James_Braid,_portrait

September 17, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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James Braid Scottish Surgeon and Scientist James Braid (19 June 1795 – 25 March 1860) was a Scottish surgeon and "gentleman scientist". He was a significant innovator in the treatment of club-foot and an important and influential pioneer of hypnotism and hypnotherapy. He is regarded by many as the first genuine "hypnotherapist" and the "Father of Modern Hypnotism". Although Braid believed that hypnotic suggestion was a valuable remedy in functional nervous disorders, he did not regard it as a rival to other forms of treatment, nor wish in any way to separate its practice from that of medicine in general. He held that whoever talked of a "universal remedy" was either a fool or a knave: similar diseases often arose from opposite pathological conditions, and the treatment ought to be varied accordingly. — John Milne Bramwell (1910). Family Braid was the third son, and the seventh and youngest child, of James Braid (c1761-184?) and Anne Suttie (c.1761-?). He was born at Ryelaw House, in the parish of Portmoak, Kinross, Scotland on 19 June 1795. On 17 November 1813, at the age of 18, Braid married Margaret Mason (1792–1869), aged 21, the daughter of Robert Mason (?-1813) and Helen Mason, née Smith. They had four children, all of whom were born at Leadhills in Lanarkshire. Two died in their infancy: James Braid (born 1816) and Charles Anderson Braid (born 1818). Two survived: Anne Daniel, née Braid (1820–1881), and James Braid (1822–1882). Education, etc. Braid was apprenticed to the Leith surgeons Thomas and Charles Anderson (i.e., both father and son). As part of that apprenticeship, Braid also attended the University of Edinburgh from 1812–1814, where he was also influenced by Thomas Brown, M.D. (1778—1820), who held the chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh from 1808 to 1820. Braid obtained the diploma of the Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of the City of Edinburgh, the Lic.R.C.S. (Edin), in 1815, which entitled him to refer to himself as a member of the college (rather than a fellow). Braid was appointed surgeon to Lord Hopetoun's mines at Leadhills, Lanarkshire, in 1816; and in 1825 he set up in private practice at Dumfries. One of his Dumfries' patients, Alexander Petty (1778–1864), a Scot, employed as a traveller for Scarr, Petty and Swain, a firm of Manchester tailors, invited Braid to move his practice to Manchester, England. Braid moved to Manchester in 1828, continuing to practise from there until his death in 1860. Braid was a member of both the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, A Corresponding Member Member of both the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh (in 1824), and the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh (in 1854), a Member of the Manchester Athenæum, and the Honorary Curator of the museum of the Manchester Natural History Society. Surgeon Braid was a highly skilled and very successful surgeon, educated at Edinburgh University, and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (M.R.C.S.). And though he was best known in the medical world for his theory and practice of hypnotism, he had also obtained wonderfully successful results by operation in cases of club foot and other deformities, which brought him patients from every part of the kingdom. Up to 1841 he had operated on 262 cases of talipes, 700 cases of strabismus, and 23 cases of spinal curvature." Go to Wikipedia for full History.

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