VOLTAIRE’S RELATION TO MEDICINE*

By PEARCE BAILEY, M.D.

NEW YORK

N idealizing the great men whose dis­ udice, superstition, all backed by the might coveries have transformed what, a short of church and state. Society, inevitably time ago, was little more than a specu­ averse to reality, placed, as long as it could, Ilative system of philosophy, into a sciencethese deadly taboos across the path of what­ whose bounds are fixed only by the limiting ever might bring it and reality face to face. qualities of humanity, it should be remem­ It was only as, little by little, opinions bered that the followers of Hippocrates are ceased to be matters reviewed by the police, not the only ones who merit gratitude for and when investigation was no longer re­ what they accomplished for medicine. Med­ garded as offensive to God, that the prob­ ical growth implies more than the work of lems of medicine, so long waiting solution, gifted doctors alone. All who have could be brought into the light to be striven for human development studied. have furthered this art which The broader vision which joins or crosses every thread made this development pos­ of social fabric and which sible came from the men has always been more than outside of our profession a system of healing. quite as much as from Medicine must be the those within it; and it was last barrier but one be­ these allies of ours espe­ tween man and the fates. cially who risked their lives It stands at the entrance in the struggle for the es­ and exit of life and, since tablishment of tolerance. it seems nearest the mys­ They fought our battles, tery, it has always been and their names must be patiently looked to to dis­ placed with the names of close what lies behind that actual medical craftsmen strange curtain which rises who, in wresting secrets and drops so abruptly. It from Nature, made com­ is so bound up in our souls with the arts and mentary give place to observation and con­ humanities, that its history is inseparable trolled fancy by experiment. Euripides and from the history of all human thought and Petrarch and Bacon and Luther, each in his behavior. Its records, at first sight seeming own way and according to his lights, helped to mark a development and ascendancy to break down the barriers which kept men’s quite its own, are really the records of the eyes from the truth; each helped to mold pub­ desires and fears and beliefs universal to lic opinion to a point where scientific medicine humanity; and neither they nor the men became possible. Some did the work which who helped make them can be understood resulted ultimately in advantage to our art by themselves. without having touched on medical subjects As long as thought was not free, medicine, at all; others, like Athanasius Kircher in common with other branches of learning, (1602-1680), the Jesuit priest, the earliest had to struggle with tradition, dogma, prej­ microscopist; like Antony van Leeuwenhoek *Read at a meeting of the Harvard Medical History Club, Boston, Mass., November 1, 1916. (1632-1723), the wealthy brewer’s son of an original thinker. Ilis genius was of a Delft, who gave the first accurate figura­ different order from Franklin’s, whose most tions of bacteria, who demonstrated the casual glance at a subject resulted in some capillary anastomosis between arteries and entirely new benefit to it. But he assembled veins, who presented twenty-six microscopes from all parts of the earth stray bits of in­ to the Royal Society and contributed many formation, fused them together and pre­ papers to it; like Descartes (1596-1650),who, sented them as a whole, in his own way. in establishing the physical theory of vision, Thanks to his special talent he was able to laid the foundation of ophthalmology; men give to the world views on medical topics such as these threw light on our problems saner than those held by most of the physi­ through solving problems of their own. cians of the times. Among the men who figured in shaping He is represented as the ruthless icono­ medical history in more ways clast, bitter and sarcastic and than one, must be counted unforgiving. But he has a way Voltaire. It would be super­ of tempering his invectives fluous to add one word here with a naive or witty word as to what Voltaire’s wit which reveals a funda­ and fancy and satire ac­ mental belief in the complished to estab­ good intentions of hu­ lish truth in the manity; and many world as a principle. incidents in his life, But it seems not un­ of which I recall two, reasonable to suggest indicate quite plainly that in fighting for to me that as a man general tolerance, he he was of an essential­ did more to advance ly kindly nature. Ap­ our profession than preciating Marmon- some of its own mem­ tel’s verses, he urged bers who, however this young man, a distinguished, com­ total stranger to him, promised with the to come to Paris from old dogmas. It may the Limousin, with be remembered that the assurance that Sir Thomas Browne the Controller Gen­ (1605-82), in writing eral of Finance, M. to correct “Vulgar Errors, ” was proved hope­ Orri, would take care of him. But when the lessly enmeshed in them himself. But Vol­ future author of the Moral Tales arrived in taire, in addition to being a social reformer, Paris, Orri was no longer in favor and could did much to spread actual medical learning. do nothing for him. While he was staggering As an encyclopedist he was obliged to treat under this blow, Voltaire said to him, “I of medical subjects, and he gave himself have not invited you here to abandon you. a wide range; throughout all he wrote on I will suffer you to have no other creditor these topics appears an uncanny sagacity than Voltaire.” And in another and more which led him to champion those explana­ intimate relationship, Voltaire’s gentleness tions of human behavior which, as it turns of character for those he really loved seems out, have best stood the test of time. Per­ to have been unmistakable. This was when haps it cannot be said of him that he was he discovered that Madame du Chatclet hacl been untrue to him. After hours of ashes of kings reposed and the highest unhappiness and despair, when she came subjects in the kingdom felt it an honor to him and asked his forgiveness, he said to to assist in bearing thither his body.” her, “Madame, everything you do is right,” and really forgave her. His British experiences seem to have He seems to have been born with a mania vitalized the main springs of his mind and for liberty which his early troubles only to have given direction to his energy. But deepened. Thrown into the Bastile more he was too accurate an observer of human than once, banished from France for years, nature to confuse political with intellectual he never really, except for tactical purposes, freedom. He knew, as well as Le Bon, how changed his views on oppression and or­ the crowd is made up; he saw that democ­ ganized dishonesty. racy was a dream and realized that During the XVIII century. the few govern. But he saw Great Britain was the only also, and just as unerringly, European country which that the advancement of had curtailed the arbitrary humanity depended on powers of Royalty. In learning. France Louis XV was There was no lack of able to forbid the pub­ proof in his time of the lication of the famous terrible penalties men encyclopedia, and many were forced to pay for writers were persecuted expressing the most ab­ without reason and with stract ideas. It may be scant mercy. It seemed remembered that in the that there was an un­ century in which Vol­ mistakable advantage taire was born the to learning in England French Parliament is­ as compared with its sued a decree which position in France, and forbade all persons, un­ Voltaire was incited to der pain of death, to work for a similar in­ hold or to teach any tellectual enfranchise­ method contrary to the ment for his country­ ancient and approved men. authors. This decree It was during his visit came about from the to England as a young man, that he came visit of two chemists to Paris who au­ to realize how much France was remaining daciously recognized five elements differ­ behind in the development of true wisdom. ent from the four elements of Aristotle, While there, he attended the stately funeral and who further failed to agree with the of Newton, and, as Parton informs us, categories and substantial forms of the master. They were tried, their books “In extreme old age his eye would were solemnly burned and they were ban­ kindle and his countenance light up ished. But Parliament passed the Act re­ when he spoke of having lived in a land ferred to in order to show that it did not where a professor of mathematics, solely propose to deal so leniently with similar because he was great in his vocation, offenders in the future. Regarding this could be buried in a temple where the incident Voltaire says, “Respect for tradi­ tion has hindered intellectual progress for There was no clinical instruction until centuries and was extended in the case of 1745, and quackery and imposture of all Aristotle to the most servile credulity.” kinds flourished like weeds in a garden badly The same Parliament of Paris which kept. The insane were regarded as menag­ avenged the insult by the chemists to erie animals to be viewed in some places on Aristotle, forbade the use of quinine and the payment of a fee. Until the middle of emetics. Against prejudices such as these the century in Germany, surgeons were Voltaire made war to the end of his days. called “ Fcldschecrer, ” because their duties In our boyhood, we heard chiefly of Vol­ included shaving the officers; and in France taire as the ruthless atheist who wanted to surgeons were separated from barbers and destroy religion. As a matter of fact, he wig-makers only in 1743, following by twen­ attacked everything, whether military or ty years the establishment of the Academy ecclesiastical or political or social, in which of Surgery, which was accomplished by he saw domination and oppression, with Voltaire’s friend, Francois de L. La Peyronie pretence and quackery tagging inevitably (1678-1747) of Montpellier. The great behind them. “Fanaticism,” he writes, “is physicians were well-to-do and often culti­ a mental disease as contagious as smallpox. vated men, but far less inspiring than in the Once it has eaten into the brain, it is almost preceding century. Medicine itself was in incurable.” And elsewhere he says, “ The a rather chaotic condition, as few members world is full of quacks, in medicine, in of the profession had profited in an all theology, in politics, in philosophy,” and around way by its most advanced teaching. he asked to be saved from such men as Mes­ But in spite of the fact that medicine was mer. The ideas which he stood for and sterile in his time, throughout all that Vol­ scattered (and he was the most read author taire wrote about physicians and medicine of his day), and which were thought as out­ it is easy to recognize the witty author as rageous for so long, are now largely current. their loyal admirer and defender. Physi­ They had, perforce, to become so before cians whom he thinks unworthy he attacks, medicine could come to its own. sometimes with scant justice; but every­ The century in which he passed his adult where through his writings shines his un­ years was poorer in great medical men than failing belief in this oldest of arts, and his the preceding one. Harvey and Malpighi admiration for its prophets. and Redi and Sylvius and Willis and Syden­ He had much to say about doctors, past ham had done their work and joined the and contemporaneous. Against Gerhardt immortals. In Voltaire’s own century, the Van Swictcn (1700-1772), first physician to work of Pinel and Jenner was accomplished Maria Theresa, who opposed the introduc­ after his own was finished; of Voltaire’s tion into Vienna of certain books on philos­ contemporaries, Von Haller, of whom it was ophy (one of them Voltaire’s) and who also, said that the only things that he lacked like his teacher Boerhaave, opposed in­ were the faults common to great men, stands oculation against smallpox, Voltaire directed out now as the chief towering figure; Bocr- the following satirical verses: haave was the teacher acclaimed every­ Un certain charlatan, qui s’est mis on credit where, and John Hunter was revolutionizing Pretend qu’a son example, on n’ait jamais d’esprit. surgery in England. But it was chiefly a Tu n’y parviendras pas, apostat d’Uippocratc, century of progress in the collateral sciences Tu guerircrais plutot les vapours de ma rate. of botany and chemistry, as is shown by Va cesser de vexcr les vivants et les morts such names that stand out in it as those of Tyran de ma pensee, assassin de mon corps. Linnaeus, Priestley and Lavoisier. Tu peux bicn cmpecher les malades de vivre. Tu peux les tuer tous, mais mon pas un bon livre. et tous les besoins out existc avant. le Tu les brules, Jerome; et de tes condamnes secours. ” La flamme, en m’eclairant, noircit ton vilain nez. “Moliere made no mistake in ridiculing Of Simon-Andre Tissot (1728-97) the physicians,” he said, “for, for a long time, famous practitioner of Lausanne who be­ out of every hundred doctors, ninety were came widely known through his popular quacks. But it is just as true that a good writings on onanism, on the hygiene of doctor can often save life and limb. Men literary men, and on the diseases of men of who pass their lives restoring health to the world, Voltaire writes to a woman others would be superior to all the great friend,—“He has never cured anybody and ones of the earth and would resemble is more ill than everybody while he writes divinity. To conserve and repair is almost his little medical books.” as fine as to make. For five hundred years But much of the evil he says against the Romans had no doctors; being occu­ doctors was justified or put out in the spirit pied solely with killing they made no at­ of pure fun. “I know nothing more laugh­ tempt to save life. What, then, did they able,” he writes a friend, “than a doctor do at Rome when they had putrid fever or who docs not die of old age.” And again, bubonocele or pneumonia? They died.” In “Illness more cruel than Kings persecutes writing concerning Van Dale, the Dutch me. It only needs doctors to finish me off.” physician, he said: “The Devil should not As a matter of fact, he believed in them. try his tricks on a clever physician. Those “The first to bleed or purge happily a familiar with nature are dangerous for the patient with apoplexy; the first to conceive wonder-workers. I advise the Devil always the idea to put a bistoury into the bladder to apply to the faculty of theology—not to for the purpose of extracting a stone and the medical faculty.” then to close the wound up again, the first He had the keenest appreciation of the who knew how to keep gangrene from some Greeks, and of Harvey, and of Boerhaave, part of the body—these men were almost and of men of their kind, and he speaks divine and not at all like the physicians with affection of the various men who described by Moliere. You may see fevers attended him in his illnesses. He resents and ills of all kinds being cured without it Rousseau’s ungrateful treatment of Cabanis, being proved whether nature or the doctor a surgeon of great reputation, who passed worked the cure. You see diseases whose sounds on the author of the “Social Con­ outcome cannot be foretold; twenty doctors tract. ” “It seems that ingratitude holds are mistaken until the one who has the a high place in the philosophy of Jean finest intelligence, the clearest vision, dis­ Jacques,” Voltaire exclaims. Voltaire knew covers the nature of the disease. It is, Haller and appreciated his rare talents, therefore, an art and the superman knows though he thought him stiff and unbending, the fine points of it. Thus La Peyronie and said of him that his “Protestant zeal made the diagnosis that a certain courtier makes intolerance a fashion in the Canton must have swallowed a sharp bone which of Berne.” There was ill-feeling on both resulted in an ulcer and endangered his life; sides. Casanova, the Venetian charlatan Boerhaave found the cause of the cruel and and gossip and “homme a bonnes fortunes,” hidden disease of the Count Vassenaar. relates that after a visit to the Swiss savant There is, therefore, a true art of medicine; he visited Voltaire, to whom, in his mischief­ but in every art, then, are Virgils and Mal- making way, he brought up the name of vius.” And elsewhere he says, “Les mala­ Von Haller. “There,” exclaimed Voltaire, dies sont plus anciennes que la medecine “is a great man—one we must all bow to.” “I am sorry,” Casanova replied, “to inform He forgives J. B. Morin (1583-1656), who you that Von Haller entertains no such cast the horoscope of Louis XIV. “He was opinion of you.” “Well,” Voltaire a savant in spite of the prejudices of the answered, “the fact is that in all probability times,” he exclaims. Of G. Patin (1602- we both are mistaken.” 1672) he says that he was more famous for To Doctor Doran, who invented bougies, his letters than for his medicine. “This he sent his compliments though he did not man seems to prove that those who hastily need him. He summons L’EcIusc, surgeon write up current events arc misleading dentist of the King of Poland (formerly a historians.” It is the letters of Patin, who concert hall singer), to repair the “irrepar­ was Dean of the Paris Faculty, which able teeth” of his niece. He recounts with Garrison cited as showing the “sterile great satisfaction that it was Lilio, a inefficiency of the internists of the Roman physician, and not Greg­ seventeenth century.” ory XIII, who reformed the Through Voltaire’s works calendar. “It wasn’t so allusions to medicine and with the Greeks,” Voltaire physicians abound. In adds; “with them the writing of physicians, glory of the invention he says, “The small remains with the art- number of great phy­ ISt. sicians who came to In sending his por­ Rome were slaves. trait in 1775 to Dr. J. Thus, to the Grand B. Silva (1682-1742), Seigneurs of Rome, first doctor to the a doctor became a Queen, who had at­ luxury like a chef. tended him, he in­ Every rich man had cluded these verses: in his suite, perfu­ At the shrine of Epidau- mers, bathers, musi­ rus it was etiquette cians and doctors. The to bring celebrated Musa, An image of the person physician to Augus­ whom the gods had eured or saved; tus, was a slave. He So to Silva, who in mas­ was given his freedom tering death has like and made a Roman a god behaved, Knight, and from We should offer the same thing. then on, medical men became persons of O Modern Esculapius, I owe my days to you importance. When Christianity became And you look upon your handiwork in seeing me anew. established, various councils forbade monks to practice medicine, which was just the He tells us that Thcophraste Renaudot opposite which should have been done if (1586-1653) the founder of the Gazette de good to the human race was to be gained. France,1 published thirty-four years (1631) How fortunate it would have been if monks before the first Oxford Gazette, was a doctor. had been made to study medicine and to cure the ills of humanity for the love of God. 1 These early gazettes, like the Roman Acta Diurna, eontained official announcements of current events. Having nothing but Heaven to gain, there Renaudot’s information came directly from Rich­ would have been no quacks. They might elieu. have poisoned inlidcis, but this would have been good for the church. Perhaps then Throughout all his writings one may find Luther would never have robbed our holy perspicacity and common sense in his father, the Pope, of the half of Christian recommendations as to the conduct of life Europe; for at the first fever of the Augustin and the care of body and mind. When well Luther, a Dominican could have given him himself, he praised hygiene above remedies pills. You may say he would have refused and was an advocate of the Natura Victrix to take them; but perhaps they could have formula. Under the heading of “Medicine” found a way of making him.” in the philosophical dictionary, the doctor He abhorred the ceremonials that were says to the Princess: and still seem, in a way, inseparable from “Let Nature be your doctor in chief. It the practice of medicine, as he abhorred is she who docs everything. Of all those shams of all kinds. “I have always had a who have extended their life to one hundred secret aversion for that Swiss doctor of years, not one belongs to the faculty. The yours,” he wrote a friend. “I despise a man King of France (Louis XV) has already who dares not tell you what remedy it is buried forty of his physicians.” that he is giving you. The absurd quackery The Princess replies: of diagnosticating diseases by temperaments “In truth I hope to bury you too.” and by urine is the shame of medicine and Voltaire relates many anecdotes which of reason.” And elsewhere he says, “How throw light on some of the quasi-medieal foolish it is that we know what the cook customs of the times. One of them shows gives us for supper, and don’t know what a the distinction between social position and doctor gives us when we are ill.” justice. Constantin, a midwife, performed When in 1778 he died at the age of eighty- a criminal operation on a lady of the court four, his organs were all normal, only “dry,” so unskillfully that the patient was fatally as the autopsy report has it. But he was injured. She was in great suffering, and frequently ill, as may be expected of a body her lover, when he saw her, wishing to lodging a mind to which repose is unknown, relieve her sufferings, became possessed of and he wrote much about illness. what might now seem an access of kindly “I regard long illnesses as a kind of zeal, and killed her by breaking open her death which separates us from the rest of head. He fled and was banished, but later, the world and makes it forget us. I am after arranging an advantageous marriage trying to get used to this first kind of for the King’s brother, was again welcomed death so that the second shall not frighten at court. But for the unfortunate midwife me so much.” there was no such mercy. She was hanged “It is the lot of old age to be ill and and thrown into quicklime. “There would these little warnings are the clock strik­ have been no use in coming to visit her,” ings which announce that very soon there says the sprightly Patin, “there was nothing will be no more time for us. Animals have left to recognize her by.” the advantage of humans; no clock sounds Regarding witchcraft he relates that the their hour and they die without guessing Marechale d’Ancre, an Italian friend of it; they have no theologians to tell them Marie de Medicis, whose husband, Concini, the four ends of life or to pester their last had been murdered with at least the conni­ moments with impertinent ceremonies; it vance of Louis XIII, called a Hebrew doctor costs them nothing to be buried and no one called Montalto from Italy to see her, contests their wills. But we have the best having first complied with the recognized of them after all, for they know only formula in such matters by obtaining per­ habit while we have friendship.” mission from the Pope. At that time, it may be remembered, Paris physicians did was right about this; and that appendicitis, not have as good reputations as the Italians, and kindred abdominal diseases were the it being these latter who were reputed as real cause of many of the reputed cases of masters of all the arts. It was claimed poisoning. against the Marechale that this Montalto He understood fully the contagion which was a magician and that he had sacrificed robs crowds of their wits. It is true that a white cock at the Marechale’s. At any he had almost unparalleled opportunities for rate, he could not cure the lady of her observing examples of hysteria in the con- vapors, which were so compelling that vulsionists as they were called, who, in the instead of believing herself a witch, she XVIII century flocked to the tomb of the conceived the counter idea that she was Diacre de Paris, or the saint Paris, in the bewitched herself. She then had the remote little cemetery of St. Mcdard. weakness to summon two exorcist The miracles that were worked priests from Milan, who said there were looked upon by masses for the vaporous lady the simple people as a rec­ and assured her she was ognition by the Almighty cured. But when, in ad­ of the cult launched by dition to the charges the unhappy Jansen, against her of magic, who died without she had questions put knowing what a fuss to her regarding the his earnestly conceiv­ death of Henry IV, ed book was to kick husband of Maria de up. Singing, dancing, Medicis, she collapsed. groaning, grunting, Having laughed at the barking, mewing, hiss- accusations of magic, ing, declaiming, she wept when ques­ prophesying, with the tioned about the dead ordinary motor ac­ king and made a bad companiments of impression on the feeling, reached such judge. She was be­ a height in this hither­ headed and cast into to quiet churchyard the flames. Voltaire that the king found opposed with violence it necessary to close it and with ridicule the —or, as a wit put it, idea so popular in his time, of the fre­ “By order of the king; God is forbidden quency with which people were disposed to perform miracles in this place.” of by poison. The most celebrated of Voltaire wrote much about these oc­ women poisoners who experimented with currences, and analyzed them as did Col­ poison on the sick she visited in the lins,2 who described them anew in 1908. hospitals, and who was beheaded and One of Voltaire’s burlesques took the burned for her crimes in 1676, Madame de form of the following verse, relative to this Brinvilliers, has more crimes accredited to famous tomb: her than she committed, he says. He holds The deity, to lighten France’s night the same opinion in regard to Catherine de Within this tomb encloses all its might. Medicis. It is only in recent years that it Hither the blind come hurrying; and then has become increasingly probable that he 2 N. Y. Medical Record, July 4, 1908. With hands that grope their way, return again. 445,000 pilgrims for three days—but per­ The halt come limping to this tomb, and all haps that is an encouragement to vaga­ Crying hosanna, dance and leap—and fall. bondage more than an act of charity, as The listening deaf approach—and hear no sound. “La Pucelle”—9-III-63. pilgrims are usually tramps. Of all hos­ pitals, the Hotel Dieu of Paris receives In Voltaire’s time, hospitals were in an daily more poor patients than any other. overcrowded and unsanitary condition; filth There are often from 4000 to 5000 at a was everywhere, contagion flourished, and, time. In this case, the number defeats the as Bass says of them, “even physicians purpose of the charity. At the same time declined hospital service as equivalent to a it is the receptacle of all terrible human sentence of death.” Voltaire perceived the miseries and the temple of the true virtue menace of the huge which tries to succor Hotel Dieu and want­ them. It would be ed it split up into a well to bear in mind number of smaller pa­ the contrast between vilions, scattered in a fete at Versailles, different parts of the between an opera at city. Of hospitals in Paris, where all the general he said: delights and magnif­ “There is hardly icence are united with a city in Europe to­ such art, and of a day without hos­ hospital where all the pitals. Turkey has suffering, despair and them for animals, death are crowded to­ which seems an ex­ gether with such hor­ travagant charity. ror. Large cities are It would be better like that. In the char­ to forget animals itable institutions, the and save more men. drawbacks are often The great mass of greater than the ad­ charitable institu­ vantages. A proof of tions proves a truth the abuse connected to which little at­ with them is that tention is paid—it the poor devils whom is this, that man­ they take there are kind is not so bad as afraid to be there. It it is painted; that, in spite of all the false is especially bad when the town gets too opinions that he holds, in spite of the big, when there are four or five patients horrors of war, which change a man into in one bed,3 when a poor fellow gives the a brute, it is easy to believe that this scurvy to the neighbor from whom he animal is really kind and only ugly when catches the smallpox. The futility and aroused, like other animals. The trouble even the danger of medicine under these is that he is teased too much. Modern circumstances is proved. It has often been Rome has almost as many houses of proposed to split up the Hotel Dieu into charity as antique Rome had triumphal several better situated hospitals—but the arches and other monuments of conquest. 3 Beds were built with the purpose of accommodat­ The Trinite in Rome once maintained ing several people at once. money is never forthcoming. It is easy to “Such a man is not destitute of ideas; get it to send men out on the border to he has them, like every one else when be killed—but then there is none left to awake and often when sleeping. One save them with.” might ask how this immortal spiritual mind, the brain’s tenant, receiving all its Voltaire’s most striking characteristic as ideas by the senses, never delivers a sane an author in general is his modernity, and judgment. It sees objects just as the minds this is particularly remarkable in that it of Aristotle and Plato and Locke and continues into matters scientific. It seems Newton saw them. It hears the same less surprising that Euripides should have sounds and has the same sense of touch. seen into the real hearts of men through the How does it happen, then, that it collects veils of symbolism that such an extravagant surrounded human cus­ mess, without being able toms in ancient Greece, to make use of the per­ than it is that a French ceptions it receives in wit and playwright and common with the philos­ letter writer should have ophers? If this simple so unerringly picked out and everlasting sub­ the truth from the many stance is subserved by medical systems of his the same instruments as time. serve the minds which Much that he says are lodged in the brains about medical subjects of the wisest of men, could be incorporated why does it not reason in textbooks to-day. He as they do? was dead before Pinel “I will admit at once, (1745-1826) wrote his if my madman sees red first book, and yet in and the wise men see the article on madness blue; if, when these lat­ in the Philosophical Dic­ ter hear music, my mad­ tionary may be found the man hears an ass bray­ same prophetic teach­ ing; if, when they are ings which have made at church, my madman Pinel immortal as the fancies himself at the savior of the insane. play; if, when they hear “What is madness? It is having incoher­ ‘yes,’ he hears ‘no’—why then his mind ent thoughts and conduct. Madness, dur­ might think the opposite of what theirs ing the waking state, is a disease which do. But my madman has the same per­ prevents a man from thinking and acting ceptions as they have and there is no as other people do. No longer capable of evident reason why his mind, having been directing his affairs, they are taken from furnished with all the tools by the senses, him; Society excludes him for not being should not make use of them. able to hold the ideas which suits it; if “Close reflections make one suspect that he is dangerous, he is shut up; if violent, the faculty of thinking, the divine gift to he is restrained. Sometimes he is cured by man, is subject to derangement like the baths, by blood letting, or by a chosen other senses. A lunatic is a sick man whose regimen. brain suffers, as the gouty man is one who is ill in hands and feet; he thought with like me to engage a place for you in his brain as he walked with his feet, with­ it?’ ” out understanding his incomprehensible And by way of appendix he adds: power of walking any more than he un­ “I am distressed that Hippocrates pre­ derstood his incomprehensible power of scribed asses’ blood for insanity, and still thinking. There is a gout of the brain as more that the ‘Manuel des dames’ says well as of the feet. Finally, after all that poor people become sane when they reasoning, perhaps faith alone can con­ catch the itch. These are pleasing receipts; vince us that a simple and immaterial they appear to have been invented by the substance can be ill. patients.” ‘ ‘The physicians say to an insane patient, ‘ My friend, you have lost common sense. Voltaire wrote much about syphilis, the Your mind is as pure and as spiritual as grand pox, as he called it. He draws ours, but ours is well situated, while yours distinction between it and leprosy and is not. For yours, the windows are shut— believed, as many of the best informed still it lacks air and suffocates.’ The patient, do, that syphilis originated in America. in a sane moment, might answer, ‘My Two things prove this, he says: friend, you assume the question; my “First, that quantities of authors, phy­ windows are as wide open as yours are, sicians and surgeons of the XVI century as I see the same things and hear the attest the truth of it. Second, the silence same words; so it follows that my mind of all physicians and poets of antiquity, makes good use of the senses, or that it is who did not know this disease and never itself a perverted sense, a deteriorated pronounced its name. This seems very quality, or my mind itself is insane, or conclusive. Physicians, from Hippocrates else I have no mind at all.’ down, could not have failed to describe “One of the doctors might answer, ‘My the disease, to name it, to see remedies dear friend, perhaps God has created un­ for it. The poets, as mischievous as the balanced minds as he has created balanced doctors are industrious, would have ones.’ To which might be answered, ‘If I spoken in their satires, of the clap, the believed that I would be madder than I chancre, the bubo, all the things which am now. Come, you who know so much, precede and follow this awful malady. tell me why I am mad.’ If the doctors You will find no word in Horace, in Catul­ have a little sense left, they will reply, lus, in Martial, in Juvenal, which has the ‘I do not know at all.’ In a moment of slightest relation to it, although they write lucidity, the madman might say to that, freely of all the effects of dissipation. It is ‘ Poor fellows—you who do not know the certain that the smallpox was not known cause of my trouble and cannot cure it, to the Romans till the VI century, and tremble lest you become just like me—or that the American pox was not brought perhaps worse. You are of no better stock to Europe until the end of the XV than Charles VI of France, Henry VI of century, and that leprosy is as different England, or the Emperor Venceslas, all of from both of them as it is from St. Vitus’ whom lost the faculty of reasoning in the dance. same century. Your minds are not better In 1496, the Parliament of Paris passed than those of Blaise Pascal, Jacques a decree which read that all affected with Abbadie, and Jonathan Swift, all three of the great pox who were not citizens of whom died mad. The last of these at least Paris, should leave town within twenty- founded a hospital for us. Would you four hours or be hanged. The decree was neither Christian nor legal nor reasonable; Before Harvey, practically all views had but it proves that the pox was regarded been molded on Aristotle’s theory that the as a new menace, which had nothing to male parent furnished the body of the do with leprosy, since they did not hang future embryo, while the female only nour­ lepers who slept in Paris. Men can give ished and formed the seed. leprosy to each other through dirt, but as It was argument based on the denial of for the pox, it is Nature that has made the maternal relationship that secured the this present to America. We have already acquittal of the accused in ?EschyIus’s reproached this Nature, so good and so “Furies.” Apollo defended Orestes charged bad, so clear-sighted and so blind, for with murdering his mother, Clytemnestra, having defeated its object by poisoning by saying: the source of life, and we still lament being unable to find a solution for this Not the true parent is the woman’s womb That bears the child—she doth but nurse the seed terrible difficulty.” New sown: the male is parent—she for him The societies for prophylaxis of venereal As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ diseases might turn to their profit the Of life, unless the gods its promise blight, And proof hereof before you will I set. conversation between the surgeon and his Birth may from fathers, without mothers be: questioner in “L’Homme aux quarante See at your side a witness of the same, Ecus.” The surgeon replies to the question Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus as to how syphilis may be gotten rid of: Never within the darkness of the womb Fostered, nor fashioned, but a bud more bright “There is only one way, and that is for Than any Goddess in her breast might bear. all the princes of Europe to form a league, (Trans, by Morshcad.) as in the days of Godfrey of Bouillon. A crusade against syphilis would surely be In 1677 Leeuwenhoek communicated to more sensible than those directed in old the Royal Society of London the discovery times against Saladin, Mclecsala and the which his pupil Hamen had made, by means Albigenses. It would be better to form an of the microscope, of the living spermatozoa. agreement for the purpose of stamping Leeuwenhoek believed that the moving ele­ out this enemy common to all humanity, ments of the semen might be germs which than to be always busy watching for the enter the egg and become embryos. Op­ right moment to devastate the earth and ponents to this theory called them para­ cover the fields with dead, for the purpose sites, a view which is responsible for a part of filching from one’s neighbor two or of their name. three cities or a few villages. I am speak­ It was not until after the death of Vol­ ing against my own interest, for war and taire that Spallanzani proved by ingenious the pox make my fortune.” experiments that the spermatozoa were necessary for fertilization. So Voltaire was It was inevitable that the speculation and not the only one at sea when, in 1777, he experiments on a subject like generation, devoted the ninth dialogue of Evhcmcre to which were active in his time, should have this topic. Evhcmcre represents a philoso­ excited the human Voltaire. Harvey, under pher of Syracuse, and Callicratc serves him the stimulus of his teacher, Fabricius, did as interlocutor, or “end man.” an enormous amount of work on animals along these lines, and in 1651 published his Callicrate — I have always been as­ book “ Excitationes de generationc” and, as tounded that Hippocrates, Plato and Voltaire puts it, took for his devise “ Omnium Aristotle, all of whom had children, did ab ove.” not agree as to how Nature worked this perpetual miracle. They all say that the being that the former set and the latter do two sexes cooperated in that each fur­ not. A woman is a white hen in Europe, nished some fluid; but Plato, putting and a black one in Africa. theology ahead of nature, of course, con­ Callicrate—Then the mystery is cleared siders nothing but the harmony of the up! number three, the engender, the engen­ Evhemere—Not at all. Recently all has dered, and the female in whom the been changed again. We do not come from generation takes place. That constitutes an egg after all. It seems that a Batavian a harmonious proportion for Plato, even (Leeuwenhoek) has, with the microscope, if the accoucheur fails to grasp it. Aris­ seen in the seminal fluid of men a race of totle limits himself to saying that the little beings, fully formed and running female produces the material about with great activity. Many of the embryo and the male curious men and women have determines its form. That since tried the same experi­ does not help us much. ment and become persua­ Tell me, has no one ded that the question of seen Nature at work, generation is solved. as sculptors are seen They thought they saw making figures from little men in the semen clay or from marble of their' fathers. But or from wood? unfortunately, the Evhhnere—The very activity with sculptor works in which the little men the open but Na­ swam has discredited ture in the dark. them. How could men All that we knew who ran about so ac­ up till now was that tively in a drop of liq­ the fluid is always uid be expected to re­ spent by the male main for nine months when he copulates, almost motionless m but that it is some­ their mother’s womb? times missing in women. But now a Voltaire was forced great English phys­ to leave the question icist, aided by cer­ here. tain Italians, has substituted eggs for “All theories,” he said in a letter to the two generating fluids. This great Thieriot, “as to how we come into the dissector, Harvey, is more credible from world have been overthrown. The only the fact that he has seen the blood thing that has proved changeless is the circulate; something which Hippocrates way people make love.” never saw and Aristotle never sus­ pected. He dissected over one thousand He was no slower than the rest of us, quadruped mothers who had received the for two centuries, less two years, elapsed male fluid—but when he had examined between the discovery of the spermatozoa, hen’s eggs, he conceived the idea that in 1677, and Hertwig’s (1849- ) demon­ everything originates in an egg; the differ­ stration in 1875, that fertilization is effected ence between birds and other species by the entrance of one spermatozoon into the egg and the union of its nucleus with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu combined the egg nucleus. determination with charm, but, as Voltaire In Voltaire’s time, smallpox was still a said, she wrote for all peoples who wished terrible scourge. “Of one hundred people,” to learn. In one of her letters from Constan­ he states, “at least sixty get smallpox; of tinople, she said, “ I would write our London these sixty, ten die and ten retain the doctors if I believed them big enough to marks. Thus this malady kills or disfigures sacrifice their own interest to those of one-fifth of mankind.” humanity. But I fear their resentment, if 1 Voltaire had this disease when a young should undertake to lessen the revenue that man and wrote his views as to the treatment smallpox brings them. But on returning to of it. Personal experience may have stimu­ London I shall perhaps have zeal enough to lated his interest in the subject, but, open the war.” as far as inoculation was con­ She did, and succeeded, and cerned, his interest was un­ Voltaire reports that the doc­ selfish, as he was firmly of tors instead of opposing in­ the opinion that smallpox oculation, took it up and never came twice to the were better recompensed same person. As he was by royalty for their the first continental to inoculations than they write of the new phys­ would have been had ics from England, so they brought the dead was he also the first to life. real sponsor in Europe Dr. Richard Mead, (1727) for variolation one of the wealthy for smallpox, although possessors of the Gold Dr. La Coste had com­ Headed Cane, first posed a brief note con­ practiced inoculation cerning it before any in England in 1721. writings of Voltaire’s Royalty came to the on the subject saw support of the cause, the light and although especially Queen Car­ the subject had been oline of England, a taken as an inaugural woman whom Vol­ thesis by J. B. N. taire admired im­ Boyer (1693-1768) of mensely. The Due Montpellier in 1717. La Coste probably d’Orlcans, King of Denmark, King of Swe­ received the idea from reports to the den, and Queen of Hungary all had it done Royal Society in 1714-16 by physicians in their families. who had visited Constantinople. The adop­ Catherine II, Empress of Russia, wrote tion of the practice in England was due Voltaire in 1768, saying that Dr. Thomas to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who Dimsdalc (1711-1800) of England had come learned it from the Turks and who practiced to Russia. He had inoculated 6000, with it on her children in 1718, while her hus­ only one death, and that death a child of band was Ambassador at Constantinople. three. Catherine was inoculated and had no This courageous action of hers preceded ill effects from the operation. She did not by eighty years Jenner’s transference of the go to bed and saw company every day. Dr. cow-pox from the milkmaid to James Phipps. Dimsdale made inoculations in Petersburg in schools and in specially constructed hos­ cassians are poor and their children are pitals, receiving as his fee .£10,000 down very pretty and it is with the daughters and an annuity of £500. that their chief trade lies. They supply It is interesting to note that at about the the beauties of the harems of kings and of time that inoculation, or “buying the small­ others rich enough to buy and maintain pox” as it was called, was gaining in Eng­ such valuable merchandise. They bring land, an epidemic visited Boston, for the up the girls to caress men, to dance and first time in sixteen years. The impassioned to excite, by the most voluptuous artifices, Cotton Mather, who had studied medicine the taste of the supercilious masters for for a time and who was the first American whom they are destined. Every day the elected to the Royal Society (1713), aroused little girls rehearse their lessons with their by the reports of the new method which he mothers, like children who learn the received from England, sent copies of them catechism without understanding any­ to the Boston practitioners, and Dr. Zabdiel thing about it. But smallpox would make Boylston (1679-1766) also a member of the futile all these pains. Royal Society, first introduced (as is re­ A commercial nation is always alert for corded on his tombstone in Boston), the its interests and neglects no information practice into America. Within six months which might foster its trade. The Circas­ he had inoculated 244 persons. But several sians observed that smallpox practically of his patients died and the Selectmen of Bos­ never came twice to the same person. ton, with true Puritan insight, forbade its fur­ They perceived, further, that benign ther practice, saying “that the operation smallpox leaves no mark and concluded tends to spread and continue the infection in that if a child of six months or one year a place longer than otherwise it might be.” had benign smallpox it would neither die This fact of the contagiousness of inoculated nor be pockmarked, but would be rid of smallpox was late in attracting the observa­ the disease for the rest of its life. So they tion of Europeans. Voltaire does not speak treated their children in this way. The of it. It was a feature of more importance Turks adopted this custom and it became in America than in Europe, in which latter practically universal in Turkey. Of all continent the ravages of smallpox were so those inoculated in Turkey or England, continuous and so widespread. none die, except the very feeble, none are Inoculation was probably a folk custom pockmarked, and none acquire the disease originally and was prevalent in many primi­ again.” tive people and is still practiced in certain African tribes. But Voltaire’s letter about it He reproaches Louis XV, who died of is no less interesting. smallpox, with not having profited by the examples of others and with not having “It was an immemorial custom,” he been inoculated. But this reproach is hardly says, “for Circassian women to give justified, as he states elsewhere that this smallpox to their children at the age of monarch had had the smallpox as a boy of six months, by making an incision on the fourteen. arm and by inserting in this incision a Years afterwards, in 1763, when inocula­ pustule from the body of another child. tion, though current, was meeting with The inoculated child served as source of opposition, the Parliament of Paris ordered supply of pustules for other children. that the question as to its value should be Maternal instinct and tenderness intro­ referred to the faculties of theology and duced this custom in Circassia. The Cir­ medicine. In a sarcastic pamphlet, Voltaire says, “You gentlemen, who are the best Ah, France, it was at last your fate theologians and the best physicians in To ask of England all she knew, Europe, you should issue an injunction Nor need we blush to imitate Those whom we fairly overthrew. against smallpox, just as you have against For equally in all men’s sight Aristotle’s categories, against the circulation The sun performs its daily race, of the blood, against emetics and quinine.” And Truth, impartial, sheds her light Inoculation did not become general in In every age, in every place; France until 1756, and Voltaire was an old Let us—not asking whence they come, man when he addressed the following verses Nor whose the honor and the praise— to that medical friend of his who had done Receive with joy her blessed rays, most to make the practice accepted by the And may the whole world be her home! French, and who had 20,000 successful Besides these subjects, he wrote on fistula, operations to his credit. This was Theodore which killed Richelieu. It was for fistula that Tronchin (1709-81), of Geneva, the same Louis XIV paid the son of the elder Felix one who demonstrated that the “Colica (d. 1703) in a property worth 50,000 ecus,4 Pictonum” was caused by lead used to in return for the skillful operation he per­ sweeten wine, and who was the first to formed on him. Voltaire also wrote on the show that plumbism might result from stone and on leprosy. He had the vagueness water drawn through lead pipes. The verses of view regarding gonorrhea which lasted were written on the occasion of Tronchin till the time of Ricord (1799-1899). Of gout cutting short a visit to Voltaire to go to he made the remark that “it confounds the inoculate the king’s grandsons. pretended art of medicine.” He was very A. M. Tronchin enthusiastic about the first veterinary school founded in France, in 1672, which was the Since your departure yesterday, Renewed is all my suffering, beginning of veterinary medicine in Europe. But I can bear it and be gay He wrote its founder and director, Claude Because I know you went away B. Bourgelat of Lyons (b. 1712) author of To save the grandsons of the king. “Elements de I’art Veterinaire” (Lyons, Some prejudices serve an end, 1765-69),—“You are not like those physi­ But others grow like noxious weeds; cians who without hesitation take the place To triumph over these, one needs of God and create a world with a word. You A sage, a man of valiant deeds. have opened a new career by the way of Your clever hands their aid did lend experience.” When, long ago, I told my nation (And youth, perhaps, was my excuse) In his “Century of Louis XIV,” Voltaire About inoculation. states that surgery, “the most useful of all the arts,” attained its highest supremacy in Which—thanks to you in common use— France during Louis’ reign. People flocked Was thought imagination And met with foul abuse there from everywhere to avail themselves Like Newton’s gravitation. of the skill of the surgeons and to obtain I saw the truth, but could not then the instruments which there attained the The world of that same truth convince; highest degree of perfection.5 Nor was I hailed, before or since, A prophet by my countrymen. 4 The ecu did not have a constant value, being worth between 3 and 6 livres, a livre being the “How can we,” people said, “believe equivalent of the franc. The purchasing power of Truths made in England? How suppose the franc then and now is put at 1-10. That any one can good receive 5 It was John Hunter who transferred surgical From those who are our foes?” supremacy to England. Voltaire’s varied activities with the stage, “Bibles, not Virgils,” he says, “arc found with court life, with the wise investment of in the pockets of regicides.” In illustration money, with agriculture, and with practical­ of this he cites the case of Jean Chatel, who ly all the questions of his day, left him time attempted to assassinate Henry IV. The to acquire a discriminating interest in the young man had conceived the idea from history and trend of the medical art, to fix Jesuit priests that he was damned. He his belief in its ideals and to make him wanted to die, and contemplated a bestial jealous of its good name. But the fact that crime in public, with the idea that he would his writings on medical subjects represent be killed at once. He changed this plan to so very small a portion of his works, makes that of assassinating the king, and stabbed surprising the accuracy of his knowledge of him in the mouth. The Protestant d’Aubigne medical subjects, his free and correct use of wrote to Henry IV about this, saying, “You medical terms, including those of have denied God with your mouth anatomy, and his perception of and he has struck your mouth; medicine’s final promise. take care that you never deny It would be interesting him with your heart.” to know whether his ob­ As to capital punish­ servations and criticisms ment, Voltaire asks if it is covering the theories of reasonable to suppose Newton and Descar­ that men can be taught tes, his views of Locke to hate homicide when and Spinoza and Hcl- the magistrates arc vetius and other phi­ homicides themselves losophers, his state­ and kill a man with ments in history, his a great show. Should opinions on law and not the criminal make on bees and lawyers good the damage he and actors and au­ has done his country thors and dancers by working for it— came as near to the death makes nothing truth as his medical good.” opinions. He is said To-day the great to have failed to ap­ problem in education preciate Shakespeare; is that of selection, but he seems to have the organization of the had a good line on Aristotle, and I for one am means to find out the faculties of the inclined to accord him the compliment of individual and to adapt education to the believing that he was right oftener than perfecting them. We find Voltaire realizing most men from the very fact that he was this already and saying that education in so often right in matters I happen to know colleges and convents is bad, for the reason about, but which were side issues to him. that there the same things are taught to a His views of crime and punishment have hundred pupils, all with different talents; not been improved much since his day. and he makes Candide say, at the end of “Whoever gives himself a master,” he says, his varied and exciting experiences, that the “was born to have one.” He saw dementia thing for each one to do is, after all, to in all great crimes, and notes the religious cultivate his own garden. fanaticism associated with so many of them. Regarding the importance of youthful impressions in forming character, he puts Guibcrt, which was used by the French in the mouth of Zaire, the Christian captive ollicers in this country during our Revolu­ in Jerusalem, reared in ignorance of her tion, and which was later highly prized by faith and country, and beloved by the Napoleon, he wrote: Mohammedan ruler of the region: Fevers, gout and catarrh and a hundred worse ills With a hundred learned charlatans working their ------the love that encircles and nurtures our youth wills— Molds our feelings and conduct and grasp of the You might think the world evil enough as things are, truth. Without man’s inventing the great art of war.6 A slave to false gods, I had been as sincere As a Christian; in Paris; or Mussulman here. But feeling in this way did not prevent The hands of our parents, their training, tho’ brief, him from realizing that “the nation best Engrave in our heart every early belief provided with steel will always Which example and custom so often subjugate the one which has retrace more gold and less courage.” And which, it may be, only God can efface. 11,560. Dr. John Moore, a prac­ titioner of London, whose In Chariot he brings letters about his travels out the Socratic doc­ gained him some liter­ trine, overthrown by ary reputation, while Aristotle and revived tutor of the young in our days by Freud, Duke of Hamilton that knowledge and visited Voltaire at virtue are the same Ferney in the last thing. Le Marquis, year of Voltaire’s life an overbearing and (1778). He has left a spoiled young man, lively picture which excuses himself to his seems to have escaped mother by saying: the great French­ “ Jesuis fort naturel,” man’s English biog­ to which his mother, raphers. the countess, replies: “Thisskeleton,” he writes, “has a keener Oui, mais soyez and brighter glance aimable— Cette pure nature est fort of the eye than any insupportable. human being, with Vos pareils sont polis; pour quoi? e’est qu’ils ont eu the vigor of maturity and all the advan­ Cette education qui tient lieu de vertu; tages of the most bubbling youth. In his Leur ame en est empreinte; et si cet avantage face may be read his genius, his pene­ N’est pas la vertu meme, il est sa noble image tration, and his extreme sensibility. He Dompter cette humour brusque, ou le penchant vous maintains a systematic correspondence livre, with the whole of Europe, and from it he Pour vivre heureux, mon fils, que faut il? gets the news of all noteworthy events and Savoir vivre. all literary productions as soon as they A balance runs through his opinions which appear. The greater part of his time he is truly remarkable for a man who took such 6 For this and the preceding renditions of the personal prejudices as he did. He hated war, French into English verse the writer is indebted to and relative to a hand-book of tactics by Mrs. Alice Duer Miller. spends in his study, reading or being read constructive mental energy. It would be to, and always with his pen in his hand with hard to find a more exacting test of intellect which to make notes or comments.” and courage than that—than to contemplate He must have passed his whole life in the correctly the verities, and still show undis­ way Dr. John Moore describes his last days. mayed the feelings and actions of an opti­ With a pen in his hand and with his mist. To stand such a test re­ mind turning from his immediate quires, in addition to the purely surroundings to rove to the intellectual critical qualities, uttermost parts of the earth, the kind of understanding keen for material and crit­ of humanity which is in­ ical for the drawing of far- separable from the love reaching conclusions. of it. Every fact, familiar or Medicine, as well alien, served him for as other branches of thinking. When Wil­ learning, owes its liam Cheselden (1688- chief debt to men like 1752), the English Voltaire, who were at surgeon, and physi­ once brave, knowing cian to Sir Isaac New­ and humble. Voltaire ton, made an artifi­ used to say that his cial pupil on a patient desire was to try and congenitally blind, sow broadcast what thereby supplying he perceived so clear­ him with vision, Vol­ ly himself. He com­ taire was greatly ex­ plained that the fields cited at the discovery were ungrateful, not that it took the pa­ realizing, perhaps, tient some time to that only men of liber acquire the idea of like his own can grasp distance. Apropos of this, he said, “It is truth firmly and hold it. Judged by the impossible to be unhappy through the events which have had a bearing on the deprivation of things of which one has no conclusions that he drew, he made sing­ idea.” ularly few errors in principle. He seems He possessed, perhaps better than any to have illustrated his own saying: one, the capacity to look things in the face and, in spite of what he saw there, to main­ Le gout conduit pour Ie genie ne fait tain with humility the high level of his jamais de fautes grossieres.