William Collins Engledue (1813 – 30 December 1858), MD (Edinburgh, 1835), MRCS (Edinburgh, 1835), MRCS (London, 1835), LSA (1835) was an English physician, surgeon, apothecary, mesmerist, phrenologist – and, in concert with John Elliotson, M.D., the co-editor of The Zoist. A former President of the British Phrenological Association, Engledue was ostracized by both his medical colleagues – for his dedication to mesmerism and phrenology – and by the majority of phrenologists – for his rejection of their "socio-religious", spiritual position, in favour of a scientific, materialist, brain-centred position that, in effect, reduced mental operations to physical forces.
Education Born at Portsea in 1813, the son of John Engledue and Joanna Engledue (née Watson), he was a brilliant student. Sent to the University of Edinburgh by John Porter (1770–1855), (first president of the 'Portsmouth and Portsea Literary and Philosophical Society') to whom he was originally apprenticed, Engledue took his final exams after only two years study. At Edinburgh, he took prizes for proficiency in surgery, pathology and practice of physic, practical anatomy, and physiology; and was also the President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh.
Medical practice Having spent a year as the anatomical demonstrator for John Lizars, Professor of Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, he returned to Portsmouth in the winter of 1835, and started to practice there.
"He combined with a very extensive local general practice, a large share of the consultations both of the county, and also sometimes of the adjoining counties. He was distinguished by a remarkably acute perception of diagnosis. Having formed his opinion, he had great energy in acting on it: yet, though highly proficient in surgery, he invariably strove (sometimes it was thought with a doubtful daring) to save a limb rather than amputate it. Marked by great energy of character, he was, nevertheless, distinguished by such gentle bearing, that he was the object of the intense affection of his patients – their friend and counsellor in the most difficult and trying circumstances; and he sacrificed his time, when most pressed and worried, to relieve their personal anxieties and sorrows. His sense of professional etiquette, and his care for the interests of his brethren who were less gifted or less prosperous than himself, was delicate and acute. One of the great features of his character was his loathing of sham or mystification in any shape. If a disease ever puzzled him, he openly avowed it, and waited for further development; but in most cases, his clear perception and perspicuous explanation gave his patients a clear comprehension of their case.
This, perhaps, as much as his great talent, produced the unbounded confidence he acquired".
Greatly concerned with the conditions of the poor – prior to 1849, "he gave daily advice, gratuitously, in his own house [to] the large class of patients who were too poor to pay, and yet above seeking eleemosynary aid" – he spent much of his time trying to improve the purity of the water supply to Portsmouth. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Portsmouth, Portsea, and Gosport Hospital in 1849; and, at the time of his death, he held the appointment of surgeon to the hospital.
Cerebral physiology A phrenologist, one-time President of the British Phrenological Association, his provocative (20 June 1842) presidential address, dealing with issues of phreno-mesmerism, the controversy of the day, in which he expressed the strong materialist views on phrenology, which were shared by Elliotson – who, incidentally, was the chairman of that particular session – led to Engledue's separation from that association.
To evade the charge of Materialism, said Dr. Engledue [in his address to the British Phrenological Association on 20 June 1842], we (Phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes use of the material to show forth its powers. What is the result of this? We have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of Materialism. We have two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a spirit superadded to, but not inherent in, the brain – added to it, yet having no necessary connexion with it – producing material changes, yet immaterial – destitute of any of the known properties of matter – in fact an immaterial something which in one word means nothing, producing all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised – not susceptible of proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism fetters and ties down physiological investigation – that man's intellect is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation – that we have no evidence of the existence of an essence, and that organised matter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous manifestations of human and brute cerebration.
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