Coda

Abstract

Lamenting the state of knowledge upon the subject of English health and the devastating effects of habits deleterious to well-being, Thomas Beddoes invited the establishment of a systematic effort by medical practitioners to catalogue the pathological figures whose affronts to health are particularly instructive. Toward the end of his chapter on nervous disorders in Hygëia, Beddoes called for ‘a set of sketches, contrasting our customs with those of savages, in their tendency to disfigure, enfeeble, and demolish the human frame’ (1802, 8: 120). These portraits of infirm English bodies,

with accompanying explanations, should be offered to the public in all shapes, and at all prices — from that of Poor Richard’s Almanack, to the style of magnificence, in which the engravers of different countries have degraded their skill to deck the senseless effusions of the fanatic, Lavater.