A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea (1748)

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea (1748)

A LETTER TO A FRIEND

CONCERNING TEA

(1748) An Introductory Comment Tea from the Far East was first imported into England in 1657, when Thomas Garway began to offer it at his coffee house, near the Royal Exchange in London.1 It was soon on the menus of countless other establishments. In the early 1660s Garway printed a handbill,

An Exact Description of the Growth, Quality, and Vertues of the Leaf Tee, alias Tay, Drawn up for Satisfaction of Persons of Quality, and the Good of the Nation in General. Listed thereon were the following medicinal virtues:

It maketh the body active and lusty, strengthening the muscles and sinews.

It helpeth the headache, giddiness and heaviness thereof.

It removeth the obstructions of the spleen.

It is very good against the stone and gravel, cleansing the kidneys and ureteries.

It taketh away the difficulty of breathing, opening obstructions.

It is good against lippitude, distillations, and cleareth the sight.

It removeth lassitude, and cleaneth and purifieth adult humors, and a hot liver.

It is good against crudities.

It strengtheneth the weakness of the ventricle or stomach, and causeth a good appetite and digestion.

It vanquisheth heavy dreams, easeth the brain, strengtheneth memory.

It overcometh superflous sleep, and prevents sleepiness in general, a draught of the infusion being taken, so that without trouble whole nights may be spent in study without hurt to 1 It was initially designated 'Bohea tea'; trying to render into English the name of the Wu-yi mountains in the northern Fujian province of China, from whence it was imported.

Medical and Health Writings the body, in that it moderately heateth and bindeth the mouth of the stomach.

It prevents agues, surfeits, and fevers, by infusing a fit quantity of the leaf, thereby provoking a most gentle vomit, and breathing of the pores.

It strengtheneth the inward parts, and prevents consumptions.

It assuageth the pains of the bowels.

It cureth colds, dropsies, and scurvys, by a proper infusion, purging the blood by sweat and urine, and expelleth infections.

It drives away all pains in the colic proceeding from wind.

It purgeth safely the gall.

These panacea-like claims were gathered from a variety of sources that were either written by or dependent on descriptions of travellers to the Far East. As tea drinking caught on in Europe, it did not take long for medical practitioners to begin noticing its negative effects.

Even before its arrival in England, Simon Paulli, physician to the King of Denmark, published a tract that characterized most of the virtues alleged by other writers as exaggerations, justifiable at best as 'useful lies' for physicians to tell sick patients.2 3 Paulli reminded his readers that even the best things may be used to excess, and insisted that too much tea impaired health. Just as importantly, Paulli suggested that domestic herbs have many of the same medicinal benefits being claimed for imported Asian tea, at a fraction of the cost.

The promoters of Asian tea in England soon answered Paulli.

John Chamberlayne led the charge in 1682, stressing that Paulli's negative comments applied only to the abuse of tea. ' John Ovington's Essay Upon the Nature and Qualities of Tea, published in 1699, championed more vigorously the health benefits of drinking tea.4

His position as chaplain to the King, tendency to select the choicest (and undoubtedly the most expensive) teas, and focus on benefits for ailments like the gout or stone indicate that Ovington's tract was aimed mainly at the higher economic stratum of society.

2 Simon Paulli, Commentarius de abusu tobaci Americanorum veteri, et herbce thece

Asiaticorum in Europa nova (Strassburg, 1655); English translation: A Treatise On Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate (London: T. Osborne, 1746).

3 John Chamberlayne, The Natural History of Coffee, Thee, Chocolate, Tobacco....

Collected from the Writings of the best Physicians, and Modern Travellers (London:

Christopher Wilkinson, 1682), 10-11.

Ovington, An Essay Upon the Nature and Qualities of Tea (London: R.

Roberts, 1699).

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea Faced with the popularity of what quickly became the custom of tea drinking, the next medical assault on the practice, in 1722, appeared anonymously.* * * 5 In contrast to the optimistic tracts of Chamberlayne and Ovington, this work offered a litany of horror stories about the disorders that drinking tea fostered, accounting for these negative effects in terms of the recently adopted mechanical model of the circulatory system. The author's hope was to encourage at least a few readers 'to lay aside so slow but sure a poison'.6 7

Perhaps chastened by this critique, when John Quincy added tea to his Compleat English Dispensatory in 1724, it was with the proviso that its use in England was too recent for there to be detailed medical knowledge. This did not stop Quincy from commending tea for its 'softening nourishing quality' and potential benefits for consumptions; but he immediately followed this by denouncing

'empirical impostors, with which this country very scandalously abounds, [who] impose up the world a pretended spirit of Bohea tea, for an infallible restorative and a curer of all consumptive cases'.'

George Cheyne took a similar moderate stance the same year in his Essay Of Health And Long Life—a book that John Wesley read shortly after it was published.8 Cheyne attributed any virtue of drinking coffee, tea, or chocolate to 'custom', and all of their harm to excess.

As such he counseled moderation for most drinkers, while he warned those of weak or tender nerves to abstain from all three beverages.9

Wesley learned by experience the value of moderation in drinking tea prior to reading Cheyne. He began drinking tea about 1720, the year he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, where it was valued for its stimulant effect that helped preserve alertness while studying. It was not long before Wesley noticed another effect of tea upon him, a shaking of his hand (or what he called a 'paralytic disorder'). Inquiry among his peers convinced Wesley that this was sAn Essay On The Nature, Use, and Abuse Of Tea, in a letter to a Lady; With an Account of its Mechanical Operation (London: J. Bettenham, 1722). The second edition, in 1725, revised the title slightly, including identification of the author as 'a physician'.

6Ibid., 7.

7 John Quincy> Pharmacopoeia Officinalis & Extemporanea: Or, A Compleat English Dispensatory, In Two Parts, Theoretical and Practical, 5th edn. (London: E.

Bell, 1724), 123-24. Quincy's first edition was in 1718; the fifth edition is the first to include an entry for tea.

8 George Cheyne, An Essay on Health and Long Life (London: George Strahan, 1724). See JW letter to Susanna (Annesley) Wesley, Nov. 1, 1724, 25:151 in this edn.

Tbid., 61-63.

Medical and Health Writings a common side effect, not unique to himself. His response was not to avoid tea but to lessen the quantity, drink it weaker, and add more milk and sugar.10 Cheyne's medical advice reinforced Wesley's resolve to drink tea in moderation, a practice that remained consistent for a quarter of a century.

This brings us to A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea, published in 1748, which reveals a major shift in both Wesley's practice and his advice to others. Wesley was now championing total abstinence from tea. Underlying this shift was a sociological change in tea consumption. From the time of its introduction in England, the Crown imposed heavy duties on Asian tea. By 1684, when tea was selling in continental Europe for one shilling per pound, English duties and customs increased its cost by five shillings, placing it out of reach for most English consumers. This led to widespread smuggling, unscrupulous adulteration of product, and injury to legitimate traders.* 11 It also meant that the first generation of debate about tea drinking was focused mainly on its perceived benefits or dangers for the upper classes of English culture.

This focus was broadened by Simon Mason in his tract The Good and Bad Effects of Tea Considered, which appeared in 1745. Medically,

Mason reiterated the stock opinions of the preceding debate. But he emphasized from the outset his concern that the custom of drinking tea, now well established among the upper classes, was being widely adopted among persons of the lower classes, out of their desire to imitate their betters and 'be in the fashion'. This led Mason not only to warn the poor of the negative health effects of drinking tea, but to caution them about the pernicious effects it had upon their 'circumstances and morals'.12 In particular, he warned that funds directed to this costly beverage typically came at the expense of basic needs in the drinker's family, and that the temptation to lower this cost by turning to smuggled tea was a violation of both law and morality.13

While no evidence has been found that Wesley read Mason's tract, by 1746 he had come to share Mason's broadened range of 10 See below, Letter, §3.

11 Parliament did not lower the duty on tea sufficiently to offset the temptation to smuggling until 1784.

12 Simon Mason, The Good and Bad Effects of Tea Consider'd (London: M. Cooper, 1745), 2-3.

13 Mason's attention focused on individuals. It would be a decade before Jonas Hanway drew attention to broader socio-economic, political, and military dimensions of the tea trade; Jonas Hanway, A Journal to which is added an Essay on Tea (London: H. Woodfall, 1756).

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea

concern. Wesley's Journal account of the decision in July 1746 to encourage total abstinence from tea focuses specifically on its detrimental effect on both the health and the limited finances of the poor in Methodist societies.14 These concerns remain central in Wesley's Letter to a Friend Concerning Fea. The greater length of the Letter allowed Wesley to raise as well the moral dimension of drinking tea, in light of its (duty-increased) cost. In particular, he reminds readers that money saved from switching to a cheaper alternative can be used for better purposes (see §19). While the Letter does not raise Mason's warning about the temptation of resorting to smuggled tea, Wesley specifically mentioned using tea on which customs had not been paid in a 1767 tract discouraging all types of smuggling.'"

There is one sense in which Wesley's Letter had a more restricted focus than previous works raising concern about drinking tea.

Earlier accounts by physicians (like Simon Paulli, the author of An Essay On Fhe... Abuse Of Fea, George Cheyne, and Thomas

Short) list numerous disorders caused or aggravated by drinking tea. Wesley's Letter focused almost exclusively on the effects of tea upon the nerves, because this was the disorder that he had suffered.

Here we see the limitation of Wesley's tendency to assume that his experience was representative for all—an assumption reflected in the Latin motto that Wesley placed on the title page of his Letter. 'Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto'f or, 'I am a man; nothing human is foreign to me'.17

This is not to suggest that Wesley discounted the other potential negative health effects of drinking tea. He likely took them for granted. It is noteworthy that only twice in Collection of Receipts did Wesley recommend tea as the vehicle for consuming other medicinal substances, and this vehicle was replaced when the remedies were incorporated into Primitive Physic in 1747.18

More to the point, Wesley whole-heartedly joined earlier writers in commending domestic herbal teas as safer and a less expensive

14 JW, Journal, July 6, 1746, 20:125 in this edn.: '...we agreed it would prevent great expense, as well of health as of time and money, if the poorer people of our society could be persuaded to leave off drinking of tea.'

15JW, A Word to a Smuggler (1767), 1.4 (vol. 14 in this edn.); note the instruction to distribute this tract in every society in the Minutes for that year, Q. 30, 10:351 in this edn. l6Terence, Self-Tormentor, 25.

I7JW used this same motto on A Collection Of Receipts and Primitive Physic.

18 See Collection of Receipts, #54 and #101 (above in this vol.).

Medical and Health Writings means of promoting health. Over twenty types of herbal tea appeared among the remedies in Primitive Physic through its various editions, with camomile tea the most frequently and consistently recommended.

Such were the concerns that led to Wesley's spirited call for his followers to abstain from drinking tea, beginning in July 1746.

How successful was this campaign? In the Letter, §11, Wesley indicated that he was able to convince all but 'two or three' of his lay preachers then in London to undertake the experiment. In his

Journal, Wesley detailed the symptoms that he experienced when he stopped drinking tea (including headaches, drowsiness, and memory loss), though he quickly added that the symptoms disappeared within a week and he felt more healthy than before.19 This was not the experience of all. In particular, it was not the experience of his brother. Charles Wesley was not in London when the agreement was reached to renounce drinking tea. He was on a preaching tour in Cornwall, where he received a letter from John informing him of the pact. Charles wrote back, protesting that tea was often the only beverage he could obtain in Cornwall.20 Even so, Charles took part in the experiment, beginning on July 28, 1746. His sideeffects included drowsiness and a headache so sharp that he could hardly speak or think. This was compounded by a violent purging (which Charles attributed to his milk-diet), such that he found it hard to stay on a horse. The result was that this became only a 'week's experiment'.21 Charles resumed drinking tea, and defending the practice to John.22 Other Methodists joined Charles in rejecting the campaign against tea, and appealed to Charles's practice as precedent. The writer whose inquiry led to Wesley's Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea was among these.23

Ultimately, John Wesley resumed drinking Asian tea as well, at the suggestion of his physician, Dr. John Fothergill, to aid recovery from and help prevent instances of consumption. It is a bit unclear exactly when Wesley's abstinence ended. His memory a decade or two later was that he abstained for a total of twelve years, which 19JW, Journal, July 6, 1746, 20:125 in this edn.

20 Error! Main Document Only.CW to JW, July 15, 1746, in Randy L. Maddox, et al. (eds), The Journal Letters ...of the Rev. Charles Wesley (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 2018), 179.

21 See CW, Manuscript Journal, July 28, 1746.

22 See particularly CW's letter to JW, Oct. 29, 1747, 26:267-68 in this edn.

23 See Letter, §22.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea

would appear to keep it in place till 1758.24 But the only record in Wesley's Journal of Dr. Fothergill treating him for consumption is in 1754.25 And there is record of Wesley drinking tea by 1755.26

Whatever the date, Wesley returned to his earlier approach of counseling moderation for most drinkers, while suggesting that those of weak or tender nerves abstain totally from tea. Thus he instructed his wife in 1757, when she was supervising the house at Kingswood, that she should allow no one in the house to drink tea more than once a day.27 The next year he advised Dorothy Furly, whose health had been fragile, 'You ought not to drink much tea, and none without pretty much cream (not milk) and sugar. But I believe, were you to drink nettle-tea for a few mornings, it would do you more good than any other.'28 Similarly, no expectation that lay preachers uniformly refrain from drinking tea can be found in Conference Minutes after the mid 1750s, though Wesley continued to encourage those with 'weak nerves' to abstain.29 This approach remained consistent to the end, as evidenced by Wesley's 'Thoughts on Nervous Disorders', directed to his Methodist followers in 1784.30

The balance of Wesley's typical advice about tea—on either side of his 'experiment' calling for total abstinence—stands squarely within the mainstream of eighteenth century medical opinion.

We noted above the precedent at the beginning of the century in George Cheyne and others. This balance was reaffirmed in 1772, in a study by a young physician named John Coakley Lettsom that surveyed the latest scientific thinking on tea. Lettsom cautioned against drinking large quantities of tea, and particularly advised

24JW, Some Remarks on Mr. Hill's 'Review of All the Doctrines Taught by Mr. John

Wesley' (1772), §12.68, 13:462 in this edn.

25 JW noticed health problems on his return to London from a preaching tour in October 1753. As symptoms grew worse he sought the advice of Dr. Fothergill in late November (and wrote an epitaph for his tomb). Under Fothergill's instruction JW's first bout with consumption improved by January 1754. He resumed his activities for a while, only to suffer a brief relapse in August 1754. See ]V\l, Journal,

Oct. 20, 1753 - Aug. 30, 1754; 20:479-89 in this edn.

26 See WHS 18 (1932), 121; and JW to Ebenezer Blackwell, Apr. 19, 1756, 27:30 in this edn.

27JW to Mary (Goldhawk / Vazeille) Wesley, Sept. 15, 1757, 27:92 in this edn.

28JW to Dorothy Furly, Apr. 13, 1758, 27:124 in this edn.

25 Note the absence of tea from the prohibition for lay preachers of snuff, drams, and tobacco in the 1765 Minutes, Oft 36-37, 10:314 in this edn.; and the 1766

Minutes, Q, 2, 10:316 in this edn. It is only those with 'weak nerves' that he instructs 'touch no dram, tea, tobacco, or snuff', 1778 Minutes, Q, 24, 10:483 in this edn.

30 See 'Thoughts on Nervous Disorders', §10 (below in this vol.).

Medical and Health Writings against its consumption by the sick, those suffering from nervous disorders, and children.31

Wesley's initial zeal for encouraging total abstinence from tea among his followers led to rapid depletion of the 1500 copies of the first edition of Wesley's Letter, printed by William Strahan in London in December 1748. A second edition, by Felix Farley of Bristol, was needed within a year. But this was the last time Wesley published the independent tract (although he did include it, like almost all of his other writings, in his collected Works in 1773). Moreover, 275 unsold copies of the Bristol edition remained in stock in London when Wesley died in 1791.

This was not because Wesley stopped offering the Letter for sale.

It continued to appear on lists of 'books for sale' that he published till his death. Even though there is no evidence of Wesley explicitly recommending the Letter after he resumed drinking tea, its presence on these lists left him open to the accusation of hypocrisy.

Richard Hill was quick to seize this opening when debate broke out in the early 1770s between the Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodists.

Hill was one of Wesley's most adamant Calvinist opponents. He closed his first volume directed against Wesley with a list of nearly a hundred instances where he believed Wesley was guilty of contradictory teachings or recommendations—one of which was that Wesley continued to offer the Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea after he resumed drinking tea.32 In response Wesley emphasized that he resumed tea on a physician's advice.33 Hill's reply questioned the veracity of this claim, while sarcastically commending Wesley for seeking 'the sanction of a physician's opinion; an expedient constantly practiced at Rome, in order to eat flesh in Lent'.34

For a stemma illustrating the relationship of the three editions of A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea published during Wesley's lifetime, and the handful of textual variants, see Appendix A, p. 640.

For further details see Bibliography, No. 155.

31 John Coakley Lettsom, The Natural History Of The Tea-Tree. With Observations On The Medical Qualities of Tea, And Effects Of Tea-Drinking (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1772), esp. pp. 54-55.

12 Richard Hill, A Review of all the Doctrines Taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley

(London: Dilly, 1772), 138. Hill claims that Wesley had lately reprinted the Letter, what Hill had likely seen was one of Wesley's recent 'lists of books' that included the Letter.

33 JW, Some Remarks on Mr. Hill's 'Review' (1772), §12.68, 13:462 in this edn.

34 Richard Hill, Logica Wesleiensis; or, The Larrago Double-Distilled (London:

Dilly, 1773), 40-41. For Wesley's response see Some Remarks on Mr. Hill's 'Farrago Double Distilled' (1773), §37, 13:513-14 in this edn.

A LETTER TO A FRIEND,

CONCERNING

Homo J'um; Humoni nihil a me alienum puts.

By John Wesley, M, A, Fellow of Lincoln-Collcge, Oxford.

LON DON:

Printed by W. Strah an, in the Year

MDCCXLVIII.

276 Medical and Health Writings

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea Newington'

December 10, 1748 Dear Sir, 1.1 have read your letter with attention, and much approve of the spirit with which it is wrote.2 3 You speak of love. I desire to do so too, and then no harm can be done on either side. You appear not to be wedded to your own opinion, but open to further conviction.

I would willingly be of the same temper, not obstinately attached to either side of the question. I am clearly satisfied of the necessity of this, a willingness to see what as yet I see not.1 For I know an unwillingness to be convinced would utterly blind either you or me.

And that if we are resolved to retain our present opinion, reason and argument signify nothing.

2. I shall not therefore think it is time or pains misemployed to give the whole cause a second hearing; to recite the occasion of every step I have taken, and the motives inducing me so to do; and then to consider whatsoever either you or others have urged on the contrary side of the question.

3. Twenty-nine years since,4 when I had spent a few' months at Oxford, having, as I apprehended, an exceeding good constitution and being otherwise in health, I was a little surprized at some symptoms of a paralytic disorder. I could not imagine what should occasion that shaking of my hand, till I observed it was always w orst after breakfast, and that if I intermitted drinking tea for two or three days it did not shake at all. Upon inquiry I found tea had the same effect upon others also of my acquaintance, and therefore saw' that this was one of its natural effects (as several physicians have often remarked), especially when it is largely and frequently drank,

1 Newington Green, an open area halfway between Islington and Stoke Newington, about three miles northeast of Charing Cross, where JW was staying with Captain Edward and Mary (Jackson) Stotesbury. He 'retired to Newington to write' on Dec. 5, 1748, with this Letter being the first fruit of what extended to a two-month period of writing; see JW, Journal, Dec. 5, 1748 - Jan. 28, 1749,

20:260-62 in this edn.

2 The letter JW received is not known to survive (beyond the allusions and excerpts in this response). Neither has the identity of the letter writer been confirmed, though it was likely one of the members of the Methodist society in London with greater financial means.

3 Cf. JW's insistence that a person of a truly 'catholic spirit ... is always ready to hear and weigh whatsoever can be offered against his principles'; Sermon 39,

Catholic Spirit, III. 1, 2:93 in this edn.

+JW matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford on June 24, 1720.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea 277

and most of all on persons of weak nerves. Upon this I lessened the quantity, drank it weaker, and added more milk and sugar. But still, for above six and twenty years, I was more or less subject to the same disorder.

4. July was two years, I began to observe that abundance of the people in London with whom I conversed laboured under the same, and many other, paralytic disorders—and that in a much higher degree, insomuch that some of their nerves were quite unstrung, their bodily strength was quite decayed, and they could not go through their daily labour.5 I enquired, 'Are you not a hard drinker?' And was answered by one, and another, and another, 'No, indeed, sir, not 1.1 drink scarce anything but a little tea, morning and night.' I immediately remembered my own case and, after weighing the matter throughly, easily gathered from many concurring circumstances that it was the same case with them.

5. I considered, 'What an advantage would it be to these poor enfeebled people if they would leave off what so manifestly impairs their health, and thereby hurts their business also? Is there nothing equally cheap which they could use? Yes, surely; and cheaper too.

If they used English herbs in its stead (which would cost either nothing, or what is next to nothing), with the same bread, butter, and milk, they would save just the price of the tea. And hereby they might not only lesson their pain, but in some degree their poverty too. For they would be able to work (as well as to save) considerably more than they can do now. And by this means, if they are in debt, they might be more just, paying away what they either earned or saved. If they are not in debt, they might be more merciful, giving it away to them that want.'

6.1 considered farther, 'What an advantage might this be, particularly in such a body of men as those are who are united together in these societies? Who are both so numerous and so poor? How much might be saved in so numerous a body, even in this single article of expense? And how greatly is all that can possibly be saved, in every article, wanted daily by those who have not even food convenient for them?'

7. I soon perceived that this latter consideration was of a more general nature than the former. And that it affected many of those whom the other did not so immediately concern, seeing it was s]Ws Journal entry for July 6, 1746, portrayed the steps he will proceed to enumerate as more of a corporate discernment: 'we agreed .... We resolved'; 20:125 in this edn.

Medical and Health Writings needful for all to save fruitless expenses, as for some to regain the health they impaired. Especially considered as members of a society, the wants of which they could not be unapprized of. They knew of those to whom they were peculiarly united, some had not food to sustain nature. Some were destitute of even necessary clothing.

Some had no where to lay their head.6 7 They knew, or might know, that the little contributions made weekly did in no wise suffice to remove these wants," being barely sufficient to relieve the sick; and even that in so scanty a manner that I know not if some of them have not, with their allowance, pined away, and at length died for want. If you and I have not saved all we could to relieve these, how shall we face them at the throne of God?8

8. I reflected, 'If one only would save all that he could, in this single instance, he might surely feed or clothe the brethren, and perhaps save one life. What then might be done if ten thousand, or one thousand, or only five hundred would do it? Yea, if half that number should say, "I will compute this day what I have expended in tea, weekly or yearly. I will immediately enter on cheaper food.

And whatever is saved hereby I will put into that poor-box weekly, to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked."91 am mistaken if any among us need want either food or raiment from that hour.'

9.1 thought farther, 'It is said, nay many tell me to my face, I can persuade this people to anything. I will make a fair trial. If I cannot persuade them, there may be some good effect. All who do not wilfully shut their eyes will see that I have no such influence as they supposed. If I can persuade any number, many who are now weak or sick will be restored to health and strength. Many will pay those debts which others, perhaps equally poor, can but ill afford to lose.

Many will be less straitened in their own families. Many, by helping their neighbour, will lay up for themselves treasures in heaven.'10

10. Immediately it struck into my mind, 'But example must go before precept. Therefore I must not plead an exemption for myself from a daily practice of twenty-seven years. I must begin.' I did so.

6 See Matt. 8:20.

7 Members of the Methodist society were encouraged to contribute a penny a week, which went to relief of the poor; see Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, II.3-5, 9:260-61 in this edn.

8 See JW's elaboration of his second rule 'save all you can' in his 1760 programmatic sermon 'The Use of Money', II, 2:273-76 in this edn

9 See Matt. 25:35-36.

10 See Matt. 6:20.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea I left it off myself in August 1746." And I have now sufficient time to try the effects, which have fully answered my expectation. My paralytic complaints are all gone. My hand is as steady as it was at fifteen; although I must expect that, or other weaknesses, soon, as I decline into the vale of years.12 And so considerable a difference do I find in my expense that I can make it appear, from the accounts now in being in only those four families at London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle,* 1 ' I have upwards of fifty pounds a year.

11. The first to whom I explained these things at large, and whom I advised to set the same example to their brethren, were a few of those who rejoice to assist my brother and me as our sons in the gospel.14 A week after I proposed it to about forty of those whom I believed to be strong in faith; and the next morning to about sixty more, entreating them all to speak their minds freely. They did so, and in the end saw the good which might ensue, yielded to the force of Scripture and reason, and resolved all (but two or three) by the grace of God to make the trial without delay.

12. In a short time I proposed it, but with all the tenderness I could, first to the body of those who are supposed to have living faith, and after staying1" a few days (that I might judge the better how to speak) to the whole society. It soon appeared (as I doubted

nJW's memory is a bit off; his Journal records this cessation of drinking tea beginning on July 6, 1746, 20:125 in this edn. It also describes the difficulties experienced the first few days.

12Cf. Shakespeare, Othello, II.iii.265-66: '... for I am declined / Into the vale of tears'.

I3JW routinely referred to those who lived in and helped run the main centre of ministry in each of these four key sites as 'family'. Note for example this excerpt from his letter of Jan. 8, 1757, to Matthew Errington, who was in charge of the Orphan house in Newcastle: 'I hope you all continue a family of love, and that the stewards and you are in harmony with each other. I should be glad to see poor Becky, especially if I find her all alive to God. We have a sickly family here: my wife, Jenny, Sally Clay, ill of paralytic; Thomas Walsh and Jemmy Morgan of consumptive disorders' (27:73 in this edn.).

14 JW normally applied this specific phrase to his converts who had become lay preachers. The succession JW began describing here is apparently as follows:

1) He discussed abstinence from tea with a handful of preachers (perhaps at the London Conference of June 15-18, 1747); 2) a week later he addressed a group of forty followers 'strong in the faith' (likely a 'select society' meeting at West Street

Chapel or the Foundery); 3) the following day with sixty more (moving from West Street to the Foundery—or vice versa); 4) a short time later with some 'supposed to have a living faith' (i.e., members of the bands); and 5) a few days later to the whole London society. l5I.e., waiting.

Medical and Health Writings not but it would) how far these were from 'calling me rabbi , from submitting implicitly to my judgement or implicitly following my example. Objections rose in abundance from all sides.

These I now proceed to consider, whether they are advanced bv you or by others, and whether pointed at the premisses or directly at the conclusion.

13.1.17 Some objected, 'Tea is not unwholesome at all, not in any kind prejudicial to health.'

To these I reply, first, you should not be so sure of this. Even that casual circumstance related in Dr. Short's history of it might incline you to doubt—viz., that 'while the Chinese dry the leaves, and turn it with their hands upon the tin-plates, the moisture of them is so extremely corrosive that it eats into the flesh, if not wiped off immediately.'18 It is not probable then that what remains in the leaves is quite friendly to the human body.

Secondly, many eminent physicians have declared their judgement that it is prejudicial in several respects. That it gives rise to numberless disorders, particularly those of the nervous kind. And that, if frequently used by those of weak nerv es, it is no other than a slow poison.19

Thirdly, if all physicians were silent in the case, yet plain fact is against you. And this speaks loud enough. It was prejudicial to my health. It is so to many at this day.

14. 'But it is not so to me\ says the objector. 'Why then should I leave it off?'

I answer, first, to give an example to those to whom it is undeniably prejudicial.

16 Cf. Matt. 23:7-8.

17 While oddly placed, this Roman numeral is meant to indicate the first general type of objection that JW received. Transition to the second general type of objection in §17 is similarly marked.

18Cf. Thomas Short, A Dissertation on Tea; explaining its nature and properties . to which is added the natural history of tea (London: Fletcher Gyles, 1730), 6, 9-10.

This was the most thorough review of the medical literature on tea at the time.

Though displaying both sides of the debate, Short's focus was on the plant itself and its healing virtues, rather than its abusive use and corruption in the market place. He also highlighted domestic herbs with similar or superior virtues, with a predilection for sage and water.

19 The specific conclusion of the tract by an unnamed physician, An Essay On The Nature, Use, and Abuse Of Tea (London: J. Bettenham, 1722), 7. The similar warnings by Simon Paulli, physician to the King of Denmark, had appeared recently in English translation: A Treatise On Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate

(London: T. Osborne, 1746). See also Short's detailed description of the negative effects of drinking tea on those with weak nerves in Dissertation, 63.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea 281

Secondly, that you may have the more wherewith to give bread to the hungry, and raiment to the naked.20

15. 'But I cannot leave it off, for it helps my health. Nothing else will agree with me.'

I answer, first, will nothing else agree with you?\ know not how to believe that. I suppose your body is much of the same kind with that of your great grandmother. And do you think nothing else agreed with her? Or with any of her progenitors? What poor, puling, sickly things must all the English then have been, till within these hundred years!21 But you know they were not so. Other things agreed with them. And why not with you?

Secondly, if in fact nothing else will, if tea has already weakened your stomach and impaired your digestion to such a degree, it has hurt you more than you are aware. It has prejudiced your health extremely. You have need to abhor it as deadly poison, and to renounce it from this very hour.

So says a drinker of drams,22 'Nothing else will agree with me.

Nothing else will raise my spirits. I can digest nothing without.'

Indeed? Is it so? Then touch no more, if you love your life.

Thirdly, suppose nothing else agrees with you at first, yet in a while many things will. When I first left off tea I was half asleep all day long. My head ached from morning to night. I could not remember a question asked, even till I could return an answer. But in a week's time all these inconveniences were gone, and have never returned since.

Fourthly, I have not found one single exception yet—not one person in all England with whom, after sufficient trial made, nothing else would agree.

It is therefore well worth while for you to try again, if you have any true regard for your own health, or any compassion for those who are perishing all around you for want of the common necessaries of life.

16. If you are sincere in this plea—if you do not talk of your health, while the real objection is your inclination—make a fair trial thus: 1) Take half a pint of milk every morning, with a little bread, not boiled but warmed only (a man in tolerable health might double the quantity). 2) If this is too heavy, add as much water and boil it together with a spoonful of oatmeal. 3) If this agrees not, try

20 See Isa. 58:7.

211.e., prior to the introduction of Asian tea in England.

22 JW uses this term to refer to distilled liquors like gin and rum.

Medical and Health Writings half a pint, or a little more, of water-gruel, neither thick or thin, not sweetened (for that may be apt to make you sick) but with a very little butter, salt, and bread. 4) If this disagrees, try sage, green balm, mint, or pennyroyal tea, infusing only so much of the herb as just to change the colour of the water. 5) lry two or three of these mixed, in various proportions. 6) lry ten or twelve other English herbs. 7) Try foltron, a mixture of herbs to be had at many grocers, far healthier as well as cheaper than tea. 8) Try cocoa. If after having tried each of these for a week or ten days, you find none of them will agree with your constitution, then use (weak green) tea again. But at the same time know that your having used it so long has brought you near the chambers of death.25

17. II.24 'I do not know', says another, 'but tea may hurt me. But there is nothing saved by leaving it off. For I am sure other things cost full as much.' I pray, what other things? Sack and sugar costs more,25 and so do ragouts,26 or pheasants, or ortolans. But what is this to the point? We don't say all things are cheaper. But any of the things above-mentioned are, at least if prudently managed. Therefore, if you really desire to save what you can, you will drink tea no more.

18. 'Well, I don't design to buy any more myself, but where others drink it there is nothing saved by my abstaining.' I answer, first, yes something is saved, though but little; especially if you tell them before, I shall not drink tea. And many a little, you know, put together will make a great sum.

Secondly, if the whole saved were ever so little, if it were but two mites, when you save this for God and your brethren's sake, it is much.27

Thirdly, your example in saving a little now may occasion the saving of more by and by.

Fourthly, it is not a little advantage which you may reap, even now, to your own soul—by habituating yourself not to be ashamed of being singular in a good thing; by taking up your cross and denying yourself,28 even in so small an instance; and by accustoming yourself to act on rational grounds, whether in a little matter or a great.

23 See Prov. 7:27.

241.e., attention is now turned to the second general type of objection that JW received.

25 A type of imported sweetened wine that was popular in England.

26A highly-seasoned meat stew.

27 See Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4.

28 See Matt. 16:24 and parallels.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea 283

19. 'But what is saved will be no better employed.' Do you say this with regard to yourself or others? If with regard to yourself, it will be your fault if you do not employ it better. I don't say you mil, but I am sure you may. And if you do not, it is your own sin, and your own shame.

If with regard to others, how do you know that it will not be employed better? I trust it will. It cannot be denied that it often has, and that it always may be. And it is highly probable all who save anything from the best motive will lay it out to the best purpose.

20. 'As to example', you say, 'I have lately been without hopes of doing any good by it.' I suppose you mean because so exceeding few will follow either your example or mine. I am sorry for it. This only gives me a fresh objection to this unwholesome, expensive food—viz., that it has too much hold on the hearts of them that use it. That (to use a scriptural phrase) they are 'under the power of' this trifle.29 If it be so, were there no other reason than this, they ought to throw it away at once. Else they no more regard St. Paul than you do, or me. For this rule is home to the point. 'All things are lawful for me. But I will not be brought under the power of any.'30 Away with it then, however lawful (that is, though it were wholesome as well as cheap), if you are already brought 'under the power of' it.

And the fewer they are who follow this rule, the greater reason there is that you should add one example more to those few.

Though, blessed be God, they are not so few as you suppose. I have met with very many in London who use less of it than they had done for many years, and above an hundred who have plucked out the right eye and cast it from them,31 who wholly abstain from it.

21. You add, But I am 'equally, yea abundantly more, concerned to set an example in all Christian behaviour.' I grant it. This therefore 'ought you have done, and not to leave the other undone'.32

22. But 'one day', you add, 'I saw your brother drink tea, which he said was for fear of giving offence.'33

I answer, first, learn from hence to follow neither his nor my practice implicitly. But weigh the reason of each, and then follow reason wheresoever it stands.

291 Cor. 6:12.

30 Ibid.

31 See Matt. 5:29, and parallels.

32Matt. 23:23; Luke 11:42.

33 See the summary of CW's response to the campaign to renounce tea in the Introductory Comment above.

Medical and Health Writings But, secondly, examine your heart, and beware inclination does not put on the shape of reason.

Thirdly, you see with your own eyes I do not drink it at all, and yet I seldom give offence thereby. It is not then the bare abstaining, but the manner of doing it, which usually gives the offence.

Fourthly, there is therefore a manner wherein you may do it too, and yet give no more offence than I. For instance, if any ask you, simply reply, 'I don't drink tea. I never use it.' If they say, 'Why, you did drink it?' Answer, 'I did so, but I have left it off a considerable time.' Those who have either good nature or good manners will say no more. But if any should impertinently add, 'O but why did you ever leave it off?' Answer mildly, 'Because I thought watergruel' (suppose) 'was wholesomer, as well as cheaper.' If they (with still greater ill-manners and impertinence) go on, 'What! You do it because Mr. Wesley bids you.' Reply calmly, 'True, I do it because

Mr. Wesley on good reasons advises me so to do.' If they add the trite cant phrase, 'What, you "follow man"!'34 Reply, without any emotion, 'Yes, I follow any man, you or him or any other, who gives me good reasons for so doing.' If they persist in caviling, close the whole matter with, 'I neither drink it nor dispute about it.'

23. If you proceed in this manner, with mildness and love, exceeding few will be offended. 'But you ought', say some, 'to give up an indifferent thing, rather than give an offence to any. So St. Paul,

"I will eat no flesh whilst the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'"3" I reply, this is not an indifferent thing if it affects the health either of myself or my brethren. Therefore that rule, relating wholly to things indifferent, is not applicable to this case. Would St.

Paul have said, I will drink drams while the world standeth, lest I make my brother offend? 'But tea is not as hurtful as drams.' I do not believe it is. But it is hurtful. And that is enough. The question does not turn on the degree of hurtfulness. 'However, it is but a small thing.''6 Nay, nothing is small if it touches conscience. Much less is it a small thing to preserve my own or my brother's health, or to be a faithful steward even of the mammon of unrighteousness.37 O think it not a small thing whether only one for whom Christ died be fed or hungry, be clothed or naked.

To conclude the head of offence. You must at least allow that all this is no plea at all for your drinking tea at home. 'Yes it is, for my

34Alluding to Mark 7:8; Acts 5:29.

351 Cor. 8:13.

36See Isa. 7:13.

37 See Luke 16:9.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea husband or parents are offended if I do not drink it.' I answer, first, perhaps this, in some rare cases, may be a sufficient reason why a wife or a child should use this food that is with them, but nowhere else. But, secondly, try, and not once or twice only, if you can't overcome that offence by reason, softness, love, patience, long-suffering, joined with constant and fervent prayer.

24. Your next objection is, 'I can't bear to give trouble. Therefore I drink whatever others drink where I come, else there is so much hurry about insignificant me.'

I answer, first, this is no plea at all for your drinking tea at home.

Therefore touch it not there, whatever you do abroad.

Secondly, where is the trouble given, even when you are abroad, if they drink tea and you fill your cup with milk and water?

Thirdly, whatever trouble is taken is not for 'insignificant me\ but for that poor man who is half-starved with cold and hunger, for that miserable woman who, while she is poisoning herself, wipes her mouth and says she does no evil.38 Who will not believe the poison will hurt her because it does not (sensibly at least) hurt you. O throw it away! Let her have one plea less for destroying her body (if not her soul) before the time!

25. You object farther, 'It is my desire to be unknown for any particularity, unless a peculiar love to the souls of those who are present.' And I hope to the souls who are absent too; yea, and to their bodies also in a due proportion, that they may be healthy, and fed, and clothed, and warm, and may praise God for the consolation.39

26. You subjoin, 'When I had left it off for some months I was continually puzzled with Why? What? etc. And I have seen no good effects, but impertinent questions and answers, and unedifying conversation about eating and drinking.'

I answer, first, those who were so uneasy about it plainly showed that you touched the apple of their eye.40 Consequently these, of all others, ought to leave it off; for they are evidently 'brought under the power of it'.41

Secondly, those impertinent questions might have been cut short by a very little steadiness and common sense. You need only have taken the method mentioned above, and they would have dropped in the midst.

38 See Prov. 30:20.

39See Luke 2:25.

40See Zech. 2:8.

41 See §20 above.

Medical and Health Writings Thirdly, it is not strange you saw no good effects of leaving it off, where it was not left off at all. But you saw very bad effects of not leaving it off—viz., the adding sin to sin,42 the joining much unedifying conversation to wasteful, unhealthy self-indulgence.

Fourthly, you need not go far to see many good effects of leaving it off. You may see them in me. I have recovered hereby that healthy state of the whole nervous system which I had in a great degree, and I almost thought irrecoverably, lost for considerably more than twenty years. I have been enabled hereby to assist in one year above fifty poor with food or raiment, whom I must otherwise have left

(for I had before begged for them all I could) as hungry and naked as I found them. You may see the good effects in above thirty poor people just now before you, who have been restored to health, through the medicines bought by that money which a single person has saved in this article.43 And a thousand more good effects you will not fail to see, when her example is more generally followed.

27. Neither is there any need that conversation should be unedifying, even when it turns upon eating and drinking. Nay, from such a conversation, if duly improved, numberless good effects may flow.

For how few understand, 'Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God'?44 And how glad ought you to be of a fair occasion to observe that, though the kingdom of God does not consist in 'meats and drinks',45 yet without exact temperance in these we cannot have either 'righteousness', or 'peace', or 'joy in the Holy Ghost'?46

It may therefore have a very happy effect if, whenever people introduce the subject, you directly close in and push it home, that they may understand a little more of this important truth.

28. But 'I find at present very little desire to change either my thoughts or practice.' Shall I speak plain? I fear by not standing your ground, by easiness, cowardice, and false shame, you have grieved the Spirit of God,4/ and thereby lost your conviction and desire at once.

42 See Isa. 30:1.

41JW was likely referring to medicines made available at the free clinics set up in Bristol and in London, both of which were still active in 1748. See Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, XII, 9:275-76 in this ednJournal, Dec. 4, 1746,

20.150—51 in this edn.; and Journal, June 6, 1747, 20:177 in this edn. The identity of the female donor is not known.

441 Cor. 10:31.

45Heb. 9:10.

46 Rom. 14:17.

47 See Eph. 4:30.

A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea Yet you add, 'I advise every one to leave off tea if it hurts their health or is inconsistent with frugality, as I advise every one to avoid dainties in meat and vanity in dress from the same principle.'

Enough, enough! Let this only be well pursued, and it will secure all that I contend for. I advise no persons living to leave it off if it does not hurt the health either of them or their brethren, and if it is not inconsistent with the Christian frugality of cutting off every needless expense.

29. But 'to be subject to the consequences of leaving it off again!

This I cannot bear.'

I answer, first, it may be so. You cannot easily bear it. For by your giving up the point once, you have made it much harder to stand your ground now than it was at first. Yet still it is worth all your courage and labour, since the reasons for it are still as strong as at the beginning.

Secondly, as to the consequences you fear, they are shadowy all.

They are a mere lion in the streets.48 'Much trouble to others.' Absolutely none at all, if you take the tea-ketrie and fill your cup with water. 'Much foolish discourse.' Take the preceding advice and it will be just the reverse. 'Nothing helpful toward the renewal of my soul in the image of Jesus Christ.' What a deep mistake is this? Is it not helpful to speak closely of the nature of his inward kingdom?

To encourage one another in casting off every weight,49 in removing every hindrance of it? To inure ourselves to the bearing his cross?

To bring Christianity into the common life, and accustom ourselves to conduct even our minutest actions by the great rules of reason and religion?

30. Is it 'not of any importance' to do this? I think it is of vast importance. However, 'it is a very small circumstance in self-denial'.

It is well if you find it so. I am sure I did not. And I believe the case is the same with many others at this day. But you say, 'I have so many other assaults of self-indulgence, that this is as nothing.'

'It is nothing', said one to a young woman, 'to fast once or twice a week, to deny yourself a little food. Why don't you deny yourself as to anger and fretfulness, as to peevishness and discontent?' She replied, 'That I want. So I deny myself in little things first, till I am able to do it in greater.' Neither you nor I can mend her reply. 'Go thou and do likewise.'50

48 See Prov. 26:13.

49 See Heb. 12:1.

50 Luke 10:37.

Medical and Health Writings 31.1 have done what I proposed, and indeed in many more words than I at first intended. I have told you the occasion of every step I have taken and the motives inducing me thereto, and have considered what either you or others have urged on the contrary side of 5 the question.

And now the advice I would give upon the whole is this: First, pray earnestly to God for clear light, for a full, piercing, and steady conviction that this is the more excellent way.51 Pray for a spirit of universal self-denial, of cheerful temperance, of wise frugality.

10 For bowels of mercies,52 for a kind compassionate spirit, tenderly sensible of the various wants of your brethren. And for firmness of mind, for a mild even courage, without fear, anger, or shame. Then you will once more, with all readiness of heart, make this little (or great) sacrifice to God. And withal present your soul and body a liv15 ing sacrifice, acceptable unto God, through Jesus Christ.53

51 See 1 Cor. 12:31.

52 See Col. 3:12.

53 See Rom. 12:1.

THE DESIDERA TUM:

OR, ELECTRICITY MADE PLAIN

AND USEFUL BY A LOVER OF MANKIND,

AND OF COMMON SENSE

(1760) An Introductory Comment In late October 1759, John Wesley was busy 'revising and perfecting a treatise on electricity'.' The treatise was published in late

December (though dated 1760),2 bearing the title The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful. It was a moderate-sized tract of about eighty pages. Wesley's name did not appear on the title page. In its place was the morally engaging pseudonym, 'A Lover of Mankind, and of Common Sense'. While the pseudonym remained on later editions, Wesley's authorship was broadly recognized; and it was verified when Wesley included it in his collected set of Works in 1773.

The title Desideratum signalled Wesley's intent that his publication be of beneficent use to humankind.3 The body of the tract was divided into two parts, the 'speculative' and the 'practical'. Wesley's preface made clear that his chief interest was in the practical part, which for him was synonymous with the potential medical benefits of electricity.4 His goal in Desideratum was to turn interest in the new phenomena of 'electrical fire' firmly towards its potential as a cheap and effective cure for many medical complaints. Thus his

'JW, Journal, Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 1759, 21:232 in this edn.

2 The first advertisement citing its publication appeared in Dec. 27-29, 1759, issue of the London Evening Post, p. 4.

3 Desideratum is the past participle of the Latin word desiderare, 'to desire1; it denotes something highly desired or needed. The term had been introduced into accounts of electricity at least as early as Benjamin Wilson, An Essay Towards an Explication of the Phaenomena of Electricity (London: C. Davis & M. Cooper, 1746),

28: 'This electric or subtile matter ... seems to be the great desideratum to account for many of the wonderful operations in nature.'

4 See particularly Preface, §3, and JW's substitution of 'medical' for 'physical' in the fourth edition.

Medical and Health Writings response to the query following its publication \\ hy did you med die with electricity?' was 'For the same reason as I published the Primitive Physic, to do as much good as I can.

Wesley's Awakened Interest in Electricity Wesley's interest in electricity did not begin with medicine in mind. Like many of his peers, Wesley was caught up in the swelling public curiosity about this new phenomena that swept the British

Isles, continental Europe, and the American colonies through the second quarter of the eighteenth century. This curiosity was fanned by a range of demonstrations designed to entertain the public.S 6

Wesley was initially just another face in the crowd.

Electricity was first brought to the attention of natural philosophers7 in the 1730s by the experiments of Stephen Gray, who designed an apparatus that passed electricity through the body of a young boy, with spectacular effects. Gray described his experiments in a series of letters published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, spawning broader experimentation in England and beyond.8 These experiments were duplicated in France by Charles

Francois de Cisternay du Fay, who subjected himself to electrification. He noted a resulting spark on the finger of any person who touched him, and that this produced pain akin to a pin prick or sting.7 It was only a matter of time before speculation begin to unfold about the effects of electricity on the human body.

The earliest medical applications of electricity apparently took place in continental Europe. In 1744 two professors of natural philosophy at Halle University, Johann Gottlob Kruger and Christian

Gottlieb Kratzenstein, published experiments showing that elecSJW to Mr. 'T. H.\ Dec. 12, 1760, 27:229 in this edn.

6 See Simon Schaffer, 'Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle', History of Science 21 (1983), 1-43; and Paola Bertucci, 'The Electrical Body of Knowledge:

Medical Electricity and Experimental Philosophy in the Mid-Eighteenth Century', in P. Bertucci & G. Pancaldi (eds.), Electric Bodies: Episodes in the History of Medical Electricity (Bologna: University of Bologna Department of Philosophy,

'This was the most common title in the early eighteenth century for those who studied the natural world—i.e., who later would be called 'scientists'.

8 See the series of letters in Philosophical Transactions, 37 (1731-32): 18-44, 227—

30, 285-91, 397M07; and 39 (1735-36): 15-24, 166-70, 220, 400-403.

"Reported in Gentleman's Magazine 15 (1745), 194.

The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful 291 tricity accelerated the human pulse.10 In his account Kratzenstein credited Kruger with being 'the first whom the idea struck that electrification might be useful in medicine'.11 Following up on this suggestion, Kratzenstein used their electrifying machine to cure a woman with a contracted little finger; and later, to reactivate two lame fingers of a harpsichord player.12 Similarly, in April 1745

Georg Matthias Bose, professor of natural philosophy at Wittenberg, after noting that electricity accelerated the motion of water in a pipe and quickened the pulse, suggested that 'There are hopes of finding in it a remedy for the sciatica and palsy'.13

A crucial prerequisite for exploring such hope was a means for condensing and storing the energy of electricity. In late 1745 Pieter van Musschenbroek, professor of experimental physics at Leyden

University, accidentally discovered that a glass jar containing water was capable of building up a powerful electrical charge. A letter describing his discovery was published in London in March 1746, including van Musschenbroek's description of being 'struck with such a violent blow that he thought his life at an end'.14 Soon others were using a refined 'Leyden jar' to condense and store electricity.1'

Popular displays of the effects of electricity grew through 1746.

On the encouragement of friends, Rev. Henry Miles of Tooting, near London, used his electrified finger to light the spirits of wine.

Upping the challenge, the electrical current was passed through a thick piece of ice to a third party, who similarly inflamed wine vapours.16 In Paris, Abbe Jean-Antoine Nollet passed electricity through 180 soldiers, causing them to 'spring up at once', for the amusement of the king. To top this, the Carthusian convent

10 Kruger, Zuschrift an seine Zuhorer, worinnen er Gedanken von der Electricitat mittheilt und Ihnen zugleich seine kiinftigen Lectionen bekannt macht (Halle: Hemmerde, 1744); and Kratzenstein, Abhandlung von dem Nutzen der Electricitat in derArzneywissenschaft (1744 ori.; 2nd edn., enlarged, Halle: Hemmerde, 1745).

11 Kratzenstein, Abhandlung, 10. Another writer who called for application of electricity in medical treatment in 1744 was David Stephenson, Medicine made to Agree with the Institutions of Nature; Or a New Mechanical Practice of Physic

(London: J. Hart, 1744), 57.

12 Kratzenstein, Abhandlung (2nd edn.), 15-20.

13Reported in Gentleman's Magazine 15 (1746), 197.

14 London Evening Post (Mar. 25-27, 1746), 1. Versions of the letter appeared also in Gentleman's Magazine 16 (Apr. 1746), 163; and London Magazine (Apr. 1746),

147.

15 See John L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 309-23.

16 See 'Extracts of Two Letters from the Reverend Henry Miles, D.D. & ER.S. to Mr. Henry Baker, F.R.S.', Philosophical Transactions 44 (1746), 55.

Medical and Health Writings in Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse joined the entire membership with a piece of iron wire between each participant, to form a line over a mile in length; an electrical shock was then passed through the line.17 Public interest in such displays gave rise to a type of travelling electrical sideshow. John Wesley was among those drawn to such a show. As he described his first exposure on October 16,1747:

I went with two or three friends to see what are called 'The Electrical Experiments'. How must these also confound those poor halfthinkers who will believe nothing but what they can comprehend!

Who can comprehend how fire lives in water, and passes through it as freely as through air? How flame issues out of my finger, real flame, such as sets fire to spirits of wine? How these and many more as strange phenomena, arise from the turning round of a glass globe? It is all a mystery; if haply by any means God may hide pride from man!18

Wesley's interest in electricity at this point was focussed on its apparent reinforcement of the limits of human understanding. A few scholars have tried to link him to a March 21, 1747, letter in Gentlemans Magazine, signed 'J. W.', which expressed optimism about the effect of electrical shock on rheumatism.19 But the letter was occasioned by a display in Kidderminster, during a time that Wesley was in the Newcastle upon Tyne area. The clearest sign that Wesley was not yet considering the medical uses of electricity is that it did not appear as a recommended remedv in Primitive Physic until 1759.

Wesley's Focus on Medical Uses of Electricity It was about five years after his exposure to the 'electrical experiments' that Wesley's attention began to focus on the potential medical benefits of electrical shock, as evidenced by the entry for January 20, 1753, in his Journal.

''The first display was reported in London in Gentleman's Magazine 16 (July 1746), 372-73; London Magazine (Aug. 1746), 400-401; and Philosophical Transactions 44 (Nov. 1746), 262. The third setting added the report about the Carthusians

(p. 261). l8JW,yo«r«a/, Oct. 16, 1747, 20:195 in this edn.

19 Gentleman's Magazine 17 (May 1747), 238. See, for example, Roy Porter, 'Laymen, Doctors, and Medical Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century: The Evidence of the Gentleman's Magazine', in Porter (ed.), Patients and Practitioners (New York:

Cambridge, 1985), 299, n. 48.

The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful 293 I advised one who had been troubled many years with a stubborn paralytic disorder to try a new remedy. Accordingly, she was electrified and found immediate help. By the same means I have known two persons cured of an inveterate pain in the stomach, and another of a pain in his side, which he had had ever since he was a child. Nevertheless, who can wonder that many gentlemen of the faculty, as well as their good friends the apothecaries, decry a medicine so shockingly cheap and easy, as much as they do quicksilver and tar-water?20

As Wesley's exasperation makes clear, by 1753 claims about the medical benefits of electrical shock were being publicly touted in England, and these supposed benefits were being rejected by many physicians. Its possible effectiveness for paralytic disorders in particular had been tested, with generally disappointing results.21 But there were some positive reports in the literature, and Wesley's attention was drawn to these. For example, in 1750 the apothecary

Benjamin Wilson published an account of Mary Smargins, who had suffered for ten years from adult-onset hearing loss, but had her hearing restored in 1748 by a week of treatment that alternated light electrical shocks between her temples.22 Smargins became the oldest case of a cure cited by Wesley in Desideratum.23

His emerging interest in its medical uses spurred Wesley to stay abreast of the growing body of literature on electricity. In February

1753 he read the initial edition of Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity,24 Franklin included no mention of medical benefits in this edition, and Wesley's comments after reading it focussed on aspects of the 'nature' of electricity, such as its inability (unlike light) to penetrate glass.25 Nearly seven years later, in the first paragraph of the preface to Desideratum, Wesley

20 JW, Journal, Jan. 20, 1753, 20:444 in this edn.

21 See Margaret Rowbottom and Charles Susskind, Electricity and Medicine:

History of Their Interaction (San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1984), 15-18.

22 Benjamin Wilson, A Treatise on Electricity (London: Davis, et al., 1750), 202-7.

23 See below, Desideratum, 11.17. But note that JW makes no mention of the six other patients that Wilson reported were not helped by the treatment (pp.

207-8).

24 Benjamin Franklin Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America, and communicated in several Letters to Mr. P. Collinson of London

(London: E. Cave, 1751). JW would use the 2nd edition, published in 1754 (with 'New' added to the title) for the extracts published in Desideratum.

25JW, Journal, Feb. 17, 1753, 20:446—47 in this edn.

Medical and Health Writings acknowledged that he remained chiefly indebted to Mr. Franklin for the 'speculative part' of his treatise.

In contrast with Franklin's silence, The Gentlemans Magazine (which Wesley read regularly) offered its readers in 1753 a number of testimonies of medical cures by electricity. The April issue included an account of a physician in Sweden who had cured patients with lameness, palsy, and deafness. In May a correspondent in Devonshire described the cure of a young sailor of his epilepsy. The following month a writer from Kidderminster reported the cure of a servant woman from a stroke. And in the August issue a contributor from Kenton touted the cure of a young man 'seized with convulsions in his breast and throat', after three weekly treatments.26

Evaluations of the medical benefits of electrical shock by British physicians over the next couple of years remained largely negative.27 But the Gentlemans Magazine continued to serve as a counterweight, highlighting more positive results by physicians in Sweden.28 Several cases in the latter reports made their way into Wesley's Desideratum.29

In 1756 the budding medical electricity movement in England received a significant boost from Richard Lovett.30 Lovett was neither a physician nor a trained natural philosopher, but a lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral. His interest in electricity had been roused by lectures of John Theophilus Desaguliers in 1739.31 Specific interest in the health benefits of electrification may have come from reading a 1748 volume by Benjamin Rackstrow.32 This interest bore fruit in 26 Gentleman's Magazine 23 (Apr. 1753), 165; (May 1753), 227-28; (June 1753),

268-69; and (Aug. 1753), 379.

2/E.g., the letter dated Nov. 5, 1754, from Cheney Hart, physician at the County

Hospital at Shrewsbury, in Philosophical Transactions 48 (1754), 786-88; and the first known chapter in a medical text devoted to the topic: John Shebbeare, The Practice of Physic Pounded on Principles in Physiology and Pathology Hitherto unapplied in Physical Enquiries (London: J. Hodges, 1755), 2:350-56.

28 See the report of M. Lindult, Gentleman's Magazine 25 (Mar. 1755), 111-12; and that of Zetzell, 25 (July 1755), 313-15.

29 See below, Desideratum, 11.14, 11.16., 11.18, 11.21, 11.25, 11.34, 11.35, 11.42,

11.45, and 11.49. JW likely took these cases from their reproduction in Lovett, Subtil Medium, 110-14 and 126-27.

'"Richard Lovett (1692—1780); for a detailed depiction of his electrical career, see Paola Bertucci, 'Sparks of Life: Medical Electricity and Natural Philosophy in England, c. 1746-92' (Oxford University D.Phil. thesis, 2001), 133-54.

31 See Richard Lovett, Philosophical Essays (London: R. Lewis, Sandbv, et al 1766.), iii.

See the quotation from Benjamin Rackstrow, Miscellaneous Observations (London, 1748), in Lovett, Subtil Medium, 67-68.

The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful 295 July 1756, in a short book Lovett titled The Subtil Medium Proved f

Lovett cast electricity as the 'subtle fire' underlying the four classic elements of nature (fire, air, water, earth) by surveying relevant experiments to date. More importantly, this was the first tract in the English language framed specifically to highlight reports of the use of this 'elementary fire' as a remedy for medical complaints, including several of Lovett's own experiments. His goal was 'to excite others, of greater abilities and more leisure, to pursue the same laudable practice'.34

Lovett did not include in Subtil Medium either a depiction or a description of the electric machine used in his experiments, though it was presumably small in size. He did offer a few generalizations about his technique, along with some ground rules for safe application. Most specifically, he warned against administering strong, painful shocks, as had been used in some earlier ineffective tests by British physicians.3'

He insisted the positive benefit of electrification came from 'moderate shocks', which were accompanied more by an 'uneasiness' than real pain. As an exemplar he held up a case reported in Gentlemans

Magazine in 1751 of Robert Moubray being cured from palsy of the tongue (another case that made its way into Desideratum).36

Subtil Medium drew little attention in journals on its appearance, and that which it did receive mainly criticized Lovett's style.3' The book was more successful in terms of its avowed goal—raising up more experimenters and promoters of medical electricity. Among these was John Wesley. While his diary for this period (which recorded his reading) is missing, and his first published mention of Lovett is in Desideratum in 1760, it is hard to dismiss the influence of Lovett on the program of medical electrification that Wesley launched just months after the appearance of Subtil Medium. As he recorded in his Journal on November 9, 1756:

33 Richard Lovett, The Subtil Medium Proved; or,, That wonderful power of nature

... which they called sometimes aether; but oftener elementary fire, verified; showing that all the distinguishing and essential qualities ascribed to aether ... are to be found in electrical fire ... (London: J. Hinton, 1756). Publication announced in Universal

Magazine 19 (July 1756): 47.

34 Lovett, Subtil Medium, p. [i].

35 Ibid., 102-8; focussing on the negative evaluations of Hart and Rackstrow cited above.

36Ibid., 108-9; citing Gentleman's Magazine 21 (1751), 1552. See below, Desideratum, 11.53.

37The reviewer (William Bewley) in Monthly Review 15 (1756): 561-64, commented on Lovett's less than elegant style, but concluded with the hope that the book would inspire others to test the medical benefits of electricity.

Medical and Health Writings Having procured an apparatus on purpose, I ordered several persons to be electrified who were ill of various disorders—some of whom found an immediate; some, a gradual cure. From this time

I appointed, first some hours in every week, and afterward some hours38 in every day, wherein any that desired it might try the virtue of this surprising medicine. Two or three years after, our patients were so numerous that we were obliged to divide them; so part were electrified in Southwark, part at the Foundery, others near St.

Paul's, and the rest near the Seven Dials. The same method we have taken ever since. And to this day, while hundreds, perhaps thousands, have received unspeakable good, I have not known one man, woman, or child, who has received any hurt thereby. So that, when

I hear any talk of the danger of being electrified (especially if they are medical men who talk so), I cannot but impute it to great want either of sense or honesty.39

In effect, Wesley replicated in London the exploratory medical use of electricity that Lovett pioneered in Worcester and championed in Subtil Medium. When Wesley composed Desideratum three years later, joining Lovett in championing this cause, he drew heavily on Subtil Medium for cases of successful treatment in the 'practical' section, while adding cases from the growing practice in London—all part of what he hyperbolically described in November 1760 as 'a thousand experiments' showing electricity to be 'far superior to other medicines I have known'.40

What more do we know about this venture in medical electricity that Wesley supported in London over the last three decades of his life? In particular, who administered the treatments, and what types of electrical machines did they use?

To begin with, while Wesley encouraged, and helped fund and organize the provision of electrical therapy, one should not assume that he routinely applied the treatments. His travel schedule ruled this out for much of the year. Moreover, few of the cases of treatment in London that Wesley gives in Desideratum are presented in 38 When JW incorporated this extract of his Journal into his collected Works

(1774), he changed 'some hours' to 'an hour'.

39 JW, Journal, 21:81 in this edn. This excerpt of Wesley's manuscript journal was not published until 1761, allowing his comment on later developments.

40In Primitive Physic, Postscript II, §2 (above in this vol.).

The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful 297 the first person—and one that is could not be Wesley speaking.41

The only case in Desideratum where Wesley unquestionably administered the shock was when he electrified himself for a pain in the stomach.42

So with whom was Wesley associated, or to whom did he entrust routine administering of electrical therapy in London? The earliest name that can be identified with some confidence is John Reddall (or Redhall),43 who had an office on Coleman Alley, just across

Bunhill burial grounds from the Foundery. Reddall offered medical electrical treatment, and corresponded with Richard Lovett about his cases from at least 1759.44 He was also an active Methodist and trusted associate of Wesley; so much so that Wesley placed him on a committee charged with paying down the debt on Methodist preaching houses in 1766.45 There is good reason to believe that Reddall played a role in the early provision of electrical therapy at the Foundery.

We have explicit record of another medical electrician who operated at the Foundery. In a 1794 pamphlet raising funds for a newly founded charity electrical dispensary near City Road Chapel, Henry

Bemrose identified himself as 'formerly electrician to the poor at the Foundery, Upper-Moorfields'.46 The younger Bemrose may have trained under Reddall. Bemrose noted that he had been active in this field for more than twenty years, though he did not indicate where he began. If Bemrose began his practice at the Foundery, the rhythm of his work was described by a correspondent to The Westminster Journal, who assured readers in 1772 that there was 'an electrical machine at the Foundery, near Moorfields, where any person may be electrified gratis, from nine to twelve every day, except

41 See the case of William Tyler in Desideratum, 11.43. While the account is in the first person, which could imply it was JW attending to Tyler, JW was in Norwich at the time. See fN, Journal, Mar. 9, 1759, 21:179 in this edn.

42 Desideratum, 1.41.

43John Reddall (1716-90); his name is frequently spelled 'Redhall' in tax records of the time, but 'ReddaP in his burial listing at St. Olave, London.

44 See Lovett, Reviewers Reviewed, 28, 31-32.

45See the letter to JW of Feb. 5, 1768, in Joseph Sutcliffe, 'MS Flistory of Methodism' (MARC, MA 1977/514), 2:679.

46Henry Bemrose (1741-1811), Observations on Medical Electricity: Including a Great Number of Cases in which Electricity has been successfully applied. Recommending to the Humane and Benevolent the Support of a Public Institution of this invaluable

Remedy, for the Benefit of the afflicted Poor (London: 1794). Bemrose is buried at City Road Chapel.

Medical and Health Writings Saturdays and Sundays'.47 At the very least, Bemrose's service at the Foundery overlapped with Wesley's time, since most Methodist activity at the Foundery ended in 1778, with the opening of City

Road Chapel.48

There is one other person who should be mentioned. He appears in Desideratum as one of the cases of successful treatment—-John

Read, cabinetmaker in Wardour Street.4' Like Reddall (with whom he was acquainted), Read corresponded with Richard Lovett about medical electricity.50 In an October 1759 letter Read claimed to be the first person to offer electrical therapy in London, but informed

Lovett that it was now available at six sites.51 Read's most distinctive contribution to the movement were machines that he designed and built for electrical therapy. In a January 1760 letter to Lovett, Reddall described one of these: 'He has just invented a smaller one, that will take to pieces and pack up in a box of about a foot square, and is endeavouring to reduce them to a very low price, in order to make them as public as possible.'52 By the time Read added his name as a subscriber to Lovett's Philosophical Essays in 1766, he had moved from Wardour Street to (socially more elite) Knightsbridge, by Hyde Park, and was now identified specifically as an 'electrical machine maker'.53

The electrifying machine that survives at Wesley's House in London is almost certainly one of the portable models made by Read.54

In addition to sponsoring dispensaries and promoting electrical therapy via Desideratum, over the last three decades of his life John

47 Westminster Journal (Feb. 29-Mar. 7, 1772), p 4.

48 Worship services and most other activities moved from the Foundery to City Road Chapel when it opened in November 1778. However, the lease on the Foundery ran through 1785, and it is possible that the electrical dispensary remained there into the early 1780s. See George John Stevenson, City Road Chapel,

London (London: Stevenson, 1872), 57-58.

49 Desideratum, 11.39 (orig., John 'Reed' of 'Warder' Street). Reed, who later moved to Knightsbridge, Middlesex, died in 1814.

50 See Lovett, Reviewers Reviewed, 31-32, et al.

51 Ibid., 39. This would include his practice and that of Reddall; perhaps the four sites mentioned by JW rounded out the list.

52Ibid., 40-41.

53 Lovett, Philosophical Essays. The entire list of names is found on pp. xi-xxiv, and includes as well both John Reddall and John Wesley. For descriptions of Read's surviving machines, see Willem D. Hackmann, Electricity From Glass: The History of the Frictional Electrical Machine, 1660-1850 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff &

Noordhoff, 1978), 126-28.

See Willem D. Hackmann, John Wesley and His Electrical Machine (London:

Wesley's Chapel, 2003). The provenance of this machine can be traced all the way back to JW at his death.

The Desideratum: Or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful 299 Wesley repeatedly prescribed this treatment in his continuing role of'priest-physician'. This took most formal expression in Primitive

Physic, starting with the eighth edition (1759), which Wesley revised while preparing Desideratum. Recommendations for electrical treatment were scattered through the volume, and a separate list of ailments for which it was a potential cure appeared in the appendix.

Additions to both the scattered remedies and the appended list were made in subsequent editions.55 Still public, but less formal, were descriptions of prescribing electrification that Wesley included in his published Journal,56 In many of these instances Wesley was outside of London, reflecting the spreading availability of electrifying machines—at least in Methodist circles, where Wesley both placed machines at preaching houses in the main centres and encouraged followers with financial means to acquire machines.57 The other major record of Wesley prescribing electrification after 1760 is his personal correspondence, which is peppered with examples.58

Through this range of activities Wesley played a small—but historically noticeable—role in promoting medical electricity in the eighteenth century. Other lay-promoters (i.e., those who were neither natural philosophers or physicians) drew readily upon Desideratum in championing their cause.59 And at least some professionals, like Joseph Priestley, conceded that the efforts of Lovett and Wesley had 'produced so much good, and so little harm'; while adding immediately 'how much more good, and how much less harm would it probably have produced in more skilful hands.'60 Wesley's predictable response to Priestley was to question his hope that humans

55 See the cumulative list at the end of Primitive Physic (above in this vol.).

56Forafew examples, see July 13,1764(21:477 in this edn.); Dec. 26,1765 (22:27);

Sept. 19, 1773 (22:391); Apr. 19, 1774 (22:404-5); and Mar. 23, 1783 (23:265).

57 JW placed an electrifying machine in the Methodist house in Manchester already by early 1757; see JW to Joseph Cownley, Apr. 23, 1757, 27:82 in this edn.

For exhortations to followers, see JW to Mary Bosanquet, Jan. 15, 1770 (vol. 28 in this edn.); and JW to Ann Bolton, July 13, 1774 (vol. 29 in this edn.).

58 For a few instances, see JW to Charles Wesley, Dec. 26, 1761, 27:281 in this edn.; JW to Thomas Taylor, Oct. 30, 1775 (vol. 29 in this edn.); JW to John Bredin,

Feb. 21, 1781 (vol. 30 in this edn.); and JW to Samuel Bradburn, Mar. 16, 1788 (vol. 31 in this edn.).

59 For example, the Desideratum provides over one-third of the sixty-six cases of cure included in a book by a maker of electrical machines in Bristol: John Brice

Becket, An Essay On Electricity ... includfingj Some of the latest Discoveries; Intended Chiefly With a View of facilitating its Application, and extending its Utility In Medical Purposes (Bristol: 1773).

"Joseph Priestley, The History And Present State Of Electricity (London: Dodsley, et ah, 1767), 419.

Medical and Health Writings would ever fully understand the 'nature' of electricity, insisting that it is enough to recognize 'it is a thousand medicines in one'.61

The Text of Desideratum We turn finally to some comments on the character of the text of Desideratum,62 The preface is Wesley's creation. At its conclusion he informed readers that the body of the text that followed was 'little more than an extract from others'. While this is broadly true, one should not overlook Wesley's contribution throughout.

To begin with, in most instances Wesley went far beyond 'extracting' material from his sources. He typically distilled whole sections or pages to a few sentences, and frequently rewrote material to improve grammar and clarity. This is why he seldom placed quotation marks around material drawn from sources. Accordingly, our annotation of Wesley's sources is typically by paragraph, indicating the material being distilled or rewritten, not just identifying direct quotes.

The first half of the body of Desideratum is the 'speculative' or philosophical section. It surveyed key experiments and rehearsed several conclusions about the nature of electricity that had been drawn from them. The key thing to notice in this section is its tone and agenda, which differ significantly from coverage of this material in Lovett's Subtil Medium. Lovett framed his coverage as dialogues in 'natural philosophy', intent on proving that Newton's physics

(and particularly the role Newton assigned to aether) could account for all of the discoveries about electricity. Lovett's confident tone drew sceptical response, including the charge that he did not adequately understand Newton. The resulting debate consumed

Lovett's time for a decade.63 In direct contrast, Wesley muted his 6'JW, Journal, Jan. 4, 1768, 22:117 in this edn.

For similar reflections, see Linda S. Schwab, '"This Curious and Important Subject": John Wesley and The Desideratumin Deborah Madden (ed.), 'Inward and Outward Health' (London: Epworth, 2008), 169-212.

63 The charge that Lovett did not understand Newton's physics was levelled by William Bewley in Monthly Review 15 (1756): 561—64. Lovett published an extended rebuttal as Sir Isaac Newton's Aether Realized: Or, The Second Part of the Subtil Medium Proved, And Electricity rendered Useful. Being A Vindication of that Essay, in Ansiver to the Animadversions made thereon by the 'Monthly Review'

(London: for the author [1758]). I his drew a more negative response (by James Kirkpatrick) in Monthly Review 20 (1759): 299-302. Lovett again rebutted in The Reviewers Reviewed, or the Bush Fighters Exploded, a reply to Animadversions of the Monthly Review on a late Pamphlet (London: R. Lew'is, 1760); which w;as dismissed as petulant in Monthly Review 22 (1760): 340—42. Lovett's overall venture was treated a bit more positively in The Critical Review 22 (1766), 280-84.

The Desideratum: Or; Electricity Made Plain and Useful 301 voice in the speculative section of Desideratum, choosing to let a number of electrical philosophers speak, at times in contrast with one another. This reflected Wesley's conviction (made explicit in his preface, §2) that humans should not hope for certainty in intellectual explanations of nature; the best that we can achieve is a high degree of probability. Thus Wesley was not 'greatly concerned' about which of the theories won out.

This does not mean that Wesley held no favourite among the views he surveyed in the speculative section. He opened the section with a summary of John Freke, who contended that electricity was best conceived as a highly refined or ethereal form of fire, and this 'pure fire' was the underlying secondary cause (under God, the First Cause) of all motion in the universe. In subsequent extracts of writers like Benjamin Hoadly and Richard Lovett, who equated electricity with Newton's aether, Wesley often replaced their use of 'aether' with 'electrical fire' or 'original fire'.64 That this was more than accidental became clear in 1770. When Wesley published A Survey of the Wisdom of God in Creation in 1763, he reproduced nearly all of the speculative section of Desideratum in a chapter treating the four classical elements.65 In 1770 Wesley issued a second edition of Survey, adding additional material. His addition to the section covering electricity was extracted from a report on some further electrical experiments by William Watson. To this extract

Wesley added in his own voice, 'Do not all these experiments show that the electric matter is pure elementary fire, an original distinct principle, formed by the Creator himself? And not, as some have apprehended, mechanically producible from other bodies?'66 The resonance with Freke is hard to miss.

The second half of the body of Desideratum, the 'practical' section, is more in Wesley's voice. But it is important to recognize his reliance upon sources here as well—not just the published sources but personal letters and conversations, and likely manuscript casebooks from the four London sites where he supported access to medical electrification (though no such casebooks are known to survive). Wesley's contribution in this section, compared to Lovett, was not just his additional reports of successful medical use of 64 See the footnotes on sections 1.20 and 1.31 below.

65 JW, A Survey of the Wisdom of God in Creation; or; a Compendium of Natural Philosophy, 2 vols. (Bristol: William Pine, 1763), 2:101-16.

66JW, Survey, 2nd edn. (Bristol: William Pine, 1770), 3:199-200; extracting William Watson, 'Farther Experiments', Philosophical Transactions 44 (1746): 43-49.

In later editions of Survey the paragraph by Wesley appears on 3:238.

Medical and Health Writings electricity, but that he grouped the various reports in terms of the ailment treated, and arranged these grouped reports in alphabetical order. As in other dimensions of his ministry, Wesley was an organizer!

While some of the London cases that Wesley added may have been drawn from other practitioners like John Read, the majority were persons who lived near one of the four treatment sites that Wesley supported. Many were active Methodists, and we have identified the clearest examples.6. Two were members of John Wesley's extended family who lived in London at the time.68

Unlike Primitive Physic, Wesley did not add additional cures or other material to the text of Desideratum (as an independent volume) in its subsequent editions. As mentioned earlier, some additions were made to the 'speculative' section of the text that had been incorporated into Wesley's Survey of the Wisdom of God in Creation, but these are not relevant in this setting. For a stemma illustrating the relationship of the five editions of Desideratum published during Wesley's lifetime, and the handful of textual variants, see

Appendix A, p. 641. For further details see Bibliography, No. 239.

6/ See William Matthews (11.19) Abigail Brown and Sarah Webb (11.30), Tames Kitely and Michael Hays (11.38), Joseph Jones (11.40), Silas Told (11.41), and Sarah

Guilford (11.43).

"'sJohn and Sarah Ellison (11.45, 49).

THE

O R, electricity Made PLAIN and USEFUL.

By a Lover of Mankind, and of Common Senfe.

LONDON:

Printed; And fold bv W.plexney, under Gray's Inn Gate, Holbourn ; E, Cabe, Ave-mary Lane 5 George

Clark, in Little Carter Lane ; George Keith, GraceChurch Street; T. Smith, under the Change; and at the Foundery, in Moorfields.

MDCCLX.

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