ROMANCE OF MEDICINE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 541, 12 February 1913, Page 2

ROMANCE OF MEDICINE.

HOW GREAT MEN'S AILMENTS HAVE CHANGED HISTORY. The fashion of wearing wigs, for instance, was due to a skin disease which produced bald patches on the august head of Francis I of France. He got a wig, and his courtiers followed suit, just as they all whispered when he had an attack of laryngitis. One can trace for many years, certainly from 1802, the inception of that disease which; killed Napoleon; at St. Helena in 1821. In 1802 Bourrienne said—""'l have often seen-hini at Malmaison lean against the right arm of his chair and, unbuttoning hia waistcoat, exclaim, 'WHAT A PAIN I FEEL !' " That was perhaps the first allusion to his stomachic and hepatic trouble, but from then onward it continually appeared, like Banquo at the banquet. He could scatter the hosts of Europe and alter his kingdoms, but he was powerless against the mutinous cells of his own mucous membrane. Again and again he had attacks of lethargy, amounting almost to collapse, at moments when all his energy was most required. At the crisis of Waterloo he had such an attack, and sat on his horse like a man dazed for hours of the action. Finally the six years at St. Helena furnish a clinical study of gastric disease which was all explained in the historical post-mortem examinations, which disclosed cancer covering the whole wall of the stomach, and actually perforating it at the hepatic border. Napoleon's whole career was profoundly modified by kis complaint. There have been many eriticisms—and unnatural ones—of his petty, querulous and undignified attitude during his captivity; perhaps if his critics knew what it was to digest their food with an organ which had hardly a square inch of healthy tissue upon it they would perhaps take a more generous view of the conduct of "Napoleon. For my own part, I think that his fortitude was never more shown than during those years—the best proof of which was that his guardians had no notion how ill he was until within a few hours of his actual death. History abounds with examples oi the romance of medicine. Look at the men, for example, who were the prime movers in the French Revolution. They were a diseased company: a pathological museum. Was Marat's view of life tainted by the loathsome skin disease for which he was taking hot baths when Charlotte Corday cut him off ? Was the incorruptible but bilious Robespierre the victim of his own liver ? Was Couthon's heart embittered by his disfigured limbs ? These are the problems where medicine infringes upon history, and these are the illustrations of the philosophy which is only open to the medical thinker. How many times do the most important historical developments appear to depend upon small physical causes ? There is, for example, the case of the Revocation ol the > Edict of Nantes. By this measure the whole history 0 t France has been profoundly modified, because by that action there were given forth the Huguenots. Now, how oame Louis XIV, who had always held out upon this point, to give way at last to the pressure of Mme. de Maintenon and his clerical advisers ? The answer lay in one of his molar teeth. It is historical that he had for eome months had toothache, caries, abscess of the jaw, and finally a sinus which required operation, and it was at this time, when he was pathologically abnormal and irritable, that he took the step which has modified history. Great results may depend upon a king's jaw or a statesman's digestion.—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in an address to London Medical Students.