Thank you Donald, I always thoroughly enjoy, value and benefit from your contributions here.

I am no advocate of Elliotson, merely pointing out the very old journal he put together. He does sound terrifying!!

He categorically refused to publish any research on hypnotism by James Braid or his associates and used The Zoist to continually attack hypnotism and to try to blacken Braid’s name. On one occassion he apparently sabotaged Braid’s opportunity to obtain an important job. He was ultimately exposed by Thomas Wakely, the editor of The Lancet, who denounced him as a charlatan after testing his subjects, who were probably just stooges. He was notorious for carrying out sensational demonstrations and experiments that would be considered deeply unethical by modern standards and even in the Victorian era were a cause for concern. For example, this is a snippet about Elliotson from one of our manuals:

In an article entitled ‘Dr. Elliotson & Mr. Braid’, Braid denounced Elliotson’s reckless use of suggestion experiments. In one case Elliotson mesmerised a woman, out of curiosity, telling her “to wake with the feeling of madness”, which left the patient in considerable distress, overnight, following the session,

What are we to think, however, when we are told that one lady was intentionally awakened with the idea upon her mind that she was dead, and retained the mental impression until the spell was broken by a cough from the grave Dr. Elliotson; that another having been influenced during her mesmeric trance with the idea that a leg of mutton was hanging at her nose, retained the mental impression for an hour after she went home, and we are informed that she had “thought about it ever since in her waking state.” Of an equally objectionable character was causing a lady to fancy herself glass, and allowing her to leave his house labouring under the delusive terror of being broken, as he states (I quote his own words), “slowly and full of fear,” so that “on leaving the room she asked Mary Ann to keep her up lest she should be hurt, and got out of everybody’s way as she walked home; that the fancy left her suddenly while turning from Park lane into Green street, when the fresh air from the Park blew upon her. (Braid, Medical Times, 1845-1846; 13: 121).

In another experiment, Elliotson apparently mesmerised the subject to believe after being roused that she was “going to the Devil”, i.e., damned to Hell –which obviously caused her considerable distress. Braid himself clearly condemns all such experiments as “baneful”, “absurd”, and “reprehensible.”