SIR and RES MEDICA.

In the preceding paper Dr Robert Hutchison gives an account of the illnesses of Sir Walter Scott in infancy and boyhood, and also in later life. In this essay I shall deal with other matters in the wide sphere of medicine and life > with Scott's views upon the care of health, upon illness and death; and with his general attitude to doctors and the practice of medicine. Scott once said of his own review of Pepys' Diary?" The subject is like a good sirloin, and requires only to be basted with its own drippings." The present subject will be best treated in this way, by stringing together Scott's own scattered observations, from his Journal, his novels and miscellaneous writings, and from Lockhart's Life. As regards health, Scott's life falls into definite periods; hlS and infancy boyhood chequered by serious illness ; a long stretch of splendid health until middle age ; a series of attacks of biliaO7 colic between 1817 and 1819; then, after a short interval, a slo^ but steady decline until the end, and, in the middle of this fina period of broken health, the crash of his bankruptcy in 1826. Between 1786, when he had the last serious illness of hlS boyhood at the age of fifteen, and 1817 when his excruciating " " spasms of the stomach and diaphragm (biliary colic) bega11' Scott enjoyed perfect health hardly broken by occasional nervou 0 headaches, of which he himself says nothing. His treatment h these, on the advice of his physician, was to alter his rule of ^ giving up study and writing late at and up night, getting a five in the morning to begin his daily literary task. He had magnificent constitution, and great strength and activity of bo /? In spite of his lameness, he was a bold rider, a daring climbed and a tireless walker. He loved the open air, and in Ashiestiel days spent the afternoons in field sports, in coursi and riding, and walking. His small writing cabinet Abbotsford was the sunniest room in the house. Lockn speaks of "his love of a bright light," and adds "it was alway^'e I suspect, against the grain with him when he did not in ^ work at his desk with the sun full upon him." It was morning hours that his fancy, memory and inspiration ^ ,, " at the ; and he used to say, Aurora musis highest pitch ' He even believed that at this time, between waking and break Dl his physical powers were at their best. Thus, from his 486 Sir Walter Scott and Res Medica

"The half hour between waking and rising has all my life Proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention. When I got over any difficulty in a story, or have had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first ?pened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. This so much the case that I am in the habit of relying upon it and saying to myself when I am at a loss, 'Never mind! we shall have it at seven o'clock to-morrow morning.' If I have forgot a circumstance or a name or a copy of verses, it is the same thing. I think the first hour in the morning is also favourable to the bodily strength. Among other feats when 1 Was a young man, I was able at times to lift a smith's anvil with one hand by what is called the horn?that projecting piece ?f iron on which things are beaten to turn them round. But 1 could only do this before breakfast." He enjoyed every kind of weather, foul as well as fair, and c?uld not be kept indoors by rain, snow, or thunder; and this habit of his youth and prime he kept to obstinately in the later years of broken health. In his Diary, ioth December 1826, ^Ve have this: "A stormy and rainy day. Walked from the Court through the rain. I don't dislike this. Egad, I rather it, for no man that ever stepped on heather has less dread than I of the catch-cold ; and I seem to regain in buffeting ^Vlth the wind a little of the high spirit with which in younger days I used to enjoy a Tam O'Shanter ride through darkness, Wlnd ancj rajn> the boughs groaning and cracking over my head, good horse free to the road and impatient for home and feeling the weather as little as I did." These were the years " Avhen rheumatism had clawed him in its clutch," and yet he recklessly exposed himself to inclement weather, coming home the Parliament House "encrusted with snow," or through ^r?ma of rain." in his reads: ( dense inspissation Again, 1827 Diary Wrote till twelve: then out upon the heights (at Abbotsford) ^?ugh the day was stormy, and faced the gale bravely. Tom urdie was not with me: he would have obliged me to keep sheltered ground. There is a touch of the old spirit in 1116 yet, that bids me brave the tempest." . his years of sound health, he had his share of trivial the common cold and the like. In a letter to Miss ^llments,aillie in 1823 he writes, "When I was subject a little to sore r?ats, I cured myself of that tendency by sponging my throat, reast and shoulders every morning with the coldest water I 487 Charles M'Neil

could get; but this is rather a horse-remedy, though I still keep up the practice." The phrase "horse-remedy" allows the introduction of Scott's views upon drugs and drugging. In his later life he had much experience of these, and seems to have taken with passive obedience the medicines prescribed by his physicians. But from youth to age he was against the indiscriminate use of drugs, and the unnecessary resort to doctors. Thus in The Surgeon's Daughter, he speaks of Middlemas and its doctor, " Gideon Gray: There the mothers of the state never make a point of pouring in the course of the revolving year a certain quantity of doctors' stuff through the bowels of their beloved children. Every old woman, from the Townhead to the Townfit> can prescribe a dose of salts, or spread a plaster; and it is only when a fever or a palsy renders matters serious, that the assist- ance of the doctor is invoked by his neighbours in the borough- " In youth he writes of a companion, as moping about some watering place and deluging his guts with specifics of every kind"; and at a much later date he says of his own mother " with gentle criticism : I saw my mother on the same occasion, admirably well indeed. She is greatly better than this time two years, when she rather quacked herself a little too much. There is excuse for Scott's mother, she was a Rutherford, and her father and brother both eminent in the Faculty of Medicine at . But from his father's side he learnt a different lesson: at his grandfather's farm Sandy Knowe, as a mere infant, he had had experience of various "horse-remedies applied for his lameness, and there was also in that house- hold a very hearty contempt for drugs. One of "the Sandy an Knowe bairns" was Thomas Scott (young Walter's uncle) a marginal entry by Scott himself on one of the Abbotsfoi" books runs as follows: "The said Thomas Scott died at Monk' his . . life and of all law ., in the 90th year of his fully possessed faculties. . . . When barks and tonics were given him during his last illness, he privately spat them into his handkerclne saying, as he had lived all his life without taking doctors' drugs> he wished to die without doing so." Again: "News fr0lf luC Sophia (his daughter, Mrs Lockhart). She has had the to get an anti-druggist in a Dr Gooch, who prescribes care f?^ Johnnie instead of drugs, and a little home brewed ale instea " y> of wine." And this last has quite a modern sound. Last my fair correspondent insisted I was a lover of speculation' 488 Sir Walter Scott and Res Medica

and would be much profited by going shares in a patent Medicine which she had invented for the benefit of little babes. I dreaded to have anything to do with such a Herod-like affair, and begged to decline." Scott had brought his self-mastery, both of mind and of k?dy, to a high pitch by long and deliberate practice. There are scattered sentences from the Journal which show this " Nearly. From childhood's earliest hour my heart rebelled against the influence of external circumstances in myself or others." "Indeed I do not like to have it thought that there ls any way in which I can be beaten." "June 30th 1826? ;vas detained in Court till four: dreadfully close, and obliged to drink water for refreshment, which formerly I used to scorn, eVen in the moors, with a burning August sun, the heat of e*ercise and a hundred streams gushing around me." He was a stoic and a Roman, not only in extreme physical pain, but ev^n in bitterest grief." How strong and tender his feelings ^ere, was shown very rarely in public; although at the open ?rave of his dearest friend, William Erskine, his self-control ^aye way and he wept openly and without restraint. But the J^lrnal, begun just before his bankruptcy and the death of ady Scott, lays bare the strength of his feelings as well as e ^on hardness of his courage. He said of himself in these Carly months of 1826, "111 luck, that direful chemist, never put Itlto his crucible a more indissoluble piece of stuff." At the nd of this year of worldly ruin, family bereavement, and " ri?us painful illness, he jots down one day: I could not ,er my spirits. But it is nonsense, and contrary to my PJnion, which is of the stoic school, and I think pretty well It is the I know or can k gained. only philosophy practise, ut it cannot always keep the helm." Some months later, after " her long and painful spell of rheumatism, he notes, the avymg rheumatic pain in my knee; for after all I am of ^ nion pain is an evil, let the stoics say what they will." a *~ew some lab ^ays later, "A long day of pain relieved by did?^r' R?ss came i? and recommended some stuff which S00^- I would ill like to lose the use of my precious S- Meanwhile, patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards." e , Journal was begun at the very moment of Scott's in ruptcy, and it coincided also with the return of serious a with a steady decline of his physical strength. It ^as a secret record, and was written like the meditations of 489 L Charles M'Neil

Marcus Aurelius "to himself," and its pages are crowded with these matters of pain, and weakness, and sinking of the heart, and with the rallies of his courage and his resolution "to beat up against foul weather." He never indulged in self pity' more than once he takes to himself Byron's remark to Moore?- "D?n it, Tom, don't be poetical"; and another account 0 aS distress ends with, "Well, 'Things must be as they may,' says that great philosopher, Corporal Nym." But these recur- " ring records of his ailments displeased him : how intolerably t0 selfish this Journal makes me seem?so much attention he one's naturals and non-naturals"; and in another place " condemns the vile chirurgical aspect of the Journal" Lockhart applied to Scott Ben Jonson's saying, "his heart was rammed with life." But after the long and very seriouS ? a he illnesses of 1817-1819, a tcedium vitce crept upon him, and lost some hold on life. At this time also, the inner circ of his friends was broken by the death of his mother, of dearly loved aunt, Christy Rutherford, and his dearest friefl'h^s " 15 Will Erskine, Lord Kinnedder. He writes in 1819, ^ almost fearful to count up my losses, as they make me bankrup in society." And in 1821, as he walked away from 1 grave of John Ballantyne in Churchyard, " lesS whispered in Lockhart's ear, I feel as if there would be sunshine for me from this day forth." He was then at zenith of worldly fame and fortune; and yet in his letter5 allusions to the possibility of his early death begin to creep and he faced this with and almost with^ prospect resignation ^ feeling of quiet relief. He seemed to be conscious in " " himsej of a wasting of the springs of life both physical and spii"itu In the Journal, and in the grim bleak years that followed, of allusions become more frequent. At the very moment catastrophe, he writes: "My old acquaintance, Miss Eliz3^ ^ Clerk, sister of Willie, died suddenly. I cannot choose but it had been S. W. and the I S., yet feeling is unmanly. f Anne, my wife, and Charles to look and in the en after"; ^ 1827?"God knows that, though life is placid enough, I d? feel to attach me to it so as to occasion ^ anything strongly ^ avoiding any risks which duty to my character may dernaijo from me." As the end came nearer, he speaks of his with calm courage and humour: "Age has 'clawed me ul^ut clutch' and there is no remedy for increasing o dying, which is an awkward score "; and again, he disability^^speaks 490 Sir Walter Scott and Res Medica hme "when the author of Waverley had pulled on his last *%ht cap." Samuel Johnson, no less brave a man, had a horror of death ; and, as old age drew on, his desire to postpone the end became stronger. When over seventy and near death, he said with terse " and terrible emphasis, I would give one of my legs for pother year of life." Scott's attitude to death and the pro- pagation of life was in strong contrast to Johnson's. In 1826 e " Writes to Mrs Thomas Scott: Poor Aunt Curie died like a Roman, or rather like one of the Sandy Knowe bairns, the m?st stoical race I ever knew. She turned every one out of j16 room, and drew her last breath alone. So did my uncle, aPtain Robert Scott, and several others of that family." It ^Vas thus that he himself wished to die, and on one occasion of SeHous illness he put this example and model of dying into Practice. This was in 1819 at 39 Castle Street, when the biliary c?Hc was at its worst. His door-knocker was muffled : the c^mon report was that he was dying: his physicians had given up hope. One night Scott himself felt that his hm?st " of death was come. Lockhart says: I must not forget ^UrSet down what his daughter Sophia afterwards told me of conduct upon one night in June, when he really did despair He then called his children about his and took ^ himself. bed, of them with solemn tenderness. After giving them, one ^avey one, such advice as suited their years and characters, he ' ^?r I am unconscious of ever do myself"' my dears, having do^ an^ man an injury> or omitted any fair opportunity of lng any man a benefit. I well know that no human life can Pear otherwise than weak and in the of but j filthy eyes God, th^ uPon merits and intercession of our Redeemer.' He laid his hand on their heads, and said?' God bless you. ^.eri1Ve so that you may all hope to meet each other in a better hereafter. And now leave me, that I may turn my face to ^CeZVa^-"' ill It was not death, however, but the crisis of his : he fell asleep, and from that night began to recover. Ut: Scott was haunted by another kind of fear, fixed deeply m^n<^ as a saw in kS when young man he his father shattered ?dy ancj minci ^ apoplexy, and lingering on for many s C/ before death. He never forgot this, and in his nicies of the Ca?iongate> thirty years later, gave a minute ^tion of his own became br , father's illness. When his health en> and especially when other members of his family died 491 Charles M'Neil

of paralytic seizures, he dreaded for himself this kind of death. In 1818 he writes : "We have lost our excellent old friend Mrs Murray Keith . . . one of the few persons whose spirits, and cleanliness and freshness of mind and body, makes old age lovely and desirable. In the general case it seems scarce endurable." In 1822, writing to Terry, he describes some " symptoms that had troubled him and adds, Peveril will, I fear' smell of the apoplexy." From this time he seems to have watched himself closely for any symptoms suggestive apoplexy; and in January 1826 his Diary has this?"Much alarmed. I had walked till twelve with Skene and Russell, and then sat down to my work. To my horror I could neither write nor spell, but put down one word for another and wrote nonsense." Lockhart believed that he had had, and had concealed from his friends, several slight attacks of apoplexy before the first definite stroke occurred in February I S30, so or that Whether this is not, the pages of the Journal show for years before this, Scott, painfully conscious of his faihn? physical energies, was only afraid of the failure of his menta " faculties. In 1831 he writes very plainly : I am not solicit011^Go about this (his death), only if I were worthy I would pray to for a sudden death and no interregnum between I cease exercise reason and I cease to exist." And in particular he was afraid of a failure of memory- Lockhart tells of an incident that is significant and shovV^ Scott's secret fears. At breakfast in London in May 1 sal1^ (that is nearly two years before the first stroke), a lady Scott- some verses, and both the music and the words pleased " Lockhart goes on to say, He (Scott) was sitting by me, some distance from the lady, and whispered as she ' closed-^but Capital words?whose are they ? Byron's, I suppose, don't remember them.' He was astonished when I told a that they were his own in the Pirate. He seemed pleased me the moment, but said next minute, 'You have distressed . . my if all is with for that was memory goes, up me, always ^ strong point.'" In October 1831, when he was now paralyse and there was unmistakable impairment of his mental p?w' his has these brave words?" I neither regret Journal sad, ^ of death fear the approach ; if it is coming, I would compound ^ a little instead of this heartless muddiness of mind." pain, ^ the fear is," he wrote again, "lest the blow be not sufficient ^ ' a sho^v- destroy life, and that I should linger on a driveller and 492 Sir Walter Scott and Res Medica

In his formative years, Scott might well have given some of his attention to medicine. His maternal grandfather, Dr John Rutherford, and his uncle, Professor Daniel Rutherford, were eminent men in their profession; but the young law apprentice a?d student did not catch from them any real interest in medicine, " although he wrote his thesis as an advocate on, The Disposal of the Dead Bodies of Criminals." His own experience of disease ln infancy and boyhood had been intimate and serious, and he was not likely to have an intellectual curiosity in a subject which he had already had bitter personal experience, disease was for Scott an enemy to be fairly met and over- c?me: it was never for him a matter for study. His own Medical attendants, the Clarksons of Selkirk, Dr Scott of ^arnlee, Adolphus Ross and Abercrombie of Edinburgh, were good friends, but were not in the inner circle of intimacy, friendship with John Leyden and Mungo Park had little to do with medical interests. Scott was impatient of the drudgery of scholarship in and probably for the same reason had little interest literature;111 the minutiae of science and medicine. He was elected Resident of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1820, and was ^eenly interested in the practical applications of science to life- he liked a broad scope rather than a microscopic view of " " things. he said, is so tiresome as a Nothing," walking through beautiful scene with a minute philosopher, a botanist or Pebble-gatherer, who is eternally calling your attention from grand features of the natural picture to look at grasses and cWky-stones. Yet in their way they give useful information; and so does the minute historian." a remarkable letter to Miss Edgeworth in 1829, Scott lscusses the resurrectionists, the Burke and Hare murders, the suspected guilt of Dr Knox; and goes on?" I am no in the extreme degree of improvement to be derived ^uever0rri the advancement of science; for every study of that tends, when pushed to a certain extent, to harden the j|atureart and render the philosopher reckless of everything save objects of his pursuit. ... I have myself often wondered * jj. y became so indifferent to the horrors of a criminal trial, ,lt involved a point of law. In like manner, the pursuit of ^ysiology inflicts tortures on the lower animals of creation and ?Ajength comes to rub shoulders against the West Port." though," he says, in the same letter, "an unprejudiced V?L- xxxix. no. viii. 493 2 M Charles M'Neil

person would have no objection to the idea of his own remains undergoing if their being exposed to scientific research could be of the least service to humanity." And in his Journal discussing the death of an old friend, we have something more on the same subject?" Poor Don died of a disease of the heart; the body was opened, which was very right. Odd enough too, to have a man, probably a friend two days before, slashing at one's heart as if it were a bullock's." In his account of his own illnesses, Scott describes with a humorous scepticism the many and ruthless remedies employed, although he seems to have submitted to them with patience and good faith. He did believe in the efficacy of calomel; but for the rest, he let his physicians have their way. And Lady Scott's fatal illness he says?" The complaint is of water in her chest, and the remedy is foxglove, which seems a cure rather worse than most diseases, yet she sustains both the disease and the remedy to the suprise of medical persons. And another passage expresses the same view of the limited knowledge and power of the medical art. "A doctor is li^e Ajax?give him light and he may make battle with a disease; but, no disparagement to the Esculapian art, they are bad guessers. uS It is, therefore, not surprising that Scott has not given in his novels any full study of a doctor. There is Gideon Gray in the Surgeon's Daughter, the country doctor concealing "under an unpromising and blunt exterior professional skill and not enthusiasm, intelligence, humanity, courage, and science": lacking in general education, for he spoke Latin and French " t0 indifferently," and could read Italian; and was ready adopt new methods of treatment and break with old traditiollS' at the risk of "getting his wig pulled off." "It is well kno^'n that the ancient mode of treating the smallpox was to refase > to the patient everything which Nature urged him to desir and in particular to confine him to heated rooms, beds loade c0 with blankets, and spiced wine, when Nature called for water and fresh air. A different mode of treatment had late been adventured upon by some practitioners who preferref?r reason to authority, and Gideon Gray had followed it several years with extraordinary success." In this short sketc Scott was paying his personal tribute of gratitude and admiratj?n to his own medical attendant, Dr Ebenezer Clarkson of Selkirk and a general tribute to the country doctors of Scotland, y was also describing the beginning of a new epoch in medicnie? 494

A Sir Walter Scott and Res Medica the revolt against authority, superstition and polypharmacy. These new ways?the appeal to Nature, the simpler methods ?f treatment, strongly appealed to the common-sense and the sound instinct of Scott. His own personal experiences of Alness, of medical theories and medical remedies, had made him feel vaguely that much of the medical knowledge of his day was hut bad guessing; he felt that the best men in medicine were hke Ajax?praying for light, and that more light was on its way. There is also Dr Ouackleben, the spa-doctor of St Ronan's ^ell, through whom Scott gives a humorous discourse on the " Same theme. The Doctor drew from his case a large vial 0r small flask, full of a high coloured liquid, of which he mixed ' three teaspoonfuls in Mrs Blower's cup. Here I have the real useful pharmacopeia?the rest is all humbug and hard names.'" We could well have more of Dr Quackleben, who vvjth all his nonsense is neither fool nor rascal. He pays a P^us tribute to his old teacher (William Cullen)?" My vener- ated instructor, one of the greatest men in our profession that ever lived. . . . Ah ! blessings on the old red cloak of him ! *t covered more of the healing science than the gowns of a ^vhole modern university." Then he sharply criticises his " " successor, Macgregor, muckle recommended about Edinburgh ^Probably James Gregory). "He is a starving doctor, Mrs lower?reduces diseases as soldiers do towns?by famine, n?t considering that the friendly inhabitants suffer as much as the hostile garrison?ahem." Coming further down the degrees of regularity in medical Practice there is the true story of John Lundie, a wholly 'rregular practitioner and yet with a decent professional standard withal. In 1812 Scott went through Northumberland ?n a " visit to Rokeby. It happened at a small country town ^at Scott suddenly required medical advice for one of his Servants, and on enquiring if there was any doctor at the place, Was told there were two?one long established, and the other new comer. The latter gentleman being luckily found at ?rne) soon made his appearance?a grave sagacious-looking Peonage, attired in black with a shovel hat, in whom to his astonishment Sir Walter recognised a Scotch blacksmith vUt.ter0 had formerly practised with tolerable success as a ' ednary ?Perat?r in the neighbourhood of Ashestiel. How in ' the world !' exclaimed he, can it be possible that this J?hn Lundie?' 'In troth is it, your honour?just at that's 495 Charles M'Neil for him.' 'Well, but let us hear: you were a horse-doctor before: now it seems you are a man-doctor: how do you get ' on?' Ou, just extraordinar weel; for your honour maun ken my practice is vera sure and orthodox. I depend entirely upon it tvva simples' 'And what may their names be? Perhaps is a secret?' 'I'll tell your honour,' in a low tone: 'my two ' a simples are just laudamy and calamy!' Simples with vengeance!' replied Scott; 'but, John, do you never happen sae ? to kill any of your patients?' 'Kill? Ou ay, may be whiles they die, and whiles no; but it's the will o' Providence- Ony how, your honour, it wad be long before it makes up f?r Flodden !'" Scott himself a few years later was to have much experience in his own person of "the twa simples, laudamy &n calamy." This account may conclude with two other medical extracts from the novels. In The Heart of in the tremendous death-bed scene of the old Laird of Dumbiedykes, there is a brief entry and swift exit of the doctor. The dym? "' man has just dismissed the clergyman, and now says. Doctor, ? let's see if ye can do anything better for me.' The doctor . ' assured him the medical art could not prolong his life many the hours.' 'Then damn Mass, John, and you baith!' cried ' nae furious and intractable patient. Did ye come here for me Out thing but to tell that ye canna help me at the pinch? wi' them, Jenny?out o' the house !'" In Rob Roy, Francis Osbaldistone, wounded in the duel vv1 Rashleigh in the college-yards of Glasgow, with blood flowing the down his right side, "stopped at a small unpretending shop, sign of which intimated the indweller to be Christopher Niels011' waS surgeon and apothecary. I requested of a little boy who pounding some stuff in a mortar that he would procure me audience of this learned pharmacopolist. He opened the d? sho of the back-shop, where I found a lively, elderly man, who his head incredulously at some idle account I gave him 0 having been wounded accidentally by the button breaking my antagonist's foil while I was engaged in a fencing ma When he had applied some lint, and somewhat else he thou& 1 n proper, to the trifling wound I had received, he observed,' never was button on the foil that made this hurt. Ah ! yo^n blood, young blood! But we surgeons are a secret generati0*^, If it werna for hot blood and ill blood, what would become the twa learned faculties ?'" Charles M'Neil- 496

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