HISTORY OF MEDICINE

MEDICAL HISTORIES FOUND IN MEMOIRS OF QUEEN MARY OF

Călin Bumbuluţ1, Andrei Bumbuluţ2, Alina Daniela Negru1, Rumelia Koren3

1SCM dr Bumbuluţ-dr Balaj, Satu Mare, România, 2Faculty of Medicine, Iuliu Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj Napoca, România, 3Department of Pathology, Hasharon Hospital, Petah Tikva, and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Address for correspondence: Bumbuluţ Călin, MD, FP Satu Mare, UK 30 Bobocului St, PO 440258 Email: [email protected]

Received: 25.08.2014 Accepted: 15.09.2014 Med Con June 2015 Vol 10, No 2, 61-66

Abstract Charles, the future King Carol II) and it thought that this idea will diminish my pains, which did not Mary, Queen of Romania, born as Maria Alexandra happen at all. But, during the time of the toothache, Dr. Victoria of Saxa- and Gotha (, 1875, Young came into my life. Dr. Young was submitted English, , , England, July 18, 1938, but American by birth (...) his handicraft was large, but Pelişor, ), was princess of Great not without pain for those who used it (...) He struggled Britain and Ireland and the consort of King Ferdinand. with my upper jaw and with the bottom jaw and pulled Her memoirs are an important source of informations out four teeth, saying that I have too many teeth for the including medical ones, but also a surprising literature, little space which was reserved for them (...).One of his which proves a writerly talent. Our approach aims at an words remain fadeless forever for me (...) He had found me incursion into the medical informations contained in crying because of the news received in a letter from home, the memoirs of Queen , to our knowledge being the first attempt of its kind. Keywords: Queen Mary, medicine, , Ion Cantacuzino, Christea Buicliu, Wilhelm and Mite Kremnitz

We continue the incursion in Memoirs of Queen Mary, volume II, stopping on some medical histories and not only, on their social and cultural connotations bringing to attention important names of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. “I feel I must mention here being full of goodness which came in my way in those days. I suffered from a terrible toothache; I was in pain all over. I was told that it was about “the cute Crown Prince who was to arrive” (nn. Figure 1. Queen Maria in 1902

Ocular Tuberculosis Suspicion Accompanying Positive Osteoarticular Tuberculosis in a Young Patient 61 HISTORY OF MEDICINE MEDICAL CONNECTIONS • NUMBER 2 (38) • JUNE 2015 my tears flowed like a spring rain. “Wipe your eyes, Dr. Young said, it will not be the last disappointment in your life!” This brief summary of the situation, told without smile or frown, give it the stark measure of the man. Our friendship lasted even after I didn’t need him to take care of my teeth. I keep until today, with real appreciation, the memory of Dr. Young, who lived up until the first year of the Great War” [1, p 41,42]. Birth of Princess Elizabeth, the second child: “(...) But Elizabeth hurried up and arrived on 11 October, so before my mother could come, so in hard times, nobody was with me, but Aunty Elizabeth (our note - Queen Elizabeth) and a Romanian doctor. Later, we Figure 2. Ion Cantacuzino in 1902 (left) and to maturity became thoroughly friends with Dr. Cantacuzino, but at that time, he was a stranger to me and I looked at him with eyes full of fear” [1, p 65]. illness, as we will see from the tragedy of losing the last Ion Cantacuzino (25 November 1863-14 January born, Mircea: “Rarely it happened to me to become ill, 1934) followed the secondary education and the upper because I have a great power of life, but when it happened in philosophy study, natural science and medicine in to me, I could not stop looking at the disease as a . In 1895 he obtained the title of Doctor of humiliation, as a falling. You feel turned over to others and Medicine with the thesis: “ Recherches sur le mode de at their will; the truth is never told to the ill people: from destruction du vibrion cholérique dans l’organisme” the day you are in bed sick you pass the normal boundaries; (“Research on modality of destruction of cholera vibrio all your needs are fulfilled, but others decide for you and in the body”). After graduation, he works in the Pasteur think for you; your horizontal status, in contrast with the Institute in Paris as the assistant of Ilia Ilici Mecinikov vertical one of to the man who stands up and leans on you, in the domain of immune mechanisms of the body. is in itself a defeat, a decrease in your personality, an Back in the country, he is appointed as Professor of inferiority that you are doomed to cope. I never liked to give Experimental Medicine, at the Faculty of Medicine of my will to the other hands, not knowing where this giving (1901), and General Director of Health will stop” [1, p 67,68]. Service in Romania (1907). With the support of King The disease of the heir prince, the future King Ferdinand I, which offers land on the banks of the Ferdinand, creates a vivid emotion in the society from Dâmboviţa river, will completed his late nineteenth century, through the dramatic largest project: Serums and Vaccines Institute, which implications for the Kingdom of Romania of a possible became active since 1921. Cantacuzino investigated death, and also of the long period of illness: “In the active immunization against dysentery, typhoid fever, summer of the same year, 1897, started so cheerful, I had but he was also preoccupied with the etiology and gone through a terrible concern: my husband became sick pathology of scarlet fever. In 1926, his work has become from a virulent form of typhoid fever and we almost lost so successful, that Romania was the second country in him. He was repeatedly almost dying, because the disease the world after France who introduced bacillus has worsened since the early days through various serious Calmette-Guérin for prophylactic vaccination of complications, eventually a double pneumonia was close to newborns against tuberculosis without to import. As a put an end to his days. I remember how they kept him alive Mecinikov disciple, he devoted part of his research for with injections of high doses of salt water, which tormented phagocytes, means of the body’s defenses against him, but which saved him. I do not know exactly how long pathogens, and also to the problem of immunity, the disease lasted, but it seemed endlessly long for me (...). inventing the concept of contact immunity. During of Three doctors were always around them: dr. Jean the , he was appointed as head of the Cantacuzino, dr. Buicliu and dr. Kremnitz; the last one action to combat the cholera epidemic in Romanian was a German, with a long brown beard, he was a very Army stationed in Dobrogea, occupying the same clever man and a personal friend of the King and Queen. position during the First World War, to combat the Back then I knew almost nothing about disease and I was typhus. worthless as a nurse (...)” [1, p 136,137]. Queen Mary shows a full understanding of human The one who would become one of the promoters suffering, her family being subject to repeated attacks of of Romanian School of Neurology Psychiatric, Professor

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Christea Buicliu was born in Roman on 7 December 1857 in an old Armenian family. He attended secondary school in Iasi, and then in 1875 he went to Paris to study medicine. He finished medical school in 1883 and then returned home. In Bucharest he practiced as physician in the Brâncovenesc Hospital, and in 1886 to the Medical Clinic of the Faculty of Medicine. Christea Buicliu was committed to reforms in the Faculty of Medicine and the Romanian health system. He cooperates closely in this regard with Victor Babeș, which binds him with a sincere friendship. He was appointed as Efor (supervisor) of the hospitals and became one of the founders of the Romanian Figure 3. Heinrich Adolf von Bardeleben Neuropsychiatry School. He wrote dozens of books and (1st March 1819 – 24th September 1895) articles in the field, including a “Therapeutic Treaty” in six volumes, “History and Hypnotism”, “Arsenical Polyneuritis” and “Clinical Lectures on the Cardiac Semiology”. Professor’s life ended prematurely at the age of 57, on 9 August 1916, and it rests in Roman, his hometown. “I’ll never forget that terrible night when I was called to the bedside of my husband, because doctors believed that the end was near (...) Nando lay on his back, so weak that his body seemed to be one with the sheet. His face was pale and he breathed with difficulty; his eyes were wide open, glassy (...) I easily grabbed his fingers with mine; his fingers were wet with sweat, the sweat dripped from him, our joined hands were laying in a small pool of water. Often I heard talking of “sweat of death”, now I know what it Figure 4. in youth 1882 (left) and to maturity means!” [1, p 139]. “The wing of death has not reached our house, but the prince’s convalescence was long and difficult; on several which was intended to remain with us until the full occasions, he again fell prey to disease and the great dr. recovery of the Prince, died suddenly one morning because Leiden was called for consultation. , although his heart stoped. (...) After the death of Dr. Kremnitz, they have good enough doctors, have the habit to call foreign doctor Romalo entered into our lives, he was our doctor doctors for help. They therefore sent after Leiden, after all until the end of his days” [1, p 141,142]. insistences. I can not say that I liked him; these great men, With Dr. Kremnitz, Mite Kremnitz appeared on called for urgent cases, they always seem a little careless; the fashion and cultural scene of Romania at the end of they can not have the same feelings for patients as those who the nineteenth century. Born as Marie Charlotte von tremble for their lives along the watches for concern. (...) It Bardeleben, daughter of the famous surgeon Heinrich was a great relief for us that we could bring our patient in Adolf von Bardeleben, she spent her childhood in fresh and hardener mountain air (our note – at Sinaia) Greifswald, , and since 1868 in . In 1872, but he still lingered in bed for about six weeks, pale, at 20 years, Mite married Wilhelm Kremnitz. exhausted, with a brown beard, terribly changed, with his An event in the life of Titu Maiorescu will gaunt face and like yellow wax, with holes in the cheeks permanently link him with Kremnitz family: on the way and hands as the skeleton. Seemed almost a stranger to me” to Paris, he will make a stop in Berlin in October 1859. [1, p 140]. Visiting the Kremnitz family, he gives them «some An event that occurs during the convalescence of gourmet gifts», which, as he says, he brought from «the the Crown Prince gives us the opportunity to bring to Orient». In the thirteenth day of staying in Berlin, the attention an important name not only in the medical unexpected happens: in the day of departure to Paris, in world, but also in artistic life: “A tragic incident and the dark, he falls into a pit on a Berlin street and sprains totally unexpected appeared in our house (...) dr. Kremnitz, his ankle, being forced to stay in bed. The Kremnitz

Ocular Tuberculosis Suspicion Accompanying Positive Osteoarticular Tuberculosis in a Young Patient 63 HISTORY OF MEDICINE MEDICAL CONNECTIONS • NUMBER 2 (38) • JUNE 2015 installs him in a room in their house and begun caring for him, also calling a doctor for him. Maiorescu was the teacher for the four children of the family Kremnitz, including his future wife, Clara. In a letter of November 1859 from Paris, he will motivate the subsequent decisions: «In Berlin I spent three weeks, definitely the happiest time of my life. Every day I stayed in the family of the Chancellor of Justice Kremnitz, so every day I stayed with Clara. Fortunately, I sprained my foot and had to lie in bed after that, for eight days (...) In short, I will marry Clara». From the marriage with Clara Kremnitz, Titu Figure 6. Mite Kremnitz and the famous red book Maiorescu had two children: a daughter, Livia, and a son, Liviu. At the invitation of Titu Maiorescu, Mite and an intimate of Kremnitz family, being invited each year Wilhelm Kremnitz traveled in 1873 to Romania, in Iasi, to spend Christmas holidays here. They were seeing and in January 1875 the couple is established in home at Maiorescu, at the literary club and Bucharest. Wilhelm Kremnitz opens a medical practice, more than once, at the Royal , where Queen becomes secondary doctor and then, in 1889, senior invites Eminescu despite the cold relationship that he physician at Brâncovenesc Hospital [2]. During the War had with King Carol, who was severely critisized in his of Independence Dr. Kremnitz coordinates a military articles in the Time. hospital installed in Station. He is becoming Mite Kremnitz’s great grandson, Georg, donated to more and more popular, and become the doctor of the the Central University Library of Cluj the famous “red Royal family of Romania, following the path of his book” which contains the poems transcripted by mentor and of his father-in-law, who was very Eminescu for Mite, offered in January 4, 1879 as a gift appreciated by Wilhelm I and was the doctor of for her birthday. The manuscript contains five poems in the German Emperor, Frederick III. the poet’s version plus four more in the same book, The family ties with Maiorescu, the close link with copied by Mite [4]. the Royal family, Mite Kremnitz being the Lady of Mite Kremnitz translated Eminescu’s poems company of Queen Elizabeth, and the literary talent of “Desire”, “Over peaks” and it seems that also the Mite, facilitated their entry into the intellectual world of “Morning Star” to German, she published a collection Bucharest. Mite Kremnitz attended the literary meetings of Romanian tales, and she translated poems and prose of the Junimea (a famous literary Circle of that time) of Queen Elisabeth (who used the literary pseudonym where she met Eminescu, Jacob Negruzzi, Ion Slavici, Carmen Sylva). She wrote plays and novels together Nicolae Gane, and Petre Carp [3]. with Queen Elizabeth, which they have signed with the Eminescu came to Bucharest as editor at the Time pseudonym Ditto und Idem. She collaborated with newspaper. Because the poet experienced great material King in writing of his Memoirs, in difficulties, he gives private lessons of Romanian the collection donated by her great grandson existing a language to Mite Kremnitz. Mihai Eminescu becomes large number of files, apparently written by Carol I. Wilhelm and Mite Kremnitz had two sons: Georg- Titus, born in 1876 in Bucharest and Emanuel (Manoli), born in 1885 at Peleș [5]. About the two children of Mite’s it was stated that they were conceived with Titu Maiorescu (Georg) and respectively with King Carol I (Emanuel). It is also said that the first name of Maiorescu, Titu, he wanted to put him in the Latinized form, so as he often signed, “Titus”, to his illegitimate child, Georg [6]. Wilhelm Kremnitz died on 31 July 1897 at Peleș and was buried on the royal domain, near the waterfall Figure 5. Mihai Eminescu in the last known photo (left) Urlătoarea, subsequently his tomb was moved to the and at maturity (right) park of the town.

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Although her life in Romania was assured, with the annual rent paid by King Carol I - the equivalent of over 111,000 lei today - after her husband’s death, Mite Kremnitz prefered to return to Berlin, considering that the possibilities of giving her children a good education are more favorable in the . It is also interesting the further link of Mite sons with Romania, Georg-Titus attending a school of officers, and Emanuel medical studies. The two are enrolled in the Imperial Army and enter in Romania in 1918 with the occupation troops of the . Georg-Titus Kremnitz, as officer of Staff of the German Army, is part of the Figure 7. Wilhelm Kremnitz’s tomb delegation which proposes to Maiorescu, who, ironically, it seems that was his natural father, to form a government According to Queen Mary, Mite, which the Queen of occupation, anti-dynastic, proposal which he refused. never nominated her name, only as Dr. Kremnitz’s wife, On the other hand, however, he allowed the recovery of wrote the book “The Court of Ragusa” in which she Slavic manuscripts of Academy Library Fund, describes, parodying, the life of the Royal Court of documents requisitioned by the Bulgarian army, being Romania, to the disappointment of Queen Mary, one of the reasons why her presence is indicated briefly and superficially in the Queen’s memoirs: “It was a big news when lady Kremnitz has arrived from abroad to her husband’s funeral. Although Aunty (our note- Queen Elizabeth) had enough reasons not to love her, she received her as a person of the family. These two women resemble in a strange way. Both were writers, both had gray hair, short cut, with eyes in deep eye sockets, and thoughtfully (...) A few years earlier, they had written together a book in the form of letters exchanged between two friends. The collaboration was interesting and no doubt this united them for a time in the same enthusiasm, but this happened before my time, and I knew that now, Aunty has no love for the lady Kremnitz in her heart. The break, it seems, was Figure 8. Elisabeth with her daughter Maria (called in made when Uncle (our note - King Carol I) had asked family as Itty, 1870-1874). Photo from 1873 Mrs. Kremnitz to help him writing his memoirs, instead of asking this to Aunty, also a poet and writer. (...) Later, her innate meanness came out stronger when, in a unworthy way, she revenged against the royalty, who had once been her collaborator, writing a bad novel and also a vulgar one, titled The Court of Ragusa, in which, through changing the name of the people and of places, she describes in the form of parody the Aunty’s quirks and made a malicious description of the Court and her customs. Mrs. Kremnitz, of course, with a changed name, play in that novel the role of an intelligent woman, who is the confidence of the king and who straightened the queen’s mistakes. It is a book worthy of contempt” [1, p 142,143]. In the 1899’s codicil of his testament, written in The sons of Dr. Kremnitz December 1911, Carol says: “ Figure 9. The Engagement Photography, 1869: Elizabeth of will receive each forty thousand lei as gift and they will give Wied, Prince Carol I of Romania (born as Prince of of this sum four thousand lei to their mother, whose pension Hohenzollern-), Mother-Princess Maria of of twelve thousand, will be payed as so far, until her death”. Wied, Prince William of Wied (brother of Elizabeth)

Ocular Tuberculosis Suspicion Accompanying Positive Osteoarticular Tuberculosis in a Young Patient 65 HISTORY OF MEDICINE MEDICAL CONNECTIONS • NUMBER 2 (38) • JUNE 2015 in the process to be transported across the [7]. 3. Todescu V. Mite Kremnitz şi Junimea, Annales Also, the Captain Emanuel Kremnitz, the supposed son Universitatis Apulensis Series Philologica, v. 2, 2006. of Carol I, although he was for a period of time the head 4. Hângănuț R. Povestea „Caietului Roșu” manuscrisul of the censorship, is the one who saved in 1916 the eminescian aflat în posesia BCU, Transilvania Reporter, archive of B.P. Hașdeu from Campina. 15 ianuarie 2014. Mite Kremnitz passed away on July 18, 1916. She is 5. Kremnitz G. Mite Kremnitz und ihre rolle in den the heroine of Eugen Lovinescu’s biographical novel, deutsch-rumäniscgen Beziehungen, in Rumänien und “Mite”. Europa: Transversale: Kolloquium der Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Rumänischen Kulturinstitut Titu Maiorescu, Maren References Huberty&Michèle Mattusch Editors, Humboldt- Universität Berlin, Frank & Timme GmbH, 2009, 1. Maria, Regina României. Povestea vieţii mele, Ed. pp. 121-34. RAO, Bucureşti, 2013, Vol II, pag 41-2, 65,67, 136- 6. Popescu-Cadem, Titu Maiorescu în faţa instanţei 7, 139, 140, 141-143. documentelor, Bucureşti, Biblioteca Bucureştilor, 2. Nuţă I. Prefaţa la romanele Mite şi Bălăuca de Eugen 2004, pp 24-8. Lovinescu, vol. 20 din Colecţia Eminesciana, Editura 7. Tăbăraş S, Eroi „mărunţi”, Revista Luceafărul, 2, Junimea, 1980. 2009.

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