Zebulon Mennell Sr.

Dr. Zebulon Mennell, Sr. (1850–1911) was a British physician of general practice based in London. He is noted for having treated Helena Petrovna Blavatsky during the final years of her life.

Life and Work

Mennell was born in Yorkshire, the son of a Quaker doctor. He studied medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, received his Licentiate from the Institute of Pharmacy in 1879, and was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He resided and maintained his medical practice at Royal Crescent, Notting Hill, London.

Prior to his work in London, Mennell held official appointments abroad, serving as physician to the La Guaira Port Corporation in Venezuela and to the Gu Appantu Mining Company in West Africa.

Both of his sons entered the medical profession: Dr. Zebulon Mennell Jr. became a noted anesthetist, while Dr. James Beaver Mennell specialized in physiotherapy.

H.P. Blavatsky's physician

In his obituary in the magazine ΣΟΦΙΑ (Sophia) of the Theosophical Society in Spain, Menell was called Médico, Amigo y Discípulo de H.P.B., which can be translated as Physician, Friend, and Disciple of H.P.B.. According to the author of the obituary:

Dr. Mennell, an eminent man of science, was H. P. B.'s physician during the last years of her life, and it is thanks to him that the founder of the Theosophical Society remained among us in physical form for a few more years, since, as is well known, H.P.B., who suffered from three very serious illnesses, should have died much earlier, according to official science. H.P.B. never wanted to see any other doctor than Dr. Mennell, for whom she had great affection and whom she considered a loyal friend and disciple.

That Dr. Mennell was an occultist is beyond the slightest doubt in my mind, and in the minds of all those he sought to cure. His contempt for money and his veneration for H.P.B. were well known, as I was told by H.P.B.'s old and loyal friend, the late Countess Wachtmeister.

Dr. Mennell, who used to visit H. P. B. in the evenings, would remain at her side when everyone else had left at the hour she had appointed (eleven o'clock at night, if my memory serves me correctly), and then H.P.B. would teach her doctor and friend... (Translated from Spanish)

Alice Leighton Cleather later recalled that, after Blavatsky's death, she visited Dr. Mennell, and together they spoke at length about her:

One more incident remains to be told. I broke down in health about this time, and went up to London to consult H.P.B.'s clever physician, Dr. Z. Mennell. It was a memorable visit, lasting nearly two hours (he kept a roomful of patients waiting while we talked). ... But we talked much of H.P.B. He told me what an inspiration she had been to him in his medical work; how much she had taught him about the nature of the body and its powers—particularly the brain. Some of the things which she had demonstrated with her own organism were so far beyond anything then known to medical science that it would have been useless to lay them before the College of Physicians, of which I believe he was a distinguished member. He told me that he had brought one instance before them, but was met with such hopeless and determined scepticism that he never repeated the attempt.

Dr. Mennell reported the medical cause of death was described:

This is to certify that I attended Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and that she died on the 8th day of May, 1891, of chronic desquamative nephritis, to which she had been subject during a period of three years, all the time I have attended her. She suffered from influenza for over twelve days, and from acute bronchitis for five days. I saw her on the day of her death. -- Z. Mennell, F.R.C.S., etc.