Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 12 September [1792]
West Bromwich near Birmingham Sepr 12
Now the Natl Assy by their incapacity & cowardice have united every thing that is ridiculous with every thing that is horrible, one has not the smallest inclination left to take the trouble of thinking about France. Keir, Edgworth, who is not only a good mechanic, but in every respect a superior man & your humble servant, have been uselessly occupied during a good part of the three last days in designing sketches of the future free of that unfortunate country.
We are all agreed that the Jacobin members of the Assembly by associating the valets de place, porteurs d’eau &c with whom Paris abounds, with the banditti from Marseilles in order to overpower the friends of the court, who were unfortunately compounded with the friends of the constitution, have wielded a weapon, which has recoiled with fatal violence upon themselves & their country. The situation was doubtless difficult, for the treachery of the executive power seems to be proved by a incontrovertible evidence; which evidence is corroborated by every consideration applicable to the subject: Had the assembly instead of passing & revoking & modifying decrees at the command of a populace, whose appetite for blood seems to have grown by feeding upon it, firmly opposed themselves to their sanguinary fury, <after the 10th Aug> they might have been checked. The expt was dangerous, but it ought to have been made by men, who have so often sworn, la constitution ou la mort. It was only in the Senate house where the risqué of their lives could have tended to save their country. I see no chance left, unless their host of assassins shd each man fall & bring down an enemy at the same time. They are certainly not less dangerous enemies to France than its invaders.
It is fortunate that the wonderful discoveries just made in Italy produce a diversion of thought, at a moment when one is so much inclined to be dissatisfied with every thing & every person, not excepting one’s own dear self. These discoveries though so extraordinary are so well attested that upon the faith of my knowledge of some of the persons to whom they have been exhibited <in France> I can pledge myself for the truth of the acct. If you separate the lower exts of a frog, flay the thighs & take care not to injure the crural nerves, which you are to dissect <dowze> for a little way; then coat the ends of the crural nerves with lead or tin foil & form a communication with this coating & the muscles by means of a piece of silver or some conductor difft from the coating, the half frog will jump with considerable force. – Place two glasses of water near each other; into one (A) put the flayed half frog; in the other glass (B) let the coated nerve hang. plunge your finger into the water of B. make a ring of 1.2.3 or twenty persons & let the last hold a piece of silver in the free hand & touch the coa muscles, & the frog will jump out of the glass.
Mr Volta has found that if you put a bit of lead under your tongue & a bit of silver above, & then form a communication you will have immediately a strong taste, of which you was before the commn utterly insensible: or put a bit of lead & silver upon your tongue separately & you will have no taste; put them together or one upon another & you will have the same taste, which being of a very decided nature I leave you to find out – While we were repeating these expts here, I proposed to taste the electrical aura; we did so; Miss Keir & the ladies abstract their attention from the smell. According to the testimony of my tongue, the taste is of the same kind <not the same degree> as the taste of the combined [xxxx] metals. One of the philosophers agreed with me. the rest of the gentlemen of the party were doubtful – among others Mr Keir.
I had before satisfied myself fully as to the cause of muscular motion. These discoveries add a new probability to the theory I had formed several months ago. In a 12month the face of medicine will be changed, & every body will study it as the most curious & interesting of all the sciences; before it was a chaos of contradictions, & none but those who were well paid would submit to the disagreeable task of trying to reconcile these contradictions or even to learn a multitude of unconnected facts <crude hypotheses & inefficacious recipes> – There will soon be an end of physicians & apothecaries; or at least a gradual diminution of a body of men, who do & have done infinitely more mischief than good, will begin to take place.
T. Beddoes
Address: To / Davies Giddy Esq / Tredrea / Marazion / Cornwall / x post
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / 1792 / Sepr the 12th
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/19