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.

    214/224 page 204
    In the same library is an old Latin MS. book formerly belonging to Dr. Cony, containing recipes for various things (having no date), such as Elixir Proprietatis, Lac Benzonini, Veneriss Calcinatio, sive ses ustum, Sal Jovis, Amalgamatio Jovis, Aqua phagadendea. The above MS. was partly given in Ellis’s Original Letters, Series II., IV., p. 74. The above account, meagre though it be, from the MS., of the king’s illness, taken in conjunction with the description given by Macaulay, and the results of the after-death inspection, points to epilepsy or epileptoi'd convulsions as having * existed rather than to apoplexy, as spoken of by Halford, Macaulay, and others. The scream which was specially noticed, called by Bramston a “soundinge fitt,” and the strabismus preceding the sudden unconsciousness, which was so speedily succeeded by restoration of sensibility (which was more or less entire until very shortly before death), and the absence of mention of any paralysis of face or limb, all point in the direction I have suggested.* His death following orthopnoea appears to have been the result of pulmonary congestion, as indicated by the post-77iortem examination. A highly-interesting feature in the course of the illness was the intermittent character of the symptoms—so marked, indeed, that recourse was had to cinchona bark in the treatment. Many readers will be able to recall cases to mind as well of epilepsy as apoplexy in which periodical exacerbations occur. With regard to the treatment adopted, the MS. described the venaesection as being performed by two of the royal physicians who happened to be present, and we may suppose, as historians have stated, that a penknife, on the emergency, was used. The descriptions are interesting as indicating the acknowledged “thera- peutique way ” of the time in England. With this we may compare the treatment of another royal personage at about the same period; I mean the “Grand Monarque,” “ Le Roi Soleil.” For this purpose I will utilise what Dr. Daremberg has written of the illnesses and the treatment of Louis XIV. In his “La MMecine Histoire et Doctrines,” p, 198, &c., Daremberg, basing his account on the MS. of the king’s three chief physicians, “Journal de la Sante du Roi Louis XIV. de I’annee 1647 a I’annee 1711, ecrit par Vallot d’Aguin et Fagon,”f published by Le Roi, and also the work, “ Les Medecins au Temps de Moliere, par M. le Docteur Raynaud ” (a work full of curious matter), J considers the subject at length, and I will set before my readers a portion of what he relates. It appears tl at during the years before mentioned the king suffered what Daremberg calls a martyrdom, from disease, intemperance, and the doctors. He was bled largely, and with a steadfast deter- mination to alleviate nature — thirty-eight times from the foot or arm, even ad honorem^ to insure greater success. From 1647 to 1715 he had from i,5cx) to 2,000 purgative draughts for precaution or necessity, received some hundreds of enemata, and had many pounds of quina, been labouree by steel and by cautery. * I find it stated by Walter Scott in his Ed. of Dryden’s Works, vol. 10, p. 81, that “ One Stokeham is said to have alleged that the king’s fit was epilepsy, not apoplexy, and that bleeding was ^ ex dianietro' wrong.” t Autograph in the Imperial Library made use of by Michelet, S. Beuve, and others. X In this work Raynaud (whose address at the recent International Medical Congress will be well and gratefully remembered) gives an interesting historical sketch of the ancient Faculty of Medicine at Paris and Montpellier, and much of importance connected with the traditions of medicine, and the manners of the seventeenth century ; also a descripiion of several noticeable medical characters, and references to the chemical and physiological discoveries and controversies of the period. He, moreover, presents us with the private views of Moliere on medicine, and shows how he w^as influenced in his writings by the physiology and philosophy of the day, and especially by the state of his own health. Raynaud portrays the chief characters in Moliere’s various plays. It appears that Moliere probably died of aneurysm in the year in which he published ‘ ‘ L? Malade Imaginaire,”
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