Thomas Beddoes to James Watt Jr, 30 October 1794
My dear Sir
As the scheme for a pneumatic Institution is going on with great vigour in some districts & now or never seems to be the motto, I wish you wd take the trouble of promoting it as far as you think right & fit. I hope you in common with every person of enlarged views I know will agree with T. Wedgwood who says ‘for my own part I think the object deserving the most liberal support if it only enabled us to say that airs cannot be employed with success as remedies’. A Dr White of Bury St Edmunds has fallen upon a good idea. He has made a clear <abridgement> of my prospectus & circulated it through Suffolk & the adjacent counties with provincial newspapers engaging the Bankers of ye chief towns to receive subscriptions. Now I request you to intercede with one or both printers of ye Birmh papers to give the annexed advertiset a conspicuous place & also to ask one or more bankers to take in subscriptions, leaving both with the printers & bankers a copy of the larger prospectus from yr father or Mr Keir – Christie has just been with me. He speaks of Barrere & the French much as you. Respecting Ld Daer ask your father to read part of his letter.
I am, Dear Sir;
Yours with great esteem
Thos Beddoes
30 Octr
You need not be anxious about a speedy answer
To the Printer
Sir
A subject of [xxxx] <great> importance calls for the attention of the liberal & humane. It has been incontestably proved that the application of airs to the cure of diseases is both practicable & promising. A proposal is therefore brought forward under the auspices of persons of the highest respectability both in & out of the medical profession for forming a Medical Pneumatic Institution in order to ascertain the effects of elastic fluids in diseases hitherto found incurable, some of which will probably require rooms filled with modified air. The Institution will be conducted with the utmost openness. Its expence is estimated at 3 or 4000 pounds, which can only be raised by public contribution. This sum, properly applied, will hardly fail to [xxxx] produce some decisive result; so that no second donation will be asked on account of the present object.
Persons disposed to contribute are requested to give in their names & subscriptions to [blank space left for insertion of name] with each of whom is left a paper <written by Dr Beddoes> more particularly describing the plan naming the trustees, <& the> London Bankers & c other circumstances
Address: James Watt Esq Junior / Soho
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / 10 October 1794 / Proposed Advertisement of Pneumatic Institution
MS: LoB MS 3219/6/02/B/55