HEALTH OF THE POPE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 568, 17 May 1913, Page 6

HEALTH OF THE POPE.

HOW THE ILLNESS AROSE. All sorts of reports are current about the health of the Pope. Sometimes it is even stated that he is actually dead and that hia death is being kept secret for inscrutable Church purposes. Needless to say, Buch a report receives no credence beyond the circle of extreme fanatical antiCatholics, who endeavour always to associate mystery and evil with the doings at the Vatican. The Rome correspondent of the Westminster Gazetts, writing on March 30th, says:— "So many rumours have been circulating regarding the Pope'B health that the straight truth, shorn of exaggeration, may be of interest. Three week ago—to be exact, on Friday, March 7th, the Pope felt a chill. On that day he did his usual work, but on Saturday, as he was exvidently suffering from an attack ot influenza, he was prevailed on to go to bed and regard himscjlf as a sick man. The influenza ran its course, as did the throat trouble that accompanied it, and they have both long since passed. For about ten days, as always happens in Rome, the patient's temperature rose at sunset, dropping at night, and returning to normal during the day. That has also passed, and nothing remains of the original ailment, which was never any time complicated by any symptoms connected with the Pope's enemy, the gout that caused so much anxiety in the summer of 1911. "But he is not recovering as he ought. He has got over the illness, but he is not gaining strength, so that he has not been able to resume the ordinary routine work, which is very heavy, and of which the public knows little, nor the rosnd of audiences, public and private, which amounts to 50,000 persons in the course of a year, exclusive of big collective audiences. The Pope will be seventy-eight on June 2nd ne ct. His health is generally sound, except for his constitutional gouty trouble. If he were able, like any other patient of his age, to take a complete rest and change for a month or two he could get strong and well again without difficulty. This, in his case, is out of the question. He cannot leave the Vatican for a change, and it is doubtful if in hia position, and with hia sensitive disposition of mind reacting on hia body, he can ever get complete rest. The present is the moment of all others when he would desire to be well. Celebrations in connection With the Constantinain Centenary of the Edict of Milan of May, 313, begin today, tg last throughout the year. Week by w*ek pilgrimages are announced to come to Rome, and every pilgrim wants to Bee the Pops on May 11th. There iB to be a Papal Chapel in St. Peter'B, at which he should be present. "Six hundrel pilgrims from Lornbardy are leaving Rome to-day without having seen him. There is every reason why he regain hia strength as soon as possible, and perhaps his anxiety to do so is retarding his recovery. The doctors are not anxious, because there is no ostensible reason for the anxiety, but they are certainly worried by the continue d weakness."