Shakespeare's medical knowledge / by Charles W. Stearns.

  • Stearns, Charles W. (Charles Woodward), 1818-1887.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Shakespeare's medical knowledge / by Charles W. Stearns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    for our positive knowledge as to the true seat of the reasoning faculties is no better than Shakespeare's. Viola. : She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought; And with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument Smiling at grief, Was not this love, indeed ? (Act ii. Sc. 4.) Was not this love ? A plain matter-of- faet country doctor would say to himself, that it was commencing chlorosis. And, in truth, are there not many degrees from discontent- ed maid-hood to combined amenorrhea and anaemia? Gil Bias, in his more gross way, terms it fatigue' du celibat. In this con- nection I must be permitted to transcribe one other well-known passage of our poet, from Midsummer-iNight's Dream: 14 Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun; > For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden Dilgrimasre: