James Manby Gully

Dr. James Manby Gully (1808 - 1883), was a doctor of medicine victorien, known to practice the Thermalisme. With its partner James Wilson, it founded a private clinic d'" hydropathy" (term of the time) in Malvern in the Worcestershire, which was attended by many notable Victoriens, and in particular of the personalities such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Tennyson.

It was also one of the suspects of the business of poisoning which finally remained unsolved.

Career

Gully studied medicine with Paris and the Université of Edinburgh. From 1830 it exerted with London, but was disappointed by the inflexible orthodoxy of Western medicine.

In 1842 it reads an article of Vincent Priessnitz, an Autrichien surgeon who defends the termalism. It leaves the surgery and London at once and establishes its first private clinic of cure in Malvern with James Wilson, another hydrothérapeute.

The fame of the establishment increases and Gully and Wilson become popular figures at the national level. Two other private clinics are opened in Malvern and receive famous patients such as Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Florence Nightingale, Lord Tennyson and Samuel Wilberforce.

Belief and causes

Gully is a speaker and a popular writer. He is also an enthusiastic defender of many female causes. It thus defends the right to the vote of the women and the leagues of temperance associated with the feminist movement, alcohol being often the cause of marital violences. It creates a clear separation between the sexes in its private clinics and thinks that many female psychological complaints (depression, anxiety, hypochondrie, hysteria) are due to the pressures exerted on the women victoriennes, who must be pure, without professional ambition, effective, altruistic, with the detriment of their good personal being.

Business of Florence Cheer

In 1872 it meets a named young woman Florence Ricardo (later Florence Bravo). They secretly become lovers. The following year, whereas she travels with Gully towards Kissingen in Germany, Florence falls pregnant and it is Gully which practices the abortion. Thereafter their relation becomes purely platonic.

Then Florence meets Charles Bravo, and they marrient in 1875. After having learned this news by courier, Gully would have literally to tear the letter of pieces. A few months later, on April 19th, 1876, Charles Bravo dies of poisoning. The culprit was never found, Gully was regarded as suspect, like Florence, but the business was never solved.

Gully dies in 1883.

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