Henry Wentworth Acland to Faraday   17 October 1850

My dear Sir,

I scarce know whether, (if you remember my existence here,) that remembrance will justify me in troubling you; the more as I expect you will consider my Question an idle one.

My chief avocation is that of a humble Physician but I am dragged out of the routine of the medical life (if indeed the observation of Human disease allows routine at all) by my Physiological lectures.

And these two twin avocations often lead me of course to reflect on the causes & influences which produce the varied effects seen in our frames. In short one’s mind cannot be kept off the consideration of how very little we really know of the relation between the greater Cosmical arrangements, and organic life. I really cannot, (for instance) speak precisely of the amount of humidity which is good for my Consumptive Patient. The Dewpoint, & the Temperature varies perpetually, so does he. He alters in weight & chemical composition before & after every meal, and at every hour - so does the atmosphere in its water, its Electrical state &c.

Now, I have I fear neither knowledge, skill, or leisure to clear up any of what we do not know, or to understand & master half of what is known, and mainly thro’ your means; but I have a great fancy for seeing in my minutes of leisure (if I can) something of the workings of the great Atmospheric sea. I live in the middle of the Town - and I should like to know what goes on where I & other people live. I have a little garden - as big as a room with every aspect. I can therefore have and have Barometer, Thermometer, and Hygrometer. But I am utterly in the dark about the Magnetic, & Electrical states. This is what I wanted to ask you very kindly to tell me. Is there means of watching any thing of these, without costly instruments, and a special observatory? and much time & labour?

I must own that I am not ‘au courant’ with all that is known of the relation of the great Imponderable agents and our Nervous system, & therefore all our faculties of body & mind - but most certainly more has to be understood about this, and one’s mind reels in the contemplation of even what we perceive of the at once greatness, & simplicity of the connexion which probably exists between our mind & the material universe thro’ the subtle powers which surround the Earth.

I fear you will think me very impertinent, or very stupid - or both. But I must plead my distance from London as excuse for my backwardness.

If you are kind enough to answer my question will you tell me what instruments I could easily manage for observing the Magnetic, & Electric variations - & where I can get them - or whether this is so delicate a matter that it is useless to meddle with it, except by reading results. And is there any way that one can note or measure one’s own condition in these respects? I suspect that sleep has something to do with the Electro-magnetic condition of the body: only, I beseech you not to think me a Mesmerist in ‘disguise’, but only,

Your faithful servant | Hy.W. Acland

Oxford, Oct: 17, 1850