What did Bach and Handel have in common – beside both being extraordinarily brilliant German musicians born in the same year? They were both blinded by the same man. And they were the prominent examples of hundreds of intentionally blinded people across Europe.
As we have now (as of Nov. 5, 2024) officially entered the second age of the Con, I thought it might be interesting to examine a little bit of the career of a great historical con-man, the one and only John Taylor (or, as he called himself, the Chevalier John Taylor). The story of his career is straightforward and simple. He was born in Norwich, England in 1703. His father was a surgeon (which is not necessarily a doctor) and he was brought up and trained to be a “health care professional.” He was sent to study at St. Thomas Hospital where he trained under William Cheselden, professor of anatomy and surgery, member of the Royal Society and author of the work Osteography or Anatomy of Bones(considered the first description of the human skeletal system). Cheseldon specialized in bladder stone removal – “cutting for stone” – a very nasty trade, but was also concerned with eye operations, particularly with cataracts. Taylor chose an ophthalmic career and set up a clinic in his hometown, which proved a serious error in judgement. Apparently, he created enough angry patients who were not satisfied with his care, that they formed a mob and burned down his house (after beating him up).
Realizing his tactical error, Taylor bought a large carriage and began a peripatetic career of wild self-promotion and botched operations. He renamed himself the Chevalier, painted giant eyeballs on his carriage and added his motto: Qui dat videre dat vivere; *he who gives sight gives life” – see below under irony. He also attended various Universities to raise his profile (Leiden, Basel, Liege, Cologne) and made a point of treating famous people like Edward Gibbon and Baron Von Sweiten (who was the patron of Bach, Mozart, Hayden and – later – Beethoven). He also published his own book: An Account of the Mechanism of the Eye.
Taylor was a master grifter and wrote his own autobiography, The Life and Extraordinary History of the Chevalier John Taylor, in which he described himself as Ophthalmiater (a non-term) Pontifical, Imperial, Royal because he had treated the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Viceroy of India (none of this true). He traveled Europe, sending heralds ahead to announce his arrival and then made wild speeches of self-promotion promising miracle, painless cures. Then he would perform a series of operations of a particularly gruesome nature and applying ridiculous medications followed by bandages which he would tell the patient to keep on for several days. All of this was done without the slightest attempt at sterilization (unknown at the time) and with no anesthetic. While the patient would wait to remove the bandages, to discover total blindness in most cases, Taylor would hop in his carriage and move on to another city. Now it must be admitted that Taylor’s surgical success rate was not much worse than that of others, but the others did not promise complete and painless cures.
The relevant question with con men is, as always, how did he get away with it? While he displayed some considerable theoretical knowledge of his subject, his treatments were so badly done that the carriage was his necessary escape route from a trail of mangled clients and he became extremely famous among the company of what we refer to today as Snake Oil Salesmen. Some canny people saw through him immediately. Dr. Johnson, the creator of the dictionary, once defined a quack as “a boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand''. The term actually was created a hundred years early to describe the men who applied mercury in various forms to cure syphilis (which it did not). Mercury was called quicksilver and the men who used it became referred to as “quack-salvers,” or quacks. With regard to medicine, according to Johnson, a quack was “one who proclaims his own medical abilities in publick places''. There were few who quacked louder than Taylor. Dr Johnson was acquainted with Taylor and once said of him: “Taylor was the most ignorant man I ever knew ... he was an instance of how far impudence will carry ignorance.'' A phrase that resounds today in American politics. Even William Hogarth honoured him with a portrait among dangerous practitioners that he called The Company of Undertakers.
He was also made infamous in an opera called The Operator. Despite popular ignorance of the workings of the eyes, Faulkner’s Dublin Journal recognized Taylor as “a person of unparalleled impudence, undeniable assurance, an asserter of scandalous falsehoods, a mountebank, and a quack, who imposes on the public and extorts money from the poor”.
His two most famous musical cases were Bach and Handel (although he also treated a Spanish composer named Alejandro Laguardia Olavarrieta). It was said of him that he hated music because it was an art that did not need the eyes to be relished, but con-men inspire many rumours. Bach was already in general ill-health (possibly with diabetes) when Taylor got hold of him and his progressive blindness was making it increasingly difficult to do his work – which was his life. Taylor operated in 1750, in Leipzig, when Bach was 65. Taylor diagnosed cataracts and performed his standard procedure which was known as “couching.” This involved the opening of Bach’s eyeball and using a sharp, hooked instrument, either pushing or pulling aside the lens or crushing it entirely to allow light to enter. A few days later a second operation was considered necessary with no more success. Bach remained blind for the last four months of his life and then he died of a stroke. Taylor was, of course, long gone. It has been speculated that the stroke was precipitated by a pneumonia that was caused by an infection caused by the eye operation. Impossible to prove, but I doubt that Taylor did much to improve Bach’s health.
By that time, Handel had completed most of his important works and was suffering from impaired vision in one eye, possibly caused by a carriage accident in Holland in the summer of 1750 – at the same time that Taylor was destroying Bach’s vision. Whatever the cause, the trouble spread to Handel’s other eye.
It is important to understand that these two men were extraordinarily hard-working professionals. Their music was their profession and it paid the rent. They had no other means of support. The romantic concept of the starving artist in the garret did not apply. They had homes and dependents. To lose their eyesight was practically a death sentence, financially. Handel was working on a new Oratorio and to finish it he submitted to a cataract operation by a Dr. William Bromfield which was unsuccessful (other than it did not kill him). So, it was decided to call in Taylor. That operation took place In Tunbridge Wells – no one is quite sure when, but the best guess is April 1758. The result was, predictably, bad; Handel went from impaired vision to no vision. He died in 1759 after fainting while conducting a concert.
This is, of course, a world of irony. So, it should come as no surprise that Taylor’s career began to come to an end when he began to lose his own eyesight. The rumour goes that he tried to operate on himself – although it is hard to imagine how – but certainly he spent his last days in darkness. Various dates are given for his death: anytime from 1770 to 1772, but apparently it was in Prague. He left a son and a nephew – both named John Taylor – to carry on the family “business.” Both ended up as “physicians” to King George III, who died mad, deaf and … blind. I am sure they were of assistance.
