The Project Gutenberg eBook, Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare, by Benjamin Rush Field

MEDICAL THOUGHTS
OF
SHAKESPEARE.

By B. RUSH FIELD, M. D.,

MEMBER OF THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.

EASTON, PA.:
ANDREWS & CLIFTON, PUBLISHERS.
1885.

TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

If any old lady, knight, priest or physician, Should condemn me for writing a second edition; If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse, May I venture to give her a smack of my muse? Anstey’s New Bath Guide, p. 169.

The occasion is taken to acknowledge the kind consideration that the first edition of this little work has received. This edition appears in a thoroughly revised and much enlarged form; to what extent, may be judged by the fact that chapters on The Physician, Surgery, Physiology, Anatomy and Pharmacy have been added, together with many allusions to the other medical subjects, making an increase of over four hundred quotations. It has been impossible to resist the temptation of adding a few medical thoughts from other authors, which will be found under their appropriate heads. The labor necessary to accomplish this has not interfered in any way with professional duties; it being a task entirely of the leisure hours of the night.

Easton, Pennsylvania, June, 1885.

CONTENTS.

Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare.

PART I.
THE PHYSICIAN.

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 minutiæ of the different avenues of learning through which he has stridden. Shakespeare paid considerable attention to medicine, and has furnished some of the finest specimens of the medical character that have ever been drawn by any writer. His Cerimon, in Pericles, is a most noble one. He speaks for himself:

’Tis known, I ever Have studied physic, through which secret art, By turning o’er authorities, I have (Together with my practice,) made familiar To me and to my aid, the bless’d infusions That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones; And I can speak of the disturbances That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me A more content in course of true delight Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, Or tie my treasure up in silken bags To please the fool and death. Act III., Sc. II.

And others speak of him:

Hundreds call themselves Your creatures, who by you have been restored: And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even Your purse, still open, hath built lord Cerimon Such strong renown as time shall ne’er decay. Act III., Sc. II.

Dowden says, “Cerimon, who is master of the secrets of nature, who is liberal in his ‘learned charity,’ who held it ever

‘Virtue and cunning were endowments greater Than nobleness and riches,’

is like a first study of Prospero;” while Furnivall thinks that he represents to some extent the famous Stratford physician, Dr. John Hall, who married Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna.

What an excellent physician was Gerard de Narbon, Helena’s father, who is referred to in All’s Well:

This young gentlewoman had a father, whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made Nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king’s sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease. * * * * He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his right to be so. * * * The king * * * spoke of him admiringly and mournfully: he was skillful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

Act I., Sc. I.

How long is’t, count, Since the physician at your father’s died? If he were living, I would try him yet;— * * * * * the rest have worn me out With several applications: nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure. Act I., Sc. II.

My father’s skill, which was the greatest of his profession. Act I., Sc. III.

Another worthy physician is to be found in Cymbeline. Cornelius argues with the queen against her designs, and failing in this he completely thwarts her murderous intentions by giving her a false compound.

Queen. Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?

Cor. * * * I beseech your grace, without offence, My conscience bids me ask,—wherefore you have Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds, Which are the movers of a languishing death; But though slow, deadly?

Your highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart: Besides, the seeing these effects will be Both noisome and infectious.

[Aside.] I do suspect you, madame; But you shall do no harm. * * * I do not like her. She doth think she has Strange ling’ring poisons: I do know her spirit, And will not trust one of her malice with A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has Will stupify and dull the sense awhile; * * * * * * but there is No danger in what show of death it makes, More than the locking up the spirits a time, To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d With a most false effect; and I the truer So to be false with her. Act I., Sc. V.

The queen, sir, very oft importun’d me To temper poisons for her; still pretending The satisfaction of her knowledge only In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs, Of no esteem: I, dreading that her purpose Was of more danger, did compound for her A certain stuff, which, being ta’en, would cease The present power of life; but in short time All offices of nature should again Do their due function. Act V., Sc. V.

Macbeth supplies us with a wise member of the profession, who, at a time when charlatans without number were promising to cure every malady, sees clearly that Lady Macbeth’s disease is beyond his power, and so informs Macbeth.

This disease is beyond my practice: * * * * * * infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician:

Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. Act V., Sc. I.

King Macb. 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 Macb. 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. III.

In King Lear also appears a physician worthy of the name. The last scene of the fourth act shows his excellent skill in treating Lear’s case. Dr. Bucknill, of England, in writing of it twenty-five years ago, says: “We confess, almost with shame, that although near two centuries and a half have passed since Shakespeare thus wrote we have very little to add to his method of treating the insane as thus pointed out.”

Dr. Butts, in Henry VIII, and Dr. Caius, in Merry Wives, play rather unimportant parts. He compliments the profession by putting this speech in the mouth of a madman:

Timon to Banditti: Trust not the physician; His antidotes are poison, and he slays More than you rob. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.

And bringing this one from the lips of an ignorant prostitute:

Nay, will you cast away your child on a fool and a physician? Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. IV.

Reference to the physician is frequently made throughout his works.

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.

* * * * doctor-like, controlling skill. Sonnets, LXVI.

We * * * may not be so credulous of cure, When our most learned doctors leave us. All’s Well, Act II., Sc. I.

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease. King Lear, Act I., Sc. I.

Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus; That minister’st a potion unto me, That thou would’st tremble to receive thyself. Pericles, Act I., Sc. II.

The patient dies while the physician sleeps. Lucrece.

The physician Angry that his prescriptions are not kept Hath left me. Sonnets, CXLVII.

Testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know. Sonnets, CXL.

His friends, like physicians, thrice give him over. Timon of Athens, Act III., Sc. III.

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 poor physician’s daughter my wife! Disdain Rather corrupt me ever. All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III.

Doctors, less famous for their cures than fees. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XLVIII.

Like a port sculler, one physician plies And all his art and all his skill he tries; But two physicians, like a pair of oars, Conduct you faster to the Stygian shores.

This is the way physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health—when ill, we call them to attend us Without the least propensity to jeer; While that “hiatus maxime deflendus” To be filled up by spade or mattock, ’s near, Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe, We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy. Byron—Don Juan, Canto X, Verse XLII.

God and the doctor we alike adore, But only when in danger, not before; The danger o’er, both are alike requited, God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted.

The doctor says so * * * * * * * * * * * * * they sometimes Are soothsayers and always cunning men. Which doctor was it? Ben Jonson—Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I.

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 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 I., Sc. V.

I can smile, and murder whiles I smile. Henry VI.—3d, Act III., Sc. II.

He has in several plays shown his contempt for the “prating mountebank” or “doting wizard.”

They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-fac’d villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A thread-bare 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, Cries out I was possessed Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I.

I say we must not So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope. To prostitute our past-cure malady To empirics; or to dissever so Our great self and our credit, to esteem A senseless help, when help past sense we deem. All’s Well, Act II., Sc. I.

PART II.
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.

Shakespeare’s maladies are many and the symptoms very well defined. Diseases of the nervous system seem to have been a favorite study, especially insanity; Lear, Timon, and Hamlet being excellent examples.

And he * * * (a short tale to make), Fell into a sadness; then into a fast; Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness; Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension Into the madness wherein now he raves. Hamlet, Act II., Sc. II.

He took me by the wrist and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arm; And with his other hand thus o’er his brow, He falls to such perusal of my face, As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so; At last,—a little shaking of mine arm, And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He raised a sigh so piteous and profound, That it did seem to shatter all his bulk, And end his being: That done, he lets me go: And, with his head o’er his shoulder turn’d, He seem’d to find his way without his eyes; For out o’ doors he went without their help, And, to the last, bended their light on me. Hamlet, Act II., Sc. I.

Alas, how is it with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. Hamlet, Act III., Sc. IV.

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers,—quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck’d the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy. Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I.

There’s something in his soul, O’er which his melancholy sits on brood; And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose, Will be some danger. Hamlet, Act III., Sc. I.

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? Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.

* * * * * * Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. Macbeth, Act V., Sc. I.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear; And am fall’n out with my more headier will, To take the indispos’d and sickly fit For the sound man. King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.

This is in thee a nature but infected; A poor unmanly melancholy, sprung From change of fortune. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.

The mere want of gold, and the falling-from of his friends, drove him into this melancholy. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.

Tell him * * * * * * * * * that his lady mourns at his disease: Persuade him that he hath been a lunatic. Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. I.

* * * Being lunatic He rush’d into my house, and took perforce My ring away. Comedy of Errors, Act IV., Sc. III.

These dangerous unsafe lunes. Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. II.

With great imagination, Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, And, winking, leap’d into destruction. Henry IV—2d, Act. I., Sc. III.

Oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled. Venus and Adonis.

To see his nobleness! Conceiving the dishonour of his mother, He straight declin’d, droop’d, took it deeply; Fasten’d and fix’d the shame on’t in himself; Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, And downright languish’d. Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. III.

His siege is now Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds With many legions of strange fantasies, Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, Confound themselves. King John, Act V., Sc. VII.

Shakespeare certainly had the true idea of the great value of sleep, and he also knew of its importance in the treatment of brain diseases. Sleep serves as an excellent stimulant, promoting the growth of the brain. The infant, during the first ten weeks of its life, sleeps most of the time and hence during that period its brain is overdeveloped in proportion to its size.

Our foster-nurse of nature is repose, The which he lacks; that to provoke in him, Are many simples operative, whose power Will close the eye of anguish. King Lear, Act IV., Sc. IV.

O sleep, gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse, King Henry IV—2d, Act III., Sc. I.

Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher of life’s feast. Macbeth, Act II., Sc. I.

Oppressed nature sleeps:— This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken senses, Which, if convenient will not allow, Stand in hard cure. King Lear, Act III., Sc. VI.

Man’s rich restorative; his balmy bath, That supplies, lubricates and keeps in play The various movements of that nice machine, Which asks such frequent periods of repair. Young’s Night Thoughts.

Music was held as one of the remedies in the treatment of insanity. It plays an important part in King Lear, (IV-VII), and finds mention as a remedy in other plays.

This music mads me, let it sound no more; For, though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad. Richard II., Act V., Sc. V.

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends; Unless some dull and favourable hand Will whisper music to my weary spirit. Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.

Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment, Are come to play a pleasant comedy, For so your doctors hold it very meet. Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood, And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy; Therefore, they thought it good you hear a play, And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life. Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II.

Your physicians have expressly charg’d, In peril to incur your former malady, That I should yet absent me from your bed. Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II.

This closing with him fits his lunacy: Whate’er I forge to feed his brain-sick fits, Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches. Titus Andronicus, Act V., Sc. II.

Dispute not with her, she is lunatic. Richard III., Act I., Sc. III.

* * Deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. As You Like It, Act III., Sc. II.

Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d, Kept in a dark house? Twelfth Night, Act V., Sc. I.

It is the mynde that makes good or ill, That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore. Spenser—Færie Queene, XI-IX.

Yet they do act Such antics and such pretty lunacies That spite of sorrow they make you smile. Dekker.

Grows lunatic and childish for his son. Kyd.

When slow Disease, and all her host of pains, Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins; When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing, And flies with every changing gale of Spring: Not to the aching frame alone confined, Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind. Byron—Childish Recollections.

The accuracy with which Shakespeare has written of apoplexy is justly alluded to in Bell’s Principles of Surgery, (1815, Vol. II, p. 557): “My readers will smile, perhaps, to see me quoting Shakespeare among physicians and theologists; but not one of all their tribe, populous though it be, could describe so exquisitely the marks of apoplexy, conspiring with the struggles for life, and the agonies of suffocation, to deform the countenance of the dead: so curiously does our poet present to our conception all the signs from which it might be inferred that the good duke Humfrey had died a violent death.”

See, how the blood is settled in his face! Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost, Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, Being all descended to the labouring heart; Who, in the conflict that it holds with death, Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy; Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth To blush and beautify the cheek again. But see, his face is black and full of blood; His eye-balls further out than when he liv’d, Staring full ghastly like a strangled man: His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretch’d with struggling; His hands abroad display’d, as one that grasp’d And tugg’d for life, and was by strength subdu’d. Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking; His well-proportion’d beard made rough and rugged, Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodg’d. It can not be but he was murder’d here; The least of all these signs were probable. Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. II.

Suddenly a grievous sickness took him, That made him gasp, and stare, and catch the air. Henry VI—2d, Act III., 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. Falstaff. It hath its original from much grief; from study and perturbation of the brain. Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II

War. Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits Are with his highness very ordinary. Stand from him, give him air; he’ll straight be well. Clar. No, no; he can not long hold out these pangs: The incessant care and labour of his mind Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in, So thin, that life looks through, and will break out.

P. Humph. This apoplexy will certain be his end. Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.

Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible. Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. V.

Dick. Why dost thou quiver, man? Say. The palsy and not fear provokes me. Cade. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say, I’ll be even with you. Henry VI—2d, Act IV., Sc. VII.

With a palsy-fumbling on his gorget, Shake in and out the rivet. Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III.

How quickly should this arm of mine, Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee. Richard II, Act II., Sc. III.

Flat on the ground and still as any stone, A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath. Sackville.

How concisely he describes epilepsy, giving the most prominent symptoms.

Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless. Bru. ’Tis 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 Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II.

Julius Cæsar 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. Cas. Rub him about the temples. Iago.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.

A plague upon your epileptic visage! King Lear, Act. II., Sc. II.

He takes some notice of the other affections classed under nervous diseases.

Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II.

Thou cold sciatica, Cripple our Senators, that their limbs may halt As lamely as their manners! Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. I.

Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I! It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V.

When your head did but ache I knit my handkerchief about your brows. King John, Act IV., Sc. I.

Oth. I have a pain upon my forehead here. Des. Why, that’s with watching; ’t will away again. Othello, Act III., Sc. II.

Let our finger ache, and it indues Our other healthful members even to a sense Of pain. Othello, Act III., Sc. IV.

Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for good youth he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and being taken with the cramp, was drowned. As You Like It, Act IV., Sc. I.

The aged man that coffers-up his gold Is plagu’d with cramps, and gouts and painful fits. Lucrece.

* * * Shorten up their sinews With aged cramps. Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I.

To-night thou shalt have cramps, Side stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.

I’ll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches. Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.

Thy nerves are in their infancy again And have no vigour in them. Tempest, Act I., Sc. II.

Hysteria, in Shakespeare’s time, was considered a disease common to both sexes, and was known as “Hysterica passio,” or more popularly termed “the mother.”

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! Hysterica passio—down, thou climbing sorrow, Thy element ’s below! Where is this daughter? King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.

Percy thinks that Shakespeare read of this disease in Harsnet’s “Declaration of Popish Impostures” while he was looking up material for his character of Tom of Bedlam. The following is taken from (p. 25) the work referred to: “Ma: Maynie had a spice of the Hysterica passio as seems from his youth, hee himself termes it the Moother, and saith that hee was much troubled with it in Fraunce, and that it was one of the causes that mooved him to leave his holy order whereinto he was initiated and to returne into England.”

Diseases of the nervous system have not been overlooked by other writers. How excellently we have described the chief symptom of locomotor ataxia:

Obliquely waddling to the mark in view. Pope.

And Byron well portrays vertigo.

Her cheek turn’d ashes, ears rung, brain whirl’d round, As if she had received a sudden blow, And the hearts dew of pain sprang fast and chilly O’er her fair front, like morning’s on a lily. Although she was not of the fainting sort, Baba thought she would faint, but there he err’d— It was but a convulsion, which, though short, Can never be described; we all have heard, And some of us have felt thus “all amort,” When things beyond the common have occurr’d. Don Juan, Canto VI., Verse CV.

That old vertigo in his head Will never leave him, till he’s dead. Swift.

Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right, It is the slaver kills and not the bite. Pope.

Loss!—such a palaver, I’d inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours * * * * * * Byron—The Blues.

The sot, Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors: What though on Lethe’s stream he seem to float, He can not sink his tremors or his terrors; The ruby glass that shakes within his hand, Leaves a sad sediment of Time’s worst sand. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse IV.

Taking up diseases of the circulatory system next we find Shakespeare displaying considerable knowledge in regard to them. The extended impulse of the heart under intense excitement is nicely shown in the Rape of Lucrece.

His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,— Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall! May feel her heart,—(poor citizen!) distress’d. Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall, Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.

Again,

I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest, But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast. Venus and Adonis.

I have tremor cordis on me,—my heart dances. Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II.

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III.

Death from “broken heart,” caused by excessive grief, finds mention in several plays.

Woe the while! O, cut my lace; lest my heart, cracking it, Break too! Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. II.

The grief that does not speak, Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break. Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III.

Shall split thy very heart with sorrow. Richard III., Act I., Sc. III.

Dyer in his “Folk-Lore of Shakespeare” quotes the following from Mr. Timb’s “Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity,” (1861, p. 149.) “This affection (broken heart) was, it is believed, first described by Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples: among them, that of George II., who died in 1760; and, what is very curious, he fell a victim to the same malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine’ Dr. Townsend gives a table of twenty-five cases, collected from various authors.”

A very good case of syncope is presented in Pericles. “The cases of apparent death, in which it is believed that premature interment sometimes takes place, are of this kind. Instances have occurred in which the pulse, respiration and consciousness have been absent for several days, and yet the patient has ultimately recovered. The system is in a sort of hybernation, in which vitality remains, though the vital functions are suspended. It is probable that, in such cases, a very careful auscultation might detect a slight sound in the heart.” (Dr. George B. Wood’s Practice. 1858. Vol. II., p. 211.)

Make a fire within; Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet. Death may usurp on nature many hours, And yet the fire of life kindle again The o’erpress’d spirits. I have heard Of an Egyptian that had nine hours lien dead, Who was by good appliance recovered. * * * * * the fire and cloths— The rough and woeful music that we have, Cause it to sound, ’beseech you. The viol once more; * * * * * * I pray you, give her air; This queen will live; nature awakes; a warmth Breathes out of her: She hath not been entranc’d About five hours. See how she ’gins to blow Into life’s flower again!

Hush, my gentle neighbors! Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her. Get linen; now this matter must be looked to, For her relapse is mortal. Come, come, And Æsculapius guide us! Act III., Sc. II.

Take thou this phial, being then in bed, And this distilled liquor drink thou off: When, presently, through all thy veins shall run A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse Shall keep his native progress, but surcease, No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv’st; The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall, Like death, when he shuts up the day of life; Each part, depriv’d of supple government, Shall, stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death: And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death Thou shalt continue two and forty hours, And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. I.

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, Making both it unable for itself, And dissposessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness? So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; Come all to help him, and so stop the air By which he should revive. Measure for Measure, Act II., Sc. IV.

Many will swoon when they do look on blood. As You Like It, Act IV., Sc. III.

No damsel faints when rather closely press’d, But more caressing seems when most caress’d; Superfluous hartshorn, and reviving salts, Both banish’d by the sovereign cordial “waltz.” Byron—The Waltz.

Some attention has been paid to chlorosis:

Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage, You tallow-face! Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. V.

Pand. The pox upon her green sickness for me. Bawd. Faith, there’s no way to be rid on ’t, but by the way to the pox. Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI.

There’s never any of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so overcool their blood, and 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 and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. II.

Ben Jonson in writing of this disease has happily and properly recommended marriage as an important step toward recovery.

He would keep you * * * not alone without a husband, But with a sickness; ay, and the green sickness, The maiden’s malady; which is a sickness,— A kind of a disease, * * * * * And like the fish our mariners call remora.

I say remora, For it will stay a ship that’s under sail; And stays are long and tedious things to maids! And maids are young ships that would be sailing  When they be rigg’d. * * * * * The stay is dangerous.

I can assure you from the doctor’s mouth, She has a dropsy, and must change the air Before she can recover.

Give her vent. If she do swell. A gimblet must be had; It is a tympanites she is troubled with. There are three kinds: the first is anasarca, Under the flesh a tumor; that’s not hers. The second is ascites, or aquosus, A watery humour; that is not hers neither; But tympanites, which we call the drum. A wind-bombs in her belly, must be unbraced, And with a faucet or a peg, let out, And she’ll do well: get her a husband. Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I.

My nose fell a-bleeding on Black-Monday last. Merchant of Venice, Act II., Sc. V.

Diseases of the respiratory system were quite overlooked by Shakespeare.

Consumption catch thee! Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.

There’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption! King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI.

Thy food is such As has been belch’d on by infected lungs. Pericles, Act IV., Sc. VI.

But I’m relapsing into metaphysics, That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics, Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XII., Verse LXXII.

Love is riotous, but marriage should have quiet, And, being consumptive, live on a milk diet. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse XLI.

For goodness, growing to a plurisy, Dies in his own too-much. Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. VII.

A whoreson cold, sir; a cough, sir; which I caught with ringing in the king’s affairs, upon his coronation day. Henry IV—2d, Act III., Sc. II.

’Tis dangerous to take a cold. Henry IV., Act II., Sc. III.

The tailor cries, and falls into a cough. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. I.

Coughs will come when sighs depart. Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse VIII.

Who, * * * but would much rather Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather? Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse VI.

He has not forgotten the diseases affecting the digestive organs.

An old superstition regarding toothache was that it was caused by a small worm, formed like an eel, which bored a hole into the tooth, and various methods were employed to remove it. Dyer notes the fact that John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authorities, attributed decay of the teeth to this cause.

Don Pedro. What! sigh for the toothache? Leon. Where is but a humour or a worm? Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II.

He that sleeps feels not the toothache. Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. IV.

Being troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep. Othello, Act III., Sc. III.

There was never yet philosopher, That could endure the toothache patiently. Much Ado, Act V., Sc. I.

She shall be buried with her face upwards; Yet this is no charm for the toothache. Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II.

Bene. I have the toothache. D. Pedro. Draw it. Much Ado, Act III., Sc. II.

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour. Richard II., Act I., Sc. III.

A surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. II.

Like a sickness, did I loath this food: But, as in health, come to my natural taste, Now do I wish it, love it, long for it. * * Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV., Sc. I.

She gallops night by night. * *

O’er ladies lips, who straight on kisses dream; Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. IV.

Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I., Sc. I.

Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young; And abstinence engenders maladies. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III.

Unquiet meals make ill digestions. Comedy of Errors, Act V., Sc. I.

A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that Which would increase his evil. Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I.

Do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant. Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.

For, ever and anon comes indigestion. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XI., Verse III.

When a roast and a ragout, And fish and soup, by some side-dishes back’d, Can give us either pain or pleasure, who Would pique himself on intellects, whose use Depends so much upon the gastric juice? Byron—Don Juan, Canto V., Verse XXXII.

He ate and he was well supplied; and she Who watch’d him like a mother, would have fed Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see, Such appetite in one she had deem’d dead: But Zoe, being older than Haidee, Knew (by tradition, for she ne’er had read), That famish’d people must be slowly nursed, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst. Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CLVIII.

Why look you pale? Seasick, I think, coming from Muscovy. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II.

The shepherd’s daughter * * * who began to be much seasick. Winter’s Tale, Act V., Sc. II.

——the impatient wind blew half a gale: High dash’d the spray, the bows dipp’d in the sea, And seasick passengers turn’d somewhat pale. Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse LXIV.

Now we’ve reached her, lo! the captain, Gallant Kidd, commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew.

“Help!”—“a couplet?”—“no, a cup Of warm water.” “What’s the matter?” “Zounds! my liver’s coming up; I shall not survive the racket Of this brutal Lisbon Packet.” Byron—Poems.

Love’s a capricious power; I’ve known it hold Out through a fever caused by its own heat, But be much puzzled by a cough or cold, And find a quinsy very hard to treat; Against all noble maladies he’s bold, But vulgar illnesses don’t like to meet, Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh, Nor inflammations redden his blind eye. But worst of all it’s nausea, or a pain About the lower regions of the bowels; Love who heroically breathes a vein, Shrinks from the application of hot towels, And purgatives are dangerous to his reign, Seasickness death. Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse XXII.

Like wind compress’d and pent within a bladder, Or like a human colic which is sadder. Byron—Vision of Judgment.

When will your constipation have done, good madame? Cartwright.

Diseases of the secretory system have not escaped his eagle eye.

A fat old man * * * that swoln parcel of dropsies. Henry IV., Act II., Sc. IV.

The dropsy drown this fool! Tempest, Act IV., Sc. I.

It is a dropsied honour. All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III.

Fal. You make fat rascals, mistress Doll. Doll. I make them! gluttony and disease make them. Henry IV—2d, Act II., Sc. IV.

Leprosy was sometimes called measles, from the French of leper, meseau or mesel. This is the sense in which Shakespeare uses the word measles—an entirely different one from that now in vogue. The word “hoar,” occurring in several of the quotations, refers to the white spots so characteristic of the disease.

As for my country I have shed my blood, Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs Coin words till their decay against those measles, Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought The very way to catch them. Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I.

Gold! * * * * * * This yellow slave will make the hoar leprosy ador’d. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.

Hoar the flamen, That scolds against the quality of flesh, And not believes himself. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.

Itches, blains, Sow all the Athenian bosoms, and their crop Be general leprosy! Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. I.

Diseased nature oftimes breaks forth In strange eruptions. Henry IV., Act III., Sc. I.

For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. I.

Now the dry serpigo on the subject! Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.

A tailor might scratch her where ’er she did itch. Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.

In the midland counties of England a pimple was frequently called “a quat.”

I have rubb’d this young quat almost to a sense, And he grows angry. Othello. Act V., Sc. I.

Rubbing the poor itch, * * * Make yourselves scabs. Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I.

I would thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. I.

My elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow. Much Ado, Act III., Sc. III.

Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds. Taming of the Shrew, Ind., Sc. II.

Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains. King John, Act III., Sc. I.

Dro. S. She sweats—a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. Ant. S. That’s a fault that water will mend. Dro. S. No, sir, ’tis in grain. Comedy of Errors, Act III., Sc. II.

I had rather heat my liver with drinking. Antony and Cleopatra, Act I., Sc. II.

Let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I.

Were my wife’s liver Infected as her life, she would not live The running of one glass. Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II.

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. III.

All seems infected that the infected spy, And all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye.

The liver is the lazaret of bile, But very rarely executes its function, For the first passion stays there such a while That all the rest creep in and form a junction. Like knots of vipers on a dunghill’s soil, Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction, So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail, Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call’d “central.” Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse CCXV.

The examination of the urine as an aid to diagnosis has been resorted to for many centuries, but the processes of to-day are, of course, vastly different from and hardly to be compared with those of earlier times, when blind ignorance caused urine-examining, or “water-casting,” to be a mere mockery. The practice, says Dr. Bucknill, arose “like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical interdicts upon the medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and monks, being unable to visit their former patients, are said first to have resorted to the expedient of divining the malady, and directing the treatment upon simple inspection of the urine.” The College of Physicians, in an old statute, denounced it as belonging only to charlatans, and members were not allowed to give advice on inspection only. Shakespeare has frequently referred to it, as have also many others of the old writers, who condemn strongly what was then a shallow deception, but what has now become, by the light of knowledge, one of the most important diagnostic aids to many diseases.

Host. Thou art a Castilian, king urinal! * * * Pardon, a word, monsieur, mock-water. Dr. Caius. Mock-vater! vat is dat? Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III.

If thou could’st, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo. Macbeth, Act V., Sc. III.

Carry his water to the wise woman. 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: for affection, Master of passion, sways it to the mood Of what it likes or loathes. Merchant of Venice, Act IV., Sc. I.

Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke? Port. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Macbeth, Act II., Sc. II.

When he makes water, his urine is congealed ice. Measure for Measure, Act III., Sc. II.

Fevers and other general diseases are often referred to and very many excellent allusions have been made to them.

He is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Henry V., Act II., Sc. I.

If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague. Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.

A lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague’s privilege, Dar’st with thy frozen admonition Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood, With fury, from his native residence. Richard II., Act II., Sc. I.

But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, And chase the native beauty from his cheek, And he will look as hollow as a ghost, As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit, And so he’ll die. King John, Act III., Sc. IV.

Here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up. Macbeth, Act V., Sc. V.

An untimely ague Stay’d me a prisoner in my chamber. Henry VIII., Act I., Sc. I.

My wind * * * would blow me to an ague. Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. I.

He had a fever 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 Cæsar, Act I., Sc. II.

Home without boots, and in foul weather too! How ’scapes he agues? Henry IV., Act III., Sc. I.

Danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun. Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Sc. III.

All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! Tempest, Act II., Sc. II.

It is not for your health thus to commit Your weak condition to the raw cold morning. Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I.

I asked the doctors after his disease— He died of the slow fever called the tertian, And left his widow to her own aversion. Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse XXXIV.

His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians Of common likings, which make some deplore What they should laugh at—the mere ague still Of men’s regards, the fever or the chill. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIII., Verse XVII.

Plague has been alluded to frequently, but generally only the symptoms of carbuncles and the petechiæ are mentioned. As the latter only occur in very bad cases, they were called “God’s tokens,” and their appearance denoted a fatal termination of the disease. Hence the home of the patient was closed and “Lord have mercy on us” placed upon the door.

Write Lord have mercy on us on those three; They are infected, in their hearts it lies; They have the plague and caught it of your eyes. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V., Sc. II.

He is so plaguy-proud, that the death tokens of it cry— No recovery. Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.

Enobarbus. How appears the fight? Scarus. On our side like the token’d pestilence, Where death is sure Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., Sc. X.

Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, And occupations perish! Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. I.