File talk:A man with a ninety-pound tumor (8616815122).jpg

The "original" item for this file

This pen-drawn image was taken from the unique (four volume) resource that is widely known today as "Purland's Scrapbooks", that is held in the collection of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Health & Human Services,

The "Scrapbooks" contain an extraordinary series of items accumulated, over time, for his own use, by Theodosius Purland (1805-1881) (see [1]) -- a London surgeon-dentist, and eminent numismatist -- that are, in many cases, the only known copies of particular documents related in some way to 'mesmerism" and "animal magnetism": such as, just for one example, M‘Neile, H., "Satanic Agency and Mesmerism; A Sermon Preached at St Jude's Church, Liverpool, by the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, M.A., on the Evening of Sunday, 10 April 1842", The Penny Pulpit: A Collection of Accurately-Reported Sermons by the Most Eminent Ministers of Various Denominations, Nos.599–600, (1842), pp.141–152 (see [2]).

Given that the image's content, appearance, description, and presentation match that of the third illustrative plate appended to Esdaile, J. (1856), The Introduction of Mesmerism (with the Sanction of the Government) as an Anaesthetic and Curative Agent into the Hospitals of India (Second Edition), London: W. Kent & Co. -- i.e., [3] -- and given the obviously "less-polished" state of this image, and given the additional "embellishments" surrounding the bottom half of the image, the inescapable conclusion is that the pen-drawing (and the handwritten descriptions appended to it) were was made by Purland, himself, and taken directly from Esdaile's publication, for Purland's own future reference.

Thus, although, in one sense, the "original image" is most definitely Purland's unique and highly (historically) significant pen-drawing, in another sense, it is a "derivative" -- given that the "original" (of which this is an imperfect rendering) is the illustration in Esdaile's (1856) work.Lindsay658 (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2021 (UTC)