Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/331

Graham and the conduct of the magistrates was approved by the lords of session (ib. 20 Aug. 1783). Graham continued to lecture in a large room in Bailie Fyfe's Close, and on 22 Aug. he was sentenced to a fine of 20l. sterling, which was paid by his hearers. Shortly after this Graham left Edinburgh and lectured in various towns, with occasional prohibitions. In the autumn of 1783 Mrs. Siddons's youngest sister, Mrs. Curtis, read lectures on the state and influence of woman in society at his house in London, his own lectures following hers. In December he advertised that he could impart the secret of living to at least 150 years old. In 1786 he was in Paris and afterwards at Newcastle; he was again at Edinburgh, and in 1788 in the Isle of Man. In 1789 he told the public of Bath that he regretted the extravagances of youth and a warm imagination uncurbed by Christianity, but was now passing into 'the mild serenity of an evening natural, and of an autumn intellectual sun.'

In 1790 he describes his earth-bathing. He had been naked in the earth for eight successive days, six hours each time, and twelve on the ninth day. In a periodical of 1791 (quoted in Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 233) we are told that he and a young lady at Newcastle 'stripped into their first suits,' and were each interred up to the chin, their heads beautifully dressed and powdered, appearing not unlike two fine full-grown cauliflowers. In the same year Graham states that upon the illness of George III he had posted from Liverpool to Windsor and given his opinion to the Prince of Wales, who he said would suffer in the same way unless he married a certain princess (meaning evangelical Christianity). Graham became in his later years a religious enthusiast. In 1787 he styled himself 'the Servant of the Lord O. W. L.' (Oh, Wonderful Love), and dated his publications 'In the first year of the New Jerusalem Church.' At Edinburgh he was for some time confined in his own house as a lunatic. His last pamphlet opens with an affidavit made on 3 April 1793, that from the last day of December 1792 to 15 Jan. 1793 he neither ate, drank, nor took anything but cold water, sustaining life by wearing cutup turfs against his naked body, and by rubbing his limbs with his own nervous æthereal balsam. He died suddenly at his house opposite the Archer's Hall, Edinburgh, on 23 June 1794.

Graham, though a quack, and possibly a madman, was not without some knowledge. He was against flesh-eating and excess in alcohol, and believed in cold bathing, open windows, sleeping on mattresses, and other points of severe hygiene; at one time he states that he never ate more than the worth of four or six pence per day. He asserted that all diseases were caused by wearing too much clothing, and he wore no woollen clothes. Southey saw this 'half knave, half enthusiast' twice, once in his mud-bath. He says that latterly Graham 'would madden himself with opium, rush into the streets, and strip himself to clothe the first beggar he met' (Commonplace Book, iv. 360).

Graham married Miss Mary Pickering of Pontefract, and had three children. A son and a daughter survived him. His second sister married Dr. Thomas Arnold (1742-1816) [q. v.] A print of Graham's portrait is mentioned as in William Wadd's Collection (Nugæ Chirurgicæe, 1824). Kay (Edinburgh Portraits) depicts him in his usual white linen clothes and black silk stockings, as he attended a funeral in 1786, and also represents him lecturing.

Graham published: 1. 'An Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, particularly to those residing in the Great Metropolis of the British Empire,' containing his professions and promises as an oculist and aurist, with accounts of cures in America, Bristol, and Bath; London, 1775. 2. 'The Present State of Practice in Diseases of the Eye and Ear,' 1775. 3. ' A Short Inquiry into the Present State of Medical Practice in Consumptions, Asthmas,' &c., London, 1776. 4. 'The General State of Medical and Chirurgical Practice exhibited, showing them to be inadequate, ineffectual, absurd, and ridiculous,' 6th edit., Bath, 1778. This book contains 'The Christian's Universal Prayer,' composed by Graham. 5. 'A Treatise on the All-Cleansing, All-Healing, and All-Invigorating Qualities of the Simple Earth, when long and repeatedly applied to the Human Body,&c.…' London, 1779. 6. 'A clear, full, and faithful Portraiture … of a certain most beautiful and spotless Virgin Princess to a certain Youthful Heir Apparent,' London, 1779; dedicated to the Prince of Wales, and recommending merely the 'Wisdom of Solomon.' 7. 'A Sketch or Short Description of Dr. Graham's Medical Apparatus, erected about the beginning of the year 1780, in his house on the Royal Terrace, Adelphi,' pp. 92, London, 1780. An appendix contains a description of his three great medicines: the electrical ether, the nervous æthereal balsam, and the imperial pills, London, 1782. 8. 'The Guardian Goddess of Health,' n.d. (1780-3). 9. 'Il Convito Amoroso, or a Serio-comico-philosophical Lecture on the Causes, Nature, and Effect of Love and Beauty … as delivered by Hebe Vestina at the Temple of Hymen,'