The Harveian oration, 1880 : delivered June 25th / by John W. Ogle.

  • John Ogle
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Harveian oration, 1880 : delivered June 25th / by John W. Ogle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    209/224 page 199
    OUR FORMER “ THERAPEUTIQUE WAY” (see the bottom of p. 34 WITH An ms. Account of the Deaths of Charles II. and Queen Anne. I have thought that the abstract which I shall subjoin of the MS. copies of the statements which exist in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries of London regarding the last illnesses of the above-named royal personages would prove interesting, partly because I am not aware that the statements have been hitherto so fully published, partly because they well illustrate the practice of medicine of the time, and partly because they serve in some degree (at any rate, in the case of the king) to correct the opinion commonly held as to the exact nature of the fatal illness. Dryden, whose dead body, by Garth’s influence,* * la^ in state, after em- balmment, for ten days in our college before burial, in Poets’ Corner at West- minster Abbey, remarked that it was doubtful whether the king had a fever, and that he was killed by bark, as he says in his Funeral Poem, “Threnodia August- alis,” “with all the cannon of the medicinal war.” With regard to the death of the king—that “ brisk and airy prince,” as he has been termed—it may be remembered that Sir H. Halford, in his work on the “Deaths of Eminent Persons of Modern Times,” describes that of Charles II., and the medical treatment adopted by his physicians.t He states that he died of apoplexy, and that he was bled to 16 oz. by an army medical man before any physician could come to him. When the regular physicians came, they cupped and purged and blistered him, and administered enemata, and gave him the “spirit, cranii humani,” but that he proceeded from bad to worse hourly until death. He states that one prescription was signed by fourteen physicians. J Sir H. Halford records that, after death, “ lymph” was found to be much effused into the cerebral ventricles, and at the base of the skull, owing, as he states, to pressure and interruption of the circulation. Subsequently Macaulay (1849), his History of England (vol. i. chap, iv.), penned the picturesque description, well known to many, of the circumstances allusion to Raphael’s using the same “ Bein-Schwarz ” “bone-black,”) which had been used by Perugino, and probably by Lionardo da Vinci. I find on inquiry of several artists’ colourmen that a very good imitation of “ real mummy” pigment is now made from ground-up burnt bones and bitumen mixed with oil. But a pigment from real Egyptian mummy is sold in London, at any rate at one place— viz., at the house of Roberson and Co., 99, Long Acre. Mr. C. Park of that firm tells me that they have always used real mummy, and that at the present time they have two mummies in their establishment, one of which is still entire, the other having been partly used up. One of these mummies was the body of a priest, and Mr. Park has brought its description before the Archseological Society. The head of the mummy was presented in June, 1881, to the College of Surgeons by Mr. Park, and is catalogued as 600A. Dr. Birch, of the Br. Mus., examined the mummy, and described it as being that of a man named “Har” (called a God beloved) of the period of the 22nd dynasty, about 900 B.c. Mr. Park says the entire body of the mummy is used, ground up with linseed oil, in making the pigment, which is sold in collapsible tubes. A friend of mine saw in Egypt, many years ago, piles of bones from mummies, for use as animal charcoal in the purifying of sugar. * Farquhar, the comic dramatist, stated that at Dryden’s funeral an Ode of Horace was sung in place of the Psalms of David. t On the authority of Sir C. Scarborough’s report, “ in very good Latin, de- posited in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries.” To Dr. Scarborough Cowley addressed one of his “ Pindarique Odes,” praising him, in addition to other reasons, for his freedom “from the p%sician’s frequent maladie, fantastick incivilitie.” J It will be seen further on that the highest number at one consultation was eleven, but he was visited altogether by sixteen physicians.
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