Bismarck's Illness.

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 40, 6 September 1883, Page 3

Bismarck's Illness.

Prince Bismarck is no better. He is. a great martyr to pain : the disease from which he is suffering is the result, in the majority of instances (and certainly in his case), of severe m ntal labor, anxiety and worry, and affects the middle - age i and old ottener than tlie .young. Much has be<'n said about Bism«rck growing a beard. He let his beard grow because he can no longer bear a razor near his face. A nerve originating- in the brain, and spreading in three branches over the fac^, is the source of i'v.cu neuralgia. He speaks in a whisper, as if he feared to waken his tormentor. lie is carefully protected from draughts, for a single breath of wind is often sufficient to bring on a paroxysm of pain. Often, when he speaks, tears full from his eyes with « j very word, fall down his furrowed chee j ks, an.- lose themselves in his snowy beard. Such is the Diciure drawn by a distinguished Berlin physician ol tie greatest aud most successful of his age. Remedies have been tried almost past number. Injections of morphia, electricity, and severiugs of th<* nerve. 1 he last seems to brt th« most effectual, but none is radical, and, whatever be done, the victim can only hope for a respite, and he lives always in frar of his enemy's return, A.uy unwonted anxiety or exertion may bring him back,