ROBERT BURNS, HIS MEDICAL FRIENDS, ATTENDANTS AND BIOGRAPHER*

By H. B. ANDERSON, M.D.

TORONTO

NE hundred and twenty-seven untimely death was a mystery for which fl years have elapsed since Dr. James some explanation had to be proffered. I Currie, f .r .s ., of Liverpool, pub- Two incidents, however, discredit Syme Iished the first and greatest biog- as a dependable witness: the sword incident, raphy of Robert Burns. on the occasion of his reproving the poet Dr. Currie had met the poet but once and regarding his habits, of which there are then only for a few minutes in the streets several conflicting accounts, and his apoc- of Dumfries, so that he was entirely depend- ryphal version of the circumstances under ent on others for the information on which which “Scots Wha Hae” was produced he based his opinions of the character and during the Galloway tour. In regard to the habits of Burns. A few days after Burns’ latter incident, the letter Burns wrote death he wrote to John Syme, “Stamp-office Thomson in forwarding the poem effectually Johnnie,” an old college friend then living disposes of Syme’s fabrication. in Dumfries: “ By what I have heard, he was As Burns’ biographer, Dr. Currie is known not very correct in his conduct, and a report to have been actuated by admiration, goes about that he died of the effects of friendship, and the benevolent purpose of habitual drinking.” But doubting the truth- helping to provide for the widow and family; fulness of the current gossip, he asks Syme and it is quite evident that he was willing, pointedly “What did Burns die of?” It is if not anxious, to undertake the task. He was easily seen why he should have gone to Syme especially concerned that Burns’ good for information as Burns had lived for a friend, Mrs. Riddel of Woodley Park, time over the stamp office and it was known should not be chosen. Therefore, the opin- that he and Syme were intimate. Syme, ions to which Currie gave currency in the therefore, above all others is responsible for biography, were no doubt received with the opinions which Currie afterwards sorrowful acquiescence by many who would expressed as to Burns’ habits; and when the have disputed them, had they emanated biography was published, it was to Syme from a less friendly source. that Currie wrote for reassurance that he Subsequent writers have depended largely had done justice to his subject. It is difficult upon the material in the way of manu- to discern the reason for Syme’s attitude, scripts, letters, and information furnished but apparently the cause of the poet’s by the poet’s family, friends, Masonic *An address delivered to The Toronto Burns’ Society, November, 1926. I had promised to address the Toronto Burns’ Society on the subject some years ago, but delayed until my return from an anticipated visit to Scotland in 1925, during which I visited places associated with Burns’ life. On my return I noticed in the Manchester Guardian the review of a volume by Sir Crichton Browne, who had investigated the sources of information, and, following a process of reasoning similar to my own, concluded as I had, that Burns died of rheumatism and heart disease, and not from alcoholism. In a letter from the Rev. Wm. Muir Auld, d .d . of Cleveland, he recalls our conversations on the subject about 1920-1921, when he urged me to publish my investigations: “Otherwise, you may have the mortification of having to quote another.’’ Rev. Dr. Auld is related to the family of the Rev. Wm. Auld of Mauchline, who figures in “The Kirk’s Alarm” and others of Burns’ satirical poems, and is himself a well-known student of Burnsiana. brethren and correspondents (along with plete Works of Burns” one was surprised at not a little gossip and tittle-tattle of the numerous references in the poet’s cor- residents of Dumfries and other casual respondence, to his health at various periods acquaintances), placed at Currie’s disposal, of his life. These, collected and pieced and have thereby been influenced in accept- together, furnish a clinical record leading ing his conclusions. However, there has to the inevitable conclusion that Dr. Cur- been a gradual accumulation of information rie’s opinions were based on insufficient and criticism, pointing out inaccuracies and and unreliable information and that Burns statements disputed by reliable witnesses, died from rheumatism and heart disease. leading to a growing conviction that Dr. Burns was born January twenty-fifth, Currie unwittingly, but nevertheless grossly, 1759, the eldest of the seven children of William Burness and Janet Brown, honest, thoughtful, religious Scottish peasantry. The roof of the “auld clay biggin,” built by his father, was blown off a few nights after he was born and he himself was carried through the storm to a neighbour’s house, a fitting prelude to the eventful drama of which the closing scene was in the small house in the Mill Vennell, Dumfries, thirty-seven years later. The medical profession figures much less prominently in Burns’ writings than that of either law or divinity. Neither were his social intimacies as frequent and close with the doctors as with the lawyers and the clergy. In the convivial gatherings of which he wrote with poetic coloring: I’ve been at drunken writers’ feasts, misrepresented the habits and character of Nay, been bitch-fou ’mang godly priests’ the Scottish poet. the representatives of medicine were con- Many who have pondered on the activi- spicuous by their absence. It was the ties and read the poems and letters of lawyers and “new Iicht” ministers who Burns find it difficult to believe that these enlisted the inspired ploughboy in the are consistent with a life of drunkenness controversy that was then dividing the and debauchery; or that his early death is more liberal from the rigidly orthodox satisfactorily explained by alcoholism. The members of the Kirk in the West of Scot- question therefore naturally arises: If Burns land. While his onslaught on the “auld did not die from alcoholic excess, what was Iicht” with the keen satire and unanswer- the real cause which lead to the death, at able humor of the “Kirk’s Alarm,” “Holy thirty-seven years of age, of a man of his Willie’s Prayer,” “The Holy Fair,” and the physical strength and vigor? A positive “Twa Herds” spread the name and height- denial must be based on convincing data, ened the fame of the poet and set the establishing an intelligent diagnosis. This countryside roaring, the author unfor- was the problem which presented itself to tunately inspired fear and wrath in the me many years ago and led me to consider minds of a numerous and respected part of the sources of information, if such might be the community, which pursued him through- traced, which would afford an answer. out his eventful career and added immeasur- On reading Allan Cunningham’s “Com- ably to his troubles. When the fighting spirit was aroused he fessor Dugald Stewart, Professor of Philoso- might boast: phy in Edinburgh University, who invited The mair they talk I’m kenned the better, him to dinner in company with Lord Daer, E’en let them clash, Lord Selkirk’s son and heir, an event which yet in an opposite mood of extreme melan- he celebrated as that “ne’er to be forgotten choly and regret, which was so common with day.” him, he uttered the prayer: A more distinguished medical friend was Dr. John Moore, a Scotsman who had If I have wandered in those paths settled in London, the father of Sir John Of life I ought to shun, Moore, the hero of Corunna. At the instance As something loudly in my breast Remonstrates I have done. . . . of Mrs. Dunlop, the earliest patroness of

Where with intention I have erred No other plea I have; But Thou are good and Goodness still Delighteth to forgive. Burns may have suffered at times from wrong opinion, unwarranted criticism, ill advice and misrepresentation on the part of some of his medical friends, but it was certainly from no lack of loyalty or appre- ciation of his genius. The most democratic of the professions, in intimate contact with all classes of the community, good and bad, doctors are perhaps the most tolerant of human frailties since they can often trace them to hereditary, environmental, or phys- ical causes. Burns was at Irvine learning flax dressing in 1781, a rustic celebrity of twenty-two years known only to his companions and a Burns, Dr. Moore entered into correspond- few others as a rhymer, and there he made ence with him during the Ellisland period. his first medical acquaintance, Dr. Hamil- Moore, who was prominent in literary ton, who assisted him in the publication of circles at this time, became an admirer, the first edition of his poems at Kilmarnock, and advised him to familiarize himself five years later. with the classic mythology and the history When his father, harassed by the mis- of France and Britain, and otherwise fortunes of his farming venture at Lochlea, assumed the role of critic and mentor. He was dying of consumption, the medical urged him to abandon the provincial dialect attendant was that excellent man and and write in English; but happily the physician, Dr. John Mackenzie of Mauch- independent spirit and good sense of the line, who afterwards described so sympa- poet prevented a transition so inadvisable. thetically the Burns’ family circle. Attracted It was to Moore that Burns wrote the by the magnetic personality, and quickly autobiographical letter later so extensively perceiving the genius of the poet, he became used by his biographers. The correspondents his lifelong friend. never met. The family removed to the farm of On his second visit to Edinburgh, having Mossgiel, near Mauchlinc, in 1784, and sprained his knee in August, 1787, Burns was Dr. MacKcnzie introduced Burns to Pro- attended by Dr. James Gregory, successor to Cullen as Professor of Medicine, and the Prince Charlie in ’45. Maxwell was a medical most eminent physician of his day in Edin- student in Paris at the time of the execution burgh. He was the author of “Conspectus of Louis xvi. Both Burns and Maxwell were Medicinae Theoreticae” (though he is now under suspicion of sympathy with the best known by the rhubarb powder which French Revolution and Burns feared he bears his name). The first, or Latin, edition would lose his post in the Excise; but when of the Conspectus appeared in 1789, and the war broke out between Britain and altogether ten editions in Latin and English France in 1793, he joined the Dumfries were published. Gregory was learned, able, Volunteers and further showed his patriot- and popular, though somewhat irascible. He ism in the stirring poem: was a literary critic and commended the Does haughty Gaul invasion threat? Then let the loons beware, Sir; There’s wooden walls upon our shore, And volunteers ashore, Sir. The Nith shall run to Corsinson The Criffel sink in Solway, Ere we permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally, etc. It was to Maxwell he addressed the well- known quatrain on the recovery of Miss Jessie Staig, the Doctor’s patient: Maxwell, if honour here you crave, That merit I deny, You save fair Jessie from the grave! An angel could not die. Maxwell attended Burns in his last ill- ness. With Syme and McMurdo he enlisted the services of his colleague, Dr. James Currie, and furnished him with information poems of Mrs. John Hunter to Burns. Greg- regarding the poet’s illness and death. He ory criticized especially “The Wounded also helped to collect the material for the Hare,” and Burns exclaimed “Dr. Gregory “Life of Burns” which Currie, after four is a good man, but he crucifies me.” years’ hard work, published in four volumes Dr. Alexander Wood, “lang Sandy Wood, in 1800, and by which £1500 was raised one of the best hearted of men,” was the sur- for the support of the widow and family. gical consultant with Gregory. It was he who Maxwell therefore shares with Syme the urged Burns to write the “Elegy on the responsibility for the misinformation given Death of Lord President Dundas,” and to Currie. personally delivered the poem and accom- Dr. James Currie (1756-1805) was him- panying letter to his Lordship’s son. Burns self a literary man of repute, a Scotsman, was incensed by the latter’s apparent lack who had settled in Liverpool and acquired of appreciation and attention: “He took a distinguished place in his profession. As a no more notice of my poem or me than I physician he is best known for having had been a strutting peddler.” It was Wood introduced the clinical thermometer into who successfully recommended the poet practice and the use of cold baths in the for an appointment in the Excise. treatment of fever. A Liberal, an advocate When Burns left Ellisland, to live in Dum- of the abolition of slavery, and an ardent fries, he made the acquaintance of Dr. Wil- temperance reformer, he died of tuberculosis liam Maxwell, whose father had been out with and heart disease. The latter was due to a severe attack of rheumatism from which he ideas of imagination, alter the effect of the suffered while a student in Edinburgh. external impression which we receive. His “Life of Burns,” though with all kind- Opium is chiefly employed for this purpose liness of intention and the best of motives, by the disciples of Mahammed and the has unfortunately been the basis of all sub- inhabitants of Asia; but alcohol, the prin- sequent writings which have attributed the ciple of intoxication in vinous and spiritous poet’s early death to drunken^ss and liquors, is preferred in Europe and is debauchery. universally used in the Christian world.” Currie states that “though by nature of That he was an extremist is evident. an athletic temperament, Burns had in his “There are a great number of other sub- constitution the peculiarities and the delica- stances which may be considered under this cies that belong to the temperament of the genius. He was liable from a very early period of life to that interruption in the proc- ess of digestion which arises from deep and anxious thought. Connected with this disorder of the stomach there was a disposi- tion to headache, more especially about the temples and eyeballs and frequently accom- panied by violent and irregular movements of the heart.” He then traces the gradual decline in the poet’s health: “Perpetually stimulated by alcohol in one or other of its various forms, the inordinate actions of the circulating system became at length habi- tual . . . and the powers of life began to fail.” This circulatory disturbance referred to by Currie is certainly not symptomatic of alcoholism, but is readily explained as a sequel to rheumatism. “Upwards of a year point of view. Tobacco, tea and coffee are of preceding his death his temper became more the number . . . and an enquiry into the irritable and gloomy, and he fled from him- particular effects of each on the health, self into society of the lowest kind,” and morals and happiness of those who use them concludes “He who suffers the pollution of would be curious and useful.” inebriation, how shall he escape other It is not my purpose to picture Burns as a pollution?” These uncharitable and unwar- model of sobriety or to state that he was not, ranted insinuations are contradicted by as was the custom of the times in which he fellow citizens of Burns’ who were in fre- lived, given to occasional excesses. He quent and intimate contact with the poet frequented convivial gatherings and cele- during the period to which Currie has refer- brated these occasions in verse; he extolled ence. Apparently the statements, in so far as the virtues of alcohol in some of his poems, they are not mere assumption, were based and with poetic license undoubtedly exag- on the misinformation of those who failed gerated his own excesses. These follies entirely to recognize the nature of Burns’ represented the exuberance of an ardent disease, or on the idle gossip of busybodies. spirit; but we have the testimony of inti- Currie refers to the tendency on the part mate acquaintances, fellow citizens of Dum- of men of genius to indulge in narcotic fries, and other men of unimpeachable excesses, which “acting on the system of character, which should acquit him of the nerves so as to give a fictitious gaiety to the charge of habitual drunkenness that destroyed his health and led to his early father, who ordered him out of the house death. when he visited her after the birth of the Rev. James Grey, minister in Dumfries twins. He was threatened with the law, at the time, says “The truth is, Burns was and his passage was actually taken for seldom intoxicated;” Mr. Alexander Find- Jamaica. Burns had boasted of toasting the later, his superior officer in the Excise, Scottish members of Parliament at “Auld who saw Burns frequently during the Nanse Tinnock’s nine times a week.)” She Ellisland and Dumfries periods and who was exclaimed “The lad hardly ever drank three with him the night he died, states emphati- half-mutchkins under my roof in his life.” cally “I never beheld anything like the It is difficult to believe that a man who gross enormities with which he is now rode thirty or forty miles daily as a gauger, of whose work in the Excise no complaint was ever made; who superintended his farm, watched over the education of his children, interested himself in libraries, kept up a large correspondence, collected, rewrote or composed some two hundred and sixty songs with accompanying letters, the last less than a fortnight before his death, was debased and dying from alcoholism. “Tam O’Shanter,” “To Mary in Heaven,” “Scots Wha Hae,” and the “ Banks of Devon ” show no evidence of having been written by a habitual drunkard and they were all com- posed at that period when bad habits were said to be undermining his health. The pride, spirit, and patriotism of this alleged drunkard were such that he indignantly refused to accept payment from Johnson for the immortal lyrics he was writing or adapting for “The Museum,” even though charged;” and Dr. Copland Hutchison he was in financial distress. is reported by Allan Cunningham: “I lived Through his own letters, his brother in Dumfries during the whole period that Gilbert, Professor Dugald Stewart, Rev. Burns lived there. I was much about and Dr. Hugh Blair, John Richmond, Professor saw him daily, but I never saw him even Walker, Mrs. Riddel, Burns’ wife and the worse for liquor. He might drink as much servants and others, his life and habits at Mt. as other men but certainly not more.” Oliphant, Lochlea, Mossgiel and Mauchline, Even Cunningham says “Burns was no Edinburgh, Ellisland and the final years at tippler; he loved the excitement of company Dumfries can be traced, and the testimony and to see the bottle circulate to others as is against the doleful verdict of Currie. well as to himself.” Robert and Gilbert Burns had each an Nanse Tinnock, “Poosie Nansie,” the allowance of only seven pounds a year when hostess of the Mauchline Howff, famed as on the farms of Lochlea and Mossgiel, a the scene of “The Jolly Beggars,” adds her modest sum for riotous living! testimony regarding Burns’ habits when he A feeling of resentment toward those who was under great strain and temptation. (He gave to the world an erroneous impression of was deserted for a time by Jean Armour; Burns is evident in a letter of Mrs. Basil the marriage lines were burned by her Montagu, dated the twenty-fifth of Febru- ary, 1843, which she takes Cunningham that growing pains, tonsillitis, chorea and to task for publishing “all the idle and dis- infected teeth have been recognized as very jointed chat which he could pick up about frequently the cause of heart disease, espe- Robert Burns’ and associating her name cially in childhood. Clinical thermometers with it.” She adds, “ I never once saw Burns were not commonly in use at that time, so intoxicated, though the worthy member for that slight febrile reactions were readily Dumfries, and the good Laird of Arbigland overlooked. As the discovery of the stetho- and twenty more that might be named, scope by Lacnncc was not until 1818, this were much more tipsy than Tam O’Shanter valuable diagnostic instrument was not then . . . I have told him more than twenty available. times that Burns always left a dinner party, The poet’s brother, Gilbert, supplies if there were women, for the drawing-room long before any other man joined them . . . Poor Burns, misfortune pursues thee even to the grave! So it is with almost all great men; reverence keeps silent all who loved them and traducers take up the theme.” With what prescience this wonderful genius anticipated future events in his letter to Mrs. Dunlop from Edinburgh in 1787; When proud Fortune’s ebbing tide recedes you will bear me witness that, when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxi- cated with the inebriating cup in my hand, look- ing forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of calumny should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph. The ever present fear was again expressed to Mrs. Riddel, a few days before his death, of the time “when no dread of his resent- suggestive information regarding the begin- ment would restrain them nor prevent ning of his illness: “My brother at the age malice or envy from pouring forth their of thirteen assisted in the threshing of the venom to blast his fame.” crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal A critical review of trustworthy informa- laborer on the farm for we had no hired tion fortunately furnishes a medical history servants, male or female. The anguish of of the long illness that led to his death at mind we felt at our tender years under these thirty-seven years of age, which to my straits and difficulties was very great .... mind shows conclusively that it was rheu- At this time [Mt. Oliphant, 1774], he was matism and endocarditis which, with almost almost constantly afflicted in the evening equal certainty, had its inception in with a dull headache, which at a future his childhood. period of his life was to be exchanged for a In extenuation of the mistaken diagnosis palpitation of the heart and a threatening of Currie and Maxwell, it should be remem- of fainting and suffocation in the night bered that the relationship of rheumatism time.” to heart disease was not widely known at Burns evidently had another serious ill- that time, as this was first established by ness when he was engaged in the labor of Matthew Baillie in 1786. Further, it is only flax dressing at Irvine in 1781. He wrote to within the past twenty-five or thirty years his father: My health is nearly the same as when you “I am taken extremely ill with strong were here only my sleep is a little sounder, and feverish symptoms . . . embittering re- on the whole I am rather better than otherwise morse scares my fancy at the gloomy fore- though I mend by very slow degrees. The weak- bodings of death.” ness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind A letter which Burns wrote to Dr. Moore that I dare neither review past wants nor look from Mauchline, August second, 1787, forward into futurity, for the least anxiety or is of especial interest: “I am here under the perturbation in my breast produces the most unhappy effect on my whole frame ... I am care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb quite transported at the thought that ere long, extended on a cushion: a drunken coachman perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu was the cause. I got my fall on Saturday to all the pains and uneasiness and disquietude and I am getting slowly better,” etc. Three of this weary life for I assure you I am heartily months and a half later he wrote from tired of it; and if I do not very much deceive Edinburgh to Miss Chalmers: “For the myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. first time, yesterday I crossed the room on In his Common Place Book under date of crutches.” August, 1784, Burns has an entry: “When January twentieth, 1788, he wrote fainting fits and other alarming symptoms Clarinda of “an old indisposition accom- of a pleurisy or some other dangerous dis- panied by much to make me good for order, which indeed still threatens me, first nothing, so that I can scarcely hold up my put nature on the alarm.” He then wrote head.” “The Prayer in Prospect of Death.” January twenty-first, 1788, he wrote from Edinburgh to Mrs. Dunlop: “After six O Thou, unknown almighty cause of all my hopes weeks’ confinement I am beginning to walk ancl fear, across the room. They have been six In whose dread presence ere an hour, perhaps I may appear, etc. horrible weeks, anguish and low spirits make me unfit to read, write or think.” John Richmond, with whom Burns lived In a letter to Rev. John Skinner from at Mrs. Carfrae’s in Baxter’s Close on his Edinburgh, February fourteenth, 1788, he first Edinburgh visit in 1786, says that “the writes: “I have been a cripple now near poet was so knocked up by his walk from three months, though I am getting vastly Mauchline to Edinburgh, that he could not better” . . . He refers to the illness leave his room for the next two days.” following the injury to his knee, for which Prof. Dugald Stewart, in writing to Dr. he was treated by Dr. Gregory and Dr. Currie of Burns’ first winter in Edinburgh Wood, and the expression, as we know, is states: one commonly used by persons suffering He told me indeed himself that the weakness from rheumatism. How unfortunate Gregory of his stomach was such as to deprive him of and Wood left no account of this illness! any merit of his temperance. I was, however, He wrote to Mr. Cruickshank from somewhat alarmed . . . when he confessed to Mauchline, March third, 1788: “My me the first night he spent in my house . . . unlucky knee is rather worse and I fear for that he had been much disturbed in bed by a some time will scarcely stand the fatigue palpitation of his heart, which he said was a of my Excise instructions.” complaint to which he had of late become His despondency and anticipation of subject. death are evident again in a letter to Mr. On the border tour with Ainslie, May, Robert Muir, Kilmarnock, March seventh, 1787,* there is an entry in his journal: 1788: “If we lie down in the grave, the * It is well known that many of the dates attached whole man a piece of broken machinery, be to Burns’ letters are only approximate, having been it so: at least there is an end of pain, woes added by Dr. Currie. and wants.” Writing Richard Brown from Glasgow, Our neighbour’s sympathy may ease us March twenty-sixth, 1788, he said: “Watch- Wi’ pitying moan; ing, fatigue, and a load of care almost But thee, thou hell of all diseases Aye mocks our groan. too heavy for my shoulders have in some degree actually fevered me.” He wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, September April twenty-eighth, 1788, he wrote to thirteenth, 1789: “I am groaning under the Mrs. Dunlop from Ellisland: “I have slept miseries of a diseased nervous system. What in an apartment in which the force of the is man? Today in the luxuriance of health, winds and rains were only mitigated by exulting in the enjoyment of existence; in a being sifted through the numberless aper- few days, perhaps a few hours, loaded with tures in the windows and walls. In conse- conscious, painful being, counting the tardy quence, I was Sunday, Monday and part of pace of the lingering moments by the Tuesday, unable to stir out of bed with all re-percussions of anguish.” the miserable effects of a violent cold.” At this time he had serious financial This was during the building of his house at worries: “With the task of the superlatively Ellisland when he slept in it before it was damned to make one guinea do the business finished. of three.” August, 1788, he wrote another letter to February twentieth, 1790, to Clarinda: Cruickshank from Ellisland; “I fear my “I have been ill the whole winter, incessant knee will never be entirely well, and an headache, depression of spirits and deranged unlucky fall this winter has made it still nervous system.” worse.” The trouble with his knee therefore In October, 1791, Burns left Ellisland to lasted more than a year. Evidently the live in the cramped quarters of the Wee injury to the knee localized the rheumatism Vennel in Dumfries. He apparently had in that joint, whence it spread to other better health for the next three or four parts of the body. years, at least there is no further reference Another phase of his illness is referred to to ill health until the end of 1793, when he in a letter to William Creech from Ellisland, wrote to Lady Glencairn of the “cheerless May thirtieth, 1789: “I had intended trou- gloom and sinking despondency of diseased bling you with another long letter, but at nerves,” etc. present the delightful sensations of an omnip- February, 1794, he wrote to Cunningham: otent toothache so engrosses all my inner “ For these two months I have not been able man as to put out of my power even to to lift my pen. My constitution and frame write nonsense . . . Fifty troops of infernal were ab origine blasted with a deep taint of spirits are driving post from ear to ear along hypochondria which poisons my existence. my jaw bones.” My feelings at times could only be envied About this time he wrote the “Address to by a reprobate spirit listening to the sen- the Toothache,” from which it is evident tence that dooms it to perdition.” that he had a personal knowledge of that June twenty-fifth, 1794, he wrote to Mrs. disease, and it is scarcely necessary at the Dunlop: “To tell you that I have been in present time to emphasize the relationship poor health will not be excuse enough, of infection of the teeth to rheumatism: though it is true. I am afraid that I am My curse upon thy venomed stang about to suffer for the follies of my youth. That shoots my tortured gums alang; My Medical friends threaten me with a And through my lugs gaes many a twang Wi’ gnawing vengeance; flying gout.” Considering the previous and Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang subsequent history of his case, it seems Like wracking engines. altogether probable that he had a recrudes- When fevers burn or ague freezes, cence of the rheumatism at this time. Rheumatics gnaw or cholic squeezes; Cunningham states that, during 1795, “Burns was fallen off indeed, not in bright- health began to fail, as Cunningham had ness of intellect, but in vigor and health. noticed it in the previous year. He further His walks were shorter, his rests more entirely overlooked or misrepresented the frequent; his smile had something of melan- attack of rheumatic fever in October, 1795. choly in it . . . and among the sons of men “About the end of June he was advised to he looked like one marked out for an early go into the country and, impatient of grave.” These symptoms are obviously medical advice as well as every control, he more suggestive of heart disease than of determined for himself to try the benefits alcoholism. of bathing in the sea.” This statement is January thirty-first, 1796, after the death not in accord with Burns’, who says he went of his friend Riddel, of Friar’s Carse, Burns to the Brow on Maxwell’s advice. wrote to the widow: “The autumn robbed me February, 1796, he had a relapse of the of my only daughter, a darling child . . . rheumatism, apparently following the Globe I had scarcely begun to recover from the Tavern incident referred to by Currie. That shock when I became myself a victim of a a patient who was just beginning to crawl most severe rheumatic fever and long the about after a serious attack of acute rheu- die spun doubtful, until after many weeks matism, which confined him to bed for three of a sick bed, it seems to have turned up months, should have attended a dinner is life and I am beginning to crawl across my convincing evidence that neither Burns nor room.” Apparently he was confined to bed, his advisers understood the nature of his or at least to the house, from about October, illness. It is certainly no cause for wonder 1795, t0 January 30, 1796. that he should have fainted, fallen in the The disease had now declared itself in so snow and suffered a relapse, and it is an definite a form that there can be no further arbitrary presumption to attribute such doubt regarding the diagnosis, and his consequences to alcohol. friends, as well as himself, became alarmed. He was still under the care of Dr. Max- Currie states that “From October, 1795, well. A little later he wrote to Mitchell of to the January following, Burns was the Excise: “Rheumatism, cold and fever confined to the house by an “accidental com- have formed to me a terrible combination; I plaint.” We have Burns’ own definite state- close my eyes in misery and open them ment in contradiction that he suffered from without hope.” an attack of rheumatic fever which began He was in financial distress and threat- the previous October. Currie continues: “A ened by his creditors. About the end of few days after he began to go abroad he June, under Maxwell’s advice, he went to dined at a tavern and returned about three the Brow, a cold, bleak watering place on o’clock on a very cold morning, benumbed the Solway, to try the effects of sea-bathing. and intoxicated.” This was followed by an This unfortunate treatment, as one would attack of rheumatism which confined him expect, aggravated the disease. about a week. “His appearance now began Mrs. Riddel, who was residing near the to fail; his hand shook and his voice faltered Brow at the time, invited him to her house, on any exertion or emotion; his pulse sending her carriage for him as he was became weaker and more rapid, and pain in unable to walk. She says: “The stamp of the larger joints, and in the hands and feet death was impressed on his features.” His deprived him of the enjoyment of refresh- first words to her were, “Well, Madam, have ing sleep.” Medical men assuredly will you any commands for the other world?” recognize in this description the symptoms His looks were hollow and ghastly; a tremor of rheumatism and heart disease rather pervaded his whole frame; his tongue was than of alcoholism. Currie was evidently in parched. error in his statement of the time when his July seventh, Burns wrote to Cunning- ham: “In these eight or nine months I by conversation, sank into delirium.” On have been ailing, sometimes bedfast, some- the second and third days after his return times not. For the past three months I have from the Brow the fever increased and his been tortured with an excruciating rheuma- strength diminished. The fourth day, July tism which has reduced me to nearly the twenty-first, 1796, he died at the age of last stage. Pale, emaciated, so feeble as to thirty-seven years and seven months. occasionally need help from my chair.” Even the death scene is misrepresented by He wrote to Mr. James Johnson from Cunningham: “When his attendant, James Dumfries, July fourth: “The hand of pain Maclure, held a cordial to his lips, he and sorrow and care has these many months swallowed it eagerly, rose almost wholly up, Iain heavy on me . . . This protracting, spread out his hands, sprang forward nearly slow, consuming illness which hangs over the whole length of the bed, fell on his face me will, I doubt much, my dear friend, ever and expired.” Chamber’s comment is rea- arrest my sun before he has well reached his sonable and evidently true: “The bard was middle career.” far indeed from being in a condition to make A few days later he wrote to his brother, any violent movement. Though he had been Gilbert: “I am dangerously ill and not muttering in delirium for some time before, likely to get better . . . An inveterate he died in a state of perfect calmness, the rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of calmness of exhaustion.” This is confirmed debility . . . that I can scarcely stand on by the poet’s eldest son who was in the room my legs.” at the time. He wrote to Mrs. Dunlop from the Brow, Burns was by nature strong and vigorous, July twelfth: both physically and mentally; clear of vi- sion; of an intense, nervous temperament; An illness which has long hung about me in independent, proud, ambitious, imagina- all probability will speedily send me beyond tive; he was impatient of restraint and that bourne whence no traveller returns . . . subject to moods varying rapidly from The remembrance [of his correspondence with gaiety to the deepest depression. her] yet adds one more pulse to my poor pal- In a person of this type however it is pitating heart. Farewell! common that mental and nervous stress, He grew feverish on the 14th day of July, worry and other emotional disturbance, felt himself sinking, and longed to be home produce a characteristic group of symptoms: . . . He returned from the Brow to Dumfries, July 18th, in a small spring cart. The ascent to headache, sleeplessness, digestive disturb- the house was steep and the cart stopped at the ance, irritability, apprehensiveness, depres- foot of the Mill Hole Brae. When he alighted sion, etc. often ending in a “nervous he shook much and stood with difficulty. He breakdown.” If he is suffering at the same seemed unable to stand upright. He stopped as time from organic disease, a vicious circle if in pain and walked tottering towards the develops, in which there is a mutual aggra- house. (Cunningham.) vation and intermingling of nervous and organic symptoms. This is clearly evident To the anxious enquiries of citizens of in Burns’ case and it is not difficult to trace Dumfries, Dr. Maxwell shook his head, a relationship between his various illnesses “He cannot be worse.” John Gibson, a fel- and coincidental nervous and mental stress. low member of the Dumfries volunteers, The overwork, worry, privation and expo- called on him. Burns appealed to him “John, sure of his early years predisposed him to don’t let the awkward squad fire over me.” rheumatic infection and endocarditis, rea- “A tremor,” says Maxwell, “pervaded his sonably accounting for the significant symp- frame; his tongue, though often refreshed, toms which appeared at fifteen years of age. became parched; his mind, when not roused In his second serious illness at twenty-two years of age the manifestations were mostly One need not look for a complete and nervous, though the phrases “anxiety or accurate clinical description of his case; but perturbation in my breast” and “pains and it is remarkable that in his correspondence uneasiness” are at least suggestive of rheu- the symptoms Burns describes and the matic and cardiac trouble. Three years information he furnishes are sufficiently later “alarming symptoms of a pleurisy or definite to place the diagnosis of his disease some other dangerous disorder, fainting beyond reasonable doubt. fits,” etc. point definitely to organic disease, Bibl iography the nature of which is made reasonably Blackie , J. S. Life of Robert Burns, 1843. manifest two years later when an apparently Brow ne , Sir J. C. Burns from a New Point of slight injury to the knee was followed by a View, 1925. “crippling” illness which more or less Carlisle , T. Essays, Burns, Edinburgh Review, incapacitated him for a year. During this 1828. time there are references to feverish attacks, Chambers , Wm . and Robt . Life and Works of Robert Burns, 4 V. Edinb., 1851. later to toothache, spells of digestive dis- Cunningham , A. The Works of Robert Burns, turbance, nervous depression, irritability Second Ed., Lond., 1835. and kindred symptoms. Currie , Jame s . Works of Robert Burns, Fourth In the middle of 1794 “a flying gout” Ed., Liverpool, 1803. made its appearance, and a year later an Currie , W. W. Memoirs of the Life, Writings and attack of rheumatic fever, which confined Correspondence of James Currie, m.d ., f .r .s ., 1831, 1, 241, 312. him to bed for over three months. Findl ay , Wm . Robert Burns and the Medical Beyond this point the case was an ordi- Profession, 1893. nary one of rheumatism with heart com- Henderson , T. F. Robert Burns, 1904. plications, shortness of breath, faintness, Knowles , R. E. Personal Communications. weakness, rapid, irregular pulse (auricular Lockhar t , J. G. Life of Burns, Edinb., 1828. fibrillation), and toward the end, fever, Montagu , Mrs . Basi l . Chambers Wallace, Ed. 111., 400-402; iv, 74. parched tongue and delirium, presumably Patrick , D. Chambers Cyclopaedia of English due to a bacterial endocarditis which devel- Literature, 11, 815. oped as a terminal infection. Shairp , Principal. Robert Burns, 1879.