ROMANCE OF MEDICINE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10667, 17 January 1911, Page 6

ROMANCE OF MEDICINE.

Sir Arthur Cpnan Doyle, speaking to some Lohd6h- : mediGalv-.sliudeiitSj--told several?' storiesT-illustrating :-wiiafr be .called."the romance-.qfymedicine.:". The fashion, of, wearing or..instance, r was due'to -a skin disease which produced bald patches on the august head ; voftJEJrancis. jlaof France. < fHe.got » wig • T and his cpurtifirs-followed suit, .just as ! they all whispered when he had an attack of laryngitis. "One can trace for many, years," says the same authority in the Lancet, "certainly from 1802, the inception of that disease which .killed Napoleon at St.\Helena in 1821. In 1802 Bourrionne said, ' I have often seen him at Malmaison lean against the right arm of his chair and unbuttoning his coat and waistcoat cx- ; Maim; "What pain. I feel!" ' That swas perhaps -the first allusion to his stomachic and hepatic trouble, but from then onward- it; continually appeared, like : Hangup at ,the (banquet. He' could scatter .the hosts of. Europe and-alter its kingdoms, but\he was ■powerless,against the mutinous cells of his> own .mucous membrane. Again and again/he.liad attacks of lethargy, amounting almost" to collapse .at .moments when all his energy was most required. At the crisis-of Waterloo he had -such an :attack and sat his ;horse like a man dazed for hours of the action. Finally the six years at St. Helena furnish a clinical study of gastric disease which was all explained in the historical post-mortem examination, which disclosed cancer covering the whole wall of the stomach and actually perforating • it <at; Mw. hepatic border. NapoleoUjS .whole career-was:profoiiridly modified by his complaint. There have been many criticisms—riiot unnatural ones —of his petty, querulous and undignified •; attitude during' -his capacity, but if. his critics knew what it was to digest their food with an organ which had .hardly a .square inch of healthy it they woxild perhaps take a more generous, view of the conduct of Napoleon.. .For. my own part. I think that his fortitude was never more shown than during those years—the host proof of which was that his guardians had no notion how ill he was until within a few days of his actual death. History abounds with - examples of what I have called the romance pfeimedicinel Look at the men, for .example, who were .the prime movers in the French Revolution. They.were , a; diseased , company —ra pathological 'Was 'Marat's view of life #ainted-'by 'his .loathsome" skin' disease, for.-whichhe was taking hot baths when Charlotte .Corday cut him bfi ? Was ",ijKff:;'(ncorfuptible but .".bilious...-Robes-ip'ierrejv;tlie r rvictfm ; of -hisr own liver? embittered by-his fdisfigur„e4iUnibs?: .These, are the problems • where .medicine' infringes .upon history, and these are the illustrations or the philosophy which is only open to the medical thinker. How many times do the most important historical developments appear to depend : . upon small : physical causes ? There is, for example the case of the revocation of the Edict-.of vNantes. =Byr this measure Sthe whole lEraiice has been; profoundly modified, because by that action there were driven forth the Huguenots. • 'Now," :hpw earner Loiiis XTVt., who "had always: heldypjitvupon this point, to give.s-Way^atiilastiixJ.■■■the' pressure of Mme.' de MaMtehpn, and his clerical advisers? "The answer layMn one of his molar teeth. It is historical that he had^pr.some/months, ba&Ttoothaclie, caries, .abscess finally :. ai'.'. sinus squired,'operation, and' it Syas jat this "time,; when -he was pathologically abnormal >aM;=irritable, .that ;he took .the::~step;>whichiJias modified history: . Great- results may: depend upon a king's jaw or a statesman's digestion." :■; . ~