{"product_id":"the-mesmerist-the-society-doctor-who-held-victorian-london-spellbound","title":"The Mesmerist: The Society Doctor Who Held Victorian London Spellbound","description":"Medicine, in the early 1800s, was a brutal business. Operations were performed without anaesthesia while conventional treatment relied on leeches, cupping and toxic potions. The most surgeons could offer by way of pain relief was a large swig of brandy. \n\nOnto this scene came John Elliotson, the dazzling new hope of the medical world. Charismatic and ambitious, Elliotson was determined to transform medicine from a hodge-podge of archaic remedies into a practice informed by the latest science. In this aim he was backed by Thomas Wakley, founder of the new magazine, theLancet, and a campaigner against corruption and malpractice.\n\nThen, in the summer of 1837, a French visitor - the self-styled Baron Jules Denis Dupotet - arrived in London to promote an exotic new idea: mesmerism. The mesmerism mania would take the nation by storm but would ultimately split the two friends, and the medical world, asunder - throwing into focus fundamental questions about the fine line between medicine and quackery, between science and superstition.","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39666225446997,"sku":"9781474602310N","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/d24c015f-e105-4a9e-9b56-44ec38a12199.jpg?v=1644292942","url":"https:\/\/smeikalbooks.co.uk\/en-us\/products\/the-mesmerist-the-society-doctor-who-held-victorian-london-spellbound","provider":"smeikalbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}