Delerium Tremens and Popular Culture In
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THE MAN WITH THE PDKER ENTERS THE ROOM: DELERIUM TREMENS AND POPULAR CULTURE IN PHILADELPHIA, 1B2B-1B5D* Ric N. Caric Morehead State University ut .... what is the matter, Bill?' he asked, earnestly" "'What's thematter? What's thematter?' eagerly enquired half a dozen others coming up." "'Why, theman with thepoker is after him, I believe!' said the person who had first spoken, in a half laughing, half serious tone. Poor fellow, ejaculated one. Poor fellow indeed! said another.1" In his first novel, Six Nights with theWashingtonians, temperance novelist T. S. Arthur used "the man with the poker" as a popular term for delirium tremensor mania a potu, a hallucinatory disorder that developed among extremely heavy drinkers. The fictional character, "Bill," a reformed drinker who was recounting the story before aWashingtonian experience meeting, had had an attack of mania a potu while at work as a bookbinder. First, his hands trembled somuch that he was unable to use his tools properly. Two hours later, an iron bar forwhich he was reaching "assumed the form of a serpent." Soon more bars turned into serpents and, when Bill looked up, he saw "a face of horrible malignancy, just over my PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY: A JOURNALOF MID-ATLANTIC STUDIES, VOL. 74, NO. 4, 2OO7. Copyright ? 2007 The Pennsylvania Historical Association This content downloaded from 128.118.152.206 on Mon, 2 Feb 2015 11:45:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Man With The Poker Enters The Room head, and a dozen serpents and dragons, and monsters of all shapes, coming, as it seemed with hellish delight towards me." Going to a tavernwas no help. Bill a jumped away from a decanter and glass that "seemed instantly changed into no living monster" and found that even a tumbler of "pure brandy" provided relief. Advised by a friend that he was not well, Bill went home and was haunted for two days by "awful and malignant shapes" before sinking into a "state of insensibility" and being taken to the Alms House.2 As Bills condition became known to themen at the tavern, it turned out that he was the only man therewho did not know about mania a potu or know that "the man with the poker" was a term formania a potu.When Bills first unnamed friend informed the others that "theman with thepoker is after him" all themen shared an instant recognition of the term. In Arthur's construction, mania a potu had been incorporated into the social conversation to such an extent that the men in the tavern readily apprehended "the man with the as a common term the condition. As a for mania a poker" for synonym potu, "the man with the poker" carried considerable ambivalence. The man who announced that the "man with the poker" was after Bill adapted a "half laughing, half serious tone" as though he were unsure whether to treat Bill's condition as a spectacle being put on for the amusement of the tavern crowd, or as a painful and difficult condition that deserved the crowd's sympathy. On this occasion, the ambivalence was resolved in favor of pity as the other men in the tavern exclaimed "poor fellow" and "poor fellow indeed" as if they were afraid of catching mania a potu themselves. It was then that Bill's friend finally told him that he was "not well" and that he needed to go home.3 Mania a potu was the dominant term in the early nineteenth century for a condition that became better and more accurately known as delirium tremens (which will be the term used henceforth). The major symptoms of delirium tremens tremors over included the whole body, intense fearfulness, and hallu cinations of walls falling, devils on one's skin, and attacks by murderers as well as intense efforts to ward off hallucinatory threats. Although there is no historical writing on delirium tremens,there are a variety of sources available for the study of delirium tremensin Philadelphia, including the records of the Philadelphia Alms House, Pennsylvania Hospital, the Register of Deaths, medical articles, newspaper sources, and the temperance writers like T. S. Arthur. The records of the Alms House Hospital are particularly important because the Alms House treated more than 5000 cases of delirium tremens between 1829 and 1850 and also because two of the medical articles contain statistics on Alms House cases. Alms House records indicate that delirium 46<3 This content downloaded from 128.118.152.206 on Mon, 2 Feb 2015 11:45:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY tremenswas primarily a male affliction. For example, more than 68 percent (723) of the delirium tremenscases and 79 percent (51) of the delirium tremens deaths at the Philadelphia Alms House between 1837 and 1841 were men. Because the Alms House records are biased toward artisans, laborers, and seamen, it is difficult to ascertain the extent towhich delirium tremensaffected men gentlemen, merchants, doctors, and lawyers. Some fairly well-known like Nathan Sellers (the son of the prominent metal worker Nathan Sellers) were known to have died of delirium tremensand men from the middle and upper classes certainly participated in the popular culture of theaters, taverns, boxing matches, and fire companies. However, there is almost no reporting of delirium tremensoutside the laboring classes in the hospital records and medical literature.4 This article examines delirium tremens in relation to traditional male popular culture in Philadelphia. The main point of contact between delirium tremensand the traditional culture of masculinity was fear concerning the male body. Just as the hallucinations in delirium tremensinvolved attacks on the body, traditional popular culture represented everyday difficulties in terms of assaults on the body. Artisans and laboring men in Philadelphia their anxieties over compounded poor health, seasonal unemployment, inability to collect wages, and scolding wives by representing their everyday problems as attacks by devils, death at sea, or being slaughtered like cattle, burned to death, dismembered, or assaulted. In this context, traditional leisure culture was the primary mechanism through which lower-class men counter-acted their "breast-disturbing fears." Tavern games, inventing contests, drinking bouts, holiday celebrations and other leisure activities gave men a chance to experience themselves as overcoming their apprehensions and be recognized as independent men. Thus, traditional leisure had an important role in the ability of laboring men to identifywith the dominant republican values and re-establish a sense of bodily wholeness and security. Men could view themselves as "manly, honest, good-natured and free" because they participated in traditional leisure.5 The onset of delirium tremenswas an indication that traditional culture was not working well for patients. Symptoms of delirium tremensmeant that a patient's practical difficulties were so burdensome that he no longer had the ability to overcome his fears concerning his body and identifywith republican ideals. Such men consumed large amounts of alcohol to suppress their bodily fears rather than enhance their participation in the social bonding and competitive activities of taverns or voluntary societies. For many of the heaviest drinkers, the /.;/ This content downloaded from 128.118.152.206 on Mon, 2 Feb 2015 11:45:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Man With The Poker Enters The Room meant a retreat to path to delirium tremens from the "cheerful glass" the "solitary bottle." At the same time, the commencement of delirium tremensmeant that as a heavy alcohol consumption was also failing strategy for dealing with fears of bodily attack.Whether heavy drinkers developed delirium tremensbecause gastro intestinal disorders kept them from drinking or because they could not tolerate not to small lapses in alcohol effects, they could drink enough suppress their sense of bodily fear any longer. In this context, the hallucinations connected with delirium tremensrepresented a final effortby a man's mental apparatus to cope with fears of attacks on his body. For men who suffered from hallucinations, traditional culture had failed to such an extent that they abandoned culturally informed perception for an alternate reality.6 This article also makes two arguments concerning the relationship between delirium tremensand developments in popular culture. Working from the records of the Philadelphia Alms House and the Register of Deaths, I argue that the number of delirium tremenscases rose significantly during the late 1830s and early 1840s before leveling off in the latter half of the 1840s. The initial increase in delirium tremenscases was closely linked to the impact of early industrialization. According to labor and economic history writing from Bruce Laurie's Working People ofPhiladelphia to Edward Balleisin's Negotiating Failure, early industrialization resulted in downward pressure on wages, longer work hours, less secure employment, less hope of owning a business, more vulnerability to business panics, and more susceptibility to diseases like tuberculosis. All of these trends made lifemore difficult for artisans, factory workers, and laborers, and consequently resulted in a heightened sense of bodily vulnerability that can be seen in popular images ofmale bodies subject to distortion, being taken over by external forces, and other forms of torment and degradation. Thus, early industrialization put leisure mechanisms under such intense pressure that it became much more difficult formen to overcome their bodily fears through participation in traditional leisure.7 Developments in traditional culture also contributed to the prevalence of delirium tremens.Because men it increasingly difficult to identify themselves with republican values, sources in popular culture began to refer to values like independence and social respectability as ideals that were either extremely difficult or impossible to attain. Simultaneously, various strategies for displaying degradation were incorporated into traditional leisure activities like tavern socializing and parades.