Wendell Holmes' books, so intensely interesting is his personality and so
fascinating is his work. But several other eminent poets of the
profession demand attention. To Crabbe's connection with surgery I have
already incidentally referred, and inasmuch as he early abandoned the
calling for the ministry, little need be said except that his youthful
experience may have aided him in writing a scathing denunciation of the
Quack, who believed wholly in the potence of "oxymel of squills," and of
the Parish Doctor, who "first insults the victim whom he kills." The poet
was a severe castigator, and was never less forbearing with the lash than
when these impostors of his day were under his hand for flagellation. In
Mark Akenside we come to a better specimen of the class which we are
considering. At the age of twenty he went to Leyden, and three years later
became, (as Dr. Johnson writes) "a doctor of physick, having, according to
the custom of the Dutch Universities, published a thesis." In the same
year he published "The Pleasures of the Imagination," his greatest work.
This was followed by a collection of odes, but he still sought a
livelihood as a physician. Little success attended him, however, and Dr.
Johnson records that Akenside was known as a poet better than as a doctor,
and would have been reduced to great exigencies but for the generosity of
an ardent friend. "Thus supported, he gradually advanced in medical
reputation, but never attained any great extent of practice, or eminence
of popularity. A physician in a great city," his biographer continues
musingly, "seems to be the mere play-thing of Fortune; his degree of
reputation is, for the most part, totally casual; they that employ him,
know not his excellence; they that reject him, know not his deficiency."
Yet it was otherwise with Sir Samuel Garth, doctor and poet, of whom
Johnson himself records that "by his conversation and accomplishments he
obtained a very extensive practice." His principal poem was "The
Dispensary," relating to a controversy of the time between the College of
Physicians, who desired to give gratuitous advice to the poor, and the
Apothecaries, who wished to keep up the high price of medicine. Garth was
"on the side of charity against the intrigues of interest, and of regular
learning against licentious usurpation of medical authority," as Johnson
put it; and he sprang into favour, was eventually knighted, and became
physician-general to the army. His last literary work, and his worst, was
a crude but ostentatious preface to a translation of Ovid. As a matter of
fact his writing was invariably mediocre, and Pope, in calling attention
to the fact that the "Dispensary" poem had been corrected in every
edition, unkindly remarked that "every change was an improvement." John
Phillips, who may be ranked among the physicians, though it is doubtful
whether he practised, enjoyed a better fate as a man of letters than did
either Akenside or Garth. He sprang into sudden popularity by the
publication of a whimsical and clever medley called "The Silver Shilling,"
and this he followed up by a sort of official commemoration of the victory
of Blenheim. His greatest achievement was a poem in two books on "Cider,"
and he was meditating an epic on "The Last Day" when he died, at the early
age of thirty-three. One curious fact about his writings, small as it is,
is worthy of mention. He sang the praises of tobacco in every poem he
wrote, except that on Blenheim.
Dr. Johnson did not rate Phillips very highly; he said that what study
could confer he obtained, but that "natural deficience cannot be
supplied." The sturdy doctor, however, did his utmost to rehabilitate the
damaged reputation of Blackmore, whom we may regard as the most
remarkable of all the compounds of physician-poets with whom we can become
acquainted. Blackmore obtained an undeserved success, which was followed
by unmerited ridicule, and Johnson, who hated every form of injustice,
constituted himself his champion. For the truth about Blackmore we must
seek the medium between the extremes of Johnson's praise and of the
censure of his enemies--the "malignity of contemporary wits," as Boswell
termed it. When all is said and done the fact remains that Blackmore was a
man of uncommon character, and a prodigious worker. His first work, a
heroic poem in ten books, on Prince Arthur, was written, he related, by
"such catches and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his
profession afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in
passing up and down the streets." This work passed through several
editions with rapidity, and two extra books were added to it. The King
knighted him and gave him other advances, but the critics furiously
assailed him, and his name became a by-word for all that was heavy and
ridiculous in poetry. Notwithstanding this he persevered, and published
successively a "Paraphrase on the Book of Job," a "Satire on Wit,"
"Elijah,"--an epic poem in ten books--"Creation, a Philosophical Poem,"
"Advice to Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough," "The Nature of
Man," "Redemption," "A New Version of the Psalms," "Alfred"--an epic in
twelve books--"A History of the Conspiracy against King William," and a
host of others which his perverted reason or fantastic fancy suggested.
Never, perhaps, was known such a voluminous author, or one so erratic in
his system. What with his long heroic poems, his treatises on smallpox and
other diseases, his theological controversies, his "Advices" to painters,
poets, and weavers, and his prose contributions to periodical
publications, "England's Arch-Poet" (as Swift described him) could never
have idled away an hour. Of all that he wrote, a few passages from his
"Arthur" and "Creation" are alone remembered, and but for Johnson's
good-natured attempt to save him from oblivion, his name would only have
lived in the satires of his remorseless critics. One saying of Blackmore's
only is worth noting here. He had laid himself open to the imputation of
despising learning, and Dr. Johnson himself thought him a shallow ill-read
man. But Blackmore said:--"I only undervalued false or superficial
learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; as to physic
I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to
make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I
asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence
will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar
encumbered with a heap of confused ideas."
One or two other doctors who in their time enjoyed a reputation as
writers, but whose fame was transient, or, at least, is insecure, call for
very brief notice before we pass on to a few of greater importance. Sir
John Hill, M.D., an eighteenth century physician, was a fairly extensive
litterateur, and in addition to producing treatises on botany, medicine,
natural history, and philosophy, wrote half a dozen novels, and several
dramas. His _chef d'oeuvre_ was "The Vegetable System," a work of such
magnitude that it ran to twenty-six volumes, a copy of which was presented
to the King of Sweden, and procured for the author the distinction of
being included in the Order of the Polar Star. Dr. William Fullarton
Cumming, a son of Burns' "Bonnie Leslie," was compelled to travel in mild
climates for his health, and as a result wrote "The Notes of a Wanderer,"
a work abounding in poetic descriptions of the charming scenery of the
East. He tells us that the real pleasure of travelling is not to boast of
how many lions one may have slain in a single day, but to saunter about
without an object, to inhale the moral atmosphere of places visited, to
enter bazaars, not to buy, but to catch the hundred peculiarities of a new
people, to stray hither and thither watching the work and the recreations
of other races. John Chalmers, M.D. (not to be confused with the great
divine, Dr. Thomas Chalmers), also deserves to be noted as a very graceful
writer of romantic stories; and Sir Henry Thompson, under the name of "Pen
Oliver," produced some years ago a strange little volume which enjoyed a
season's success--"Charley Kingston's Aunt."
That most diffident and most delightful of authors, Dr. John Brown, who
gave us the memorable "Rab and his Friends," was in practice at Edinburgh.
As long as lovers of the animal creation are to be found, the story of Rab
and of Marjorie will be read; and these sketches of brutes whom he almost
humanised will probably outlive the genial doctor's more ambitious "Horae
Subsecivae" and "John Leech and other Papers." Of a very different nature
was the author of "Ten Thousand a Year," Dr. Samuel Warren, physician,
lawyer, politician, novelist, and office-seeker. Tittlebat Titmouse is not
much studied now, for the type is out-of-date, and the society of which
the novel treats, the abuses prevalent, the general corruption which
prevailed in public life, were exposures intended for a past generation.
Yet there are passages in the work which should save it from absolute
neglect, and it has for over half a century kept its author's name alive.
This is more than his "Passages from the Diary of a late Physician" could
have done, or those dozen other works with the bare titles of which the
present reading public is scarcely acquainted. John Abercrombie, the chief
consulting physician in Scotland during the last century, sought and
achieved literary fame with two volumes on "The Intellectual Powers," and
"The Moral Feelings." They enjoyed a popularity scarcely commensurate with
their actual merits.
David Macbeth Moir, who faithfully performed the arduous duties of a
medical practitioner in Edinburgh, and whose life was almost wholly
devoted to the service of his fellows, was the famous "Delta" of
_Blackwood's Magazine_. His poems, some four hundred of which he
contributed to "Maga." alone, are out of fashion now, though their
delightful vein of reflectiveness and their charm of expression should
preserve them from absolute neglect. The heavy labours of his profession
did not seem to check his literary productiveness. His poems fill two
large volumes; his prose works are by no means meagre or unimportant, and
his "Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the past Half-century," is a
standard work on the poetry of his period. Medical treatises, too, came
from his pen; and his "Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor," is one of the most
agreeable of genuine Scotch sketches. His biographer correctly summed up
the merits of the worthy doctor as a literary worker in the words "Good
sound sense, a simple healthy feeling, excited and exalted though these
may be, never fail him. He draws from nature, and from himself direct."
Quiet humour and simple pathos, a love of humanity, deep reverential
feeling, and originality of thought--all these are found in "Delta's"
writings, and serve, with his own admirable nature, to keep his memory
green.
Of Dr. Conan Doyle, the most conspicuous instance of the hour of the
doctor turned author, no detailed notice is requisite, as the main facts
of his career are sufficiently well known, and his literary work promises
to bring him both fame and fortune. Undoubtedly he exemplifies the fact
that the medical hand can scarcely be concealed when it takes to the pen,
for his novels and stories abound in allusions which only his study,
training, and experience as a doctor could suggest. His reading and
observation largely provide the technique of his romances. Something of
the same could be said of Smollett's work, though the medical knowledge of
the author was often turned to less agreeable account. In fact, most of
Smollet's references on this score were the reverse of delectable, and I
refrain from a more precise examination of them. The unexpected use to
which Mr. R. D. Blackmore has turned his knowledge of medicine--for he
studied medicine as well as law seriously in his youth--in several of his
novels, notably in the last, "Perlycross," has excited much interest and
attention among the profession. So marked is this that I cannot refrain
quoting from a singularly interesting criticism penned by a leading
physician in the Midlands. "The medical incidents in 'Perlycross,'" he
says, "are pourtrayed with an accuracy which shows an intimate knowledge
of the profession and its members.... No doubt the opinions expressed by
one learned doctor were those of the time represented in the story, though
they could hardly be received with justice in the present day. Speaking of
the illness of Sir Thomas Waldron, he says (p. 18):--'At present such a
case could be dealt with best in Paris, although we have young men rising
now who will make it otherwise before very long.' The key to this
difficulty is found later on (p. 159) where the technical word
'introsusception' is mentioned as the disease or condition from which the
patient suffered. At the time spoken of Parisian surgeons, headed by the
eminent Dupuytren, excelled in the art of surgery; at the present time
such a case could be treated as well by any hospital surgeon in England as
in the metropolis of France.... The book contains an admirably-described
case of catalepsy, which is equally well explained. The cure of the
attack is described with consummate skill and power. The keystone of the
whole position of medical knowledge is contained in a few words towards
its close. In these days of rapid transition from one excitement to
another it would be well to take the lesson to heart, and to remember what
the author speaks of as two fine things--'If you wish to be sure of
anything see it with your own good eyes,' and the second, 'Never scamp
your work.' How these sayings may be applied in the practice of the
profession may with profit be learned from a perusal of the pages of
'Perlycross.'" Perhaps I am going too far in claiming Mr. Blackmore as a
medical man who has taken to literature, but the excuse of his early
training, combined with this curious result of it manifested in his
writing, proves irresistible.
Not to stray, however, but to get our feet once more upon solid ground, we
may refer to a classic example, with which this article, had it been aught
else but discursive, should have begun. Galen, the Greek physician, must
be counted among the first and most famous of his class who have written
literary works. He was so voluminous a writer on philosophical subjects
that scores of books on logic and ethics have been fathered upon him
without much question arising as to the unlikelihood of his being the
author of so many. As it is he is credited with eighty-three treatises,
the genuineness of which is not disputed; there are nineteen suspected to
bear his name unjustly, forty-five are proved to be spurious, and then
there remain a further fifteen fragments and fifteen commentaries on
Hippocrates, which may be accepted as his in part or whole. He made
himself master of the medical, physiological, and scientific knowledge of
his time. He was born in 130 A.D., and died in 201, and left a record of
that period. In addition to preparing this massive work, he seems to have
found time to devote himself to various branches of philosophy with such
success that later writers were well pleased to trade with the talisman of
his name. Were it worth while to go back to antiquity, and to the history
of foreign nations for further examples of physicians whose writings were
not confined to expositions of the medical system, Averrhoes, most famous
of Arabian philosophers, and physician to the calif, a master of the
twelfth century, would occupy a prominent position. But it is more to our
purpose to draw attention to the remarkable career, and one that deserves
to be held in remembrance, of Arthur Johnston, physician to King Charles
the First. In the same year that he graduated at the university of Padua
(1610) he was "laureated poet at Paris, and that most deservedly," as Sir
Thomas Urquhart recorded. He was then only three-and-twenty years of age,
and the prospect of many years being before him, he indulged in extensive
travel, and visited in turn most of the principal foreign seats of
learning. His journeying over, he settled in France and became equally
well known as a physician and as a writer of excellent Latin verse. A
courteous act, characteristic of the time, secured him the favour and
patronage of the English royal family, for in 1645 he published an elegy
on James I., and followed this up by dedicating a Latin rendering of the
Song of Solomon to King Charles. Other specimens of his rare culture and
his poetical powers were forthcoming, and he achieved a European
reputation. His Latin translation of the Psalms is held to be unexcelled
by any other, unless it be Buchanan's, and the fact that his translation
is still in use sufficiently attests its excellence and value. He died
suddenly in 1641, while on a visit to Oxford, and in the centuries which
have succeeded he has not been displaced in the front rank of refined and
deeply versed Latin scholars and poets.
It would be a matter of considerable difficulty to make a complete list of
literary doctors, but enough has perhaps been written to show that they
are no small band so far as numbers go, and that their influence in the
world of books has been very considerable and distinguished. We owe to
them many great works of enduring repute, of value to the student, of
perpetual entertainment to the general reader. When, too, we consider the
willingness and the zeal with which the writing members of the medical
profession have imparted their knowledge, we are led to believe that they
accepted as their motto the noble utterance of Sir Thomas Browne, the
chief of literary doctors:--"To be reserved and caitiff in goodness is the
sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary
Avarice. To this (as calling myself a Scholar) I am obliged by the duty of
my condition: I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of
knowledge; I intend no Monopoly, but a community, in learning; I study
not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. I
envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less. I
instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather
to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head than beget and propagate it
in his; and in the midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought
that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can
be Legacied among my honoured Friends."
The "Doctor" in time of Pestilence.
BY WILLIAM E. A. AXON, F.R.S.L.
"I do not feel in me those sordid and unchristian desires of my
profession; I do not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoice at
Famines, revolve Ephemerides and Almanacks in expectation of malignant
Aspects, fatal Conjunctions, and Eclipses."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S
"Religio Medici," pt. ii., sec. ix.
Of the great epidemics which have from time to time devastated Europe,
Great Britain has had its full share. Between 664 and 1665 there were many
visitations, resulting in heavy mortality, to which the general name of
plague or pestilence has been given, although they were not always
identical in form. Often the dread sisters Famine and Pestilence went hand
in hand in the domains of merrie England in the good old times.
The Statute of Labourers declares, no doubt with perfect truth, that "a
great part of the people, principally of artisans and labourers," died in
the pestilence known as the Black Death of 1349, which had important
consequences, socially and politically. There were many subsequent
outbreaks, though they fortunately did not attain to the enormous
proportions of the great mortality. We have from the graphic hand of
Chaucer a life-like portrait of a medical man of the fourteenth century
who had gained his money in the time of pestilence.
At the end of the fifteenth and middle of the sixteenth century, we have
as alternating with bubo plague, the _Sudor Anglicanus_. Its appearance
coincided with the invasion by which Richard III. lost his crown, and his
rival became Henry VII. Dr. Thomas Forrester, who was in London during the
outbreak of 1485, gives instances of suddenness with which the "sweat"
became fatal. "We saw two prestys standing togeder and speaking togeder,
and we saw both of them die suddenly." The symptoms were sweating, bad
odour, redness, thirst, headache, "and some had black spots as it appeared
in our frere Alban, a noble leech, on whose soul God have mercy."
Forrester complains of the quacks who put letters on poles and on church
doors, promising to help the people in their need. He lays stress upon
astrological causes, but does not overlook the defective sanitation which
gave the plague some of its firm hold. The _Sudor Anglicanus_ returned in
1508, 1517, 1528, and 1551. The last visitation was the occasion of a
treatise by the worthy Cambridge founder, to whom Gonville and Caius
College owes so much.
"The Boke of Jhon Caius aganst the sweatyng Sickness" is an interesting
document. It opens with a long autobiographical passage as to his previous
literary labours, which have ranged from medicine to theology. At first he
wrote in English, but afterwards in Latin and Greek. The reason for this
change is stated. "Sence y{t} that tyme diverse other thynges I have
written, but with the entente never more to write in the Englishe tongue
partly because the comodite of that which is so written, passeth not the
compasse of Englande, but remaineth enclosed within the seas, and partly
because I thought that labours so taken should be halfe lost among them
which set not by learnyng. Thirdly, for that I thought it best to auoide
the judgment of the multitude from whom in maters of lernyng a man shal be
forced to dissente, in disprouyng that which they most approue, and
approuyng that which they most disalowe. Fourthly for that the common
settyng furthe and printig of every foolishe thyng in englishe, both of
phisicke vnperfectly and other matters vndiscretly diminishe the grace of
thynges learned set furth in thesame. But chiefely because I would geve
none example or comfort to my countrie men (who I would to be now, as here
tofore they have been, comparable in learnyng to men of other countries)
to stande onely in the Englishe tongue, but to leaue the simplicitie of
the same, and to procede further in many and diuerse knowledges both in
tongues and sciences at home and in uniuersities, to the adornyng of the
comon welthe, better service of their kyng, and great pleasure and
commodite of their own selues, to what kind of life so euer they should
applie them." But his resolution not to write again in the vulgar tongue
was broken by considerations of utility, for he saw that it could not be
very serviceable to ordinary English people to give them advice as to the
treatment of the sweating sickness in a language which they did not
understand. In his account of this dire malady, he lays stress upon errors
and excess of diet as a strongly co-operating cause. "They which had thys
sweat sore with perille or death, were either men of welthe, ease and
welfare, or of the poorer sorte such as wer idls persones, good ale
drinkers, and Tauerne haunters. For these, by ye great welfare of the one
sorte, and large drinkyng of thother, heped up in their bodies moche evill
matter: by their ease and idlenes, coulde not waste and consume it."
Against the infection of bad air he recommends avoiding carrion "kepyng
Canelles cleane" and other general sanitary precautions. He suggests that
the midsummer bonfires were intended for purging the air, "and not onely
for vigils." Rosewater and other perfumes are to be used, and he thinks it
would be well to clear the house of its rushes and dust. It is to be
feared that the rushes which served instead of carpets, even in great
houses, were not renewed very frequently. The handkerchief was to be
perfumed, and the patient was to have in his mouth "a pece either of
setwel, or of the rote of _enula campana_ wel steped before in vinegre
rosate, a mace, or berie of Juniper."