MEDICAL THOUGHTS OP SHAKESPEARE. COMPILED BY B. RUSH FIELD, M. D. EASTON, PA.: FREE PRESS PUBLISHING HOUSE. 1884. *J MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF SHAKESPEARE. COMPILED BY B. RUSH FIELD, M. D. /it 6 j so JAN 7 1884 EASTON, PA.: FREE PRESS PUBLISHING HOUSE. 1884. 'ft - If*" TO THE MEDICAL PEIENDS OF THE COMPILER. Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare, 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 minutias of the different avenues of learning through which he has stridden. Shakespeare paid considerable attention to medicine, as his remarks on the subject show, hut evidently had not a very high idea of the physician ; he uses him frequently as a tool by which deaths are produced, through the means of poi- son, and generally treats him with contempt. Tim n a In Banditti : Trust not the physician : His antidotes are poison, and he slays More than you rob. Timnn. of Athens, Ait IV., Sc. III. Again, in relation to Dr. Pinch, in "Comedy of Errors: " They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-t'ae'd villain. A .mere anatomy, a mountebank, A thread-hare 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, ('vies oat I was possessed. Act V.,Sc. I. Luoreee. ■* ■ MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF The patient dies while the physician sleeps. The physician Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me. Sonnet*, CXLVII. Testy sick men, when their deaths he near, No news but health from their physicians know. Sonnets, CXL. 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. King Much. 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 3Tacb. 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. IV. 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 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 SHAKESPEARE. 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 L, fife. V. Shakespeare's diseases arc many and the symptoms very well denned : how concisely he describes epilepsy, giving us the most prominent symptoms. Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless. Bru. 'Ti's 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 CsBsar, Act I., Sc. II. Julius Csesar 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. Cos. Rub him about the temples. j a go. 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. Timon of Athens makes his curses upon man still more last- ing, by calling on those most dreaded of all diseases, consump- tion and leprosy. Shakespeare here shows a very fine point by using diseases that are hereditary, incuiable and contagious— they are certainly lasting, as he wishes the curse to be. Lep- rosy is expressed in the sentence, " hoar the flamen," or ra other 6 MEDICAL THOUGHTS of words, make white the priest, the word hoar referring to the white spots so characteristic of the disease. Consumptions sow In hollow bones of men; strike their sharp shins, And mar men's spurring. < 'rack 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 cuiTd-patc ruffians bald ; And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war Derive ( ome pain from yon. Act IV., 8c. III. Some attention has been paid to chlorosis: Out, you greea-sickness carrion ! Out, you baggage, You tallow-face ! Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Sc. V. Pand. The pox upon her green sickness for inc. Bawd. Faith, there's no way to be rid on 't, but by the way to the pox. Pericles, Act II'., 8c VI. There's never any of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so overcool their blood, arid 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 anil Cleopatra, Act III, Sc II. What a catalogue have we here — Now the rotten diseases of the south, the ^uts-^riping, 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! Vroihis end Cressida, Act V.,Sc. I SHAKESPEARE. i He had a lever 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 Ccrsar, Act I., 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. Falstafl. It hath its original from much grief; from study and perturbation of the brain. Henry IV., ^d—Act I, Sc. II. A few diseases he merely makes mention of — Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? Measure for Measure, Act I, Sc. II. What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? Troilus and Crcssida. Act I., Sc. III. This raw rheumatic day. Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. II. Danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun. Troilus and Crcssida, Act III., Sc. III. 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, Let his infection, being of catching nature, Spread further. Coriolanus. Act III., Sc. I. g MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF 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. Coriolanm, Act III., Sc. I. 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. ^ n 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" visum ) was meant to express a veil, or in other words, the eyelid. He remembers digestion in several ol his plays : My cheese, my digestion. Troilus and Oressida, Act II, Sc. III. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour. 6 King Richard II. 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 bram ; And, through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves and small Inferior veins, From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live. Coriolanu*. Act /., Sc. I. We sicken to shun sickness when we purge. Sonnets, t A I 111. SHAKESPEARE. 9 Venereal diseases are alluded to in not a few instances : Lysimachus to keeper of a bawdy house : Have you that a man may deal withal and defy the surgeon ? Pericles, Act IV, Sc. VI Carry his water to the wise man. 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. Merchant of Venice. When he makes water, his urine is congealed ice. Meass/re for Measure, Act III, Sc. II. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the eity ? Measure for Measure. Act II. , Sc. I. Syphilis is more frequently referred to than any other disease, and he represents many of bis characters as having it ; among them Cardinal Wolsey, Falstatf. and Dame Quickly. A man can no more seperate 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. 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 this quotation 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." 10 MEDICAL THOUGHTS OF In the foot-note 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 ana the tub." Jaspar Mai tics. 1639. Again, in the Family of Love (1608), a doctor says: " for one of the hoops of my Cornelius' tub, I shall burst myself with laughing else." In Monsieur $ Olive (1606 ) : " Our embassage is into France, there may be employment for thee: Hast thou a tub." I'faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have man}' 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. He has not, by any means, forgotten the less important ills "that flesh is heir to," but on the contrary makes frequent men- tion of them. He that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache. Cymbeline, Act V., Sc IV. Being troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep. Othello, Art III. . Sc. III. There was never yet philosopher, That could endure the tooth-ache patiently. Much Ado, Act III., Sc 11. She shall be buried with her face upwards ; Yet this is no charm for the tooth-ache. Much A