Bedford Square: A connexion with mesmerism
Nine Bedford Square has now been established as a Centre for Anaesthesia. It is a town house of considerable merit in the first square to have been planned on the London estate of the fifth Duke of Bedford. Built between 1775 and 1780, it is now the last complete Georgian square in Bloomsbury. This brief note on the history of Bedford Square shows that this part of London was prominent in nineteenth century medicine and, in particular, was involved in the early practice of mesmerism in this country. The place of mesmerism in the evolution of anaesthesia is restated and attention is drawn to the extraordinary coincidence that the new home that has been chosen for the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland should be in an area which already has connexions with anaesthesia through mesmerism. Copyright © 1986, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved