Providentia

Exposing the Martian Medium

Being a spirit medium has always been a tough market to crack.   

No matter what tricks you used, standing out from the crowd meant coming up with something memorable enough to bring in paying customers.   During the early part of the 20th century, spirit mediums shifted their focus away from "spiritual realms" by claiming to be in contact with beings from other planets (with Mars being a particular favourite).  One of the most well-known of these cases involved "Helene Smith," a spirit medium relied on automatic writing to receive messages from various illustrious spirits as well as retrieving memories from her many past lives.  Along with having been Queen Marie Antoinette and an Indian princess, Smith also described her past life as an inhabitant of the planet Mars.  She even produced samples of the Martian language, complete with alphabet.  While later skeptics, including eminent psychologist Theodore Flournoy dismissed her Martian memories as a form of cryptomnesia (a term which Flournoy coined), many true believers continued to insist that her Martian claims were real. 

All of which brings us to the amazing Marxa, the "Martian Medium". ...

Not content with simply relaying messages sent by creatures from other worlds,  Marxa went her rivals one better:  along with communicating with Martians, she could also make them materialize during the seances she held regularly.   During these seances, all of which were conducted in a special parlor at her place of business, spectators would be seated in a semi-circle facing a cabinet where the medium would sit at all times.   The cabinet contained a single chair to which Marxa would be bound at the beginning of each seance.   

It likely added to the appeal that the medium was young and beautiful, as well a making a habit of undressing before the audience to show that she had no tricks up her sleeves (or anywhere else).  The scantily-clad Marxa would then sit in the cabinet while her manager provided ropes for audience members to tie her up.    Once the audience members were satisfied that Marxa was securely bound, the manager would then draw the curtains on the cabinet and turn down the lights and the Martian would then emerge.  While her claims seemed incredible, numerous spectators attested to her supernatural abilities.

Hoping to prove that Marxa was no fraud, her manager even invited professional magician and skeptic Joseph Dunninger to attend one of her seances in 1944.   Widely known as one of the most amazing mentalists of his time, Dunninger would later become one of the pioneers in bringing his special brand of magic to television, and his radio performances had already won him a national audience.  Not only was he a close friend of fellow magicians such as Harry Houdini but had performed repeatedly at the White House at the request of then-President Franklin Roosevelt.   Other prominent admirers included Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Edison, both of whom invited him to perform when he was only seventeen years old.   

Perhaps more importantly, he was also widely known as a professional debunker who specialized in exposing fraudulent mediums.   Much like Houdini, Dunninger worked with Scientific American and the Universal Council for Psychic Research to test any medium or psychic who hoped to win the $10,000 prize he offered to anyone who could produce a supernatural effect he couldn't reproduce or explain himself.  As he would later write, "through all these long years, I have sought good honest ghosts, phantoms, spirits, astral beings, banshees, fays, wee folk, apparitions, fetches—the whole pack and passel of the unsubstantial world—and I have always been able to prove them frauds."

Whether he was hoping to win the $10,000 or simply to drum up more publicity, Marva's agent arranged for Dunninger to attend one of Marxa's seances.   Already aware of her reputation for materializing supposedly authentic Martian creatures during her seances, he wasted no time accepting the invitation.    In explaining his reasons for investigating, Dunninger would write that "these fakers trade upon public credulity.  It is easy to gull people, who have already been softened up by superstitious beliefs.  Recognizing that fact is the chief trick in a charlatan's bag."  

As  for Marxa herself, he described her as "young and attractive, a streamlined contrast to the bulky, middle-aged ladies who generally deal in materializations."  After being greeted by the medium and her manager, Dunninger also inspected the seance room, including the cabinet in which Marxa would be sitting.  He noted that it had bulky outer curtains but also an inner curtain with elastic cords to cover any gap in the middle:  "a promise of coming fraud."    The seance then began with Marxa's usual routine of disrobing and sitting in the chair to which she would be tied by audience members.   Dunninger recalled being given "the longest rope" though other audience members insisted that she was already tied up securely so he just took his seat with the others. 

Once the manager drew the curtains and lowered the lights, there was a sudden chill in the room.   The manager explained that this was due to the influence of the Martian spirit about to appear.  Being accustomed to "polar temperatures", it had arranged for the cold in order to "survive its brief visit."   But that was just the beginning. ..

It was then that the outer curtains of the cabinet opened and what Dunninger  called the "most outlandish creature I have ever viewed anywhere" popped out.   In his account of the seance, he wrote that:  "The thing from Mars was round and squatty, with a head that seemed a bulbous protuberance of its body.It hopped around on feet that had practically no legs, and even in the red light, its horrible face was all too plain.  The face was an ugly saffron color; the eyes and lips were thin and wide.; and the nose was like a bashed-in melon."  

Despite its tiny size (about half the height of the slender Marxa), the sight of the creature terrified most of the audience.   Women screamed and men fell out of their chairs as the "living horror" hopped around the room.   Dunninger reported that the creature then glared at him - and perhaps for good reason.   Unknown to Marxa and her manager, Dunninger had taken advantage of the rope they gave him:  secretly hitching one end to a chair at the far end of the room and holding the other end in his hand, Dunninger used it to trip up the "Martian" as it hopped around.   After it sprawled "with a very human squeak,"  Dunninger than screamed out a single word:  "Lights." 

What followed can only be appreciated in the magician's own words:  "As it tried to get up, the creature elongated to almost human size.  I stretched it further by grabbing a top-knot above its head.   As it lost the unusual robe it was wearing, the witnesses saw the most amazing transformation even accomplished in any seance room.    The thing from Mars had become Marxa.  Her disguise was simple, but remarkably effective when seen in the red light.  She had taken the cabinet's inner curtain, the one with the elastic cord, and drawn it about her.   Squatting inside, she had appeared really hideous.  With her shoulders doubled down to her knees, she had reduced her height.   Marxa was an acrobat as well as a contortionist, and her spry hops around the floor had resembled the steps of a Russian dance.   The saffron face with its slant eyes and flat nose had been produced by one of her stockings, drawn over her head.  The silk had thinned into a yellow film, and the tightened material spread the girl's face into a hideous grimace.  All that was wiped away when I tugged the top-knot, formed by the stocking's toe, and pulled the stocking clear away. "

As for the drop in temperature before the "creature's" appearance, that had been produced by the manager.  At the right moment, he had secretly uncorked a double flask containing liquid air, and basic physics did the rest.   When Dunninger and the other witnesses checked the chair where Marxa had supposedly been tied, they found that the ropes were still in place but the acrobatic medium had managed to slip out of them.   After her performance, she would simply have removed the stocking she was wearing, replaced the inner curtain, and slipped back into the ropes to make it seem as if she had been tied up all along.  

While that was pretty much it for the amazing Marxa, the "Martian racket" continued to draw in gullible customers willing to spend their money on other-worldly hijinks. 

In the same article in which Dunninger exposes Marxa, he also reported on another bizarre scam which he was asked to debunk.   Apparently, a group of financiers sought Dunninger's advice about an "interplanetary motor" that an inventor had reportedly designed in consultation with a spirit medium who claimed to be in contact with the "master minds living on Mars."   Though the financiers were skeptical about the medium's involvement, the inventor had a working model that had been running non-stop for an entire month.   Described by Dunninger as "an intricate collection of cogs, sprockets, and pistons standing on a square sheet of glass, mounted on four glass legs on a large wooden base", the motor reportedly drew its power straight from Mars from a large interplanetary projector located there.  To ensure there was no trickery involved, the financiers had arranged for a team of private detectives to monitor the motor at all times.  Working a 24-hour shift, the detectives verified that the motor had been running constantly and was completely self-contained, with no indication of any external power source.  

Having asked for 24 hours to make his own arrangements, Dunninger and the financiers then returned to the inventor's laboratory.  There, they found the inventor and the medium, who was supposedly translating Martian messages for everyone concerned.   Though the  financiers were ready to close the business deal, Dunninger simply pointed his finger at the motor and, to the amazement of everyone watching, it stopped suddenly.   Taking advantage of his 24-hour grace period,  Dunninger had arranged with the electric company to cut off power to the neighbourhood at a pre-arranged time (which must have taken some convincing).   With the loss of power, the "Martian motor" had suddenly stopped working and the confidence scheme was exposed.   

To avoid prosecution, the two men involved grudgingly revealed how they had pulled off their deception.  One of the glass legs on which the motor rested was actually hollow with a glass rod inside connected to an electric motor hidden underneath.   The status of the interplanetary projector on Mars was not revealed....

The Power of the Placebo

The Siege of Breda is one of the most graphic events of the Eighty Years War (also known as the Dutch War of Independence).   Under the orders of Spanish general Ambrogio Spinola, the walled city of Breda in what is now the Netherlands was besieged by the Spanish army for more than eleven months.   So extreme were conditions inside the town for the 7,000 soldiers defending the town that they soldiers began dying of scurvy due to the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables.   Though curable through simple nutrition, scurvy is potentially deadly for anyone whose diet is low in Vitamin C and the Dutch soldiers were no exception.   Along with problems stemming from malnutrition, the long siege also led to a critical shortage in various medications, including medications for relieving pain (primarily opium and laudanum).   To solve this problem,  the garrison commander Justin of Nassau (a son of William of Orange), hit on a cunning plan.

Working with the city's doctors,  Justin had the doctors provide their patients with a powerful new medicine that he reportedly managed to smuggle in from the mysterious East.   The medicine was so strong that only a few drops in a gallon of water would clear up their symptoms.    The soldiers were impressed that their commander had managed to get them this medicine despite the risks and expense involved.  Except that the "medicine" in this case was nothing more than a mixture of wormwood, camomile, and camphor, carefully placed into small phials which Justin provided to the doctors.  While available reports stated that "they took the medicine eagerly and grew well rapidly", there are likely limits to how well the power of suggestion could work in preventing the symptoms of scurvy. Certainly men continued to die and only 3,500 Dutch soldiers were still alive by the time Justin surrendered the town.  

Though medical doctors had long observed that patient belief had a powerful effect on the body and how they responded to medical treatment, the first formal investigation into what would be called "the placebo effect" would not begin until the early 19th century.   The word "placebo" is Latin for "I will please" and actually comes from a Latin translation of the Bible.   British physician John Haygarth published what would be the first treatise on the placebo effect when he investigated that medical effectiveness of a popular cure of the time known as "Perkins tractors."   Invented by American physician Elisha Perkins, these "tractors" consisted of two 3-inch metal rods made of steel and brass.  By using the tractors to "draw off the noxious electrical fluid that lay at the root of suffering", Perkins claimed to be able to cure a wide variety of illnesses including rheumatism and arthritis.

Even though conventional medical doctors were quick to denounce Perkins' invention as sheer quackery, many patients reported getting significant pain relief from the treatments and John Haygarth decided to investigate further.   Alarmed at the growing popularity of Perkins tractors among his patients in Bath,  Haygarth demonstrated that patients could get the same pain relief from rods made of virtually any substance and that they were unable to tell the difference between fake tractors and the "real" ones.   He also noted that some patients actually got worse instead of better which suggested that imagination could cause as well as cure disease.    What mattered most was the reputation of the doctor (famous doctors were more likely to get positive results than obscure ones) as well as how credulous the patients were.    The best results appeared to come from both the doctor and the patient believing in the power of the medical treatment.    He prophetically commented that: "medical practitioners of good understanding, but of various dispositions of mind, feel different degrees of scepticism in the remedies they employ. One who possesses, with discernment, the largest portion of medical faith, will be undoubtedly of greatest benefit to his patients."

As Haygarth concluded in his 1800 paper Of the Imagination as a Cause and as a Cure of Disorders of the Body,  what really caused pain relief was the belief that patients were getting an apparently effective treatment.     Haygarth concluded in his paper that his results showed "to a degree which has never been suspected, what powerful influence upon diseases is produced by mere imagination".     While his research into the power of  belief would be largely overlooked by medical historians (he is mainly remembered as a pioneer in smallpox inoculation),  he is still the first physician to raise questions about the placebo effect which have haunted discussions of alternative medical treatments ever since.  

At the same time that John Haygarth was making his groundbreaking observations on the power of positive belief in relieving pain, the influence of Franz Mesmer and his disciples was also being felt across Europe and North America.   Despite attempts by skeptics such as Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier to debunk Mesmer's work, mesmerists would ply their trade for decades afterward and physicians were slowly beginning to understand how they were accomplishing their apparently miraculous cures.   

Along with mesmerism, the early 19th century was also seeing a rise of interest in homeopathy.    Based on the "like cures like" doctrine of Samuel Hahnemann, homeopathic practitioners began offering their treatments for various illnesses with only anecdotal evidence from satisfied patients to prove that it even worked.    The first formal clinical trial to test the effectiveness of homeopathic medicine was carried out in Russia in 1832.   Not coincidentally, it was also the first clinical trial to use a placebo in medical research.   Tests comparing homeopathic medicine with placebo pills made of flour paste showed no real difference was found in medical effectiveness.     After publishing these results, the term "placebo effect" became well-known to medical researchers across Europe and North America (though homeopathic medicine seems not to have been seriously derailed by the findings).

In another informal test of the placebo effect, French physician Albert Matthieu informed many of his tuberculosis patients at the Hopital Andral in Paris of a powerful new treatment for tuberculosis that had recently been discovered in Germany.   This new treatment, which he dubbed "antiphymose" was supposed to yield wonderful results in people suffering from tuberculosis and the news quickly spread with patients demanding that the drug be tested on them.   After a time, Matthieu began conducting clinical trials which the drug he had supposedly received from Germany.   All patients receiving antiphymose injections were carefully tested on a regular basis to see if their weight and temperature changed as a result of the new treatment. 

According to the results, antiphymose had a powerful effect on tuberculosis patients receiving the injections.   Not only did the patients gain weight but their chronic fever was reduced as well.  Some gained as much as three kilogrammes of weight while other symptoms such as persistent coughing and insomnia improved as well.    When the antiphymose injections stopped, the old symptoms returned as well and patients quickly lost the weight they had gained before.    Only afterward did Matthieu reveal that there was no such treatment as antiphymose.   What they had received was simply sterilized water and saline.   The record fails to state how the patients responded to being deceived, even in a good cause.

While the placebo effect is an acknowledged part of modern medicine (and the driving force behind most alternative medical treatments), the power of the placebo continues to influence how many patients respond to treatment.    As patients and doctors alike believe that a treatment will work, patients tend to recover faster than they might do otherwise.   When a newer (and more expensive) drug comes out however, the drug it replaces often performs less well in research because doctors are less confident in helping patients.   Research has shown that simply changing the size and colour of a pill can be enough to change its apparent effectiveness. 

But how exactly does the placebo effect work?   Research into using placebos for pain  suggests that increased endorphin levels and reduced cholecystokinin production in the brain may lead to placebo-induced pain relief.    A 1978 study showed that the opioid antagonist naloxone can block endorphins and prevent the placebo effect from occurring.   These results only appear to apply to pain relief however.  

Placebos have been shown to be effective in relieving a wide range of symptoms and the power of belief can also play a role in worsening symptoms as well.   Much like the placebo effect, nocebos (coming from the Latin phrase for "I will harm") can have a powerful effect on health by making many medical conditions worse and may even play a role in "voodoo deaths" linked to curses.   Various proposed explanations for the placebo (and nocebo) effect include suggestion,  operant and classical conditioning, cognitive dissonance, the Hawthorne effect, and expectancy effects though they are all largely based on speculation.  All that we can say  for certain is that the exact mechanism for the placebo effect is (still) unknown.

Is there such a thing as a placebo-responder personality?   While some researchers have attempted to link patient responding to placebos to suggestibility or other personality traits, the  results have been largely inconclusive.   In studies observing how subjects respond to placebos over multiple trials, no consistent pattern has been identified.   In other words,  the same subjects who respond to placebos in one trial may not respond in later trials or vice versa.    It is also difficult to decide exactly what the placebo effect can affect.   Though most research into placebo use focuses on pain relief,  some studies suggest that belief in placebos can accomplish much more, including relieving swelling and changing serum cortisol levels.     The extent to which the placebo effect can relieve symptoms can range from no effect at all to total relief in some cases.

In identifying the different factors that can make placebos effective, researchers have identified the following:

• The nature of the intervention - the more intrusive the intervention, the more effective the placebo effect seems to be.  "Sham surgery" (skin incisions without an actual operation) seems to be at least partially effective in relieving symptoms for most patients receiving it.     Placebo injections also appear more effective than placebo pills.   the more discomfort associated with the sham treatment, the better.    Treatments that are more "exotic", i.e., involving complicated technology or a radical new medical technique also seems to increase the effectiveness of the placebo.
• How credible the one providing the treatment seems -  Doctors with a high degree of status showing strong belief in their treatment are more likely to have a positive effect on their patients.   Also, therapists showing warmth and empathy to their patients will get better results on average.
• Patient expectation -  If the patient is involved in the treatment and has developed a sense of trust in the doctor and the treatment being received, the placebo effect is likely to be stronger.
• The nature of the complaint - Though most placebo research has focused on pain relief, a wide range of other symptoms appear to be affected by belief as well.   Biofeedback research suggests that many physiological functions can be consciously controlled although it is still unknown whether some complaints or disorders may be more "placebo prone" than others.
• The treatment setting -  A 1994 clinical study found that therapeutic setting was the only significant predictor for nocebo effects, i.e., patients in some clinical centres were more likely to experience adverse reactions to a placebo than patients in other centres.   This suggests that even the location where treatment is received may play a role in whether the placebo effect occurs.

It is also important to understand that simply observing patients improving after taking a placebo cannot be considered evidence for a placebo effect at work.    According to Edward Ernst and his colleagues,  evidence for a "true placebo effect" needs to rule out other factors that might be contributing to patients getting better.    This can include natural recovery from illness, regression towards the mean,  patient bias, or other time-related factors that researchers failed to take into account.    In other words, simply seeing a patient improve does not mean that a placebo effect is occurring although  this "perceived placebo effect" is often confused with the real effect.    To make medical research even more complicated, proving that a treatment is really effective means showing that the positive benefits are greater than what could be accounted for by the true and perceived placebo effects. 

As a result, the placebo effect is a part of all medical treatments, whether intended or not.  Many of the factors that make the placebo effect more powerful are also used by caring health professionals to reassure patients and make them more confident that the treatment will be effective.   That same confidence also plays a role in the perceived benefits that patients being treated with alternative medicine often experience and which, in turn, are taken as "proof" of their effectiveness.   Virtually every practitioner of alternative medicine can produce anecdotes provided by apparently grateful clients.   Though these glowing anecdotes can seem convincing to people desperate for a cure,  there are always limits to what can be accomplished by belief alone. 

While there are certainly colourful stories of the placebo effect at work,  relying on placebos to treat patients often invokes a critical problem in medical ethics.  Is it permissible for doctors to lie to their patients, even in a good cause?  And can practitioners of alternative medicine be considered to be providing a valuable service to patients if the placebo effect makes the treatment more effective than it might otherwise be?  

There are still too many unanswered questions about how and why placebos work despite the enormous amount of research that has been done to date.   Though the placebo effect has a long and venerable history, it remains a mystery in many ways.   And perhaps it always will be.

The Medium and the Magnate

It was a marriage made in Heaven, according to the bride at least.   The groom's children thought differently though and what would follow was one of the most bizarre legal battles of the early 20th century.

 When newspapers carried the story that wealthy lumber tycoon Edward Ward Vanderbilt had married Mary "May" Scannell Pepper in June, 1907, nobody was more mortified by the news than Vanderbilt's three children from his first marriage.   Not only had the ceremony been carried out in almost total secrecy, but it was the identity of the bride and how she and the groom had first met that raised their suspicions.  And, given the bride's fame (or notoriety), everyone wanted to get as many details that they could.  For "Bishop" Mary Scannell Pepper (now Pepper-Vanderbilt) was the undisputed queen of New York spiritualists, not to mention the pastor to the First Spiritualist Church of Brooklyn.    Along with her well-attended lectures on spiritualism, she also gave regular readings, both public and private that featured her most famous spirit guide "Little Bright Eyes" (more on that later). 

There's little real information about Mary's early life except that she was born in Massachusetts in 1867.   Her father was a broom-maker and her mother died when  she was young so Mary had little choice but to work in whatever domestic job she could find. Exactly how and when she made the jump into Spiritualism is still unknown but Mary, who had a flair for self-promotion, maintained that her "call" to spiritualism occurred while she was still a teenager and a then-unknown spirit made contact for the first-time.   The spirit (later known as "Little Bright Eyes") was that of a  Native American girl (at least part of the time though the biographical details had a way of changing).   Though Mary reportedly resisted the call, she reconsidered after a while and she and her spirit guides formed a regular association and she was soon on the spiritualist circuit.  During the 1880s, she was married George M. Pepper, who also became her business partner.   The marriage didn't last very long but she would be known to the public as Mary Pepper from that point on.   

By the dawn of the 20th century, her uncanny ability to communicate with spirits and counsel the living earned her a devoted following and numerous prominent Spiritualists insisted that she was a genuine psychic.   This included Isaak Funk (of Funk and Wagnall's fame) and William Usborne Moore (described by Arthur Conan Doyle as "one of the greatest psychic researchers.")   During one performance in 1912 with  a packed Brooklyn auditorium (cost of admission was 25 cents per person),   Mary and "Little Bright Eyes" managed to deliver messages to as many people in the audience as possible.   According to the reporter covering the event, "the spirit of the defunct Indian lassie worked overtime handing out messages to men and women who seemed glad to get them, though at times, their tears and sobs were so evident that the reporter became slightly mixed in deciding that they were glad or sorry."   Along with being a dedicated spirit guide, "Little Bright Eyes" was quite considerate concerning Mary's health.   Her final message for the evening was "There are so many influences in the room that I am getting tired and I do not want to tire Mrs. Vanderbilt too much, but I am not going away yet."   The audience responded to this  particular message with a round of applause.

Granted, she had her share of skeptics as well.  Professional magician Joseph Rinn (a prominent debunker and friend to Harry Houdini) repeatedly challenged Mary to submit to tests of her choosing to prove her powers but she never accepted.  As for other skeptics, Mary, and "Little Bright Eyes",  often showed disdain for them (along with lawyers for some reason) and mocking them because a regular part of her routine. 

 It was through her spiritualism work that she first met Edward Ward  Vanderbilt, in fact.  His wife had been one of Mary's supporters and insisted that she would still be able to communicate him after her death relying on Mary's mediumship.   After his wife's death in 1904, Vanderbilt became a regular attendee of Mary's lectures and was lifted out of his despondency by the messages from his wife provided by "Little Bright Eyes."   As it happens, it was also "Little Bright Eyes" who reportedly encouraged Vanderbilt to propose marriage (after first getting him to buy Mary lavish gifts, including an apartment).   Following their marriage, he signed over his entire fortune to his new wife, something that infuriated Vanderbilt's adult children. Given the bizarre circumstances  surrounding his remarriage, it's probably not surprising that Vanderbilt's children, led by his formidable daughter Minerva, moved to have him declared incompetent.

While the new Mrs. Vanderbilt had initially announced that she would be giving up Spiritualism following her marriage (so that she could study mediumship in Europe),  the competency hearing would put this plan on hold indefinitely.    Instead, she and Edward work together trying to prove that he was mentally competent.  The 1907 competency hearing  would bring Spiritualism into the public light in a way like never before.   Along with basic questions surrounding Edward Ward Vanderbilt's mental state, the court would also explore exactly who Mary Scannell Pepper-Vanderbilt really was, not to mention how she had gained such an influence over Vanderbilt in the first place.   

In the courtroom, Vanderbilt would describe the different sessions during which he communicated with "Little Bright Eyes", including conversations by telephone.   He and Mary also produced letters written by "Little Bright Eyes" and "Mamma" (Vanderbilt's first wife) encouraging him to marry the spiritualist.   As for Mary, she insisted that she had no memory of writing the letters or making the telephone calls since she was in a trance state at the time.   Almost inevitably, stories about Mary's early life surfaced, including prurient details of her earlier marriage, something that led to her frequent absences from court.   Preferring to spend her time at spiritualist camps and giving lectures, the judge had to devote considerable resources to tracking Mary down.   

But it wasn't just Mary and Edward who were on trial.   In a sense, the trial was a test of Spiritualism itself.  One of the expert witnesses given evidence on Edward's mental state made that clear enough.   A prominent neurologist from Long Island State Hospital, he testified that no sane man would be a Spiritualist, something that would have repercussions later on.   Certainly, when the court found Edward Vanderbilt to be mentally incompetent, his attorneys quickly spun the decision as being a matter of religious discrimination and filed an appeal on that basis.  The lengthy appeal process would take years but, eventually, the decision was reversed and Edward's marriage to Mary was declared valid.

If Mary had any hopes of becoming a respected member of New York's high society because of her marriage to Edward, she would be disappointed.   Along with her own high-profile Spiritualist lifestyle, she was also the target of vicious gossip which made her a pariah in the social circles she had hoped to enter.   After Mary's death in Boston on April 28, 1919, Edward remained estranged from his children who only managed to inherit what was left of his fortune after he passed in 1926.  

Did Mary genuinely believe in her own powers or was she a confidence artist manipulating believers as Edward's children long argued?   Within two years of her death, her surviving associates released a book titled, Mary S. Vanderbilt a 20th century Seer.  Though long out of publication, the book represents a last look at a woman who rose from humble beginnings to become the darling of Spiritualist circles across New England.    Whatever else you could say about Mary, she was unique.

 

The Case of Doris Fischer

Long before Sybil and the Three Faces of Eve, there was Doris Fischer and her case is still considered a classic (although little-known these days).

It was in 1910 when she first came to the attention of Walter Franklin Prince, then-rector at an Episcopal church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prince, who was born in 1863, received degrees in theology at Yale and Drew Theological Seminary, and went on to become a prominent psychic researcher and psychotherapist.  . When he met the twenty-one year old "Doris Fischer" in his congregation, she appeared to be an extremely unhappy and lonely individual who was prone to odd mood and behaviour shifts. She also seemed to experience bouts of amnesia in which she would forget what she had previously said or done.

While Prince initially diagnosed her as suffering from hysteria (a common diagnosis for women patients of the time), he carefully studied her and concluded that she matched the clinical description of what was then known as "multiple personality". Over the years in which Prince followed the case, he came to identify at least five different personalities including "Margaret"- a child of about ten, "Sick Doris" who was a perpetual invalid, "Real Doris" whom Prince regarded as the core personality, "Sleeping Real Doris" and "Sleeping Margaret" who only seemed to emerge when Doris was in a hypnotic state. It was "Sleeping Margaret" who seemed to have the best insight into how Doris' different personalities worked together and often helped Prince as he attempted to get to know each personality individually.

Through sessions with "Sleeping Margaret", Prince was able to piece together some of Doris' background. She was born in 1889 of German parents and her father was an alcoholic who frequently abused her. The possibility of sexual abuse was never raised (it was a taboo topic at the time) although it was never ruled out either. It was apparently in her early childhood that "Margaret" first emerged as a defense against the abuse and alternated with "Real Doris". The third personality "Sick Doris" emerged after her mother's death when she was sixteen years old. She reported a total amnesia surrounding the five-year period between her mother's death and when she first began attending Prince's church. "Sleeping Margaret" only emerged once Prince began treating Doris.

Gaining access to Doris became much easier after Prince and his wife formally adopted her as their daughter (not the usual clinical approach, I'll admit). He published a massive 1300-page treatise on his prize patient in 1915 (he named her "Doris Fischer" in his publications although her real name after the adoption was Theodosia Prince). Prince would later publish another thousand-page treatise on the psychic experiments that he did with "Doris" making this case the most well-documented example of multiple personality disorder on record. Over the years that he worked with Doris, Prince was able to reintegrate all of her personalities into "Real Doris" (although "Sleeping Margaret" still resurfaced at times whenever Doris/Theodosia was in hypnosis).

Multiple personality disorder (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder) remains a controversial diagnosis, not to mention fairly rare these days. In my decades as a clinical psychologist dealing with trauma in various forms, I have never run across a case of it and there some researchers who are of the opinion that many reported cases are iatrogenic in nature.

With the Doris Fischer case, the problems seem evident.  First of all, there was a considerable blurring of the relationship between Doris and her therapist. Not only did she become Prince's adoptive daughter but she was also his prize patient (he often introduced visiting clinicians to "Sleeping Margaret") and test subject in different psychic experiments. A later clinician would report that "Doris' love for her adopted father was no ordinary love. She loved him not merely as a devoted daughter, she adored him almost as her God, in that he had saved her from hell and had, one might almost say, given her a soul".

Did Prince's expectations impose demand characteristics that shaped his adopted daughter's reported symptoms? Given the current controversy over recovered memory and the potential impact of directed psychotherapy on suggestible subjects, the possibility seems all too real. Information concerning Doris/Theodosia's later life tends to be scarce although she experienced a relapse following Prince's death in 1934. Aside from the clinical report of the treatment that she received at that time, there seems to be nothing else available (if anyone has more information please let me know).

The Svengali Syndrome

Is it possible for a hypnotist to be guilty of murder if someone dies while hypnotized? 

Though hypnotism had existed in one form or another since ancient times, it was only during the closing years of the 19th century that most people truly became aware of its existence.   Often called "mesmerism" (after Anton Mesmer, the charismatic French huckster who had first introduced "animal magnetism" to entice the gullible), stories of the mysterious control hypnotists had over their subjects became common fodder in newspapers around the world.  While medical researchers such as James Braid and Jean-Martin Charcot were exploring the legitimate uses of hypnosis in treating patients,  "soiree hypnotiques" were often held in private homes where party-goers could be hypnotized for fun.  

Newspaper stories of the bizarre antics being carried out by people under hypnosis also gave rise to hysteria over the potential danger that unscrupulous hypnotists posed to society.   George du Maurier's 1895 novel, Svengali, helped promote this fear with the story of the sinister hypnotist, Svengali, and his domination over the innocent Trilby.   That the book was soon converted into a stage play (and eventually a classic silent movie starring John Barrymore), demonstrated just how frightening the idea of an unscrupulous hypnotist robbing someone of their free will really was.  But the public was still fascinated by the mysterious nature of hypnotism.  Stage acts featuring hypnotists who put members of their audience into a trance were popular across Europe and North America.  Even as medical doctors warned of the potential health risks that came with this kind of stage hypnotism,  audiences still filled theatres to watch hypnosis is action.  

And so it was on November 8, 1909 when a showman/hypnotist who billed himself as "Professor" Arthur Everton began what was to be a week's engagement at the Somerville Theater in Somerville, New Jersey.   As part of the agreement with the theatre, the 35-year-old Everton agreed to provide two hypnotic subjects so one of them could be on display in the theatre window to drum up interest in his performance.   The two subjects were regular members of Everton's act, an older man named Robert Simpson and a younger man named Edward Thompson.

It wasn't a particularly lucrative contract since Everton would only receive $50 for a week's performance.  Then again, Everton wasn't particularly well-off and even had to borrow ten dollars from the theatre manager to cover his immediate expenses as well as those of his two assistants.  Still, the engagement got off to a good start during the opening performance with both subjects performing as requested.  Everton, for his part, looked every bit the showman with a magnificent frock coat, top hat, and an elaborate mustache that added to his air of mystery.

Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the second performance would end in complete disaster.   The theatre manager invited three prominent local doctors to be in the audience including William H. Long, who happened to be the county physician.   In a later interview with a local newspaper, Long would describe what happened next:

"After my office hours last night, I decided to go to the theater and see the work of the hypnotist.  Everton took the subject, Simpson, who had been hypnotized, apparently, stretched him out with his head upon one chair, his feet on another, and commanded him to be rigid.  I watched this performance closely and to all appearances, the subject was in a cataleptic condition.  When the operator [Everton] stepped from a table on the subject's abdomen, there was no yielding of the body.  When Everton stepped down upon the stage again, he told some of the stage assistants to put the subject Simpson on his feet.  This, it appeared, was to be done by lifting the subject's head from the chair and then raising his stiffened body.  But, as the assistants were doing this, I noticed that the subject's body lost rigidity and collapsed, sinking to the floor.  The operator was apparently surprised and shouted to Simpson, "It's all right."  Everton also used his hands in the familiar way, apparently trying to restore the subject to a normal physical condition.  This was without result, however.  Then the subject was dragged off the stage and out of our sight."

Almost immediately afterward, the theatre manager came down and asked the doctors sitting in the audience to help revive Simpson.  Dr. Long and one of his colleagues rushed backstage to find that Simpson had no pulse or heartbeat.   He was then carried to the nearby Waldorf hotel where the two physicians worked on the body to get his heart going again.    After using every method they could think of, including artificial respiration, and strychnine injections, Simpson couldn't be revived and the two physicians finally gave up.

Since Dr. Long was the county medical examiner, it was up to him to contact the police chief and launch an investigation into the death.   Arthur Everton was downright hysterical on being questioned about what happened and continued to insist that Simpson was simply in a hypnotic state.  He was so determined to try waking him up that the police took the precaution of moving the body to the county hospital.  A thorough medical examination at the hospital confirmed that Simpson was really and truly dead, despite Everton's protests.   Pending an autopsy, Arthur Everton was charged with manslaughter and moved to the local jail.

Not that Everton was quite prepared to give up.  While in jail, he begged authorities to allow his friend and mentor, W. E. Davenport, to come prove that Simpson was merely hypnotized.  Davenport,  a Newark civil servant who described himself as a long-time "student of hypnotics", arrived in Somerville with the manager of a theatre where Everton had performed the previous week.  Though not a medical doctor, Davenport was met by Dr. Long and several other doctors who had held off performing the autopsy until they could see what the hypnotist could do.

It must have been a bizarre spectacle with the doctors standing around while Davenport earnestly assured the dead body that he was alive and needed to wake up.   After nothing happened, even Davenport reluctantly concluded that Robert Simpson was indeed dead.   While he broke the news to his distraught friend in jail, Dr. Long and a medical team began preparing for the autopsy which was conducted that evening.  The doctors soon found that Simpson had died of a ruptured aorta linked to his habitual drinking.   Everton and others who knew Simpson reported that the dead man had often spent his evenings hanging out in the local bars (and had likely drunk away his share of the money paid up front for the hypnosis act).    Not that this did Everton much good since he still had to face charges.  

Announcing his intention to fight the manslaughter charge, Everton came up with a rather unique defense, i.e., that Simpson had actually been alive when the doctors conducted their autopsy meaning that they were guilty of killing him.  In the meantime, he managed to be released on $2500 bail and, in a remarkable display of confidence, continued performing his hypnosis act in various cities along the east coast (no word on whether the publicity over the death helped or hindered ticket sales).  Ultimately, what might well have been a fascinating court case was avoided when a grand jury ruled in December that Everton wouldn't be prosecuted for Simpson's death.   Since no medical doctor could be found who would testify that the death had been caused by hypnosis, Everton was free to go.

Arthur Everton largely faded into obscurity after that.  The only other news story I could dig up on him was from 1920 when he was arrested by federal agents who raided his apartment and seized thousands of dollars worth of liquor (Prohibition had just started that year).   Everton told reporters that the agents would have been "powerless" if he had used hypnosis to stop them but he had nobly restrained himself because he was a "law-abiding citizen." 

No word on whether he hypnotized the judge to get him off that charge as well.

Nigerian Father Kills Children Suspected of Witchcraft

A Nigerian man was arrested on Wednesday for poisoning two of his children after he accused them of being witches.  A third child narrowly escaped being killed as well.  Samuel Sunday Otasi, a 42-year-old resident of Nigeria's Bayelsa State, tied his three children to a tree and poisoned them with a common household insecticide.  He was assisted by his younger brother,  Levai Ayah.   While the eldest child, 14-year-old Success managed to survive, the other children, 12-year-old Miracle and 10-year-old Godstime died at the scene.  

According to investigators, Otasi began abusing his children after a prophet told him that the children were responsible for his illness which they had brought about through witchcraft.  The children's mother had divorced Otasi some months earlier and he believed that she had bewitched the children.  Though Otasi denied the allegations and insisted that he had told his brother to return the children unharmed, police said that he had already confessed to the crime.

When interviewed in hospital by reporters, the surviving child, Miracle, told reporters that he had survived because he managed to escape. "My father came to take us from our grandmother and told us that we were going to a church in Yenagoa," he said.   "When we got to the road, he and his brother took us to the bush and tied me and my younger brothers to trees and gave us 'Sniper' pesticide to drink,” he added.   "I managed to come to the road after I used my legs to untie the rope and people saw me and took me to the hospital "  Doctors have since reported that he is responding well to treatment.  

Otasi is receiving support from other villagers who maintain that he was correct to kill the children and that the witchcraft allegations were true.  Belief in witchcraft remains strong in many parts of Africa and the killing of suspected witches continues to occur despite government crackdowns.  

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Searching for the Moon Men

When Galileo first reported on his careful observations of the Moon's surface using the newly developed telescope, fellow astronomers were astonished to learn that the Moon had geographical features that seemed to match the ones on Earth.   Along with mountains, valleys and flat surfaces (which were erroneously assumed to be seas),  various other features could be seen that Johannes Kepler, among others, speculated could be the work of the Moon's inhabitants (who were quickly named "Selenites").  Beginning in the 18th century, astronomers such as Johannes Hevelius and Giovanni Riccioli were already debating whether the Moon was inhabited or not with scientific evidence being used to back up both sides of the argument.

As William Herschel pointed out in a 1780 to fellow astronomer Nevil Maskelyne, "who can say that it is not extremely probable, nay beyond doubt, that there must be inhabitants on the Moon of some kind or another?"   The exact nature of these lunar inhabitants remained a mystery of course since there was no way to get a closer look without much more powerful telescopes.   That didn't prevent "Selenites" from finding their way into the popular consciousness.   Even Emmanuel Swedenborg claimed to have encountered them during his spiritual journeys to the various planets in the solar system (he described them as "small, like children of six or seven years old; at the same time they have the strength of men like ourselves").  Cyrano de Bergerac wrote about the Moon's inhabitants in his book,  L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (The Other World: or the States and Empires of the Moon).   Published in 1657 after his death, it was one of the first true science fiction novels. 

While de Bergerac's novel and Swedenborg's mystical writings did nothing to resolve the question of whether the Moon was inhabited, more credible scientists eagerly weighed in on the controversy.    About the same time, New York journalist R.A. Locke launched his Great Moon Hoax in 1835 with six New York Sun article describing supposedly fantastic discoveries by astronomer John Herschel (probably the best-known astronomer of his time).   That included discoveries of unicorns, bipedal giant beavers, winged humanoids, and other fantastic creatures, all made visible by an "immense telescope of an entirely new principle."    Though the Moon Hoax was exposed just a few weeks later, the speculation over whether the Moon was inhabited seemed as strong as ever. Edgar Allen Poe came out with a tongue-in-cheek Moon hoax of his own at about the same time. 

Though these hoaxes may seem unbelievable now, there was enough scientific speculation about the Moon at the time to make Selenites seem plausible enough.   Along with John Herschel, astronomers such as Johann Hieronymus Schroter provided detailed maps of the Moon's surface, complete with certain features which he attributed to cloud formations.   Shroter also identified large parts of the lunar surface which he assumed were similar to plains on Earth and even suggested traces of a Selenite city.  While the case against lunar life was already strong by the opening of the 19th century, die-hards such as Schoter were still determined to preserve the possibility of Selenites.

Which brings us to the most famous lunar astronomer of his time, at least for a while, Franz von Gruithuisen.  Though trained as a medical doctor,  von Gruithuisen was one of the most prolific astronomers of the 19th century with hundreds of scientific papers and acting as editor to three astronomy journals at the same time.  He was also a keen supporter of Johann Schroter and his Selenites.  In   1821, von Gruithuisen wrote a paper defending Shroter's theories about lunar life and even argued for the existence of lunar lakes and a rarified lunar atmosphere.   In 1824, he published one of his most famous papers, "Discovery of Many Distinct Traces of Lunar Inhabitants, Especially One of Their Colossal Buildings."    Based on various features he had seen on the Moon's surface, including how they changed colour with light,  von Gruithuisen argued for a wide belt of lunar vegetation around the equator extending "55 degrees to the south and 645 degrees to the north."     He also identified lunar crossing sites along which animals migrated.    While von Gruithuisen added a caution that there were limits to what was possible with telescopes, he then described various spots on the Moon's surface which he insisted were roads, walls, fortresses and even cities.    His discovery of a star-shaped structure on the Moon led him to speculate that it could be a temple and that the Selenites had their own religion.

The astounding finds von Gruithuisen reported in his paper attracted attention across Europe.   The fame from his paper was enough to get him appointed professor of astronomy at the University of Munich.   In the meantime, von Gruithuisen wrote other papers arguing for the existence of life on Mercury, Venus and the comets.  He was particularly fascinated with Venus and the "ashen light" previous astronomers had seen on the dark part of the planet.   Not only did he consider this proof of life, but von Gruithuisen argued that these showed that Venusians held enormous "fire festivals" to mark important occasions in the Venusian civilization.

Unfortunately for von Gruithuisen, his findings about the Moon and Venus were not supported by other astronomers with more powerful telescopes.   Carl Friedrich Gauss, the eminent mathematician and astronomer, dismissed von Gruithusen's "mad chatter" and Wilhelm Olbers lamented how his Munich colleague could be taken in by "the power of imagination."   It seems ironic that Gauss would be so skeptical since one popular legend maintains that he had once proposed sending messages to the Moon's inhabitants by creating giant images in the Siberian plains.   Though the story is likely bogus, Gauss was definitely a pluralist as far as life on other planets was concerned.  Still, while many scientists were open to the possibility of lunar life, the evidence von Gruithuisen came up with was hard for skeptics to take seriously.

Olbers, in particular, was especially scathing about what von Gruithuisen was claiming to see.  In an 1824 letter to a fellow astronomer, he wrote: 

"Have you see the representation of Gruithuisen's alleged lunar city and his avenue of trees and his roads in the moon?  The power of imagination of the man is large; but nonetheless what he maintains is a city, even though it has no similarity to such, is surely noteworthy if otherwise his drawing, which I have no reason to doubt, is correct"

Wilhelm Olbers had even more reason to complain as his name and Gauss came to be associated with von Gruithuisen in the popular press due to their own ideas about life on other worlds.    Considering that von Gruithuisen's claims were getting international press at the time, the success of the Great Moon Hoax in 1835 becomes easier to understand.   

But the twilight of the Selenites would arrive soon enough.   In an 1834 lecture, Friedrich Bessel denounced the entire notion of Selenites based on his own observations which showed that the Moon had no atmosphere, which meant it had no water either.  In discussing why the idea of Selenites was so appealing, Bessel suggested that it was due to a romantic preoccupation in finding aliens like ourselves that kept the idea of lunar life alive.    At the same time, more accurate lunar maps became available using far more powerful telescopes than anything von Gruithuisen had.   Needless to say, there was no trace of the lunar buildings and roads that von Gruithuisen had reported.  If anything, the Moon appeared even more airless and lifeless than his critics had suggested.   

As for Franz von Gruithuisen, writing about life on the Moon and Venus largely ruined his scientific credibility despite his incredibly prolific career as an astronomer.  By the time of his death in 1852, he was largely remembered only as an extremely gullible observer who allowed his ideas about life on other worlds to overcome his own training as an observer.   Today, his chief legacy is the tiny lunar  crater  named in his honour.   

Though science abandoned the notion of Selenites, they were not entirely forgotten due to the rising popularity of science fiction.   H.G. Wells featured Selenites his his 1901 novel, The First Men in the Moon,  while Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a series of novels with human-like creatures populating the interior of Earth's moon.    As astrophysicists learned more about lunar conditions however, novels featuring Selenites were largely abandoned in favour of more likely sites for extraterrestrial life such as Mars and Europa.

Such is progress...

Brazilian Psychic Charged with Multiple Counts of Sexual Abuse

In a case already being described as the largest sex abuse scandal in Brazil's history, media superstar and psychic João Teixeira de Faria is facing accusations of sexual harassment and rape from well over five hundred women.   While the identities of most of these women have been hidden by a media blackout, many of the victims have gone public to talk about their encounters with Faria.  Many of their stories describe episodes of inappropriate touching, sexual assault, and being threatened into performing oral sex, often under threats of contracting diseases or of becoming possessed by evil spirits should they try to stop him.  

Public outrage grew after a television talk show about Faria's abuse was broadcast on TV Globo, Brazil's main network television channel, last December 8.   While most of the women interviewed spoke under conditions of anonymity, one woman, Dutch resident Zahira Lienike Mous  openly talked about what happened when she visited Faria's "spiritual healing center",Casa Dom Inácio de Loyola, in the Brazilian state of Goiás. She had been referred to the center by relatives in Brazil for  treatment to deal with a previous sexual trauma. 

In her account, Zahira talked about how betrayed she had felt by Faria.  "[He] opened his pants, put my hand on his penis and started to move it. (…) I was in shock. Meanwhile, he kept talking about my family and told me to smile. (…) Afterwards, he cleaned himself up, took me to his office, opened a cabinet with precious stones and told me to choose the one I liked best. (…) I don’t know how many days after this, he pulled me again to the bathroom. It was a similar pattern, but this time he went a step further and penetrated me from behind."   The other victims shared similar accounts.

Soon after this episode ran, the national magazine Época published ran their own story on Faria with accounts by six victims who reported similar encounters.   In all of the accounts, Faria forced himself on the women making various threats of supernatural retribution for anyone who refused or tried to tell on him afterward.   Almost immediately after the story broke, police issued an arrest warrant after learning that he had tried to transfer the equivalent of 10 million US dollars overseas in an apparent attempt to flee the country.   After a four-day manhunt, he turned himself in though he has yet to be charged and is denying all of the accusations.

Despite having no medical training, Faria first rose to prominence as a "psychic surgeon"  and spiritual healer who has been operating the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola since 1978.  Along with selling various herbal remedies (marketed by a company owned jointly by his wife and driver), he has also traveled extensively to other countries doing healing and became a media darling for North American celebrities such as  Oprah Winfrey.   Ironically, he required conventional surgery for a malignant tumour in 2015 (something he kept hidden at the time to preserve his mystique as a spiritual healer).   While prominent skeptics such as James Randi have attempted to debunk Faria's claims, his popularity remained undiminished, after as early claims about sexual abuse of patients continued to be heard.

While Faria is currently housed in a special prison facility, his lawyers have been actively engage in discrediting his accusers.   For example, Zahira Lienike Mous has been accused of being an ex-prostitute with a "history of extortions."  In the meantime, police have yet to lay charges as their investigation is still proceeding.  Additional charges may also be laid against staff at Faria's Center if the investigation determines that they assisted in the assaults.  As for Brazilian society as a whole, there seems to be an enormous groundswell of support for Faria's victims and a sharp break from Brazil's machismo history. 

As feminist activist Antônia Pellegrino wrote in an Instagram post, the country is witnessing the "biggest silence break in its history.”   She also added that, "As of today, 330 women have united to denounce the same man. For harassment, rape, pedophilia, incest all committed over the course of decades. Decades during which every one of them kept silent, was discredited or threatened with death. Those 330 women are not crazy, liars or jealous. They are victims. Victims of a powerful man who used the name of God as his last name. They are victims of centuries of silencing. But women’s time has come. Empowered by all the testimonies that came before, in Brazil and around the world, they have decided to unite and speak up. It’s time to investigate and punish whoever has to be punished. It’s time for justice. Congratulations for the courage of all the women involved in this historic breaking of silence. We are with you."

UK Court Awards Damages in Bizarre "Owl Phobia" Exorcism Case

A U.K. woman reporting lingering psychological problems from the religion-based treatment recommended by her physician has been awarded more than $16,000 in a damage claim.   Sally Brayshaw, a 54-year-old Staffordshire resident, stated that her problems with the plaintiff,  Dr. Thomas O'Brien, began in 2012 when she first saw him due to post-operative pain.   Though he offered her a way of "healing without medication", Ms. Brayshaw agreed because, as she told the judge, "I thought he meant acupuncture or something like that,"

Apparently guided by his own Pentecostal beliefs, Dr. O'Brien subjected his patient to months of religious indoctrination, including taking her to religious services, giving her gifts of a religious nature, and setting her television to the Gospel channel to "soak her in religious content."    On one occasion, the plaintiff took Ms. Brayshaw to a religious service during which the preacher told a disturbing story about a witchdoctor sacrificing an owl.   In describing this meeting, Brayshaw stated that "O'Brien asked me to come to the front of the room to heal me and Percy (the preacher) asked me to hold my hands out as I could pass out," she said.  "Percy blew on me and was commanding demons to leave my body. I let out a roar...there were nearly 100 people there at the testimony and it was played on the TV screen in the building."

As she further added in her testimony, Ms. Brayshaw (who was raised as a Catholic) was so traumatized by her experience that she becomes terrified whenever she sees a picture of an owl.  She is also reporting ongoing problems with depression and anxiety symptoms due to what she described as prolonged emotional abuse from Dr. O'Brien, his wife, and several other members of the Freedom in Christ ministry.   While her husband and other members of her family were suspicious of the treatment she was receiving, they "put up with it" due to Dr. O'Brien's medical background.   It was only after Ms. Brayshaw saw a psychiatrist (which Dr. O'Brien repeatedly advised her against) that the full extent of the abuse was revealed. 

While freedom of religion is enshrined in U.K. law, the General Medical Council has already investigated Dr. O'Brien and he was struck off the register in 2015.   In awarding damages, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Martin Spencer, stated that it was "foreseeable" for the plaintiff to "react adversely" to the religious indoctrination she received.  He also added that, "By reason of his zealous promotion of the religious aspects, [Dr O'Brien] became blind to the medical aspects and thereby caused or contributed to the deterioration in the claimant's mental health."

While O'Brien did not appear in court and his whereabouts are currently unknown, the court also ruled that the medical clinic where he had practiced is not liable.

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Alfred Russel Wallace and The Vaccination Wars

Although Jenny McCarthy and her fellow anti-vaccinationists still wage their very public crusade against vaccination, there's nothing really new about their arguments. Opposition to vaccination is as old as vaccination itself.

Smallpox was once one of the most devastating and feared diseases in history. As recently as the 18th century, frequent outbreaks killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year and left many survivors disfigured. Especially dangerous in children, 80% of those who contracted smallpox died of the disease. When Lady Ashley Wortley Montague arranged for her son and daughter to be inoculated against smallpox in 1717 (the practice was common in Asia but was unknown in Europe), she had no idea of the storm she would unleash as a result. Although early opposition to inoculation had a valid basis (patients undergoing the first inoculation technique, also known as variolation, had an estimated 3 percent chance of developing serious complications), much of the resistance came from religious leaders. In a July 8, 1722 lecture by Edmund Massey at St. Andrew's Church in Holborn, England, he based his sermon on a passage from the Book of Job, "So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with boils, from the sole of his foot, unto his crown". Massey argued that the Biblical disease in question was smallpox and added, "With this view, I will not scruple to call it a diabolical operation, usurping an authority founded neither in nature or religion. This practice also tends to support vice and immorality, inasmuch as it diminishes the salutary terror which prevails respecting the uncertain approach of this disease".  In other words, being afraid of smallpox built character.

Although Edward Jenner's discovery of vaccination meant a safer alternative to variolation, it would still take many years for vaccination to be widely accepted. In 1840, the British Parliament passed the first Vaccination Act which banned variolation. The Act also gave local boards the power to vaccinate everyone in their districts but still allowed individual objectors to refuse. While vaccination campaigns led to a dramatic drop in smallpox cases, outbreaks continued to occur (especially in the growing city slums). Following pressure from medical authorities, Parliament amended the act in 1853 to make vaccination compulsory. Not only were all newborns required to be vaccinated within the first three months of life but any parent refusing to comply was fined. By 1867, the law became even more stringent with parents being prosecuted for refusing to have their children vaccinated.

It was these stringent laws that inspired the development of the anti-vaccination movement in the 1870s. One of the leading figures in the movement was William Tebb who co-founded the London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination in 1880 (it later became the National Anti-vaccination League in 1896). A lifelong firebrand, Tebb had been prosecuted thirteen times for refusing to vaccinate his third daughter. Along with his supporters, Tebb pushed for the abolition of the Vaccination Act and an end to compulsory vaccination in the UK and abroad. Realizing that the movement needed an eminent scientist to support the anti-vaccination cause, Tebb recruited an unlikely champion: Alfred Russel Wallace.

Although Wallace was already famous for his role in the development of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, his willingness to take on unpopular causes had earned him considerable notoriety as well. Wallace had not always been an anti-vaccinationist (his earlier writings praised Edward Jenner as a medical pioneer and he had his own children vaccinated) but his involvement with Spiritualism brought him into regular contact with anti-vaccinationists (especially Tebb). It was Tebb who persuaded Wallace to join the movement by presenting him with statistics that he had compiled concerning the risks associated with vaccination. Whether due to the statistics or his own concerns about the basic infringements on individual freedom resulting from the Vaccination Act, Wallace became a convert to the cause sometime in the early 1880s.

In fairness to Wallace, there was probably was some basis for his skepticism. At the time, nobody knew exactly why vaccination worked. Despite Louis Pasteur's research and the recent acceptance of the germ theory of disease, the science of immunology was still in its infancy. The fact that medical authorities were eagerly pushing for something that the anti-vaccinationists were condemning as "quackery" and prosecuted parents who refused to comply was enough for Wallace to get involved. Working with the statistics that Tebb provided, Wallace began his own research into vaccination and the government statistics on smallpox and vaccination. He also attempted to link incidence of smallpox to more general issues of sanitation.

While the Public Health Act of 1848 began to improve living conditions in most slums, progress remained slow and health problems related to sewage and industrial waste were still common. Wallace and his fellow anti-vaccinationists argued that smallpox and other infectious diseases were actually caused by contamination and that vaccination was likely dangerous in itself. There was (if you'll pardon the expression) a germ of truth in that since there was no generally accepted antiseptic guidelines in vaccinating children and doctors often reused the same needles on their patients. Wallace also argued that there were no controlled experiments showing how long the protection from vaccination lasted.

All of Wallace's findings were written up in a tract titled Forty-five Years of Registration Statistics, Proving Vaccination To Be Both Useless and Dangerous.Published in early 1885, Wallace compiled statistics from across Great Britain and continental Europe (where compulsory vaccination laws were also in place).  Not limiting himself to smallpox, Wallace examined incidence patterns for diptheria, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough (pertussis). He concluded that vaccination did more harm than good and that public sanitation played a greater role in disease prevention. Almost immediately, Wallace came under attack by physicians who were horrified that a scientist of Wallace's reputation would side with the anti-vaccinationists. The fact that popular opinion was turning against mandatory vaccination (helped along by graphic stories of conscientious objectors being arrested), added to the pressure for changing the vaccination laws.

In 1889, the British government appointed a Royal Commission to evaluate mandatory vaccination policies. While Wallace turned down an offer to sit on the Commission himself, he appeared as the anti-vaccinationists' star witness. The fifteen members of the Commission included some of the prominent British physicians of that time (most of whom were pro-vaccinationists which outraged Tebb and the others). The Commissions members held twenty-one meetings in 1890 and examined ten witnesses (mostly anti-vaccinationists). Wallace appeared four times before the commission and presented all of his graphs and statistics. While the commission members were initially impressed by Wallace's testimony, that changed after they had a chance to evaluate his findings more carefully.

Wallace's statistics seemed impressive but the committee members found numerous errors that seemed unworthy of someone of Wallace's reputation. Not only did Wallace and his fellow anti-vaccinationists ignore statistics that failed to support their view but many of the statistical tables were highly selective (doubly embarrassing since Wallace had accused the pro-vaccinationists of doing the same thing). Wallace was caught off-guard by the findings and was forced to admit that many of the statistics that he had presented were worthless.  While he continued to argue that sanitation was more important than vaccination, Wallace's credibility had been severely undermined by the time he concluded his testimony. Anti-vaccination activists defended Wallace throughout the entire process and accused the commission of being biased in favour of the pro-vaccinationists. One source commented that, "Dr Wallace stood an examination which proved, if nothing else, that anyone who gives anti-vaccination evidence before this commission must be prepared to keep his temper through insults which most would resent and which few would indulge".

Although the Commission issued a preliminary report in December 1890, the final report wouldn't come out until six years later. After the final report, Wallace published his most scathing pamphlet yet on the Commission's findings. Titled "Vaccination a Delusion; Its Penal Enforcement a Crime: Proved by the Official Evidence in the Reports of the Royal Commission", Wallace accused the Commission's final report as being "not only weak, misleading, inadequate but is also palpably one-sided". His critics reacted as expected and accused Wallace of simply restating all of his old arguments without providing any new evidence. Still, his crusade had some impact and the Commission's report led to changes in compulsory vaccination (penalties for noncompliance were reduced) and adoption of less risky methods of inoculation.

Wallace was hardly satisfied.  He continued to write anti-vaccinationist pamphlets until his death in 1913. As one of the most well-known scientists of his generation, he lent an air of respect to the anti-vaccination crusade that it never had since. In one of the last pamphlets that he wrote for the Anti-Vaccination League in 1904, he said that "the figures go increasing and decreasing so suddenly and irregularly that by taking a few years at one period, and a few at another, you can show an increase or decrease according to what you wish to prove".  Most of the arguments that he raised against vaccination are still being used by anti-vaccinationists today. Even in the 20th century, anti-vaccination societies continued to proliferate and attracted numerous "star" supporters including Wallace and George Bernard Shaw (who wrote that vaccination was "a particularly filthy piece of witchcraft"), as well as health faddists, anti-vivisectionists, trade unionists, etc.

While compulsory vaccination was eventually phased out in Britain with the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948, it still remains a thorny issue in many other countries today. The aggressive spread of vaccination campaigns across the world (in combination of containment of known cases) led to a drastic reduction in many communicable diseases for which vaccines are available. Although 50 million cases of smallpox were recorded world-wide in the 1950s, the last naturally occurring case of smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977 and the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated three years later. Despite equally aggressive vaccination campaigns for other diseases, the World Health Organization missed its target date of 2000 for the eradication of polio (although the campaign is still underway). Whether similar victories will be possible with measles, diphtheria, and other diseases largely depends on the success of current vaccination campaigns and the role that anti-vaccinationists will play in opposing them. There's also the fundamental question of why children in many Third World countries are still dying of diseases that are supposedly preventable through the use of vaccines.

The autism-vaccination link may only be the latest development but the basic arguments seem pretty much the same as ever. The battle continues.