JK GILLON 
James Graham was one of the most extraordinary figures of 18th century medical practice. He was born in Edinburgh's Grassmarket in 1745, and it is thought that he practiced medicine in Edinburgh for a period, although there is some doubt whether he ever officially qualified as a physician. He first came to prominence in around 1780, when he had moved to London and established the lavish furnished and decorated 'Temple of Health' in Adelphi Terrace. Here he treated patients with his imposing and elaborate electrical machines with such lethal sounding names as the 'magnetic throne' and the 'electric bath tub'. Remedies such as his 'famous aetherial and balsamic medicine' and his 'elixir of life' contained ingredients which he claimed prolonged life indefinitely. Childless couples could also spend the night, for a fee of up to 500 pounds, in the richly gilded 'celestial bed', filled with stallion hair, linked to 15cwt of magnets and guaranteed to cure sterilty. His 'earth bath' promised beneficial results from being buried up to the chin in warm earth. An additional attraction of the 'Temple of Health' undoubtedly were the 'Goddesses of Health', one of which was Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton and mistress of Lord Nelson. The 'Temple of Health' was popular at first, but soon fell out of favour and closed in 1782.
In 1783, he returned to Edinburgh where he lectured, treated patients with his electrical equipment, sold patent medicines and copies of his book, 'The Guardian of Health, Happiness and Long Life'. However, after his lecture, 'On the Means of exciting and rendering permanent the Rational, Temperate and Serene Pleasures of the married state', he was banned from addressing the public due to the alleged 'coarseness and indecency' of its content.
He believed that people should 'abstain totally from flesh and blood, from all liquors but cold water and fresh milk, and from excessive sexual indulgence', and that many human ailments were due to wearing woollen clothing. The Edinburgh artist, John Kay, depicts Graham in his usual white linen suit carrying a posy of flowers. He considered fresh air important to health and applied to build a house at the top of the small mountain Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, 'to experience the utmost degree of cold that the climate had to offer'.
Graham gradually became more and more eccentric. He gave public demonstrations of his 'earth bath', decided he was a messenger from heaven and called himself 'The Servant of the Lord, O.W.L. (Oh! Wonderful Love!), and in 1792, he fasted for fifteen days and wore grass turf for clothing.
Graham was frequently scorned as a quack by the medical hierarchy of the time, and some of his ideas were certainly unorthodox. However, a number of his innovations- mud baths, hypnotism, electrical impulses, and his ideas on diet- are now accepted.
For all his obsessions with health, James Graham died suddenly from a ruptured blood vessel in a house in Buccleuch Street, Edinburgh in 1794, at the age of 49.
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