Elizabeth Gaskell and mesmerism: an unpublished letter.

The work of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) is not often seen as a source for the student of medical history. However, the picture of her as a undemanding writer dealing primarily with domestic life found in Lord David Cecil's Early Victorian novelists' has now largely been replaced by an approach that recognizes her engagement with the wider social issues of mid-nineteenth century England. Critical focus in this reassessment was initially upon issues arising from economics,2 or rather, her treatment of the apparent opposition between economic "laws" and Christian charity (the dominant theme in her "Condition of England" novels, Mary Barton (1848) and North and south (1855)). Recent work has increasingly focused upon her treatment of the role of women, and upon her dual role as supportive Victorian wife and creative force in her own right, with the implied potential for conflict between these two.3 In the process of this reassessment details have emerged to suggest that, while medicine and science are not major themes in her fiction-where medical men or scientists occur in her work, her focus is in general upon their social position in a small close-knit society such as that of Cranford-it would be a mistake to assume her to be ignorant of contemporary debate in these areas. As various studies have pointed out, as a Unitarian she belonged to a tradition that saw reason and scientific experiment as instruments in the revelation of God's creation4 and in the figure of Job Legh, the amateur naturalist in Mary