42Oirn £T Bterra. ' This Is Death I Send Directly for Halford'; and the King Expired in the Act of Making a Friendly Inclination of the SOME ROYAL DEATH-BEDS
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JULY I, NOVA ET VETERA. [ THE BRITISH I9II.] LIMEDICAL JOURNAL 29 Saturday, June 26th, 1830, and more suddenly than was expected. Feeling a sudden thrill of pain he exclaimed, 42oirn £t Bterra. ' This is death I send directly for Halford'; and the King expired in the act of making a friendly inclination of the SOME ROYAL DEATH-BEDS. head to Sir Henry on his entering the apartment." In the History of t7te Foutr Georges and WVilliam IV., by (Continuiiea fromt vol. i, 1911, page 1436.) Justin McCartlhy and Justin Huntly McCarthy,3 it is saidl GEORGE IV. that the royal physicians " kept issuing bulletins, but they GEORGE IV was born in 1762. In 1811 lhe becam3 Prince were so vague in their terms that it is impossible to believe Regent owing to the insanity of his father, George III, they were not made puLrposely deceptive." George IV. lhad and in 1820, on the deatlh of that sovereign, he ascended the same nervous objectioni to any admiiission by himself or the throne. A life of dissipation wrecked a naturally fine on his behalf of there being any ground for alarm as to thIe constitution, and from 1810 to the time of Iiis deatlh state of his lhealth that has been manifested by so maniy of Sir Henry Halford was in regular, almost daily, attendance h-is family. The public was still kept in doubt as to the upon himi. His dependence on his physiciani is illustrated truth till on May 24th a message was sent in the Kinlg's by the following lines, qutoted in Munk's Life of Sir Henry name to both Houses of Parliament to the effect that the King Halford. The author is said to be Henry Luttrell. no longer found it convenient to sign State papers witlh hiis The Regenit, sir, is taken ill, own hand. For some time no one buit Knightoni lhad been And all depenids on Halford's skill. able to induce himi even to sign the necessary documlients of "Pray what," inquired that sage ph-sician, State. He lay all day in bed and passed his nights in "Has brought him to this sad condition?" restless wakefulness. He kept his room at a high tem- When Bloomfield ventured to pronounce, perature and drank excessive quantities of cherry brandly. " A little too much Cherry Bounce." By February of 1830 lhe had become partially blind, and The Regent, hearing what was said, his singular delusions, such as that lhe bad commanded a Raised from his couch his achinig head, And cried, " No, Halford, 'tis niot so- division at Waterloo and ridden a winning race at G`ood- Cure us, 0 Doctor-Curaqoa." wood, became stronger. On April 12th lie drove out for the last time. Those about him knew, though he did iot, Among other doctors who attended the King occasion- that he was sinking. In May the Duke of Wellington ally were Sir Walter Farquihar, Sir Gilbert Blane, Sir caused the Bislhop of Winchester to attend on him to Williani Knighton, Sir Matthew Tierney, and Dr. H. H. prepare him for his end. Though Knighton thought he Southey. Tierney was the one most frequently associated might rally, Halford and Tierney lhad given h-im-- over. with Halford. A day or two after George IV's accession The rupture of a blood vessel proved to have been the to the throne lie was struck down with an acute illness. immediate cause of death, but ossification of some of the He had an attack of pneuinonia, which ran :a normal vessels near the heart had begun years before, and a com- course; he was not sufficiently well to attend the funeral plication of disorders had graduLally developed. At tlhe of his father on February 15th, 1820. time of hlis death George IV was in his 68th year. The following letter from George IV to Sir William Justin McCarthy4 relates the followinig curious story: shows the bacl state of his health in 1827: 1 Knighton Shortly before his death, George made an earnest request to Royal Lodge, June 18th, 1827. the Duke of Wellingtoin, who was in coiistanit attendamice, that A$ to myself, I am pretty well bodily; but I have little or no he should be buried in the night-shirt which he was wearing a;t Ise of my poor limbs, for I cani nieither walk uip nor down the time. The Duke was somewhat surprised at this request, stairs,- and am obliged to be carried, and iil general to be for . the garment in question did not seem likely to com- whleeled about everywhere; for my powers of walking, and mend itself as a shroud even to a sovereign less particular as to eveni of crawliing about with crutches, or with the aid of a costume than George the Fourth had been. During his later strong stick, are not in the smallest respect improved since- you years, however, as we learn from the testimony of Wellingtoni last saw me,-at the same time that my knees, legs, ankles, and himself, the King . had got into the way of sleeping in feet swell more formidably and terribly than ever. This, I am uncleanly niglht-shirts, anid particularly dirty nlight-caps. When sure you will agree with me, ought now to be seriously attended the King was dead, Wellington noticed that there was a red to without delay by some plan devised and steadily acted upon, silk ribbon round his neck beneath his shirt. The ribboni was in order to stop the further progress, and to remedy it effectually found to have attached to it a locket containing a tiny portrait anId( finally; for there is no question there is an increasinig and of Mrs. Fitzherbert. )rogressive evil (at least so I fear), unless steps be found, and thlat speedily too, of averting it. The physicians who had been in attendance on the King were sharply criticized in some of the public prints for the The following account of his death is taken from Munk: 2 bulletins they had issued, which, it was contended, were " During the whole ten years of the king's reign his calculated, even if they were not intended, to mislead. Majesty's health was a subject of anxiety to his physicians, Sir Henry Halford took an early opportLnity of refuting and especially to Sir Henry Halford, to whomii exclusively the imputation and justifying himself and his colleagues in all ordinary circumstances the king was pleased to for their part on that occasion. At the same time he entrust the medical charge of himself. It was generally considered generally the duty and conduct of the physician known that his Majesty's health had been in an unsatis- towards a patient suffering from mortal disease. The sub- factory state for a considerable period, but as it did not ject of medical bulletins has, at various times, exercised render confinement necessary, it did not excite alarm until the mind of the profession. The question of the informiia- diirections were given in consequence of the increase of the tion which the doctor should give a patient as -to hiis inalady, to countermand the preparations for the festivities condition has also frequently been discussed. It may not, with whichl the royal birthday was to have been celebrated therefore, be out of place to quote at length the opinions on at Court in April. It had been known for some time by both these matters expressed by a man of such large expe- the physicians that the king had disease of the heart, rience and such sagacity as Halford. In an essay " On tho which could have no other than a fatal termination, and Influence of Some Diseases of the Body on the Mind," its course, which was very similar to that of the Duke of which he read at one of the evening meetings of the College York, was foreseen and anticipated. The first bulletin was of Physicians in February, 1831, he said: issued on the 15th of April, and announced that his " You will forgive me perhaps if I presume to state what Majesty was suffering under a bilious attack, accompanied appears to me to be the conduct proper to be observed by a by embarrassment of breatlhing. The symptoms varied a physician, in withholding or making his patient acquainted good deal from time to time, his Majesty enjoying temn- with his opinion of the probable issue of a malady mani- porary intervals of comparative ease, but they were not festing mortal symptoms. I own, I think it my first duty giving way, and brought with them suclh bodily debility as to protect his life by all practicable means, and to inter- rendered even the slightest personal exertion painful. pose myself between him and everything which may Additional symptoms which manifested a breaking-up of possibly aggravate his danger.5 the constitution, and foremost among these, dropsy, began "And, unless I shall have found him averse from doing to show themselves, and after a time puncturing of the what was necessary in aid of my remedies, from a want of legs was had recourse to, and gave temporary relief. The aVol. iv, p. 119. king suffered, too, from violent attacks of coughing, so 4,op. Cit. severe that on more occasions than one deathliappeared to 5 "At hoc ne holiiines proobi faciunt, ut amicis i ernende4ties calaPi- be-i-mminent. The king died early in the of tates praedicant, quas' mlii effu'getu nrullb niddo possihtt: et fedici, ii6rning quamquarn intelligunt saepe, tamen nunquafi aegris dictilt illo 6or)1O Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, London, 1838, vol.