James Manby Gully (14 March 1808 – 27 March 1883) was an English physician, well known for practising hydrotherapy. Along with his partner, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" clinic in Malvern, Worcestershire, which had many notable Victorians, including such figures as Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as clients.
Gully's clinic using Malvern water in Great Malvern, and those that followed, were largely responsible for Malvern's rapid development from a village to a large town. He is also remembered as a suspect in the Charles Bravo poisoning case, and as a recipient of payments from the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
Early life, education and family James Manby Gully was born in Kingston, Jamaica, the son of Daniel Gully, a wealthy coffee planter. Wall cited sectional p. 1 (Vol. p. 5). When he was 6 he was taken to England to attend school in Liverpool, then went on to the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris. He became a medical student at the University of Edinburgh in 1825, as did Charles Darwin in the same year. After three years at Edinburgh, Gully became an externe at L'École de Médecine in Paris, then returned to Edinburgh to take his MD in 1829.
He married Frances Court (died 1838), daughter of Thomas Court in June 1831. They had two children: Susanna Gully (1833-1903) married William Henry Jeffcock and had issue. William Court Gully, 1st Viscount Selby (1835-1909) married Elizabeth Selby and had issue.
Gully married secondly, Frances Kibble in October 1840.Burke's Peerage and BaronetageBurke's landed gentry
Gully's father, Daniel, died in or before 1824. James Gully was awarded a share of compensation under the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 for the St George (Middelton) estate which had 42 enslaved people, and he was also party to a disputed claim for compensation for the St David (Sheffield) estate which had 80 enslaved people. Despite this record of compensation the Dictionary of National Biography states that "the fortune which should have fallen to him as his father's heir vanished on the passing of the Emancipation Act."
Career Gully began his practice as a physician in London in 1830, and went on to write and translate numerous medical books and papers, becoming a fellow of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London and a fellow of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. He edited the London Medical and Surgical Journal and the Liverpool Medical Gazette. Gully showed an interest in the idea of transmutation of species, and translated an evolutionary treatise on Comparative Physiology by the embryologist Friedrich Tiedemann.
He was dissatisfied with the medical treatments of the time, and in 1837 met Dr. James Wilson who then spent some time on the continent, and had returned enthused with the idea of hydrotherapy. Dr Wilson was one of the few Englishmen who stayed at the hydropathic establishment of Vincent Priessnitz, at Gräfenberg, Austria (now Lázně Jeseník, Czech Republic) before Captain R. T. Claridge, whose name became synonymous with hydropathy due to his 1842 book Hydropathy; or The Cold Water Cure, as practiced by Vincent Priessnitz... and his lecture tours. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) Originally published in The Other Clare vol. 32 (2008) pp 12–17 While acknowledging that Claridge did much to promote hydrotherapy, Wilson states that "I had been a considerable time at Grafenberg", and that Claridge "came to Graefenberg some time after I had been there". Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) Note: the prospectus is at the back of the book, with its own preface by Wilson, and its own new pagination One writer states Wilson was at Grafenberg for 10 months. Nevertheless, in an earlier 1842 publication, Wilson acknowledged having read Claridge's work, and unconditionally praised his "enthusiastic" promotion of hydropathy.
In 1842, Gully and Wilson opened "water cure" clinics, and later established a partnership at Malvern offering a regimen similar to that at Priessnitz's Gräfenberg clinic. In 1843, Wilson and Gully published a comparison of the efficacy of the water-cure with drug treatments, including accounts of some cases treated at Malvern, combined with a prospectus of their Water Cure Establishment. Then in 1846 Gully published The Water Cure in Chronic Disease, further describing the treatments available at the clinic. In 1848, Gully became a member of the British Homoeopathic Society.Adkin, George (ed.). The British and foreign homœopathic medical directory and record, 1853, Taubman Medical Library. Retrieved on 11 January 2008.
The fame of the water-cure establishment grew, and Gully and Wilson became well-known national figures. Two more clinics were opened at Malvern.The history of alternative medicine in Malvern. malvernhealth.org.uk Famous patients included Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Florence Nightingale, Lord Tennyson and Samuel Wilberforce. With his fame he also attracted criticism: Sir Charles Hastings, a physician and founder of the British Medical Association, was a forthright critic of hydropathy, and Dr Gully in particular.Bradley, J., and Depree, M. A Shadow of Orthodoxy? An Epistemology of British Hydropathy, 1840–1858, Medical History, 2003, 47:173–194
The Water Cure treatment Dr. Gully's patients at Malvern were woken at 5 am, undressed and wrapped in wet sheets then covered with blankets. An hour later, buckets of water were thrown upon the patients who then went on a five-mile walk, carrying an alpenstock and a Gräfenberg flask of mineral water, stopping at wells for the waters. They returned to the Malvern pump room for a breakfast of dry biscuits and water. They then had the day to spend bathing in a range of kinds of baths, or in some cases wore a wet sheet called the "Neptune Girdle" round their middle at all times, removing it only at meal times. Dinner which was always boiled mutton and fish was followed by a few hours in a dry bed. The exercise, plain food and absence of alcohol together with the congenial company of other wealthy patrons proved generally beneficial.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin suffered repeated episodes of illness involving stomach pains from 1838 onwards, and had no success with conventional treatments. In 1849 after about four months of incessant vomiting, he followed the recommendation of his friend Captain Sulivan and cousin Fox. After reading Gully's book The Water-Cure in Chronic Disease, he rented a villa at Malvern for his family and started a two-month trial of the treatment on 10 March. Gully agreed with Darwin's self-diagnosis of nervous dyspepsia, and set him a routine including being heated by a spirit lamp until dripping with perspiration, then vigorous rubbing with cold wet towels and cold foot baths, a strict diet, and walks. Darwin enjoyed the attention and the demanding regime which left him no time to feel guilty about not working. His health improved rapidly and he felt that the water-cure was "no quackery".Letter 1236 — Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., 28 Mar 1849. DarwinProject.ac.uk. Retrieved on 15 January 2007. He had no faith in the homœopathic medicines Gully gave him three times a day, but took them obediently.Letter 1234 — Darwin, C. R. to Darwin, S. E., 19 Mar 1849 . DarwinProject.ac.uk. Retrieved on 11 January 2008. They stayed on until 30 June, and at home he continued with the diet, and with the water treatment aided by his butler.
When his sickness returned in September, Darwin had a day visit to Malvern, then recuperated at home. In June 1850 after losing time to illness (without vomiting) he spent a week at Malvern. Later that year he wrote to Fox about the credulity of his "beloved Dr Gully" whose daughter had been ill, and had treated her with a clairvoyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep, John Chapman as homœopathist and himself as hydropathist, after which Gully's daughter recovered. Darwin explained to Fox his wrathful scepticism about clairvoyance and homeopathy.Letter 1352 — Darwin, C. R. to Fox, W. D., 4 Sept 1850 . DarwinProject.ac.uk. Retrieved on 11 January 2008. When Darwin's own young daughter Annie had persistent indigestion he confidently took her to Gully on 24 March 1851, and after a week left her there to take the cure, but a fortnight later was recalled by Dr Gully as Annie had bilious fever. Dr. Gully was attentive and repeatedly reassured them that she was recovering, but after a series of crises Annie died on 23 April. Gully gave the cause of death as a "Bilious fever with typhoid character".
Darwin kept records of the effects of the continuing water treatment at home, and in 1852 stopped the regime, having found that it was of some help with relaxation but overall had no significant effect, indicating that it served only to decrease his psychosomatic symptomatology. In 1855 Darwin wrote to a friend that "Dr. Gully did me much good",Darwin, Charles; Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith (1865). The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge University Press 13, p.379. but he did not want to return to Malvern. When his illness returned much as when he had first seen Gully he found a new hydrotherapist, Dr. Lane, whose more relaxed regime did not include clairvoyance, mesmerism or homeopathy. After a similarly speedy recovery Darwin became a complete convert. In 1863 his illness worsened seriously at a time when Lane was not available, and Emma Darwin persuaded her husband to return to Gully. His cousin Fox had told him that Gully had suffered a mental breakdown and was unavailable. In his reply Darwin had mentioned having had eczema, and wrote "Gully will be a great loss & I hardly know whom to consult there. I must be under some experienced man, for I could not stand much hard treatment." They arrived at Malvern on 2 September, but Darwin felt that he was being fobbed off with the supervising physician, Dr. Ayerst. Emma arranged for Dr. Gully to attend and endorse Ayerst's treatment, but by then the eczema was too raw to bear any water. Darwin had a complete breakdown, and on 13 October left the spa worse than when he'd arrived. His serious illness continued until the spring of 1866.
Beliefs and causes Gully was an articulate and popular public speaker and writer. He was also a firm believer in a number of women's causes. He advocated women's suffrage, and preached temperance, due to the detrimental effects of alcohol on the husbands of many Victorian women. Gully built two clinics: Tudor House for men, and Holyrood House for women. He separated the sexes strictly at his clinics, as he believed that many female psychological complaints (depression, anxiety, hypochondria, hysteria) were due to the pressures Victorian women were under to be chaste, ambitionless, efficient, selfless givers, at the expense of their own mental well-being.