James Esdaile - Mesmeric Analgesia

Mesmeric Analgesia

On 4 April 1845, Esdaile performed his first mesmeric procedure:

On 4th April 1845, was treating a convict afflicted with double hydrocele. The drainage and injection of one side of the scrotum caused the patient such pain that Esdaile determined to try mesmerism upon him for the second operation…

he was successful in rendering the convict analgesic, and at once began to experiment with mesmerism both as a means of producing analgesia in surgical cases, and as a method of treatment for medical ones.

By his own admission, Esdaile had never seen a mesmeric act; but, given the level of pain of this specific patient, and the understanding that he had gained from what he had read, it occurred to him that mesmerism might be of great value:

Seeing him suffering in this way, I turned to the native sub-assistant surgeon, an élève of the medical college, and asked him if he had ever seen Mesmerism? He said, that he had seen it tried at the medical college, but without effect. Upon which I remarked, "I have a great mind to try it on this man, but as I never saw it practised, and know it only from reading, I shall probably not succeed."

Esdaile did succeed.

As performed by Esdaile, the mesmeric act was an exhausting procedure:

Esdaile's method was to make the patient lie down in dark room, wearing only a loin cloth, and repeatedly pass the hands in the shape of claws, slowly over the body, within one inch of the surface, from the back of the head to the pit of the stomach, breathing gently on the head and eyes all the time he seems to have sat behind the patient, leaning over him almost head to head and to have laid his right hand for extended periods on the pit of the stomach.

As a consequence, Esdaile, whose own health was far from good, soon began to delegate this exhausting work which, when necessary, would involve " a patient magnetized for hours each day for ten or twelve days native assistants, saving his own strength for the performance of surgery".

In a short time, Esdaile had gained a wide reputation amongst the European and indigenous communities for painless surgery, especially in cases of the scrotal "tumours" that were endemic in Bengal at that time due to filariasis (similar to elephantiasis) that was transmitted by mosquitoes. Esdaile's mesmeric anaesthesia was extremely safe:

I beg, to state, for the satisfaction of those who have not yet a practical knowledge of the subject, that I have seen no bad consequences whatever arise from persons being operated on when in the mesmeric trance. Cases have occurred in which no pain has been felt subsequent to the operation even; the wounds healing in a few days by the first intention; and in the rest, I have seen no indications of any injury being done to the constitution. On the contrary, it appears to me to have been saved, and that less constitutional disturbance has followed than under ordinary circumstances.

There has not been a death among the cases operated on.

In 1846, Esdaile's work with mesmerism-assisted painless surgery at Hoogly had come to the attention of the Deputy Governor of Bengal, Sir Herbert Maddocks. Maddocks appointed a committee of seven reputable (medical and non-medicial) officials to investigate Esdaile's claims. They submitted a positive report (on 9 October 1846), and a small hospital in Calcutta was put at his disposal in November 1846.

By 1848, a mesmeric hospital supported entirely by public subscription was opened in Calcutta especially for Esdaile's work. It was closed 18 months later by the Deputy Governor of Bengal, Sir John Littler.

In 1848, Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India, appointed Esdaile to the position of Presidency Surgeon; and, in 1850, whilst not supporting the continuation of the mesmeric hospital in Calcutta, Dalhousie had so much respect for Esdaile and his work, that he appointed him to the position of Marine Surgeon.

Esdaile retired from the British East India Company in 1853, upon the expiration of his 20 years' contract. After briefly returning to Scotland he settled in Sydenham where he died on 10 January 1859. He is buried at West Norwood Cemetery.