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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d4e90d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61366 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61366) diff --git a/old/61366-0.txt b/old/61366-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fa008dc..0000000 --- a/old/61366-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4544 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare, by Benjamin -Rush Field - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare - - -Author: Benjamin Rush Field - - - -Release Date: February 10, 2020 [eBook #61366] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE*** - - -E-text prepared by Paul Marshall, Turgut Dincer, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images -generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/medicalthoughtso00fielrich - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate - _italics_ in the original text. - - Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals. - - - - - -MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE. - -by - -B. RUSH FIELD, M. D., - -Member of the Shakespeare Society -of New York. - -Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. - - - - - - -Easton, Pa.: -Andrews & Clifton, Publishers. -1885. - - - - TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. - - - - -PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. - - If any old lady, knight, priest or physician, - Should condemn me for writing a second edition; - If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse, - May I venture to give her a smack of my muse? - _Anstey’s New Bath Guide, p. 169._ - - -The occasion is taken to acknowledge the kind consideration that the -first edition of this little work has received. This edition appears -in a thoroughly revised and much enlarged form; to what extent, may be -judged by the fact that chapters on The Physician, Surgery, Physiology, -Anatomy and Pharmacy have been added, together with many allusions to -the other medical subjects, making an increase of over four hundred -quotations. It has been impossible to resist the temptation of adding -a few medical thoughts from other authors, which will be found under -their appropriate heads. The labor necessary to accomplish this has -not interfered in any way with professional duties; it being a task -entirely of the leisure hours of the night. - -EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA, June, 1885. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - PART I. - THE PHYSICIAN, 7 - - PART II. - PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, 13 - - Diseases of Nervous System, 13; of Circulatory System, 22; - of Respiratory System, 25; of Digestive System, 26; of - Secretory System, 29. Fevers and other General Diseases, 32. - Action of Medicines, 37. Miscellaneous—Age and Death, 43. - - PART III. - SURGERY, 49 - - Surgery and the Surgeon, 49. Syphilis, 50. Diseases of the - Eye, 53. Wounds, 53. Miscellaneous, 55. - - PART IV. - OBSTETRICS, 59 - Marriageable Age, 59. Fecundation, 62, Character of - Offspring, 63. Pregnancy, 64. Labor, 66. Miscellaneous, 71. - - PART V. - PHYSIOLOGY, 73 - - Of the Circulation of the Blood, 73. Of the Digestive - Process, 78. Miscellaneous, 80. - - PART VI. - ANATOMY, 83 - - PART VII. - PHARMACY, 85 - -[Illustration] - - - - -MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE. - - - - -PART I. - -THE PHYSICIAN. - - -Shakespeare’s education was not, by any means, hedged in by plots and -characters; besides these, his mighty mind seems to have teemed with -the knowledge of languages, medicine, law and court etiquette. It is -wonderful that one brain could shine forth such a vast variety, and -surprising that he has even gone into the _minutiæ_ of the different -avenues of learning through which he has stridden. Shakespeare paid -considerable attention to medicine, and has furnished some of the -finest specimens of the medical character that have ever been drawn by -any writer. His Cerimon, in Pericles, is a most noble one. He speaks -for himself: - - ’Tis known, I ever - Have studied physic, through which secret art, - By turning o’er authorities, I have - (Together with my practice,) made familiar - To me and to my aid, the bless’d infusions - That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones; - And I can speak of the disturbances - That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me - A more content in course of true delight - Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, - Or tie my treasure up in silken bags - To please the fool and death. - _Act III., Sc. II._ - -And others speak of him: - - Hundreds call themselves - Your creatures, who by you have been restored: - And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even - Your purse, still open, hath built lord Cerimon - Such strong renown as time shall ne’er decay. - _Act III., Sc. II._ - -Dowden says, “Cerimon, who is master of the secrets of nature, who is -liberal in his ‘learned charity,’ who held it ever - - ‘Virtue and cunning were endowments greater - Than nobleness and riches,’ - -is like a first study of Prospero;” while Furnivall thinks that he -represents to some extent the famous Stratford physician, Dr. John -Hall, who married Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna. - -What an excellent physician was Gerard de Narbon, Helena’s father, who -is referred to in All’s Well: - - This young gentlewoman had a father, whose skill was - almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, - would have made Nature immortal, and death should have - play for lack of work. Would, for the king’s sake, he - were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s - disease. * * * * He was famous, sir, in his profession, - and it was his right to be so. * * * The king * * * spoke - of him admiringly and mournfully: he was skillful enough - to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against - mortality. - _Act I., Sc. I._ - - How long is’t, count, - Since the physician at your father’s died? - If he were living, I would try him yet;— - * * * * * the rest have worn me out - With several applications: nature and sickness - Debate it at their leisure. - _Act I., Sc. II._ - - My father’s skill, which was the greatest of his profession. - _Act I., Sc. III._ - -Another worthy physician is to be found in Cymbeline. Cornelius argues -with the queen against her designs, and failing in this he completely -thwarts her murderous intentions by giving her a false compound. - - _Queen._ Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs? - - _Cor._ * * * I beseech your grace, without offence, - My conscience bids me ask,—wherefore you have - Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds, - Which are the movers of a languishing death; - But though slow, deadly? - * * * * * - Your highness - Shall from this practice but make hard your heart: - Besides, the seeing these effects will be - Both noisome and infectious. - * * * * * - [_Aside._] I do suspect you, madame; - But you shall do no harm. - * * * I do not like her. She doth think she has - Strange ling’ring poisons: I do know her spirit, - And will not trust one of her malice with - A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has - Will stupify and dull the sense awhile; - * * * * * * but there is - No danger in what show of death it makes, - More than the locking up the spirits a time, - To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d - With a most false effect; and I the truer - So to be false with her. - _Act I., Sc. V._ - - The queen, sir, very oft importun’d me - To temper poisons for her; still pretending - The satisfaction of her knowledge only - In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs, - Of no esteem: I, dreading that her purpose - Was of more danger, did compound for her - A certain stuff, which, being ta’en, would cease - The present power of life; but in short time - All offices of nature should again - Do their due function. - _Act V., Sc. V._ - -Macbeth supplies us with a wise member of the profession, who, at -a time when charlatans without number were promising to cure every -malady, sees clearly that Lady Macbeth’s disease is beyond his power, -and so informs Macbeth. - - This disease is beyond my practice: - * * * * * * infected minds - To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. - More needs she the divine than the physician: - * * * * * - Remove from her the means of all annoyance, - And still keep eyes upon her. - _Act V., Sc. I._ - - _King Macb._ How does your patient, doctor? - - _Doct._ Not so sick, my lord, - As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, - That keep her from her rest. - - _King Macb._ Cure her of that: - Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d; - Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; - Raze out the written troubles of the brain; - And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, - Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff - Which weighs upon the heart? - - _Doct._ Therein the patient - Must minister to himself. - - _King Macb._ Throw physic to the dogs, - I’ll none of it. - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III._ - -In King Lear also appears a physician worthy of the name. The last -scene of the fourth act shows his excellent skill in treating Lear’s -case. Dr. Bucknill, of England, in writing of it twenty-five years ago, -says: “We confess, almost with shame, that although near two centuries -and a half have passed since Shakespeare thus wrote we have very little -to add to his method of treating the insane as thus pointed out.” - -Dr. Butts, in Henry VIII, and Dr. Caius, in Merry Wives, play rather -unimportant parts. He compliments the profession by putting this speech -in the mouth of a madman: - - _Timon to Banditti_: - Trust not the physician; - His antidotes are poison, and he slays - More than you rob. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - -And bringing this one from the lips of an ignorant prostitute: - - Nay, will you cast away your child on a fool and a physician? - _Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. IV._ - -Reference to the physician is frequently made throughout his works. - - _Cor._ The queen is dead. - _Cym._ Whom worse than a physician - Would this report become. But I consider, - By med’cine life may be prolong’d, yet death - Will seize the doctor too. - _Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. V._ - - * * * * doctor-like, controlling skill. - _Sonnets, LXVI._ - - We * * * may not be so credulous of cure, - When our most learned doctors leave us. - _All’s Well, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow - Upon the foul disease. - _King Lear, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus; - That minister’st a potion unto me, - That thou would’st tremble to receive thyself. - _Pericles, Act I., Sc. II._ - - The patient dies while the physician sleeps. - _Lucrece._ - - The physician - Angry that his prescriptions are not kept - Hath left me. - _Sonnets, CXLVII._ - - Testy sick men, when their deaths be near, - No news but health from their physicians know. - _Sonnets, CXL._ - - His friends, like physicians, thrice give him over. - _Timon of Athens, Act III., Sc. III._ - - He is the wiser man, master doctor; he is a curer of souls, - and you a curer of bodies. - _Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III._ - - A poor physician’s daughter my wife! Disdain - Rather corrupt me ever. - _All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III._ - - Doctors, less famous for their cures than fees. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XLVIII._ - - Like a port sculler, one physician plies - And all his art and all his skill he tries; - But two physicians, like a pair of oars, - Conduct you faster to the Stygian shores. - - This is the way physicians mend or end us, - _Secundum artem_: but although we sneer - In health—when ill, we call them to attend us - Without the least propensity to jeer; - While that “_hiatus maxime deflendus_” - To be filled up by spade or mattock, ’s near, - Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe, - We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X, Verse XLII._ - - God and the doctor we alike adore, - But only when in danger, not before; - The danger o’er, both are alike requited, - God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted. - - The doctor says so * * * * * * - * * * * * * * they sometimes - Are soothsayers and always cunning men. - Which doctor was it? - _Ben Jonson—Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I._ - -A side thrust at the experimenters in the profession is found in -Cymbeline. - - I do know her spirit, - And will not trust one of her malice with - A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has - Will stupify and dull the sense awhile; - Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs, - Then afterwards up higher. - _Act I., Sc. V._ - - I can smile, and murder whiles I smile. - _Henry VI.—3d, Act III., Sc. II._ - -He has in several plays shown his contempt for the “prating mountebank” -or “doting wizard.” - - They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-fac’d villain, - A mere anatomy, a mountebank, - A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller; - A needy, hollow-ey’d, sharp-looking wretch, - A living dead man: this pernicious slave, - Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer, - And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse, - And with no face, as ’twere, out-facing me, - Cries out I was possessed - _Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I._ - - I say we must not - So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope. - To prostitute our past-cure malady - To empirics; or to dissever so - Our great self and our credit, to esteem - A senseless help, when help past sense we deem. - _All’s Well, Act II., Sc. I._ - - - - -PART II. - -PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. - - -Shakespeare’s maladies are many and the symptoms very well defined. -Diseases of the nervous system seem to have been a favorite study, -especially insanity; Lear, Timon, and Hamlet being excellent examples. - - And he * * * (a short tale to make), - Fell into a sadness; then into a fast; - Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness; - Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension - Into the madness wherein now he raves. - _Hamlet, Act II., Sc. II._ - - He took me by the wrist and held me hard; - Then goes he to the length of all his arm; - And with his other hand thus o’er his brow, - He falls to such perusal of my face, - As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so; - At last,—a little shaking of mine arm, - And thrice his head thus waving up and down, - He raised a sigh so piteous and profound, - That it did seem to shatter all his bulk, - And end his being: That done, he lets me go: - And, with his head o’er his shoulder turn’d, - He seem’d to find his way without his eyes; - For out o’ doors he went without their help, - And, to the last, bended their light on me. - _Hamlet, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Alas, how is it with you, - That you do bend your eye on vacancy, - And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? - Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; - And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, - Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, - Starts up, and stands on end. - _Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! - The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword: - The expectancy and rose of the fair state, - The glass of fashion and the mould of form, - The observed of all observers,—quite, quite down! - And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, - That suck’d the honey of his music vows, - Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, - Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; - That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth, - Blasted with ecstasy. - _Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I._ - - There’s something in his soul, - O’er which his melancholy sits on brood; - And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose, - Will be some danger. - _Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d; - Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; - Raze out the written troubles of the brain; - And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, - Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff - Which weighs upon the heart? - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III._ - - * * * * * * Infected minds - To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. - * * * * * - Remove from her the means of all annoyance, - And still keep eyes upon her. - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. I._ - - Infirmity doth still neglect all office, - Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, - When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind - To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear; - And am fall’n out with my more headier will, - To take the indispos’d and sickly fit - For the sound man. - _King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - This is in thee a nature but infected; - A poor unmanly melancholy, sprung - From change of fortune. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - The mere want of gold, and the falling-from of his friends, - drove him into this melancholy. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Tell him * * * * * * - * * * that his lady mourns at his disease: - Persuade him that he hath been a lunatic. - _Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. I._ - - * * * Being lunatic - He rush’d into my house, and took perforce - My ring away. - _Comedy of Errors, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - These dangerous unsafe lunes. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II._ - - With great imagination, - Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, - And, winking, leap’d into destruction. - _Henry IV—2d, Act. I., Sc. III._ - - Oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled. - _Venus and Adonis._ - - To see his nobleness! - Conceiving the dishonour of his mother, - He straight declin’d, droop’d, took it deeply; - Fasten’d and fix’d the shame on’t in himself; - Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, - And downright languish’d. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. III._ - - His siege is now - Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds - With many legions of strange fantasies, - Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, - Confound themselves. - _King John, Act V., Sc. VII._ - -Shakespeare certainly had the true idea of the great value of sleep, -and he also knew of its importance in the treatment of brain diseases. -Sleep serves as an excellent stimulant, promoting the growth of the -brain. The infant, during the first ten weeks of its life, sleeps most -of the time and hence during that period its brain is overdeveloped in -proportion to its size. - - Our foster-nurse of nature is repose, - The which he lacks; that to provoke in him, - Are many simples operative, whose power - Will close the eye of anguish. - _King Lear, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - O sleep, gentle sleep, - Nature’s soft nurse, - _King Henry IV—2d, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, - The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, - Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, - Chief nourisher of life’s feast. - _Macbeth, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Oppressed nature sleeps:— - This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken senses, - Which, if convenient will not allow, - Stand in hard cure. - _King Lear, Act III., Sc. VI._ - - Man’s rich restorative; his balmy bath, - That supplies, lubricates and keeps in play - The various movements of that nice machine, - Which asks such frequent periods of repair. - _Young’s Night Thoughts._ - -Music was held as one of the remedies in the treatment of insanity. It -plays an important part in King Lear, (IV-VII), and finds mention as a -remedy in other plays. - - This music mads me, let it sound no more; - For, though it have holp madmen to their wits, - In me it seems it will make wise men mad. - _Richard II., Act V., Sc. V._ - - Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends; - Unless some dull and favourable hand - Will whisper music to my weary spirit. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment, - Are come to play a pleasant comedy, - For so your doctors hold it very meet. - Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood, - And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy; - Therefore, they thought it good you hear a play, - And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, - Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life. - _Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II._ - - Your physicians have expressly charg’d, - In peril to incur your former malady, - That I should yet absent me from your bed. - _Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II._ - - This closing with him fits his lunacy: - Whate’er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits, - Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches. - _Titus Andronicus, Act V., Sc. II._ - - Dispute not with her, she is lunatic. - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. III._ - - * * Deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. - _As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d, - Kept in a dark house? - _Twelfth Night, Act V., Sc. I._ - - It is the mynde that makes good or ill, - That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore. - _Spenser—Færie Queene, XI-IX._ - - Yet they do act - Such antics and such pretty lunacies - That spite of sorrow they make you smile. - _Dekker._ - - Grows lunatic and childish for his son. - _Kyd._ - - When slow Disease, and all her host of pains, - Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins; - When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing, - And flies with every changing gale of Spring: - Not to the aching frame alone confined, - Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind. - _Byron—Childish Recollections._ - -The accuracy with which Shakespeare has written of apoplexy is justly -alluded to in Bell’s _Principles of Surgery_, (1815, Vol. II, p. 557): -“My readers will smile, perhaps, to see me quoting Shakespeare among -physicians and theologists; but not one of all their tribe, populous -though it be, could describe so exquisitely the marks of apoplexy, -conspiring with the struggles for life, and the agonies of suffocation, -to deform the countenance of the dead: so curiously does our poet -present to our conception all the signs from which it might be inferred -that the good duke Humfrey had died a violent death.” - - See, how the blood is settled in his face! - Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost, - Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, - Being all descended to the labouring heart; - Who, in the conflict that it holds with death, - Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy; - Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth - To blush and beautify the cheek again. - But see, his face is black and full of blood; - His eye-balls further out than when he liv’d, - Staring full ghastly like a strangled man: - His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretch’d with struggling; - His hands abroad display’d, as one that grasp’d - And tugg’d for life, and was by strength subdu’d. - Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking; - His well-proportion’d beard made rough and rugged, - Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodg’d. - It can not be but he was murder’d here; - The least of all these signs were probable. - _Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Suddenly a grievous sickness took him, - That made him gasp, and stare, and catch the air. - _Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. II._ - - _Falstaff._ And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into - this same whoreson apoplexy. - _Ch. Just._ Well, heaven mend him! I pray let me speak with you. - _Falstaff._ This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, - an’t to please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in - the blood, a whoreson tingling. - _Ch. Just._ What tell you me of it? Be it as it is. - _Falstaff._ It hath its original from much grief; from study - and perturbation of the brain. - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II_ - - _War._ Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits - Are with his highness very ordinary. - Stand from him, give him air; he’ll straight be well. - _Clar._ No, no; he can not long hold out these pangs: - The incessant care and labour of his mind - Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in, - So thin, that life looks through, and will break out. - * * * * * - _P. Humph._ This apoplexy will certain be his end. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, - insensible. - _Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. V._ - - _Dick._ Why dost thou quiver, man? - _Say._ The palsy and not fear provokes me. - _Cade._ Nay, he nods at us, as who should say, - I’ll be even with you. - _Henry VI_—2_d, Act IV., Sc. VII._ - - With a palsy-fumbling on his gorget, - Shake in and out the rivet. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III._ - - How quickly should this arm of mine, - Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee. - _Richard II, Act II., Sc. III._ - - Flat on the ground and still as any stone, - A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath. - _Sackville._ - -How concisely he describes epilepsy, giving the most prominent symptoms. - - _Casca._ He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, - and was speechless. - _Bru._ ’Tis very like,—he has the falling sickness. - _Casca._ * * * * * When he came to himself again, he said, - If he had done or said anything amiss, he desired their - worships to think it was his infirmity. - _Julius Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II._ - -Julius Cæsar was the only epileptic among his characters: Othello is -spoken of as being one, but this is merely Iago’s lie to Cassio, which -is clearly shown in Othello’s conversation after the trance, it being a -continuation of the former subject, which is never the case in epilepsy. - - _Iago._ My lord is fall’n into an epilepsy: - This is his second fit; he had one yesterday. - _Cas._ Rub him about the temples. - _Iago._ No, forbear; - The lethargy must have his quiet course; - If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by - Breaks out to savage madness. - _Act IV., Sc. I._ - - A plague upon your epileptic visage! - _King Lear, Act. II., Sc. II._ - -He takes some notice of the other affections classed under nervous -diseases. - - Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? - _Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Thou cold sciatica, - Cripple our Senators, that their limbs may halt - As lamely as their manners! - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I! - It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V._ - - When your head did but ache - I knit my handkerchief about your brows. - _King John, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - _Oth._ I have a pain upon my forehead here. - _Des._ Why, that’s with watching; ’t will away again. - _Othello, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Let our finger ache, and it indues - Our other healthful members even to a sense - Of pain. - _Othello, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had - turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for good - youth he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and being - taken with the cramp, was drowned. - _As You Like It, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - The aged man that coffers-up his gold - Is plagu’d with cramps, and gouts and painful fits. - _Lucrece._ - - * * * Shorten up their sinews - With aged cramps. - _Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - To-night thou shalt have cramps, - Side stitches that shall pen thy breath up. - _Tempest, Act I., Sc. II._ - - I’ll rack thee with old cramps, - Fill all thy bones with aches. - _Tempest, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Thy nerves are in their infancy again - And have no vigour in them. - _Tempest, Act I., Sc. II._ - -Hysteria, in Shakespeare’s time, was considered a disease common to -both sexes, and was known as “_Hysterica passio_,” or more popularly -termed “the mother.” - - O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! - _Hysterica passio_—down, thou climbing sorrow, - Thy element ’s below! Where is this daughter? - _King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV._ - -Percy thinks that Shakespeare read of this disease in Harsnet’s -“Declaration of Popish Impostures” while he was looking up material for -his character of Tom of Bedlam. The following is taken from (p. 25) the -work referred to: “Ma: Maynie had a spice of the _Hysterica passio_ as -seems from his youth, hee himself termes it the _Moother_, and saith -that hee was much troubled with it in Fraunce, and that it was one of -the causes that mooved him to leave his holy order whereinto he was -initiated and to returne into England.” - -Diseases of the nervous system have not been overlooked by other -writers. How excellently we have described the chief symptom of -_locomotor ataxia_: - - Obliquely waddling to the mark in view. - _Pope._ - -And Byron well portrays vertigo. - - Her cheek turn’d ashes, ears rung, brain whirl’d round, - As if she had received a sudden blow, - And the hearts dew of pain sprang fast and chilly - O’er her fair front, like morning’s on a lily. - Although she was not of the fainting sort, - Baba thought she would faint, but there he err’d— - It was but a convulsion, which, though short, - Can never be described; we all have heard, - And some of us have felt thus “_all amort_,” - When things beyond the common have occurr’d. - _Don Juan, Canto VI., Verse CV._ - - That old vertigo in his head - Will never leave him, till he’s dead. - _Swift._ - - Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right, - It is the slaver kills and not the bite. - _Pope._ - - Loss!—such a palaver, - I’d inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver - Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours - * * * * * - _Byron—The Blues._ - - The sot, - Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors: - What though on Lethe’s stream he seem to float, - He can not sink his tremors or his terrors; - The ruby glass that shakes within his hand, - Leaves a sad sediment of Time’s worst sand. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse IV._ - -Taking up diseases of the circulatory system next we find Shakespeare -displaying considerable knowledge in regard to them. The extended -impulse of the heart under intense excitement is nicely shown in the -Rape of Lucrece. - - His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,— - Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall! - May feel her heart,—(poor citizen!) distress’d. - Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall, - Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal. - -Again, - - I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble. - * * * * * - My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest, - But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast. - _Venus and Adonis._ - - I have _tremor cordis_ on me,—my heart dances. - _Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, - And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, - Against the use of nature? - _Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III._ - -Death from “broken heart,” caused by excessive grief, finds mention in -several plays. - - Woe the while! - O, cut my lace; lest my heart, cracking it, - Break too! - _Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. II._ - - The grief that does not speak, - Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break. - _Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Shall split thy very heart with sorrow. - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. III._ - -Dyer in his “Folk-Lore of Shakespeare” quotes the following from Mr. -Timb’s “Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity,” (1861, p. 149.) “This -affection (broken heart) was, it is believed, first described by -Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni -has recorded a few examples: among them, that of George II., who died -in 1760; and, what is very curious, he fell a victim to the same -malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the -Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in -the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine’ Dr. Townsend gives a table of -twenty-five cases, collected from various authors.” - -A very good case of syncope is presented in Pericles. “The cases of -apparent death, in which it is believed that premature interment -sometimes takes place, are of this kind. Instances have occurred in -which the pulse, respiration and consciousness have been absent for -several days, and yet the patient has ultimately recovered. The system -is in a sort of hybernation, in which vitality remains, though the -vital functions are suspended. It is probable that, in such cases, a -very careful auscultation might detect a slight sound in the heart.” -(Dr. George B. Wood’s Practice. 1858. Vol. II., p. 211.) - - Make a fire within; - Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet. - Death may usurp on nature many hours, - And yet the fire of life kindle again - The o’erpress’d spirits. I have heard - Of an Egyptian that had nine hours lien dead, - Who was by good appliance recovered. - * * * * * the fire and cloths— - The rough and woeful music that we have, - Cause it to sound, ’beseech you. - The viol once more; * * * - * * * I pray you, give her air; - This queen will live; nature awakes; a warmth - Breathes out of her: She hath not been entranc’d - About five hours. See how she ’gins to blow - Into life’s flower again! - * * * * * - Hush, my gentle neighbors! - Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her. - Get linen; now this matter must be looked to, - For her relapse is mortal. Come, come, - And Æsculapius guide us! - _Act III., Sc. II._ - - Take thou this phial, being then in bed, - And this distilled liquor drink thou off: - When, presently, through all thy veins shall run - A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse - Shall keep his native progress, but surcease, - No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv’st; - The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade - To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall, - Like death, when he shuts up the day of life; - Each part, depriv’d of supple government, - Shall, stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death: - And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death - Thou shalt continue two and forty hours, - And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, - Making both it unable for itself, - And dissposessing all my other parts - Of necessary fitness? - So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; - Come all to help him, and so stop the air - By which he should revive. - _Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - Many will swoon when they do look on blood. - _As You Like It, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - No damsel faints when rather closely press’d, - But more caressing seems when most caress’d; - Superfluous hartshorn, and reviving salts, - Both banish’d by the sovereign cordial “waltz.” - _Byron—The Waltz._ - -Some attention has been paid to chlorosis: - - Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage, - You tallow-face! - _Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. V._ - - _Pand._ The pox upon her green sickness for me. - _Bawd._ Faith, there’s no way to be rid on ’t, but by the way to - the pox. - _Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - There’s never any of these demure boys come to any proof; for - thin drink doth so overcool their blood, and making many - fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green sickness; - they are generally fools and cowards. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Lepidus, - Since Pompey’s feast, as Menas says, is troubled - With the green sickness. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. II._ - -Ben Jonson in writing of this disease has happily and properly -recommended marriage as an important step toward recovery. - - He would keep you * * * not alone without a husband, - But with a sickness; ay, and the green sickness, - The maiden’s malady; which is a sickness,— - A kind of a disease, * * * * * - And like the fish our mariners call _remora_. - * * * * * - I say remora, - For it will stay a ship that’s under sail; - And stays are long and tedious things to maids! - And maids are young ships that would be sailing - When they be rigg’d. * * * * * - The stay is dangerous. - * * * * * - I can assure you from the doctor’s mouth, - She has a dropsy, and must change the air - Before she can recover. - * * * * * - Give her vent. - If she do swell. A gimblet must be had; - It is a tympanites she is troubled with. - There are three kinds: the first is anasarca, - Under the flesh a tumor; that’s not hers. - The second is ascites, or aquosus, - A watery humour; that is not hers neither; - But tympanites, which we call the drum. - A wind-bombs in her belly, must be unbraced, - And with a faucet or a peg, let out, - And she’ll do well: get her a husband. - _Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I._ - - My nose fell a-bleeding on Black-Monday last. - _Merchant of Venice, Act II., Sc. V._ - -Diseases of the respiratory system were quite overlooked by Shakespeare. - - Consumption catch thee! - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - There’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous - pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption! - _King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - Thy food is such - As has been belch’d on by infected lungs. - _Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - But I’m relapsing into metaphysics, - That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same - Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics, - Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XII., Verse LXXII._ - - Love is riotous, but marriage should have quiet, - And, being consumptive, live on a milk diet. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse XLI._ - - For goodness, growing to a plurisy, - Dies in his own too-much. - _Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. VII._ - - A whoreson cold, sir; a cough, sir; which I caught with - ringing in the king’s affairs, upon his coronation day. - _Henry IV—2d, Act III., Sc. II._ - - ’Tis dangerous to take a cold. - _Henry IV., Act II., Sc. III._ - - The tailor cries, and falls into a cough. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Coughs will come when sighs depart. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse VIII._ - - Who, * * * but would much rather - Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather? - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse VI._ - -He has not forgotten the diseases affecting the digestive organs. - -An old superstition regarding toothache was that it was caused by a -small worm, formed like an eel, which bored a hole into the tooth, and -various methods were employed to remove it. Dyer notes the fact that -John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authorities, attributed -decay of the teeth to this cause. - - _Don Pedro._ What! sigh for the toothache? - _Leon._ Where is but a humour or a worm? - _Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II._ - - He that sleeps feels not the toothache. - _Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. IV._ - - Being troubled with a raging tooth, - I could not sleep. - _Othello, Act III., Sc. III._ - - There was never yet philosopher, - That could endure the toothache patiently. - _Much Ado, Act V., Sc. I._ - - She shall be buried with her face upwards; - Yet this is no charm for the toothache. - _Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II._ - - _Bene._ I have the toothache. - _D. Pedro._ Draw it. - _Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour. - _Richard II., Act I., Sc. III._ - - A surfeit of the sweetest things - The deepest loathing to the stomach brings. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. II._ - - Like a sickness, did I loath this food: - But, as in health, come to my natural taste, - Now do I wish it, love it, long for it. * * - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - She gallops night by night. * * - * * * * * - O’er ladies lips, who straight on kisses dream; - Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, - Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. IV._ - - Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits - Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young; - And abstinence engenders maladies. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Unquiet meals make ill digestions. - _Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I._ - - A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that - Which would increase his evil. - _Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant. - _Tempest, Act II., Sc. II._ - - For, ever and anon comes indigestion. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XI., Verse III._ - - When a roast and a ragout, - And fish and soup, by some side-dishes back’d, - Can give us either pain or pleasure, who - Would pique himself on intellects, whose use - Depends so much upon the gastric juice? - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto V., Verse XXXII._ - - He ate and he was well supplied; and she - Who watch’d him like a mother, would have fed - Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see, - Such appetite in one she had deem’d dead: - But Zoe, being older than Haidee, - Knew (by tradition, for she ne’er had read), - That famish’d people must be slowly nursed, - And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CLVIII._ - - Why look you pale? - Seasick, I think, coming from Muscovy. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II._ - - The shepherd’s daughter * * * who began to be much seasick. - _Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. II._ - - ——the impatient wind blew half a gale: - High dash’d the spray, the bows dipp’d in the sea, - And seasick passengers turn’d somewhat pale. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse LXIV._ - - Now we’ve reached her, lo! the captain, - Gallant Kidd, commands the crew; - Passengers their berths are clapt in, - Some to grumble, some to spew. - * * * * * - “Help!”—“a couplet?”—“no, a cup - Of warm water.” - “What’s the matter?” - “Zounds! my liver’s coming up; - I shall not survive the racket - Of this brutal Lisbon Packet.” - _Byron—Poems._ - - Love’s a capricious power; I’ve known it hold - Out through a fever caused by its own heat, - But be much puzzled by a cough or cold, - And find a quinsy very hard to treat; - Against all noble maladies he’s bold, - But vulgar illnesses don’t like to meet, - Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh, - Nor inflammations redden his blind eye. - But worst of all it’s nausea, or a pain - About the lower regions of the bowels; - Love who heroically breathes a vein, - Shrinks from the application of hot towels, - And purgatives are dangerous to his reign, - Seasickness death. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse XXII._ - - Like wind compress’d and pent within a bladder, - Or like a human colic which is sadder. - _Byron—Vision of Judgment._ - - When will your constipation have done, good madame? - _Cartwright._ - -Diseases of the secretory system have not escaped his eagle eye. - - A fat old man * * * that swoln parcel of dropsies. - _Henry IV., Act II., Sc. IV._ - - The dropsy drown this fool! - _Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - It is a dropsied honour. - _All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III._ - - _Fal._ You make fat rascals, mistress Doll. - _Doll._ I make them! gluttony and disease make them. - _Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV._ - -Leprosy was sometimes called measles, from the French of leper, -_meseau_ or _mesel_. This is the sense in which Shakespeare uses the -word measles—an entirely different one from that now in vogue. The word -“hoar,” occurring in several of the quotations, refers to the white -spots so characteristic of the disease. - - As for my country I have shed my blood, - Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs - Coin words till their decay against those measles, - Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought - The very way to catch them. - _Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Gold! * * * * * * - This yellow slave will make the hoar leprosy ador’d. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Hoar the flamen, - That scolds against the quality of flesh, - And not believes himself. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Itches, blains, - Sow all the Athenian bosoms, and their crop - Be general leprosy! - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - Diseased nature oftimes breaks forth - In strange eruptions. - _Henry IV., Act III., Sc. I._ - - For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, - The mere effusion of thy proper loins, - Do curse the gout, _serpigo_, and the rheum, - For ending thee no sooner. - _Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Now the dry serpigo on the subject! - _Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III._ - - A tailor might scratch her where ’er she did itch. - _Tempest, Act II., Sc. II._ - -In the midland counties of England a pimple was frequently called -“a quat.” - - I have rubb’d this young quat almost to a sense, - And he grows angry. - _Othello. Act V., Sc. I._ - - Rubbing the poor itch, - * * * Make yourselves scabs. - _Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I._ - - I would thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the - scratching of thee; - I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. I._ - - My elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow. - _Much Ado, Act III., Sc. III._ - - Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds. - _Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II._ - - Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains. - _King John, Act III., Sc. I._ - - _Dro. S._ She sweats—a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. - _Ant. S._ That’s a fault that water will mend. - _Dro. S._ No, sir, ’tis in grain. - _Comedy of Errors, Act III., Sc. II._ - - I had rather heat my liver with drinking. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Let my liver rather heat with wine, - Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. - _Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Were my wife’s liver - Infected as her life, she would not live - The running of one glass. - _Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II._ - - What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? - _Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III._ - - All seems infected that the infected spy, - And all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye. - - The liver is the lazaret of bile, - But very rarely executes its function, - For the first passion stays there such a while - That all the rest creep in and form a junction. - Like knots of vipers on a dunghill’s soil, - Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction, - So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail, - Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call’d “central.” - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse CCXV._ - -The examination of the urine as an aid to diagnosis has been -resorted to for many centuries, but the processes of to-day are, of -course, vastly different from and hardly to be compared with those -of earlier times, when blind ignorance caused urine-examining, or -“_water-casting_,” to be a mere mockery. The practice, says Dr. -Bucknill, arose “like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical -interdicts upon the medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and -monks, being unable to visit their former patients, are said first to -have resorted to the expedient of divining the malady, and directing -the treatment upon simple inspection of the urine.” The College of -Physicians, in an old statute, denounced it as belonging only to -charlatans, and members were not allowed to give advice on inspection -only. Shakespeare has frequently referred to it, as have also many -others of the old writers, who condemn strongly what was then a shallow -deception, but what has now become, by the light of knowledge, one of -the most important diagnostic aids to many diseases. - - _Host._ Thou art a Castilian, king urinal! - * * * Pardon, a word, monsieur, mock-water. - _Dr. Caius._ Mock-vater! vat is dat? - _Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III._ - - If thou could’st, doctor, cast - The water of my land, find her disease, - And purge it to a sound and pristine health, - I would applaud thee to the very echo. - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III._ - - Carry his water to the wise woman. - _Twelfth Night, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - _Falstaff._ What says the doctor to my water? - _Page._ He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy - water; but, for the party that owed it, he might - have more diseases than he knew for. - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose - Cannot contain their urine: for affection, - Master of passion, sways it to the mood - Of what it likes or loathes. - _Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - _Macd._ What three things does drink especially provoke? - _Port._ Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. - _Macbeth, Act II., Sc. II._ - - When he makes water, his urine is congealed ice. - _Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II._ - -Fevers and other general diseases are often referred to and very many -excellent allusions have been made to them. - - He is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most - lamentable to behold. - _Henry V., Act II., Sc. I._ - - If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help - his ague. - _Tempest, Act II., Sc. II._ - - A lunatic lean-witted fool, - Presuming on an ague’s privilege, - Dar’st with thy frozen admonition - Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood, - With fury, from his native residence. - _Richard II., Act II., Sc. I._ - - But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, - And chase the native beauty from his cheek, - And he will look as hollow as a ghost, - As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit, - And so he’ll die. - _King John, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - Here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up. - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. V._ - - An untimely ague - Stay’d me a prisoner in my chamber. - _Henry VIII., Act I., Sc. I._ - - My wind * * * would blow me to an ague. - _Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I._ - - He had a fever when he was in Spain, - And, when the fit was on him, I did mark - How he did shake; ’tis true, this god did shake: - His coward lips did from their colour fly; - And that same eye whose bend did awe the world - Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan: - Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans - Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, - _Alas!_ it cried, _Give me some drink, Titinius_, - As a sick girl. - _Julius Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Home without boots, and in foul weather too! - How ’scapes he agues? - _Henry IV., Act III., Sc. I._ - - Danger, like an ague, subtly taints - Even then when we sit idly in the sun. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Sc. III._ - - All the infections that the sun sucks up - From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him - By inch-meal a disease! - _Tempest, Act II., Sc. II._ - - It is not for your health thus to commit - Your weak condition to the raw cold morning. - _Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I._ - - I asked the doctors after his disease— - He died of the slow fever called the tertian, - And left his widow to her own aversion. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse XXXIV._ - - His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians - Of common likings, which make some deplore - What they should laugh at—the mere ague still - Of men’s regards, the fever or the chill. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIII., Verse XVII._ - -Plague has been alluded to frequently, but generally only the symptoms -of carbuncles and the petechiæ are mentioned. As the latter only -occur in very bad cases, they were called “God’s tokens,” and their -appearance denoted a fatal termination of the disease. Hence the home -of the patient was closed and “Lord have mercy on us” placed upon the -door. - - Write _Lord have mercy on us_ on those three; - They are infected, in their hearts it lies; - They have the plague and caught it of your eyes. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II._ - - He is so plaguy-proud, that the death tokens of it cry— - _No recovery._ - _Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III._ - - _Enobarbus._ How appears the fight? - _Scarus._ On our side like the token’d pestilence, - Where death is sure - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. X._ - - Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, - And occupations perish! - _Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - The searchers of the town, - Suspecting that we both were in a house - Where the infectious pestilence did reign, - Sealed up the doors and would not let us forth. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. II._ - - Thou art a boil, - A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle, - In my corrupted blood. - _King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - Boils and plagues - Plaster you o’er; that you may be abhorr’d - Further than seen, and one infect another - Against the wind a mile! - _Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. IV._ - - Men take diseases, one of another: - Therefore, let men take heed of their company. - _Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. I._ - - Being sick * * * * * * - And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints, - Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life. - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. I._ - - We are all diseas’d; and - * * * * * - Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, - And we must bleed for it. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - This fever, that hath troubled me so long, - Lies heavy on me. * * * * - This tyrant fever burns me up, - And will not let me welcome this good news. - _King John, Act V., Sc. III._ - - What’s a fever but a fit of madness? - _Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I._ - - At this instant he is sick, my lord, - Of a strange fever. - _Measure for Measure, Act V., Sc. I._ - - My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Sickness is catching. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Thus saith the preacher: “Nought beneath the sun, - Is new,” yet still from change to change we run: - What varied wonders tempt us as they pass! - _The cow-pox_, tractors, galvanism, and gas, - In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare, - Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air! - _Byron—Eng. Bards and Scotch Reviewers._ - - Vaccination certainly has been - A kind antithesis to Congreve’s rockets, - With which the Doctor paid off an old pox, - By borrowing a new one from an ox. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXIX._ - - I don’t know how it was, but he grew sick; - The empress was alarm’d, and her physician - (The same who physick’d Peter), found the tick - Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition - Which augur’d of the dead, however quick - Itself, and show’d a feverish disposition; - At which the whole court was extremely troubled, - The sovereign shock’d, and all his medicines doubled. - Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours: - Some said he had been poison’d by Potemkin; - Others talked learnedly of certain tumours, - Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin; - Some said ’twas a concoction of the humours, - With which the blood too readily will claim kin; - Others again were ready to maintain, - “’Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.” - But here is one prescription out of many: - “Sodæ-sulphat. 3. VI. 3. S. mannæ optim. - Aq. fervent. F. 3. iss. 3. ij tinct, sennæ - Haustus,” (and here the surgeon came and cupp’d him), - R. Pulv. com. gr iii. Ipecacuanhæ, - (With more besides, if Juan had not stopp’d ’em). - - “Bolus potassæ sulphuret, sumendus, - Et haustus ter in die capiendus.” - This is the way physicians mend or end us, - Secundum artem. * * * * * - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse XXXIX._ - - Rheumatic diseases do abound: - And through this distemperature, we see - The seasons alter. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. I._ - - This raw rheumatic day. - _Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Is Brutus sick,—and is it physical - To walk unbraced, and suck up humours - Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, - And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, - To dare the vile contagion of the night, - And tempt the rheuma and unpurged air - To add unto his sickness? - _Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Is this the poultice for my aching bones? - _Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V._ - - _A coming shower_ your shooting corns presage, - _Old aches will throb_, your hollow tooth will rage. - _Swift._ - - Yet am I better - Than one that’s sick o’ the gout, since he had rather - Groan so in perpetuity, than be cur’d - By the sure physician, death. - _Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. IV._ - - A rich man that hath not the gout. - _As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II._ - - His grace was rather pained - With some slight, light, hereditary twinges - Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto, XVI., Verse XXXIV._ - - It is a hard, although a common case, - To find our children running restive—they - In whom our brightest days we would retrace, - Our little selves reform’d in finer clay; - Just as old age is creeping on apace, - And clouds come o’er the sunset of our day, - They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, - But in good company—the gout and stone. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse LIX._ - - Life’s thin thread ’s spun out - Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIII., Verse XL._ - - Dear honest Ned is in the gout. - Lies racked with pain, and you without: - How patiently you hear him groan! - How glad the case is not your own! - * * * * * - Yet should some neighbor feel a pain - Just in the parts where I complain, - How many a message would he send! - What hearty prayers that I should mend! - Inquire what regimen I kept? - What gave me ease, and how I slept? - And more lament when I was dead, - Than all my snivellers round my bed. - _Swift—“Death of Dr. Swift.”_ - -Diseases of the absorbent system are well represented by scrofula, or -“King’s evil,” as it was known in Shakespeare’s time. This disease, -so called on account of the supposed power of cure being invested in -the handling and prayers of the king, was first so treated by Edward -the Confessor, in 1058, and by all the succeeding rulers until William -III., who refused. Queen Anne resumed the practice, but King George I. -put an end to it. During the twenty years following 1662 upwards of -100,000 persons were touched for the malady. - - _Malcolm._ Comes the king forth I pray you? - _Doctor._ Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls - That stay his cure; their malady convinces - The great assay of art; but, at his touch, - Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, - They presently amend. - _Malcolm._ I thank you, doctor. - _Macduff._ What’s the disease he means? - _Malcolm._ ’Tis call’d the evil - A most miraculous work in this good king: - Which often, since my here-remain in England, - I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, - Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people, - All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, - The mere despair of surgery, he cures; - Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, - Put on with holy prayers; and ’tis spoken, - To the succeeding royalty he leaves - The healing benediction. - _Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III._ - -On the action of medicines he has given us abundant cause to think he -was much better informed than the average man of his time. - - _Cleo._ Give me to drink mandragora - _Char._ Why, madame? - _Cleo._ That I might sleep out this great gap of time, - My Antony is away. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act I., Sc. V._ - - Not poppy, nor mandragora, - Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, - Shall ever med’cine thee to that sweet sleep - Which thou ow’dst yesterday. - _Othello, Act III., Sc. III._ - - Cupid’s cup - With the first draught intoxicates apace— - A quintessential laudanum or “black drop” - Which makes one drunk at once, without the base - Expedient of full bumpers. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto IX,. Verse LXVII._ - - ——like an opiate which brings troubled rest, - Or none, - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XVI., Verse X_ - - The drug he gave me, which, he said, was precious - And cordial to me, have I not found it - Murderous to the senses? - _Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - Have we eaten of the insane root, - That takes the reason prisoner? - _Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III._ - -Commentators think that Shakespeare found the name of this root in -Bateman’s Commentary on Bartholeme _de Propriet Rerum_: “Henbane -(Hyoscyamus) is called _Insana_, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; -for if it be eate or drunke, it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse -of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly Mirilidium, for it -taketh away wit and reason.” - _Lib. XVII., Ch. 87._ - - Thy uncle stole, - With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, - And in the porches of mine ears did pour - The leperous distilment; whose effect - Holds such an enmity with blood of man, - That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through - The natural gates and alleys of the body; - And with a sudden rigour, it doth posset - And curd, like sour droppings into milk, - The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine, - And a most instant tetter bark’d about, - Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, - All my smooth body. - _Hamlet, Act I., Sc. V._ - -It would indeed be interesting to know the source of Shakespeare’s -knowledge on the physiological action of this alkaloid of tobacco. Most -true it is that he has selected an excellent drug for his purpose in -taking up the crude oil—Nicotia nin (hebenon). Birds will fall dead as -they approach it; one drop is sufficient to kill a dog; and man dies -in from two to five minutes after taking a poisonous dose: but the -drug produces death by the _failure of respiration_, not by its direct -action on the blood. “In nicotia-poisoning the blood is, however, not -perceptibly affected. The amount of the alkaloid necessary to take -life is exceedingly small, and although death by asphyxia causes the -vital fluid to be everywhere dark, yet the microscope reveals only -normal corpuscles. Moreover, Krocker has found that the dark blood -rapidly assumes an arterial hue when shaken in the air, and that its -spectrum is normal.” (H. C. Wood’s Toxicology, 1882, p. 370.) It is -thought by many that Shakespeare did not intend “hebenon” to mean the -alkaloid of tobacco, and very plausible arguments have been brought -forward to show that he meant hebon or the juice of the yew. Dyer, in -his chapter on plants, gives the following extract of a paper read by -Rev. W. A. Harrison before the New Shakespeare Society in 1882: “It -has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ -(I-V.), when he speaks of the ‘juice of cursed hebenon,’ is that of -the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s ‘juice of hebon.’ (Jew of Malta, -III-IV.) The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of -Shakespeare’s age; and in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, -etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European -languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, -it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; -next, that the symptoms attending upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a -very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous -snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the -lazar-like ulcerations on the body, upon which Shakespeare, in this -passage, lays so much stress.” From these arguments there seems to be -every reason for believing that Shakespeare did mean the juice of the -yew, and it is to be hoped that the continual harping on this subject, -as an evidence of his medical ignorance, will soon cease. - - Recovered again with aquavitæ, or some other hot infusion. - _Winter’s Tale, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - I must needs wake you: * * * * - Alas! my lady’s dead! * * * * * - * * * * * some aquavitæ, ho! - _Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. V._ - - The second property of your excellent sherris is—the - warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left - the liver white and pale, * * * but the sherris warms it, - and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. III._ - -The rapidity with which aconite, in poisonous doses, acts, is forcibly -shown in the comparison of it with gunpowder. - - A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in, - That the united vessel of their blood, - Mingled with venom of suggestion, - (As, force perforce, the age will pour it in,) - Shall never leak, though it do work as strong - As aconitum, or rash gunpowder. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Let me have - A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear - As will disperse itself through all the veins, - That the life-weary taker may fall dead; - And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath - As violently, as hasty powder fir’d - Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I._ - -The curative properties of balm or balsam have been known and valued -for ages past. - - But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, - Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me - The knife that made it. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Is this the balsam that the usuring senate - Pours into captain’s wounds? Banishment! - _Timon of Athens, Act III., Sc. V._ - - My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds. - _Henry VI.—3d, Act IV, Sc. III._ - -A solution of gold was supposed to possess great medical power; even -the actual contact of the pure metal, according to their belief, -kept the wearer ever in good health. Dyer quotes from John Wight’s -translation of the “Secrets of Alexis,” in which is given a receipt -“to dissolve and reducte golde into a potable licour which conserveth -the youth and healthe of a man, and will heale every disease that is -thought incurable in the space of seven daies at the furthest.” The -term “grand liquor,” as it appears in Shakespeare, refers to this -solution. - - Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, - (And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,) - I spake unto the crown, as having sense, - And thus upbraided it: _The care on thee depending, - Hath fed upon the body of my father; - Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold; - Other, less fine in carat, is more precious, - Preserving life in med’cine potable_. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Plutus himself, - That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine, - Hath not in nature’s mystery more science - Than I have in this ring. - _All’s Well, Act V., Sc. III._ - - Find this grand liquor that hath gilded ’em. - _Tempest, Act V., Sc. I._ - - We sicken to shun sickness when we purge. - _Sonnets, CXVIII._ - - What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, - Would scour these English hence? - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III._ - - Let’s purge this choler without letting blood: - This we prescribe, though no physician; - * * * * * - Our doctors say, this is no month to bleed. - _Richard II., Act I., Sc. I._ - - That gentle physic, given in time, had cur’d me; - But now I am past all * * * - _Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II._ - - ’Tis time to give ’em physic, their diseases - Are grown so catching. - _Henry VIII., Act I., Sc. III._ - - He brings his physic - After his patient’s death. - _Henry VIII., Act III., Sc. II._ - - I will not cast away my physic, but on those that are sick. - _As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II._ - - To jump a body with a dangerous physic - That’s sure of death without it. - _Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Doctors give physic by way of prevention. - _Swift._ - -The ignorant and superstitious were of the opinion that poisons could -be prepared so that the effect could be produced at certain periods -after their ingestion. They were also in error in the thought that -poisons caused great swelling of the body. - - She did confess she had - For you a mortal mineral; which, being took, - Should by the minute feed on life, and, lingering, - By inches waste you. - _Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. V._ - - All three of them are desperate: their great guilt, - Like poison given to work a great time after, - Now ’gins to bite the spirits. - _Tempest, Act III., Sc. III._ - - _Hubert._ The king, I fear, is poison’d by a monk: - I left him almost speechless. * * * - _Bastard._ How did he take it? who did taste to him? - _Hubert._ A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain, - Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king - Yet speaks, and, peradventure, may recover. - _King John, Act V., Sc. VI._ - - You shall digest the venom of your spleen, - Though it do split you! - _Julius Cæsar, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - If they had swallow’d poison ’t would appear - By external swelling: but she looks like sleep. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II._ - - _K. John._ There is so hot a summer in my bosom, - That all my bowels crumble up to dust: - I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen - Upon a parchment; and against this fire - Do I shrink up. - _P. Henry._ How fares your majesty? - _K. John._ Poison’d,—ill fare; dead, forsook, cast off: - And none of you will bid the winter come, - To thrust his icy fingers in my maw; - Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course - Through my burn’d bosom; nor entreat the north - To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips, - And comfort me with cold: I do not ask you much, - I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait, - And so ingrateful, you deny me that. * * * - Within me is a hell; and there the poison - Is, as a fiend, confin’d to tyrannize - On unreprievable condemned blood. - _King John, Act V., Sc. VII._ - - Within the infant rind of this weak flower - Poison hath residence, and medicine power: - For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; - Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. III._ - - Like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards. - _Othello, Act II., Sc. I._ - - I bought an unction of a mountebank, - So mortal, that but dip a knife in it, - Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare - Collected from all simples that have virtue - Under the moon, can save the thing from death - That is but scratch’d withal. - _Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. VII._ - -A few miscellaneous quotations referring to medical subjects must here -find a place. - - The more one sickens the worse at ease he is. - _As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II._ - - He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill - He could not sit his mule. - _Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II._ - - ——the sun is a most glorious sight, - I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late - I have set up on purpose all the night, - Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate; - And so all ye, who would be in the right - In health and purse, begin your day to date - From day-break, and when coffin’d at fourscore, - Engrave upon the plate you rose at four. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CXL._ - - So much was our love, - We would not understand what was most fit; - But, like the owner of a foul disease, - To keep it from divulging, let it feed - Even on the pith of life. - _Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - Diseases desperate grown, - By desperate appliance are reliev’d - Or not at all. - _Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - His dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine. - _Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. III._ - - O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, - In their continuance, will not feel themselves. - Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts, - Leaves them insensible. - _King John, Act V., Sc. VII._ - -What a catalogue have we here: - - Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, - ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’ the back, - lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, - wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, - lime-kilns i’ the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the - rivelled fee-simple of tetter, take and take again such - preposterous discoveries! - _Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I._ - - As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, - Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood, - The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint - Disorder breeds by heating of the blood: - Surfeits, imposthumes, grief and damn’d despair, - Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair. - _Venus and Adonis._ - -How nicely does he describe the decay of man, the second childhood, the -wasting away of the organism: - - The sixth age shifts - Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, - With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; - His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide - For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice - Turning again towards childish treble, pipes - And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, - That ends this strange eventful history, - Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, - Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. - _As You Like It, Act. II., Sc. VII._ - -Again: - - Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that - are written down old with all the characters of age? Have - you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white - beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your - voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit - single? and every part of you blasted with antiquity; and - will you yet call yourself young? - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II._ - - The satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey - beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging - thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a - plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. - _Hamlet, Act II., Sc. II._ - - A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black - beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a - fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow. * * * - _Henry V., Act V., Sc. II._ - - Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or wrinkled-old, - Ill-natur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice, - O’er worn, despised, rheumatic, and cold, - Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice, - Then might thou pause. * * * - _Venus and Adonis._ - - Let them die, that age and sullens have; - * * * both become the grave. - _Richard II., Act II., Sc. I._ - - Thus, methinks, I hear them speak, - See, how the Dean begins to break! - Poor gentleman! he droops apace! - You plainly find it in his face. - That old vertigo in his head - Will never leave him, till he’s dead. - Besides, his memory decays: - He recollects not what he says: - He can not call his friends to mind; - Forgets the place where last he dined; - Plies you with stories o’er and o’er; - He told them fifty times before. - How does he fancy we can sit - To hear his out-of-fashion wit? - But he takes up with younger folks, - Who for his wine will bear his jokes. - Faith, he must make his stories shorter, - Or change his comrades once a quarter. - _Swift—“Death of Dr. Swift.”_ - -Thus Swift predicted his own end as early as 1731. History mournfully -testifies that his candle burnt out as he anticipated. “Fits of lunacy -were succeeded by the _dementia_ of old age. For three years he uttered -only a few words and broken interjections. He would often attempt to -speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, upon -which he would sigh heavily. Babylon in ruins (to use a _simile_ of -Addison’s), was not a more melancholy spectacle than this wreck of a -mighty intellect! In speechless silence his spirit passed away October -19, 1745.” (Chamber’s Eng. Lit.) - - Manhood declines—age palsies every limb: - He quits the scene—or else the scene quits him; - Scrapes wealth, o’er each departing penny grieves, - And avarice seizes all ambition leaves; - Counts cent. per cent., and smiles or vainly frets, - O’er hoards diminish’d by young Hopeful’s debts; - Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, - Complete in all life’s lessons—but to die; - Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, - Commending every time, save times like these; - Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, - Expires unwept—is buried—let him rot! - _Byron—Hints from Horace._ - -The signs of a probable fatal termination are most beautifully -portrayed by Shakespeare. The death of Falstaff can not fail to be -regarded by the profession as an excellent description of approaching -dissolution. - - ’A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any - christom child; ’a parted even just between twelve and - one, even at the turning of the tide: for after I saw him - fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile - upon his finger’s ends, I knew there was but one way; for - his nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’a babbled of green - fields. * * * ’A bade me lay more clothes on his feet: - I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were - ’as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so - upwards, and upwards, and all was as cold as any stone. - _Henry V., Act II., Sc. III._ - - _Clarence._ Lord! Methought, what pain it was to drown! - What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears! - What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! - * * * * * - _Brakenbury._ Had you such leisure in the time of death, - To gaze upon these secrets of the deep? - _Clarence._ Methought I had; for still the envious flood - Kept in my soul and would not let it forth - To seek the empty, vast, and wand’ring air; - But smother’d it within my panting bulk, - Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. IV._ - - How oft when men are at the point of death, - Have they been merry! which their keepers call - A lightning before death. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III._ - - Out, alas! she’s cold; - Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; - Life and these lips have long been separated: - Death lies on her like an untimely frost - Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. V._ - - Do you notice - How much her grace is alter’d on the sudden? - How long her face is drawn? how pale she looks, - And of an earthy cold! Mark her eyes. - * * * She is going. - _Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II._ - - Her physician tells me - She hath pursu’d conclusions infinite - Of easy ways to die. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II._ - - Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:— - A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. I._ - - By his gates of breath - There lies a downy feather, which stirs not: - Did he suspire, that light and weightless down - Perforce must move. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Lend me a looking-glass; - If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, - Why then she lives. - _King Lear, Act V., Sc. III._ - - Death, on a solemn night of state, - In all his pomp of terror sate: - The attendants of his gloomy reign, - Diseases dire, a ghastly train! - Crowded the vast court. With hollow tone, - A voice thus thundered from the throne: - “This night our minister we name; - Let every servant speak his claim; - Merit shall bear this ebon wand.” - All, at the word, stretched forth their hand. - Fever, with burning heat possessed. - Advanced, and for the wand addressed: - “I to the weekly bills appeal; - Let those express my fervant zeal; - On every slight occasion near, - With violence I persevere” - Next Gout appears with limping pace, - Pleads how he shifts from place to place; - From head to foot how swift he flies, - And every joint and sinew plies; - Still working when he seems supprest, - A most tenacious stubborn guest. - A haggard spectre from the crew - Crawls forth, and thus asserts his due: - “’Tis I who taint the sweetest joy, - And in the shape of love destroy. - My shanks, sunk eyes, and noseless face, - Prove my pretension to the place.” - Stone urged his overgrowing force; - And, next consumption’s meagre corse, - With feeble voice that scarce was heard, - Broke with short coughs, his suit preferred: - “Let none object my lingering way; - I gain, like Fabius, by delay; - Fatigue and weaken every foe - By long attack, secure, though slow.” - Plague represents his rapid power, - Who thinned a nation in an hour. - All spoke their claim and hoped the wand. - Now expectation hushed the band, - When thus the monarch from the throne: - “Merit was ever modest known. - What! no physician speak his right? - None here! but fees their toil requite. - Let, then, Intemperance take the wand, - Who fills with gold their zealous hand. - You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest— - Whom wary men as foes detest— - Forego your claim. No more pretend - Intemperance is esteemed a friend; - He shares their mirth, their social joys, - And as a courted guest destroys. - The charge on him must justly fall, - Who finds employment for you all.” - _Gay—“Court of Death.”_ - - - - -PART III. - -SURGERY. - - -Shakespeare paid much more attention to the practice of medicine and -obstetrics than to surgery. Perhaps the cause of this was that at that -time surgery had not reached its present perfection. A more probable -reason is that his son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, may not have been a -surgeon. - - _Iago._ What, are you hurt, lieutenant? - _Cas._ Ay, past all surgery. - _Othello, Act II., Sc. III._ - - Can honour set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief - of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. - _Henry IV., Act V., Sc. I._ - - With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V., Sc. I._ - - Let me have surgeons; - I am cut to the brains. - _King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - The king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all - those legs, and arms, and heads, chopped off in a battle, - shall join together at the latter day, and cry all——We - died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a - surgeon, some, upon their wives left poor behind them. - _Henry V., Act IV., Sc. I._ - - _Patr._ Who keeps the tent now? - _Ther._ The surgeon’s box, or the patient’s wound. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. 1._ - - Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain’d: - The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee. - _Lucrece._ - - What opposite discoveries we have seen! - (Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets;) - One makes new noses, one a guillotine, - One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXIX._ - - The lawyer’s brief is like the surgeon’s knife - Dissecting the whole inside of a question, - And with it all the process of digestion. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse XIV._ - - All feel the ill, yet shun the cure. - Can sense this paradox endure? - _Swift._ - -Syphilis is frequently referred to, and he represents several of his -characters as having it; among them Falstaff and Dame Quickly. - - _Lysimachus to keeper of a bawdy house_: - Have you that a man may deal withal and defy the surgeon? - _Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - You help to make the diseases, Doll: - We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you. - _Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - _Boult._ Do you know the French knight that cowers i’ the hams? * * * - _Bawd._ As for him he brought his disease hither. - _Pericles, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - Doth fortune play the huswife with me now? - News have I, that my Nell is dead i’ the spital - Of malady of France. - _Henry V., Act V., Sc. I._ - - In this sty, where, since I came, - Diseases have been sold dearer than physic. - _Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - With tomboys, * * * with diseas’d ventures, - That play with all infirmities for gold, - Which rottenness can lend nature! - Such boil’d stuff - As well might poison poison! - _Cymbeline, Act I., Sc. VI._ - - I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to - * * * * three thousand dollars a year. - _Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo - The means of weakness and debility. - _As You Like It, Act II., Sc. III._ - - If we two be one, and thou play false, - I do digest the poison of thy flesh. - _Comedy of Errors, Act II., Sc. II._ - - Consumptions sow - In _hollow bones of_ men; strike their _sharp shins_, - And mar men’s spurring. _Crack the_ lawyer’s _voice_, - That he may never more false title plead, - Nor _sound_ his quillets _shrilly_: hoar the flamen, - That scolds against the quality of flesh, - And not believes himself: _down with the nose, - Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away_, - Of him that, his particular to foresee, - _Smells from the general weal: make curl’d pate ruffians bald_; - And let the unscarr’d braggarts of the war - _Derive_ some _pain_ from you. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - -The symptoms of secondary and tertiary syphilis are accurately -expressed in this curse of Timon’s. Leprosy is referred to in the -sentence “hoar the flamen,” or in other words, make white the priest. -Shakespeare here shows a very fine point by using these most dreaded -of all diseases: leprosy, syphilis, and consumption—maladies that are -hereditary, incurable, and contagious. They are certainly lasting, as -he wishes the curse to be. - - _A pox on ’t!_ - -A common expression scattered through many of his plays. - - A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he - can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the - one, and the pox pinches the other. - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II._ - - I’faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have - many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the - laying in), he will last you some eight year or nine year. - _Hamlet, Act V., Sc. I._ - - She hath eaten up all her beef, and is herself in the tub. - _Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II._ - - To the spital go, - And from the powdering-tub of infamy - Fetch forth the lazar-kite of Cressid’s kind, - Doll Tearsheet she by name. - _Henry V., Act II., Sc. I._ - - Be a whore still: * * * * - Give them diseases, * * * - * * * * Season the slaves - For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth - To the tub-fast, and the diet. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - -Dr. Macdonnell, of Canada, has thrown much light on these quotations -in his works on Syphilis. He says: “It appears to have been the custom -to prescribe for syphilitic patients, in addition to inunction, a -prolonged diaphoresis and a very low diet. On the continent the patient -was placed in a cave, oven, or dungeon, and Wiseman says it was the -custom in England to use a tub for this purpose.” - -In the footnote to the passage in Johnson & Steven’s edition of -Shakespeare’s works the following quotations from old plays are given: - - “——you had better match a ruin’d bawd, - One ten times cur’d by sweating and the tub.” - _Jaspar Maines, 1639._ - -Again, in the _Family of Love_, (1608), a doctor says: - - “O for one of the hoops of my Cornelius’ tub, I shall burst myself - with laughing else.” - -In _Monsieur d’Olive_, (1606): - - “Our embassage is into France, there may be employment for thee: - Hast thou a tub?” - - She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous sores - Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices - To the April day again. - _Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - ’Tis I who taint the sweetest joy, - And in the shape of love destroy. - My shanks, sunk eyes, and noseless face, - Prove my pretension to the place. - _Gay._ - - Pox take him and his wit. - _Swift._ - - Constant to nought—save hazard and a whore, - Yet cursing both—for both have made him sore; - Unread—unless, since books beguile disease, - The pox becomes his passage to degrees. - _Byron—Hints from Horace._ - - I said small-pox had gone out of late; - Perhaps it will be followed by the great. - ’Tis said the great came from America; - Perhaps it may set out on its return,— - The population there so spreads, they say, - ’Tis grown high time to thin it in its turn, - With war, or plague, or famine, any way, - So that civilization they may learn; - And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is— - Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis? - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXX._ - - He’ll feel the weight of it many a day. - _Cowley._ - -A little attention is paid to diseases of the eye, thus in Winter’s -Tale: - - Wishing all eyes - Blind with the pin and web, but theirs, theirs only, - That would unseen be wicked. - _Act I., Sc. II._ - -Commentators have the thought that Shakespeare wished to express the -idea of cataract by the term pin and web—this is, without doubt, a -mistake; he did not intend to make lovers so cruel that they should -desire to deprive every one else of sight. Pin and web (being a -varicose excrescence of the conjunctiva, sometimes to such an extent as -to totally prevent vision), was meant to express a veil, or in other -words, the eyelid. - - Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes? - * * * * * - O heaven! that there were but a mote in yours, - A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair, - Any annoyance in that precious sense! - Then, feeling what small things are boist’rous there, - Your vile intent must needs seem horrible. - _King John, Act IV., Sc. I._ - -The term “sand-blind” was meant to express a dimness of sight, as if -sand had been thrown in the eyes. - - _Launcelot._ O heavens, this is my true-begotten father! who, - being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, - knows me not. - * * * * * - _Gobbo._ Alack, sir, I am sand-blind, I know you not. - _Merchant of Venice, Act II., Sc. II._ - - I remember thine eyes well enough - Dost thou squiny at me? - _King Lear, Act. IV., Sc. VI._ - - He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, - and makes the hare-lip. - _King Lear, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - Thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I._ - - A merry, cock-eyed, curious looking sprite. - _Byron—Vision of Judgment._ - - To no one muse does she her glance confine, - But has an eye, at once, to all the nine. - _Tom Moore._ - -The subject of wounds has received frequent mention. - - A scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough; * * * go, - villain, fetch a surgeon. * * * ’Tis not deep as a well, - nor as wide as a church door; but ’tis enough, * * * ask - for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. I._ - - Have by some surgeon * * * - To stop his wounds lest he do bleed to death. - _Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - For the love of God, a surgeon! send one presently to Sir - Toby. * * * H’as broke my head across, and has given Sir - Toby a bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God your help! - _Twelfth Night, Act V., Sc. I._ - - _Romeo._ Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. - _Benvolio._ For what, I pray thee? - _Romeo._ For thy broken shin. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II._ - - _Moth._ A wonder, master; here’s a Costard broken in a shin. - _Armado._ Some enigma, some riddle: come,—thy _l’envoy_; begin. - _Costard._ No egma, no riddle, no _l’envoy_; no salve in the male, - sir; O sir, plantain, a plain plantain; * * * no salve, - sir, but a plantain! - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act III., Sc. I._ - - The sovereign’st thing on earth - Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise. - _Henry IV., Act I., Sc. III._ - - I do beseech your majesty, may salve - The long-grown wounds of my intemperance. - _Henry IV., Act III., Sc. II._ - - Let us hence, my sovereign, to provide - A salve for any sore that may betide. - _Henry VI—3d, Act. IV., Sc. VI._ - - Here is a letter, lady; - The paper as the body of my friend, - And every word in it a gaping wound, - Issuing life-blood. - _Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. II._ - - He jests at scars, that never felt a wound. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. II._ - - _Dercetas._ This is his sword; - I robb’d his wound of it. * * * - _Cæsar._ * * * We do lance - Diseases in our bodies. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. I._ - - _Men._ Where is he wounded? - _Vol._ I’ the shoulder and i’ the left arm: - There will be large cicatrices to show the people. - _Coriolanus, Act II., Sc. I._ - - What wound did ever heal but by degrees? - _Othello, Act II., Sc. III._ - - To see the salve doth make the wound ache more. - _Lucrece._ - - Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains - Some scar of it. - _As You Like It, Act III., Sc. V._ - - The new-heal’d wound * * * should break out, - Which would be so much the more dangerous. - _Richard III., Act II., Sc. II._ - - I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master - cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III., Sc. I._ - - I’ll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs - To apply to ’s bleeding face. - _King Lear, Act III., Sc. VII._ - - Go, get a white of an egg and a little flax, and close the breach - of the head; it is the most conducible thing that can be. - _Ben Jonson—“The Case is Altered.” Act II., Sc. IV,._ - - One’s hip he slash’d, and split the other’s shoulder, - And drove them with their brutal yells to seek - If there might be chirurgeons who could solder - The wounds they richly merited. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto VIII., Verse XCIV._ - -Many surgical subjects receive but little attention from him. - - _Ber._ What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of? - _Laf._ A fistula, my lord. - _All’s Well, Act I., Sc. I._ - - _Fal._ Why, sirs, I am almost out at heels. - _Pist._ Why, then, let kibes ensue. - _Merry Wives, Act I., Sc. III._ - - The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near - the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. - _Hamlet, Act V., Sc. I._ - - If it were a kibe - ’Twould put me to my slipper. - _Tempest, Act II., Sc. I._ - - If a man’s brains were in ’s heels, were ’t not in danger - of kibes? - _King Lear, Act I., Sc. V._ - - Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth - of the city? - _Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. - _Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. IV._ - - Were ’t my fitness - To let these hands obey my blood, - They are apt enough to dislocate and tear - Thy flesh and bones:—howe’er thou art a fiend, - A woman’s shape doth shield thee. - _King Lear, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, - * * * * there is little hope of life in him. - _As You Like It, Act I., Sc. II._ - - It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was - sport for ladies. - _As You Like It, Act I., Sc. II._ - - On her left breast - A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops - I’ the bottom of a cowslip. - _Cymbeline, Act II., Sc. II._ - - Under her breast - (Worthy the pressing) lies a mole, right proud - Of that most delicate lodging. - _Cymbeline, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - If thou wert * * * * - Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, - Patch’d with foul moles and eye offending marks, - I would not care. * * * - _King John, Act III., Sc. I._ - -In case of a recent burn it was the custom to place the part near the -fire, thus upholding the old homœopathic doctrine that what hurts will -cure. - - And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire - Within the scorched veins of one new burn’d. - _King John, Act III., Sc. I._ - - One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; - Rights by rights founder, strength by strengths do fail. - _Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. VII._ - - One fire burns out another’s burning, - One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Even as one heat another heat expels, - Or as one nail by strength drives out another, - So the remembrance of my former love - Is by a newer object quite forgotten. - _Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - I must not break my back to heal his finger. - _Timon of Athens, Act II., Sc. I._ - - That bottled spider, that foul, bunch-back’d toad. - _Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Where’s that valiant crook-back prodigy? - _Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. IV._ - - Ladies, that have their toes - Unplagu’d with corns, will have a bout with you. * * - * * * Which of you all - Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, - She, I’ll swear, hath corns. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. V._ - - Strangely-visited people, - All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, - The mere despair of surgery. - _Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more - Than when it bites but lanceth not the sore. - _Richard II., Act I., Sc. III._ - - You rub the sore, - When you should bring the plaster. - _Tempest, Act II., Sc. I._ - - It will but skin and film the ulcerous place. - _Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - _Men._ The service of the foot - Being once gangren’d is not then respected - For what before it was. - _Bru._ Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence, - Lest his infection, being of catching nature, - Spread further. - _Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I._ - - _Sic._ He’s a disease that must be cut away. - _Men._ O he’s a limb that has but a disease; - Moral, to cut it off; to cure it easy. - _Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I._ - - _Falstaff._ Boy, tell him I am deaf. - _Page._ You must speak louder, my master is deaf. - * * * * * - _Falstaff._ * * * it is a kind of deafness. - _Ch. Just._ I think you are fallen into the disease; for you hear - not what I say to you, * * * and I care not if I do - become your physician. - _Falstaff._ * * * I should be your patient to follow your - prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a - scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II._ - -The surgery described in Titus Andronicus is, of course, impossible. - - With gaping mouth. - _Spenser._ - - Madame scolded one day so long, - She sudden lost all use of tongue. - The doctor came—with hem and haw, - Pronounced the affection a lock’d jaw. - ———— - - Let firm, well-hammered soles protect thy feet - Through freezing snows, and rains, and soaking sleet. - Should the big last extend the shoe too wide, - Each stone will wrench the unwary step aside; - The sudden turn may stretch the swelling vein, - The cracking joint unhinge, or ankle sprain; - And when too short the modish shoes are worn, - You’ll judge the seasons by your shooting corn - _Gay._ - - Leeches stick, nor quit the bleeding wound, - Till off they drop with skinfuls to the ground. - _Swift._ - - Think of the thunderer’s falling down below - Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh! - Alas! that glory should be chill’d by snow! - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse LIX._ - - The surgeon had his instruments and bled - Pedrillo, and so gently ebb’d his breath, - You hardly could perceive when he was dead. - * * * * * - And first a little crucifix he kissed, - And then held out his jugular and wrist. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse LXXVI._ - - - - -PART IV. - -OBSTETRICS. - - -Obstetrics was Shakespeare’s favorite branch of the profession, and he -has not been at all sparing in reference to it. Under this head will be -included many topics which could more properly be placed in the chapter -on physiology, but it is thought better to have such intimate subjects -classed together. They have been arranged in the order of their natural -occurrence. - - _Capulet._ My child is yet a stranger in the world, - She hath not seen the change of fourteen years; - Let two more summers wither in their pride, - Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. - _Paris._ Younger than she are happy mothers made. - _Capulet._ And too soon marr’d are those so early made. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Well, think of marriage now; younger than you, - Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, - Are made already mothers: by my count, - I was your mother much upon these years - That you are now a maid. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. III._ - -In the old poem Juliet’s age is put down as sixteen; in Paynter’s novel -she is said to be eighteen. Shakespeare, however, makes her fourteen, -but who ever imagines her of these tender years while enjoying the -play? It seems absurd to think of her as being less than twenty or -twenty-two until we recollect that she grew and developed into early -womanhood under the sun of an Italian clime. The wonderful development -of the girls of Italy can easily be seen in the Eternal city. Taking a -stroll down to the Spanish staircase which is daily filled with Roman -models lazily awaiting the engagements of the artists, or a walk on the -Corso, or around the Theatre of Marcellus, convinces one at once that -Shakespeare’s Juliet, young as she is, is not overdrawn, and that the -Italian girl of fourteen is indeed fully “ripe to be a bride.” - - ’Tis a sad thing, I can not choose but say, - And all the fault of that indecent sun - Who can not leave alone our helpless clay, - But will keep baking, broiling, burning on, - That, howsoever people fast and pray, - The flesh is frail and so the soul’s undone: - What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, - Is much more common where the climate’s sultry. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse LXIII._ - -Shakespeare has hinted several times that it was a common occurrence -for girls of this “sun-burnt nation” to be mothers at the age of -fourteen. Paris assures Juliet’s father that “younger than she are -happy mothers made,” and Lady Capulet, in her conversation with her -daughter, alludes to the fact that she was her mother when she was but -thirteen. She also echoes Paris in saying: - - Younger than you - Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, - Are made already mothers. - -Another reference is found in Winter’s Tale: - - If this prove true, they’ll pay for it: by mine honour, - I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see, - To bring false generations. - _Act II., Sc. I._ - -Perhaps Byron had a better idea of this climatic effect than any other -poet. He has frequently written of it; indeed, it forms the foundation -of some of his poems. - - Wedded she was some years, and to a man - Of fifty and such husbands are in plenty; - And yet, I think, instead of such a one, - ’Twere better to have two of five and twenty, - Especially in countries near the sun. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse LXII._ - - It was upon a day, a summer’s day; - Summer’s indeed a very dangerous season, - And so is spring about the end of May; - The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CII._ - - Haidee was nature’s bride, and knew not this; - Haidee was passion’s child, born where the sun - Showers triple light, and scorches even the kiss - Of his gazelle-eyed daughters. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CCII._ - - The Turks do well to shut—at least sometimes— - The women up—because, in sad reality, - Their chastity in these unhappy climes - Is not a thing of that astringent quality, - Which in the north prevents precocious crimes. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto V., Verse CLVII._ - - Few short years make wondrous alterations, - Particularly among sun-burnt nations. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse LXIX._ - - Our English maids are long to woo, - And frigid even in possession; - And if their charms be fair to view, - Their lips are slow at love’s confession: - But born beneath a brighter sun, - For love ordain’d the Spanish maid is - And who when fondly, fairly won,— - Enchants you like the girl of Cadiz? - * * * * * - In each her charms the heart must move - Of all who venture to behold her; - Then let not maids less fair reprove - Because her bosom is not colder: - Through many a clime ’tis mine to roam - Where many a soft and melting maid is, - But none abroad and few at home - May match the dark-eyed girl of Cadiz. - _Byron—Poems._ - -What a beautiful comparison Shakespeare has made between the virgin and -flowers. - - I would I had some flowers o’ the spring, that might - Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, - That wear upon your virgin branches yet - Your maidenheads growing * * * - * * * * pale primroses, - That die unmarried, ere they can behold - Bright Phœbus in his strength,—a malady - Most incident to maids. - _Winter’s Tale, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Fair Hermia, question your desires, - Know of your youth, examine well your blood, - Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice, - You can endure the livery of a nun; - For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d - To live a barren sister all your life, - Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. - Thrice blessed they that master so their blood, - To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; - But earthly happier is the rose distill’d, - Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, - Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I._ - -Fecundation is not overlooked, and Shakespeare shows his knowledge of -the fact that the penis is merely the spout or funnel by which the -semen is conveyed to the uterus, and aptly compares the womb to a -bottle, which in his time gradually tapered toward the neck. The word -tundish is an old Warwickshire name for a funnel. - - _Duke._ Why should he die, sir? - _Lucio._ Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. - _Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No: - The wren goes to ’t, and the small gilded fly - Does lecher in my sight. - Let copulation thrive for Gloster’s bastard son - Was kinder to his father than my daughters - Got ’tween lawful sheets. - _King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - Hymen hath brought the bride to bed, - Where, by the loss of maidenhead, - A babe is moulded. - _Pericles, Gow to Act III._ - - Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once, - That make ungrateful man. - _King Lear, Act III., Sc. II._ - - _Q. Eliz._ But thou didst kill my children. - _K. Rich._ But in your daughter’s womb I’ll bury them; - Where, in that nest of spicery, they shall breed - Selves of themselves, to your recomforture. - _Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Your brother and his lover have embrac’d: - As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time, - That from the seedness the bare fallow brings - To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb - Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry. - _Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. IV._ - - Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess hear! - Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend - To make this creature fruitful! - Into her womb convey sterility! - Dry up in her the organs of increase; - And from her derogate body never spring - A babe to honour her! If she must teem, - Create her child of spleen; that it may live, - And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her! - Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; - With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; - Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits - To laughter and contempt: that she may feel - How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is - To have a thankless child! - _King Lear, Act I., Sc. IV._ - -The production of either sex at will agitated the minds of -physiologists to a considerable extent during Shakespeare’s time. -Indeed he seems to have held an ancient theory that the more vigorous -of the parents produced the opposite sex. Dr. Robert, of Paris, in his -paper entitled _Megalanthropogenesis_, somewhat followed up this theory -and maintained that “the race of men of genius might be perpetuated by -uniting them to better physically developed women having clever minds,” -which, according to his theory, would, of course, result in nothing but -male children. - - Bring forth men-children only! - For thy undaunted mettle should compose - Nothing but males. - _Macbeth, Act I., Sc. VII._ - - For men’s sake, the authors of these women; - Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Be advis’d, fair maid: - To you your father should be as a god; - One that compos’d your beauties; yea, and one - To whom you are but as a form in wax, - By him imprinted, and within his power - To leave the figure, or disfigure it. - _Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I._ - -The child would therefore resemble the parent of opposite sex. - - _Nurse to Henry VIII_: - ’Tis a girl * * * as like you - As cherry is to cherry. - _Act V., Sc. I._ - -_Paulina pleading to Leontes on the birth of a daughter to his wife -Hermione_: - - Behold, my lords, - Although the print be little, the whole matter - And copy of the father,—eye, nose, lip; - The trick of ’s frown; his forehead; nay, the valley, - The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles; - The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. III._ - -It is a very old opinion that the mental state of parents during -coition influenced to a certain extent the mental activity of the -offspring. Bastards were supposed to excel in this respect on account -of the mental excitement during the intercourse from which they took -their origin. Burton held this view in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” -and, after reading King Lear, we know that Shakespeare also held it. - - _Edmund._ Why brand they us - With base? with baseness? bastardy? base? base? - Who in the lusty stealth of nature take - More composition and fierce quality - Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed - Go to the creating a whole tribe of fobs, - Got ’tween sleep and wake. - _Act. I., Sc. II._ - -His allusions to pregnancy are many. - - He knows himself my bed he hath defil’d; - And at that time he got his wife with child: - Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick; - So there’s my riddle, One that’s dead is _quick_. - _All’s Well, Act V., Sc. III._ - - She is gone; she is two month on her way. * * - She’s quick; the child brags in her belly already. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II._ - -A mistake of ten weeks is truly a bad one; quickening generally being -experienced _four and a half months_ after impregnation. - - I am with child, * * * * - Murder not, then, the fruit within my womb. - _Henry VI., Act V., Sc. IV._ - - She died, but not alone; she held within - A second principle of life, which might - Have dawn’d a fair and sinless child of sin: - But closed its little being without light, - And went down to the grave unborn, wherein - Blossom and bough lie wither’d with one blight. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto IV., Verse LXX._ - - This blue ey’d hag was hither brought with child. - _Tempest, Act I., Sc. II._ - - If myself might be his judge, - He should receive his punishment in thanks: - He hath got his friend with child. - _Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. IV._ - - I shall answer that * * * better than you can the getting up of the - negro’s belly; the moor is with child. - _Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. V._ - - I would there were no age between ten, and three and twenty, or - that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the - between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, - stealing, fighting. * * * - _Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. III._ - - He was whipped for getting the shrieve’s fool with child; a dumb - innocent that could not say him nay. - _All’s Well, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - Let wives with child - Pray that their burthens may not fall this day. - _King John, Act III., Sc. I._ - -Shakespeare knew of the importance of pregnant women, being -particularly careful that nothing should excite them. - - I the rather wean me from despair, - For love of Edward’s offspring in my womb: - This is it that makes me bridle passion, - And bear with mildness my misfortune’s cross; - Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear, - And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs, - Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown - King Edward’s fruit, true heir to the English crown. - _Henry VI—3d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - -The longings or desires of pregnant women are very nicely shown in -Measure for Measure: - - She came in great with child, and longing for stewed prunes. - _Act II., Sc. I._ - - This mistress Elbow, being as I say, with child, and being great - bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes. * * * - _Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. I._ - - From whom my absence was not six months old, - Before herself (almost at fainting under - The pleasing punishment that women bear) - Had made provision for her following me. - _Comedy of Errors, Act I., Sc. I._ - - The queen rounds apace. * * * - * * * She is spread of late - Into a goodly bulk. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. I._ - - The queen, your mother, rounds apace: we shall - Present our services to a fine new prince - One of these days. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. I._ - - She grew round-wombed, and had a son for her cradle ere she had - a husband for her bed. - _King Lear, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Great-bellied women, - That had not half a week to go, like rams - In the old time of war, would shake the press - And make ’em reel before ’em. - _Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. I._ - -Parturition is referred to in many instances. - - Lucina, O - Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle - To those that cry by night, convey thy deity - Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs - Of my queen’s travails! - _Pericles, Act III., Sc. I._ - - What shall be done with groaning Juliet? - She’s very near her hour. - _Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. II._ - - Come, let us go, and pray to all the gods - For our beloved mother in her pains. - _Titus Andronicus, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - The lady shrieks, and well-a-near - Doth fall in travail with her fear. - _Pericles, Gow to Act III._ - - She is deliver’d, lords,—she is deliver’d. - I mean, she is brought a-bed. - _Titus Andronicus, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - The queen’s in labour, - They say, in great extremity; and fear’d - She’ll with the labour end. - _Henry VIII., Act V., Sc. I._ - - The queen’s in labour. * * * Her sufferance made - Almost each pang a death. - _Henry VIII, Act V., Sc. I._ - - Finger of birth-strangled babe - Ditch-deliver’d by a drab. * * * - _Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - You ne’er oppressed me with a mother’s groan, - Yet I express to you a mother’s care. - _All’s Well, Act I., Sc. I._ - -History records the fact that the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards -Richard III., was born with teeth, uneven shoulders, one leg shorter -than the other, deformed back, with a clump of hair on it. These facts -Shakespeare never forgot, and continually harps on them. - - Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain, - And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope; - To wit, an indigest deformed lump, - Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree. - Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, - To signify, thou cam’st to bite the world. - _Henry VI—3d., Act V., Sc. VI._ - - I have often heard my mother say - I came into the world with my legs forward: - Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste, - And seek their ruin that usurp’d our right? - The midwife wonder’d and the women cried, - _O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!_ - And so I was, which plainly signified - That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog. - _Henry VI—3d., Act V., Sc. VI._ - - Love forswore me in my mother’s womb: - And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, - She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe - To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub; - To make an envious mountain on my back, - Where sits deformity to mock my body; - To shape my legs of an unequal size; - To disproportion me in every part, - Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp - That carries no impression like the dam. - _Henry VI—3d, Act III., Sc. II._ - -The term “unlick’d bear-whelp,” in the last quotation, refers to an old -notion existing before Shakespeare’s time: that the bear brings forth -masses of animated flesh, having no resemblance whatever to her, and -that she then licks this shapeless lump into a cub. There is a thread -of truth running through this idea, as will be seen by the following -extract taken by Dyer from “Arcana Microcosmi,” by Alexander Ross: -“Bears bring forth their young deformed and misshapen, by reason of the -thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is covered over with a -mucous matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the winter-time, -by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the eye the cub -appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is afterwards licked -away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that which before -seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape.” Ross holds that -this was well known by the ancients and that they entertained no other -idea in regard to it. - - Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump, - As crooked in thy manners as thy shape! - _Henry VI—2d, Act V., Sc. I._ - - I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion, - Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, - Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time - Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, - And that so lamely and unfashionable, - That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; - Why I, * * * since I cannot prove a lover, - I am determined to prove a villain. - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. I._ - - Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast - That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old; - ’Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth. - _Richard III., Act II., Sc. IV._ - - Thou elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog! - Thou that wast seal’d in thy nativity - The slave of nature and the son of hell! - Thou slander of thy mother’s heavy womb! - Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins! - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. III._ - - Art thou so hasty? I have stay’d for thee, - God knows, in anguish, pain and agony. - * * * A grievous burden was thy birth to me. - _Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept - A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death: - That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes. - _Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV._ - -A few other quotations referring to labor are here found. - - By her he had two children at one birth. - _Henry VI—2d, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - A terrible child-bed hast thou had, my dear; - No light, no fire. - _Pericles, Act III., Sc. I._ - - At sea, in child-bed died she, but brought forth - A maid-child called Marina. - _Pericles, Act V., Sc. III._ - - The child-bed privilege denied, which ’longs - To women of all fashion;—lastly, hurried - Here to this place, i’ the open air, before - I have got strength of limit. - _Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Alas! worlds fall—and woman since she fell’d - The world (as, since that history, less polite - Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held) - Has not yet given up the practice quite. - Poor thing of usages! coerced, compell’d, - Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right, - Condemn’d to child-bed, as men for their sins, - Have shaving too entail’d upon their chins,— - A daily plague, which, in the aggregate, - May average on the whole with parturition. - But as to women who can penetrate - The real sufferings of their she condition? - Man’s very sympathy with their estate - Has much of selfishness and more suspicion. - Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, - But form good housekeepers to breed a nation. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XXIII._ - - They are as children but one step below, - Even of your mettle, of your very blood; - Of all one pain, save for a night of groans - Endur’d of her, for whom you bid like sorrow. - _Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - Would I had died a maid, - And never seen thee, never borne thee son, - Seeing thou hast prov’d so unnatural a father! - Hath he deserv’d to lose his birthright thus? - Hadst thou but lov’d him half so well as I, - Or felt that pain which I did for him once, - Or nourish’d him, as I did with my blood. - * * * * * - _Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. I._ - - He is your brother, lords; sensibly fed - Of that self-blood that first gave life to you; - And from that womb where you imprison’d were, - He is enfranchised and come to light. - _Titus Andronicus, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - The child was prisoner to the womb, and is - By law and process of great Nature, thence - Freed and enfranchis’d. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II._ - - She said, no shepherd sought her side, - No hunter’s hand her snood untied, - Yet ne’er again to braid her hair - The virgin snood did Alice wear; - Gone was her maiden glee and sport, - Her maiden girdle all too short. - Nor sought she, from that fatal night, - Or holy church or blessed rite, - But lock’d her secret in her breast, - And died in travail unconfess’d. - _Scott—Lady of the Lake, Canto III., Verse V._ - - My princely father then had wars in France; - And by true computation of the time, - Found that the issue was not his begot. - _Richard III., Act III., Sc. V._ - - Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth hour’s blot: - For marks descried in men’s nativity - Are nature’s faults, not their own infamy. - _Lucrece._ - -A few quotations on abortion, and some others that are intimately -related to obstetrics, remain. - - If ever he have child, abortive be it, - Prodigious, and untimely brought to light, - Whose ugly and unnatural aspect - May fright the hopeful mother at the view. - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. II._ - - Why should I joy in any abortive birth? - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Truth is truth: large length of seas and shores - Between my father and my mother lay,— - And I have heard my father speak * * * - That this, my mother’s son, was none of his; - And, if he were, he came into the world - Full fourteen weeks before the course of time. - _King John, Act I., Sc. I._ - -Shakespeare has interwoven some of his family history here, and made -the advent of Philip, the Bastard, correspond exactly to the untimely -birth of his eldest daughter Susanna, who appeared only five and a half -months after his marriage—“full fourteen weeks before the course of -time.” Later on in the play we find the following: - - Your brother is legitimate, - Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him. - -—thus furnishing proof of legitimacy in such cases. - - She is, something before her time, deliver’d. - * * * A daughter; and a goodly babe, - Lusty, and like to live. - _Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II._ - - O pray God, the fruit of her womb miscarry. - _Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. IV._ - - She had also snatch’d a moment since her marriage - To bear a son and heir—and one miscarriage. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse LVI._ - - Macduff was from his mother’s womb - Untimely ripp’d. - _Macbeth, Act V., Sc. VIII._ - - Some griefs are med’cinable; that is, one of them, - For it doth physic love. - _Cymbeline, Act III., Sc. II._ - - This bastard graff shall never come to growth: - He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute - That thou art doting father of his fruit. - _Lucrece._ - - Grant, that our hopes, (yet likely of fair birth) - Should be still-born. * * * * - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. III._ - - The barren, touched in this holy chase, - Shake off their sterile curse. - _Julius Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II._ - -This supposed charm against sterility, says Dyer, “is copied from -Plutarch, who, in his description of the festival Lupercalia, tells us -how ‘noble young men run naked through the city, striking in sport whom -they meet in the way with leather thongs,’ which blows were commonly -believed to have the wonderful effect attributed to them by Cæsar.” - - I had then laid wormwood to my dug, - * * * it did taste the wormwood on the nipple - Of my dug, and felt it bitter. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. III._ - - I have given suck, and know - How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me; - I would, while it was smiling in my face, - Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, - And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn - As you have done to this. - _Macbeth, Act I., Sc. VII._ - - Eggs, oysters too, are amatory food. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CLXX._ - -Surely Byron knew of the stimulating qualities of eggs and oysters, -and no doubt took them with as much faith as the worn-out debauchee of -to-day does, as he sits down to his “plate of raw” and his “sherry and -egg.” - - - - -PART V. - -PHYSIOLOGY. - - -Mr. Hackett, noticing the numerous allusions in Shakespeare to the -blood, and to a circulation of this fluid to and from the heart or -the liver, was led, in 1859, to express the absurd idea that William -Shakespeare had anticipated Harvey in the discovery of the circulation -of the blood. - - “What damned error, but some sober brow - Will bless it, and approve it with a text.” - -Mr. Hackett found many thoughts in Shakespeare concerning the -circulation which were applicable to Harvey’s theory. - - See, how the blood is settled in his face! - Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost, - Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless, - Being all descended to the labouring heart; - Who, in the conflict that it holds with death, - Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy; - Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth - To blush and beautify the cheek again. - _Henry VI—2d., Act III., Sc. II._ - - You are * * * * - As dear to me as are the ruddy drops - That visit my sad heart. - _Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I._ - - Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, - Making both it unable for itself, - And dispossessing all my other parts - Of necessary fitness? - _Measure far Measure, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - My heart drops blood. - _Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. V._ - - I am sure my heart wept blood. - _Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. II._ - - These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart. - _Henry VI., Act IV., Sc. VI._ - - The blood weeps from my heart. - _Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - I send it through the rivers of your blood, - Even to the court, the heart—to the seat o’ the brain; - And, through the cranks and offices of man, - The strongest nerves and small inferior veins, - From me receive that natural competency - Whereby they live. - _Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I._ - - The tide of blood in me - Hath proudly flow’d in vanity, till now; - Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea, - Where it shall mingle with the state of floods, - And flow henceforth in formal majesty. - _Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. II._ - - The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood - Is stopp’d; the very source of it is stopped. - _Macbeth, Act II., Sc. II._ - - ——my heart, * * * - The fountain from the which my current runs, - Or else dries up. - _Othello, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - I cannot rest - Until the white rose that I wear, be dy’d - Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry’s heart. - _Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Snakes, in my heart-blood warm’d, that sting my heart! - _Richard II., Act III. Sc. II._ - - Thy heart-blood I will have for this day’s work. - _Henry VI., Act I., Sc. III._ - - Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there, - Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir. - _Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Her blue blood changed to black in every vein, - Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed, - Show’d life imprison’d in a body dead. - _Lucrece._ - - Corrupted blood some watery token shows; - And blood untainted still doth red abide, - Blushing at that which is so putrefied. - _Lucrece._ - - Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast - A harmful knife, * * * * * * - And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide - In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood - Circles her body in on every side, * * * - Some of her blood still pure and red remain’d, - And some look’d black. - _Lucrece._ - - But are you flesh and blood? - Have you a working pulse? - _Pericles, Act V., Sc. I._ - - I drink the air before me, and return - Or e’er your pulse twice beat. - _Tempest, Act V., Sc. I._ - - My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, - And makes as healthful music. - _Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire. - _Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV._ - - Even as my life, or blood that fosters it. - _Pericles, Act II., Sc. V._ - - Swill as quicksilver it courses through - The natural gates and alleys of the body. - _Hamlet, Act I., Sc. V._ - -Shakespeare died in 1610. Harvey first published his theory in 1619. It -must be remembered that at this time many ideas were afloat concerning -the circulation. Among the older theories were those of Hippocrates, -Praxagoras, and Erasistratus, who held that the arteries contained -air, and that, therefore, the _veins_ were the _only_ blood-holding -vessels, and that they had their origin in the liver. Galen, the most -celebrated of ancient medical writers, who lived as early as 150 A. -D. taught that the left ventricle of the heart was the common origin -of all arteries, and that the arteries of living animals contained -blood, _not_ air; but he did not advance with his studies so as to -learn in what direction the blood flowed, or whether it was movable -or stationary. The distinguished Michael Servetus, who was burned -with his books, by order of Calvin, in 1553, taught that the blood -flowed from the right ventricle, through the pulmonary artery to the -lungs, and thence through the pulmonary vein and left auricle into the -corresponding ventricle from which it was conveyed by the aorta to all -parts of the body. Dr. Bucknill is of the opinion that Shakespeare -followed Hippocrates in his theory that the veins were the only blood -vessels and that they came from the liver. It is very evident, from the -many allusions given below, that he did at different periods adhere to -this belief. - - Let my liver rather heat with wine, - Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. - _Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I._ - - For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his - liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of the - anatomy. - _Twelfth Night, Act III., Sc. II._ - - I’ll empty all these veins, - And shed my dear blood drop by drop. - _Henry IV., Act I., Sc. III._ - - I’ll have more lives - Than drops of blood were in my father’s veins. - _Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. I._ - - Let me have - A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear - As will disperse itself through all the veins. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I._ - - I freely told you, all the wealth I had - Ran in my veins - _Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. II._ - - The blood and courage that renowned them, - Runs in your veins. - _Henry V., Act I., Sc. II._ - - ——through all thy veins shall run - A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize - Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep - His natural progress but surcease to beat. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - There is * * * * * - Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins. - _Henry V., Act IV., Sc. II._ - - My blood speaks to you in my veins. - _Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. II._ - - While warm life plays in that infant’s veins. - _King John, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - Had bak’d thy blood, and made it heavy thick, - Which, else, runs tickling up and down the veins. - _King John, Act III., Sc. III._ - - ’Tis thy presence that exhales this blood - From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells. - _Richard III., Act I., Sc. II._ - - Stuff’d within with bloody veins. - _Pericles, Act I., Sc. IV._ - - For every false drop in her bawdy veins - A Grecian’s life hath sunk. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - If so thou yield him, there is gold, and here - My bluest veins to kiss. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act II., Sc. V._ - - That those veins - Did verily bear blood. - _Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. III._ - - The veins unfill’d, our blood is cold. - _Coriolanus, Act V., Sc. I._ - - I have a faint cold, fear thrills through my veins - That almost freezes up the heat of life. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - — purple fountains issuing from your veins. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. I._ - -The arteries or “air pipes” were supposed, according to this theory of -Hippocrates, to contain an ærial fluid. - - These pipes and these conveyances of our blood. - _Coriolanus, Act V., Sc. I._ - - Universal plodding poisons up - The nimble spirits in the arteries. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III._ - - My fate cries out, - And makes each petty artery in this body - As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve. - _Hamlet, Act I., Sc. IV._ - -It is more reasonable to suppose that Shakespeare did not tie himself -down to any one theory concerning the circulation, but that sometimes -he had in mind the theory of Michael Servetus, (to which all the heart -allusions will apply), and at other times that of Hippocrates, (which -accounts for all the thoughts regarding the liver as the propeller of -the blood through the veins). The immortal Harvey was the first to -point out the true idea of the circulation: the idea that the blood -was forced by the heart through the arteries, a pure live-supporting -fluid; that it went to the extreme parts of the body, giving nutriment, -taking up impurities, and then returning by way of the veins to the -heart,—thence to the lungs to be purified before being again sent -out on it’s life-sustaining journey. None of the quotations from -Shakespeare express this idea, excepting perhaps one, and that rather -vaguely. - - The tide of blood in me - Hath proudly flow’d in vanity, till now; - Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea, - Where it shall mingle with the state of floods, - And flow henceforth in formal majesty. - _Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. II._ - -We can not believe, however that he possessed the knowledge of Harvey’s -theory, and can only say in his own words: - - There is no vice so simple, but assumes - Some mark of virtue on it’s outward parts. - -The physiology of the digestive system is excellently described in -Coriolanus. - - _Men._ There was a time, when all the body’s members - Rebell’d against the belly; thus accus’d it: - That only like a gulf it did remain - I’ the midst o’ the body, idle and unactive, - Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing - Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments - Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, - And mutually participate, did minister - Unto the appetite and affection common - Of the whole body. The belly answer’d - * * * * with a kind of smile, - Which ne’er came from the lungs, but even thus, - For, look you, I may make the belly smile, - As well as speak,—it tauntingly replied - To the discontented members, the mutinous parts - That envied his receipt. * * * - * * * * * - _1st Cit._ Your belly’s answer? What! - The kingly-crown’d head, the vigilant eye, - The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier, - Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter, - With other muniments and petty helps - In this our fabric, if that they * * * - Should, by the cormorant belly be restrain’d, - Who is the sink o’ the body. - * * * * * - _Men._ True it is, quoth the belly, - That I receive the general food at first, - Which you do live upon; and fit it is, - Because I am the store house and the shop - Of the whole body: but if you do remember, - I send it through the rivers of your blood, - Even to the court, the heart—to the seat o’ the brain; - And, through the cranks and offices of man, - The strongest nerves and small inferior veins, - From me receive that natural competency - Whereby they live. - _Act I., Sc. I._ - - For your digestion’s sake - An after-dinner speech. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III._ - - To make our appetites more keen, - With eager compounds we our palate urge. - _Sonnets, CXVIII._ - - My cheese, my digestion. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III._ - - I say, whatever you maintain - Of Alma in the heart or brain, - The plainest man alive may tell ye - Her seat of empire is the belly. - From hence she sends out those supplies - Which make us either stout or wise; - Your stomach makes the fabric roll - Just as the bias rules the bowl. - The great Achilles might employ - The strength designed to ruin Troy; - He dined on lion’s marrow, spread - On toast of ammunition bread; - But by his mother sent away - Amongst the Thracian girls to play, - Effeminate he sat and quiet— - Strange product of a cheese-cake diet! - Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel - Upon the strength of water-gruel? - But who shall stand his rage or force - If first he rides, then eats his horse? - Salads and eggs, and lighter fare, - Tunes the Italian spark’s guitar; - And, if I take Dan Congrieve right, - Pudding and beef make Britons fight. - Tokay and coffee cause this work - Between the German and the Turk: - And both, as they provisions want, - Chicane, avoid, retire, and faint. - * * * * * - But, spoil the organ of digestion, - And you entirely change the question: - Alma’s affairs no power can mend; - The jest, alas! is at an end. * * * - _Prior._ - -A few remaining physiological thoughts are interesting. As is well -known, we are much better able to judge the size and distance of -objects on the same level with us than we are when they are either -above or below us. When we view objects from a height they appear much -less than they would were we at the same distance from them on the same -level. Shakespeare has beautifully shown this effect in King Lear. - - How fearful - And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low! - The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air, - Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down - Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade! - Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head: - The fishermen that walk upon the beach, - Appear like mice. * * * * - _Act IV., Sc. VI._ - -The subject of pupillary reflexes has received mention by many of the -older writers. It was a source of amusement to lovers in the old time -to look into each others eyes in search of their own reflection. - - Joy had the like conception in our eyes, - And, at that instant, like a babe, sprung up. - _Timon of Athens, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Look in my eyes, my blushing fair, - Thou’lt see thyself reflected there; - As I gaze on thine, I see - Two little miniatures of me. - Thus in our looks some propagation lies, - For we make babies in each other’s eyes. - _Tom Moore._ - - When a young lady wrings you by the hand, thus, - Or with an amorous touch presses your foot; - Looks babies in your eyes, plays with your locks. - * * * * * - _Massinger—Renegado. Act II., Sc. IV._ - -It has been a view long held that the height of the forehead is an -index of the intellectual character of the individual. Shakespeare has -referred to this in several plays. - - We shall lose our time, - And all be turn’d to barnacles, or to apes, - With foreheads villainous low. - _Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - Ay, but her forehead’s low, as mine’s as high. - _Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV., Sc. IV._ - - _Cleopatra._ Bear’st thou her face in mind? is’t long or round? - _Messenger._ Round, even to faultiness. - _Cleopatra._ For the most part too, - They are foolish that are so. Her hair, what colour? - _Messenger._ Brown, madame, and her forehead - As low as you would wish it. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. III._ - -The old superstition that much hair on the head indicated a want of -intellect is alluded to in Two Gentlemen of Verona. - - _Speed._ Item, _she hath more hair than wit_. - _Laun._ More hair than wit,—it may be; I’ll prove it: the cover of - the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the - salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit; - for the greater hides the less. - _Act III., Sc. I._ - - _Ant. S._ Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, - so plentiful an excrement? - _Dro. S._ Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and - what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit. - _Ant. S._ Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit. - _Dro. S._ Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair. - _Ant. S._ Why, thou did’st conclude hairy men plain dealers - without wit. - _Comedy of Errors, Act II., Sc. II._ - - This great voluminous pamphlet may be said - To be like one that hath more hair than head; - More excrement than body: trees which sprout - With broadest leaves have still the smallest fruit. - _Suckling—Aglaura._ - -He had some idea of the sympathetic connection between the organs of -the body, and has furnished us with a good example of superstition -connected with sympathy. It was an old superstition that the wounds of -a murdered person would bleed afresh if the body was touched by the -murderer, and this has nicely been brought out in Richard III. - - O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry’s wounds - Open their congeal’d mouths and bleed afresh! - Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity; - For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood - From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells, - Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural, - Provokes this deluge most unnatural. - _Act I., Sc. II._ - -Dunglison explains these superstitions “either on purely physical -principles, or on the excited imagination of the observer,” and cites -two interesting cases—one attested by John Demarest, coroner of -Bergen county, New Jersey, (1767), and the other which occurred near -Easton, Pennsylvania. Of the latter case he says: “The superstition -has, indeed, its believers among us. On the trial of Getter, who was -executed about five years ago (1833) in Pennsylvania, for the murder of -his wife, a female witness deposed on oath as follows: ‘If my throat -was to be cut, I could tell, before God Almighty, that the deceased -smiled when he (the murderer) touched her. I swore this before the -justices, and that she bled considerably. I was sent for to dress her -and lay her out. He touched her twice. He made no hesitation about -doing it. I also swore before the justice that it was observed by other -people in the house.’” Dyer cites a number of similar cases, and quotes -the following as a supposed cause of the phenomenon from the “Athenian -Oracle,” (1-106): “The blood is congealed in the body for two or three -days, and then becomes liquid again, in its tendency to corruption. -The air being heated by many persons coming about the body is the same -thing to it as motion is. ’Tis observed that dead bodies will bleed in -a concourse of people, when murderers are absent as well as present, -yet legislators have thought it fit to authorize it, and use this trial -as an argument, at least to frighten, though ’tis no conclusive one to -condemn them.” The practice, however, caused many an innocent spectator -to receive the fatal penalty. - - - - -PART VI. - -ANATOMY. - - -Anatomy received some attention. - - _Ant. S._ What’s her name? - _Dro. S._ Nell, sir; but her name and three-quarters, that’s an ell - and three-quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip. - _Ant. S._ Then she bears some breadth? - _Dro. S._ No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip; she is - spherical like a globe,—I could find out countries on her. - _Ant. S._ In what part of her body stands Ireland? - _Dro. S._ Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs. - _Ant. S._ Where’s Scotland? - _Dro. S._ I found it by the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the - hand. - _Ant. S._ Where’s France? - _Dro. S._ In her forehead; arm’d and reverted, making war against - her heir. - _Ant. S._ Where’s England? - _Dro. S._ I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no - whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, - by the salt rheum that ran between France and it. - _Ant. S._ Where’s Spain? - _Dro. S._ Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath. - _Ant. S._ Where’s America, the Indies? - _Dro. S._ O, sir, upon her nose,—all o’er embellished with rubies, - carbuncles, saphires, declining their rich aspect to the - hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadoes of carracks - to be ballast at her nose. - _Ant. S._ Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? - _Dro. S._ O, sir, I did not look so low. * * * - _Comedy of Errors, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: - Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, - Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. - Within this limit is relief enough, - Sweet bottom-grass, and high delightful plain, - Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, - To shelter thee from tempest and from rain: - Then be my deer, since I am such a park; - No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark. - _Venus and Adonis._ - -The old superstition that our bodies consisted of the elements—fire, -water, earth and air—has been mentioned. - - _Sir Toby._ Does not our life consist of four elements? - _Sir Andrew._ ’Faith so they say; but I think it rather - consists of eating and drinking. - _Twelfth Night, Act II., Sc. III._ - - His life was gentle; and the elements - So mix’d in him, that nature might stand up, - And say to all the world, This was a man! - _Julius Cæsar, Act V., Sc. V._ - - I am fire and air; my other elements - I give to baser life. - _Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II._ - - O tell me, friar, tell me, - In what vile part of this anatomy - Doth my name lodge? - _Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. III._ - -The brain was thought only to have three ventricles by the old -anatomists; what is now the fourth ventricle was called by them the -third, and was supposed to be the seat of memory. - - A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, - objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are - begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of - _pia mater_. - _Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - ——whose skull Jove cram with brains! - * * * * a most weak _pia mater_. - _Twelfth Night, Act I., Sc. V._ - - Many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft - with a brown bill. - _Henry VI—2d, Act IV., Sc. X._ - - _Servant._ My lord you have one eye left. - _Cornwall._ Lest it see more, prevent it.— - Out, vile jelly! - Where is thy lustre now? - _King Lear, Act III., Sc. VII._ - - Like a strutting player,—whose conceit - Lies in his hamstring. - _Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III._ - - Thy bones are hollow. - _Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II._ - - Thy bones are marrowless. - _Macbeth, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot - Of a foe o’er him, snatch’d at it, and bit - The very tendon which is most acute— - (That which some ancient muse or modern wit - Named after thee Achilles) and quite through’t - He made the teeth meet. - _Byron—Don Juan, Canto VIII., Verse LXXXIV._ - - - - -PART VII. - -PHARMACY. - - -Pharmacy was not overlooked. - - I do remember an apothecary,— - And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted - In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, - Culling of simples: meagre were his looks, - Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; - And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, - An alligator stuff’d, and other skins - Of ill-shap’d fishes; and, about his shelves, - A beggarly account of empty boxes, - Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, - Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, - Were thinly scatter’d to make up a show. - Noting this penury, to myself I said— - An if a man need poison now, - Whose sale is present death in Mantua, - Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him. - * * * * * - What, ho! apothecary! - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I._ - - O, true apothecary! - Thy drugs are quick. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III._ - - He did buy a poison of a poor apothecary, - And there withal came to this vault to die. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III._ - - Bid the apothecary - Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. - _Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. III._ - - Your master will be dead ere you return; - There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature. - That can recover him. Give this to the ’pothecary, - And tell me how it works. - _Pericles, Act III., Sc. II._ - - Great griefs, I see, medicine the less. - _Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II._ - - That drug-damn’d Italy hath out-craftied him. - _Cymbeline, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - One, whose subdu’d eyes, - Albeit unused to the melting mood, - Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees - Their med’cinable gum. - _Othello, Act V., Sc. II._ - - Set ratsbane by his porridge. - _King Lear, Act III., Sc. IV._ - - I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer - to stop it with _security_. - _Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II._ - - I would the milk - Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck’dst her breast, - Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake! - _Henry VI., Act V., Sc. IV._ - - If you have poison for me I will drink it. - _King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VII._ - - I have bought the oil, the balsamum and aquavitæ. - _Comedy of Errors, Act IV., Sc. I._ - - Give me some aquavitæ. - _Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. II._ - -[Illustration] - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved. - -Typographical errors have been silently corrected. - -The book cover image was created by the transcriber and is -in the public domain. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE*** - - -******* This file should be named 61366-0.txt or 61366-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/1/3/6/61366 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h4.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 100%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - hr.pgx { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pgx" title="header title">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare, by Benjamin -Rush Field</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare</p> -<p>Author: Benjamin Rush Field</p> -<p>Release Date: February 10, 2020 [eBook #61366]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="credit">E-text prepared by Paul Marshall, Turgut Dincer,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/medicalthoughtso00fielrich"> - https://archive.org/details/medicalthoughtso00fielrich</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<h1 class="space-below3">MEDICAL THOUGHTS<br /><small>OF</small><br /><big>SHAKESPEARE</big>.</h1> - -<hr class="tb" /> -<p class="center">By B. RUSH FIELD, M. D.,</p> -<p class="f90">MEMBER OF THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY<br />OF NEW YORK.</p> -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="f120 space-above3 space-below3">SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.</p> - -<p class="center">EASTON, PA.:<br /> -<small>ANDREWS & CLIFTON, PUBLISHERS.<br />1885</small>.</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above3 space-below1">TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="f150"><b>PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.</b></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">If any old lady, knight, priest or physician,</span> -<span class="i0">Should condemn me for writing a second edition;</span> -<span class="i0">If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,</span> -<span class="i0">May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Anstey’s New Bath Guide, p. 169.</i></span> -</div></div></div> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p>The occasion is taken to acknowledge the kind consideration that the -first edition of this little work has received. This edition appears -in a thoroughly revised and much enlarged form; to what extent, may be -judged by the fact that chapters on The Physician, Surgery, Physiology, -Anatomy and Pharmacy have been added, together with many allusions to -the other medical subjects, making an increase of over four hundred -quotations. It has been impossible to resist the temptation of adding -a few medical thoughts from other authors, which will be found under -their appropriate heads. The labor necessary to accomplish this has -not interfered in any way with professional duties; it being a task -entirely of the leisure hours of the night.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Easton, Pennsylvania</span>, June, 1885.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="u">CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table border="0" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC" cellpadding="0" > - <tbody><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><big>PART I.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Physician</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7"> 7</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc_space-above2" colspan="2"><big>PART II.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Practice of Medicine</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13"></a>13</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Diseases of Nervous System, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>; - of Circulatory System, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>; of Respiratory</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">System, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>; - of Digestive System, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>; - of Secretory System, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Fevers and other General Diseases, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>. Action of</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Medicines, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>. Miscellaneous—</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Age and Death, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc_space-above2" colspan="2"><big>PART III.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Surgery</span>,</td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Surgery and the Surgeon, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>. - Syphilis, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>. Diseases of the Eye, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Wounds, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>. - Miscellaneous, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc_space-above2" colspan="2"><big>PART IV.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Obstetrics</span>,</td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Marriageable Age, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>. - Fecundation, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, Character of Offspring, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Pregnancy, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>. - Labor, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>. Miscellaneous, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc_space-above2" colspan="2"><big>PART V.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Physiology</span>,</td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Of the Circulation of the Blood, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>. - Of the Digestive Process, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2">Miscellaneous, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc_space-above2" colspan="2"><big>PART VI.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Anatomy</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc_space-above2" colspan="2"><big>PART VII.</big></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Pharmacy</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> - </tr> - </tbody> -</table> -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> - <p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> -</div> -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illo_1.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="133" /> -</div> - -<p class="f200 space-above2"><span class="smcap">Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare.</span></p> -<hr class="r25" /> - -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART I.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">THE PHYSICIAN.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Shakespeare’s education was not, by any means, hedged in by plots and -characters; besides these, his mighty mind seems to have teemed with -the knowledge of languages, medicine, law and court etiquette. It is -wonderful that one brain could shine forth such a vast variety, and -surprising that he has even gone into the <i>minutiæ</i> of the different -avenues of learning through which he has stridden. Shakespeare paid -considerable attention to medicine, and has furnished some of the -finest specimens of the medical character that have ever been drawn by -any writer. His Cerimon, in Pericles, is a most noble one. He speaks -for himself:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">’Tis known, I ever</span> -<span class="i0">Have studied physic, through which secret art,</span> -<span class="i0">By turning o’er authorities, I have</span> -<span class="i0">(Together with my practice,) made familiar</span> -<span class="i0">To me and to my aid, the bless’d infusions</span> -<span class="i0">That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;</span> -<span class="i0">And I can speak of the disturbances</span> -<span class="i0">That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me</span> -<span class="i0">A more content in course of true delight</span> -<span class="i0">Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,</span> -<span class="i0">Or tie my treasure up in silken bags</span> -<span class="i0">To please the fool and death.</span> -<span class="i42"><i>Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And others speak of him:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Hundreds call themselves</span> -<span class="i0">Your creatures, who by you have been restored:</span> -<span class="i0">And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even</span> -<span class="i0">Your purse, still open, hath built lord Cerimon</span> -<span class="i0">Such strong renown as time shall ne’er decay.</span> -<span class="i42"><i>Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Dowden says, “Cerimon, who is master of the secrets of nature, who is -liberal in his ‘learned charity,’ who held it ever</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">‘Virtue and cunning were endowments greater</span> -<span class="i4">Than nobleness and riches,’</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">is like a first study of Prospero;” while Furnivall thinks -that he represents to some extent the famous Stratford physician, Dr. John -Hall, who married Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna.</p> - -<p>What an excellent physician was Gerard de Narbon, Helena’s father, who -is referred to in All’s Well:</p> - -<p class="blockquot"> -This young gentlewoman had a father, whose skill was almost as great as -his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made Nature immortal, -and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king’s -sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s -disease. * * * * He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was -his right to be so. * * * The king * * * spoke of him admiringly and -mournfully: he was skillful enough to have lived still, if knowledge -could be set up against mortality.</p> -<p class="author"><i>Act I., Sc. I.</i><span class="ws4"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">How long is’t, count,</span> -<span class="i0">Since the physician at your father’s died?</span> -<span class="i0">If he were living, I would try him yet;—</span> -<span class="i0">* * * * * the rest have worn me out</span> -<span class="i0">With several applications: nature and sickness</span> -<span class="i0">Debate it at their leisure.</span> -<span class="i44"><i>Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">My father’s skill, which was the greatest of his profession.</span> -<span class="i43"><i>Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another worthy physician is to be found in Cymbeline. Cornelius argues -with the queen against her designs, and failing in this he completely -thwarts her murderous intentions by giving her a false compound.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Queen.</i> Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Cor.</i> * * * I beseech your grace, without offence,</span> -<span class="i10">My conscience bids me ask,—wherefore you have</span> -<span class="i10">Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds,</span> -<span class="i10">Which are the movers of a languishing death;</span> -<span class="i10">But though slow, deadly?</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Your highness</span> -<span class="i0">Shall from this practice but make hard your heart:</span> -<span class="i0">Besides, the seeing these effects will be</span> -<span class="i0">Both noisome and infectious.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">[<i>Aside.</i>] I do suspect you, madame;</span> -<span class="i8">But you shall do no harm.</span> -<span class="i8">* * * I do not like her. She doth think she has</span> -<span class="i8">Strange ling’ring poisons: I do know her spirit,</span> -<span class="i8">And will not trust one of her malice with</span> -<span class="i8">A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has</span> -<span class="i8">Will stupify and dull the sense awhile;</span> -<span class="i8">* * * * * * but there is</span> -<span class="i8">No danger in what show of death it makes,</span> -<span class="i8">More than the locking up the spirits a time,</span> -<span class="i8">To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d</span> -<span class="i8">With a most false effect; and I the truer</span> -<span class="i8">So to be false with her.</span> -<span class="i49"><i>Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">The queen, sir, very oft importun’d me</span> -<span class="i8">To temper poisons for her; still pretending</span> -<span class="i8">The satisfaction of her knowledge only</span> -<span class="i8">In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs,</span> -<span class="i8">Of no esteem: I, dreading that her purpose</span> -<span class="i8">Was of more danger, did compound for her</span> -<span class="i8">A certain stuff, which, being ta’en, would cease</span> -<span class="i8">The present power of life; but in short time</span> -<span class="i8">All offices of nature should again</span> -<span class="i8">Do their due function.</span> -<span class="i49"><i>Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Macbeth supplies us with a wise member of the profession, who, at -a time when charlatans without number were promising to cure every -malady, sees clearly that Lady Macbeth’s disease is beyond his power, -and so informs Macbeth.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This disease is beyond my practice:</span> -<span class="i2">* * * * * * infected minds</span> -<span class="i2">To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.<span class="ws5"> </span></span> -<span class="i2">More needs she the divine than the physician:</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Remove from her the means of all annoyance,</span> -<span class="i2">And still keep eyes upon her.</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>King Macb.</i> How does your patient, doctor?</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Doct.</i> Not so sick, my lord,</span> -<span class="i5">As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,</span> -<span class="i5">That keep her from her rest.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>King Macb.</i> Cure her of that:</span> -<span class="i10">Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d;</span> -<span class="i10">Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;</span> -<span class="i10">Raze out the written troubles of the brain;</span> -<span class="i10">And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,</span> -<span class="i10">Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff</span> -<span class="i10">Which weighs upon the heart?</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Doct.</i> Therein the patient</span> -<span class="i5">Must minister to himself.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>King Macb.</i> Throw physic to the dogs,</span> -<span class="i10">I’ll none of it.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In King Lear also appears a physician worthy of the name. The last -scene of the fourth act shows his excellent skill in treating Lear’s -case. Dr. Bucknill, of England, in writing of it twenty-five years ago, -says: “We confess, almost with shame, that although near two centuries -and a half have passed since Shakespeare thus wrote we have very little -to add to his method of treating the insane as thus pointed out.”</p> - -<p>Dr. Butts, in Henry VIII, and Dr. Caius, in Merry Wives, play rather -unimportant parts. He compliments the profession by putting this speech -in the mouth of a madman:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Timon to Banditti</i>:</span> -<span class="i4">Trust not the physician;</span> -<span class="i4">His antidotes are poison, and he slays</span> -<span class="i4">More than you rob.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And bringing this one from the lips of an ignorant prostitute:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Nay, will you cast away your child on a fool and a physician?</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> -Reference to the physician is frequently made throughout his works.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4"><i>Cor.</i> The queen is dead.</span> -<span class="i4"><i>Cym.</i> Whom worse than a physician</span> -<span class="i6">Would this report become. But I consider,</span> -<span class="i6">By med’cine life may be prolong’d, yet death</span> -<span class="i8">Will seize the doctor too.</span> -<span class="i38"><i>Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">* * * * doctor-like, controlling skill.</span> -<span class="i44"><i>Sonnets, LXVI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">We * * * may not be so credulous of cure,</span> -<span class="i6">When our most learned doctors leave us.</span> -<span class="i38"><i>All’s Well, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow</span> -<span class="i6">Upon the foul disease.</span> -<span class="i38"><i>King Lear, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus;</span> -<span class="i6">That minister’st a potion unto me,</span> -<span class="i6">That thou would’st tremble to receive thyself.</span> -<span class="i38"><i>Pericles, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The patient dies while the physician sleeps.</span> -<span class="i48"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i9">The physician</span> -<span class="i6">Angry that his prescriptions are not kept</span> -<span class="i9">Hath left me.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Sonnets, CXLVII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i9">Testy sick men, when their deaths be near,</span> -<span class="i6">No news but health from their physicians know.</span> -<span class="i44"><i>Sonnets, CXL.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">His friends, like physicians, thrice give him over.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Timon of Athens, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> -<span class="i2">He is the wiser man, master doctor; he is a curer of souls,</span> -<span class="i6">and you a curer of bodies.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">A poor physician’s daughter my wife! Disdain</span> -<span class="i6">Rather corrupt me ever.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Doctors, less famous for their cures than fees.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XLVIII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Like a port sculler, one physician plies</span> -<span class="i2">And all his art and all his skill he tries;</span> -<span class="i2">But two physicians, like a pair of oars,</span> -<span class="i2">Conduct you faster to the Stygian shores.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This is the way physicians mend or end us,</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Secundum artem</i>: but although we sneer</span> -<span class="i2">In health—when ill, we call them to attend us</span> -<span class="i2">Without the least propensity to jeer;</span> -<span class="i2">While that “<i>hiatus maxime deflendus</i>”</span> -<span class="i2">To be filled up by spade or mattock, ’s near,</span> -<span class="i2">Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,</span> -<span class="i2">We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X, Verse XLII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">God and the doctor we alike adore,</span> -<span class="i2">But only when in danger, not before;</span> -<span class="i2">The danger o’er, both are alike requited,</span> -<span class="i2">God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The doctor says so * * * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">* * * * * * * they sometimes</span> -<span class="i2">Are soothsayers and always cunning men.</span> -<span class="i2">Which doctor was it?</span> -<span class="i17"><i>Ben Jonson—Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A side thrust at the experimenters in the profession is found in Cymbeline.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I do know her spirit,</span> -<span class="i0">And will not trust one of her malice with</span> -<span class="i0">A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has</span> -<span class="i0">Will stupify and dull the sense awhile;</span> -<span class="i0">Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs,</span> -<span class="i2">Then afterwards up higher.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I can smile, and murder whiles I smile.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Henry VI.—3d, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He has in several plays shown his contempt for the “prating mountebank” -or “doting wizard.”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-fac’d villain,</span> -<span class="i2">A mere anatomy, a mountebank,</span> -<span class="i2">A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller;</span> -<span class="i2">A needy, hollow-ey’d, sharp-looking wretch,</span> -<span class="i2">A living dead man: this pernicious slave,</span> -<span class="i2">Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,</span> -<span class="i2">And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,</span> -<span class="i2">And with no face, as ’twere, out-facing me,</span> -<span class="i2">Cries out I was possessed</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I say we must not</span> -<span class="i2">So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope.</span> -<span class="i2">To prostitute our past-cure malady</span> -<span class="i2">To empirics; or to dissever so</span> -<span class="i2">Our great self and our credit, to esteem</span> -<span class="i2">A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>All’s Well, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART II.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Shakespeare’s maladies are many and the symptoms very well defined. -Diseases of the nervous system seem to have been a favorite study, -especially insanity; Lear, Timon, and Hamlet being excellent examples.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">And he * * * (a short tale to make),</span> -<span class="i2">Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;</span> -<span class="i2">Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;</span> -<span class="i2">Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension</span> -<span class="i2">Into the madness wherein now he raves.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Hamlet, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He took me by the wrist and held me hard;</span> -<span class="i2">Then goes he to the length of all his arm;</span> -<span class="i2">And with his other hand thus o’er his brow,</span> -<span class="i2">He falls to such perusal of my face,</span> -<span class="i2">As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so;</span> -<span class="i2">At last,—a little shaking of mine arm,</span> -<span class="i2">And thrice his head thus waving up and down,</span> -<span class="i2">He raised a sigh so piteous and profound,</span> -<span class="i2">That it did seem to shatter all his bulk,</span> -<span class="i2">And end his being: That done, he lets me go:</span> -<span class="i2">And, with his head o’er his shoulder turn’d,</span> -<span class="i2">He seem’d to find his way without his eyes;</span> -<span class="i2">For out o’ doors he went without their help,</span> -<span class="i2">And, to the last, bended their light on me.</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Hamlet, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Alas, how is it with you,</span> -<span class="i2">That you do bend your eye on vacancy,</span> -<span class="i2">And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?</span> -<span class="i2">Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;</span> -<span class="i2">And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,</span> -<span class="i2">Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,</span> -<span class="i2">Starts up, and stands on end.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!</span> -<span class="i2">The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword:</span> -<span class="i2">The expectancy and rose of the fair state,</span> -<span class="i2">The glass of fashion and the mould of form,</span> -<span class="i2">The observed of all observers,—quite, quite down!</span> -<span class="i2">And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,</span> -<span class="i2">That suck’d the honey of his music vows,</span> -<span class="i2">Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,</span> -<span class="i2">Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;</span> -<span class="i2">That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth,</span> -<span class="i2">Blasted with ecstasy.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">There’s something in his soul,</span> -<span class="i2">O’er which his melancholy sits on brood;</span> -<span class="i2">And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose,</span> -<span class="i2">Will be some danger.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d;</span> -<span class="i2">Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;</span> -<span class="i2">Raze out the written troubles of the brain;</span> -<span class="i2">And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,</span> -<span class="i2">Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff</span> -<span class="i2">Which weighs upon the heart?</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">* * * * * * Infected minds</span> -<span class="i2">To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Remove from her the means of all annoyance,</span> -<span class="i6">And still keep eyes upon her.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Infirmity doth still neglect all office,</span> -<span class="i6">Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves,</span> -<span class="i6">When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind</span> -<span class="i6">To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear;</span> -<span class="i6">And am fall’n out with my more headier will,</span> -<span class="i6">To take the indispos’d and sickly fit</span> -<span class="i6">For the sound man.</span> -<span class="i36"><i>King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">This is in thee a nature but infected;</span> -<span class="i6">A poor unmanly melancholy, sprung</span> -<span class="i6">From change of fortune.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> -<span class="i2">The mere want of gold, and the falling-from of his friends,</span> -<span class="i6">drove him into this melancholy.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Tell him * * * * * *</span> -<span class="i6">* * * that his lady mourns at his disease:</span> -<span class="i6">Persuade him that he hath been a lunatic.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">* * * Being lunatic</span> -<span class="i6">He rush’d into my house, and took perforce</span> -<span class="i8">My ring away.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">These dangerous unsafe lunes.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">With great imagination,</span> -<span class="i6">Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,</span> -<span class="i6">And, winking, leap’d into destruction.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act. I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Venus and Adonis.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">To see his nobleness!</span> -<span class="i6">Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,</span> -<span class="i6">He straight declin’d, droop’d, took it deeply;</span> -<span class="i6">Fasten’d and fix’d the shame on’t in himself;</span> -<span class="i6">Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,</span> -<span class="i6">And downright languish’d.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">His siege is now</span> -<span class="i6">Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds</span> -<span class="i6">With many legions of strange fantasies,</span> -<span class="i6">Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,</span> -<span class="i6">Confound themselves.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King John, Act V., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Shakespeare certainly had the true idea of the great value of sleep, -and he also knew of its importance in the treatment of brain diseases. -Sleep serves as an excellent stimulant, promoting the growth of the -brain. The infant, during the first ten weeks of its life, sleeps most -of the time and hence during that period its brain is overdeveloped in -proportion to its size.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,</span> -<span class="i2">The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Are many simples operative, whose power</span> -<span class="i2">Will close the eye of anguish.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King Lear, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">O sleep, gentle sleep,</span> -<span class="i4">Nature’s soft nurse,</span> -<span class="i24"><i>King Henry IV—2d, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,</span> -<span class="i2">The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,</span> -<span class="i2">Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,</span> -<span class="i2">Chief nourisher of life’s feast.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Macbeth, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Oppressed nature sleeps:—</span> -<span class="i2">This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken senses,</span> -<span class="i2">Which, if convenient will not allow,</span> -<span class="i2">Stand in hard cure.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>King Lear, Act III., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Man’s rich restorative; his balmy bath,</span> -<span class="i2">That supplies, lubricates and keeps in play</span> -<span class="i2">The various movements of that nice machine,</span> -<span class="i2">Which asks such frequent periods of repair.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Young’s Night Thoughts.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Music was held as one of the remedies in the treatment of insanity. It -plays an important part in King Lear, (IV-VII), and finds mention as a -remedy in other plays.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This music mads me, let it sound no more;</span> -<span class="i2">For, though it have holp madmen to their wits,</span> -<span class="i2">In me it seems it will make wise men mad.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Richard II., Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;</span> -<span class="i2">Unless some dull and favourable hand</span> -<span class="i2">Will whisper music to my weary spirit.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,</span> -<span class="i2">Are come to play a pleasant comedy,</span> -<span class="i2">For so your doctors hold it very meet.</span> -<span class="i2">Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,</span> -<span class="i2">And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy;</span> -<span class="i2">Therefore, they thought it good you hear a play,</span> -<span class="i2">And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,</span> -<span class="i2">Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Your physicians have expressly charg’d,</span> -<span class="i2">In peril to incur your former malady,</span> -<span class="i2">That I should yet absent me from your bed.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This closing with him fits his lunacy:</span> -<span class="i2">Whate’er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits,</span> -<span class="i2">Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Titus Andronicus, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Dispute not with her, she is lunatic.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">* * Deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,</span> -<span class="i2">Kept in a dark house?</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Twelfth Night, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">It is the mynde that makes good or ill,</span> -<span class="i2">That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Spenser—Færie Queene, XI-IX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Yet they do act</span> -<span class="i2">Such antics and such pretty lunacies</span> -<span class="i2">That spite of sorrow they make you smile.</span> -<span class="i42"><i>Dekker.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Grows lunatic and childish for his son.</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Kyd.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">When slow Disease, and all her host of pains,</span> -<span class="i2">Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins;</span> -<span class="i2">When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing,</span> -<span class="i2">And flies with every changing gale of Spring:</span> -<span class="i2">Not to the aching frame alone confined,</span> -<span class="i2">Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Byron—Childish Recollections.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The accuracy with which Shakespeare has written of apoplexy is justly -alluded to in Bell’s <i>Principles of Surgery</i>, (1815, Vol. II, p. 557): -“My readers will smile, perhaps, to see me quoting Shakespeare among -physicians and theologists; but not one of all their tribe, populous -though it be, could describe so exquisitely the marks of apoplexy, -conspiring with the struggles for life, and the agonies of suffocation, -to deform the countenance of the dead: so curiously does our poet -present to our conception all the signs from which it might be inferred -that the good duke Humfrey had died a violent death.” -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">See, how the blood is settled in his face!</span> -<span class="i2">Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,</span> -<span class="i2">Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,</span> -<span class="i2">Being all descended to the labouring heart;</span> -<span class="i2">Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,</span> -<span class="i2">Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy;</span> -<span class="i2">Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth</span> -<span class="i2">To blush and beautify the cheek again.</span> -<span class="i2">But see, his face is black and full of blood;</span> -<span class="i2">His eye-balls further out than when he liv’d,</span> -<span class="i2">Staring full ghastly like a strangled man:</span> -<span class="i2">His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretch’d with struggling;</span> -<span class="i2">His hands abroad display’d, as one that grasp’d</span> -<span class="i2">And tugg’d for life, and was by strength subdu’d.</span> -<span class="i2">Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking;</span> -<span class="i2">His well-proportion’d beard made rough and rugged,</span> -<span class="i2">Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodg’d.</span> -<span class="i2">It can not be but he was murder’d here;</span> -<span class="i2">The least of all these signs were probable.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Suddenly a grievous sickness took him,</span> -<span class="i2">That made him gasp, and stare, and catch the air.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Falstaff.</i> And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into</span> -<span class="i7">this same whoreson apoplexy.</span> -<span class="i1"><i>Ch. Just.</i> Well, heaven mend him! I pray let me speak with you.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Falstaff.</i> This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy,</span> -<span class="i7">an’t to please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood,</span> -<span class="i7">a whoreson tingling.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ch. Just.</i> What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Falstaff.</i> It hath its original from much grief; from study</span> -<span class="i7">and perturbation of the brain.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>War.</i> Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits</span> -<span class="i3">Are with his highness very ordinary.</span> -<span class="i3">Stand from him, give him air; he’ll straight be well.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Clar.</i> No, no; he can not long hold out these pangs:</span> -<span class="i4">The incessant care and labour of his mind</span> -<span class="i4">Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in,</span> -<span class="i4">So thin, that life looks through, and will break out.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>P. Humph.</i> This apoplexy will certain be his end.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Dick.</i> Why dost thou quiver, man?</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Say.</i> The palsy and not fear provokes me.</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Cade.</i> Nay, he nods at us, as who should say,</span> -<span class="i15">I’ll be even with you.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry VI</i>—2<i>d, Act IV., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">With a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,</span> -<span class="i14">Shake in and out the rivet.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">How quickly should this arm of mine,</span> -<span class="i2">Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Richard II, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Flat on the ground and still as any stone,</span> -<span class="i2">A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath.</span> -<span class="i42"><i>Sackville.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>How concisely he describes epilepsy, giving the most prominent symptoms.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Casca.</i> He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at</span> -<span class="i6">mouth, and was speechless.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Bru.</i> ’Tis very like,—he has the falling sickness.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Casca.</i> * * * * * When he came to himself again, he said,</span> -<span class="i6">If he had done or said anything amiss, he desired their</span> -<span class="i6">worships to think it was his infirmity.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Julius Cæsar was the only epileptic among his characters: Othello is -spoken of as being one, but this is merely Iago’s lie to Cassio, which -is clearly shown in Othello’s conversation after the trance, it being a -continuation of the former subject, which is never the case in epilepsy.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Iago.</i> My lord is fall’n into an epilepsy:</span> -<span class="i4">This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Cas.</i> Rub him about the temples.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Iago.</i><span class="ws3">No, forbear;</span></span> -<span class="i4">The lethargy must have his quiet course;</span> -<span class="i4">If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by</span> -<span class="i4">Breaks out to savage madness.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A plague upon your epileptic visage!</span> -<span class="i31"><i>King Lear, Act. II., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He takes some notice of the other affections classed under nervous -diseases.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Thou cold sciatica,</span> -<span class="i2">Cripple our Senators, that their limbs may halt</span> -<span class="i6">As lamely as their manners!</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I!</span> -<span class="i2">It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">When your head did but ache</span> -<span class="i2">I knit my handkerchief about your brows.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>King John, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Oth.</i> I have a pain upon my forehead here.</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Des.</i> Why, that’s with watching; ’t will away again.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Othello, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let our finger ache, and it indues</span> -<span class="i2">Our other healthful members even to a sense</span> -<span class="i6">Of pain.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Othello, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had</span> -<span class="i0">turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for good</span> -<span class="i0">youth he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and being</span> -<span class="i0">taken with the cramp, was drowned.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>As You Like It, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The aged man that coffers-up his gold</span> -<span class="i2">Is plagu’d with cramps, and gouts and painful fits.</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">* * * Shorten up their sinews</span> -<span class="i2">With aged cramps.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">To-night thou shalt have cramps,</span> -<span class="i2">Side stitches that shall pen thy breath up.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I’ll rack thee with old cramps,</span> -<span class="i2">Fill all thy bones with aches.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thy nerves are in their infancy again</span> -<span class="i2">And have no vigour in them.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Hysteria, in Shakespeare’s time, was considered a disease common to -both sexes, and was known as “<i>Hysterica passio</i>,” or more popularly -termed “the mother.”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Hysterica passio</i>—down, thou climbing sorrow,</span> -<span class="i2">Thy element ’s below! Where is this daughter?</span> -<span class="i28"><i>King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Percy thinks that Shakespeare read of this disease in Harsnet’s -“Declaration of Popish Impostures” while he was looking up material for -his character of Tom of Bedlam. The following is taken from (p. 25) the -work referred to: “Ma: Maynie had a spice of the <i>Hysterica passio</i> as -seems from his youth, hee himself termes it the <i>Moother</i>, and saith -that hee was much troubled with it in Fraunce, and that it was one of -the causes that mooved him to leave his holy order whereinto he was -initiated and to returne into England.”</p> - -<p>Diseases of the nervous system have not been overlooked by other -writers. How excellently we have described the chief symptom of -<i>locomotor ataxia</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Obliquely waddling to the mark in view.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Pope.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And Byron well portrays vertigo.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Her cheek turn’d ashes, ears rung, brain whirl’d round,</span> -<span class="i6">As if she had received a sudden blow,</span> -<span class="i6">And the hearts dew of pain sprang fast and chilly</span> -<span class="i6">O’er her fair front, like morning’s on a lily.</span> -<span class="i6">Although she was not of the fainting sort,</span> -<span class="i6">Baba thought she would faint, but there he err’d—</span> -<span class="i6">It was but a convulsion, which, though short,</span> -<span class="i6">Can never be described; we all have heard,</span> -<span class="i6">And some of us have felt thus “<i>all amort</i>,”</span> -<span class="i6">When things beyond the common have occurr’d.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Don Juan, Canto VI., Verse CV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">That old vertigo in his head</span> -<span class="i6">Will never leave him, till he’s dead.</span> -<span class="i47"><i>Swift.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right,</span> -<span class="i6">It is the slaver kills and not the bite.</span> -<span class="i47"><i>Pope.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Loss!—such a palaver,</span> -<span class="i6">I’d inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver</span> -<span class="i6">Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours</span> -<span class="i6">* * * * * *</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Byron—The Blues.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">The sot,</span> -<span class="i2">Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors:</span> -<span class="i2">What though on Lethe’s stream he seem to float,</span> -<span class="i2">He can not sink his tremors or his terrors;</span> -<span class="i2">The ruby glass that shakes within his hand,</span> -<span class="i2">Leaves a sad sediment of Time’s worst sand.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Taking up diseases of the circulatory system next we find Shakespeare -displaying considerable knowledge in regard to them. The extended -impulse of the heart under intense excitement is nicely shown in the -Rape of Lucrece.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,—</span> -<span class="i2">Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!</span> -<span class="i2">May feel her heart,—(poor citizen!) distress’d.</span> -<span class="i2">Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,</span> -<span class="i2">Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Again,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,</span> -<span class="i2">But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Venus and Adonis.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I have <i>tremor cordis</i> on me,—my heart dances.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,</span> -<span class="i2">And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,</span> -<span class="i2">Against the use of nature?</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Death from “broken heart,” caused by excessive grief, finds mention in -several plays.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">Woe the while!</span> -<span class="i2">O, cut my lace; lest my heart, cracking it,</span> -<span class="i2">Break too!</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">The grief that does not speak,</span> -<span class="i2">Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Shall split thy very heart with sorrow.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Dyer in his “Folk-Lore of Shakespeare” quotes the following from Mr. -Timb’s “Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity,” (1861, p. 149.) “This -affection (broken heart) was, it is believed, first described by -Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni -has recorded a few examples: among them, that of George II., who died -in 1760; and, what is very curious, he fell a victim to the same -malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the -Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in -the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine’ Dr. Townsend gives a table of -twenty-five cases, collected from various authors.”</p> - -<p>A very good case of syncope is presented in Pericles. “The cases of -apparent death, in which it is believed that premature interment -sometimes takes place, are of this kind. Instances have occurred in -which the pulse, respiration and consciousness have been absent for -several days, and yet the patient has ultimately recovered. The system -is in a sort of hybernation, in which vitality remains, though the -vital functions are suspended. It is probable that, in such cases, a -very careful auscultation might detect a slight sound in the heart.” -(Dr. George B. Wood’s Practice. 1858. Vol. II., p. 211.)</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">Make a fire within;</span> -<span class="i2">Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.</span> -<span class="i2">Death may usurp on nature many hours,</span> -<span class="i2">And yet the fire of life kindle again</span> -<span class="i2">The o’erpress’d spirits. I have heard</span> -<span class="i2">Of an Egyptian that had nine hours lien dead,</span> -<span class="i2">Who was by good appliance recovered.</span> -<span class="i2">* * * * * the fire and cloths—</span> -<span class="i2">The rough and woeful music that we have,</span> -<span class="i2">Cause it to sound, ’beseech you.</span> -<span class="i2">The viol once more; * * *</span> -<span class="i2">* * * I pray you, give her air;</span> -<span class="i2">This queen will live; nature awakes; a warmth</span> -<span class="i2">Breathes out of her: She hath not been entranc’d</span> -<span class="i2">About five hours. See how she ’gins to blow</span> -<span class="i2">Into life’s flower again!</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Hush, my gentle neighbors!</span> -<span class="i2">Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Get linen; now this matter must be looked to,</span> -<span class="i2">For her relapse is mortal. Come, come,</span> -<span class="i2">And Æsculapius guide us!</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Take thou this phial, being then in bed,</span> -<span class="i2">And this distilled liquor drink thou off:</span> -<span class="i2">When, presently, through all thy veins shall run</span> -<span class="i2">A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse</span> -<span class="i2">Shall keep his native progress, but surcease,</span> -<span class="i2">No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv’st;</span> -<span class="i2">The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade</span> -<span class="i2">To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,</span> -<span class="i2">Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;</span> -<span class="i2">Each part, depriv’d of supple government,</span> -<span class="i2">Shall, stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death:</span> -<span class="i2">And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death</span> -<span class="i2">Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,</span> -<span class="i2">And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,</span> -<span class="i2">Making both it unable for itself,</span> -<span class="i2">And dissposessing all my other parts</span> -<span class="i2">Of necessary fitness?</span> -<span class="i2">So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;</span> -<span class="i2">Come all to help him, and so stop the air</span> -<span class="i2">By which he should revive.</span> -<span class="i14"><i>Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Many will swoon when they do look on blood.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>As You Like It, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">No damsel faints when rather closely press’d,</span> -<span class="i2">But more caressing seems when most caress’d;</span> -<span class="i2">Superfluous hartshorn, and reviving salts,</span> -<span class="i2">Both banish’d by the sovereign cordial “waltz.”</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Byron—The Waltz.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Some attention has been paid to chlorosis:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage,</span> -<span class="i2">You tallow-face!</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Pand.</i> The pox upon her green sickness for me.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Bawd.</i> Faith, there’s no way to be rid on ’t, but by the</span> -<span class="i6">way to the pox.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">There’s never any of these demure boys come to any proof; for</span> -<span class="i2">thin drink doth so overcool their blood, and making many</span> -<span class="i2">fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green sickness;</span> -<span class="i2">they are generally fools and cowards.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i20">Lepidus,</span> -<span class="i2">Since Pompey’s feast, as Menas says, is troubled</span> -<span class="i2">With the green sickness.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Ben Jonson in writing of this disease has happily and properly -recommended marriage as an important step toward recovery.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He would keep you * * * not alone without a husband,</span> -<span class="i2">But with a sickness; ay, and the green sickness,</span> -<span class="i2">The maiden’s malady; which is a sickness,—</span> -<span class="i2">A kind of a disease, * * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">And like the fish our mariners call <i>remora</i>.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i22">I say remora,</span> -<span class="i2">For it will stay a ship that’s under sail;</span> -<span class="i2">And stays are long and tedious things to maids!</span> -<span class="i2">And maids are young ships that would be sailing  </span> -<span class="i2">When they be rigg’d. * * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">The stay is dangerous.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I can assure you from the doctor’s mouth,</span> -<span class="i2">She has a dropsy, and must change the air<span class="ws4"> </span></span> -<span class="i2">Before she can recover.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Give her vent.</span> -<span class="i2">If she do swell. A gimblet must be had;</span> -<span class="i2">It is a tympanites she is troubled with.</span> -<span class="i2">There are three kinds: the first is anasarca,</span> -<span class="i2">Under the flesh a tumor; that’s not hers.</span> -<span class="i2">The second is ascites, or aquosus,</span> -<span class="i2">A watery humour; that is not hers neither;</span> -<span class="i2">But tympanites, which we call the drum.</span> -<span class="i2">A wind-bombs in her belly, must be unbraced,</span> -<span class="i2">And with a faucet or a peg, let out,</span> -<span class="i2">And she’ll do well: get her a husband.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My nose fell a-bleeding on Black-Monday last.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act II., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Diseases of the respiratory system were quite overlooked by Shakespeare.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Consumption catch thee!</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">There’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous</span> -<span class="i2">pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption!</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">Thy food is such</span> -<span class="i2">As has been belch’d on by infected lungs.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But I’m relapsing into metaphysics,</span> -<span class="i2">That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same</span> -<span class="i2">Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics,</span> -<span class="i2">Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XII., Verse LXXII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Love is riotous, but marriage should have quiet,</span> -<span class="i2">And, being consumptive, live on a milk diet.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse XLI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">For goodness, growing to a plurisy,</span> -<span class="i2">Dies in his own too-much.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A whoreson cold, sir; a cough, sir; which I caught with</span> -<span class="i2">ringing in the king’s affairs, upon his coronation day.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">’Tis dangerous to take a cold.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Henry IV., Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The tailor cries, and falls into a cough.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Coughs will come when sighs depart.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse VIII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Who, * * * but would much rather</span> -<span class="i2">Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather?</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse VI.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He has not forgotten the diseases affecting the digestive organs.</p> - -<p>An old superstition regarding toothache was that it was caused by a -small worm, formed like an eel, which bored a hole into the tooth, and -various methods were employed to remove it. Dyer notes the fact that -John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authorities, attributed -decay of the teeth to this cause.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Don Pedro.</i> What! sigh for the toothache?</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Leon.</i> Where is but a humour or a worm?</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He that sleeps feels not the toothache.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Being troubled with a raging tooth,</span> -<span class="i4">I could not sleep.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Othello, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">There was never yet philosopher,</span> -<span class="i2">That could endure the toothache patiently.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Much Ado, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She shall be buried with her face upwards;</span> -<span class="i2">Yet this is no charm for the toothache.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Bene.</i> I have the toothache.</span> -<span class="i2"><i>D. Pedro.</i> Draw it.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Richard II., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A surfeit of the sweetest things</span> -<span class="i2">The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Like a sickness, did I loath this food:</span> -<span class="i2">But, as in health, come to my natural taste,</span> -<span class="i2">Now do I wish it, love it, long for it. * *</span> -<span class="i15"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">She gallops night by night. * *</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">O’er ladies lips, who straight on kisses dream;</span> -<span class="i6">Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,</span> -<span class="i6">Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits</span> -<span class="i6">Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young;</span> -<span class="i6">And abstinence engenders maladies.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Unquiet meals make ill digestions.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that</span> -<span class="i6">Which would increase his evil.</span> -<span class="i37"><i>Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant.</span> -<span class="i38"><i>Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">For, ever and anon comes indigestion.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XI., Verse III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">When a roast and a ragout,</span> -<span class="i6">And fish and soup, by some side-dishes back’d,</span> -<span class="i6">Can give us either pain or pleasure, who</span> -<span class="i6">Would pique himself on intellects, whose use</span> -<span class="i6">Depends so much upon the gastric juice?</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto V., Verse XXXII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">He ate and he was well supplied; and she</span> -<span class="i6">Who watch’d him like a mother, would have fed</span> -<span class="i6">Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see,</span> -<span class="i6">Such appetite in one she had deem’d dead:</span> -<span class="i6">But Zoe, being older than Haidee,</span> -<span class="i6">Knew (by tradition, for she ne’er had read),</span> -<span class="i6">That famish’d people must be slowly nursed,</span> -<span class="i6">And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CLVIII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Why look you pale?</span> -<span class="i6">Seasick, I think, coming from Muscovy.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The shepherd’s daughter * * * who began to be much seasick.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">——the impatient wind blew half a gale:</span> -<span class="i6">High dash’d the spray, the bows dipp’d in the sea,</span> -<span class="i6">And seasick passengers turn’d somewhat pale.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse LXIV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Now we’ve reached her, lo! the captain,</span> -<span class="i6">Gallant Kidd, commands the crew;</span> -<span class="i6">Passengers their berths are clapt in,</span> -<span class="i6">Some to grumble, some to spew.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">“Help!”—“a couplet?”—“no, a cup</span> -<span class="i12">Of warm water.”</span> -<span class="i2">“What’s the matter?”</span> -<span class="i2">“Zounds! my liver’s coming up;</span> -<span class="i2">I shall not survive the racket</span> -<span class="i2">Of this brutal Lisbon Packet.”</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Byron—Poems.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Love’s a capricious power; I’ve known it hold</span> -<span class="i2">Out through a fever caused by its own heat,</span> -<span class="i2">But be much puzzled by a cough or cold,</span> -<span class="i2">And find a quinsy very hard to treat;</span> -<span class="i2">Against all noble maladies he’s bold,</span> -<span class="i2">But vulgar illnesses don’t like to meet,</span> -<span class="i2">Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh,</span> -<span class="i2">Nor inflammations redden his blind eye.</span> -<span class="i2">But worst of all it’s nausea, or a pain</span> -<span class="i2">About the lower regions of the bowels;</span> -<span class="i2">Love who heroically breathes a vein,</span> -<span class="i2">Shrinks from the application of hot towels,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,</span> -<span class="i2">Seasickness death.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse XXII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Like wind compress’d and pent within a bladder,</span> -<span class="i2">Or like a human colic which is sadder.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Byron—Vision of Judgment.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">When will your constipation have done, good madame?</span> -<span class="i38"><i>Cartwright.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Diseases of the secretory system have not escaped his eagle eye.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">A fat old man * * * that swoln parcel of dropsies.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry IV., Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The dropsy drown this fool!</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">It is a dropsied honour.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Fal.</i> You make fat rascals, mistress Doll.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Doll.</i> I make them! gluttony and disease make them.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Leprosy was sometimes called measles, from the French of leper, -<i>meseau</i> or <i>mesel</i>. This is the sense in which Shakespeare uses the -word measles—an entirely different one from that now in vogue. The -word “hoar,” occurring in several of the quotations, refers to the -white spots so characteristic of the disease.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">As for my country I have shed my blood,</span> -<span class="i2">Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs</span> -<span class="i2">Coin words till their decay against those measles,</span> -<span class="i2">Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought</span> -<span class="i2">The very way to catch them.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Gold! * * * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">This yellow slave will make the hoar leprosy ador’d.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">Hoar the flamen,</span> -<span class="i2">That scolds against the quality of flesh,</span> -<span class="i6">And not believes himself.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">Itches, blains,</span> -<span class="i2">Sow all the Athenian bosoms, and their crop</span> -<span class="i6">Be general leprosy!</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Diseased nature oftimes breaks forth</span> -<span class="i2">In strange eruptions.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Henry IV., Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,</span> -<span class="i2">The mere effusion of thy proper loins,</span> -<span class="i2">Do curse the gout, <i>serpigo</i>, and the rheum,</span> -<span class="i2">For ending thee no sooner.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Now the dry serpigo on the subject!</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A tailor might scratch her where ’er she did itch.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In the midland counties of England a pimple was frequently called “a quat.”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I have rubb’d this young quat almost to a sense,</span> -<span class="i2">And he grows angry.</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Othello. Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Rubbing the poor itch,</span> -<span class="i2">* * * Make yourselves scabs.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">I would thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the</span> -<span class="i8">scratching of thee;</span> -<span class="i2">I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Much Ado, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Dro. S.</i> She sweats—a man may go over shoes in the grime of it.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ant. S.</i> That’s a fault that water will mend.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Dro. S.</i> No, sir, ’tis in grain.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I had rather heat my liver with drinking.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let my liver rather heat with wine,</span> -<span class="i2">Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Were my wife’s liver</span> -<span class="i2">Infected as her life, she would not live</span> -<span class="i2">The running of one glass.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">All seems infected that the infected spy,</span> -<span class="i2">And all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The liver is the lazaret of bile,</span> -<span class="i2">But very rarely executes its function,</span> -<span class="i2">For the first passion stays there such a while</span> -<span class="i2">That all the rest creep in and form a junction.</span> -<span class="i2">Like knots of vipers on a dunghill’s soil,</span> -<span class="i2">Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction,</span> -<span class="i2">So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail,</span> -<span class="i2">Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call’d “central.”</span> -<span class="i13"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse CCXV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The examination of the urine as an aid to diagnosis has been -resorted to for many centuries, but the processes of to-day are, of -course, vastly different from and hardly to be compared with those -of earlier times, when blind ignorance caused urine-examining, or -“<i>water-casting</i>,” to be a mere mockery. The practice, says Dr. -Bucknill, arose “like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical -interdicts upon the medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and -monks, being unable to visit their former patients, are said first to -have resorted to the expedient of divining the malady, and directing -the treatment upon simple inspection of the urine.” The College of -Physicians, in an old statute, denounced it as belonging only to -charlatans, and members were not allowed to give advice on inspection -only. Shakespeare has frequently referred to it, as have also many -others of the old writers, who condemn strongly what was then a shallow -deception, but what has now become, by the light of knowledge, one of -the most important diagnostic aids to many diseases.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Host.</i> Thou art a Castilian, king urinal!</span> -<span class="i13">* * * Pardon, a word, monsieur, mock-water.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Dr. Caius.</i> Mock-vater! vat is dat?</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">If thou could’st, doctor, cast</span> -<span class="i2">The water of my land, find her disease,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And purge it to a sound and pristine health,</span> -<span class="i2">I would applaud thee to the very echo.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Carry his water to the wise woman.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Twelfth Night, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Falstaff.</i> What says the doctor to my water?</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Page.</i> He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy</span> -<span class="i9">water; but, for the party that owed it, he might</span> -<span class="i9">have more diseases than he knew for.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose</span> -<span class="i2">Cannot contain their urine: for affection,</span> -<span class="i2">Master of passion, sways it to the mood</span> -<span class="i2">Of what it likes or loathes.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Macd.</i> What three things does drink especially provoke?</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Port.</i> Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Macbeth, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">When he makes water, his urine is congealed ice.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Fevers and other general diseases are often referred to and very many -excellent allusions have been made to them.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most</span> -<span class="i4">lamentable to behold.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Henry V., Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help</span> -<span class="i4">his ague.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">A lunatic lean-witted fool,</span> -<span class="i2">Presuming on an ague’s privilege,</span> -<span class="i2">Dar’st with thy frozen admonition</span> -<span class="i2">Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood,</span> -<span class="i2">With fury, from his native residence.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Richard II., Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,</span> -<span class="i2">And chase the native beauty from his cheek,</span> -<span class="i2">And he will look as hollow as a ghost,</span> -<span class="i2">As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit,</span> -<span class="i2">And so he’ll die.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">An untimely ague</span> -<span class="i2">Stay’d me a prisoner in my chamber.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Henry VIII., Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My wind * * * would blow me to an ague.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He had a fever when he was in Spain,</span> -<span class="i2">And, when the fit was on him, I did mark</span> -<span class="i2">How he did shake; ’tis true, this god did shake:</span> -<span class="i2">His coward lips did from their colour fly;</span> -<span class="i2">And that same eye whose bend did awe the world</span> -<span class="i2">Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:</span> -<span class="i2">Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans</span> -<span class="i2">Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Alas!</i> it cried, <i>Give me some drink, Titinius</i>,</span> -<span class="i2">As a sick girl.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Home without boots, and in foul weather too!</span> -<span class="i2">How ’scapes he agues?</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Henry IV., Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Danger, like an ague, subtly taints</span> -<span class="i2">Even then when we sit idly in the sun.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">All the infections that the sun sucks up</span> -<span class="i2">From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him</span> -<span class="i2">By inch-meal a disease!</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">It is not for your health thus to commit</span> -<span class="i2">Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I asked the doctors after his disease—</span> -<span class="i2">He died of the slow fever called the tertian,</span> -<span class="i2">And left his widow to her own aversion.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse XXXIV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians</span> -<span class="i2">Of common likings, which make some deplore</span> -<span class="i2">What they should laugh at—the mere ague still</span> -<span class="i2">Of men’s regards, the fever or the chill.</span> -<span class="i14"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIII., Verse XVII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Plague has been alluded to frequently, but generally only the symptoms -of carbuncles and the petechiæ are mentioned. As the latter only -occur in very bad cases, they were called “God’s tokens,” and their -appearance denoted a fatal termination of the disease. Hence the home -of the patient was closed and “Lord have mercy on us” placed upon the door. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Write <i>Lord have mercy on us</i> on those three;</span> -<span class="i2">They are infected, in their hearts it lies;</span> -<span class="i2">They have the plague and caught it of your eyes.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He is so plaguy-proud, that the death tokens of it cry—</span> -<span class="i2"><i>No recovery.</i></span> -<span class="i20"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Enobarbus.</i> How appears the fight?</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Scarus.</i> On our side like the token’d pestilence,</span> -<span class="i20">Where death is sure</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. X.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,</span> -<span class="i2">And occupations perish!</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">The searchers of the town,</span> -<span class="i2">Suspecting that we both were in a house</span> -<span class="i2">Where the infectious pestilence did reign,</span> -<span class="i2">Sealed up the doors and would not let us forth.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">Thou art a boil,</span> -<span class="i2">A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle,</span> -<span class="i2">In my corrupted blood.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">Boils and plagues</span> -<span class="i2">Plaster you o’er; that you may be abhorr’d</span> -<span class="i2">Further than seen, and one infect another</span> -<span class="i2">Against the wind a mile!</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Men take diseases, one of another:</span> -<span class="i2">Therefore, let men take heed of their company.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Being sick * * * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints,</span> -<span class="i2">Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">We are all diseas’d; and</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,</span> -<span class="i2">And we must bleed for it.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This fever, that hath troubled me so long,</span> -<span class="i2">Lies heavy on me. * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">This tyrant fever burns me up,</span> -<span class="i2">And will not let me welcome this good news.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King John, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">What’s a fever but a fit of madness?</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">At this instant he is sick, my lord,</span> -<span class="i2">Of a strange fever.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Measure for Measure, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sickness is catching.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thus saith the preacher: “Nought beneath the sun,</span> -<span class="i2">Is new,” yet still from change to change we run:</span> -<span class="i2">What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!</span> -<span class="i2"><i>The cow-pox</i>, tractors, galvanism, and gas,</span> -<span class="i2">In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,</span> -<span class="i2">Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air!</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Eng. Bards and Scotch Reviewers.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Vaccination certainly has been</span> -<span class="i2">A kind antithesis to Congreve’s rockets,</span> -<span class="i2">With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,</span> -<span class="i2">By borrowing a new one from an ox.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXIX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I don’t know how it was, but he grew sick;</span> -<span class="i2">The empress was alarm’d, and her physician</span> -<span class="i2">(The same who physick’d Peter), found the tick</span> -<span class="i2">Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition</span> -<span class="i2">Which augur’d of the dead, however quick</span> -<span class="i2">Itself, and show’d a feverish disposition;</span> -<span class="i2">At which the whole court was extremely troubled,</span> -<span class="i2">The sovereign shock’d, and all his medicines doubled.</span> -<span class="i2">Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:</span> -<span class="i2">Some said he had been poison’d by Potemkin;</span> -<span class="i2">Others talked learnedly of certain tumours,</span> -<span class="i2">Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;</span> -<span class="i2">Some said ’twas a concoction of the humours,</span> -<span class="i2">With which the blood too readily will claim kin;</span> -<span class="i2">Others again were ready to maintain,</span> -<span class="i2">“’Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.”</span> -<span class="i2">But here is one prescription out of many:</span> -<span class="i2">“Sodæ-sulphat. 3. VI. 3. S. mannæ optim.</span> -<span class="i2">Aq. fervent. F. 3. iss. 3. ij tinct, sennæ</span> -<span class="i2">Haustus,” (and here the surgeon came and cupp’d him),</span> -<span class="i2">R. Pulv. com. gr iii. Ipecacuanhæ,</span> -<span class="i2">(With more besides, if Juan had not stopp’d ’em).</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> -<span class="i2">“Bolus potassæ sulphuret, sumendus,</span> -<span class="i2">Et haustus ter in die capiendus.”</span> -<span class="i2">This is the way physicians mend or end us,</span> -<span class="i2">Secundum artem. * * * * *</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse XXXIX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Rheumatic diseases do abound:</span> -<span class="i2">And through this distemperature, we see</span> -<span class="i2">The seasons alter.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This raw rheumatic day.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Is Brutus sick,—and is it physical</span> -<span class="i2">To walk unbraced, and suck up humours</span> -<span class="i2">Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,</span> -<span class="i2">And will he steal out of his wholesome bed,</span> -<span class="i2">To dare the vile contagion of the night,</span> -<span class="i2">And tempt the rheuma and unpurged air</span> -<span class="i2">To add unto his sickness?</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Is this the poultice for my aching bones?</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>A coming shower</i> your shooting corns presage,</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Old aches will throb</i>, your hollow tooth will rage.</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Swift.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Yet am I better</span> -<span class="i2">Than one that’s sick o’ the gout, since he had rather</span> -<span class="i2">Groan so in perpetuity, than be cur’d</span> -<span class="i2">By the sure physician, death.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A rich man that hath not the gout.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">His grace was rather pained</span> -<span class="i2">With some slight, light, hereditary twinges</span> -<span class="i2">Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.</span> -<span class="i13"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto, XVI., Verse XXXIV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">It is a hard, although a common case,</span> -<span class="i2">To find our children running restive—they</span> -<span class="i2">In whom our brightest days we would retrace,</span> -<span class="i2">Our little selves reform’d in finer clay;</span> -<span class="i2">Just as old age is creeping on apace,</span> -<span class="i2">And clouds come o’er the sunset of our day,</span> -<span class="i2">They kindly leave us, though not quite alone,</span> -<span class="i2">But in good company—the gout and stone.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse LIX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Life’s thin thread ’s spun out</span> -<span class="i2">Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIII., Verse XL.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Dear honest Ned is in the gout.</span> -<span class="i2">Lies racked with pain, and you without:</span> -<span class="i2">How patiently you hear him groan!</span> -<span class="i2">How glad the case is not your own!</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Yet should some neighbor feel a pain</span> -<span class="i2">Just in the parts where I complain,</span> -<span class="i2">How many a message would he send!</span> -<span class="i2">What hearty prayers that I should mend!</span> -<span class="i2">Inquire what regimen I kept?</span> -<span class="i2">What gave me ease, and how I slept?</span> -<span class="i2">And more lament when I was dead,</span> -<span class="i2">Than all my snivellers round my bed.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Swift—“Death of Dr. Swift.”</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Diseases of the absorbent system are well represented by scrofula, or -“King’s evil,” as it was known in Shakespeare’s time. This disease, -so called on account of the supposed power of cure being invested in -the handling and prayers of the king, was first so treated by Edward -the Confessor, in 1058, and by all the succeeding rulers until William -III., who refused. Queen Anne resumed the practice, but King George I. -put an end to it. During the twenty years following 1662 upwards of -100,000 persons were touched for the malady.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Malcolm.</i> Comes the king forth I pray you?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Doctor.</i> Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls</span> -<span class="i11">That stay his cure; their malady convinces</span> -<span class="i11">The great assay of art; but, at his touch,</span> -<span class="i11">Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,</span> -<span class="i11">They presently amend.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Malcolm.</i> I thank you, doctor.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Macduff.</i> What’s the disease he means?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Malcolm.</i> ’Tis call’d the evil</span> -<span class="i11">A most miraculous work in this good king:</span> -<span class="i11">Which often, since my here-remain in England,</span> -<span class="i11">I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,</span> -<span class="i11">Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,</span> -<span class="i11">All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,</span> -<span class="i11">The mere despair of surgery, he cures;</span> -<span class="i11">Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,</span> -<span class="i11">Put on with holy prayers; and ’tis spoken,</span> -<span class="i11">To the succeeding royalty he leaves</span> -<span class="i11">The healing benediction.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> -On the action of medicines he has given us abundant cause to think he -was much better informed than the average man of his time.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Cleo.</i> Give me to drink mandragora</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Char.</i> Why, madame?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Cleo.</i> That I might sleep out this great gap of time,</span> -<span class="i16">My Antony is away.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Not poppy, nor mandragora,</span> -<span class="i6">Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,</span> -<span class="i6">Shall ever med’cine thee to that sweet sleep</span> -<span class="i6">Which thou ow’dst yesterday.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Othello, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i16">Cupid’s cup</span> -<span class="i6">With the first draught intoxicates apace—</span> -<span class="i6">A quintessential laudanum or “black drop”</span> -<span class="i6">Which makes one drunk at once, without the base</span> -<span class="i6">Expedient of full bumpers.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto IX,. Verse LXVII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">——like an opiate which brings troubled rest,</span> -<span class="i6">Or none,</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XVI., Verse X</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The drug he gave me, which, he said, was precious</span> -<span class="i6">And cordial to me, have I not found it</span> -<span class="i6">Murderous to the senses?</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Have we eaten of the insane root,</span> -<span class="i6">That takes the reason prisoner?</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="blockquot">Commentators think that Shakespeare found the name -of this root in Bateman’s Commentary on Bartholeme <i>de Propriet Rerum</i>: -“Henbane (Hyoscyamus) is called <i>Insana</i>, mad, for the use thereof -is perillous; for if it be eate or drunke, it breedeth madnesse, or -slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly -Mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason.”</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Lib. XVII., Ch. 87.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Thy uncle stole,</span> -<span class="i2">With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,</span> -<span class="i2">And in the porches of mine ears did pour</span> -<span class="i2">The leperous distilment; whose effect</span> -<span class="i2">Holds such an enmity with blood of man,</span> -<span class="i2">That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through</span> -<span class="i2">The natural gates and alleys of the body;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And with a sudden rigour, it doth posset</span> -<span class="i2">And curd, like sour droppings into milk,</span> -<span class="i2">The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine,</span> -<span class="i2">And a most instant tetter bark’d about,</span> -<span class="i2">Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,</span> -<span class="i2">All my smooth body.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Hamlet, Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>It would indeed be interesting to know the source of Shakespeare’s -knowledge on the physiological action of this alkaloid of tobacco. Most -true it is that he has selected an excellent drug for his purpose in -taking up the crude oil—Nicotia nin (hebenon). Birds will fall dead as -they approach it; one drop is sufficient to kill a dog; and man dies -in from two to five minutes after taking a poisonous dose: but the -drug produces death by the <i>failure of respiration</i>, not by its direct -action on the blood. “In nicotia-poisoning the blood is, however, not -perceptibly affected. The amount of the alkaloid necessary to take -life is exceedingly small, and although death by asphyxia causes the -vital fluid to be everywhere dark, yet the microscope reveals only -normal corpuscles. Moreover, Krocker has found that the dark blood -rapidly assumes an arterial hue when shaken in the air, and that its -spectrum is normal.” (H. C. Wood’s Toxicology, 1882, p. 370.) It is -thought by many that Shakespeare did not intend “hebenon” to mean the -alkaloid of tobacco, and very plausible arguments have been brought -forward to show that he meant hebon or the juice of the yew. Dyer, in -his chapter on plants, gives the following extract of a paper read by -Rev. W. A. Harrison before the New Shakespeare Society in 1882: “It -has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ -(I-V.), when he speaks of the ‘juice of cursed hebenon,’ is that of -the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s ‘juice of hebon.’ (Jew of Malta, -III-IV.) The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of -Shakespeare’s age; and in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, -etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European -languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, -it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; -next, that the symptoms attending upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a -very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the -lazar-like ulcerations on the body, upon which Shakespeare, in this -passage, lays so much stress.” From these arguments there seems to be -every reason for believing that Shakespeare did mean the juice of the -yew, and it is to be hoped that the continual harping on this subject, -as an evidence of his medical ignorance, will soon cease.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Recovered again with aquavitæ, or some other hot infusion.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I must needs wake you: * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">Alas! my lady’s dead! * * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">* * * * * some aquavitæ, ho!</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The second property of your excellent sherris is—the</span> -<span class="i2">warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left</span> -<span class="i2">the liver white and pale, * * * but the sherris warms it,</span> -<span class="i2">and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The rapidity with which aconite, in poisonous doses, acts, is forcibly -shown in the comparison of it with gunpowder.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,</span> -<span class="i2">That the united vessel of their blood,</span> -<span class="i2">Mingled with venom of suggestion,</span> -<span class="i2">(As, force perforce, the age will pour it in,)</span> -<span class="i2">Shall never leak, though it do work as strong</span> -<span class="i2">As aconitum, or rash gunpowder.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Let me have</span> -<span class="i2">A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear</span> -<span class="i2">As will disperse itself through all the veins,</span> -<span class="i2">That the life-weary taker may fall dead;</span> -<span class="i2">And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath</span> -<span class="i2">As violently, as hasty powder fir’d</span> -<span class="i2">Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The curative properties of balm or balsam have been known and -valued for ages past.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,</span> -<span class="i2">Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me</span> -<span class="i2">The knife that made it.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Is this the balsam that the usuring senate</span> -<span class="i2">Pours into captain’s wounds? Banishment!</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Timon of Athens, Act III., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Henry VI.—3d, Act IV, Sc. III.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A solution of gold was supposed to possess great medical power; even -the actual contact of the pure metal, according to their belief, -kept the wearer ever in good health. Dyer quotes from John Wight’s -translation of the “Secrets of Alexis,” in which is given a receipt -“to dissolve and reducte golde into a potable licour which conserveth -the youth and healthe of a man, and will heale every disease that is -thought incurable in the space of seven daies at the furthest.” The -term “grand liquor,” as it appears in Shakespeare, refers to this solution.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,</span> -<span class="i2">(And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,)</span> -<span class="i2">I spake unto the crown, as having sense,</span> -<span class="i2">And thus upbraided it: <i>The care on thee depending,</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Hath fed upon the body of my father;</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold;</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Preserving life in med’cine potable</i>.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Plutus himself,</span> -<span class="i2">That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,</span> -<span class="i2">Hath not in nature’s mystery more science</span> -<span class="i2">Than I have in this ring.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>All’s Well, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Find this grand liquor that hath gilded ’em.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Tempest, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Sonnets, CXVIII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,</span> -<span class="i2">Would scour these English hence?</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let’s purge this choler without letting blood:</span> -<span class="i2">This we prescribe, though no physician;</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Our doctors say, this is no month to bleed.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Richard II., Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">That gentle physic, given in time, had cur’d me;</span> -<span class="i2">But now I am past all * * *</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">’Tis time to give ’em physic, their diseases</span> -<span class="i2">Are grown so catching.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Henry VIII., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He brings his physic</span> -<span class="i2">After his patient’s death.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Henry VIII., Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I will not cast away my physic, but on those that are sick.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">To jump a body with a dangerous physic</span> -<span class="i2">That’s sure of death without it.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Doctors give physic by way of prevention.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Swift.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The ignorant and superstitious were of the opinion that poisons could -be prepared so that the effect could be produced at certain periods -after their ingestion. They were also in error in the thought that -poisons caused great swelling of the body.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">She did confess she had</span> -<span class="i6">For you a mortal mineral; which, being took,</span> -<span class="i6">Should by the minute feed on life, and, lingering,</span> -<span class="i6">By inches waste you.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,</span> -<span class="i6">Like poison given to work a great time after,</span> -<span class="i6">Now ’gins to bite the spirits.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Tempest, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Hubert.</i> The king, I fear, is poison’d by a monk:</span> -<span class="i10">I left him almost speechless. * * *</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Bastard.</i> How did he take it? who did taste to him?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Hubert.</i> A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,</span> -<span class="i10">Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king</span> -<span class="i10">Yet speaks, and, peradventure, may recover.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King John, Act V., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">You shall digest the venom of your spleen,</span> -<span class="i6">Though it do split you!</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">If they had swallow’d poison ’t would appear</span> -<span class="i6">By external swelling: but she looks like sleep.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>K. John.</i> There is so hot a summer in my bosom,</span> -<span class="i10">That all my bowels crumble up to dust:</span> -<span class="i10">I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen</span> -<span class="i10">Upon a parchment; and against this fire</span> -<span class="i10">Do I shrink up.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>P. Henry.</i> How fares your majesty?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>K. John.</i> Poison’d,—ill fare; dead, forsook, cast off:</span> -<span class="i10">And none of you will bid the winter come,</span> -<span class="i10">To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;</span> -<span class="i10">Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course</span> -<span class="i10">Through my burn’d bosom; nor entreat the north</span> -<span class="i10">To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,</span> -<span class="i10">And comfort me with cold: I do not ask you much,</span> -<span class="i10">I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,</span> -<span class="i10">And so ingrateful, you deny me that. * * *</span> -<span class="i10">Within me is a hell; and there the poison</span> -<span class="i10">Is, as a fiend, confin’d to tyrannize</span> -<span class="i10">On unreprievable condemned blood.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>King John, Act V., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Within the infant rind of this weak flower</span> -<span class="i6">Poison hath residence, and medicine power:</span> -<span class="i6">For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;</span> -<span class="i6">Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Othello, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I bought an unction of a mountebank,</span> -<span class="i6">So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,</span> -<span class="i6">Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare</span> -<span class="i6">Collected from all simples that have virtue</span> -<span class="i6">Under the moon, can save the thing from death</span> -<span class="i6">That is but scratch’d withal.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A few miscellaneous quotations referring to medical subjects must here -find a place.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The more one sickens the worse at ease he is.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill</span> -<span class="i2">He could not sit his mule.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">——the sun is a most glorious sight,</span> -<span class="i2">I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late</span> -<span class="i2">I have set up on purpose all the night,</span> -<span class="i2">Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate;</span> -<span class="i2">And so all ye, who would be in the right</span> -<span class="i2">In health and purse, begin your day to date</span> -<span class="i2">From day-break, and when coffin’d at fourscore,</span> -<span class="i2">Engrave upon the plate you rose at four.</span> -<span class="i10"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CXL.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">So much was our love,</span> -<span class="i2">We would not understand what was most fit;</span> -<span class="i2">But, like the owner of a foul disease,</span> -<span class="i2">To keep it from divulging, let it feed</span> -<span class="i2">Even on the pith of life.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Diseases desperate grown,</span> -<span class="i2">By desperate appliance are reliev’d</span> -<span class="i2">Or not at all.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">His dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes,</span> -<span class="i2">In their continuance, will not feel themselves.</span> -<span class="i2">Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts,</span> -<span class="i2">Leaves them insensible.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>King John, Act V., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>What a catalogue have we here:</p> - -<p class="blockquot"> Now the rotten diseases of the south, the -guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’ the back, -lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing -lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i’ the palm, -incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of tetter, take and -take again such preposterous discoveries!</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,</span> -<span class="i2">Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood,</span> -<span class="i2">The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint</span> -<span class="i2">Disorder breeds by heating of the blood:</span> -<span class="i2">Surfeits, imposthumes, grief and damn’d despair,</span> -<span class="i2">Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair.</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Venus and Adonis.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>How nicely does he describe the decay of man, the second childhood, the -wasting away of the organism:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">The sixth age shifts</span> -<span class="i2">Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,</span> -<span class="i2">With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;</span> -<span class="i2">His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide</span> -<span class="i2">For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice</span> -<span class="i2">Turning again towards childish treble, pipes</span> -<span class="i2">And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,</span> -<span class="i2">That ends this strange eventful history,</span> -<span class="i2">Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,</span> -<span class="i2">Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>As You Like It, Act. II., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Again:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written -down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? -a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an -increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin -double? your wit single? and every part of you blasted with antiquity; -and will you yet call yourself young?</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.</i></p> - -<p class="space-above1">The satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards; that -their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree -gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most -weak hams.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Hamlet, Act II., Sc. II.</i></p> - -<p class="space-above1">A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will -turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a -full eye will wax hollow. * * *</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Henry V., Act V., Sc. II.</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or wrinkled-old,</span> -<span class="i2">Ill-natur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,</span> -<span class="i2">O’er worn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,</span> -<span class="i2">Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,</span> -<span class="i2">Then might thou pause. * * *</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Venus and Adonis.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let them die, that age and sullens have;</span> -<span class="i2">* * * both become the grave.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Richard II., Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Thus, methinks, I hear them speak,</span> -<span class="i2">See, how the Dean begins to break!</span> -<span class="i2">Poor gentleman! he droops apace!</span> -<span class="i2">You plainly find it in his face.</span> -<span class="i2">That old vertigo in his head</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Will never leave him, till he’s dead.</span> -<span class="i2">Besides, his memory decays:</span> -<span class="i2">He recollects not what he says:</span> -<span class="i2">He can not call his friends to mind;</span> -<span class="i2">Forgets the place where last he dined;</span> -<span class="i2">Plies you with stories o’er and o’er;</span> -<span class="i2">He told them fifty times before.</span> -<span class="i2">How does he fancy we can sit</span> -<span class="i2">To hear his out-of-fashion wit?</span> -<span class="i2">But he takes up with younger folks,</span> -<span class="i2">Who for his wine will bear his jokes.</span> -<span class="i2">Faith, he must make his stories shorter,</span> -<span class="i2">Or change his comrades once a quarter.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Swift—“Death of Dr. Swift.”</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Thus Swift predicted his own end as early as 1731. History mournfully -testifies that his candle burnt out as he anticipated. “Fits of lunacy -were succeeded by the <i>dementia</i> of old age. For three years he uttered -only a few words and broken interjections. He would often attempt to -speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, upon -which he would sigh heavily. Babylon in ruins (to use a <i>simile</i> of -Addison’s), was not a more melancholy spectacle than this wreck of a -mighty intellect! In speechless silence his spirit passed away October -19, 1745.” (Chamber’s Eng. Lit.)</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Manhood declines—age palsies every limb:</span> -<span class="i2">He quits the scene—or else the scene quits him;</span> -<span class="i2">Scrapes wealth, o’er each departing penny grieves,</span> -<span class="i2">And avarice seizes all ambition leaves;</span> -<span class="i2">Counts cent. per cent., and smiles or vainly frets,</span> -<span class="i2">O’er hoards diminish’d by young Hopeful’s debts;</span> -<span class="i2">Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,</span> -<span class="i2">Complete in all life’s lessons—but to die;</span> -<span class="i2">Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,</span> -<span class="i2">Commending every time, save times like these;</span> -<span class="i2">Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,</span> -<span class="i2">Expires unwept—is buried—let him rot!</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Byron—Hints from Horace.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The signs of a probable fatal termination are most beautifully -portrayed by Shakespeare. The death of Falstaff can not fail to be -regarded by the profession as an excellent description of approaching -dissolution.</p> - -<p class="blockquot"> ’A made a finer end, and went away, an it had -been any christom child; ’a parted even just between twelve and one, -even at the turning of the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the -sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger’s ends, I -knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’a -babbled of green fields. * * * ’A bade me lay more clothes on his feet: -I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were ’as cold as any -stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upwards, and upwards, and all -was as cold as any stone.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Henry V., Act II., Sc. III.</i></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Clarence.</i> Lord! Methought, what pain it was to drown!</span> -<span class="i12">What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!</span> -<span class="i12">What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Brakenbury.</i> Had you such leisure in the time of death,</span> -<span class="i13">To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Clarence.</i> Methought I had; for still the envious flood</span> -<span class="i12">Kept in my soul and would not let it forth</span> -<span class="i12">To seek the empty, vast, and wand’ring air;</span> -<span class="i12">But smother’d it within my panting bulk,</span> -<span class="i12">Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">How oft when men are at the point of death,</span> -<span class="i6">Have they been merry! which their keepers call</span> -<span class="i6">A lightning before death.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Out, alas! she’s cold;</span> -<span class="i6">Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;</span> -<span class="i6">Life and these lips have long been separated:</span> -<span class="i6">Death lies on her like an untimely frost</span> -<span class="i6">Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Do you notice</span> -<span class="i6">How much her grace is alter’d on the sudden?</span> -<span class="i6">How long her face is drawn? how pale she looks,</span> -<span class="i6">And of an earthy cold! Mark her eyes.</span> -<span class="i6">* * * She is going.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Her physician tells me</span> -<span class="i6">She hath pursu’d conclusions infinite</span> -<span class="i8">Of easy ways to die.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:—</span> -<span class="i6">A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">By his gates of breath</span> -<span class="i6">There lies a downy feather, which stirs not:</span> -<span class="i6">Did he suspire, that light and weightless down</span> -<span class="i6">Perforce must move.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Lend me a looking-glass;</span> -<span class="i6">If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,</span> -<span class="i6">Why then she lives.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>King Lear, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Death, on a solemn night of state,</span> -<span class="i6">In all his pomp of terror sate:</span> -<span class="i6">The attendants of his gloomy reign,</span> -<span class="i6">Diseases dire, a ghastly train!</span> -<span class="i6">Crowded the vast court. With hollow tone,</span> -<span class="i6">A voice thus thundered from the throne:</span> -<span class="i6">“This night our minister we name;</span> -<span class="i6">Let every servant speak his claim;</span> -<span class="i6">Merit shall bear this ebon wand.”</span> -<span class="i6">All, at the word, stretched forth their hand.</span> -<span class="i6">Fever, with burning heat possessed.</span> -<span class="i6">Advanced, and for the wand addressed:</span> -<span class="i6">“I to the weekly bills appeal;</span> -<span class="i6">Let those express my fervant zeal;</span> -<span class="i6">On every slight occasion near,</span> -<span class="i6">With violence I persevere”</span> -<span class="i6">Next Gout appears with limping pace,</span> -<span class="i6">Pleads how he shifts from place to place;</span> -<span class="i6">From head to foot how swift he flies,</span> -<span class="i6">And every joint and sinew plies;</span> -<span class="i6">Still working when he seems supprest,</span> -<span class="i6">A most tenacious stubborn guest.</span> -<span class="i6">A haggard spectre from the crew</span> -<span class="i6">Crawls forth, and thus asserts his due:</span> -<span class="i6">“’Tis I who taint the sweetest joy,</span> -<span class="i6">And in the shape of love destroy.</span> -<span class="i6">My shanks, sunk eyes, and noseless face,</span> -<span class="i6">Prove my pretension to the place.”</span> -<span class="i6">Stone urged his overgrowing force;</span> -<span class="i6">And, next consumption’s meagre corse,</span> -<span class="i6">With feeble voice that scarce was heard,</span> -<span class="i6">Broke with short coughs, his suit preferred:</span> -<span class="i6">“Let none object my lingering way;</span> -<span class="i6">I gain, like Fabius, by delay;</span> -<span class="i6">Fatigue and weaken every foe</span> -<span class="i6">By long attack, secure, though slow.”</span> -<span class="i6">Plague represents his rapid power,</span> -<span class="i6">Who thinned a nation in an hour.</span> -<span class="i6">All spoke their claim and hoped the wand.</span> -<span class="i6">Now expectation hushed the band,</span> -<span class="i6">When thus the monarch from the throne:</span> -<span class="i6">“Merit was ever modest known.</span> -<span class="i6">What! no physician speak his right?</span> -<span class="i6">None here! but fees their toil requite.</span> -<span class="i6">Let, then, Intemperance take the wand,</span> -<span class="i6">Who fills with gold their zealous hand.</span> -<span class="i6">You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest—</span> -<span class="i6">Whom wary men as foes detest—</span> -<span class="i6">Forego your claim. No more pretend</span> -<span class="i6">Intemperance is esteemed a friend;</span> -<span class="i6">He shares their mirth, their social joys,</span> -<span class="i6">And as a courted guest destroys.</span> -<span class="i6">The charge on him must justly fall,</span> -<span class="i6">Who finds employment for you all.”</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Gay—“Court of Death.”</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART III.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">SURGERY.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Shakespeare paid much more attention to the practice of medicine and -obstetrics than to surgery. Perhaps the cause of this was that at that -time surgery had not reached its present perfection. A more probable -reason is that his son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, may not have been a surgeon.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Iago.</i> What, are you hurt, lieutenant?</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Cas.</i> Ay, past all surgery.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Othello, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Can honour set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the</span> -<span class="i2">grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then?</span> -<span class="i2">No.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Henry IV., Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let me have surgeons;</span> -<span class="i2">I am cut to the brains.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="blockquot"> The king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make -when all those legs, and arms, and heads, chopped off in a battle, -shall join together at the latter day, and cry all——We died at such a -place; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some, upon their wives -left poor behind them.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Henry V., Act IV., Sc. I.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Patr.</i> Who keeps the tent now?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ther.</i> The surgeon’s box, or the patient’s wound.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. 1.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain’d:</span> -<span class="i6">The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee.</span> -<span class="i48"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">What opposite discoveries we have seen!</span> -<span class="i6">(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets;)</span> -<span class="i6">One makes new noses, one a guillotine,</span> -<span class="i6">One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXIX.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The lawyer’s brief is like the surgeon’s knife</span> -<span class="i6">Dissecting the whole inside of a question,</span> -<span class="i6">And with it all the process of digestion.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse XIV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">All feel the ill, yet shun the cure.</span> -<span class="i6">Can sense this paradox endure?</span> -<span class="i46"><i>Swift.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Syphilis is frequently referred to, and he represents several of his -characters as having it; among them Falstaff and Dame Quickly.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Lysimachus to keeper of a bawdy house</i>:</span> -<span class="i10">Have you that a man may deal withal and defy the surgeon?</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">You help to make the diseases, Doll:</span> -<span class="i6">We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Boult.</i> Do you know the French knight that cowers</span> -<span class="i17">i’ the hams? * * *</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Bawd.</i> As for him he brought his disease hither.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Pericles, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Doth fortune play the huswife with me now?</span> -<span class="i6">News have I, that my Nell is dead i’ the spital</span> -<span class="i6">Of malady of France.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Henry V., Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">In this sty, where, since I came,</span> -<span class="i6">Diseases have been sold dearer than physic.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">With tomboys, * * * with diseas’d ventures,</span> -<span class="i6">That play with all infirmities for gold,</span> -<span class="i6">Which rottenness can lend nature!</span> -<span class="i16">Such boil’d stuff</span> -<span class="i6">As well might poison poison!</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Cymbeline, Act I., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="blockquot"> I have purchased as many diseases under her roof -as come to * * * * three thousand dollars a year.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo</span> -<span class="i2">The means of weakness and debility.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>As You Like It, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If we two be one, and thou play false,</span> -<span class="i2">I do digest the poison of thy flesh.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Consumptions sow</span> -<span class="i2">In <i>hollow bones of</i> men; strike their <i>sharp shins</i>,</span> -<span class="i2">And mar men’s spurring. <i>Crack the</i> lawyer’s <i>voice</i>,</span> -<span class="i2">That he may never more false title plead,</span> -<span class="i2">Nor <i>sound</i> his quillets <i>shrilly</i>: hoar the flamen,</span> -<span class="i2">That scolds against the quality of flesh,</span> -<span class="i2">And not believes himself: <i>down with the nose,</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away</i>,</span> -<span class="i2">Of him that, his particular to foresee,</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Smells from the general weal: make curl’d pate ruffians bald</i>;</span> -<span class="i2">And let the unscarr’d braggarts of the war</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Derive</i> some <i>pain</i> from you.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The symptoms of secondary and tertiary syphilis are accurately -expressed in this curse of Timon’s. Leprosy is referred to in the -sentence “hoar the flamen,” or in other words, make white the priest. -Shakespeare here shows a very fine point by using these most dreaded -of all diseases: leprosy, syphilis, and consumption—maladies that are -hereditary, incurable, and contagious. They are certainly lasting, as -he wishes the curse to be.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>A pox on ’t!</i></p> - -<p>A common expression scattered through many of his plays.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he can part -young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox -pinches the other.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.</i></p> - -<p>I’faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many pocky -corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in), he will last -you some eight year or nine year.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Hamlet, Act V., Sc. I.</i></p> - -<p>She hath eaten up all her beef, and is herself in the tub.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">To the spital go,</span> -<span class="i2">And from the powdering-tub of infamy</span> -<span class="i2">Fetch forth the lazar-kite of Cressid’s kind,</span> -<span class="i2">Doll Tearsheet she by name.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Henry V., Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Be a whore still: * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">Give them diseases, * * *</span> -<span class="i2">* * * * Season the slaves</span> -<span class="i2">For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth</span> -<span class="i2">To the tub-fast, and the diet.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Dr. Macdonnell, of Canada, has thrown much light on these quotations -in his works on Syphilis. He says: “It appears to have been the custom -to prescribe for syphilitic patients, in addition to inunction, a -prolonged diaphoresis and a very low diet. On the continent the patient -was placed in a cave, oven, or dungeon, and Wiseman says it was the -custom in England to use a tub for this purpose.”</p> - -<p>In the footnote to the passage in Johnson & Steven’s edition of -Shakespeare’s works the following quotations from old plays are given:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">“——you had better match a ruin’d bawd,</span> -<span class="i2">One ten times cur’d by sweating and the tub.”</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Jaspar Maines, 1639.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Again, in the <i>Family of Love</i>, (1608), a doctor says:</p> - -<p class="center">“O for one of the hoops of my Cornelius’ tub, -I shall burst myself with laughing else.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Monsieur d’Olive</i>, (1606):</p> - -<p class="center">“Our embassage is into France, there may be employment for thee: -Hast thou a tub?”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous sores</span> -<span class="i2">Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices</span> -<span class="i2">To the April day again.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">’Tis I who taint the sweetest joy,</span> -<span class="i2">And in the shape of love destroy.</span> -<span class="i2">My shanks, sunk eyes, and noseless face,</span> -<span class="i2">Prove my pretension to the place.</span> -<span class="i43"><i>Gay.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Pox take him and his wit.</span> -<span class="i41"><i>Swift.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Constant to nought—save hazard and a whore,</span> -<span class="i2">Yet cursing both—for both have made him sore;</span> -<span class="i2">Unread—unless, since books beguile disease,</span> -<span class="i2">The pox becomes his passage to degrees.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Byron—Hints from Horace.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I said small-pox had gone out of late;</span> -<span class="i2">Perhaps it will be followed by the great.</span> -<span class="i2">’Tis said the great came from America;</span> -<span class="i2">Perhaps it may set out on its return,—</span> -<span class="i2">The population there so spreads, they say,</span> -<span class="i2">’Tis grown high time to thin it in its turn,</span> -<span class="i2">With war, or plague, or famine, any way,</span> -<span class="i2">So that civilization they may learn;</span> -<span class="i2">And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is—</span> -<span class="i2">Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?</span> -<span class="i13"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He’ll feel the weight of it many a day.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Cowley.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A little attention is paid to diseases of the eye, thus in Winter’s Tale:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Wishing all eyes</span> -<span class="i2">Blind with the pin and web, but theirs, theirs only,</span> -<span class="i2">That would unseen be wicked.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Commentators have the thought that Shakespeare wished to express the -idea of cataract by the term pin and web—this is, without doubt, a -mistake; he did not intend to make lovers so cruel that they should -desire to deprive every one else of sight. Pin and web (being a -varicose excrescence of the conjunctiva, sometimes to such an extent as -to totally prevent vision), was meant to express a veil, or in other -words, the eyelid.</p> - -<p class="center space-above2">Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">O heaven! that there were but a mote in yours,</span> -<span class="i2">A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,</span> -<span class="i2">Any annoyance in that precious sense!</span> -<span class="i2">Then, feeling what small things are boist’rous there,</span> -<span class="i2">Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>King John, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The term “sand-blind” was meant to express a dimness of sight, as if -sand had been thrown in the eyes.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Launcelot.</i> O heavens, this is my true-begotten father! who, being</span> -<span class="i12">more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Gobbo.</i> Alack, sir, I am sand-blind, I know you not.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I remember thine eyes well enough</span> -<span class="i2">Dost thou squiny at me?</span> -<span class="i29"><i>King Lear, Act. IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye,</span> -<span class="i2">and makes the hare-lip.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>King Lear, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A merry, cock-eyed, curious looking sprite.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Byron—Vision of Judgment.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">To no one muse does she her glance confine,</span> -<span class="i2">But has an eye, at once, to all the nine.</span> -<span class="i38"><i>Tom Moore.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The subject of wounds has received frequent mention. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> - -<p class="blockquot space-above1"> A scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough; * -* * go, villain, fetch a surgeon. * * * ’Tis not deep as a -well, nor as wide as a church door; but ’tis enough, * * * -ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. I.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Have by some surgeon * * *</span> -<span class="i2">To stop his wounds lest he do bleed to death.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="blockquot"> For the love of God, a surgeon! send one -presently to Sir Toby. * * * H’as broke my head across, and has given -Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God your help!</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Twelfth Night, Act V., Sc. I.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Romeo.</i> Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Benvolio.</i> For what, I pray thee?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Romeo.</i><span class="ws3">For thy broken shin.</span></span> -<span class="i30"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Moth.</i>  A wonder, master; here’s a Costard broken in a shin.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Armado.</i> Some enigma, some riddle: come,—thy <i>l’envoy</i>; begin.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Costard.</i> No egma, no riddle, no <i>l’envoy</i>; no salve in the male, sir;</span> -<span class="i10">O sir, plantain, a plain plantain; * * * no salve, sir,</span> -<span class="i10">but a plantain!</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The sovereign’st thing on earth</span> -<span class="i6">Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Henry IV., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I do beseech your majesty, may salve</span> -<span class="i6">The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Henry IV., Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Let us hence, my sovereign, to provide</span> -<span class="i6">A salve for any sore that may betide.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act. IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Here is a letter, lady;</span> -<span class="i6">The paper as the body of my friend,</span> -<span class="i6">And every word in it a gaping wound,</span> -<span class="i6">Issuing life-blood.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Dercetas.</i><span class="ws3">This is his sword;</span></span> -<span class="i12">I robb’d his wound of it. * * *</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Cæsar.</i><span class="ws2">* * * We do lance</span></span> -<span class="i12">Diseases in our bodies.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Men.</i> Where is he wounded?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Vol.</i> I’ the shoulder and i’ the left arm:</span> -<span class="i8">There will be large cicatrices to show the people.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Coriolanus, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">What wound did ever heal but by degrees?</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Othello, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">To see the salve doth make the wound ache more.</span> -<span class="i44"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains</span> -<span class="i6">Some scar of it.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>As You Like It, Act III., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The new-heal’d wound * * * should break out,</span> -<span class="i6">Which would be so much the more dangerous.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Richard III., Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master cobweb.</span> -<span class="i3">If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I’ll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs</span> -<span class="i6">To apply to ’s bleeding face.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>King Lear, Act III., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Go, get a white of an egg and a little flax, and close the</span> -<span class="i6">breach of the head; it is the most conducible thing that</span> -<span class="i6">can be.</span> -<span class="i9"><i>Ben Jonson—“The Case is Altered.” Act II., Sc. IV,.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">One’s hip he slash’d, and split the other’s shoulder,</span> -<span class="i6">And drove them with their brutal yells to seek</span> -<span class="i6">If there might be chirurgeons who could solder</span> -<span class="i6">The wounds they richly merited.</span> -<span class="i14"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto VIII., Verse XCIV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Many surgical subjects receive but little attention from him.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Ber.</i> What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Laf.</i> A fistula, my lord.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>All’s Well, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Fal.</i> Why, sirs, I am almost out at heels.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Pist.</i> Why, then, let kibes ensue.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Merry Wives, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant</span> -<span class="i3">comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.</span> -<span class="i37"><i>Hamlet, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i7">If it were a kibe</span> -<span class="i6">’Twould put me to my slipper.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Tempest, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">If a man’s brains were in ’s heels, were ’t not in danger of kibes?</span> -<span class="i34"><i>King Lear, Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city?</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">Were ’t my fitness</span> -<span class="i6">To let these hands obey my blood,</span> -<span class="i6">They are apt enough to dislocate and tear</span> -<span class="i6">Thy flesh and bones:—howe’er thou art a fiend,</span> -<span class="i6">A woman’s shape doth shield thee.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King Lear, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs,</span> -<span class="i6">* * * * there is little hope of life in him.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>As You Like It, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was</span> -<span class="i4">sport for ladies.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>As You Like It, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">On her left breast</span> -<span class="i6">A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops</span> -<span class="i6">I’ the bottom of a cowslip.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Cymbeline, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Under her breast</span> -<span class="i6">(Worthy the pressing) lies a mole, right proud</span> -<span class="i6">Of that most delicate lodging.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Cymbeline, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">If thou wert * * * *</span> -<span class="i6">Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,</span> -<span class="i6">Patch’d with foul moles and eye offending marks,</span> -<span class="i6">I would not care. * * *</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In case of a recent burn it was the custom to place the part near the -fire, thus upholding the old homœopathic doctrine that what hurts will cure.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire</span> -<span class="i6">Within the scorched veins of one new burn’d.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;</span> -<span class="i6">Rights by rights founder, strength by strengths do fail.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. VII.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">One fire burns out another’s burning,</span> -<span class="i6">One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Even as one heat another heat expels,</span> -<span class="i6">Or as one nail by strength drives out another,</span> -<span class="i6">So the remembrance of my former love</span> -<span class="i6">Is by a newer object quite forgotten.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I must not break my back to heal his finger.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Timon of Athens, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">That bottled spider, that foul, bunch-back’d toad.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Where’s that valiant crook-back prodigy?</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Ladies, that have their toes</span> -<span class="i6">Unplagu’d with corns, will have a bout with you. * *</span> -<span class="i6">* * * Which of you all</span> -<span class="i6">Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,</span> -<span class="i6">She, I’ll swear, hath corns.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Strangely-visited people,</span> -<span class="i6">All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,</span> -<span class="i6">The mere despair of surgery.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more</span> -<span class="i6">Than when it bites but lanceth not the sore.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Richard II., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">You rub the sore,</span> -<span class="i6">When you should bring the plaster.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Tempest, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">It will but skin and film the ulcerous place.</span> -<span class="i34"><i>Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Men.</i><span class="ws3">The service of the foot</span></span> -<span class="i7">Being once gangren’d is not then respected</span> -<span class="i7">For what before it was.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Bru.</i> Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence,</span> -<span class="i7">Lest his infection, being of catching nature,</span> -<span class="i7">Spread further.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Sic.</i> He’s a disease that must be cut away.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Men.</i> O he’s a limb that has but a disease;</span> -<span class="i15">Moral, to cut it off; to cure it easy.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Falstaff.</i> Boy, tell him I am deaf.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Page.</i> You must speak louder, my master is deaf.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Falstaff.</i> * * * it is a kind of deafness.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ch. Just.</i> I think you are fallen into the disease; for you</span> -<span class="i10"> hear not what I say to you, * * * and I care not if</span> -<span class="i10"> I do become your physician.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Falstaff.</i> * * * I should be your patient to follow your</span> -<span class="i10">prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a</span> -<span class="i10">scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The surgery described in Titus Andronicus is, of course, impossible.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">With gaping mouth.</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Spenser.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Madame scolded one day so long,</span> -<span class="i2">She sudden lost all use of tongue.</span> -<span class="i2">The doctor came—with hem and haw,</span> -<span class="i2">Pronounced the affection a lock’d jaw.</span> -<span class="i45">————</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Let firm, well-hammered soles protect thy feet</span> -<span class="i2">Through freezing snows, and rains, and soaking sleet.</span> -<span class="i2">Should the big last extend the shoe too wide,</span> -<span class="i2">Each stone will wrench the unwary step aside;</span> -<span class="i2">The sudden turn may stretch the swelling vein,</span> -<span class="i2">The cracking joint unhinge, or ankle sprain;</span> -<span class="i2">And when too short the modish shoes are worn,</span> -<span class="i2">You’ll judge the seasons by your shooting corn</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Gay.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Leeches stick, nor quit the bleeding wound,</span> -<span class="i2">Till off they drop with skinfuls to the ground.</span> -<span class="i45"><i>Swift.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Think of the thunderer’s falling down below</span> -<span class="i2">Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!</span> -<span class="i2">Alas! that glory should be chill’d by snow!</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse LIX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The surgeon had his instruments and bled</span> -<span class="i2">Pedrillo, and so gently ebb’d his breath,</span> -<span class="i2">You hardly could perceive when he was dead.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">And first a little crucifix he kissed,</span> -<span class="i2">And then held out his jugular and wrist.</span> -<span class="i10"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse LXXVI.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART IV.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">OBSTETRICS.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Obstetrics was Shakespeare’s favorite branch of the profession, and he -has not been at all sparing in reference to it. Under this head will be -included many topics which could more properly be placed in the chapter -on physiology, but it is thought better to have such intimate subjects -classed together. They have been arranged in the order of their natural -occurrence.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Capulet.</i> My child is yet a stranger in the world,</span> -<span class="i10">She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;</span> -<span class="i10">Let two more summers wither in their pride,</span> -<span class="i10">Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Paris.</i> Younger than she are happy mothers made.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Capulet.</i> And too soon marr’d are those so early made.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,</span> -<span class="i6">Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,</span> -<span class="i6">Are made already mothers: by my count,</span> -<span class="i6">I was your mother much upon these years</span> -<span class="i6">That you are now a maid.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In the old poem Juliet’s age is put down as sixteen; in Paynter’s novel -she is said to be eighteen. Shakespeare, however, makes her fourteen, -but who ever imagines her of these tender years while enjoying the -play? It seems absurd to think of her as being less than twenty or -twenty-two until we recollect that she grew and developed into early -womanhood under the sun of an Italian clime. The wonderful development -of the girls of Italy can easily be seen in the Eternal city. Taking a -stroll down to the Spanish staircase which is daily filled with Roman -models lazily awaiting the engagements of the artists, or a walk on the -Corso, or around the Theatre of Marcellus, convinces one at once that -Shakespeare’s Juliet, young as she is, is not overdrawn, and that the -Italian girl of fourteen is indeed fully “ripe to be a bride.” -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">’Tis a sad thing, I can not choose but say,</span> -<span class="i2">And all the fault of that indecent sun</span> -<span class="i2">Who can not leave alone our helpless clay,</span> -<span class="i2">But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,</span> -<span class="i2">That, howsoever people fast and pray,</span> -<span class="i2">The flesh is frail and so the soul’s undone:</span> -<span class="i2">What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,</span> -<span class="i2">Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.</span> -<span class="i11"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse LXIII.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Shakespeare has hinted several times that it was a common occurrence -for girls of this “sun-burnt nation” to be mothers at the age of -fourteen. Paris assures Juliet’s father that “younger than she are -happy mothers made,” and Lady Capulet, in her conversation with her -daughter, alludes to the fact that she was her mother when she was but -thirteen. She also echoes Paris in saying:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Younger than you</span> -<span class="i2">Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,</span> -<span class="i2">Are made already mothers.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another reference is found in Winter’s Tale:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If this prove true, they’ll pay for it: by mine honour,</span> -<span class="i2">I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see,</span> -<span class="i2">To bring false generations.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Perhaps Byron had a better idea of this climatic effect than any other -poet. He has frequently written of it; indeed, it forms the foundation -of some of his poems.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Wedded she was some years, and to a man</span> -<span class="i2">Of fifty and such husbands are in plenty;</span> -<span class="i2">And yet, I think, instead of such a one,</span> -<span class="i2">’Twere better to have two of five and twenty,</span> -<span class="i2">Especially in countries near the sun.</span> -<span class="i13"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse LXII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">It was upon a day, a summer’s day;</span> -<span class="i2">Summer’s indeed a very dangerous season,</span> -<span class="i2">And so is spring about the end of May;</span> -<span class="i2">The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason.</span> -<span class="i14"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Haidee was nature’s bride, and knew not this;</span> -<span class="i2">Haidee was passion’s child, born where the sun</span> -<span class="i2">Showers triple light, and scorches even the kiss</span> -<span class="i2">Of his gazelle-eyed daughters.</span> -<span class="i12"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CCII.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The Turks do well to shut—at least sometimes—</span> -<span class="i2">The women up—because, in sad reality,</span> -<span class="i2">Their chastity in these unhappy climes</span> -<span class="i2">Is not a thing of that astringent quality,</span> -<span class="i2">Which in the north prevents precocious crimes.</span> -<span class="i12"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto V., Verse CLVII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Few short years make wondrous alterations,</span> -<span class="i2">Particularly among sun-burnt nations.</span> -<span class="i13"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse LXIX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Our English maids are long to woo,</span> -<span class="i2">And frigid even in possession;</span> -<span class="i2">And if their charms be fair to view,</span> -<span class="i2">Their lips are slow at love’s confession:</span> -<span class="i2">But born beneath a brighter sun,</span> -<span class="i2">For love ordain’d the Spanish maid is</span> -<span class="i2">And who when fondly, fairly won,—</span> -<span class="i2">Enchants you like the girl of Cadiz?</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">In each her charms the heart must move</span> -<span class="i2">Of all who venture to behold her;</span> -<span class="i2">Then let not maids less fair reprove</span> -<span class="i2">Because her bosom is not colder:</span> -<span class="i2">Through many a clime ’tis mine to roam</span> -<span class="i2">Where many a soft and melting maid is,</span> -<span class="i2">But none abroad and few at home</span> -<span class="i2">May match the dark-eyed girl of Cadiz.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Byron—Poems.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>What a beautiful comparison Shakespeare has made between the -virgin and flowers.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I would I had some flowers o’ the spring, that might</span> -<span class="i2">Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,</span> -<span class="i2">That wear upon your virgin branches yet</span> -<span class="i2">Your maidenheads growing * * *</span> -<span class="i2">* * * * pale primroses,</span> -<span class="i2">That die unmarried, ere they can behold</span> -<span class="i2">Bright Phœbus in his strength,—a malady</span> -<span class="i2">Most incident to maids.</span> -<span class="i15"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Fair Hermia, question your desires,</span> -<span class="i2">Know of your youth, examine well your blood,</span> -<span class="i2">Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,</span> -<span class="i2">You can endure the livery of a nun;</span> -<span class="i2">For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d</span> -<span class="i2">To live a barren sister all your life,</span> -<span class="i2">Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.</span> -<span class="i2">Thrice blessed they that master so their blood,</span> -<span class="i2">To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;</span> -<span class="i2">But earthly happier is the rose distill’d,</span> -<span class="i2">Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,</span> -<span class="i2">Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.</span> -<span class="i12"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Fecundation is not overlooked, and Shakespeare shows his knowledge of -the fact that the penis is merely the spout or funnel by which the -semen is conveyed to the uterus, and aptly compares the womb to a -bottle, which in his time gradually tapered toward the neck. The word -tundish is an old Warwickshire name for a funnel.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Duke.</i> Why should he die, sir?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Lucio.</i> Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:</span> -<span class="i6">The wren goes to ’t, and the small gilded fly</span> -<span class="i6">Does lecher in my sight.</span> -<span class="i6">Let copulation thrive for Gloster’s bastard son</span> -<span class="i6">Was kinder to his father than my daughters</span> -<span class="i6">Got ’tween lawful sheets.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,</span> -<span class="i6">Where, by the loss of maidenhead,</span> -<span class="i6">A babe is moulded.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Pericles, Gow to Act III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,</span> -<span class="i6">That make ungrateful man.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>King Lear, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Q. Eliz.</i> But thou didst kill my children.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>K. Rich.</i> But in your daughter’s womb I’ll bury them;</span> -<span class="i10">Where, in that nest of spicery, they shall breed</span> -<span class="i10">Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Your brother and his lover have embrac’d:</span> -<span class="i6">As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time,</span> -<span class="i6">That from the seedness the bare fallow brings</span> -<span class="i6">To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb</span> -<span class="i6">Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess hear!</span> -<span class="i6">Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend</span> -<span class="i6">To make this creature fruitful!</span> -<span class="i6">Into her womb convey sterility!</span> -<span class="i6">Dry up in her the organs of increase;</span> -<span class="i6">And from her derogate body never spring</span> -<span class="i6">A babe to honour her! If she must teem,</span> -<span class="i6">Create her child of spleen; that it may live,</span> -<span class="i6">And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her!</span> -<span class="i6">Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;</span> -<span class="i6">With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;</span> -<span class="i6">Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits</span> -<span class="i6">To laughter and contempt: that she may feel</span> -<span class="i6">How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is</span> -<span class="i6">To have a thankless child!</span> -<span class="i30"><i>King Lear, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The production of either sex at will agitated the minds of -physiologists to a considerable extent during Shakespeare’s time. -Indeed he seems to have held an ancient theory that the more vigorous -of the parents produced the opposite sex. Dr. Robert, of Paris, in his -paper entitled <i>Megalanthropogenesis</i>, somewhat followed up this theory -and maintained that “the race of men of genius might be perpetuated by -uniting them to better physically developed women having clever minds,” -which, according to his theory, would, of course, result in nothing but -male children.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Bring forth men-children only!</span> -<span class="i2">For thy undaunted mettle should compose</span> -<span class="i2">Nothing but males.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Macbeth, Act I., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">For men’s sake, the authors of these women;</span> -<span class="i2">Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Be advis’d, fair maid:</span> -<span class="i2">To you your father should be as a god;</span> -<span class="i2">One that compos’d your beauties; yea, and one</span> -<span class="i2">To whom you are but as a form in wax,</span> -<span class="i2">By him imprinted, and within his power</span> -<span class="i2">To leave the figure, or disfigure it.</span> -<span class="i14"><i>Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The child would therefore resemble the parent of opposite sex. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Nurse to Henry VIII</i>:</span> -<span class="i18">’Tis a girl * * * as like you</span> -<span class="i19">As cherry is to cherry.</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="center space-above2"><i>Paulina pleading to Leontes on the birth of a daughter -to his wife Hermione</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Behold, my lords,</span> -<span class="i2">Although the print be little, the whole matter</span> -<span class="i2">And copy of the father,—eye, nose, lip;</span> -<span class="i2">The trick of ’s frown; his forehead; nay, the valley,</span> -<span class="i2">The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles;</span> -<span class="i2">The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>It is a very old opinion that the mental state of parents during -coition influenced to a certain extent the mental activity of the -offspring. Bastards were supposed to excel in this respect on account -of the mental excitement during the intercourse from which they took -their origin. Burton held this view in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” -and, after reading King Lear, we know that Shakespeare also held it.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Edmund.</i><span class="ws3">Why brand they us</span></span> -<span class="i10">With base? with baseness? bastardy? base? base?</span> -<span class="i10">Who in the lusty stealth of nature take</span> -<span class="i10">More composition and fierce quality</span> -<span class="i10">Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed</span> -<span class="i10">Go to the creating a whole tribe of fobs,</span> -<span class="i10">Got ’tween sleep and wake.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Act. I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>His allusions to pregnancy are many.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He knows himself my bed he hath defil’d;</span> -<span class="i2">And at that time he got his wife with child:</span> -<span class="i2">Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;</span> -<span class="i2">So there’s my riddle, One that’s dead is <i>quick</i>.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>All’s Well, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She is gone; she is two month on her way. * *</span> -<span class="i2">She’s quick; the child brags in her belly already.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A mistake of ten weeks is truly a bad one; quickening generally being -experienced <i>four and a half months</i> after impregnation. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I am with child, * * * *</span> -<span class="i2">Murder not, then, the fruit within my womb.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry VI., Act V., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She died, but not alone; she held within</span> -<span class="i2">A second principle of life, which might</span> -<span class="i2">Have dawn’d a fair and sinless child of sin:</span> -<span class="i2">But closed its little being without light,</span> -<span class="i2">And went down to the grave unborn, wherein</span> -<span class="i2">Blossom and bough lie wither’d with one blight.</span> -<span class="i15"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto IV., Verse LXX.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This blue ey’d hag was hither brought with child.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If myself might be his judge,</span> -<span class="i2">He should receive his punishment in thanks:</span> -<span class="i2">He hath got his friend with child.</span> -<span class="i17"><i>Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> I shall answer that * * * better than you can the getting up of the -negro’s belly; the moor is with child.</p> -<p class="author"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. V.</i><span class="ws3"> </span></p> - -<p class="space-above2">I would there were no age between ten, and three and twenty, -or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches -with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. * * *</p> -<p class="author"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. III.</i><span class="ws3"> </span></p> - -<p class="space-above2">He was whipped for getting the shrieve’s fool with child; a dumb -innocent that could not say him nay.</p> -<p class="author"><i>All’s Well, Act IV., Sc. III.</i><span class="ws3"> </span></p> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Let wives with child</span> -<span class="i2">Pray that their burthens may not fall this day.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Shakespeare knew of the importance of pregnant women, being -particularly careful that nothing should excite them.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I the rather wean me from despair,</span> -<span class="i2">For love of Edward’s offspring in my womb:</span> -<span class="i2">This is it that makes me bridle passion,</span> -<span class="i2">And bear with mildness my misfortune’s cross;</span> -<span class="i2">Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear,</span> -<span class="i2">And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,</span> -<span class="i2">Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown</span> -<span class="i2">King Edward’s fruit, true heir to the English crown.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The longings or desires of pregnant women are very nicely shown in -Measure for Measure:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3">She came in great with child, and longing for stewed prunes.</span> -<span class="i42"><i>Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">This mistress Elbow, being as I say, with child, and being</span> -<span class="i3">great bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes. * * *</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">From whom my absence was not six months old,</span> -<span class="i6">Before herself (almost at fainting under</span> -<span class="i6">The pleasing punishment that women bear)</span> -<span class="i6">Had made provision for her following me.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">The queen rounds apace. * * *</span> -<span class="i10">* * * She is spread of late</span> -<span class="i10">Into a goodly bulk.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The queen, your mother, rounds apace: we shall</span> -<span class="i6">Present our services to a fine new prince</span> -<span class="i6">One of these days.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">She grew round-wombed, and had a son for her cradle</span> -<span class="i3">ere she had a husband for her bed.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>King Lear, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Great-bellied women,</span> -<span class="i6">That had not half a week to go, like rams</span> -<span class="i6">In the old time of war, would shake the press</span> -<span class="i6">And make ’em reel before ’em.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Parturition is referred to in many instances.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">Lucina, O</span> -<span class="i2">Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle</span> -<span class="i2">To those that cry by night, convey thy deity</span> -<span class="i2">Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs</span> -<span class="i2">Of my queen’s travails!</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Pericles, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">What shall be done with groaning Juliet?</span> -<span class="i2">She’s very near her hour.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Come, let us go, and pray to all the gods</span> -<span class="i2">For our beloved mother in her pains.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Titus Andronicus, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The lady shrieks, and well-a-near</span> -<span class="i2">Doth fall in travail with her fear.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Pericles, Gow to Act III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She is deliver’d, lords,—she is deliver’d.</span> -<span class="i2">I mean, she is brought a-bed.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Titus Andronicus, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The queen’s in labour,</span> -<span class="i2">They say, in great extremity; and fear’d</span> -<span class="i2">She’ll with the labour end.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Henry VIII., Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The queen’s in labour. * * * Her sufferance made</span> -<span class="i2">Almost each pang a death.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry VIII, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Finger of birth-strangled babe</span> -<span class="i2">Ditch-deliver’d by a drab. * * *</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">You ne’er oppressed me with a mother’s groan,</span> -<span class="i2">Yet I express to you a mother’s care.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>All’s Well, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>History records the fact that the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards -Richard III., was born with teeth, uneven shoulders, one leg shorter -than the other, deformed back, with a clump of hair on it. These facts -Shakespeare never forgot, and continually harps on them.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain,</span> -<span class="i2">And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope;</span> -<span class="i2">To wit, an indigest deformed lump,</span> -<span class="i2">Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.</span> -<span class="i2">Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,</span> -<span class="i2">To signify, thou cam’st to bite the world.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Henry VI—3d., Act V., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I have often heard my mother say</span> -<span class="i2">I came into the world with my legs forward:</span> -<span class="i2">Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,</span> -<span class="i2">And seek their ruin that usurp’d our right?</span> -<span class="i2">The midwife wonder’d and the women cried,</span> -<span class="i2"><i>O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!</i></span> -<span class="i2">And so I was, which plainly signified</span> -<span class="i2">That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Henry VI—3d., Act V., Sc. VI.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Love forswore me in my mother’s womb:</span> -<span class="i2">And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,</span> -<span class="i2">She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe</span> -<span class="i2">To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub;</span> -<span class="i2">To make an envious mountain on my back,</span> -<span class="i2">Where sits deformity to mock my body;</span> -<span class="i2">To shape my legs of an unequal size;</span> -<span class="i2">To disproportion me in every part,</span> -<span class="i2">Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp</span> -<span class="i2">That carries no impression like the dam.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The term “unlick’d bear-whelp,” in the last quotation, refers to an old -notion existing before Shakespeare’s time: that the bear brings forth -masses of animated flesh, having no resemblance whatever to her, and -that she then licks this shapeless lump into a cub. There is a thread -of truth running through this idea, as will be seen by the following -extract taken by Dyer from “Arcana Microcosmi,” by Alexander Ross: -“Bears bring forth their young deformed and misshapen, by reason of the -thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is covered over with a -mucous matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the winter-time, -by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the eye the cub -appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is afterwards licked -away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that which before -seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape.” Ross holds that -this was well known by the ancients and that they entertained no other -idea in regard to it.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,</span> -<span class="i2">As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Henry VI—2d, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,</span> -<span class="i2">Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,</span> -<span class="i2">Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time</span> -<span class="i2">Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,</span> -<span class="i2">And that so lamely and unfashionable,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> -<span class="i2">That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;</span> -<span class="i2">Why I, * * * since I cannot prove a lover,</span> -<span class="i2">I am determined to prove a villain.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast</span> -<span class="i2">That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old;</span> -<span class="i2">’Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Richard III., Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thou elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog!</span> -<span class="i2">Thou that wast seal’d in thy nativity</span> -<span class="i2">The slave of nature and the son of hell!</span> -<span class="i2">Thou slander of thy mother’s heavy womb!</span> -<span class="i2">Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins!</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Art thou so hasty? I have stay’d for thee,</span> -<span class="i2">God knows, in anguish, pain and agony.</span> -<span class="i2">* * * A grievous burden was thy birth to me.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept</span> -<span class="i2">A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:</span> -<span class="i2">That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A few other quotations referring to labor are here found.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">By her he had two children at one birth.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Henry VI—2d, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">A terrible child-bed hast thou had, my dear;</span> -<span class="i2">No light, no fire.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Pericles, Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">At sea, in child-bed died she, but brought forth</span> -<span class="i2">A maid-child called Marina.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Pericles, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The child-bed privilege denied, which ’longs</span> -<span class="i2">To women of all fashion;—lastly, hurried</span> -<span class="i2">Here to this place, i’ the open air, before</span> -<span class="i2">I have got strength of limit.</span> -<span class="i17"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Alas! worlds fall—and woman since she fell’d</span> -<span class="i2">The world (as, since that history, less polite</span> -<span class="i2">Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held)</span> -<span class="i2">Has not yet given up the practice quite.</span> -<span class="i2">Poor thing of usages! coerced, compell’d,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right,</span> -<span class="i2">Condemn’d to child-bed, as men for their sins,</span> -<span class="i2">Have shaving too entail’d upon their chins,—</span> -<span class="i2">A daily plague, which, in the aggregate,</span> -<span class="i2">May average on the whole with parturition.</span> -<span class="i2">But as to women who can penetrate</span> -<span class="i2">The real sufferings of their she condition?</span> -<span class="i2">Man’s very sympathy with their estate</span> -<span class="i2">Has much of selfishness and more suspicion.</span> -<span class="i2">Their love, their virtue, beauty, education,</span> -<span class="i2">But form good housekeepers to breed a nation.</span> -<span class="i7"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XXIII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">They are as children but one step below,</span> -<span class="i2">Even of your mettle, of your very blood;</span> -<span class="i2">Of all one pain, save for a night of groans</span> -<span class="i2">Endur’d of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">Would I had died a maid,</span> -<span class="i2">And never seen thee, never borne thee son,</span> -<span class="i2">Seeing thou hast prov’d so unnatural a father!</span> -<span class="i2">Hath he deserv’d to lose his birthright thus?</span> -<span class="i2">Hadst thou but lov’d him half so well as I,</span> -<span class="i2">Or felt that pain which I did for him once,</span> -<span class="i2">Or nourish’d him, as I did with my blood.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i21"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -<span class="i0"> </span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">He is your brother, lords; sensibly fed</span> -<span class="i2">Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;</span> -<span class="i2">And from that womb where you imprison’d were,</span> -<span class="i2">He is enfranchised and come to light.</span> -<span class="i15"><i>Titus Andronicus, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The child was prisoner to the womb, and is</span> -<span class="i2">By law and process of great Nature, thence</span> -<span class="i2">Freed and enfranchis’d.</span> -<span class="i18"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She said, no shepherd sought her side,</span> -<span class="i2">No hunter’s hand her snood untied,</span> -<span class="i2">Yet ne’er again to braid her hair</span> -<span class="i2">The virgin snood did Alice wear;</span> -<span class="i2">Gone was her maiden glee and sport,</span> -<span class="i2">Her maiden girdle all too short.</span> -<span class="i2">Nor sought she, from that fatal night,</span> -<span class="i2">Or holy church or blessed rite,</span> -<span class="i2">But lock’d her secret in her breast,</span> -<span class="i2">And died in travail unconfess’d.</span> -<span class="i4"><i>Scott—Lady of the Lake, Canto III., Verse V.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">My princely father then had wars in France;</span> -<span class="i2">And by true computation of the time,</span> -<span class="i2">Found that the issue was not his begot.</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Richard III., Act III., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth hour’s blot:</span> -<span class="i2">For marks descried in men’s nativity</span> -<span class="i2">Are nature’s faults, not their own infamy.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A few quotations on abortion, and some others that are intimately -related to obstetrics, remain.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If ever he have child, abortive be it,</span> -<span class="i2">Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,</span> -<span class="i2">Whose ugly and unnatural aspect</span> -<span class="i2">May fright the hopeful mother at the view.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Why should I joy in any abortive birth?</span> -<span class="i15"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Truth is truth: large length of seas and shores</span> -<span class="i2">Between my father and my mother lay,—</span> -<span class="i2">And I have heard my father speak * * *</span> -<span class="i2">That this, my mother’s son, was none of his;</span> -<span class="i2">And, if he were, he came into the world</span> -<span class="i2">Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>King John, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Shakespeare has interwoven some of his family history here, and made -the advent of Philip, the Bastard, correspond exactly to the untimely -birth of his eldest daughter Susanna, who appeared only five and a half -months after his marriage—“full fourteen weeks before the course of -time.” Later on in the play we find the following:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Your brother is legitimate,</span> -<span class="i2">Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="no-indent">—thus furnishing proof of legitimacy in such cases.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She is, something before her time, deliver’d.</span> -<span class="i2">* * * A daughter; and a goodly babe,</span> -<span class="i2">Lusty, and like to live.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">O pray God, the fruit of her womb miscarry.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">She had also snatch’d a moment since her marriage</span> -<span class="i2">To bear a son and heir—and one miscarriage.</span> -<span class="i12"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse LVI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">Macduff was from his mother’s womb</span> -<span class="i10">Untimely ripp’d.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Macbeth, Act V., Sc. VIII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Some griefs are med’cinable; that is, one of them,</span> -<span class="i2">For it doth physic love.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Cymbeline, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">This bastard graff shall never come to growth:</span> -<span class="i2">He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute</span> -<span class="i2">That thou art doting father of his fruit.</span> -<span class="i35"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Grant, that our hopes, (yet likely of fair birth)</span> -<span class="i2">Should be still-born. * * * *</span> -<span class="i19"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The barren, touched in this holy chase,</span> -<span class="i2">Shake off their sterile curse.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This supposed charm against sterility, says Dyer, “is copied from -Plutarch, who, in his description of the festival Lupercalia, tells us -how ‘noble young men run naked through the city, striking in sport whom -they meet in the way with leather thongs,’ which blows were commonly -believed to have the wonderful effect attributed to them by Cæsar.”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I had then laid wormwood to my dug,</span> -<span class="i2">* * * it did taste the wormwood on the nipple</span> -<span class="i2">Of my dug, and felt it bitter.</span> -<span class="i17"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">I have given suck, and know</span> -<span class="i2">How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me;</span> -<span class="i2">I would, while it was smiling in my face,</span> -<span class="i2">Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,</span> -<span class="i2">And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn</span> -<span class="i2">As you have done to this.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Macbeth, Act I., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Eggs, oysters too, are amatory food.</span> -<span class="i10"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CLXX.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Surely Byron knew of the stimulating qualities of eggs and oysters, -and no doubt took them with as much faith as the worn-out debauchee of -to-day does, as he sits down to his “plate of raw” and his “sherry and egg.” -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART V.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">PHYSIOLOGY.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Mr. Hackett, noticing the numerous allusions in Shakespeare to the -blood, and to a circulation of this fluid to and from the heart or -the liver, was led, in 1859, to express the absurd idea that William -Shakespeare had anticipated Harvey in the discovery of the circulation -of the blood.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i1">“What damned error, but some sober brow</span> -<span class="i2">Will bless it, and approve it with a text.”</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Mr. Hackett found many thoughts in Shakespeare concerning the -circulation which were applicable to Harvey’s theory.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">See, how the blood is settled in his face!</span> -<span class="i6">Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,</span> -<span class="i6">Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless,</span> -<span class="i6">Being all descended to the labouring heart;</span> -<span class="i6">Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,</span> -<span class="i6">Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy;</span> -<span class="i6">Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth</span> -<span class="i6">To blush and beautify the cheek again.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Henry VI—2d., Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">You are * * * *</span> -<span class="i6">As dear to me as are the ruddy drops</span> -<span class="i6">That visit my sad heart.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,</span> -<span class="i6">Making both it unable for itself,</span> -<span class="i6">And dispossessing all my other parts</span> -<span class="i6">Of necessary fitness?</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Measure far Measure, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i16">My heart drops blood.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I am sure my heart wept blood.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry VI., Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The blood weeps from my heart.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I send it through the rivers of your blood,</span> -<span class="i6">Even to the court, the heart—to the seat o’ the brain;</span> -<span class="i6">And, through the cranks and offices of man,</span> -<span class="i6">The strongest nerves and small inferior veins,</span> -<span class="i6">From me receive that natural competency</span> -<span class="i6">Whereby they live.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">The tide of blood in me</span> -<span class="i6">Hath proudly flow’d in vanity, till now;</span> -<span class="i6">Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea,</span> -<span class="i6">Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,</span> -<span class="i6">And flow henceforth in formal majesty.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood</span> -<span class="i6">Is stopp’d; the very source of it is stopped.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Macbeth, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">——my heart, * * *</span> -<span class="i6">The fountain from the which my current runs,</span> -<span class="i6">Or else dries up.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Othello, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i18">I cannot rest</span> -<span class="i6">Until the white rose that I wear, be dy’d</span> -<span class="i6">Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry’s heart.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Snakes, in my heart-blood warm’d, that sting my heart!</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Richard II., Act III. Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Thy heart-blood I will have for this day’s work.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry VI., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there,</span> -<span class="i6">Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Her blue blood changed to black in every vein,</span> -<span class="i6">Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,</span> -<span class="i6">Show’d life imprison’d in a body dead.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Corrupted blood some watery token shows;</span> -<span class="i6">And blood untainted still doth red abide,</span> -<span class="i6">Blushing at that which is so putrefied.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast</span> -<span class="i6">A harmful knife, * * * * * *</span> -<span class="i6">And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide</span> -<span class="i6">In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood</span> -<span class="i6">Circles her body in on every side, * * *</span> -<span class="i6">Some of her blood still pure and red remain’d,</span> -<span class="i6">And some look’d black.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Lucrece.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">But are you flesh and blood?</span> -<span class="i12">Have you a working pulse?</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Pericles, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I drink the air before me, and return</span> -<span class="i6">Or e’er your pulse twice beat.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Tempest, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,</span> -<span class="i6">And makes as healthful music.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart</span> -<span class="i3">would desire.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Even as my life, or blood that fosters it.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Pericles, Act II., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Swill as quicksilver it courses through</span> -<span class="i6">The natural gates and alleys of the body.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Hamlet, Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Shakespeare died in 1610. Harvey first published his theory in 1619. It -must be remembered that at this time many ideas were afloat concerning -the circulation. Among the older theories were those of Hippocrates, -Praxagoras, and Erasistratus, who held that the arteries contained air, -and that, therefore, the <i>veins</i> were the <i>only</i> blood-holding vessels, -and that they had their origin in the liver. Galen, the most celebrated -of ancient medical writers, who lived as early as 150 A. D. taught that -the left ventricle of the heart was the common origin of all arteries, -and that the arteries of living animals contained blood, <i>not</i> air; but -he did not advance with his studies so as to learn in what direction -the blood flowed, or whether it was movable or stationary. The -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -distinguished Michael Servetus, who was burned with his books, by -order of Calvin, in 1553, taught that the blood flowed from the right -ventricle, through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, and thence -through the pulmonary vein and left auricle into the corresponding -ventricle from which it was conveyed by the aorta to all parts of -the body. Dr. Bucknill is of the opinion that Shakespeare followed -Hippocrates in his theory that the veins were the only blood vessels -and that they came from the liver. It is very evident, from the many allusions -given below, that he did at different periods adhere to this belief.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Let my liver rather heat with wine,</span> -<span class="i6">Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood</span> -<span class="i3">in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest</span> -<span class="i3">of the anatomy.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Twelfth Night, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I’ll empty all these veins,</span> -<span class="i6">And shed my dear blood drop by drop.</span> -<span class="i32"><i>Henry IV., Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i18">I’ll have more lives</span> -<span class="i6">Than drops of blood were in my father’s veins.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry VI—3d, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i18">Let me have</span> -<span class="i6">A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear</span> -<span class="i6">As will disperse itself through all the veins.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I freely told you, all the wealth I had</span> -<span class="i6">Ran in my veins</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The blood and courage that renowned them,</span> -<span class="i6">Runs in your veins.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Henry V., Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">——through all thy veins shall run</span> -<span class="i6">A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize</span> -<span class="i6">Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep</span> -<span class="i6">His natural progress but surcease to beat.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">There is * * * * *</span> -<span class="i6">Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Henry V., Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">My blood speaks to you in my veins.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Merchant of Venice, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">While warm life plays in that infant’s veins.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Had bak’d thy blood, and made it heavy thick,</span> -<span class="i6">Which, else, runs tickling up and down the veins.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>King John, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">’Tis thy presence that exhales this blood</span> -<span class="i6">From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Richard III., Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Stuff’d within with bloody veins.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Pericles, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">For every false drop in her bawdy veins</span> -<span class="i6">A Grecian’s life hath sunk.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">If so thou yield him, there is gold, and here</span> -<span class="i6">My bluest veins to kiss.</span> -<span class="i20"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act II., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">That those veins</span> -<span class="i12">Did verily bear blood.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">The veins unfill’d, our blood is cold.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Coriolanus, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I have a faint cold, fear thrills through my veins</span> -<span class="i6">That almost freezes up the heat of life.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">——purple fountains issuing from your veins.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The arteries or “air pipes” were supposed, according to this theory -of Hippocrates, to contain an ærial fluid.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">These pipes and these conveyances of our blood.</span> -<span class="i25"><i>Coriolanus, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Universal plodding poisons up</span> -<span class="i2">The nimble spirits in the arteries.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">My fate cries out,</span> -<span class="i2">And makes each petty artery in this body</span> -<span class="i2">As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Hamlet, Act I., Sc. IV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>It is more reasonable to suppose that Shakespeare did not tie himself -down to any one theory concerning the circulation, but that sometimes -he had in mind the theory of Michael Servetus, (to which all the heart -allusions will apply), and at other times that of Hippocrates, (which -accounts for all the thoughts regarding the liver as the propeller of -the blood through the veins). The immortal Harvey was the first to -point out the true idea of the circulation: the idea that the blood -was forced by the heart through the arteries, a pure live-supporting -fluid; that it went to the extreme parts of the body, giving nutriment, -taking up impurities, and then returning by way of the veins to the -heart,—thence to the lungs to be purified before being again sent -out on it’s life-sustaining journey. None of the quotations from -Shakespeare express this idea, excepting perhaps one, and that rather -vaguely.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">The tide of blood in me</span> -<span class="i2">Hath proudly flow’d in vanity, till now;</span> -<span class="i2">Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea,</span> -<span class="i2">Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,</span> -<span class="i2">And flow henceforth in formal majesty.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>We can not believe, however that he possessed the knowledge of Harvey’s -theory, and can only say in his own words:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">There is no vice so simple, but assumes</span> -<span class="i2">Some mark of virtue on it’s outward parts.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The physiology of the digestive system is excellently described in -Coriolanus.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10"><i>Men.</i> There was a time, when all the body’s members</span> -<span class="i14">Rebell’d against the belly; thus accus’d it:</span> -<span class="i14">That only like a gulf it did remain</span> -<span class="i14">I’ the midst o’ the body, idle and unactive,</span> -<span class="i14">Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing</span> -<span class="i14">Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments</span> -<span class="i14">Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,</span> -<span class="i14">And mutually participate, did minister</span> -<span class="i14">Unto the appetite and affection common</span> -<span class="i14">Of the whole body. The belly answer’d</span> -<span class="i14">* * * * with a kind of smile,</span> -<span class="i14">Which ne’er came from the lungs, but even thus,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> -<span class="i14">For, look you, I may make the belly smile,</span> -<span class="i14">As well as speak,—it tauntingly replied</span> -<span class="i14">To the discontented members, the mutinous parts</span> -<span class="i14">That envied his receipt. * * *</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>1st Cit.</i> Your belly’s answer? What!</span> -<span class="i7">The kingly-crown’d head, the vigilant eye,</span> -<span class="i7">The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,</span> -<span class="i7">Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,</span> -<span class="i7">With other muniments and petty helps</span> -<span class="i7">In this our fabric, if that they * * *</span> -<span class="i7">Should, by the cormorant belly be restrain’d,</span> -<span class="i7">Who is the sink o’ the body.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10"><i>Men.</i> True it is, quoth the belly,</span> -<span class="i14">That I receive the general food at first,</span> -<span class="i14">Which you do live upon; and fit it is,</span> -<span class="i14">Because I am the store house and the shop</span> -<span class="i14">Of the whole body: but if you do remember,</span> -<span class="i14">I send it through the rivers of your blood,</span> -<span class="i14">Even to the court, the heart—to the seat o’ the brain;</span> -<span class="i14">And, through the cranks and offices of man,</span> -<span class="i14">The strongest nerves and small inferior veins,</span> -<span class="i14">From me receive that natural competency</span> -<span class="i14">Whereby they live.</span> -<span class="i44"><i>Act I., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i21">For your digestion’s sake</span> -<span class="i21">An after-dinner speech.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">To make our appetites more keen,</span> -<span class="i6">With eager compounds we our palate urge.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Sonnets, CXVIII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">My cheese, my digestion.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I say, whatever you maintain</span> -<span class="i6">Of Alma in the heart or brain,</span> -<span class="i6">The plainest man alive may tell ye</span> -<span class="i6">Her seat of empire is the belly.</span> -<span class="i6">From hence she sends out those supplies</span> -<span class="i6">Which make us either stout or wise;</span> -<span class="i6">Your stomach makes the fabric roll</span> -<span class="i6">Just as the bias rules the bowl.</span> -<span class="i6">The great Achilles might employ</span> -<span class="i6">The strength designed to ruin Troy;</span> -<span class="i6">He dined on lion’s marrow, spread</span> -<span class="i6">On toast of ammunition bread;</span> -<span class="i6">But by his mother sent away</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> -<span class="i6">Amongst the Thracian girls to play,</span> -<span class="i6">Effeminate he sat and quiet—</span> -<span class="i6">Strange product of a cheese-cake diet!</span> -<span class="i6">Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel</span> -<span class="i6">Upon the strength of water-gruel?</span> -<span class="i6">But who shall stand his rage or force</span> -<span class="i6">If first he rides, then eats his horse?</span> -<span class="i6">Salads and eggs, and lighter fare,</span> -<span class="i6">Tunes the Italian spark’s guitar;</span> -<span class="i6">And, if I take Dan Congrieve right,</span> -<span class="i6">Pudding and beef make Britons fight.</span> -<span class="i6">Tokay and coffee cause this work</span> -<span class="i6">Between the German and the Turk:</span> -<span class="i6">And both, as they provisions want,</span> -<span class="i6">Chicane, avoid, retire, and faint.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But, spoil the organ of digestion,</span> -<span class="i2">And you entirely change the question:</span> -<span class="i2">Alma’s affairs no power can mend;</span> -<span class="i2">The jest, alas! is at an end. * * *</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Prior.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A few remaining physiological thoughts are interesting. As is well -known, we are much better able to judge the size and distance of -objects on the same level with us than we are when they are either -above or below us. When we view objects from a height they appear much -less than they would were we at the same distance from them on the same -level. Shakespeare has beautifully shown this effect in King Lear.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i14">How fearful</span> -<span class="i2">And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!</span> -<span class="i2">The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,</span> -<span class="i2">Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down</span> -<span class="i2">Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!</span> -<span class="i2">Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head:</span> -<span class="i2">The fishermen that walk upon the beach,</span> -<span class="i2">Appear like mice. * * * *</span> -<span class="i36"><i>Act IV., Sc. VI.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The subject of pupillary reflexes has received mention by many of the -older writers. It was a source of amusement to lovers in the old time -to look into each others eyes in search of their own reflection.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Joy had the like conception in our eyes,</span> -<span class="i2">And, at that instant, like a babe, sprung up.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>Timon of Athens, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Look in my eyes, my blushing fair,</span> -<span class="i2">Thou’lt see thyself reflected there;</span> -<span class="i2">As I gaze on thine, I see</span> -<span class="i2">Two little miniatures of me.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> -<span class="i2">Thus in our looks some propagation lies,</span> -<span class="i2">For we make babies in each other’s eyes.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Tom Moore.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">When a young lady wrings you by the hand, thus,</span> -<span class="i2">Or with an amorous touch presses your foot;</span> -<span class="i2">Looks babies in your eyes, plays with your locks.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="center"><span class="ws10"><i>Massinger—Renegado. Act II., Sc. IV.</i></span></p> - -<p class="space-above2">It has been a view long held that the height -of the forehead is an index of the intellectual character of the -individual. Shakespeare has referred to this in several plays.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">We shall lose our time,</span> -<span class="i6">And all be turn’d to barnacles, or to apes,</span> -<span class="i6">With foreheads villainous low.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Ay, but her forehead’s low, as mine’s as high.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Cleopatra.</i> Bear’st thou her face in mind? is’t long or round?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Messenger.</i> Round, even to faultiness.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Cleopatra.</i> For the most part too,</span> -<span class="i12">They are foolish that are so. Her hair, what colour?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Messenger.</i> Brown, madame, and her forehead</span> -<span class="i12">As low as you would wish it.</span> -<span class="i17"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The old superstition that much hair on the head indicated a want of -intellect is alluded to in Two Gentlemen of Verona.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Speed.</i> Item, <i>she hath more hair than wit</i>.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Laun.</i> More hair than wit,—it may be; I’ll prove it: the cover of the salt</span> -<span class="i8">hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that</span> -<span class="i8">covers the wit is more than the wit; for the greater hides the less.</span> -<span class="i43"><i>Act III., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is,</span> -<span class="i9">so plentiful an excrement?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro. S.</i> Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts;</span> -<span class="i9">and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given</span> -<span class="i9">them in wit.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro. S.</i> Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose</span> -<span class="i9">his hair.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Why, thou did’st conclude hairy men plain dealers</span> -<span class="i9">without wit.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act II., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">This great voluminous pamphlet may be said</span> -<span class="i12">To be like one that hath more hair than head;</span> -<span class="i12">More excrement than body: trees which sprout</span> -<span class="i12">With broadest leaves have still the smallest fruit.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Suckling—Aglaura.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> -He had some idea of the sympathetic connection between the organs of -the body, and has furnished us with a good example of superstition -connected with sympathy. It was an old superstition that the wounds of -a murdered person would bleed afresh if the body was touched by the -murderer, and this has nicely been brought out in Richard III.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry’s wounds</span> -<span class="i2">Open their congeal’d mouths and bleed afresh!</span> -<span class="i2">Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;</span> -<span class="i2">For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood</span> -<span class="i2">From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells,</span> -<span class="i2">Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,</span> -<span class="i2">Provokes this deluge most unnatural.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Dunglison explains these superstitions “either on purely physical -principles, or on the excited imagination of the observer,” and cites -two interesting cases—one attested by John Demarest, coroner of -Bergen county, New Jersey, (1767), and the other which occurred near -Easton, Pennsylvania. Of the latter case he says: “The superstition -has, indeed, its believers among us. On the trial of Getter, who was -executed about five years ago (1833) in Pennsylvania, for the murder of -his wife, a female witness deposed on oath as follows: ‘If my throat -was to be cut, I could tell, before God Almighty, that the deceased -smiled when he (the murderer) touched her. I swore this before the -justices, and that she bled considerably. I was sent for to dress her -and lay her out. He touched her twice. He made no hesitation about -doing it. I also swore before the justice that it was observed by other -people in the house.’” Dyer cites a number of similar cases, and quotes -the following as a supposed cause of the phenomenon from the “Athenian -Oracle,” (1-106): “The blood is congealed in the body for two or three -days, and then becomes liquid again, in its tendency to corruption. -The air being heated by many persons coming about the body is the same -thing to it as motion is. ’Tis observed that dead bodies will bleed in -a concourse of people, when murderers are absent as well as present, -yet legislators have thought it fit to authorize it, and use this trial -as an argument, at least to frighten, though ’tis no conclusive one to -condemn them.” The practice, however, caused many an innocent spectator -to receive the fatal penalty. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART VI.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">ANATOMY.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Anatomy received some attention.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> What’s her name?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> Nell, sir; but her name and three-quarters, that’s</span> -<span class="i10">an ell and three-quarters, will not measure her from</span> -<span class="i10">hip to hip.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Then she bears some breadth?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip;</span> -<span class="i10">she is spherical like a globe,—I could find out</span> -<span class="i10">countries on her.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> In what part of her body stands Ireland?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the</span> -<span class="i10">bogs.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Where’s Scotland?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> I found it by the barrenness; hard, in the palm of</span> -<span class="i10">the hand.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Where’s France?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> In her forehead; arm’d and reverted, making war</span> -<span class="i10">against her heir.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Where’s England?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no</span> -<span class="i10">whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin,</span> -<span class="i10">by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Where’s Spain?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Where’s America, the Indies?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> O, sir, upon her nose,—all o’er embellished with</span> -<span class="i10">rubies, carbuncles, saphires, declining their rich</span> -<span class="i10">aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole</span> -<span class="i10">armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Ant. S.</i> Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Dro.S.</i> O, sir, I did not look so low. * * *</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:</span> -<span class="i12">Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry,</span> -<span class="i12">Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.</span> -<span class="i12">Within this limit is relief enough,</span> -<span class="i12">Sweet bottom-grass, and high delightful plain,</span> -<span class="i12">Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,</span> -<span class="i12">To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:</span> -<span class="i12">Then be my deer, since I am such a park;</span> -<span class="i12">No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.</span> -<span class="i40"><i>Venus and Adonis.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The old superstition that our bodies consisted of the elements—fire, -water, earth and air—has been mentioned. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Sir Toby.</i><span class="ws2">Does not our life consist of four elements?</span></span> -<span class="i3"><i>Sir Andrew.</i> ’Faith so they say; but I think it rather consists of</span> -<span class="i13"> eating and drinking.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Twelfth Night, Act II., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">His life was gentle; and the elements</span> -<span class="i6">So mix’d in him, that nature might stand up,</span> -<span class="i6">And say to all the world, This was a man!</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Julius Cæsar, Act V., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I am fire and air; my other elements</span> -<span class="i6">I give to baser life.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i12">O tell me, friar, tell me,</span> -<span class="i6">In what vile part of this anatomy</span> -<span class="i6">Doth my name lodge?</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The brain was thought only to have three ventricles by the old -anatomists; what is now the fourth ventricle was called by them the -third, and was supposed to be the seat of memory.</p> - -<p class="blockquot space-above2">A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, -figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: -these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of -<i>pia mater</i>.</p> - -<p class="author"><i>Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. II.</i><span class="ws6"> </span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">——whose skull Jove cram with brains!</span> -<span class="i6">* * * * a most weak <i>pia mater</i>.</span> -<span class="i30"><i>Twelfth Night, Act I., Sc. V.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft</span> -<span class="i3">with a brown bill.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry VI—2d, Act IV., Sc. X.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Servant.</i> My lord you have one eye left.</span> -<span class="i3"><i>Cornwall.</i> Lest it see more, prevent it.—</span> -<span class="i11">Out, vile jelly!</span> -<span class="i16">Where is thy lustre now?</span> -<span class="i30"><i>King Lear, Act III., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Like a strutting player,—whose conceit</span> -<span class="i6">Lies in his hamstring.</span> -<span class="i21"><i>Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15">Thy bones are hollow.</span> -<span class="i23"><i>Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15">Thy bones are marrowless.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Macbeth, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot</span> -<span class="i6">Of a foe o’er him, snatch’d at it, and bit</span> -<span class="i6">The very tendon which is most acute—</span> -<span class="i6">(That which some ancient muse or modern wit</span> -<span class="i6">Named after thee Achilles) and quite through’t</span> -<span class="i6">He made the teeth meet.</span> -<span class="i16"><i>Byron—Don Juan, Canto VIII., Verse LXXXIV.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"><h2>PART VII.<br /> <span class="h_subtitle">PHARMACY.</span></h2></div> - -<p>Pharmacy was not overlooked.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I do remember an apothecary,—</span> -<span class="i2">And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted</span> -<span class="i2">In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,</span> -<span class="i2">Culling of simples: meagre were his looks,</span> -<span class="i2">Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;</span> -<span class="i2">And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,</span> -<span class="i2">An alligator stuff’d, and other skins</span> -<span class="i2">Of ill-shap’d fishes; and, about his shelves,</span> -<span class="i2">A beggarly account of empty boxes,</span> -<span class="i2">Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,</span> -<span class="i2">Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,</span> -<span class="i2">Were thinly scatter’d to make up a show.</span> -<span class="i2">Noting this penury, to myself I said—</span> -<span class="i2">An if a man need poison now,</span> -<span class="i2">Whose sale is present death in Mantua,</span> -<span class="i2">Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i7">What, ho! apothecary!</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15">O, true apothecary!</span> -<span class="i15">Thy drugs are quick.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">He did buy a poison of a poor apothecary,</span> -<span class="i6">And there withal came to this vault to die.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i18">Bid the apothecary</span> -<span class="i6">Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.</span> -<span class="i26"><i>Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. III.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Your master will be dead ere you return;</span> -<span class="i6">There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature.</span> -<span class="i6">That can recover him. Give this to the ’pothecary,</span> -<span class="i6">And tell me how it works.</span> -<span class="i31"><i>Pericles, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Great griefs, I see, medicine the less.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">That drug-damn’d Italy hath out-craftied him.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Cymbeline, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">One, whose subdu’d eyes,</span> -<span class="i6">Albeit unused to the melting mood,</span> -<span class="i6">Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees</span> -<span class="i6">Their med’cinable gum.</span> -<span class="i33"><i>Othello, Act V., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15">Set ratsbane by his porridge.</span> -<span class="i29"><i>King Lear, Act III., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as</span> -<span class="i3">offer to stop it with <i>security</i>.</span> -<span class="i28"><i>Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i18">I would the milk</span> -<span class="i6">Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck’dst her breast,</span> -<span class="i6">Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake!</span> -<span class="i29"><i>Henry VI., Act V., Sc. IV.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">If you have poison for me I will drink it.</span> -<span class="i27"><i>King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VII.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">I have bought the oil, the balsamum and aquavitæ.</span> -<span class="i24"><i>Comedy of Errors, Act IV., Sc. I.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15">Give me some aquavitæ.</span> -<span class="i22"><i>Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. II.</i></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="space-above3"> </p> -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illo_2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="77" /> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<div class="transnote bbox"> -<p class="f120 space-above1">Transcriber’s Note:</p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="indent">Uncertain or antiquated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.</p> -<p class="indent">Typographical errors have been silently corrected.</p> -<p>The book cover image was created by the transcriber and is in the public domain.</p> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 61366-h.htm or 61366-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/1/3/6/61366">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/3/6/61366</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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