Victorian physiology and mesmerism

Herbert Mayo

1796 – 1852

Herbert Mayo was an English surgeon and Professor of Physiological and Pathological Anatomy at King's College, London, who championed mesmerism and invited French animal magnetism proponent Baron Dupotet to demonstrate at Middlesex Hospital, placing himself at the center of the early Victorian debate over the scientific status of animal magnetism. His On the Truths Contained in Popular Superstitions (1851) examined somnambulism, vampirism, witchcraft, and ghost beliefs through a physiological and mesmeric lens, arguing that many supernatural reports could be explained by the action of the nervous system. His willingness to take folk supernatural beliefs seriously as data made his work a bridge between Victorian science and the study of occult phenomena.