threadneedle Street, London, edited by T. C. Colyer-Fergusson (Aberdeen, 1906), pp. 208, 221, and in Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland, 1603–1700, edited by W. A. Shaw (Lymington, 1911), p. 193.
- Turner's religious convictions are most explict in the preface and ‘Espostulatory Epistle’ of his ‘Religio Medici Reformata. Or, Private Devotion in 2 Parts’. British Library, MS 14404
- Gwynn . 1985 . Huguenot Heritage The History and Contribution of the Huguenots in Britain 110 – 143 . London
- Blondel . The Strength 4 – 4 .
- Turner . A Defence 88 – 89 . This is perhaps the most distinct example of Turner's criticism of the mathematical way of argument as purported by many iatro-mechanical, as well as iatro-mathematical physicians.
- Turner . A Defence 69 – 69 .
- Blondel . The Power 21 – 21 .
- Turner . The Force 22 – 22 .
- Turner . The Force 8 – 8 .
- Rousseau , G.S. 1969 . Science and the Discovery of the Imagination in Enlightened England . Eighteenth Century Studies , 3 : 108 – 109 . M. Nicolson, ‘The Scientific Background of Swift's “Voyage to Laputa”’, reprinted in her Science and the Imagination (Hamden, Connecticut, 1976), pp. 110–54; and L. King, The Philosophy of Medicine: The Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978), pp. 152–81. J. J. MacIntosh provided a prelude to this era in ‘Perception and Imagination in Descartes, Boyle, and Hooke’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 3 (1983), 327–57. Additionally, the philosophical usage of imagination over several centuries has been addressed by J. Engel, The Creative Imagination: Enlightenment to Romanticism (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981). For variations of the early descriptions of imagination, see C. E. MacMahon, ‘The Role of Imagination in the Disease Process: Pre-Cartesian History’, Physiological Medicine, 6 (1976), 179–84, and C. E. McMahon and J. L. Hastrup, ‘The Role of Imagination in the Disease Process: Post-Cartesian History’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 3 (1980), 205–17. ‘The Imagination and Psychological Healing’ has recently been addressed by S. W. Jackson in Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, 26 (1990), 345–58.
- Philip Shorr noted that many marvels, including children born alive without heads, were discussed in Chamber's Cyclopedia. Yet, he added, ‘in all fairness to the cyclopedist’, that some of the more questionable ancient marvels had been omitted. Science and Superstition in the Eighteenth Century: A study of the treatment of science in two Encyclopedias of 1725–1750 New York 1932 110 110
- Morgan , T. 1725 . Philosophical Principles of Physick 365 – 395 . London as cited by Rousseau (footnote 51), 124. See also Morgan's Mechanical Practice of Physick (London, 1735), pp. 220–1.
- Turner's use of ‘Power’ of Imagination in ‘Spots and Marks’ and The Force in his 1730 work implied, as will be discussed, an immaterial impetus, whereas the implications of Blondel's use of the terms ‘Strength’ and ‘Power’ remains uncertain. Such terms were consistent with his adherence to ‘Newtonian’ doctrine, but given Blondel's displayed talent as both a scholar and wit, he may have used these terms as a parody on Turner's titles. As such, it supports Simon Schaffer's claim that a Newtonian language was often used ‘for specific pugnacious purposes’. See Newtonianism Companion to the History of Modern Science Olby R. Cantor G.N. Christie J.R.R. Hodge M.J.S. London 1990 617 617 in
- Blondel . The Strength 52 – 52 .
- Blondel included this as his fourth proposition listed at the beginning of The Strength
- Blondel . The Strength 54 – 54 .
- Blondel . The Power 101 – 101 .
- Blondel . The Strength 51 – 51 . 94
- See Frank R.G. Thomas Willis and His Circle: Brain and Mind in Seventeenth-Century Medicine The Languages of Psyche: Mind and Brain in Enlightenment Thought Rousseau G.S. Berkeley, California 1990 107 146 in A. Meyer and R. Heirons previously elaborated ‘On Thomas Willis's Concepts of Neurophysiology’ in Medical History, 9 (1965), 1–15, 142–55. See also W. F. Bynum, ‘The Anatomical Method, Natural Theology and the Functions of the Brain’, Isis, 64 (1973), 445–68.
- Turner . Spots and Marks 106 – 107 .
- Turner . Spots and Marks 106 – 107 . beginning on p. 120. Thomas Fienus described this particular action of the imagination in De viribus Imaginationis (Louvain, 1608). Turner also drew upon Fienus's account, implicating the role of imagination in ‘producing almost every kind of disease’, namely, squinting, stuttering, small pox, and the plague (p. 110). For a further outline, translation, and description of Fienus's writing, see L. J. Rather, ‘Thomas Fienus’ (1567–1631) Dialectical Investigation of the Imagination as Cause and Cure of Bodily Disease’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 41 (1967), 349–67. Earlier descriptions of powers of the imagination are discussed in M. W. Bundy, The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought (Urbana, Illinois, 1927).
- Newton's influence on fever discourse is found in the works of Archibald Pitcairne, Richard Mead, George Cheyne, and John Freind. See for example Coleman W. Mechanistic Philosophy and Hypothetical Physiology Texas Quarterly 1967 10 263 263 R. J. J. Martin, ‘Explaining John Freind's History of Physick’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 19 (1988), 406; and Guerrini (footnote 40), 227–8.
- See Guerrini Archibald Pitcairne and Newtonian Medicine Medical History 1987 31 and idem, ‘James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian Physiology, 1690–1740’, Journal of the History of Biology, 18 (1985), 247–66; and T. M. Brown, ‘Medicine in the Shadow of the Principia’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 41 (1987), 629–48.
- Blondel . The Power x – x . For a recent, concise survey of atomism see M. Tamny, ‘Atomism and the Mechanical Philosophy’, in Companion to the History of Science, edited by R. Olby, G. N. Cantor, J. R. R. Christie, and M. J. S. Hodge (London, 1990), pp. 597–609.
- Earle , P. 1976 . The World of Defoe 35 – 35 . London He comments on the common belief in the power of the mother's imagination in p. 207.
- Turner . Spots and Marks 53 – 54 .
- Turner . Spots and Marks 53 – 54 .
- Guerrini . 1985 . James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian Physiology, 1690–1740 . Journal of the History of Biology , 18 : 248 – 249 . M. Brown claimed that Turner, an ‘articulate skeptic [of materialism] in the junior ranks of the College during the 1710s’ had already adopted mechanical explanations which incorporated an understanding of the essential vital element within his writing. See his ‘From Mechanism to Vitalism in Eighteenth-Century English Physiology’, Journal of the History of Biology, 7 (1974), 200, footnote 72. Opposition to mechanism in both early- and late-eighteenth-century contexts needs to be more fully explored.
- Turner . A Defence 133 – 133 . Turner did not mention this reference to the attractive force of the magnet in 1714, but added it to his 1729 treatise. Over this timespan, the study of attraction had gained the status of an independent field of study in natural philosophy. Nicholas Robinson, perhaps London's most staunch Newtonian physician, claimed, in 1725, that one problem unsolved by attractive particles was the influence of the mind on the body. As cited by Guerrini (footnote 40), 242.
- Turner . Spots and Marks , 154 – 154 .
- Material/immaterial distinctions in early modern philosophy and psychology have recently been re-examined in Michael E. Michael F.S. Two Early Modern Concepts of Mind: Reflecting Substance vs. Thinking Substance Journal of the History of Philosophy 1989 27 especially 39–43; and E. Michael and F. S. Michael, ‘Corporeal Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Psychology’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 50 (1989), especially 44–8.
- Blondel . The Power 21 – 21 .
- Joseph M. Levine, in his reappraisal of the debate between the Ancients and the Moderns beyond that of R. F. Jones, qualified the eighteenth-century supporters of the ancients as selectors, borrowing only the passages they found most useful from ancient doctrine and ignoring the rest. Moreover, he argued that the essence of the battle was a question of history, i.e., the ‘meaning and Use of the past’ and the ‘method of apprehending it’. See Ancients and Moderns Reconsidered Eighteenth Century Studies 1981 15 78 78 84 The ancients/moderns question was brought to public attention in London literature of late 1726 with the publication of Gulliver's Travels. The work added support to those who preferred the ancients for, as G. S. Rousseau argued, it illustrated the modern's ‘craze over absurd scientific effort’. See Rousseau's ‘Science’, in The Context of English Literature: The Eighteenth Century, edited by P. Rogers (London, 1978), p. 161.
- Brown . 1974 . From Mechanism to Vitalism in Eighteenth-Century English Physiology . Journal of the History of Biology , 7 : 188 – 192 .
- Blondel . The Strength 37 – 37 .
- Blondel . The Power v – v .
- Turner . The Force 137 – 137 .
- Turner . A Defence 111 – 111 .
- Turner . A Defence 70 – 70 .
- Turner . The Force 45 – 45 .
- Turner . The Force 59 – 59 .
- Blondel . The Power 42 – 42 .
- Blondel . The Power 39 – 39 .
- Blondel . The Power 6 – 7 .
- Cole . 1930 . Early Theories of Sexual Generation 53 – 53 . Oxford William Harvey's epigenetic theory, which had gained many intellectual disciples in England lost support to the preformation theory, first proposed by Jan Swammerdam. E. Gaskings, Investigations into Generation, 1651–1828 (London, 1967), p. 30. For a discussion of the rise of preformations, see S. A. Roe, Matter, Life, and Generation: 18th Century Embryology and the Haller-Wolff Debate (Cambridge, 1981), especially pp. 2–9. See also, D. C. Foulke, ‘Mechanical and ‘Organical’ Models in Seventeenth-Century Explanations of Biological Reproduction’, Science in Context, 3 (1989), 365–81.
- Jacques Roger's broad characterization of embryology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is summarized in Churchill's F.B. The History of Embryology as Intellectual History Journal of the History of Biology 1970 3 157 157 L. W. B. Brockliss provides an illuminating account of contemporary French embryological ideas in ‘The Embryological Revolution in the France of Louis XIV: the Dominance of Ideology’, in The Human Embryo: Aristotle and the Arabic and European Tradition, edited by G. R. Dunstan (Exeter, 1990), pp. 158–86.
- Blondel . The Power 109 – 109 .
- Blondel . The Power 46 – 46 .
- Emboitment, first proposed by Swammerdam and Malebranche in 1669, is lucidly discussed by Bowler P. Preformation and Pre-existence in the Seventeenth Century: A Brief Analysis Journal of the History of Biology 1971 4 237 243 in especially 221–2
- Blondel did not develop his argument to the religious extremes of Malebranche and Swammerdam who extended their account of emboitment to explain the doctrine of original sin Bowler P. Preformation and Pre-existence in the Seventeenth Century: A Brief Analysis Journal of the History of Biology 1971 4 238 238 in
- Blondel . The Power 141 – 141 .
- Blondel . The Strength 48 – 48 .
- Turner . The Force 100 – 100 . 102
- Turner . The Force 90 – 90 . Turner had not reintroduced this classical notion, but rather re-emphasized this argument which may be found in many other contemporary accounts. Specifically, he cited Sir John Floyer's report in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions.
- T. M. Brown has claimed that Drake's generation arguments were directed against the preformationist theory of the Newtonian mathematico-physician, Archibald Pitcairne. See The Mechanical Philosophy and the ‘Animal Oeconomy’: A Study of the Development of English Physiology in the Seventeenth Century and Early Eighteenth Century Ph.D. Dissertation Princeton University 1968 269 269
- Drake had argued that the ‘Existence of a form'd Animal in the Ovum has never been prov'd, but suppos'd only from Analogy … to the Seed of Plants’. Additionally, he claimed that animalcules ‘may only be Particles of a mixt Fluid in motion’. See his Anthropologia Nova; or, a New System of Anatomy London 1707 I 352 352
- Hunter , W.B. 1950 . The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of Plastic Nature . Harvard Theological Review , 43 : 197 – 213 . He noted that this theory had provided ‘a convenient explanation for the production of monsters’, p. 209.
- Turner . The Force 103 – 103 .
- Turner . British Library, MS 14404 3 – 3 . Turner's religious convictions are most explict in the preface and ‘Espostulatory Epistle’ of his ‘Religio Medici Reformata. Or, Private Devotion in 2 Parts’.
- Turner . British Library, MS 14404 6 – 6 . Turner's religious convictions are most explict in the preface and ‘Espostulatory Epistle’ of his ‘Religio Medici Reformata. Or, Private Devotion in 2 Parts’. Passive obedience was also the dictate of High Anglican endurance to the threats against Stuart succession.
- Turner . A Defence 97 – 98 .
- Other than in his private devotional, Turner's published views on the role of the Creator are found in his Discourse Concerning Fevers , 2nd edition London 1736 90 94 preface and especially
- Cowper , William . 1698 . The Anatomy of Humane Bodies Oxford see Table 54 and its explanation. Cowper described this blood flow as bidirectional.
- Blondel . The Power 123 – 123 .
- Blondel . The Strength 47 – 47 .
- Turner . The Force 105 – 110 . 112–15
- Blondel . The Strength 121 – 121 .
- Blondel . The Strength 114 – 114 . Furthermore, Blondel argued, following William Harvey's claim, that since the ‘most violent of all’ passions, that of coitus, did not cause the ovary to swell or alter the generative process in any way, any lesser passion would not be transmissible either.
- Blondel . The Strength 124 – 124 .
- Blondel . The Strength 123 – 123 .
- Turner . A Defence 153 – 153 .
- Turner . A Defence 154 – 154 .
- Bodemer , C.W. 1968 . “ Embryological Thought in Seventeenth Century England ” . In Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England 3 – 3 . Los Angeles in
- Joseph Needham made this claim in Limiting Factors in the Advancement of Science as Observed in the History of Embryology Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 1935 8 15 15 Although Blondel specified reason as one component of his argument and Turner gathered empirical detail, a lack of a clear distinction between the two protagonists supports Andrew Wear's recent claim that rationalist/empiricist divisions more likely represent an historical categorization than an historical fact. See A. Wear, ‘Medical Practice in late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England: Continuity and Change’, in The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, edited by R. French and A. Wear (Cambridge, 1989), p. 304. Indeed, Turner praised London surgeon Richard Blundell for having ‘Declined Mathematical Argumentation … [and] invoke[d], rather a rational Empiricism’. See the dedication in Turner's Syphilis (London, 1717).
- See Harley D. Honor and Property: the Structure of Professional Disputes in Eighteenth-Century English Medicine The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century Cunningham A. French R. Cambridge 1990 138 164 in Adrian Wilson (footnote 38), 7, 8, also discusses the uses of pamphlets as ‘appeals for public support’. Hillel Schwartz described a contemporary appeal for a wide audience by religious groups in his The French Prophets: The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England (Berkeley, California, 1980).
- N. D. Jewson first discussed the public's role in determining the care and medicines they received in Medical Knowledge and the Patronage System in Eighteenth-Century England Sociology 1974 8 369 385 Roy Porter has also argued that part of a physician's success at this time depended upon ‘public favour’, and has documented how physician's arguments were addressed to the public. See ‘Laymen, Doctors, and Medical Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century: the Evidence of the Gentleman's Magazine’ in Patients and Practitioners, edited by R. Porter (Cambridge, 1985), p. 311; and D. Porter and R. Porter, Patient's Progress: Doctor and Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1989), p. 102. Marina Benjamin has also discussed the role of the patient as judge in ‘Medicine, Morality and the Politics of Berkeley's Tar-Water’ in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, edited by A. Cunningham and R. French (Cambridge, 1990), especially pp. 176–80.
- Medical practitioners regularly confronted ‘quack’ remedies in attempts to dispel any mystery about ‘miraculous’ curative powers that the remedies were claimed to have held. See for example, Doherty Francis The Anodyne Necklace: A Quack Remedy and its Promotion Medical History 1990 34 268 293
- Turner . The Force 137 – 137 .
- Blondel . The Strength 58 – 58 .
- Gooding , David , Pinch , Trevor and Schaffer , Simon , eds. 1989 . The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences 5 – 5 . Cambridge
- Blondel . The Power iii – iii . Legal terminology comprised much of the pamphlet warring of the day. Yet, Blondel may have been familiar with such terminology for some biographical sources claim his father was a French legal counsellor.
- Blondel . The Power ii – ii .
- Blondel . The Power iii – iii .
- Turner . The Force 4 – 4 .
- Turner . The Force 57 – 57 . 79
- Turner . The Force 126 – 126 .
- Turner . The Force 129 – 129 .
- August 1729 . Fog's Weekly Journal August , Saturday, 30
- This lack of understanding is also central to difficulties in determining what knowledge became ‘popularized’ during this time. See Wilson Philip K. Acquiring Surgical Know-How: Occupational and Lay Instruction in Early Eighteenth-Century London The Popularization of Medicine 1650–1850 Porter R. London 1992 42 71
- Mauclerc , John Henry . 1740 . The Power of Imagination in Pregnant Women Discussed London and idem, Dr. Blondel Confuted: or, the Ladies Vindicated with Regard to the Power of Imagination in Pregnant Women (London, 1747).
- 1737 . Memoirs of the Society of Grubstreet 546 – 546 . London
- Bianchini , Giovanni Fortunato . 1772 . An Essay on the Force of Imagination in Pregnant Women. Addressed to the Ladies 16 – 16 . London
- Bellet , Isaac . 1765 . Letters on the Force of Imagination in Pregnant Women London subtitle. Blondel's influence was previously shown in the 1745 French version of this work, Lettres sur le Pouvoir de l'Imagination des Femmes Enceintes.
- 1735 . Gentleman's Magazine , 4 : 635 – 636 . Turner died on 13 March 1740, having amassed considerable wealth, and was buried at the Church of St Andrew and St Mary in Watton-at-Stone, Hertfordshire. For more than twenty years, his practice had been based at his Devonshire Square residence in London. Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, Prob. 11/709.
- The Royal Society interest is also seen in Dr Superville's refutations of Blondel's claims in Philosophical Transactions 1744 41 306 306 from 1740 proceedings
- Additional cases of extraordinary childbirth from this period are discussed in Rousseau's G.S. Pineapples, Pregnancy, Pica, and Peregrine Pickle Tobias Smollett: Bicentennial Essays Rousseau G.S. Bouce P.G. New York 1971 93 94
- Hartley , David . 1749 . Observations on Man London part 1 Hartley's elucidations of vibrations and mental phenomena are more fully addressed in T. Mischel's ‘“Emotion” and “Motivation” in the Development of English Psychology: D. Hartley, James Mill, A. Bain’, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, 2 (1966), 124–9.
- Long , James . 1747 . An Inquiry into the Origin of Human Appetites and Affections London For further discussion, see C. McMahon's ‘Images as Motives and Motivators: A Historical Perspective’, American Journal of Psychology, 86 (1973), 472.
- For example, the Haller-Wolff debate as analysed by Roe Matter, Life, and Generation: 18th Century Embryology and the Haller-Wolff Debate Cambridge 1981
- Cole . 1930 . Early Theories of Sexual Generation 53 – 53 . Oxford Yet ovists continued to battle animalculists. The evidence which ovists Albrecht von Haller, Charles Bonnet, and Lazzaro Spallanzani gathered showed that the female was chiefly responsible for in utero development. It was used, by some, in support of the impressionists’ argument.
- For example, it has been claimed that William Hunter questioned each pregnant woman in a ‘large’ London lying-in-hospital whether anything had ‘specially affected’ her mind during pregnancy, and he recorded the answers. After many year of collecting this information, Hunter had not found ‘one instance’ suggesting a relation between the woman's answer and any ‘abnormal structure’ on the child when delivered. Brown John Notes and Observations on Maternal Impressions Glasgow 1887–1888 3 3 Hunter scholars, however, have not uncovered any evidence that such experimentation occurred. (As related in Wellcome Institute Inquiry RQ No. 817b, 6 December 1983.)
- Turner , Daniel . 1743 . Traité des Maladies de la Peau en General, avec un Court Appendix sur l'Efficacité des Remedes Topiques dans les Maladies Internes, & leur Maniere d'Agir sur le Corps Humain Paris and D. Turner, Abhandlung von den Krankheiten der Haut: Nebst einem Kurzen Anhang von den Ausserlichen Mitteln, und der Art, wie sie Wirken (Altenburg, 1766). James Blondel, Dissertation Physique sur la Force de l'Imagination des Femmes Enceintes sur le Fetus, translated by Albert Brun (Leyden, 1737), J. Blondel, Natuurkundige Verhandeling. Wegens het Vermoogen der Inbeelding van Zwangere Vrouwen op Haar Vrucht, translated by Jan van der Hulst (Rotterdam, 1737), J. Blondel, Drey Merkw Urdige Physikalische Abhandlungen von der Einbildungskraft der Schwangern Weiber, und Derselben Wirkung auf ihre Leibesfrucht (Strasbourg, 1756), and J. Blondel, Dissertazione della Forza dell' Immaginazione delle Donne Gravide Sovra il Feto (Ferrara, 1760).
- Lemery , N. and Winslow , J.B. 1733 . Memories Academie Royale des Sciences , 33 38 (1738), and 40 (1740). Ignazio Vari, Discussione ‘Ragionamento del Sig. Dottore Ignazio Vari … al Sig. Dottor Lucio Bonaccioli' in Blondel, Dissertazione della Forza dell' Imaginazione (footnote 145), 175–212.
- A letter from Aaron Monceca to Isaac Onis quoted at length from the Turner-Blondel dispute in de Boyer Jean Babtiste d'Argens Marquis The Jewish Spy Dublin 1753 IV 95 109 letter 69
- Buffon , George Louis Leclerc . 1853–1855 . Oeuvres completes de Buffon Edited by: Flourens , M. Vol. I , 642 – 647 . Paris cited by King (footnote 51), 174.
- In addition to the works of Blackman, King, Park and Daston, and Rousseau already cited, Blondel and Turner also appear in the chapter entitled ‘Rabbits and Quacks’ of Harvey Graham's (pseud.) Eternal Eve Altrincham 1950 345 346 Numerous midwifery texts of the nineteenth century also referred to the debate, see for example Michael Ryan, Manual of Midwifery (Burlington, 1835), pp. 64–73. In another context, see P.-G. Bouce's ‘Imagination, Pregnant Women, and Monsters in Eighteenth Century England and France’, in Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, edited by G. Rousseau and R. Porter (Manchester, 1988), especially pp. 89–94. Barbara Stafford discusses this debate in her chapter on ‘Markings’ in Body Criticism: Imaging the Unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Cambridge, Mass., 1991). Finally, Ian Stevenson delivered a lecture entitled ‘The Mother's Possible Influence in Birthmarks in cases of the Reincarnation Type' on 22 January 1989 at ‘Parapsychology: A State-of-the-Art Conference’ in New York. One goal of my ongoing work on Turner is to re-examine this dispute in respect of his later expressed concern for ‘disorders peculiar to women’.
- See, for example Lowenthal L.J.A. Daniel Turner and ‘De Morbis Cutaneis’ Archives of Dermatology 1962 85 517 523 R. J. Mann, ‘Daniel Turner, the First British Dermatologist’, Mayo Clinical Proceedings, 51 (1976), 62–6, and even the more historically grounded writing of P. J. Hare perpetuated Turner's unfavourable reputation in his Our Credulous Countryman (Edinburgh, 1967). One important exception is the short article by Alan Lyell, ‘Daniel Turner (1667–1740) LRCP London (1711) M. D. Honorary, Yale (1723) Surgeon, Physician and Pioneer Dermatologist; The Man Seen in the Pages of His Book of the Skin’, International Journal of Dermatology, 21 (1982), 162–70. Here (p. 168), Lyell explained Turner's reliance on authority more as a reverence for earlier works than as a blind acceptance of their word.