Oscar Wilde,Music, and the ‘Opium-Tainted Cigarette’: Disinterested Dandies and Critical Play

This article shows how the musical references in Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray are important to the identity of the dandy, especially in relation to the literary-critical work of Matthew Arnold, whose guiding presence in Wilde's oeuvre has traditionally been somewhat underestimated. Wilde's male characters, although famously fond of music, reveal ‘disinterestedness’ in earnest musical pursuits, similar to the ‘Indian virtue of detachment’ outlined by Arnold in his exploration of ‘The Function of Criticism at the Present Time’ (1864, in Arnold, Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings, ed. by Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 26–51). Furthermore, the critical attitude of the dandy–aesthete intersects with the implications that we can read into the posture of the lounging opium smoker. Extensive scholarship has already established the relationship between the East and opium in fictional works by Thomas de Quincey, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. Music is an essential ingredient to this literature, too, both in terms of its narrative presence and because it is a key element in an ongoing, nineteenth-century British exploration of how stylistic innovations could be represented as ‘music’. After disclosing the close connections between dandyism and those nineteenth-century composers whose lives and works were often represented as dandyish (Berlioz, Chopin and Schumann), the essay builds from the tradition of opium-inspired fiction. It suggests Wilde's debt to Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), while also showing Wilde's innovations in making shifts in character and narrative voice into indicators of narcotic consumption.     

Earthquakes and Petticoats: Maria Graham,Geology, and Early Nineteenth-Century ‘Polite’ Science

Re-visiting the controversy caused by the first female-authored report in the Transactions of the Geological Society, this article probes the gendered layers of the early nineteenth-century scientific community. Maria Graham's ‘Account of Some Effects of the Late Earthquakes in Chili [sic]’ (1824) had considerable influence, and was referred to by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. In 1834, however, George Greenough, President of the Geological Society, questioned the accuracy of Graham's observations. Graham in turn defended herself adroitly, in an acrimonious exchange which found an international audience. While this dispute has received some attention from historians of science, previous discussions assume that Graham was no geologist, but simply a traveller who witnessed events of great relevance to contemporary geology. Drawing on extensive archival research, this article demonstrates to the contrary that Graham had considerable interest and expertise in this branch of science. Using the dispute to shed light on the multiple milieux in which early nineteenth-century science took place, it explores the constraints and opportunities faced by women with scientific interests, and the rhetorical strategies required of them, as they negotiated the diverse modes of contemporary science. It also highlights little-known networks of friendship, correspondence and intellectual exchange between scientifically minded women.     

Benjamin Franklin,Georges‐louis le rouge and the Franklin/Folger chart of the gulf stream

Abstract: While in Paris as minister to the French court, Benjamin Franklin arranged for the production of a French version of his famous chart of the Gulf Stream, which had been based on a sketch by Timothy Folger and first printed in London c. February, 1769. This paper recounts Franklin's collaboration with the Parisian cartographer Georges‐Louis Le Rouge from their first meeting in 1780, and pieces together the history of the Le Rouge chart. Two open questions have been when the chart was engraved, and whether its purpose was primarily military, commercial or scientific. Evidence suggests that it was produced for French merchant and packet captains in the months following the end of the American War of Independence.     

The development and evolution of “cerebral thermometry”: Clinical applications of a nineteenth-century approach to cerebral localization and neurological diagnosis

ABSTRACT

Surface thermometers were developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1877, Broca, already famous for his contributions to the cerebral localization of nonfluent aphasia, presented his first clinical observations on cranial surface temperatures: In two cases, cranial surface temperatures were decreased over a middle cerebral artery infarction, and increased in surrounding areas, which Broca attributed to “compensatory hyperaemia.” As Broca made apparent in a later report in 1879, he had used a “thermometric crown,” an apparatus consisting of six to eight large-reservoir mercury thermometers strapped against the head. Following Broca’s report, American neurologists reported cases in which cranial surface temperatures were increased either locally over a superficial brain tumor or globally with a cerebral abscess. Despite promising anecdotal reports, contemporaries recognized that significant technical and practical problems limited its accuracy, reliability, and clinical utility. Advocates never demonstrated that this technology provided significant marginal benefit to the medical history and physical examination. The technique fell out of fashion before 1900, though some early advocates promoted it into the early twentieth century. It was ultimately replaced by more effective technologies for cerebral localization and neurological diagnosis.