New Sandow Documentary!

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of speaking with Marcus Kment of Barbell Films about Eugen Sandow’s Curative Institute of Physical Culture. Marcus has previously made just a wonderful short film about Sandow’s 1901 documentary that is a thing of beauty to watch. For those who don’t know, Sandow created a series of personal training gyms in the late 1890s which eventually evolved into a ‘Curative Institute of Physical Culture.’ At his Curative Institute Sandow claimed to have cured thousands of illnesses, including cancer, without medicine. Exercise and diet alone worked. Not only that, he claimed to have a 99% success rate.

Research Paper on Sandow’s Institute

In 2022 I published an article on the rise and fall of Sandow’s Curative Institute in the Social History of Medicine journal. I’m usually too lazy (forgive me dear reader) to post my academic articles, preferring instead to let them gather dust behind paywalls (I don’t get a dime). But here we are

 

Men and women have travelled from the most distant parts of the world, sparing no expense, to secure Mr. Sandow’s opinion on the case.¹

    The Daily News, 1910.

The Sandow Curative System is a form of physical education whereby every part of the body is properly exercised, developed and made healthy; the willpower increased; the various organs brought to and maintained in a health conditions and the individual made physically perfect ….²

    Eugen Sandow, 1900.

 

In 1897, Eugen Sandow, a man deemed the ‘World’s most perfectly developed specimen’ by Harvard educationalist Dudley Allen Sergeant, opened a physical culture institute on St. James Street, London. That a strongman opened a health institute, in this case a glorified gymnasium, is perhaps unsurprising given the obvious overlap between exercise and health. Sandow’s Institute, however, soon marked itself as an entirely new undertaking. In 1907, Sandow morphed his physical culture institute into a ‘Curative Institute’ said to heal patients through exercise alone. In one fell swoop, Sandow pivoted from improving strength and fitness to the treatment of cancers, stomach disorders, mental afflictions and a host of other ailments. Despite his suspect method, Sandow claimed to have ‘cured’ thousands from Great Britain and further afield by 1919.³ As a strongman with no discernible medical training, Sandow’s successes stemmed from his celebrity as well as his ability to co-opt medical terms and medical knowledge for his own benefit. Sandow’s company was very much part of a medical marketplace dictated by market forces, consumer power and the physician’s need to be self-enterprising.⁴ Existing at a time when Britain’s medical authorities were only beginning to censure advertising and limit medical capitalism, Sandow’s Institute thrived.⁵ Equipped with its own in-house physicians, the Institute enjoyed endorsements from well-known celebrities, registered medical professionals, politicians, journalists and even monarchs. That Sandow claimed a success rate greater than 90 per cent in all cases further marked the incredulity of his enterprise.⁶

In one sense, Sandow’s Institute could be seen as a continuation of the unorthodox and quack medicines that dated to at least the eighteenth century in Great Britain. From the examples found in Roy Porter’s foundational work on ‘quacks’ to more recent studies conducted by John Haller, historians have routinely discussed the methods, controversies and successes of those whose expertise was often outside, or in opposition to, orthodox medicine.⁷ Similarly, in the American context, a great deal of attention has been placed on those unorthodox practitioners, including Sandow’s contemporaries, who utilised their celebrity and publishing power to attack orthodox medicines.⁸ Sandow could, at first glance, been seen as just another alternative practitioner. His Institute heavily criticised the use of drugs, purgatives and ‘unnecessary’ medical interventions supposedly used by many physicians. Sandow’s treatments, especially those concerning cancers and organ disorders had little medical backing. Likewise Sandow’s writings on health often relied on quasi-esoteric understandings of good health. What differentiated Sandow from unorthodox practitioners were his continued efforts to work alongside, and with, the medical profession.

During Sandow’s strongman tours of the late 1890s and early 1900s, his performances were routinely accompanied by private lectures for local physicians. His Magazine of Physical Culture welcomed contributions from physicians, while his bodybuilding competition of 1901 had a physician as a judge. When Sandow converted his physical culture institute as a ‘Curative Institute’ in 1907, the decision was accompanied by the hiring of three university trained, and still practising, physicians. A professional performer, strongman and entrepreneur, Sandow managed to briefly, but successfully, work alongside physicians while simultaneously promoting a treatment seen as revolutionary. In a sense, Sandow occupied a similar position to the patent medicine industry of the late Georgian period studied by Alan Mackintosh, which positioned itself between orthodox and alternative.⁹ He used exercise as a panacea for a variety of illness while still retaining the favour of many physicians. Sandow’s success in doing so, and the willingness of physicians to associate with him, spoke of the still porous nature of the medical marketplace in England. Anne Digby, Lori Loeb and several others have spoken of the need for entrepreneurship, for new medical capitalism, when it came to medical treatments and the limits facing physicians seeking to advertise their services.¹⁰ Sandow’s association with doctors elevated both his own practice while simultaneously allowing doctors to associate with new and popular health movements. Sandow co-opted the medical community and members of the medical community, in turn, co-opted him.

This proved to be a relatively profitable scenario for both groups until Sandow began to engage in outlandish claims. In 1910, a series of medical advertisements published by Sandow incurred the ire of British medical authorities with both the British Medical Association (BMA) and the General Medical Council (GMC). Containing endorsements from Sandow’s physicians, and several reputable supporters, the advertisements claimed that a litany of serious ailments could be cured through his system alone. The timing could not have been more inopportune. A year previous, Sandow’s Institute underwent an investigation from the GMC after a Sandow client died while undergoing treatment.¹¹ Later cleared of negligence, the enquiry was the first indication that the GMC was weary of Sandow’s Institute. His 1910 advertisements seemed to affirm suspicions. In time Sandow’s three physicians were brought before the GMC, two were struck from the registrar, while the other resigned from the Institute under threat that he, too, would be disbarred. The trial, its reporting and its aftermath, highlighted the strained nature of professional limits with British practice specifically those related to advertising and associating with those outside the profession.

That Sandow’s Institutes existed, and indeed thrived, during the opening decade of the twentieth century, spoke to a growing British interest in celebrity and individual health over authority and academic knowledge. Owing to his celebrated physique and strength, Sandow’s Institute became an avenue for medical treatment. Its existence highlighted the importance of celebrity, new ideas of health and conspicuous consumption in Edwardian England. Unlike ‘quack’ medicines or those selling alternative health systems, Sandow presented his ideas and his Institutes as respectable and scientific outlets. So confident was Sandow in his treatment, and the British public in his claims, that in 1909 The Bystander claimed that Sandow’s organisations were ‘more remote from quackery even than the average doctor’s sanctum’.¹² Sandow was not presented as an alternative treatment but one operating within, or at least adjacent to, orthodox medicine. Likewise, physicians impressed by Sandow and the role of exercise in health found a means of differentiating themselves from their competitors in an increasingly competitive medical marketplace. Sandow, and those behind his Institute, adeptly converted his celebrity into a social capital, which enjoyed the attention of the general public and, for a short while, physicians. Sandow’s Institute offered a place for men and women to heal their bodies in a manner considered natural, non-invasive and scientific, a combination embodied by Sandow. His Institute was distinguished by its celebrity status and allusions to respectability.

Discussing Sandow’s Institute and its ultimate legal battle with the GMC in 1912, the article begins with a discussion of Eugen Sandow, his venerated health cause, physical culture and the broader British climate of sporting celebrity and health. Following this, the birth and growth of Sandow’s Institute is discussed with reference to the medical marketplace in which they were situated. The article concludes with the GMC’s prosecution of Sandow’s hired physicians in 1912 and the aftermath of this decision. In doing so, the article argues that Sandow’s ultimate censure reflected both the fluid nature of medical practice in England as well as the limits of entrepreneurship among physicians. In this way, the article stresses the efforts made by medical regulatory authorities to regulate entrepreneurship among its members and discourage physicians from associating with non-trained healers. That such efforts were needed reflected the liminal space between ‘popular and proper’ treatment that many physicians operated within.

Sandow, Physical Culture and British Health

Born in Prussia in the mid-nineteenth century, Eugen Sandow (Friedrich Wilhelm Muller), shown in Figure 1 below, spent the first two decades of his life living a vagabond existence as a circus performer. Despite Sandow’s later admissions that he briefly studied to be a doctor, subsequent research found this to be a fabrication.¹³ During the 1880s, Sandow toured Europe, posed for artists and conducted rudimentary feats of strength for the public. In 1889, Eugen Sandow came to British attention following an explosive debut on the vaudeville circuit. As retold by his biographer David Chapman, Sandow and his manager Louis Attila became part of the British sporting and cultural world during a series of strength contests with a fellow performer, ‘Sampson’ and his assistant, ‘Cyclops’.¹⁴

Exploiting his celebrity, Sandow spent the next several years touring Great Britain, during which time he engaged in weightlifting contests, posed and lectured on health.¹⁶ In this regard, Sandow’s early career followed a largely conventional trajectory. As covered by Randy Roach, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain welcomed dozens of strength performers as a form of light entertainment.¹⁷

What differentiated Sandow was the label he applied to himself. Whereas previously strongmen referred to themselves as performers, athletes or ‘professors’, Sandow classed himself as a ‘physical culturist’. Defined by Michael Anton Budd as a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century concern with the ideological and commercial cultivation of the body, physical culture has been classed by later scholars as a precursor to ‘keep fit’ or exercise culture.¹⁸ The British public, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, soon welcomed a series of physical culture entrepreneurs, many of whom promised that greater health, strength and vitality was obtainable through physical exercise. How popular was physical culture? The answer is difficult to state, but it is interesting to note A. Wallace’s assertion in 1908 that ‘twenty years ago, the term Physical Culture was scarcely known. Nowadays, everyone understands its meaning.’¹⁹ What made physical culture so popular? According to Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, physical culture’s popularity stemmed primarily from the publics’ concern with their health at a time when domestic and international trends hinted at some form of physical or racial degeneracy.²⁰

From the late nineteenth century, Social Darwinist concerns about survival of the fittest and the need for physical strength began to permeate public and political life in England.²¹ Such fears underpinned a growing scientific, and later popular, discussion of eugenics. Both forms of eugenics, positive and negative, were found in discussions of improving the nation’s well-being through welfare programmes or, at their more extreme, selective breeding.²² Such debates touched educational, military and sporting realms. Britain’s first systematised form of school physical education, introduced in the late nineteenth century, was driven by concerns that childhood health was lagging compared to previous years.²³ In sport, international losses, most notably in rugby, often engendered fears of racial decline or death.²⁴ Military defeats or set backs were often framed in similar ways. An interest in eugenics, and fear of race decline, proved profitable for Sandow and other physical culturists. Sandow’s arrival in Britain in 1889 coincided perfectly with such discussions. When asked about his stage name, Sandow claimed to have chosen Eugen in homage to Sir Francis Galton’s beloved area of eugenics.²⁵ Likewise, Sandow’s interviews from the late nineteenth century routinely featured wide-sweeping comments about individual and national health. A pivotal moment for many physical culturists, including Sandow, was the Second South African War (1899–1902), which was defined by Britain’s military failure and high number of physically unfit recruits.²⁶ Vanessa Heggie has questioned the accuracy with which recruiting figures were reported, but for many, the War acted as proof of England’s physical weakening.²⁷ During the conflict, Sandow had personally trained several battalions of prospective troops in a bid to make them fit for war. Two years later, Sandow’s system of physical culture was briefly considered for the British military’s own mandatory training programme.²⁸

By that time, Sandow’s fame and fortunes were global. From 1893 to 1895, Sandow completed a theatre run of the USA, a global tour he later replicated in Asia and Oceania.²⁹ In 1894, he published the first of several training monographs, Sandow on Physical Training, and by 1897 Sandow, and his business partners, oversaw the production of a monthly periodical, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture. Much like Sandow’s later Institute, the Magazine strove for respectability. Patrick Scott’s analysis of the Magazine explained that Sandow, as editor, deliberately targeted middle-class readers.³⁰ Far from a bodybuilding magazine, the periodical dicussed politics, education, national health, sports and, of course, physical culture. The destruction of Sandow’s personal records in the 1920s negates a discussion of the Magazine’s circulation, but David Chapman, Sandow’s biographer, has stressed its wide appeal.³¹ Sandow’s Magazine was the first of its kind and was one of the many entrepreneurial projects Sandow used to distinguish himself. Throughout the period from 1893 to 1925, Sandow worked with several business partners, ranging from physical culturist ‘Professor Attila’, promoter Flo Zeigfeld and Sandow’s brother-in-law Warwick Brookes Jr, a British factory owner and later Conservative M.P. The diversity of his managing partners explains the variety of Sandow’s endorsed products. Beginning with exercise manuals and periodicals, Sandow’s businesses expanded into workout equipment, cigars, nutritional supplements, cocoa powders, corsets, children’s toys and, of course, his Curative Institute.³² This is to say nothing of the thousands of photographs, private posing sessions, playbills and advertisements that Sandow appeared in.

Part of Sandow’s appeal stemmed from the promise of his body. In 1893, Sandow was measured by the Harvard physical educationalist Dudley Allen Sargent who concluded that Sandow was the finest physical specimen he had ever encountered. Eight years later, the National Museum commissioned a bust of Sandow’s body for posterity. Professor Ray Lankester, the curator, believed Sandow’s body to the finest example of what a Caucasian body could achieve.³³ Sandow promoted the idea that everyone, with the right determination, could transform themselves physically. In Strength and How to Obtain It, published in 1897, Sandow claimed an unhealthy childhood eventually reformed through physical culture. Reflecting on this transformation, he wrote that ‘unlike the poet or the artist’ who was born gifted, anyone could build themselves into a strongman. This idea was later capitalised on by Sandow in his ‘Great Competition’ of 1899–1901. Created to decide the ‘Best Developed Man in Great Britain and Ireland’, the contest offered ordinary men the opportunity to display their body for prizes. Seen by later scholars as the first modern bodybuilding contest, Sandow’s ‘Great Competition’ was based on a strict entrance criterion dictated by Sandow through his magazine.³⁴ The finalists were those who embodied Sandow’s claim of salvation for all through physical culture. At a time of ‘race decline’, Sandow seemed to offer a new corporal form of masculinity, which promised that a strong and muscular physique was a vehicle for greater social and sexual successes.

That Sandow felt comfortable speaking about health is clear from the monographs, mail order courses and pamphlets published during his career. By the early 1900s, Sandow was beginning to conceptualise himself more as a health expert than showman. Part of this change seems to have come from familial pressure. Most notably, his marriage to Blanche Brooks in 1896 brought Sandow into a Manchester family with economic and political aspirations. That Blanche’s brother, Warwick was the first director of Sandow’s Institute hinted at the Brooks’ involvement in his affairs.³⁵ The other influence was a combination of his own ambition and opportunities. During Sandow’s tour of the USA, his promoter Flo Zeigfeld, organised interviews in which Sandow’s opinion on public health and nutrition were the sole focus. In time, such interviews involved into informal lectures to the public and, eventually, the medical community. Sandow’s celebrity meant that his expertise was highly sought after. This explains why, in 1897, he opened a physical culture institute in London on St. James Street. Initially designed as a high-end gymnasium, it was this gymnasium that was converted a decade later into Sandow’s Curative Institute.

The Sandow Curative Institute and the Medical Marketplace

As founder of and specialist in the natural treatment of physical disorders without drugs, Mr. Sandow stands alone and has achieved a unique position in the society of to-day. There is no doubt whatever that he is gradually effecting a radical change in the old-established ideas of treatment of illness ….

The Graphic, 1909.³⁶

 

Re-established in 1907 as a ‘Curative Institute’, Sandow’s Institute solidified a transition from strongman celebrity to public health authority. This link was further strengthened by a decision to end the publication of Physical Culture magazine that very same year. Part of his decision appears to have stemmed from the societal position Sandow wished to claim, one which distanced him from his theatre past. By the early 1900s, Sandow was commenting on, and asked to contribute, to broader health movements within Great Britain. Owing to his publicity campaign training prospective recruits during the Second South African War, Sandow was asked to testify before a Royal Commission on Physical Training in 1903.³⁷ Driven by a desire to overhaul the military’s physical training programme, the Commission entertained the idea of using Sandow’s system before Sandow’s own testimony, which revealed his relative ignorance, disbarred further consideration. Seeking to retain face, Sandow spent several months commenting on military physical training and childhood physical education in his editorials with Physical Culture magazine.³⁸

Equally important was the favour Sandow found during the 1890s as a travelling strongman among local English physicians. Sandow’s private lecture sessions with physicians came at a time when the medical profession in England was beginning to appreciate the importance of physical activity as a means of strengthening patients’ health and, in some cases, curing physical ailments.³⁹ During the eighteenth century, walking and dancing were prescribed by some as a fillip to one’s health.⁴⁰ Likewise, Indian club swinging was used in the first half of the nineteenth century as a treatment for spinal deformities and consumption.⁴¹ What distinguished the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the promotion of widescale public health efforts.⁴² At the heart of this promotion, was a medical interest in the prescribed and systematised exercise systems promoted by people like Eugen Sandow. That some physicians began to visit Sandow’s lectures refer patients to his system and use him as an example of good health held the potential to be problematic. Despite a general acceptance of the importance of physical activity, the kind of hyper-athleticism exhibited by Sandow was still regarded by some with scepticism.⁴³ While some Victorian and Edwardian doctors eschewed endorsing exercise in the belief that muscle growth was abnormal or hyperathleticism was dangerous, many more were coming alive to the potential of movement in healing.⁴⁴ Addressing concerns about physical activity and health, Sandow continually underwent medical examinations during private lecture tours, publicised insurance policies and hired doctors to work alongside him. This latter point was evidenced in 1899 when a Dr Beaumont acted as a secondary judge for Sandow’s ‘Great Competition’.⁴⁵ Such efforts, alongside Sandow’s rising social importance in British life, appear to have removed some of the qualms faced when discussing him.

This explains how doctors could work with Sandow but not necessarily why. That explanation was likely found in an acceptance of exercise’s importance but, more importantly, the competitive nature of the medical marketplace during this time. Associating with Sandow, through endorsements or prescribing Sandow’s exercises, gave doctors the opportunity to distinguish themselves from others by aligning with a public health celebrity, whose services were in high demand.⁴⁶ This was likely a reaction, in part, to the economic situation facing many physicians. By the early 1900s, there was a great deal of competition among physicians for patients.⁴⁷ Aside from the unorthodox and alternative practitioners, which continued to be a popular outlet for many seeking treatments during this period, registered physicians were forced to look for new and novel means of attracting clients in response to the ever-growing number of registered doctors. Certainly, Lori Loeb’s work on patent medicine during this period highlighted the lengths that physicians were often forced to go to in order to sustain a living.⁴⁸ At this, this included endorsing dubious treatments, attacking one’s competitors and subtly engaging in commercial advertising.

Equally problematic was the growing strength of consumers. Takahiro Ueyama’s study of the marketplace at this time highlighted the consumerist tendencies now exhibited by patients.⁴⁹ The medical marketplace was not one exclusive to the growing consumption patterns found in England but one increasingly enmeshed in the tendencies of twentieth-century capitalism.⁵⁰ Associating with Sandow held the potential to distinguish one from their peers. Such competition, and the need to retain or attract new clientele, had a definitive impact on physicians’ behaviour and the reaction against it by the GMC. Particularly worrisome for the GMC at this time was the number of physicians taking to advertising their services, oftentimes with reference to their superiority over other doctors. Such practices may have been permissible for those peddling unorthodox treatments but not in a profession that, despite the reality, still held on to the idea of being a noble profession above consumerism.⁵¹

Founded in 1858, the GMC was devised as a means of self-regulating the medical profession. Done at a time of increasing tension about correct, and incorrect, form of medical training, the GMC marked the establishment of an organised body whose deliberations were taken to be best practice for respectable physicians. In addition to certifying medical educations, the GMC was also responsible for the management of a single medical registrar for practising physicians. Removing someone from the registrar, as would eventually happen to Sandow’s practitioners, meant the revoking of their medical licences. In theory, such actions marked the end of one’s medical practice as the removal of a licence had both ethical and legal implications should one continue to practice. The GMC’s power was not all encompassing, despite earlier celebratory histories of the body, but it was enough to shape medical practice in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England.⁵²

Despite acting as an adviser on best practice and suitable behaviour, the GMC did not advise on advertising from its establishment in 1858 until May 1894.⁵³ Until that time, doctors could attach their names to services and, at times, dubious health products. It took a petition from 130 registered doctors regarding suspect advertising practices by 21 British dentists for the Council to formally advise physicians to avoid ‘advertisements of an objectionable character’ and ‘especially of such as contain either claims of superiority over other practitioners, or depreciation of them’.⁵⁴ Despite the 1894 warning, further action was required. In 1905, the British Medical Authority petitioned the GMC to issue a further statement on the issue of advertising. Responding to an ever-growing number of physicians advertising products, the Council claimed that physicians advertising goods or services were acting ‘contrary to the public interest and were discreditable to the profession of medicine’.⁵⁵ Concluding, the Council’s minutes in 1905 was the emphatic statement that ‘any registered medical practitioner resorting to such practices … renders himself liable to be charged … with “infamous conduct in a professional respect”, and … the council may, if they see fit, direct his name to be erased from the Medical Register’.⁵⁶ It was a ruling designed to regulate the medical marketplace. It was this rule that would be used against Sandow’s Institute.

Opened initially as a gymnasium in 1897, Sandow’s Institute was repurposed a decade later to become his ‘Curative Institute’ of physical culture. Sporadically advertised during Sandow’s tour of Asia and Oceania the previous year, the ‘Curative Institute’ marked a definitive break from Sandow’s strongman past and a move towards more respectable affairs.⁵⁷ It was here where collaboration between Sandow and the medical community was solidified. From 1897 to 1907, it was reported that on arrival at 32A St. James Street, clients would be sent to neighbourhood physicians for a complete medical examination before undergoing a course of physical culture under Sandow’s instruction.⁵⁸ According to Sandow, the Institute’s growing popularity promoted two radical changes. First, and owing to the vast number of health conditions presenting in patients, Sandow and his partner, Warwick Brookes Jr, decided that a more thorough treatment method was needed.⁵⁹ Whereas previously the Institute advertised increases in health and strength, it instead began addressing the underlying issues said to be present in clients. Secondly, a decision was made to hire in house physicians, rather than relying on neighbourhood doctors.⁶⁰ The Curative Institute could thus become a self-contained entity working from diagnosis to cure.

The Institute catered towards the middle and upper classes. On entering the Institute, patients were met with classical paintings, sculptures of Sandow in Greco-Roman pose, leather chairs and a plush reception area. Treatment rooms, separated by curtains, included skeletal models, treatment beds and illustrative charts. Staff in clinical uniforms attended to patients as they were introduced to their new exercises, designed specifically for them.⁶¹ Images of Sandow as part of the Institute’s advertising showed the Prussian strongman dressed in evening attire, looking solemnly away from the camera. The advertising and décor of his training institutes marked Sandow and his partners’ anxiety to claim a serious reputation. In the USA, Sandow’s contemporary Bernarr MacFadden highlighted the damage one could do to their reputation when opening alternative health institutes. MacFadden, whose medical advice often centred on fasting and dubious exercise devices, regularly incurred the ire of the American medical authorities with his outlandish and suspect claims.⁶² It was for this reason that MacFadden was often considered to be a faddist or charlatan. This was not the case with Sandow nor his physicians.

Envisioned as a place where individuals could come for treatment on a variety of ailments, the Institute prided itself as a place where drugs or harmful procedures would not be used. Instead, Sandow, and his trained staff, would replenish the body’s natural vitality through physical exercise. Nadja Durbach’s work on anti-vaccination groups in England explained the appeal many patients found in the idea of resorting to the body’s innate vitality to treat illnesses.⁶³ Through an extensive advertising campaign, conducted in Sandow’s own magazine and national newspapers, Sandow informed clients of his ‘advanced’ method. Conducted either by mail or in person at Sandow’s Institute, individuals were accessed by one of Sandow’s three physicians who determined the nature of their problems.⁶⁴ Once the doctor was satisfied with the diagnosis, and certain that Sandow’s treatments were beneficial, patients were sent to Sandow for further instruction. The doctors in question, Dr James Robertson Wallace, Dr Maurice Wallis and Dr Charles Edward Trimble had been practising for several years, either by themselves or as part of a group, by the time they arrived at Sandow’s Institute in 1907. James Robertson Wallace acted as the lead physician in recognition of his longer service—Robertson joined the Medical Registrar in 1886 preceding Wallis by 1 year and Trimble by 13—as well as his public profile.⁶⁵ In 1897, Wallace published The Constitution of Man, a public health monograph aimed at explaining good health and strength for the general public.⁶⁶ The work promoted the kinds of gymnasium culture then being promoted by Sandow, which may explain how the two came across one another. It has sadly proven impossible to say how the physicians first met Sandow or their relative social standing.

As to why three physicians would join Sandow’s Institute, testimony from their hearings with the GMC provides some answers. Dr Wallis explained that Sandow’s Institute, unlike one’s private practice, offered a guaranteed income. Each doctor was offered a fixed contract and was paid regardless of how many patients they saw. Beginning work at 10 am every day and finishing at 7 pm, the Institute’s physicians examined between 20 and 40 patients. Their sole duty was to evaluate whether or not a patient would benefit from a Sandow course of exercise irrespective of their personal beliefs.⁶⁷ They confirmed diagnoses but did not offer treatment. Furthermore, they did not offer an opinion as to whether or not a Sandow course would cure patients. At a time when competition between physicians for clients was increasing, Sandow’s Institute appeared to be a safe, and lucrative, option.⁶⁸ It also offered the opportunity to associate with an influential public celebrity on health. Critically, all three physicians claimed to have received assurances from other physicians and the British Medical Authority that associating with Sandow’s Institute would not endanger their medical licences.⁶⁹ This assurance was initially honoured but came under jeopardy when Sandow’s Institute began verbose advertising claims about what the Institute could, and could not, do.

In marketing the Institute, Sandow and Brookes Jr repeated many of the strongman’s previous promotional campaigns. Advertisements were placed in nationwide and local newspapers, accompanied by public lectures and promotional pamphlets.⁷⁰ In 1907, and again in 1911, Sandow’s Curative Institute featured in Truth magazine, the periodical founded by Henry Labouchère in the 1870s. Supposedly detailing visits to Sandow’s Institute by ‘Truth’s Investigator’, the article-cum-advertisement was accompanied by dozens of outright advertisements for the Institute. In Truth’s 1907 piece on Sandow’s Institute, the descriptions oscillated between sycophantic accounts of Sandow’s physique to reiterating many of the strongman’s incredulous claims. Readers were told that Sandow’s failure rate was 1 per cent despite being faced with dyspepsia, paralysis, heart affections and chest complaints.⁷¹ The piece was republished in Sandow’s 1910 monograph, How I Conduct Curative Physical Culture by Correspondence, which claimed that only 13 per cent of Sandow’s clients came because of a weight issue. The remaining 87 per cent were split between dyspepsia, nervous disorders, gout, heart affections and even paralysis among other disorders.⁷² Importantly at this juncture, little was made of the Institute’s physicians except to note their existence. This prevented Wallace, Wallis and Trimble from incurring the ire of the British Medical Authority, which, by 1907, had already begun censuring physicians guilty of promoting their services.⁷³

That advertisements for Sandow’s Institute were ubiquitous is clear, they appeared in regional and national newspapers.⁷⁴ Who the typical Sandow client was is less so. Without access to the Institute’s records, which were destroyed, it is difficult to give a definitive answer. Sandow’s 1919 The Power of Evidence does, however, provide an indication as to the kind of professions Sandow sought to associate with.⁷⁵ Published at a time when Sandow’s influence had waned considerably, a development David Chapman argued stemmed from poor business decisions and a xenophobia brought on by the Great War, the book was part of a new promotional campaign for Sandow’s institute.⁷⁶ Designed to act as ‘a permanent and convincing confirmation’ of Sandow’s method, the book featured testimonials from supposedly anonymous Sandow patients. As further indication of its legitimacy, a detailed list was given of ‘a few of the famous physicians and surgeons’ who had used or supported Sandow’s treatments.⁷⁷ Affirming Michael Anton Budd’s claim that physical culture was largely directed at middle- and upper-class men, the testimonials, distinguished by the clients’ initials, occupations and ages, boasted of their social status.⁷⁸ Welcoming testimonials from men across the British Empire, the book’s section of neurasthenia was illustrative.⁷⁹ In describing their occupations, submitters classed their labour as sedentary and conducted in an office. Some men simply referred to themselves as ‘Gentleman’ to establish their privileged status. Mr R.C. of Herne Bay, a civil servant, highlighted the often-miraculous recoveries supposedly exhibited by Sandow’s clients:

I am pleased to say my health has improved greatly as a result of the treatment. This improvement has been clearly marked during the last month, especially with regard my nerves. I have been surprised at the ease with which I can do those things which formerly I held in so much dread.⁸⁰

 

Sandow’s fees, published in 1900, suggest why he targeted a wealthier clientele. A year long course of treatment amounted to £10 10s, while a short, 6-month course, cost £5 15s. 6d.⁸¹ A cheaper solution was to send one’s enquiries to Sandow’s Physical Culture magazine.⁸² Sandow’s advertising deliberately targeted specific periodicals, whose clientele were presumed to be sedentary, middle class and often middle-aged men unsatisfied with their health and/or appearance.

It was during this time that advertisements for the Institute began noting the relationship between the Institute and the medical profession. Following Truth’s example, The Graphic, a weekly illustrated newspaper, sent a reporter to Sandow’s institute. The journalist’s praise was unequivocal and ended with the assertion that

Scarcely a day passes without the occasion to report a speech or writing by some medical authority urging the high importance of a wider adoption of the therapeutic benefits of exercise.⁸³

 

It is interesting to note that both Sandow’s customers and reviewers continually positioned his system as something working alongside traditional medical approaches. Vanessa Heggie previously highlighted the willingness of some doctors in the early twentieth century to promote exercise for health purposes.⁸⁴ Sandow’s institute took this approach a step further and presented exercise, as done per Sandow’s guidelines, as a panacea for innumerable ailments. Returning to The Graphic, readers were informed that at present, 600 to 700 physicians referred to Sandow for their patients’ treatment.⁸⁵ In the article, Sandow disavowed claims that he could cure everything, instead claiming a high, but not infallible, success rate. That Sandow employed three physicians quashed questions about his legitimacy, which had sporadically appeared in medical journals in previous years.⁸⁶ Problematically, Sandow’s advertisements claimed an official and medical recognition for his treatment, which was not the case. Journals like The Lancet had previously commended Sandow’s promotion of exercise, and numerous physicians declared themselves to be supporters, but the claim that he had received medical recognition was suspect.⁸⁷ Through half-truths and celebrity, Sandow was able to present himself publicly as a highly respected healer and his Institute as operating within a medical space.

A report in The Bystander, a weekly tabloid, reiterated the connection between Sandow and the medical community. The unnamed journalist highlighted a growing acceptance on the part of the medical community regarding physical activity, claiming that ‘at first the doctors looked askance at Mr Sandow’s methods. Now any number of them are in the habit of sending patients to the Sandow Institute’.⁸⁸ By meeting and curing the ‘physical ills’ of modernity, Sandow and those physicians who supported his treatments were credited with transforming the British nation.⁸⁹ A relatively banal but nevertheless important observation to make is that such reports, advertisements and endorsements were exclusively found in popular newspapers rather than medical journals, whose commentary on Sandow proved more reserved. This point reiterated the importance of advertising and public endorsements in the medical marketplace. It was here where Sandow, and those associating with him, sought to expand their enterprise. This included those physicians who went to Sandow’s private lectures seeking to further their own knowledge on exercise’s relationship with the body, an example of which is shown in Figure 2. It was for this reason that The Tatler’s article entitled ‘The Romantic Career of Eugen Sandow’ featured a room of physicians attending a Sandow’s lectures.

‘Infamous Conduct in a Professional Respect’: The Sandow Institute and Medical Marketing

On 30 May 1910, The Daily News published yet another of Sandow’s messages. It was this advertisement that formally brought the Institute into conflict with the GMC. The ‘Great Health Offer to the British Public’ was, at first glance, little different to many of his appeals to the British public.⁹¹ It began with an assertion that ‘perfect health and condition’ was available to all regardless of age, gender or illness. ‘Unquestionable proof’ of Sandow’s abilities was said to be found in the ‘thousands of instances’ where he had cured cases. For those still questioning his abilities, Sandow cited the ‘numerous members of the nobility, the aristocracy, the medical faculty as well as other Professional and Business men and women’ who called on him as eager clients.⁹² Giving readers the chance ‘of learning from Mr Eugen Sandow how to become sound and efficient in Brain and Body’, the advertisement offered free booklets on how to treat a series of illness through physical culture.

In certain cases, like constipation, obesity and general fitness concerns, a diet change and exercise regimen appeared unproblematic. Where the Institute overstepped its remit, and would soon be accused of such, came in claims that liver trouble, kidney disorder, heart affections, speech problems and physical deformities could be cured through exercise. Further complicating matters was the fact that Sandow included the names of three of his Institute’s physicians—Dr James Robertson Wallace, Dr Maurice Wallis and Dr Charles Edward Trimble. Whereas previously doctors were included in Sandow’s advertisements or monographs endorsing his system, the Daily News advertisement formally linked his in-house physicians to a service being exchanged.⁹³ It was a subtle change but one which brought Sandow, who had become increasingly verbose in his advertisements, into conflict with the GMC. Where Sandow would emerge from this conflict unscathed, his physicians were severely punished.

Christopher Lawrence previously highlighted the GMC’s response to advertising and excessively promotion by its members.⁹⁴ Perhaps more evident in the fight against patent medicine, the GMC’s modus operandi stemmed from a desire to maintain the profession’s claim to be above business interests. This, as Peter Bartrip, explained, came at a time when even reputable periodicals, like the British Medical Journal, were not above suspicion.⁹⁵ In the case of Sandow, his decision to include physicians in advertisements crossed that relatively recent ruling made by the GMC on advertising previously mentioned. ‘Advertisements of an objectionable character … especially of such as contain either claims of superiority over other practitioners, or depreciation of them’ were forbidden, so too were those messages deemed to be acting ‘contrary to the public interest and were discreditable to the profession of medicine’.⁹⁶

Returning to Sandow’s advertisements, a number of issues arose. In the first instance, his Daily News advertisement directed readers to use his services in lieu of trained physicians. Traditional medical approaches were denigrated and depicted as outdated, while Sandow was more presented as a medical authority.⁹⁷ Working in a different time period, Hannah Barker’s work demonstrated the importance of trust when it came to medical advertisements in England. A physician’s endorsement had the potential to assuage fears about particular products and attract patients to a particular treatment.⁹⁸ It was this very issue which the GMC sought to regulate. By naming his Institute’s physicians in the advertisement, Sandow sought to capitalise on the public’s trust in medical authorities to sell his goods. The physicians in question were those hired by Sandow to inspect patients interested in his treatment. They did not prescribe or advise on his method but determined whether or not Sandow’s course of exercise was suitable. It was not an outright endorsement but an acknowledgement that his system would not do damage to an already sick body.⁹⁹ Sandow’s advertisement did not make this distinction. For those unfamiliar with his institute, it appeared that Sandow and a small group of British physicians had joined together to offer a complementary health service. For the GMC, it seemed that a clear breach had been made in advertising standards, and this was reflected in the complaints found in their minutes.¹⁰⁰

This, incidentally, was not the first time that Sandow’s Institute ran afoul of the GMC. A year previously, the GMC held an enquiry into the death of Henry Harridge Phillips, a Portsmouth grocer, who underwent treatment at the Institute.¹⁰¹ Examined by Dr Maurice Wallis, shown below with his two colleagues in Figure 3, Phillips’ sudden death brought unwanted attention to the Institute and its practice. During the course of the hearing, Dr Wallis continually reiterated his innocence. His sole role in the Institute was to evaluate whether or not a course of exercise would hurt a patient. He made no claims about whether it would help or, even, if he had conducted a full medical examination. The coroner’s report, which ultimately cited an undiagnosed tumour in Phillips’ stomach, resolved any charges against Wallis or the Institute.¹⁰² It was an indication that the GMC had begun making enquiries into Sandow’s Institute. It is telling that although Phillips had visited, and been treated by, several physicians before he came to Sandow, it was Sandow’s Institute that was called before the GMC. While this hearing fell in the Institute’s favour, the subsequent one did not.

On 25 and 26 May, Sandow and his three physicians were called before the GMC on the charge that his physicians had advertised their services, and associated with a disreputable character, thereby contravening the GMC’s advertising prohibitions.¹⁰⁴ The British Medical Authority, which pursued the complaint against Sandow and the physicians, was not concerned with Sandow employing medical staff but rather that ‘the three medical officers had associated themselves with an institution which advertised and undertook the treatment of diseases’.¹⁰⁵ The case that extended to several sittings and was only settled in late 1912 revealed the problematic nature of Sandow’s Institute and also the GMC’s efforts to restrict physicians’ advertising freedom. Equally problematic was the physicians’ association with Sandow, a man with no medical training. At the time of Sandow’s case, the GMC was also pursuing cases against several physicians associated with lay practitioners. One such case was against a H. A. Barker, an untrained layman who performed surgeries on clients with the help of a registered physician, Dr Axham. Barker’s advertisements and allusion to a recognisable medial expertise brought him to the attention of the GMC. While Barker’s actions were arguably more dangerous, the two men marked two of several unqualified healers targeted in the years prior to the Great War.¹⁰⁶ The GMC could not, for obvious reasons, target the unqualified practitioners, but they could target physicians who associated with them.

Returning to Sandow, one of his accused physicians, Dr Wallis claimed that despite his reservations regarding Sandow’s advertisements, which he himself believed bordered on outlandish, he continued his work there. Wallis’s defence rested on the claim that he did not openly endorse Sandow’s treatments but rather that he served as a first point of contact.¹⁰⁷ The Council did not agree. Wallis’s further admission that ‘if, in his opinion, the treatment was not likely to benefit a patient, he would veto it; but it was not his duty to say whether a particular treatment would be beneficial or not’ was subsequently used by the GMC as proof of malpractice.¹⁰⁸ Irrespective of Wallis’s claim that he never accompanied a patient to the cubicle where Sandow administered his treatment, his involvement was interpreted by the GMC as a sign of greed.¹⁰⁹ Furthermore, his admission that he refused patients’ questions about other treatments was taken as further evidence that his authority was being abused, or at the very least, biased towards Sandow’s treatments.¹¹⁰

Under questioning Wallis’ defence was compromised even more. Asked to comment on the much maligned books advertised by Sandow, Wallis conceded that of the 24 books advertised in May 1910, he had read two and merely corrected the spelling.¹¹¹ The previous case of Henry Harridge Phillips, the Portsmouth man Wallis inspected who died while undergoing a Sandow treatment, was brought up to compound the GMC’s case against Wallis.¹¹² Sandow’s advertising, which included Wallis’s name, gave the GMC an opportunity to reprimand Wallis’s association with an Institute clearly in competition with its members. On 3 June 1911, Wallis was struck from the Medical Registrar, while Trimble and Wallace’s cases were postponed to later dates. The GMC’s minutes revealed a unanimous decision as to Wallis’ punishment.¹¹³ Reflecting on the decision, the Council’s representative Mr Smith Whitaker, explicitly stated that the Institute diverted people from actual medical treatment. He conceded that while there may be some benefit to Sandow’s promotion of exercise, his Institute had overstepped the limits of its treatment. Sandow’s Institute was competing with GMC members for patients, and the inclusion of physicians in his advertisements furthered the legitimacy of his claims.

Trimble’s court case in early 1912 differed from Wallis and Wallace. Unlike his two colleagues, Trimble ended his relationship with Sandow’s Institute once the GMC began its investigation. He was still being included in the Institute’s advertisements, an inclusion he objected to, but by the time of his trial, Trimble no longer practised with Sandow. Instead, he worked as an assistant to ‘Dr Hinde, of Treherbert, in Glamorgan’.¹¹⁴ Still obliged to appear in court, Trimble was criticised for his initial association with Sandow’s Institute but praised for removing himself from a disreputable workplace. The verdict that his name should not be removed from the registrar re-iterated the GMC’s repeated efforts to only target physicians perceived to be engaging in reckless advertising.¹¹⁵ Those deemed reputable, like Trimble, were safe. Unlike Wallis or Wallace, Trimble’s case was not widely reported, and he did not reappear in the case’s proceedings.¹¹⁶ His relatively unproblematic encounter with the GMC, after his initial censuring, can be contrasted with Dr James Wallace’s experiences.

Wallace, whose case required three separate sittings, repeatedly claimed there was nothing untoward about his association Sandow.¹¹⁷ Prior to joining Sandow’s Institute Wallace received assurances from several physicians, none of whom he named, that working with Sandow would not jeopardise his ability to practise.¹¹⁸ This, according to the Council’s defence lawyer, Mr Smith Whittaker, did not excuse Wallace’s inclusion in the advertisements. Nevertheless, Wallace insisted that the GMC had been ‘unable to discover’ any ill conduct on his part.¹¹⁹ Unlike Wallis, whose testimony was largely apologetic, Wallace was unrepentant. What further distinguished Wallace’s defence from his fellow physicians was the appearance of Sandow before the GMC. Seeking to exonerate Wallace, Sandow argued that:

The council could not deny the usefulness of my institute, nor could they make any specific complaint of any professional impasse or error, the whole ground of complaint being that my medical assistants had associated themselves in a professional capacity with my institute ….¹²⁰

 

Sandow ended his speech with a denunciation of an ‘autocratic’ GMC determined to deny a safe and effective means of care. Despite Sandow’s impassioned appeal for holistic care, and collaborations between physician and layman, Wallace was struck from the Medical Registrar.¹²¹ Still adamant that he had done nothing wrong, Sandow continued to include Wallace’s name and endorsements on his Institutes’ advertisements for the next 2 years.¹²² Sandow and Wallace’s pleas had, however, missed the point. The GMC, BMA and individual physicians appreciated the value of exercise in maintaining health, albeit not to the extent Sandow promoted it. What they did not appreciate were incorrect or audacious advertisements on the part of its members.

In journals like The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, the conclusion to the case was celebrated as a victory for the medical profession against over enterprising doctors and a lesson to others on the need to uphold standards.¹²³The Edinburgh Medical Journal made clear the significance of this decision arguing that had the accused parties been left to continue their practice

a flood-gate of unqualified practice would be opened. Notices are from time to time issued from the Medical Council Office as to things a medical man ought not to do. The weaker brethren in the profession ought to know that they are not to yield to the temptations which arise during the course of their professional work.

The lesson to be learned from the cases that we have reviewed is a very simple one. The association of qualified medical men with the unqualified is unprofessional.¹²⁴

 

Whereas the medical profession proved deeply concerned with the trial’s outcome, the general public, as expressed in the media, was relatively nonplussed. Many newspapers simply reported the proceedings and outcome, without any room for comment.¹²⁵ Others labelled the decision as misguided or myopic, arguing that Sandow’s Institute was inherently worthwhile.¹²⁶Truth magazine wrote several denunciations of the GMC’s actions.¹²⁷ Perhaps the most damning indication that few in the public seemed to care about Sandow’s transgressions was the fact that Sandow’s Institute continued to operate a decade after the trial and continued until Sandow’s death in 1925.¹²⁸ Within the profession, the Sandow trial marked a changing of norms within the GMC. Whereas previously advertising by physicians had been treated with a relatively gentle hand, strict punishments now existed. The GMC, and its members, may have appreciated Sandow’s efforts in promoting physical activity, but they did not tolerate his physicians engaging in poor practice.

Conclusion

In 1897, and at the height of his fame, Sandow stated that ‘it is not necessary … to be born strong in order to become strong. Unlike the poet, who, we are told, has to be born a poet, the strong man can make himself’.¹²⁹ Sandow’s life was certainly testament to this sentiment. From 1889 to his death in 1925, Sandow marketed himself as a performer, athlete, physical culturist, entrepreneur, healer and philanthropist. That he excelled in these fields, temporarily or in some cases until his death, was predicated on his physique and celebrity. Sandow’s move into healing without drugs highlighted the porous nature of popular medicine whereby a man with no medical background could open a ‘Curative Institute’, claim to treat serious diseases without drugs and enjoy the praise of many in doing so. Sandow’s initial popularity among the medical profession stemmed from a growing appreciation of physical activity as a health behaviour. Associating with Sandow, or his ideas, was unproblematic and, in fact, may have helped distinguish physicians from their competitors. At a time when the medical marketplace in England had grown increasingly competitive, aligning oneself with Sandow’s celebrity or the popularity of his system was a very significant social signifier.

For the three physicians who joined his Institute, Sandow offered celebrity and certainty. They were given guaranteed contracts, stability and kudos in working with the strongman turned healer. Sandow’s increasing promotional zeal did, however, come with costs. His 1910 advertisements formally linked his doctors to services being exchanged, thereby contravening GMC dictates. Further exacerbating matters were the outlandish claims found in the advertisements themselves. Brough to trial, the Institute’s physicians were reprimanded for their role in the advertisements. They became high-profile examples of a much bigger issue affecting English medicine. In a bid to curb physician’s entrepreneurial spirit, the GMC restricted advertising among its profession. Sandow’s Institute crossed a line, and its physicians suffered. The ruling and decision to remove two of the three physicians from the medical registrar revealed both the limits of Sandow’s Institute in a medical sense, as well as the limits of medical marketing.

Writing in The Construction and Reconstruction of the Human Body in 1907, Sandow assured readers that

I wish to say that it has never been my intention to usurp the prerogatives of the medical profession; on the contrary, I have always striven to avoid anything which might be likely to give offence to medical men, for it is with them, and not in opposition to them, that I have always desired to work ….¹³⁰

 

Regardless of whether Sandow was genuine in this claim, and later advertisements suggest he was not, the GMC ensured that from 1912, a clear line was drawn between Sandow and themedical community. Sandow had co-opted medical men and terms. Medical menhad co-opted Sandow’s popularity for their own ends. It was a short-lived affair but one that highlighted both the permeability and professional boundaries of Edwardian medicine.

Conor is an assistant professor in Physical Culture and Sport Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his PhD on physical culture in Ireland from 1893 to 1939 at University College Dublin in 2019. In the past, Conor has published on football in post-colonial Africa, health trends in nineteenth-century England and India, physical culture in Ireland and animal history in twentieth-century popular culture.

Footnotes