Oration In 1846 – by this stage bereft of all his institutional affiliations – and despite many earnest efforts made to prevent him doing so, as the Royal College of Physicians' youngest fellow, Elliotson delivered the Harveian Oration to the Royal College of Physicians of London, in which he controversially spoke of how William Harvey, the man whom the Oration was honouring, had been forced to fight against the entrenched conservatism of the medical profession and its initial incredulity and resistance to his discoveries, and stressed the strength of the analogy with the current (equally misguided and ignorant) critics of mesmerism. Mesmeric Infirmary Elliotson continued to provide mesmeric demonstrations from his own residence at 37 Conduit Street, Hanover Square (which he eventually quit in 1865). In partnership with Engledue, he began publishing The Zoist in 1843, and, in 1849 founded the London Mesmeric Infirmary. As his reputation rapidly declined, his once lucrative practice also disappeared, and he died, penniless, in 1868 in the London home of a medical colleague, Edmond Sheppard Symes (1805-1881), L.S.A. (1830), M.R.C.S (England, 1832), M.D. (Aberdeen, 1851). Literary connections He was highly regarded in literary circles. WM Thackeray's Pendennis was dedicated to his friend, Elliotson; and the character, Dr Goodenough (in Thackeray's last novel, The Adventures of Philip (1862), was based on Elliotson, who had attended Thackeray when suffered a life-threatening illness in 1849. Elliotson was a friend of Charles Dickens, and introduced Dickens to Mesmerism. Wilkie Collins, a close friend of Dickens described Elliotson as "one of the greatest English physiologists," and cites an example of state-dependent memory from Elliotson's Human Physiology in The Moonstone. Works 1817: Elliotson, J. (trans.), Blumenbach, J.F., The Institutions of Physiology (Institutiones Physiologicæ. 1820: Elliotson, J., Numerous Cases Illustrative of the Efficacy of the Hydrocyanic Or Prussic Prussic Acid in Affections of the Stomach., etc., Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, (London), 1820. 1827: Elliotson, J., "The Use of the Sulphate of Copper in Chronic Diarrhoea, to which are added some Observations on the use of Acupuncture in Rheumatism", Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, Vol.13, Part 2, (1827), pp. 451–468. 1830: Elliotson, J., On the Recent Improvements in the Art of Distinguishing the Various Diseases of the Heart, etc., Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, (London), 1830. 1832: Elliotson, J., "Acupuncture", pp. 32–34 in Forbes, J., Tweedie, A. & Conolly, J. (eds), The Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine: Comprising Treatises on the Nature and