POETRY and PHYSIC* by SIR HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BART., K.C.B., M.D., D.SC
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[From Galen: De Simplicium, Venice, 1625.] ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY Volu me VIII Spri ng , 1926 Number i POETRY AND PHYSIC* By SIR HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BART., K.C.B., M.D., D.SC. (Hon ., Oxfo rd ), D.C.L. (Dur ha m) CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND THE present is perhaps religion “all spring from those universal not an inappropriate primary emotions of man’s spirit, which lead time to consider the re- us naturally towards Beauty and Truth.” lations between poetry Newcastle upon Tyne too has its medical and physic, for less poets, for Mark Akcnside (1721-1770), after than a year ago (on deserting the prospect of the pulpit for the October 23, 1924) we pill-box, composed his successful didactic celebrated the eight- poem, “The Pleasures of the Imagination,” ieth birthday of Dr. Robert Bridges, in this, his native, town before leaving for Poet Laureate since 1913 and the only London and dropping the pursuit of “the medical man among the eighteen holders draggle-tailed muses” to quote the words of the office of Versificator Regis, dating of a greater medical poet, Oliver Goldsmith. from Edmund Spenser in 1591. The nearest Thomas Trotter (1760-1832) after a rather approach to a medical laureate was Robert turbulent career as a surgeon in the Royal Southey, who for a time was a medical Navy (1779-1802) retired to Newcastle student; he was the author of “The Doctor” upon Tyne a disappointed man, and in 1829 and was appointed in 1813, just a hundred published a volume perhaps modestly years before our Laureate, who dutifully entitled “Sea-weeds, Poems Written on wrote “Carmen elegiacum de Nosocomio Various Occasions, Chiefly during a Naval sancti Bartolomaei Londincnsi,” 1877, with Life,” and thus, as sometimes happens to its thumb-nail portraits of its staff, and medical men, returned to the poetic activity forty years later gave an address with the of early youth, for in 1777-1778, when a compelling title “The Necessity of Poetry” student, he published some verses in the in which he showed that poetry, morals and Edinburgh Magazine. There must surely be *Opening address oh October 6, 1925, at the some subtle influence in the Tyneside air College of Medicine, University of Durham. stimulating the delivery of poetic offspring. ' On grounds of ancient heredity poetry when Hephaitos, the spirit of machinery, and physic should be closely allied, for reigns triumphant over all men’s minds”: Apollo, the god of poetry and culture, was And thou, Apollo, like a star bedimmed the father of Aesculapius, the tutelary Within the sky’s cloud caverns, watchest afar divinity of the healing art, and those who In unaccounted silent majesty. practiced medicine were dignified as “the According to Arnold Bennett, not one children of Apollo.” In the time of the literary man in ten reads poetry knowingly, Renaissance of learning, medicine was one though he will enjoy it concealed in prose; of the several branches of knowledge coming but “show him a page of verse, and he will within the purview of a philosophic scholar, be ready to send for the policeman.” We, and these were the days of the scholar- the children of Apollo, whom J. W. Ballan- physicians such as Linacre. The relations tyne called the “rcmakers” in contrast to “the makers” or poets, should therefore consider our pious attitude to our distant progenitor in order to decide if we are acting in the way best for our happiness and comfort. This country has the finest legacy of poetical literature in the world and the Great War called forth an outpouring of verse unparallcllcd since Elizabethan days, but do we all take full advantage of our opportunities? Some years ago the idea struck me that it would be interesting to collect the works of medical men who were also poets; for our profession provides ample opportunity for observing man and his manners, women and their woes, human nature and its nakedness, and the beginnings, ends, and tragedies of our fellows. Such a hobby is attractive for the light it throws on the personalities of the past and for the pictures of eminent physicians, such as Sir Henry Halford composing elegant Latin verse between literature and medicine form an (“Nugae Mctricac,” 1842) as he drove interesting episode in the history of letters, from one noble sick room to another, Sir but the connection has of necessity become Richard Blackmore, the opponent and less intimate with the advance and increas- victim of the wits, rolling out his eternal epics “to the rumbling of his coach’s ing specialization of knowledge and tech- wheels,” and thus contrasting with the nique. Even in the experience of those now humbler practitioner, John Mason Good living it seems to some that poetry, in spite (1764-1827), translating Lucretius into blank of the volumes of Georgian verse, has less verse as he trudged through the London appeal and is less read than in Victorian streets to do his practice; this literary task, times. In his recent poem, “The Spirit conscientiously undertaken for his mental of Happiness,” Lord Gorell sadly reflects education, occupied six years. But I had that “the altars of Apollo, sovereign lord barely started, when Dr. C. L. Dana of of poetry and still the source of all beauty, New York kindly sent me the charming have fallen much into neglect in an age catalogue of his collection of poetical works written by medical men, which, covering a and spontaneously translates experience period of two thousand years and contain- into language of a special kind, not that of ing 157 names and 295 works, compelled straightforward or even of rhymed prose, admiring interest while defying competition. but imbued, as Lascelles Abcrcromby says, The subject of medicine and literature has with the power “to kindle our minds into often been the subject of addresses and unusual vitality”; it is indeed an incanta- articles, and I would specially refer to Sir tion or inspiration vividly revealing the Edmund Gosse’s brilliant Lloyd Roberts poet’s mental experiences, calling up an Lecture (1923) on “The Personal Relations illusion of unexpected passionate existence between Literature and Medicine” to which and interpreting life in its highest sense. I am much indebted. In 1669 the distin- Poetry is to prose what a great painter’s guished Dutch anatomist, Thomas Bartho- masterpiece is to an ordinary photograph. Iinus, published a small work of 149 pages, It is eminently creative; medicine, though “De Medicis Poetis,” Copenhagen; Broeck in his “Dissertation sur les medecins- poetes beiges” arranges fifty of his country- men in alphabetical order; and Achille Chereau in his “ Parnasse medical frangais ou dictionnaire des medecins-poetes de la France, ancicns ou modcrncs, morts ou vivants, etc.,” Paris, 1874, gives in alpha- betical order no less than 479 names, but modestly says that France cannot put forward any competitors to the poet- physicians who are mentioned in order, presumably of merit: Francesco Rcdi, Bel- lini, Blackmore, Haller, Akenside, Grainger, Darwin, Armstrong, Garth and others. In his scholarly introduction Dana passes in review the medical poets from classical similarly constructive in its curative and times; from Empedocles (b .c . 500) and the older function, has as its highest aim the times when the theriaka or panacea for all prevention of disease and therefore, like the poisons was a favorite subject for the verses police, plays the rather negative part of of Nicander, Andromachus and Macer eliminating the factors responsible for dis- Floridus, up to the present day. There is order and destruction. But in their different perhaps room for an anthology of medical ways scientific medicine and poetry both poets; there is a collection, “College Lays” aim at the attainment and perpetuation of (1886), of eighty-one songs and verses by the good, the beautiful and the true. Medi- eight medical members of the Acsculapian, cine touches life in every phase, but most Medico-Chirurgical and other professional obviously in its material aspects; poetry clubs in Edinburgh, which brim over with “binds together by passion and knowledge the humor and conviviality of the con- the vast empire of human society” (Words- tributors, Dr. Andrew Wood, Sir Douglas worth), applies noble ideas to life, and is Maclagan, Dr. J. D. Gillespie and Sir especially idealistic. The greatest poets, John Batty Tuke. such as Shakespeare, Dante and Keats, were concerned with the whole range of Uses of Poe try man’s activities and imagination, and that Defined as articulate music by John the “ miriad-minded” bard of Avon had a Dryden, poetry is essentially imaginative marvellous knowledge and was a master of medicine has been proved bytSir St. \Qkiir aspects of life may gain by adopting color- Thomson’s careful analysis. Though it ismot ing derived from the other. To the poet, always recognized, poetry has a most Terence’s maxim, now taken by the London practical bearing on our work-a-day world Hospital as its motto: “ Homo sum; humani by increasing the joy of existence. With their nihil a me alienum puto,” especially applies, realistic and idealist sides medicine and and the philosophic curiosity in the mys- poetry are complementary, and certainly teries of the human mechanism which poetry provides a relief from the ugliness attracted Coleridge, Southey and others to the study of medicine did not impair and drabness of life. It is perhaps for this their poetic efficiency. Without attempting reason that the poets who][most appeal to an estimate of how much it influenced their message, it may be conceded that the train- ing in observation and in ordered method, and acquaintance with human tears and tragedies as seen within a hospital’s walls cannot have been without a broadening influence.