OLD-TIME QUACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 June 1938, Page 9

OLD-TIME QUACK

DECORATIONS OF HIS TEMPLE. In the year 1780 there appeared that king of native quacks, the Scottish Dr Graham, with his occult celestial bed, which cost —or so he said £16,000. His house in Pall Mall he called the Temple of Health and Hymen, of which deities he proclaimed himself the high priest. His temple was decorated with glass of all colours, precious vases filled with rare perfumes, and statues of the human form divine, and the rest of it. His book' on the “Principles of Health” recommended cleanliness, moderation, early rest and early rising; sleeping in the light, especially in moonlight; singing; drinking his divine balm at “only a half guinea the bottle”; and sleeping, first at 100 guineas a night, and then for a £5O note, in the marvellous and celestial magnetic electric bed, the first, the only one in the world, or which ever had existed. It was isolated on six massive and transparent columns, and covered by a vast canopy of brass rods, which communicated with an enormous electric machine lodged in an upper chamber. In the bedposts were inserted vases of ether, which was first volatilised and infinitely subdivided by the electric fluid, and then breathed with the atmospheric air by those who chose to pay Dr Graham for a night’s lodging. The sheets were of purple and sky-blue satin, and the mattresses were perfumed with the most precious essences of Araby. The electric cylinder conducted into the bedchamber and into every part of the bed the celestial electric fire—the fluid which animates and vivifies everything. To all was added the melodious tones of the harmonica, the soft sound of the flute, the charms of agreeable song, and the mellifluous notes of the organ. The farce drew a host of wealthy gulls until 1784, when Graham, showing the better part of valour, sold off everything by public auction and safely retired with his gains. /•