The Air Loom
by Mike Jay
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image of the Air Loom
and article on Matthews at Wikipedia
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Illustrations of madness: Exhibiting a singular Case of Insanity, and a No Less Remarkable Difference in Medical Opinions: Developing the Nature of An Assailment, And the Manner of Working events; with A Description of the Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking, and Lengthening the Brain. Embellished with a Curious Plate.
by John Haslam
full text online at
Catalogue of the Historical Medical Digital Library
of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
(link Brown University)
-
Influencing Machines
Reading and Resources
Gender and the Idea of the Machine
Dr Laura Salisbury
Birkbeck College
University of London
For everyone who has since had messages beamed at them through fillings, mysterious implants or TV sets, or via hi-tech surveillance, MI5, Masonic lodges or UFOs, James Tilly Matthews is Patient Zero.The Air Loom Gang
Matthews was convinced that outside the grounds of Bedlam, in a basement cellar by London Wall, a gang of villains were controlling and tormenting his mind with diabolical rays. They were using a machine called an 'Air Loom', of which Matthews was able to draw immaculate technical diagrams, and which combined recent developments in gas chemistry with the strange force of animal magnetism, or mesmerism. It incorporated keys, levers, barrels, batteries, sails, brass retorts and magnetic fluid, and worked by directing and modulating magnetically charged air currents, rather as the stops of an organ modulate its tones. It ran on a mixture of foul substances, including 'spermatic-animal-seminal rays', 'effluvia of dogs' and 'putrid human breath', and its discharges of magnetic fluid were focused to deliver thoughts, feelings and sensations directly into Matthews' brain. There were many of these mind-control settings, all classified by vivid names: 'fluid locking', 'stone making', 'thigh talking', 'lobster-cracking', 'bomb-bursting', and the dreaded 'brain-saying', whereby thoughts were forced into his brain against his will. To facilitate this process, the gang had implanted a magnet into his head.
by Mike Jay
-
image of the Air Loom
and article on Matthews at Wikipedia
-
Illustrations of madness: Exhibiting a singular Case of Insanity, and a No Less Remarkable Difference in Medical Opinions: Developing the Nature of An Assailment, And the Manner of Working events; with A Description of the Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking, and Lengthening the Brain. Embellished with a Curious Plate.
by John Haslam
full text online at
Catalogue of the Historical Medical Digital Library
of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
(link Brown University)
-
Influencing Machines
Reading and Resources
Gender and the Idea of the Machine
Dr Laura Salisbury
Birkbeck College
University of London
