William Collins Engledue (1813 – 30 December 1858), MD (Edinburgh, 1835),His dissertation was titled "What Evidence have we that the External Senses can be Transferred to other parts of the Body, as is said to occur in Somnambulism?": see Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol44, No.125 (October 1835), p.549. MRCS (Edinburgh, 1835), MRCS (London, 1835), LSA (1835) was an English physician, surgeon, apothecary, mesmerist, phrenologist – and, in concert with John Elliotson, M.D., the co-editor of The Zoist.

A former President of the British Phrenological Association, Engledue was ostracized by both his medical colleagues – for his dedication to mesmerism and phrenology – and by the majority of phrenologists – for his rejection of their "socio-religious", spiritual position,Such as that maintained by William Scott, President of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, in his The Harmony of Phrenology with Scripture: Shewn in a Refutation of the Philosophical Errors contained in Mr Combe's "Constitution of Man" (1837); and by Mrs John Pugh (S.D. Pugh) in her Phrenology Considered in a Religious Light; or, Thoughts and Readings Consequent on the Perusal of "Combe's Constitution of Man" (1846), etc. in favour of a scientific, materialist, brain-centred position that, in effect, reduced mental operations to physical forces.Cooter (1984), p.94.

Education Born at Portsea in 1813, the son of John Engledue and Joanna Engledue (née Watson), he was a brilliant student. Sent to the University of Edinburgh by John Porter (1770–1855), (first president of the 'Portsmouth and Portsea Literary and Philosophical Society') to whom he was originally apprenticed, Engledue took his final exams after only two years study. At Edinburgh, he took prizes for proficiency in surgery, pathology and practice of physic, practical anatomy, and physiology; and was also the President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh.Anon (1859).

Medical practice Having spent a year as the anatomical demonstrator for John Lizars, Professor of Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, he returned to Portsmouth in the winter of 1835, and started to practice there.

Greatly concerned with the conditions of the poor – prior to 1849, "he gave daily advice, gratuitously, in his own house [to] the large class of patients who were too poor to pay, and yet above seeking eleemosynary aid"Anon (1859), p.89. – he spent much of his time trying to improve the purity of the water supply to Portsmouth. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Portsmouth, Portsea, and Gosport Hospital in 1849; and, at the time of his death, he held the appointment of surgeon to the hospital.Anon (1859).

Cerebral physiology A phrenologist, one-time President of the British Phrenological Association, his provocative (20 June 1842) presidential address,Engledue (1842); Anon (1842); and Engledue (1843). dealing with issues of phreno-mesmerism, the controversy of the day, in which he expressed the strong materialist views on phrenology, which were shared by Elliotson – who, incidentally, was the chairman of that particular sessionEngledue (1842), p.209. – led to Engledue's separation from that association."George Combe, who had been touring Canada and the United States "lecturing, arguing, and making friends with various Americans", "returned to Europe [in June 1840]. He was exhausted by his labours, but in September presided over the third meeting of the General Association of Phrenologists at Glasgow … Phrenologists were now quarrelling among themselves. Two-thirds of the members of the association resigned on account of a profession of Dr. Engledue at the London meeting in 1841 [sic] that phrenology was based upon materialism. (Stephen (1887), p.429 (emphasis added to original).

Engledue was a strong advocate of mesmerism and, with John Elliotson, co-founded The Zoist; and remained its joint editor until publication ceased in 1856. While Elliotson had (possibly) performed the first medical procedure in the U.K. that had been rendered painless (and had been done without the patient being aware of the intervention) by mesmerism (on Elizabeth Okey in 1837),"Testimony to the reality of the Mesmeric Phenomena in University College Hospital, by Mr. James Mouat, Army Surgeon", The Zoist, Vol.7, No.25, (April 1849), pp.41-44. it is almost certain that Engledue performed the first undocumented surgery that had been rendered painless (and had been done without the patient being aware of the intervention) by mesmerism in August 1842."Cases of mesmeric Clairvoyance and sympathy of Feeling, by Dr. Engledue", The Zoist, Vol.2, No.6, (July 1844), pp.269-273.

Also, in his Cerebral Physiology and Materialism (1842) – the published text of his Presidential Address to the British Phrenological Association – Engledue introduced the concept of "cerebration" to designate the operation of the brain: a term that was later revived, in 1855, by William Benjamin Carpenter's "unconscious cerebration",Carpenter (1855, §.653, pp.608-609). which Carpenter offered as a more refined development of his earlier concept, the "ideo-motor principle of action" (and which he used to describe Braid's "Hypnotism" in 1852Carpenter (1852).).

In 1858, Engledue delivered a well-received series of twelve lectures on "Human Physiology" on behalf of the three Literary societies of Portsmouth – the Athenæum, the Philosophical Society, and the Watt Institute – to an enthusiastic audience of more than a thousand on consecutive Monday evenings from 11 January 1858The Hampshire Advertiser, No.1794, (Saturday, 16 January 1858), p.8. to 28 March 1858:The Hampshire Advertiser, No.1805, (Saturday, 3 April 1858), p.8. "…at the request of the three literary Institutions of Portsmouth, [Engledue agreed] to give a course of twelve lectures on Human Physiology … in which he finely expressed the great object of the medical profession, to teach men how to avoid disease, rather than merely to cure it when contracted. The lectures were published in extenso in a Portsmouth paper, and afford evidences of a most comprehensive mind. Elegant and chastened as literary productions, they afford a copiousness of illustration, and a simplicity of explanation, rarely attained by a scientific lecturer".Anon (1859), p.89. The series was immediately followed by a single lecture on "Cerebral Physiology" (N.B., rather than "Phrenology") on 14 April 1858.Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle and General Advertiser for Hants, Sussex, Surrey, Dorset and Wilts, No.3053 (Saturday, 10 April 1858), p.5.

The Zoist

Engledue and John Elliotson were the co-editors of The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral Physiology & Mesmerism, and Their Applications to Human Welfare, an influential British journal, devoted to the promotion of the theories and practices (and the collection and dissemination of reports of the applications) of mesmerism and phrenology, and the enterprise of "connecting and harmonizing practical science with little understood laws governing the mental structure of man",Godwin (1994), p.213. that was published quarterly, without a break, for fifteen years: from March 1843 until January 1856.

The Zoist was printed on high-quality paper and issued quarterly to subscribers, and was also published in annual volumes for a wider readership. It focused on reporting applications of phrenology and on collecting and disseminating accounts relating to mesmerism. In this role, it served as a forum for information and experiences shared by both amateur and professional practitioners in Great Britain and its colonies. The journal included reports describing the use of mesmerism in medical contexts, including surgical procedures such as amputations.Gauld (1992), pp.205-208; Winter (1998), pp.154-155.

Suicide Enledue "was a man of considerable eminence in the medical profession … and enjoyed a very extensive practice" in Portsmouth. In a state of deep melancholy consequent upon a nosocomial infection, namely erysipelas, acquired whilst hospitalized for surgery on an otherwise unremarkable small tumour, he took his own life in December 1858.Anon (BMJ, 1859).

During the coronial inquest into Engledue's death, conducted on Friday 31 December 1858,See: Anon (Hampshire Telegraph, etc., 1859). his personal physician of eight years standing, Robert Pennington Sparrow, MRCS (England), MRCP (Edinburgh), an ex-Naval surgeon, stated that Engledue's nosocomial infection was "erysipelas, followed by abscess"; and that its pain and discomfort were so severe that Engledue "had occasion to take large doses of opium to produce sleep" constantly during April, May and June. By July, he had ceased to need opium and, despite the fact that "he had not thoroughly recovered, and had not the physical strength to encounter what he was called upon to go through", Engledue resumed his medical practice at the beginning of July. He continued to practice up to and until 20 December, when he requested colleagues to take over his work-load.

At that time, given his diarrhoea and nausea, Sparrow had "persuaded him to lay up, telling him that he was killing himself with work", and, as Sparrow remarked to the coroner, whilst "persons labouring under the symptoms such as I have described the deceased to have suffered, are sometimes the victims of an uncontrollable suicidal impulse", he had formed the opinion that "the deceased's mental faculties were very much impaired", that "his mind was giving way, and that he was in a very different condition from what he had been in all his life before", and "was fearful of permanent insanity, rather than of any act of [suicide]". He also remarked that he had, therefore, come to the conclusion, that Engledue "was not in that condition which would induce me to recommend that his mother and sister keep a strict watch over him".

Sparrow made a point of emphasizing that there was nothing extraordinary about Engledue possessing prussic acid, because "bi-carbonate of potash (i.e., potassium bicarbonate) in combination with prussic acid (i.e., hydrogen cyanide) is frequently prescribed as a medicinal agent … in case[s] of nausea in the disease under which the deceased was labouring … and medical men frequently have recourse to it"; and, whilst stressing that he had not prescribed this mixture in Engledue's case, he also remarked that there would have been nothing remarkable about Engledue self-prescribing its administration. Engledue's local dispensing chemist gave evidence that he had supplied Engledue's written request for "specific quantities of solution of taraxacum (i.e., dandelion), tincture of gentium, bicarbonate of potash, together with three drachmes of prussic acid" three days earlier. The jury delivered the following verdict: "That the deceased died from the effects of prussic acid, taken with intent to destroy life, while in a state of unsound mind."

Footnotes

References

Anon, "Report of the Proceedings of the Phrenological Association at its Fifth Annual Session, at London, in June 1842", The Phrenological Journal and Magazine of Moral Science, Vol.15, No.73, (1842), pp.289-343. (Engledue's address appears at pp.291-318.) Anon, "The Late William Collins Engledue, M.D., Surgeon To The Royal Portsmouth, Portsea, And Gosport Hospital", The British Medical Journal, Vol.1, No.108, (29 January 1859), pp.89-90. Anon, "Suicide of Dr. Engledue", Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, and General Advertiser for Hants, Sussex, Surrey, Dorset, and Wilts., No.3091, (Saturday 1 January 1859), p. 5, col.A. Carpenter, W.B., Principles of Mental Physiology: With their Chief Applications to the Psychology, Pathology, Therapeutics, Hygiene, and Forensic Medicine (Fifth Edition), John Churchill, (London), 1855. Clarke, J.F., "A Strange Chapter in the History of Medicine", pp.155-169 in , Clarke, J.F., Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, J. & A. Churchill, (London,), 1874.