Last Days of Great Scientist

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 13, 9 October 1931, Page 5

Last Days of Great Scientist

ee Michael Faraday’s Illness ‘AS’ early as 1881, at the age of forty, Michael Faraday, whose centenary was recently celebrated, complained of a failing memory. After the great series of discoveries and experiments he had made between 1830 and 1840 he was forced to take a long rest of four or five years, His trouble was accentuated by a belief that the physicians did not understand the extent of his affliction. ‘Whereas according to the declaration of the true man of the world, Talleyrand," he Uf lan on a scrap of paper, "the use f language is to conceal the thoughts, this is to declare in the present instance, when I say I am not able to bear much talking, it means really and without any mistake or subterfuge or omission that I am not able, being at present rather weak in the head and able to work no more." Nervous as he was by nature, and made much more so by these attacks, it is unlikely he suspected his physicians, of not understanding the quality of his affliction, even if they did not appear to understand how much it affected him. He himself, in nonmedical language, diagnosed it as a decay of the physico-mental faculties of his mind. This decay, severe as was its manifestation in 1840, only affected his memory and the nerves of his head. Ten years or so later its less violent recurrences were to affect the muscles of his arms, legs and throat. The attacks did not at any time alter the quality of his mind. Between 1859 and 1863, at which latter date he was obliged to retire from all forms of activity, while constantly unwell, he was able to continue very elaborate researches and to produce results of great value. But at this time he complained that he forgot what he had just finished and could not remember whether or not he had thought out such and such a problem. The lectures he gave in his latter years were a severe strain, ag was also the work he did for Trinity House, particularly that during 1865, when his magneto-electric machine was _ being tested. He made long journeys in the snow and several times spent the night at sea off Dungeness Lighthouse, He passed a great deal of his last years at the’ house at Hampton Court given him by the Queen. Here he rambled about the woods with his niece and was very happy, though his mind began to wander a little, and once he thought he had made a discovery of some kind of acid which was to be of medical value. A visitor from London came to see the old man as he sat in his chair looking out of the window on to the green. "I am just waiting," said Faraday. He died in the afternoon of August 25, 1867, in his study.