Edward B. Foote’s *Plain Home Talk* (1896 edition) — The Public Domain Review

If his social messages were prescient, Foote’s science reflects his era’s limitations. His medical exposition is unified by a theory of “animal electricity”, a force that energizes the human body and leaks from its pores. Electricity provides a helpful metaphor for his lay reader’s understanding of physiology: “the nerves telegraphic wires / how the mind sends its telegrams . . . the brain a reservoir of electricity / the stomach a galvanic battery”. But Foote was also a staunch believer in the power of hypnotism and mesmerism, and in the healing power of “magnetism”. His conviction in the vital power of animal electricity is also the reason for his peculiar disapproval of bed sharing, whether between husband and wife or between the old and the young. “Children, compared with adults, are electrically in a positive condition”, explains Foote. “But when, by contact for long nights with elder and negative persons, the vitalizing electricity of their tender organization is given off, they soon pine, grow pale, languid, and dull, while their bed companions feel a corresponding invigoration.” Electricity, for Foote, is apparently a zero-sum game.