Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 31 October 1794
31 Octr, 1794
Dear Giddy
I hope you will receive your sister as well as I deliver her to Mr Edwards. She was cured sooner & more easily than might have been expected — She will bring a number of proposals, of which I dare say you will make the best use you can. The attempt to obtain subscriptions is going on with vigour in some districts. I rather hope there are persons enough in the kingdom who are humane from reflection; any sum may be raised when people believe themselves humane but are in fact only instigated by passion or fashion. I have often been asked how much is a handsome subscription. I have replied that if subscriptions be pretty general, they need only be very moderate, & that from one to 5 guineas seems enough, according to their circumstances, from persons not of the very richest order, from < whom> one would not wish for more than ten guineas.
Thos Wedgwood is very active in this business. He says very truly ‘I think the object deserving the most liberal support, if it only enabled us to say that airs cannot be employed with success as medicines’ — If you had any newspaper near you, answer any purpose to print a few hand bills to the same purport, I leave you to judge — If it wd the expence wd be only a few shillings —
I shall be glad to hear your obsns on Zoonomia if you have patience to write them at length and wd enclose them within 2 or 3 weeks to ‘the Earl of Selkirk Post office Exeter’ I know he wd frank them to me. He may be at Plymouth in that time but it will be no matter. I wish you cd get the 3 last & the next Analytical Review – You will see my sentiments there — As to politics the case seems decided one way; how we are to have peace I cannot guess — I suppose the French wd grant terms, Austria & Prussia, to xxxx xxxx tolerably fair to have their hands free to use against us. Yrs
T. Beddoes
The attention of the liberal and humane has lately been called to a project of high importance. Incontestable proof has been given that the application of airs and gases to the cure of diseases is both practicable & promising. There is <for instance> the best reason to hope that cancer, the most dreadful of human maladies, may by some of these substances be disarmed of its terror & its danger too. With the application therefore of persons of the highest respectability both in the medical profession & out of it, a proposal is brought forward for forming a Pneumatic Institution of which the object is to ascertain the effect of elastic fluids in many dangerous & hitherto incurable diseases. In some cases rooms, filled with air properly modified, will be requisite to a compleat trial, which is one principal reason for the a temporary establishment. The institution will be conducted with the utmost publicity so that all mankind may reap the benefit of it. The expense is estimated at 3 or 4000 pounds. This sum, properly applied, will hardly fail to afford some decisive result. The public & individuals will be enabled to take their measures accordingly; hence no second donation need be solicited for the present purpose. — A paper <by Dr Beddoes of Bristol Hotwells> describing the plan, mentioning the Trustees, the London bankers & stating other particulars may be seen at [blank line]
where persons disposed to contribute are desired to give in their names & subscription
Address: Davies Giddy Esq
Endorsement: Doctor Beddoes / 1794 / Octr the 31st
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 42/1