The cause of death seemed fairly referrible to a sudden change in the non-naturals, the chief mischief being connected with the change of air, which through the whole course of life had been inhaled of perfect purity,—light, cool, and mobile, whereby the præcordia and lungs were more freely ventilated and cooled; but in this great advantage, in this grand cherisher of life this city is especially destitute; a city whose grand characteristic is an immense concourse of men and animals, and where ditches abound, and filth and offal lie scattered about, to say nothing of the smoke engendered by the general use of sulphureous coal as fuel, whereby the air is at all times rendered heavy, but much more so in the autumn than at any other season. Such an atmosphere could not have been found otherwise than insalubrious to one coming from the open, sunny and healthy region of Salop; it must have been especially so to one already aged and infirm.
And then for one hitherto used to live on food unvaried in kind, and very simple in its nature, to be set at a table loaded with variety of viands, and tempted not only to eat more than wont, but to partake of strong drink, it must needs fall out that the functions of all the natural organs would become deranged. Whence the stomach at length failing, and the excretions long retained, the work of concoction proceeding languidly, the liver getting loaded, the blood stagnating in the veins, the spirits frozen, the heart, the source of life, oppressed, the lungs infarcted, and made impervious to the ambient air, the general habit rendered more compact, so that it could no longer exhale or perspire—no wonder that the soul, little content with such a prison, took its flight.
The brain was healthy, very firm and hard to the touch; hence, shortly before his death, although he had been blind for twenty years, he heard extremely well, understood all that was said to him, answered immediately to questions, and had perfect apprehension of any matter in hand; he was also accustomed to walk about, slightly supported between two persons. His memory, however, was greatly impaired, so that he scarcely recollected anything of what had happened to him when he was a young man, nothing of public incidents, or of the kings or nobles who had made a figure, or of the wars or troubles of his earlier life, or of the manners of society, or of the prices of things—in a word, of any of the ordinary incidents which men are wont to retain in their memories. He only recollected the events of the last few years. Nevertheless, he was accustomed, even in his hundred and thirtieth year, to engage lustily in every kind of agricultural labour, whereby he earned his bread, and he had even then the strength required to thrash the corn.
LETTERS.
LETTER I.
To Caspar Hofmann, M.D. Published at Nurenberg, in the ‘Spicilegium Illustrium Epistolarum ad Casp. Hofmannum.’
Your opinion of me, my most learned Hofmann, so candidly given, and of the motion and circulation of the blood, is extremely gratifying to me; and I rejoice that I have been permitted to see and to converse with a man so learned as yourself, whose friendship I as readily embrace as I cordially return it. But I find that you have been pleased first elaborately to inculpate me, and then to make me pay the penalty, as having seemed to you “to have impeached and condemned Nature of folly and error; and to have imputed to her the character of a most clumsy and inefficient artificer, in suffering the blood to become recrudescent, and making it return again and again to the heart in order to be reconcocted, to grow effete as often in the general system; thus uselessly spoiling the perfectly-made blood, merely to find her in something to do.” But where or when anything of the kind was ever said, or even imagined by me—by me, who, on the contrary, have never lost an opportunity of expressing my admiration of the wisdom and aptness and industry of Nature,—as you do not say, I am not a little disturbed to find such things charged upon me by a man of sober judgment like yourself. In my printed book, I do, indeed, assert that the blood is incessantly moving out from the heart by the arteries to the general system, and returning from this by the veins back to the heart, and with such an ebb and flow, in such mass and quantity that it must necessarily move in some way in a circuit. But if you will be kind enough to refer to my eighth and ninth chapters you will find it stated in so many words that I have purposely omitted to speak of the concoction of the blood, and of the causes of this motion and circulation, especially of the final cause. So much I have been anxious to say, that I might purge myself in the eyes of a learned and much respected man,—that I might feel absolved of the infamy of meriting such censure. And I beg you to observe, my learned, my impartial friend, if you would see with your own eyes the things I affirm in respect of the circulation,—and this is the course which most beseems an anatomist,—that I engage to comply with your wishes, whenever a fit opportunity is afforded; but if you either decline this, or care not by dissection to investigate the subject for yourself, let me beseech you, I say, not to vilipend the industry of others, nor charge it to them as a crime; do not derogate from the faith of an honest man, not altogether foolish nor insane, who has had experience in such matters for a long series of years.
Farewell, and beware! and act by me, as I have done by you; for what you have written I receive as uttered in all candour and kindness. Be sure, in writing to me in return, that you are animated by the same sentiments.