Visions : a study of false sight (pseudopia) / by Edward H. Clarke, M. D. ; with an introduction and memorial sketch by Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D.

  • Clarke, Edward H. (Edward Hammond), 1820-1877.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Visions : a study of false sight (pseudopia) / by Edward H. Clarke, M. D. ; with an introduction and memorial sketch by Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    15/348
    I]:^TEODTJOTIO]Sr. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D. The unfinished essay here presented to the public has a singular and quite exceptional interest. When its author had read his death sentence, an'd knew that the malignant disease of which he was the subject would be slow in its work and involve great suffering, he felt that he must have something to occupy his mind and turn it away in some measure from dwelling only on the tortures of his body. He therefore took up the study-of a question in which he had long been inter- ested and made it his daily occupation to write upon it. So long as his strength lasted sufficiently, he wrote with his own hand. After this he employed another to write at his dictation. This disease had already made deep inroads upon his constitution, and he was every day becoming more de- pendent on the ministrations of those about him, when his wife, who had been his nurse, his amanuensis, his patient and tender companion, was seized with sudden illness which after a few days ended in her death. It is not often that a human heart is tried at once with the pangs of bodily suffering and the agony of grief as his was at this distressing period. But he bore up