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 MEDICINE AND KINDRED ARTS IN THE 
 PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
Medicine & Kindred Arts 
 
 in the 
 
 Plays of Shakespeare 
 
 , J J J > > 
 
 BY 
 
 DR. JOHN MOVES 
 
 w 
 
 LARGS 
 
 FELLOW OF THE FACULTY OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS 
 GLASGOW 
 
 Glaso^ow 
 
 James MacLehose & Sons 
 
 Publishers to the University 
 1896 
 
6 9 5* 3 S"""7 1 2- 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. 
 
' \\ ^^ 
 
 Ma 
 
 / 
 
 ^0 
 PROFESSOR WILLIAM TENNENT GAIRDNER 
 
 M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 
 
 985(> 1 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The late Dr. John Moj^es presented his Thesis for the 
 Doctorate of Medicine to Glasgow University in 1886; it 
 was entitled " Medicine and its Kindred Arts in the Plays 
 of Shakespeare." He had worked at the subject for years, 
 but after the completion of the thesis, when he con- 
 templated publishing it, he tried, if possible, to make 
 it better. Professor Gairdner, to whom he had arranged, 
 just before his death, to dedicate this little work, had 
 himself read the manuscript, and had suggested that 
 it should be revised by some recognized Shakespearean 
 scholar ; he named an old fellow student of his own, the 
 late Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, as one who had the requisite 
 qualifications for the work, and, at Professor Gairdner's 
 request, that gentleman undertook the task. Numerous 
 annotations in pencil showed the care and the knowledge 
 he brought to bear on the subject, — knowledge both of the 
 Shakespearean writings and of the medicine of that time. 
 It was some guarantee of the value of this thesis that it 
 came out of such a revision so well. Dr. Nicholson sug- 
 gested that the work of "Batman uppon Bartholome his 
 Booke De Proprietatibus Eerum, newly corrected, enlarged, 
 and amended," Loud., 1582, should be carefully studied, 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 in connection with Shakespearean medicine, as showing 
 the notions of physiology and disease then current. Dr. 
 Moyes found this volume in our Hunterian Library in 
 Glasgow, and his MSS. bear evidence of extracts he had 
 made from it. But living at a distance from Glasgow, 
 he was unable to devote the time necessary for consult- 
 ing this book in the library (as the books there are not 
 lent out), and he regretted that he had not been able to 
 study it sufficiently. 
 
 In working at his subject. Dr. Moyes deliberately avoided 
 reading any attempts previously made in depicting Shake- 
 speare's relation to medicine, as he was anxious to work 
 out his own idea of the subject. He made up a list of 
 books which he had used in the preparation of his 
 Thesis ; these were all calculated to throw light on the 
 state of the profession and of medicine at the time, and 
 this list does not contain a single essay of the kind he 
 attempted. 
 
 The following is his list : — 
 
 John Cotta [of Northampton]. — A Short Discoverie of the un- 
 observed dangers of severall sorts of ignorant and unconsiderate 
 Practisers of Physicke in England. Lond. 1612. 
 
 [Christopher Merrett]. — The Accomplisht Physician, the honest 
 Apothecary, and the Skilfnl Chyrurgeon. London, 1670. 
 
 Robert Godfrey. — Various injuries and abuses in Chymical 
 and Galenical Physick, committed both by Physicians and Apothe- 
 caries, detected. Lond. 1674. 
 
 Richard Griffith. — A-la-Mode Phlebotomy, no good fashion. 
 Lond. 1681. 
 
 Nathaniel Hodges. — Vindiciae Medicinae et Medicorum. Lond. 
 1666. 
 
 M[archmont] N[edham]. — Medela Medicinae : a plea for the 
 free profession and renovation of the Art of Physick. Lond. 1665. 
 
 Richard Walker. — Memoirs of Medicine. Lond. 1799. 
 
 John Mason Good. — History of Medicine. Lond. 1795. 
 
 Samuel Ferris. — General View of ... . Physic. Lond. 1795. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 Medicina flagellata ; or The doctor scarify'd. Lond. 1721. 
 [Anon.] 
 
 J. M. HiCHARDS. — A Chronology of Medicine, Ancient, Mediaeval, 
 and Modern. Lond. 1880. 
 
 H. Haeser. — Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin. 1875-81. 
 
 In preparing this Thesis for the press, I thought it 
 would add to its interest and value if a pretty full biblio- 
 graphy of productions similar to it were appended. This I 
 have done as well as I can, beginning with Farren in 1826 ; 
 but, as stated in the list itself, I have not been able to 
 see many of the&e works, and I have had to give not 
 a few of them on the authorities there quoted. 
 
 A glance at that list shows that a very considerable 
 part of this literature bears on the delineations of insanity 
 in Shakespeare's plays. This was a part of the subject 
 which Dr. Moyes decided to leave untouched, partly 
 because there were available, amongst many others, the 
 admirable essays of Dr. J. C. Bucknill in this country on 
 The Mad Folk of Shakespeare, and partly, no doubt, because 
 he felt that if such subjects were to be taken up at all, 
 the authority of an expert in insanity was required to 
 give their discussion any serious value. 
 
 Just at the time when his fatal illness seized him 
 in December, 1894, Dr. Moyes had decided, at last, on 
 publishing his Thesis, although he intended, I believe, 
 to rewrite or to extend the introductory chapter. As 
 already stated, he had obtained from Professor Gairdner 
 his acceptance of the dedication ; a portion was in proof 
 to estimate its size, and he meant to push the work 
 forward to a comj^letion. A new phase of his illness, 
 however, made it imperative that the MS. be put away 
 from him, and so it was left imperfectly prepared. 
 
 The difficulties experienced in sending it to the press 
 arose from some ambiguity as to how he intended to 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 finish the introductor}^ chapter and how to begin the 
 next; and from doubt how far he meant to act upon 
 some of the suggestions in Dr. Nicholson's annotations. 
 
 On surveying the various MSS., I thought it a pity to 
 have so much careful and interesting work lost to the public 
 view, knowing how many different kinds of people are 
 attracted by such studies. Certain things in the MS. 
 obviously required correction on revision for the press, 
 but these were generally trifling. It seemed clear that 
 even if the services of a competent editor, with adequate 
 time, could be secured, the process of revision, if carried 
 very far, would destroy the individuality of Dr. Moyes' 
 work. As I had frequently been consulted on the subject 
 of the Thesis and its publication, it seemed natural that, 
 when leisure permitted, I should undertake the prepara- 
 tion of the MS. for the press, although I could not bring 
 to the task any very special qualifications for it. I duly 
 considered, however, all the annotations of Dr. Nicholson ; 
 when they seemed important, or when they did not 
 imply any extensive alterations, I have usually given effect 
 to them, just as I believe Dr. Moyes himself intended 
 to do. 
 
 No doubt if Dr. Moyes had been resident near good 
 libraries, or if a competent editor had undertaken to revise 
 and annotate this work, many important suggestions might 
 have been obtained from the numerous commentaries on 
 Shakespeare as regards the meaning of special passages 
 or the allusions they contain. Or again, a critical study 
 of some of the books and papers contained in the biblio- 
 graphy appended might have supplied much matter for 
 supplementary or corrective remarks. But for the reasons 
 already stated, this was not attempted by the author, and 
 it has not been attempted now in editing this Thesis. 
 A few references and supplementary notes, however, have 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 been added when these seemed desirable for the elucida- 
 tion of the subject or the supplying of omissions detected 
 in the revision. 
 
 It only remains to add that Dr. Moyes had intended 
 to write a supplementary chapter, by way of comparison, 
 on the medical allusions found in the writings of Marlowe 
 and Ben Jonson ; but of this a mere fragment exists in 
 his MSS., and although an obviously important part of 
 the subject, this must be left for other hands. 
 
 JAMES FINLAYSON, M.D. 
 
 2 WooDSiDE Place, 
 
 Glasgow, June, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Introductory, 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Physiological and Pathological Notions, .... 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Medicine, 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Materia Medica, Toxicology, and Therapeutics, . . 46 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Surgery, 75 
 
 Venereal Diseases, 86 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Midwifery, 98 
 
 Bibliography of Shakespearean Medicine, . . .113 
 Index, 117 
 
MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
INTKODUCTORY ;.,»-. ; 
 
 
 The time in which Shakespeare lived corresponded to 
 that period in medicine which immediately preceded the 
 discovery of the circulation of the blood. Vesalius, the 
 great anatomist, died about a year before Shakespeare's 
 birth ; Harvey announced his discovery about ten years 
 after Shakespeare's death. In that interval great advances 
 were made in all branches of knowledge associated with 
 medicine. In anatomy and physiology a few names will 
 suffice to mark the period. Fallopius was but recently 
 dead; Eustachius still lived; Fabricius, who discovered 
 the valves of the veins, w^as teaching in Padua; Servetus 
 entombed in a theological work a description of the 
 pulmonary circulation; Columbus of Rome explained the 
 relation of the pulse to the systole and diastole of the 
 heart; and Caesalpini stood on the brink of anticipating 
 Harvey's discovery. 
 
 In medicine the time was one of transition, and hence 
 of strife. Galen's theories were being called in question. 
 Early in the century the great controversy between Brissot 
 and the Arabian school as to whether it were better to 
 perform phlebotomy near the seat of the disease or at a 
 distance from it had taken place, and its echoes had hardly 
 died away. Paracelsus too had lived and taught, and the 
 
 A 
 
2 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 contest between his disciples and the Galenists was pro- 
 longed into the seventeenth century. The air was indeed 
 full of the din made by contending theorists ; but not- 
 withstanding this, the medical art was advancing. In 
 quiet nooks workers upon the Hippocratic method were 
 placing it on a surer basis. Beside the literature of 
 controversy are found descriptions of epidemics, works on 
 pathological anatomy, treatises on typhus and syphilis, 
 and carefully recorded clinical observations. There were 
 many eminent physicians : Guillaume de Baillou, who has 
 been likeaed to the English Sydenham ; Crato v. Krafft- 
 heim, the pupil of Luther and Melancthon ; Schenck of 
 Grdfenberg ; Montanus, who gave clinical instruction at 
 the San Francesco Hospital in Padua, the first instance 
 of such teaching being methodically given in a medical 
 school. 
 
 The progress of surgery at this time was even more 
 remarkable. This branch was able to profit earlier than 
 medicine by the labours of the anatomists. Wars were 
 frequent. Firearms were being increasingly used. Oppor- 
 tunities, given in this way for observation, led to more 
 correct views as to healing, as to modes of and times 
 for amputation, and as to prevention of bleeding. It was 
 the era, in a word, associated surgically with the names of 
 Amhroise ParS and his pupil Guillemeau, and with that of 
 Fabricius, who gave us the trephine as we know it, and 
 who introduced the use of the tube in tracheotomy. 
 
 In England the period followed immediately on Thomas 
 Vicary's Mastership of the Company of Barber-Surgeons : 
 a time when the three or four apprentices allowed to each 
 surgeon were " clene in person and Lymm, and mete for 
 the exercysinge of the same Mystery Science or Arte,"i 
 
 ^ South's Memorials of the Craft of Surgery, p. 146. 
 
IN TROD UC TOR V 3 
 
 when those who were learned or could write had to bring- 
 in " an Epistell ever}^ half yere," and the unlearned who 
 could not write or read were examined " half-yerelye what 
 they can doo in the practyse, &c."^ 
 
 The Royal College of Physicians had been incorporated 
 since 1518. Three lectureships had been founded by 
 Linacre in the Universities, two in Oxford and one in 
 Cambridge. 
 
 The duties of the lecturers were to explain Hippocrates 
 and Galen to the young students, and provision was made 
 that if none in the college were capable, proper persons 
 from any other society might be chosen. Linacre had been 
 succeeded as president by Dr. John Caius,- one of the most 
 learned men of his time, who had been a student in Padua 
 under Montanus. Caius is said to have introduced the 
 dissection of the human body into England, and at this 
 time public demonstrations and dissections were held in 
 the hall of the now united Surgeons and Barbers. Attend- 
 ance at these was compulsory under fine, on every man 
 ^' using the mystery or Faculty of Surgery, be he freeman, 
 libreyn, or alian straunger . . . being by the beadle 
 warned thereunto."^ 
 
 Among the arcana of Paracelsus were preparations of 
 mercury, antimony, lead, iron, copper, arsenic, sulphur, 
 borax, and his "laudanum." There were also tinctures 
 and essences of plants. Extension of commerce brought 
 into use, about this time, china root, sarsaparilla, and 
 
 ^ Young's Annals of the Barber-Surgeons, p. 310. 
 
 - Key : Latinized into Caius, the same who founded the College in 
 Cambridge. Although represented in the Dramatis personae as a 
 " French Physician," there is little doubt that it is he whose name 
 is taken advantage of in t\iQ Merry Wives of Windsor, as "Doctor 
 Caius." 
 
 ^South's Memorials of the Craft of Sunjery, p. 142. 
 
4 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 guaiacum. But at that early stage of chemistry the com- 
 position of simple remedies even was little understood. 
 Empirical formulas abounded. Among specifics for various 
 diseases were crab's eyes, prepared pearls, calculous con- 
 cretions, etc. There was no Pharmacopoeia. The apothe- 
 caries compounded into appropriate forms the drugs 
 obtained from the wholesale grocer. They dealt also in 
 wares such as snuff, tobacco, and sugar. The College of 
 Physicians from time to time appointed four of their 
 number who, after taking oath, inspected the apothecaries' 
 shops to test the purity of the drugs, and with power to 
 destroy, if necessary. 
 
 One of the features of the time was the prevalence of 
 empiricism, nor was this to be wondered at in the state of 
 medical knowledge. An Act of Parliament had even been 
 passed in 1543 which conferred liberty to practise on the 
 following comprehensive class, viz. : " Every person being 
 the king's subject having knowledge and experience of the 
 nature of herbs, roots, and waters, or of the operation of 
 the same, by speculation or practice, within any part of the 
 realm of England." Nine years later Dr. Caius enumerates 
 as among those who practised the art : " Simple women, 
 carpenters, pewterers, braziers, soap ball sellers, apothe- 
 caries, avaunters themselves to come from Pole, Constanti- 
 nople, &c." Again in 1612, fifty years later, Cotta says: 
 " It is a world to see what swarms abound in this kind, not 
 only of tailors, shoemakers, weavers, mid wives, cooks, and 
 priests, but witches, conjurers, jugglers, and fortune- 
 tellers." 1 
 
 Many of these professed special branches, and offered to 
 undergo examination by the Company of Barber-Surgeons. 
 If they showed sufficient aptitude or knowledge of their 
 
 ^ Cotta : Short Dhcoverie, etc., p. 36. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 specialism, they received a licence to practise for a longer 
 or shorter time. Thus we read that "James Vanotten 
 and Nicholos Bowlden are . . . permitted to practize 
 for the couchinge of the Catarack, cuttinge for the rupture, 
 stone, and wenne," for the space of three months ; another 
 is permitted, in addition, to cut for the wry neck and the 
 harelip. Permission is given to "Edward Stutfeyld, a 
 practiconer in bone settinge," to "Josper Johnson, 
 practiconer in the Cure of a fistula," and to "John of 
 Mounepilier, in ffrance," to practise for three months, 
 provided " they hang not oute their banners or other 
 shewes and signes of their profession in any other place 
 then at the howse where they shall from tyme to tyme 
 
 lye."i 
 
 In the pages of Shakespeare these different types of 
 practitioners are represented. The physician in King Lear, 
 the doctors in Macbeth, Gerard de Narbon in AlFs Well, 
 and Dr. Butts in Henrij VII I. represent the higher grade 
 of the legally qualified physicians. The surgeon is often 
 sent for when wounds have been inflicted, and a grave 
 imputation is thrown upon his habits in the passage : 
 
 Sir To. That's all one ; be has hurt me, and there's the end 
 on't. Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot ? 
 
 Clo. 0, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone ; his eyes were set 
 at eight i' the morning. Twelfth JSlight, v. 1. 
 
 The apothecary stands forth in all the poverty of his 
 surroundings in Romeo and Juliet : 
 
 I do remember an apothecary, — 
 And hereabouts he dwells, — whom late I noted 
 In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows. 
 Culling of simples ; meagre were his looks, 
 Sharp misery had worn him to the bones ; 
 
 ^ South's Memorials of the Craft of Surgery, p. 161. 
 
6 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
 
 An alligator stuff'd, and other skins 
 
 Of ill-shaped fishes ; and about his shelves 
 
 A beggarly account of empty boxes, 
 
 Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, 
 
 Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, 
 
 Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, v. 1. 
 
 And the class of whom Cotta complains furnishes Pinch 
 the conjurer in the Comedy of Errors : 
 
 They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain, 
 
 A mere anatomy, a mountebank, 
 
 A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller ; 
 
 A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp looking wretch, 
 
 A living-dead man : this pei^nicious slave 
 
 Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer ; 
 
 And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse, 
 
 And with no face, as t'were, outfacing me. 
 
 Cries out, I was possessed. Comedy of Errors, v. 1, 
 
 Various passages show, moreover, that Shakespeare was 
 not unacquainted with the rival schools of medicine and 
 with the great medical names of antiquity. 
 
 That he was acquainted with the controversy between the 
 Galenists and the chemists we learn from the passage in 
 AlVs Well that Ends IFell, where Lafeu speaks of the king 
 as " relinquished of the artists," and Parolles replies, "- so I 
 say; both of Galen and Paracelsus." The following is the 
 passage : 
 
 Laf. They say, miracles are past ; and we have our philosophical 
 persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and 
 causeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors ; ensconcing 
 ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves 
 to an unknown fear. 
 
 Par. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder, that hath shot out 
 in our latter times. 
 
INTR OD UC TOR V 7 
 
 Be7\ And so 'tis. 
 
 Laf. To be reliiKjuished of the artists, — 
 
 Pai\ So I say ; both of Galen and Paracelsus. 
 
 Laf. Of all the learned and authentic fellows, — 
 
 Par. Right, so I say. 
 
 Laf. That gave him out incurable, — 
 
 Par. Why, there 'tis ; so say I too. 
 
 Laf. Not to be helped, — 
 
 Par. Right ; as 'twere a man assured of an — 
 
 Laf. Uncertain life, and sure death. 
 
 Airs Well that Ends Well, ii. 3. 
 
 The occurrence of the names of Galen and Paracelsus 
 in this connection is not fortuitous; the meaning is 
 that neither the old sect who swore by Galen nor the 
 chemists who pinned their faith to Paracelsus could render 
 the king any help. This view is strengthened by the 
 word " schools " occurring in a previous part of the same 
 play : 
 
 How shall they credit 
 A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools 
 Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off 
 The danger to itself ? 
 
 Airs Well that Ends Well, i. 3. 
 
 The above is the only mention of Paracelsus, but in 
 the Merrij Wives of Windsor (ii. 3 ; iii. 1), the names of 
 Esculapius, Hippocrates, and Galen appear. Esculapius 
 appears also in Pericles (iii. 2), and in the second part 
 of Henry IV. Falstaff in the following passage, while 
 discoursing of apoplexy, claims to have derived his know- 
 ledge of it from Galen : 
 
 Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same 
 whoreson apoplexy. 
 
 Ch. Just. Well, Heaven mend him ! I pray, let me speak with 
 you. 
 
8 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't 
 please your lordship ; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson 
 tingling. 
 
 Gh. Just. What tell you me of it ? be it as it is. 
 
 Fal. It has its original from much grief; from study, and per- 
 turbation of the brain ; I have read the cause of its effects in Galen ; 
 it is a kind of deafness. //. Henry I V. i. 2. 
 
 The name of Galen also occurs in Coriolanus : 
 
 Men. A letter for me? It gives me an estate of seven years' 
 health ; in which time I will make a lip at the physician : the most 
 sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this pre- 
 servative, of no better report than a horse-drench. 
 
 Coriolanus, ii. 1. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL NOTIONS 
 
 It is evident that notwithstanding the frequent references 
 
 in Shakespeare to the circulation of the blood, he had no 
 
 notion of its course, as understood since the discovery 
 
 of Harvey. Obscure allusions suggestive of the idea of 
 
 the circulation of blood, ichen we have this in our mind, 
 
 do occur : 
 
 , Bru. You are my true and honourable wife ; 
 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 Which visit my sad heart. Julius Caesar, ii. L 
 
 Or, again, in a passage to be subsequently quoted in 
 connection with Death (p. 42), where he speaks of the 
 blood, at death, going to the heart : 
 
 Which with the heart there cools and ne'er returneth 
 To blush and beautify the cheek again. 
 
 //. Henry VI. iii. 2. 
 
 Bartholomaeus, in 1366, speaks of the running of blood 
 in the veins and the running of blood and air (vital 
 spirits) in the arteries. 
 
 The famous metaphor in Coriolanus, where the senators 
 of Rome are likened to the belly, and the mutinous 
 citizens to the other members of the body rebelling 
 
10 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 against it, furnishes us with a good general view of 
 digestion and nutrition. ^ It also refers to sending rivers 
 
 of blood 
 Even to tlie court, the heart. 
 
 Men. There was a time, when all the body's members 
 Eebell'd against the belly ; thus accused it : 
 That only like a gulf it did remain 
 I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive. 
 Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing 
 Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments 
 Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel. 
 And, mutually participate, did minister 
 Unto the appetite and affection common 
 Of the whole body. The belly answered, — 
 
 F'lr^t Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly? 
 
 Men. ....... 
 
 ' True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he, 
 
 ' That I receive the general food at first. 
 
 Which you do live upon ; and fit it is, 
 
 Because I am the store-house, and the shop 
 
 Of the whole body : But, if you do remember, 
 
 I send it through the rivers of your blood. 
 
 Even to the court, the heart, — to the seat o' the brain ; 
 
 And, through the cranks and offices of man, 
 
 The strongest nerves, and small inferior v^eins 
 
 From me receive that natural competency 
 
 Whereby they live : And though that all at once. 
 
 You, my good friends' (this says the belly), mark me, — 
 
 First Cit. Ay, sir ; well, well. 
 
 ^ In "Batman uppon Bartholoine his Booke De proprietatibus 
 rerum,^^ Book v., chapter 38, we read: "The stomach is the 
 purveyor and husband of all the body, and the stomach taketli 
 feeding for all the members and serveth all the members thereof as 
 it needeth, as saith Constantine. " This was published in London in 
 1582. It is evidently the same idea which Shakespeare amplifies. 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL NOTLONS \\ 
 
 Men. ' Though all at once cannot 
 See what I do deliver out to each : 
 Yet I can make my audit up, that all 
 From me do back receive the flour of all, 
 And leave me but the l)ran. ' What say you to 't ? 
 
 Coriolcmus, i. 1. 
 
 The following passage also bears upon nutrition and its 
 relation to the blood and veins : 
 
 he had not dined ; 
 The veins unfiU'd, our blood is cold, and then 
 We pout upon the morning, are unapt 
 To give or to forgive ; but, when we have stuff'd 
 These pipes and these conveyances of our blood 
 With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls 
 Than in our priest-like fasts ; therefore I'll watch him 
 Till he be dieted to my request. 
 And then I'll set upon him. Coriolanns, v. 1. 
 
 The beliefs of Hippocrates that the liver was the great 
 organ of blood-making, and that it had also a faculty of 
 generating heat, throw light upon many of the passages 
 where the mention of this organ occurs. Thus, Sir Toby 
 Belch in Twelfth Night says : 
 
 For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his 
 liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy. 
 
 Twelfth Nlfjht, iii. 2. 
 
 Bearing on white livers and cowardice, we have the 
 following : 
 
 How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false 
 As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins 
 The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars ; 
 Who, inward searcli'd, have livers white as milk ! 
 
 Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 
 
 For " lilj^-livered " in this sense, see also Macbeth, v. 3, 
 and King Lear, ii. 2. 
 
12 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The eflfect of wine in improving the liver and the 
 courage is insisted on by Falstaff : 
 
 The second property of your excellent sherris is, — the warming of 
 the blood ; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and 
 pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice ; but the 
 sherris warms it, and makes it coarse from the inwards to the parts 
 extreme. 7/. Henry IV. iv. 3. 
 
 FalstafF, discoursing further of the effect of sherris, makes 
 coldness of blood synonymous with cowardice, and heat 
 of blood with valour : 
 
 Prince Harry is valiant ; for the cold blood he did naturally 
 inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, 
 manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drink- 
 ing good, and good store of fertile sherris ; that he is become very hot 
 and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I 
 would teach them, should be, — to forswear thin potations, and 
 addict themselves to sack. //. Henry I V. iv. 3. 
 
 Just before, in the same speech, he ascribes the pallor 
 of the liver to the coldness of the blood, and in particular 
 he says, " the sherris warms it and makes it course from the 
 inwards to the parts extreme." 
 
 Again, 
 
 reason and respect 
 Make livers pale, and lustihood deject. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2. 
 
 You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are 
 young : you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of 
 your galls ; and we, that are in the vaward of our youth, I must 
 confess, are wags too. //. Henry IV. i. 2. 
 
 Two other passages agree with the statement of Falstaff 
 that drinking warmed the blood in the liver, viz : 
 
 Char. 1 had rather heat my liver with drinking. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, i. 2. 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL NOTIONS 13 
 
 And let my liver rather heat with wine, 
 
 Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. 
 
 Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, 
 
 Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 
 
 Sleep, when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice 
 
 By being peevish ? Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 
 
 The other references to this organ are in passages where 
 the love of the sexes is spoken of, and no doubt their ex- 
 planation, also, is to be found in its tw^o supposed functions 
 above spoken of; but the connection of the liver with love 
 was a tradition from classical times : 
 
 The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart 
 
 Abates the ardour of my liver. Tempest, iv. 1. 
 
 The 'pia mater is referred to three times in the plays. 
 The most important of these allusions is the following : 
 
 Hoi. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple ; a foolish extra- 
 vagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, appre- 
 hensions, motions, revolutions ; these are begot in the ventricle of 
 memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon 
 the mellowing of occasion. Love\s Lahovr^s Lost, iv. 2. 
 
 In the other passages, |?/a mater seems to be used simpl}'' 
 as meaning the brain; "a most weak pia mater" {Twelfth 
 Night, i. 5) ; " his pna mater is not worth the ninth part 
 of a sparrow " (Troilus and Cressida, ii. 1). 
 
 The use of the term 2)ia mater, for the soft membrane 
 in contact with the brain, arose from the notion that the brain 
 was not merely nourished by the membranes, but actually 
 formed from them, ideas well indicated by the phrase 
 " nourished in the womb of ^;ift mater.'' Sir B. W. Richard- 
 son, in a paper noted in the Bibliography, supposes that 
 Shakespeare may have seen the sheets or drawings of 
 Crooke's Microcosmographia, London, 1616 (Pref. dated 1615), 
 a large folio which was printed by W. Jaggard, whose place 
 of business would be well known to Shakespeare, as he had 
 
14 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 printed things for him also. The value of this suggestion will 
 depend on the dates of the Plays where the phrase occurs. 
 
 Regarding the " ventricle of memor}'," the following 
 extract from Vicary's Anatomie of the Bocl'ie of Man, issued 
 in 1548 (Early Text Society, 1888, Extra Series, liii., p. 31) 
 may be quoted. In the margin, we read : " In the foremost 
 Ventricle are the Five Wits : also the Fancy and the 
 Imagination. In the 2nd or middle Ventricle is Thought. 
 In the 3rd Ventricle is the Memory." In the text, we 
 read : " In the 3rd Ventrikle, and last, there is founded 
 and ordeyned the vertue Memoratiue : in this place is 
 registred and kept those things that are done and spoken 
 with the senses," etc., etc. 
 
 It is of some importance to notice how familiarly 
 acquainted Shakespeare was with the two leading patho- 
 logical doctrines of the ancients, viz., that of the " vital 
 spirits," which dwelt in the arteries, and that other doctrine 
 of " humours," which still lingers in popular belief and even 
 now forms the basis of some so-called systems of cure : 
 
 Why, universal plodding prisons up 
 The nimble spirits in the arteries ; 
 As motion, and long- during action, tires 
 The sinewy vigour of the traveller. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. 
 
 Take thou this phial, being then in bed, 
 
 And this distilled liquor drink thou off : 
 
 When, presently through all thy veins shall run 
 
 A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize 
 
 Each vital spirit. Romeo and Juliet, iv. 1. 
 
 The next two quotations should be read also in con- 
 nection with the two passages previously quoted (pp. 9, 10) 
 as to the circulation of the blood : 
 
 Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, 
 
 Had baked thy blood, and made it heavy, thick ; 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL NOTIONS 15 
 
 (Which else, runs tickling up and down the veins, 
 
 Making that idiot, laugliter, keep men's eyes, 
 
 And strain their cheeks to idle merriment, 
 
 A passion hateful to my purposes), Kiuf} John, iii. 3. 
 
 and it cannot be, 
 That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins. 
 
 Ihid. iii. 4. 
 
 In the following passages the word " Humours " has, 
 without question, a pathological significance. It might 
 indeed bear this interpretation in many other places where 
 it occurs as, e.g. where Desdemona says, " Methinks the sun 
 where he was born drew all such humours from him " {Othello, 
 iii. 4), but only those passages have been taken where no 
 Cjuestion can be raised as to the meaning : 
 
 I 
 
 Do come with words as med'cinal as true, 
 
 Honest as either, to purge him of that humour 
 
 That presses him from sleep. Winfer's Tale, ii. 3. 
 
 King. So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did 
 commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wdiolesome physic 
 of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself 
 to walk. Lovers Labour's Lost, i. 1. 
 
 D. Pedro. What ! sigh for the toothache ? 
 Leon. Where is but a humour, or a worm ! 
 
 Much Ado About Xothing, iii. 2. 
 
 Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the knight, that's the 
 even of it. 
 
 Pist. Xym, thou hast spoke the right ; 
 His heart is fracted, and corroborate. 
 
 Nym. The king is a good king ; but it must be as it may ; he 
 passes some humours and careers. Henry V. ii. 1. 
 
 Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolt- 
 ing-hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge 
 bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Man- 
 ningtree ox wdth the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that 
 grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years ? 
 
 /. Henry IV. ii. 4. 
 
16 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This inundation of misteniper'd humour 
 
 Rests by you only to be qualified. 
 
 Then pause not ; for the present time's so sick, 
 
 That present medicine must be minister'd, 
 
 Or overthrow incurable ensues. Kinr) John, v. 1. 
 
 Closely allied to "Humours" are the "Rheums" or 
 Catarrhal fluxes, of which also we find frequent mention : 
 
 Is not your father grown incapable 
 
 Of reasonable affairs ? is he not stupid 
 
 With age, and altering rheums ? Can he speak ? hear ? 
 
 Know man from man ? dispute his own estate ? 
 
 Lies he not bed-rid ? and again does nothing, 
 
 But what he did being childish ? Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 
 
 And death unloads thee : Friend hast thou none ; 
 For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, 
 The mere effusion of thy proper loins. 
 Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, 
 For ending thee no sooner. 
 
 Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 
 
 Eno. That year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 2. 
 
 You say so : 
 You that did void your rheum upon my beard, 
 And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 
 Over your threshold ; monies is your suit. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, i. 3. 
 
 Ant. S. Where England ? 
 
 Dro. S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no white- 
 ness in them ; but I guess, it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum 
 that ran between France and it. Comedy of Errors, iii. 2. 
 
 0th. I have a salt and sullen rheum offends me : 
 Lend me thy handkerchief. Othello, iii. 4. 
 
 The pathological doctrine of "obstructions" current in 
 Shakespeare's time is referred to at page 68. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 MEDICINE 
 
 The diseases of which most frequent mention is made 
 are : Ague, Rheumatism, Plagues and Pestilences, 
 Fevers, Meazels, The Sweat, Leprosy. 
 
 Among others which receive casual mention are : 
 Apoplexy, Boneache, Colic, Consumption, Convulsions, 
 Cramps, Dropsy, Ecstasy, Epilepsy, Gout, Green Sick- 
 ness, Heartburn, Hemiplegia, Hydrophobia, Itch, 
 Jaundice, Palsy, Sciatica, Sea-Sickness, Somnambulism, 
 Tetter, Visual Spectra. 
 
 To these may be added the list given by Thersites in 
 Troilus and Cressida ; but it includes surgical as well as 
 medical ailments, and seems to have special reference to 
 the complications of syphilis : 
 
 Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, 
 catarrhs, loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold palsies, ra^v 
 eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of impos- 
 thume, sciaticas, limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the 
 rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such pre- 
 posterous discoveries ! Troilus and Cressida, v. 1. 
 
 Ague. This disease was much more frequent at that 
 time than now; and its destructive influence on troops is 
 relied on by Macbeth : 
 
 Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls ; 
 The cry is still, ' They come : ' Our castle's strength 
 
 B 
 
18 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ^Vill laugh a siege to scorn : here let them lie, 
 
 Till famine, and the ague, eat them up. Macbeth, v. 5. 
 
 Its type was also more severe, and a fatal result from it 
 more common. It causes the death of John of Gaunt in 
 the second act of Fdchard II. 
 
 When Cassius instigates Brutus against Caesar, he 
 describes a fever which Caesar had in Spain. The following 
 is the passage, and the severe rigor, the pallor of the lips, 
 the dulness of the eye, the thirst, and the weakness 
 identify the illness with an attack of ague: 
 
 He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
 
 And, when the fit was on him, I did mark 
 
 How he did shake : 'tis true, this god did shake, 
 
 His coward lips did from their colour fly ; 
 
 And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world. 
 
 Did lose his lustre : I did hear him groan : 
 
 Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
 
 Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
 
 Alas ! it cried, ' Give me some drink, Titinius,' 
 
 As a sick girl. Julius Co.esar, i. 2. 
 
 The most characteristic symptom of ague, viz. the 
 shivering, is alluded to in the following passages, as 
 also its similarity to the shaking due to fear : 
 
 This ague-fit of fear is over-blown. Richard II. iii. 2. 
 
 Although, I know, you'll swear, terribly swear, 
 
 Into strong shudders, and to heavenly agues, 
 
 The immortal gods that hear you, — spare your oaths. 
 
 Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 Solar. My wind, cooling my broth. 
 Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 
 What harm a wind too great might do at sea. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 
 
 In the following passage from the Tempest the interest 
 lies in the allusion to delirium durins; the fit : 
 
MEDICINE 19 
 
 Ste. This is some monster of the isle, with four legs ; who hatli 
 got, I take it, an ague : Where the devil should he learn our 
 language? I will give him some relief, if it be but for that: If I 
 can recover him, and keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, 
 he's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's-leather. 
 
 Gal. Do not torment me, pr'ythee ; I'll bring my wood home 
 faster. 
 
 Ste. He's in his fit now ; and does not talk after the wisest. He 
 shall taste of m^^ bottle : if he have never drunk wine afore, it will 
 go near to remove his fit. If I can recover him, and keep him tame, 
 I will not take too much for him : he shall pay for him that hath 
 him, and that soundly. Tempest, ii. 2. 
 
 Two varieties of the disease are recognized, the quotidian 
 and the tertian. Thus Rosalind, in As You Like It, says : 
 
 If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him some good 
 counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him. 
 
 As You Like It, iii. 2. 
 
 Dame Quickl}', to impress the greater gravity of Sir 
 John's illness upon her hearers, uses in a confused way the 
 two in conjunction : 
 
 Hostess. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to Sir John : 
 Ah, poor heart ! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that 
 it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him. 
 
 Henry V. ii. 1. 
 
 The action of the hot sun upon moist ground as a factor 
 in the production of the disease was known to Shakespeare, 
 as we learn from the passage : 
 
 Hot. No more, no more ; worse than the sun in March, 
 This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come. 
 
 /. Henry IV. iv. 1. 
 
 Again, we have the passage in Troilus and Cressida : 
 
 Pair. 0, then beware ; 
 Those w'ounds heal ill, that men do give themselves : 
 Omission to do what is necessary 
 
20 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Seals a commission to a blank of danger ; 
 And danger, like an ague, subtly taints 
 Even then when we sit idly in the sun. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 
 
 This may refer to the same subtle influence, or it may possibly 
 allude to the well-known fact that in one subject to a 
 malarial taint, the hot stage may be brought on by exposure 
 to the sun. 
 
 The after-efi"ects of the disease are seen in Caius Ligarius ; 
 Caesar says : 
 
 Good-morrow, Casea. — Caius Ligarius, 
 Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy. 
 As that same ague which hath made you lean. 
 
 Jidius Caesar, ii. 2. 
 
 The physiognomy during an attack furnishes the follow- 
 ing metaphor : 
 
 But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud, 
 
 And chase the native beauty from his cheek. 
 
 And he will look as hollow as a ghost, 
 
 As dim and meagre as an ague's fit ; 
 
 And so he'll die. King John, iii. 4. 
 
 The following passages have a general bearing upon the 
 causes of Malarial and Rheumatic Diseases. These are 
 ascribed very much to the same influences which at 
 the present day we recognize as producing them : 
 
 Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames 
 Into her scornful eyes ! Infect her beauty, 
 You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the power-ful sun. 
 To fall and blast her pride ! King Lear, ii. 4. 
 
 To dare the vile contagion of the night ? 
 And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air 
 To add unto his sickness ? No, my Brutus. 
 
 Jidius Caesar, ii. 1. 
 
 Page. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw 
 rheumatic day? Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 1. 
 
MEDICINE 21 
 
 Cal. All the infections that the sun sucks up 
 From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him 
 By inch-meal a disease ! His spirits hear me. 
 
 Tempest, ii. 2. 
 
 Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, 
 Pale in her anger, washes all the air, 
 That rheumatic diseases do abound. 
 
 Mid summer- Night'' s Dream, ii. 1. 
 
 Other passages referring to rheumatism are quoted below : 
 
 Host. By my troth, this is the old fashion ; you two never meet, 
 but you fall to some discord : you are both, in good troth, as 
 rheumatic as two dry toasts ; you cannot one bear with another's 
 confirmities. //. Henry IV. ii. 4 
 
 Apem. So, so ; there : — 
 Aches contract and starve your supple joints ! 
 
 Timon of Athens, i. 1. 
 
 The frequent alhisions to Plagues and Pestilenx'es are 
 readily understood when it is remembered that the century 
 in which Shakespeare lived was one remarkable for tlie 
 frequency and force of its epidemics. Of their specific 
 nature he says nothing, and only in one instance can the 
 nature of the disease be conjectured. It is the " red 
 pestilence," or " red plague," twice alluded to : 
 
 Vol. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, 
 And occupations perish ! Coriolanus, iv. 1. 
 
 Cal. You taught me language ; and my profit on't 
 Is, I know how to curse : The red-plague rid you. 
 For learning me your language ! Tempest, i. 2. 
 
 This was doubtless typhus fever. The disease was 
 common at the time, and in France the name given to 
 it was La poiuyre, from the red eruption which accompanied 
 it. Some have made out the reference to be to one form 
 of the plague, but the resemblance (if not relationship) 
 
22 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 between the plague and typhus is at times so close that 
 a celebrated physician from Egypt, seeing certain typhus 
 fever cases in London, said that if seen at home they 
 would have been regarded as the Plague (Murchison, Con- 
 tinued Fevers, 3rd edition, p. 220). 
 
 Occasionally Shakespeare ascribes these plagues to stellar 
 influences : 
 
 Biron. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 
 
 But in another remarkable passage he shows that he 
 knew well the conditions under which they broke out : 
 
 And draw their honours reeking up to heaven ; 
 Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime, 
 The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France. 
 Mark then abounding valour in our English. 
 
 He7iry V. iv. 3. 
 
 The infectiousness of disease supplies these fine metaphors : 
 
 It is certain, that either wise bearing, or ignorant carriage, is 
 caught, as men take diseases, one of another ; therefore, let men take 
 heed of their company. //. Heiwy IV. v. I. 
 
 Sickness is catching ; 0, were favour so ! 
 Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. 
 
 Midsummer- N'kjIiV s Dream, i. 1. 
 
 Further allusions to infection and contagion are found 
 in the following : 
 
 Sands. 'Tis time to give them physic, their diseases 
 Are grown so catching. Henry VIII. i. 3. 
 
 Mar. All the contagion of the south light on you. 
 You shames of Rome ! you herd of — Boils and plagues 
 Plaster you o'er ; that you may be abhorr'd 
 Farther than seen, and one infect another 
 Against the wind a mile ! Y^'ou souls of geese. 
 
 Coriolanus, i. 4. 
 
MEDICINE 23 
 
 Beatrice turns the same idea to humorous account when 
 
 she says : 
 
 Beat. Lord ! he will hang upon him like a disease : he is sooner 
 caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God 
 help the noble Claudio ! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost 
 him a thousand pound ere he be cured. 
 
 Much Ado About Nothing, i. 1. 
 
 Fevers.^ The clinical features of fever which occur in 
 the Plays are shivering, increased rapidity of the pulse, 
 rise of temperature, the crisis before recovery, the weak- 
 ness during convalescence, and delirium. The shivering 
 furnishes certain metaphors : 
 
 Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world 
 Were feverous, and did tremble. Coriolanus, i. 4. 
 
 The obscure bird 
 Clamour'd the live-long night : some say, the earth 
 Was feverous, and did shake. Macbeth, ii. 3. 
 
 The white hand of a lady fever thee. 
 
 Shake thou to look on't. — Get thee back to Caesar. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 11 (or 1.3). 
 
 And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire, 
 To make a shaking fever in your walls, 
 They shoot but calm words, folded up in smoke, 
 To make a faithless error in your ears. 
 
 King John, ii. 1. 
 
 Acceleration of the pulse in fever is referred to, where 
 Troilus says : 
 
 Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom : 
 My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse. 
 
 Troilus and Cresiida, iii. 2. 
 
 ^ See also Ague and Pestilence already mentioned. 
 
24 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The increase of temperature is indicated in the following : 
 
 We are all diseased ; 
 And with our surfeiting and wanton hours 
 Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, 
 And we must bleed for it. //. Henry IV. iv. 1. 
 
 The crisis, or rather the precritical exacerbation of the 
 fever, is applied metaphorically in this passage : 
 
 Pand. Before the curing of a strong disease, 
 Even in the instant of repair and health, 
 The fit is strongest ; evils, that take leave, 
 On their departure most of all show evil : 
 What have you lost by losing of this day ? 
 
 King John, iii. 4. 
 
 The fictitious strength in the delirium of fever is well 
 described in the following comparison : 
 
 And as the wretch, whose fever- weaken'd joints, 
 Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life. 
 Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire 
 Out of his keeper's arms ; even so my limbs, 
 Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief, 
 Are thrice themselves. //. Henry IV. i. 1. 
 
 That Shakespeare had closely observed the wanderings 
 of the mind in illness is evident, when we study the 
 death-bed scenes of King John and Falstaff. That of King 
 John will be further spoken of, by and by, but here it 
 will be convenient to notice the delirium before death. 
 Prince Henry describes it in these terms : 
 
 P. Hen. It is too late ; the life of all his blood 
 Is touch'd corruptibly ; and his pure brain 
 (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house) 
 Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, 
 Foretell the ending of mortality. King John, v. 7. 
 
 And in the speech almost immediately following : 
 
 P. Hen. vanity of sickness ! fierce extremes, 
 In their continuance, will not feel themselves. 
 
MEDICINE 25 
 
 Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, 
 
 Leaves them insensible ; and his siege is now 
 
 Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds 
 
 With many legions of strange fantasies ; 
 
 Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, 
 
 Confound themselves. 'Tis strange, that death should sing. — 
 
 I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan. 
 
 Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death ; 
 
 And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings 
 
 His soul and body to their lasting rest. Kiwj John, v. 7. 
 
 The delirium here is acute and in keeping with the 
 circumstances. The patient rages, sings, demands to be 
 carried into the open air : contrast it with the wandering 
 of Falstaff s mind at the close of his Hfe, as described by 
 Dame Quickly : 
 
 Quick. Nay, sure, he's not in hell ; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever 
 man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a finer end, and went away, 
 an it had been any christom child ; a' parted even just between 
 twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide ; for after I saw him 
 fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his 
 fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way : for his nose was as 
 sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John ? 
 quoth I ; what, man, be of good cheer. So a' cried out — God, God, 
 God ! three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him, a' should 
 not think of God ; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself 
 with any such thoughts yet : So, a' bade me lay more clothes on his 
 feet : I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as 
 cold as any stone ; then I felt to his knees, and so upward and up- 
 ward, and all was as cold as any stone. Henry V. ii. 3. 
 
 There is a reference here to the superstition not long gone 
 out that one died about the turning of the tide. (See 
 New Shakespeare Society Transactions for 1880-82, pp. 212 
 and 218.) 
 
 The clinical accuracy of this description requires no 
 comment, but note the difference between the delirium of 
 King John and that of old Sir John, who, dying in 
 
26 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 advanced life and of a long-standing ailment, "fumbled 
 with the sheets, played with flowers, and smiled upon 
 his fingers' ends." The gravity of the symptom is recog- 
 nized in each case. " It is too late," says Prince Henry ; 
 " I knew there was but one way," says Dame Quickly, 
 ."for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of 
 green fields " i — that he had known in his youth. 
 
 Measles. Coriolanus, when urged to speak in concili- 
 atory terms to the populace, gives utterance to the 
 following : 
 
 Cor. How ! no more ! 
 As for my country I have shed my blood, 
 Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs 
 Coin words till their decay against those meazels, 
 Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought 
 The very way to catch them. Coriolanus, iii. 1. 
 
 The exact meaning of "Meazels," its spelling, and its 
 relationship to leprosy, elephantiasis, smallpox, and our 
 present-day measles constitute a very confused subject. 
 The infectious nature of the disease, however, is clearly 
 implied. According to Creighton, a word " meseles " is used 
 in the poem Piers Plowman^ meaning lepers, but John of 
 Gaddesden uses the word " mesles " in his description of 
 " Morbilli " (or our present-day measles). Again, " Ye 
 Maysilles" is given in Levins' Manijndus Vocahidorum as 
 meaning "Variolae" (our present-day smallpox), and in 
 Baret's dictionary the word measles is defined as "a disease 
 with many reddish spottes or speckles in the face and bodie, 
 
 ^See, however, a different view and a different reading, urged 
 with great ingenuity by Dr. 0. Creighton, "Death of Falstaflf," 
 Blackwood's Magazine, March, 1889, where he suggests that his 
 death was due to the sweating sickness, and where he advocates a 
 different reading of this disputed passage. 
 
MEDICINE 27 
 
 much like freckles in colour." It must be remembered 
 that the confusion was not merely one of words and 
 names, but that smallpox (variola) and measles (morbilli) 
 were constantly confused, and their distinction was due 
 to the Arabian physicians and made known in England 
 by John of Gaddesden. We may fairly suppose that 
 " meazels " in the text refers to our present-day measles. 
 (See Creighton's History of Epidemics in Britain^ Vol. I., 
 pp. 445-451, and Vol. II., p. 632; see also article "Measles," 
 in Skeat's Ehjmological Dictionary, larger edition.) 
 
 Sweating Sickness, called also Tnfi Sweat, was pre- 
 valent before Shakespeare's time in England, and Dr. 
 Caius had written a treatise on it. As stated in the 
 last footnote, it has been attempted to be shown that 
 Falstaff died of this disease. The passage in Measure 
 for Measure, here quoted, has been supposed to indicate 
 the Sweating Sickness, but Creighton in his History of 
 Epidemics, Vol. I., p. 413, suggests that the hot agues and 
 fevers of the Elizabethan period often took on a sweating 
 character, which might be confused with it : 
 
 Mrs, Ov. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what 
 with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. 
 
 Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 Leprosy. It has been supposed by some that Meazels, 
 just spoken of, may have been intended to indicate Leprosy, 
 or some form of Elephantiasis. 
 
 Mere allusions to Leprosy occur in the following pas- 
 sages : 
 
 I am no loathsome leper. II. Henry VI. in. 2. 
 
 Speaking of the tempting power of gold, Timon says 
 it will 
 
 Make the hoar leprosy adored. Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
28 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 " The leperous distilment " in the poison in Hamlet will 
 be referred to subsequently, pp. 56, 57. 
 
 The Tetter is referred to as an eruption from the 
 contagious ^^ Meazels" already mentioned (p. 26, Coriolanus, 
 iii. 1); and in the list of diseases in Troilus and Cressida, 
 V. 1 (see p. 17). 
 
 The effect of "the leperous distilment " in Hamlet is 
 said to have brought about a tetter and a lazar-like crust. 
 
 And a most instant tetter bark'd about, 
 
 Most lazar-like. with vile and loathsome crust, 
 
 All my smooth body. Hamlet, i. 5. 
 
 Epilepsy. Two of Shakespeare's notable characters, 
 Caesar and Othello, are the subjects of epilepsy. Each 
 has an attack when presumably under the influence of 
 the most powerful emotions. Caesar's attack is described 
 by Casca. 
 
 Cas. But, soft, I pray you : What ? Did Caesar swoon ? 
 
 Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, 
 and was speechless. 
 
 Bni. 'Tis very like : he hath the falling-sickness. 
 
 Cas. No, Caesar hath it not ; but you, and I, 
 And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness. 
 
 Casca. I know not what you mean by that ; but, I am sure, 
 Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss 
 him, according as he pleased, and displeased them, as they use to 
 do the players in the theatre, I am no true man. 
 
 Julius Caesar, i. 2. 
 
 It happens when the crown, proffered by Mark Antony, has 
 been twice refused by him amid the plaudits of the people. 
 The confusion of mind, which often follows an epileptic 
 fit, is indicated in Caesar's case by Casca's narrating that 
 
 When he came to himself again, he said, If he had done or said 
 anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his 
 infirmity. Julius Caesar, i. 2. 
 
MEDICINE 29 
 
 Othello's fit is described in Act iv. Sc. 1 : 
 
 Cas. What is the matter ? 
 
 lago. My lord has fallen into an epilepsy : 
 This is his second fit ; he had one yesterday. 
 
 Ca». Rub him about the temples. 
 
 lacjo. No, forbear : 
 The lethargy must have his quiet course : 
 If not, he foams at mouth ; and, by and by, 
 Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs : 
 Do you withdraw yourself a little while, 
 He will recover straight ; wlien he is gone, 
 I would on great occasion speak with you. — \Exii Ca>isio. 
 How is it, general ? have you not hurt your head ? 
 
 Othello, iv. 1. 
 
 The points worthy of notice here are the mental con- 
 fusion preceding the fall, as seen in Othello's utterances ; 
 the premonition of the seizure — " It is not words that 
 shake me thus," he says ; the likelihood of injur}" 
 from the sudden fall ; and, most important of all, the fit 
 of insanity likely to follow if the lethargy was not 
 allowed to have its " cjuiet course " (Post-epileptic mania). 
 
 Sciatica. The seat of this disease, and perhaps its 
 dependence on syphilis, are indicated in Measure for 
 Measure. 
 
 First Gent. How now ! which of your hips has the most profound 
 sciatica? Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 Its effects are spoken of in the curse which Timon of 
 Athens flings at the city which he has left : 
 
 And yet confusion live ! — Plagues, incident to men. 
 Your potent and infectious fevers heap 
 On Athens, ripe for stroke ! Thou cold sciatica, 
 Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt 
 As lamely as their manners ! Lust and liberty 
 Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth. 
 That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, 
 
30 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And drown themselves in riot ! Itches, blains, 
 Sow all the Athenian bosoms ; and their crop 
 Be general leprosy ! Breath infect breath, 
 That their society, as their friendship, may 
 Be merely poison ! Nothing I'll bear from thee 
 But nakedness, thou detestable town ! 
 
 Timon of Athens, iv. 1. 
 
 Palsy. The form of this affection, which is frequently 
 referred to, is Paralysis agitans or the Shaking palsij, as 
 when Lord Say, whom " long sitting to determine poor 
 men's causes " had filled " with sickness and diseases," 
 on being asked why he quivered, replied : 
 
 It is the palsy, and not fear, provokes me. 
 
 //. Henry VI. iv. 7. 
 
 It is associated with other defects of age in the passage 
 in Troilus and Cressida, i. 3, quoted on p. 40. 
 
 Hemiplegia is probably denoted in the following : 
 
 0, then, how quickly should this arm of mine. 
 
 Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee, 
 
 And minister correction to thy fault ! Richard II. ii. 3. 
 
 Apoplexy, with its lethargy and tingling, is men- 
 tioned below : 
 
 Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy ; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insen- 
 sible ; a getter of more bastard children than war 's a destroyer of 
 men. Coriolanus, iv. 5. 
 
 Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please 
 your lordship : a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. 
 
 //. Henrtj IV. i. 2. 
 
 Crmips ; Convulsions ; Pain in the Side ; Bone- 
 Ache. 
 
 Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps. 
 Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up ; urchins 
 Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, 
 
MEDICINE 31 
 
 All exercise on thee : thou shalt ])e pinch'd 
 
 As thick as honey-combs, each pinch nioi'e stinging 
 
 Than bees that made them. Tempest, i. 2. 
 
 Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints 
 With dry convulsions ; shorten up their sinews 
 With aged cramps ; and more pinch-spotted make them 
 Than pard, or cat o' mountain. Tempest, iv. 1. 
 
 If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly 
 
 What I command, I'll rack thee Avith old cramps ; 
 
 Fill all thy bones with aches ; make thee roar, 
 
 That beasts shall tremble at thy din. Tempest, i. 2. 
 
 In a retreat, he outruns any lackey ; marry, in coming on he has 
 the cramp. AlVs Well that Ends Well, iv. 3. 
 
 Hydrophobia. This disease, though not mentioned by 
 name, was known to Shakespeare. In the Comedy of Errors 
 there is a passage where a fit of madness is ascribed to 
 "The venom-clamours of a jealous woman," and this 
 cause of madness is spoken of as a 
 
 Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, v. 1. 
 
 The passage shows that he was aware of a mad dog's bite 
 producing symptoms similar to those of a fit of insanity. 
 But it is remarkable in other points as recognizing 
 a connection between Melancholia and these three con- 
 ditions, Insomnia, Dyspepsia, and the absence of due 
 recreation. 
 
 Ahb. And thereof came it, that the man was mad: 
 
 The venom-clamours of a jealous woman 
 
 Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 
 
 It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing : 
 
 And therefore comes it, that his head is light. 
 
 Thou say'st, his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings : 
 
 Unquiet meals make ill digestions, — 
 
 Thereof the raging fire of fever bred ; 
 
 And what's a fever but a fit of madness ? 
 
 Thou say'st his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls : 
 
32 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, 
 But moody and dull melancholy, 
 Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ; 
 And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop 
 Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life ? 
 In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest 
 To be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast : 
 The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits 
 Have scared thy husband from the use of wits. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, v. 1. 
 
 Of the class of Nervous Diseases, Epilepsy, Apoplexy, 
 and Paralysis have already been taken notice of. In addi- 
 tion to these we have a case of Catalepsy in the trance 
 during which the Queen in Pericles is thrown overboard 
 and washed ashore in the " caulked and bitumed " chest. 
 Skilful use of Somnambulism is made in the case of Lady 
 Macbeth. Visual Spectra, from aberration of the subjective 
 sensations, are seen by Macbeth on two occasions; one when 
 he saw the dagger clotted with blood, and the other when 
 he saw the figure of Banquo occupying the chair at the 
 banquet. 
 
 The ghost in Hamlet may also be referred to in this con- 
 nection, although the poet seems to intend its appearance 
 as real, and Hamlet gives evidence from his pulse that the 
 vision did not arise from any mental affection of his 
 own (iii. 4). 
 
 The mere enumeration of these may suffice here, as they 
 belong to the morbid Psychology of Shakespeare, which 
 has been intentionally omitted, as stated in the preface. 
 
 Hysteria, then called " the mother," is spoken of by 
 
 King Lear with evident allusion to the rising of the Globus 
 
 Hystericus. 
 
 Lear. 0, how this mother swells up toward my heart ! 
 Hysterica imssio /—down, thou climbing sorrow. 
 Thy element's below !— King Lear, ii. 4. 
 
MEDICINE 33 
 
 Ecstasy seems to have been used in a very wide sense 
 for varied states of mental disturbance and insanit3\ Thus 
 Ophelia says of Hamlet : 
 
 That unmatch'd form aiul feature of blown youth 
 Blasted with ecstasy. Hamht, iii. I. 
 
 And again it occurs in Hamlet's discourse with his 
 mother (iii. 4). In allusion to epilepsy we find it in Othello, 
 iv. 1 (compare p. 29). 
 
 Sympathetic Disturbance, and the influence of the 
 mind on the body, the influence of hope, despair, or appre- 
 hension, are all indicated in the following quotations : 
 
 For let our finger ache, and it endues 
 
 Our other healthful meml^ers ev'n to that sense 
 
 Of pain. Othello, iii. 4. 
 
 But where the greater malady is fix'd, 
 
 The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear : 
 
 But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea, 
 
 Thou'dst meet the bear i' the mouth. When the mind's 
 
 free 
 The body's delicate : the tempest in my mind 
 Doth from my senses take all feeling else, 
 Save what beats there. King Lear, iii. 4. 
 
 Mach. The labour we delight in physics pain. 
 
 Macbeth, ii. 3. 
 
 Claud. The miserable have no other medicine, 
 But only hope. Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 
 
 Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will : — 
 
 Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill ! 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, i. 1. 
 
 Darest thou die ? 
 The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
 And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
 As when a giant dies. Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 
 
 C 
 
34 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 In this same connection may be mentioned the tempta- 
 tion to throw oneself from a height by the mind contem- 
 plating the abyss : 
 
 think of it : 
 The very place puts toys of desperation, 
 Without more motive, into every brain, 
 That looks so many fathoms to the sea, 
 And hears it roar beneath. Hamlet, i. 4. 
 
 An allied passage in King Lear of simulated description 
 may also be mentioned, beginning : 
 
 Edgar. Come on, sir, here's the place: stand still. — How fearful 
 And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low ! 
 
 King Lear, iv. 6. 
 
 The influence of mental or emotional excitement on 
 the circulation, and its tell-tale action from paleness or 
 flushing, are referred to in the first quotation, and its 
 effect on the vision in the second : 
 
 BasH. Madam, you have bereft me of all words, 
 Only my blood speaks to you in my veins. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 
 
 Glo. Pardon me, gracious lord ; 
 Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart. 
 And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further. 
 
 //. Henry VI. i. 1. 
 
 Colic. This ailment furnishes Hotspur with his mock- 
 ing reply to Glendower; when Glendower boasts that 
 at his birth the frame and huge foundation of the earth 
 " shaked like a coward " Hotspur suggests that it has 
 had a colic : 
 
 Hot. O, then, th' earth shook to see the heavens on fire. 
 And not in fear of your nativity. 
 Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth 
 In strange eruptions : oft the teeming earth 
 Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex'd 
 
MEDICINE 35 
 
 By the imprisoning of unruly wind 
 Within her womb ; which, for enlargement striving, 
 Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down 
 Steeples, and moss-grown towers. /. Henry IV. iii. 1. 
 
 That humorous patrician Menenius describes the conduct 
 of the plebeians under the painful spasm of this ailment 
 as follows : 
 
 When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you 
 chance to be pinched with the cholic, j^ou make faces like mummers ; 
 set up the bloody flag against all patience ; and, in roaring for a 
 chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled 
 by your hearing : all the peace you make in their cause, is, calling 
 both the parties knaves : You are a pair of strange ones. 
 
 Coriolanus, ii. 1. 
 
 The tympanites in this ailment is alluded to by Ajax 
 in this command : 
 
 Ajax. Thou, trumpet, there's my purse. 
 Islow crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe : 
 Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek 
 Out -swell the colick of puflf'd Aquilon : 
 Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy ej'es spout blood : 
 Thou blov/'st for Hector. Troihis and Cressida, iv. 5. 
 
 Intestinal Worms are alluded to in a metaphorical 
 
 sense, thus : 
 
 Civil dissension is a viperous worm 
 
 That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth. 
 
 /. Henry VI. iii. 1. 
 
 Jaundice. The only two references to this symptom 
 are interesting from the fact that they recognize the 
 connection between dull moods of the mind and affec- 
 tions of the liver. One of these is quoted above at page 
 13, "creep into the jaundice" {Merchant of Venice, i. 1). 
 The other is : 
 
 What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks ? 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 
 
36 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Disorders of Appetite and Digestion. Some passages 
 connected with digestion and indigestion may be classed 
 together here, also loathing of food and perverted appetite. 
 
 Gaunt. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion sour. 
 
 Richard II. i. 3. 
 
 A sick man's appetite, who desires most that 
 
 Which would increase his evil. CorioJamis, i. 1. 
 
 But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food : 
 But, as in health, come to my natural taste. 
 Now do I wish it, love it, long for it. 
 
 Midsummer- NigMs Dream, iv. i. 
 
 Cheese as an aid to digestion is here humorously 
 referred to : 
 
 Achil. Where, where? — Art thou come? Why, my cheese, mj 
 digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many 
 meals ? Come, what's Agamemnon ? Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3. 
 
 Heartburn is humorously referred to in this repartee 
 in connection with Bardolph's red and burning face : 
 
 Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly ! 
 
 Fal. God-a-mercy ! so should I be sure to be heart-burned. 
 
 /. Henry IV. iii. 3. 
 
 The metaphorical allusion in the next is to the acidity 
 which causes heartburn : 
 
 Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks ! I never can see him, 
 but I am heart-burned an hour after. 
 
 Much Ado About Nothing, ii. 1. 
 
 Dropsy. In a passage previously quoted (p. 15), Sir John 
 
 Falstaff is spoken of contemptuously as a " parcel of 
 
 dropsies " (/. Henry IV. ii. 4). The dropsical swelling is 
 
 used metaphorically in AWs Well that Ends JVell, where 
 
 the king says : 
 
 From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, 
 The place is dignified by the doer's deed : 
 
MEDICINE 37 
 
 Where great additions swell, and virtue none, 
 
 It is aMropsied honour. AlVs Well that Ends Well, ii. 3. 
 
 In the Tempest^ iv. 1, Caliban exclaims: "The dropsy 
 drown this fool ! " The phrase embodies what is at this 
 da}" a popular belief as to how death takes place in 
 dropsical cases, viz. that the water rises in the body 
 until it drowns the heart. 
 
 Gout is referred to in connection with advancing age, its 
 liability to occur in the rich, and its tendency to recur. 
 
 A man 'can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can 
 part young limbs and lechery : but the gout galls the one, and the 
 pox pinches the other ; and so both the degrees prevent my curses. 
 
 //. Henrrj IV. i. 2. 
 
 Ilos. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not 
 the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and 
 the other lives merrily because he feels no pain ; the one lacking 
 the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no 
 burden of heavy tedious penury : these Time ambles withal. 
 
 As You Like It, iii. 2. 
 
 yet am I better 
 Than one that's sick o' the gout ; since he had rather 
 Groan so in perpetuity, than be cured 
 By the sure phj^sician, death ; who is the key 
 To unbar these locks. Cymbeline, v. 4. 
 
 The ambiguity of the diagnosis is admitted by Falstaff 
 when he says : 
 
 A pox of this gout I or, a gout of this pox I for the one or the 
 other plays the rogue with my great toe. //. Henry IV. i. 2. 
 
 Pruritus, and its relief by scratching, are turned to 
 good use, as where Caius Marcius in Coriokmus, coming 
 upon the clamorous and discontented citizens, asks : 
 
 What's the matter, you dissentious rogues. 
 That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion. 
 Make yourselves scabs ? Coriolaniis, i. 1 . 
 
38 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And in that most humorous passage-of-arms between 
 Ajax and Thersites : 
 
 Ajax. Do not, porcupine, do not; my fingers itch. 
 Ther. I would thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the 
 scratching of thee ; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. 
 
 Troilus and Cre-s-nda, ii. 1. 
 
 The Green Sickness (Chlorosis) is referred to in 
 Borneo and Juliet, but more as a term of abuse : 
 
 Out, you green- sickness Carrion ! out, you baggage ! 
 You tallow-face ! Romeo and Jnliet, iii, 5. 
 
 But men are also spoken of as having this disease : 
 
 and Lepidus, 
 Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled 
 With the green sickness. Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 2. 
 
 FalstafF also indicates this : 
 
 For thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many 
 fish meals, that they fall into a kind of male green sickness. 
 
 //. Henry IV. iv. 3. 
 
 In Pericles (iv. 5) the word also occurs, but apparently 
 without reference to the disease known as such. 
 
 Pulmonary Consumption. Pandarus, in addition to 
 the incurable boneache which we shall afterwards see to 
 be syphilitic, had a wasting disease accompanied by a 
 rheum, Avhich, it is justifiable to assume, was pulmonary 
 phthisis — although some may prefer to suppose this 
 "ptisick" to be merely the wasting of chronic syphilis: 
 
 Pan. A whoreson ptisick, a whoreson rascally ptisick so troubles me, 
 and the foolish fortune of this girl ; and what one tiling, what 
 another, that I shall leav^e you one o' these days. And I have a 
 rheum in mine eyes too ; and such an ache in my bones, that, unless 
 a man were cursed, I cannot tell what to think on't — What says 
 she there ? Troilus and Cressida, v. 3. 
 
MEDICINE 39 
 
 The incurable nature of consumption gives occasion to 
 FalstafF to say : 
 
 Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse : 
 borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is in- 
 curable. //. Henry IV. i. 2. 
 
 Its pathology is graphically set down thus : 
 
 Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. 
 Seb. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones. 
 
 Tempest, ii. 1. 
 
 Senile Decay. There are perhaps few passages in the 
 Plays more graphic than those in which a few master strokes 
 suffice to set before us the symptoms of senile dec%. The 
 first is the familiar utterance of Jacques in As You Like It : 
 
 The sixth age shifts 
 Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon ; 
 With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ; 
 His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide 
 For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice. 
 Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
 And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 
 That ends this strange eventful history. 
 Is second childishness, and mere oblivion : 
 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everj'thing. 
 
 As You Like It, ii. 7. 
 Again : 
 
 Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that 
 are written down old with all the characters of age ? Have you 
 not a moist eye ? a dry hand ? a yellow cheek ? a white beard ? a 
 decreasing leg ? an increasing belly ? Is not your voice broken ? your 
 wind short ? your chin double ? your wit single ? and every part 
 about you blasted with antiquity ? and will you yet call yourself 
 young? Fy, fy, fy. Sir John ! //. Henry IV. i. 2. 
 
 Ham. Slanders, sir ; for the satirical rogue says here, that old 
 men have grey beards ; that their faces are wrinkled ; their eyes 
 purging thick amber and plum-tree gum ; and that they have a 
 plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. 
 
 Hamlet, ii. 2. 
 
40 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age 
 
 Miist be the scene of mirth : to cough and spit, 
 
 And with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget. 
 
 Shake in and out the rivet. Trolhiii and Cressida, i. 3. 
 
 In Articulo Mortis. Besides the deaths of Falstaff 
 and King John ah'eady mentioned (pp. 24 and 25), there 
 are three others worthy of study, viz. those of Mortimer in 
 /. Henri/ VI., Queen Catherine in Henry VIII., and Cardinal 
 Beaufort in //. Henry VI. The following quotations from 
 the two former are of interest, the one for the poetic 
 beauty no less than the truth of the description, and the 
 other as noting the change which comes over the counten- 
 ance presaging dissolution : 
 
 Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age, 
 Let dying Mortimer here rest himself. 
 Even like a man new haled from the rack. 
 So fare my limbs with long imprisonment : 
 And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death, 
 Nestor-like aged, in an age of care, 
 Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer. 
 These eyes, — like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, — 
 Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent : 
 Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning grief : 
 And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine 
 That droops his sapless branches to the ground : 
 Yet are these feet — whose strengthless stay is numb. 
 Unable to support this lump of clay, — 
 Swift-winged with desire to get a grave, 
 As witting I no other comfort have. /. Henry VI. ii. 5. 
 
 Pat. Do you note. 
 How much her grace is alter'd on the sudden ? 
 How long her face is drawn ? How pale she looks 
 And of an earthly cold ? Mark you her eyes ? 
 
 Grif. She is going, wench ; pray, pray. 
 
 Pat. Heaven comfort her ! Henry VIII. iv. 2. 
 
 The death scene of the Cardinal is complicated by the 
 
MEDICINE 41 
 
 utterances of despair and remorse associated with visions of 
 past crimes : 
 
 A'. Hm. How fares my lord ? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign. 
 
 Card. If thou be'st Death, I'll give thee England's treasure, 
 Enough to purchase such another island. 
 So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain. 
 
 A'. Hen. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, 
 Where death's approach is seen so terrible ! 
 
 ]Yar. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee. 
 
 Card. Bring me unto my trial when yon will. 
 Died he not in his bed ? Where should he die ? 
 Can I make men live, whe'r they will or no ? 
 0, torture me no more I I will confess, — ■ 
 Alive again ? Then show me where he is : 
 I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him. 
 He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them. 
 Comb down his hair ; look, look ! it stands upright. 
 Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul ! 
 Give me some drink ; and bid th' apothecary 
 Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. 
 
 A'. Hen. O thou eternal Mover of the heavens. 
 Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch ! 
 0, beat away the busy-meddling fiend 
 That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul, 
 And from his bosom purge this black despair ! 
 
 War. See how the pangs of death do make him grin I 
 
 Sal. Disturb him not : let him pass peaceably. 
 
 K. Hen. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be ! 
 Lord Cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss. 
 Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope, — 
 He dies, and makes no sign : — God forgive him ! 
 
 //. Henry VI. iii. 3. 
 
 (See also the deaths of Falstaff and King John referred 
 to at pp. 24, 25.) 
 
 PosT-MoRTEM Appearances. A very remarkable com- 
 parison is instituted between death from natural causes and 
 that from violence, in the speech of Warwick as he and the 
 
42 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Others stand by the bedside of the murdered Gloster. The 
 signs are those of death by strangulation after a struggle : 
 
 War. See how the blood is settled in his face. 
 Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost, 
 Of ash}' semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, 
 Being all descended to the labouring heart ; 
 Who, in the conflict that it holds with death, 
 Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy ; 
 Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth 
 To blush and beautify the cheek again. 
 But, see, his face is black, and full of blood ; 
 His eye-balls further out than when he lived, 
 Staring full ghastly like a strangled man : 
 His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling : 
 His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd 
 And tugg'd for life, and was ]:>y strength subdued. 
 Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking ; 
 His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged, 
 Like to the sunnner's corn by tempest lodg'd. 
 It cannot be but he was murder'd here : 
 The least of all these signs were probalile. 
 
 II. Henry VI. iii. 2. 
 
 The swollen appearance of the body in death by drown- 
 ing is spoken of by Falstaff: 
 
 I had been drowned, but that tlie shore was shelvy and shallow, 
 a death that I abhor ; for the water swells a man ; and what a 
 thing should I have been, when I had been swelled ! I should have 
 been a mountain of mummy. Mernj Wives of Windsor, iii. 5. 
 
 Diagnosis. The three modes of clinical dias^nosis which 
 we find in Shakespeare, keeping out of view at present 
 external appearances, are the character of the pulse, the 
 examination of the urine, and changes in the expectoration. 
 
 The Pulse. The increased rapidity of the pulse in 
 fever has been spoken of already (p. 23). In the Comedy 
 of Errors, Pinch, the conjurer, is spoken of as "feeling 
 
MEDICINE 43 
 
 my pulse" (v. 1.), and in another passage he is represented 
 as saying : 
 
 Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, iv, 4, 
 
 In Hamlet, Avhere the Queen sets down Hamlet's vision 
 of the ghost, as "the very coinage of your brain," etc., 
 Hamlet replies : 
 
 Ham. Ecstasy ! 
 M}^ pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
 And makes as healthful music : It is not madness 
 That I have utter'd : bring me to the test 
 And I the matter will re-word, which madness 
 Would gambol from. Hamlet, iii. 4. 
 
 In these cases the pulse is appealed to, in order 
 to decide between sanity and insanity. 
 
 In some other references the pulse may be regarded 
 rather as physiological than as diagnostic of diseased states. 
 Thus the Hostess of the Boar's Head says to Doll Tear- 
 sheet : 
 
 Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire. 
 
 II. Henry IV. ii. 4. 
 
 King John asks : 
 
 Have I commandment on the pulse of life ? 
 
 King John, iv. 2. 
 
 Alonzo makes sure of Prospero's reality as a man when 
 he says : 
 
 thy pulse 
 Beats, as of flesh and blood. Tempest, v. 1. 
 
 In a similar sense Pericles asks : 
 
 But are you flesh and blood ? 
 
 Have you a working pulse ? and are no fairy ? 
 
 Pericles, v. 1. 
 
44 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Examination of Urine. The diagnosis of disease from 
 the naked-eye appearances of the urine was so dihgently 
 cultivated about Shakespeare's time, that it had risen to 
 the dignity of a specialty. A class existed who professed 
 only this branch of the art, and amusing anecdotes are 
 told of their successes and failures in diagnosis. The 
 practice is taken notice of in four different Plays. It is 
 applied metaphorically by Macbeth, when a forecast from 
 the urine is desired in making out the cause of his 
 country's disorder : 
 
 If thou couldst, doctor, cast 
 The water of my land, find her disease, 
 And purge it to a sound and pristine health, 
 I would applaud thee to the very echo, 
 That should applaud again. — Pull't off, I say. — 
 What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug. 
 Would scour these English hence ? Macheth, v. 3. 
 
 And also by Speed, in the passage : 
 
 Speed. Without you ; nay, that's certain, for, without you were so 
 simple, none else would : but you are so without these follies, that 
 these follies are within you, and shine through you like the water in 
 an urinal ; ^ that not an eye, that sees you, but is a physician to 
 comment on your malady. Tioo Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 1. 
 
 In the question as to whether Malvolio was bewitched, 
 Fabian suggests that his urine be examined : 
 
 Mar. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at 
 heart ! Pray God, he be not bewitched ! 
 
 Fah. Carry his water to the wise woman. 
 
 Mar. Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. 
 My lady would not lose him for more than I'll say. 
 
 Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 
 
 Falstaff, besides having ague, is lame from an affection 
 
 ^ A glass vessel used for inspecting urine in diagnosis. 
 
MEDICINE 45 
 
 of his great toe, of which he doubts as to its being gouty 
 or syphiHtic in its origin : 
 
 Fal. A pox of this gout ! or a gout of this pox ! for the one 
 or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if 
 I do halt ; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem 
 the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything ; I wall 
 turn diseases to commodity. //. Henry IV. i. 2. 
 
 We do not wonder therefore at his sending a sample 
 of his water to the doctor, or that the latter should send 
 back such an oracular reply : 
 
 Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water ? 
 
 Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water ; 
 but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he 
 knew for. //. Henry I V. i. 2. 
 
 Expectoration. The importance of this is recognized 
 by FalstafF in his imprecation : 
 
 If it be a hot day, and I brandish anything but my bottle, I would 
 I might never spit white again. //. Henry 1 V. i. 2. 
 
 Some commentators have supposed that "spitting 
 white" resulted from indulgence in drinking, and that 
 this is the allusion. The more natural meaning here 
 seems to be the contrast between " spitting white " and 
 " spitting yellow," the latter being so common in bad cases 
 of bronchitis and consumption, as compared with a simple 
 whitish spittle. Compare also Troiliis and Cressida, i. 3, 
 quoted at p. 40. 
 
 Note. — References to Insanity are purposely excluded from this 
 Thesis ; for these consult the Bibliography. Venereal diseases are 
 dealt with in a section under Surgery. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MATEEIA MEDICA, TOXICOLOGY, AND 
 THERAPEUTICS 
 
 Before speaking of " medicine " as an article administered 
 in the cure of disease, it may be well to recall the use 
 of this word by Shakespeare in the sense of a physician 
 (French mklecin). Thus, in Macbeth, we find : 
 
 Caith. Well, march we on, 
 To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd : 
 Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, 
 And with him pour we in our country's purge 
 Each drop of us. Macbeth, v. 2. 
 
 In the following passage the word " medicine " is used in 
 the same way, but in this instance refers to a "lady 
 
 doctor" : 
 
 I have seen a medicine 
 That's able to breathe life into a stone, 
 Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary 
 With sprightly fire and motion ; whose simple touch 
 Is powerful to araise king Pepin, nay. 
 To give great Charlemain a pen in his hand 
 And write to her a love-line. 
 
 King. What ' ' her " is this ? 
 
 Laf. Why, doctor She, etc. 
 
 AW 8 Well that Ends Well, ii. 1. 
 Again, 
 
 Preserver of my father, now of me. 
 
 The medicine of our house ! Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 47 
 
 The preparations and modes of administering medicines 
 spoken of in the plays are oils, balsams, syrups, infusions,^ 
 plasters, poultices, cataplasms, salves, potions, and pills, 
 sleepy drinks, caudles,- and clysters. 
 
 The names of medicinal agents mentioned are AcONl- 
 TUM ; Aqua Vitae ; Civet ; Coloquintida ; Hebenon ; 
 Mandragora; Musk ; Parmaceti ; Poppy; Ratsbane; 
 Rhubarb; Senna 3; Sugar Candy; Wine. 
 
 Narcotics. Many of the medicines named above receive 
 a mere passing mention, and we shall consider those first 
 which influence the action of the plays. These are, as 
 might be expected, the poisons and narcotics. In the 
 play of Cijmheline, the queen is represented as having 
 studied, under the guidance of Cornelius, the physician, 
 such acts of pharmacy as the making of perfumes, distilling, 
 and preserving, but she does so for the j^urpose of pro- 
 curing poisons with which to carry out her wicked designs. 
 In the fifth scene of the first act, she enquires of Cornelius 
 if he has brought the drugs, and he, presenting her with 
 the box, asks in return : 
 
 Wherefore you have 
 Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds, 
 Which are the movers of a languishing death ; 
 But, though slow, deadly ? Cymheline, i. 5. 
 
 We quote the rest of the conversation as an early but 
 
 ^ The blest infusions 
 That dwell in vegetives. Pericles, iii. 2. 
 
 This seems to refer to the active substances in plants rather than 
 to pharmaceutical infusions made /rom them. The phrase "Hot 
 infusion " ( Winter's Tale, iv. 3) seems to refer to brandy and water 
 (see p. 60). 
 
 2 " A Caudle, ho ! " {Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3). 
 
 3 See p. 62. 
 
48 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 able anticipation of the vivisection controversy, and one 
 in which the laity and the profession occup}' positions 
 to some extent the reverse of those of to-day : 
 
 Queen. I do wonder, doctor, 
 Thou ask'st me such a question : Have I not been 
 Thy pupil long ? Hast thou not learn'd me how 
 To make perfumes ? distil? preserve? yea, so 
 That our great king himself doth woo nie oft 
 For my confections ? Having thus far proceeded, 
 (Unless thou think'st me devilish,) is't not meet 
 That I did amplify my judgment in 
 Other conchtsions ? I will try the forces 
 Of these thy compounds on such creatures as 
 We count not worth the hanging (but none human), 
 To try the vigour of them, and apply 
 Allayments to their act ; and by them gather 
 Their several virtu.es and effects. 
 
 Cor. Your highness 
 Shall from this practice but make hard your heart : 
 Besides, the seeing these effects will be 
 Both noisome and infectious. Cymbeline, i. 5. 
 
 Dr. Cornelius practises the pardonable deception of 
 giving her, not the poison she expects, but an innocent 
 narcotic : 
 
 Cor. {Aside). I do not like her. She doth think she has 
 
 Strange lingering poisons : I do know her spirit, 
 
 And will not trust one of her malice with 
 
 A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has 
 
 Will stupify and dull the sense awhile ; 
 
 Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats and dogs, 
 
 Then afterward up higher ; but there is 
 
 No danger in what show of death it makes, 
 
 More than the locking up the spirits a time, 
 
 To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd 
 
 With a most false efi'ect ; and I the truer. 
 
 So to be false with her. Cymbeline, i. 5. 
 
 In the development of the play the box comes to Imogen 
 with the recommendation 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 49 
 
 Here is a box ; I haJ it from tlie queen : 
 
 What's in't is precious ; if you are sick at sea, 
 
 Or stoinach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this 
 
 Will drive away distemper. Cymbeline, iii. 4. 
 
 She tastes of the drug in the cave of Belarius, and the 
 skimber ensuing lasts, to judge from the action of the play, 
 several hours. When discovered she is supposed to be 
 dead and to have died of melancholy. " How found you 
 him," asks Belarius, and is answered : 
 
 Arv. Stark, as you see : 
 Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber, 
 Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at : his right cheek 
 Reposing on a cushion. Cymbeline, iv. 2. 
 
 On awaking she does not at first remember what has 
 taken place, but imagines she is still walking towards 
 Milford Haven. The effect of the drug does not pass off 
 at once, for she is about to yield again to slumber, when 
 she discovers the headless body of Cloten in the dress of 
 Posthumus. 
 
 The similarity between the action of this drug and that 
 which the Friar gives to Juliet will at once strike the 
 reader, as well as the similarity of the circumstances in 
 which each finds herself on awaking : both are beside the 
 dead bodies of their lovers, Imogen in her cave, and Juliet 
 in the tomb. But in Romeo and Juliet the action of the 
 drug is more fully detailed by the Friar : 
 
 Take thou this phial, being then in bed, 
 And this distilled liquor drink thou off : 
 When presently through all thy veins shall run 
 A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize 
 Each vital spirit ; for no pulse shall keep 
 His natural progress, but surcease to beat : 
 No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest ; 
 The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade 
 To paly ashes ; thy eyes' windows fall, 
 
 D 
 
50 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Like death, when he shuts up the day of life ; 
 Each part, deprived of supple government, 
 Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death : 
 And in this borrow' d likeness of shrunk death 
 Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours, 
 And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, iv. 1. 
 
 The Friar's statement that the " roses in thy cheeks and 
 
 lips shall fade to paly ashes," would seem inconsistent 
 
 with Romeo's soliloquy : 
 
 Beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks. 
 And death's pale flag is not advanced there. 
 
 Borneo and Juliet, v. 3. 
 
 but when he spoke thus, she was near the point of awaking. 
 It is impossible on these data to say that Shakespeare 
 had the action of any particular narcotic in mind, although 
 there are points in the Friar's description which favour 
 the idea of some preparation of opium. These are the 
 slowness of the pulse, the retarded respiration, the pallor 
 of the lips and cheeks, the ghastl}^ deathlike appearance, 
 and the awaking after a long interval as from a pleasant 
 sleep. The description is so truthful that Shakespeare 
 must have been familiar with some of the appearances and 
 effects of narcotism; but, on the other hand, had he been 
 fully conversant with the properties of opium, he would 
 hardly have described the Friar as embarking on the 
 dangerous experiment of giving a quantity sufficient to 
 produce forty-two hours' consecutive slumber, and as being 
 able to predict to an hour the cessation of its action. That 
 he knew of more than one narcotic, we learn from the 
 beautiful passage which he puts into the mouth of the 
 physician in King Lear. 
 
 Phy. There is means, madam : 
 Our foster-nurse of nature is repose, 
 
MATERIA ME Die A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 51 
 
 The which he lacks ; that to provoke in him, 
 
 Ai^e many simples operative, whose power 
 
 Will close the eye of anguish. Khifj Lear, iv. 4. 
 
 The other passages aUnding to narcotics are, where Archi- 
 damus in Winter'' s Tale says : 
 
 We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent 
 of our insufl&cience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little 
 accuse us. W interns Tale, i. 1. 
 
 where Lady Macbeth drugs the possets of the grooms 
 on the night of the murder : 
 
 I have drugged their possets, 
 That death and nature do contend about them. 
 Whether they live or die. Macbeth, ii. 1. 
 
 where lago says of Othello : 
 
 Look where he comes I Not poppy, nor raandragora, 
 
 Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
 
 Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
 
 Which thou ow'dst yesterday. Othello, iii. 3. 
 
 and where Cleopatra, calling for mandragora (mandrake), 
 
 says : 
 
 Cleo. Ha, ha ! 
 Give me to drink mandragora. 
 
 Char. Why, madam ? 
 
 Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time, 
 My Antony is away. Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5. 
 
 Other Poisons are mentioned in a great many different 
 connections. Distinctions are drawn between their medi- 
 cinal effect given in small doses and their poisonous effect 
 in large. The most noteworthy example of these is the 
 well-known passage in Romeo and Juliet, where Friar 
 Laurence says : 
 
 0, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
 
 In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities : 
 
 For nought so vile that on the earth doth live 
 
52 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 But to the earth some special good doth give ; 
 
 Nor aught so good but straiii'd from that fair use, 
 
 Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse : 
 
 Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ; 
 
 And vice sometime's by action dignified. 
 
 Within the infant rind of this small flower 
 
 Poison hath residence and med'cine power : 
 
 For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part ; 
 
 Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 
 
 Two such opposed foes encamp them still 
 
 In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will ; 
 
 And where the worser is predominant, 
 
 Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, ii. 3. 
 
 The different action of a poison in health and in disease is 
 noticed. Northumberland says : 
 
 In poison there is physic ; and these news. 
 Having been well, that would have made me sick, 
 Being sick, have in some measure made me well. 
 
 II. Henry IV. i. 1. 
 
 The different action of the same agent in different states^ 
 or different doses, is well shown by Lady Macbeth : 
 
 That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold ; 
 What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. 
 
 Macbeth, ii. 2. 
 
 Among the poisons mentioned by name, we find aconitum 
 (wolfsbane or monkshood). King Henry closes his admoni- 
 tion to Clarence as to how to deal with the Prince in 
 these words : 
 
 And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends, 
 
 A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in, 
 
 That the united vessel of their blood, 
 
 Mingled with venom of suggestion 
 
 (As, force perforce, the age will pour it in) 
 
 Shall never leak, though it do work as strong 
 
 As aconitum or rash gunpowder. 
 
 //. Henry IV. iv. 4. 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 53 
 
 Sir John FalstafF, in the same play, where Dombledon 
 the draper requires security before giving him the satin, 
 speaks of ratsbane : 
 
 I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to 
 stop it with security. //. Henry IV. i. 2, 
 
 This ratsbane occurs again in connection with an evil 
 wish : 
 
 Now cursed be the time 
 Of thy nativity ! I would the milk 
 Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast, 
 Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake ! 
 
 /, Henry VI. v. 4. 
 
 Again, Edgar in his simulation of madness says : 
 
 Set ratsbane by his porridge. 
 
 King Lear, iii. 4. 
 
 Arsenic (arsenious acid) was probably indicated by this 
 term ratsbane, and although not mentioned by name, 
 arsenic would seem to be indicated in some passages. 
 One is in Cymheline, where the Doctor says : 
 
 Cor. More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had 
 
 For you a mortal mineral, which, being took, 
 
 Should by the minute feed on life, and ling'ring 
 
 By inches waste you : in which time she purposed, 
 
 By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to 
 
 O'ercome you with her show : yes, and in time, 
 
 (When she had fitted you with her craft,) to work 
 
 Her son into the adoption of the crown. 
 
 Cymheline, v. 5. 
 
 This description is quite consistent with chronic poisoning 
 by arsenic. Even more directly pointing to it is the 
 metaphor used by lago : 
 
 Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons. 
 
 Which at the first are scarce found to distaste, 
 
 But with a little act upon the blood 
 
 Burn like the mines of sulphur. Othello, iii. 3. 
 
54 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 There is also some internal evidence to show that arsenic 
 was the poison administered to King John. The monk 
 who poisoned him acted the part of taster and died 
 immediately as here narrated : 
 
 Huh. The king, I fear, is poisoned by a monk : 
 I left him ahnost speechless, and broke out 
 To acquaint j^ou with this evil, that you might 
 The better arm you to the sudden time, 
 Than if you had at leisure known of this. 
 
 Bast. How did he take it ? who did taste to him ? 
 
 Huh. A monk, I tell you ; a resolved villain, 
 Whose bowels suddenly burst out : the king 
 Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover. 
 
 Khuj John, v. 6. 
 
 "The bowels suddenly burst out" is not an unlikely 
 popular description of the severe diarrhoea, which is a 
 frequent symptom of arsenical poisoning, especially as 
 this is often accompanied by discharges of blood, and in 
 some cases of a material closely resembling green paint. 
 (See Guy's Forensic Medicine, p. 447.) The delirium of 
 the king already discussed is a rarer symptom though one 
 not unknown, occurring in three out of twenty-five cases 
 analyzed by Dr. Guy. The extreme debility, the thirst, 
 the burning of the mouth and throat symptomatic of 
 arsenical poisoning find their adequate literary expression 
 in these lines : 
 
 There is so hot a summer in my bosom, 
 That all my bowels crumble up to dust : 
 I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen 
 Upon a parchment, and against this fire 
 Do I shrink up. 
 
 P. Hen. How fares your majesty ? 
 
 K. John. Poison'd, — ill fare ; — dead, forsook, cast off: 
 And none of you will bid the winter come, 
 To thrust his icy fingers in my maw ; 
 Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 55 
 
 Through my 1>urn'd bosom ; nor entreat the north 
 To make his bleak \vinds kiss my parched lips 
 And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much, 
 I beg cold comfort ; and you are so strait 
 And so ingrateful, you deny me that. 
 
 P. Hen. that there were some virtue in my tears, 
 That might reliex'e you ! 
 
 A'. John. The salt in them is hot. 
 Within me is a hell ; and there the poison 
 Is as a fiend confined to tyrannize 
 An unreprievable condemned blood. Kinrj John, v. 7. 
 
 The poison which Romeo bought of the apothecary suggests 
 from the swiftness of its action hydrocyanic acid, which 
 however had not then been isolated as such : 
 
 Ap. Who calls so loud ? 
 
 Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor ; 
 Hold, there is forty ducats : let me have 
 A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear 
 As will disperse itself through all the veins 
 That the life-weary taker may fall dead. 
 And that the trunk may be discharged of breath 
 As violently as hasty powder fired 
 Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, v. 1. 
 
 In Hamlet three poisons are called into play. The one 
 with which Laertes envenoms his sword that he may 
 slay Hamlet appears to have been a powerful extract 
 for whose effect there was no antidote. Laertes says 
 of it : 
 
 I bought an unction of a mountebank. 
 
 So mortal that, but dip a knife in it. 
 
 Where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare, 
 
 Collected from all simples that have virtue 
 
 Under the moon, can save the thing from death 
 
 That is but scratch VI withal ; I'll touch my j^oint 
 
 With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, 
 
 It may be death. Hamlet, iv. 7. 
 
56 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This is an instance of poisoning by inoculation like the 
 arrow poisons used by savages, and the description of 
 its deadly effect accords with the action of Curare. Of 
 the poison prepared by the king lest Hamlet should escape 
 Laertes' sword, we know nothing but that its action was 
 instantaneous. 
 
 Of more interest than either of these is the "juice of 
 cursed hebenon," with which Hamlet's father was poisoned. 
 The Ghost relates the occurrence as follows : 
 
 Sleeping within mine orchard, 
 My custom always of the afternoon, 
 Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole 
 With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial. 
 And in the porches of mine ears did pour 
 The leperous distilment ; whose effect 
 Holds such an enmity with blood of man 
 That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through 
 The natural gates and alleys of the body, 
 And, with a sudden vigour, it doth posset 
 And curd, like eager droppings into milk. 
 The thin and wholesome blood : so did it mine ; 
 And a most instant tetter bark'd about. 
 Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, 
 All my smooth body. Hamlet, i. 5. 
 
 The usual explanation of hebenon (Hebona in the Quarto) 
 is to regard it as a transliteration of Henbane (or Hyos- 
 cyamus), which was referred to by Shakespeare as "the 
 insane root " (radix insana) in Macbeth, i. 3. But there 
 are grave objections to this interj^retation, which are set 
 forth at great length by Dr. Brinsley Nicholson in a 
 paper on " Hamlet's Cursed Hebenon," in the Transactions 
 of the Neiv Shakespeare Society, Nov. 14, 1879 {Transactions, 
 1880-86, p. 21). His views are essentially confirmed in 
 another elaborate jiaper in the same Transactions (May 12, 
 1882, p. 295) by the Eev. W. A. Harrison. Both writers 
 agree in ascribing the poison to the yew, and they give 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 57 
 
 contemporary evidence on the subject of this poison, with 
 even quite modern confirmations as to its action agreeing 
 with Shakespeare's description. To these papers the 
 reader is referred for an elaborate discussion of this 
 interesting subject. The same view is taken in Grindon's 
 Flora of Shakespeare. The author states that he had taught 
 this for many years before the appearance of the papers 
 referred to. Without going into details regarding the 
 etj^mology of the word, the following line from Spenser's 
 Faerie Queen (Book I., Introduction iii.) may be quoted as 
 showing the current use of the word : 
 
 Lay now thy deadly heben bowe apart. 
 
 The passage in Pikharcl 11. (iii. 2) indicates that Shake- 
 speare regarded the jqw as " doubly fatal " — poisonous, 
 as well as deadly from the weapons obtained from it : 
 
 to bend their Bowes 
 Of double fatall Eugh. 
 
 Other suppositions make hebenon equivalent to hemlock, 
 and in the New Sydenham Society's Lexicon it is stated 
 that " some suppose the juice of cursed hebenon of Shake- 
 speare is the crude oil of tobacco, Nkotiana tahacum." 
 
 An undoubted allusion to Henbane (Hyoscyamus : 
 Insana radix) refers especially to the visual spectra and 
 the disturbance of the nervous system often produced in 
 those who partake of it. Banquo asks : 
 
 Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about ? 
 Or have we eaten of the insane root 
 That takes the reason prisoner ? Macbeth, i. 3. 
 
 It is worthy of note that this is the only passage in 
 Shakespeare where the word "insane" occurs: "insanie" 
 occurs only once also {Love's Labour's Lost, v. 1). 
 
 The two following quotations infer the existence of 
 
58 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 some poison which only manifested its effects a consider- 
 able time after being taken. This merely shows, what 
 has appeared already in the discussion of the subject, 
 that in old times there were highly imaginary poisons 
 which had no counterpart in nature : 
 
 Cam. Sir, my lord, 
 I could do this ; and that with no rash potion, 
 But with a ling'ring dram that should not work 
 Maliciously like poison. Winter\ Tale, i. 2. 
 
 Gon. All three of them are desperate ; their great guilt, 
 Like poison given to work a great time after, 
 Now 'gins to bite the spirits. Tempest, iii. 3. 
 
 The following evidently embodies a popular belief, 
 though what has given rise to it is not clear : 
 
 Cms. noble weakness ! 
 If they had swallow 'd poison, 'twould appear 
 By external swelling : but she looks like sleep, 
 As she would catch another Antony 
 In her strong toil of grace. Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 
 
 Alcoholic Liquors. It will not be necessary to dwell long 
 on these, as it is a singular fact that although wine, beer, 
 and ale receive frequent mention, they are hardly ever 
 alluded to as medicinal agents. Wine, it is true, is often 
 coupled with feeding, but in the large majority of cases 
 the drinking of wine is introduced as a social custom, or 
 as taken with the distinct purpose of producing intoxica- 
 tion. One exception to this appears in a passage already 
 quoted {Tempest, ii. 2), where Stephano gives wine to 
 Caliban to cure him of his ague, and another, where Antony 
 dying, calls for it as a restorative : 
 
 Ant. I am dying, Egypt, dying : 
 Give me some wine, and let me speak a little. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 13. 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 59 
 
 The effects of wine upon the liver have ah'eady been 
 spoken of (p. 12), and its physiological effects on the 
 brain when taken in moderation are described by Falstaff 
 in the same passage : 
 
 But that's no marvel, he drinks no wine. There's never any 
 of these demure boys come to any proof : for thin drink doth so 
 over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall 
 into a kind of male green-sickness ; and then, when they marry, 
 they get wenches; they are generally fools and cowards, — which 
 some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris- 
 sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain ; 
 dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours, which 
 environ it ; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, 
 fiery, and delectable shapes ; which, deliver'd o'er to the voice, (the 
 tongue,) which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. 
 
 //. Henry IV. iv. 3. 
 
 The following passage from Macbeth is a somewhat forcible 
 description of the effects of alcohol w^hen taken to excess : 
 
 Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, that you do 
 lie so late ? 
 
 Port. 'Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock : and 
 drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. 
 
 Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke ? 
 
 Port. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, 
 it provokes, and unprovokes ; it provokes the desire, but it takes 
 away the performance. Therefore, much drink may be said to be 
 an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it 
 sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens 
 him ; makes him stand to, and not stand to ; in conclusion, equivo- 
 cates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. 
 
 JIacheth, ii. 3. 
 
 Aqua vike — the designation applied to any distilled 
 spirit of an intoxicating nature is grouped, in the Comedi/ 
 of Errors (iv. 1), with the oil and balsamum which Dromio 
 of Syracuse bought for the homeward voyage. It is 
 mentioned in several places, and as a remedial agent it 
 
60 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 occurs in Wintefs Tale, where its association with the 
 phrase " hot infusion " is to be specially noted : 
 
 AtU. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive ; then 'nointecl over 
 with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest ; then stand till he be 
 three-quarters and a dram dead ; then recovered again with aqua- 
 vits or some other hot infusion. Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 
 
 As a beverage it seems to have been as well known to the 
 mid wives of that time as to the contemporaries of Sarah 
 Gamp : 
 
 Mar. Nay, but say true ; does it work upon him ? 
 Sir To. Like aqua-vitee with a midwife. 
 
 Twelfth Night, ii. 5, 
 
 Aphrodisiacs. Brabantio accuses Othello of having 
 unlawfully made use of these to win over Desdemona : 
 
 Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense 
 
 That thou hast practised on her with foul charms. 
 
 Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals 
 
 That M'eaken motion : I'll have it disputed on ; 
 
 'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking. 
 
 I therefore apprehend and do attach thee 
 
 For an abuser of the world, a practiser 
 
 Of arts inhibited and out of warrant. Othello, i. 2. 
 
 Again, we have the same idea in another play : 
 
 If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, 
 I'll be hanged ; it could not be else : I have drunk medicines. — 
 Poins ! Hal ! a plague upon you both ! I. Henry IV. ii. 2. 
 
 The eryngo and potato seem to have been credited with 
 properties of this kind : 
 
 Let the sky rain potatoes ; let it thunder to the tune of Green 
 sleeves, hail kissing- comfits and snow eryngoes ; let there come 
 a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5. 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 61 
 
 The phrase in Troilus and Cressida (v. 2) "potato-finger" 
 has a similar allusion. 
 
 See also under Alcoholic Liqum^s (p. 59). 
 
 Oils, Balsams. The following passages ma}^ be quoted 
 under this heading : 
 
 Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear, 
 Tlie which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood 
 ^Yhich breathed this poison. Richcuxl II. i. 1. 
 
 As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her ; 
 
 But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, 
 
 Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me 
 
 The knife that made it. Troilus and Cressida, i. 1. 
 
 Is this the balsam that the usuring senate 
 Pours into captains' wounds ? ha ! banishment ! 
 
 Timon of Athens, iii. 5. 
 
 Com. Though I could wish 
 You were conducted to a gentle bath 
 And balms applied to you. Coriolanus, i, 6. 
 
 My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds. 
 
 ///. Henry VI. iv. 8. 
 
 Syrups. 
 
 Ahh. Be patient : for I will not let him stir 
 Till I have used the approved means I have. 
 With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers, 
 To make of him a formal man again. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, v. 1. 
 
 Gums. The sources from which these are obtained 
 furnish the beautiful image 
 
 Of one whose subdued eyes, 
 Albeit unused to the melting mood, 
 Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees 
 Their medicinal gum. Othello, v. 2. 
 
 Pihuharh and Senna with their powerful action as purga- 
 
62 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 tives are spoken of by Macbeth in connection with scouring 
 the Enarhsh out of his country : 
 
 What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, 
 
 Would scour these English hence ? Macbeth, v. 3. 
 
 Some doubt, however, has been expressed as to whether 
 senna is really meant. The Folio has " Cyme," which 
 has been supposed to be a natural misprint for " Cynne " 
 (senna). (See Murray's English Dictionary, Cyme.) Some, 
 however, would read " Clysme " instead. 
 
 Farmaceti evidently means spermaceti : 
 
 And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth 
 Was parmaceti for an inward bruise. 
 
 I. Henrij IV. i. 3. 
 
 Coloquintida, the fruit of the CitruUus colocynthis, the 
 cathartic medicine known as colocynth, is made use of 
 in Othello, where lago says : 
 
 Fill thy purse with money : the food that to him now is as 
 luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquin- 
 tida. Othello, i. 3. 
 
 Civet. This perfume is spoken of several times. King 
 Lear, at the close of that unsavoury passage beginning 
 "Ay, every inch a King," calls out for a perfume: 
 
 Fy, fy, fy ! pah, pah ! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, 
 to sweeten my imagination : there's money for thee. 
 
 King Lear, iv. 6. 
 
 In Much Ado About Althing (iii. 2.), Don Pedro says that 
 Benedict rubs himself with civet and asks, " Can you smell 
 him out by that 1 " 
 
 Touchstone with bantering philosophy proves to Corin 
 that a shepherd's hands are cleaner than a courtier's; the 
 source of the perfume is there mentioned. 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOIOGY, THERAPEUTICS 63 
 
 Touch. Most shallow man ! Thou worms-meat, in respect of a 
 good piece of flesh, indeed ! Learn of the wise, and perpend : 
 Civet is of a baser birth than tar ; the very uncleanly flux of a 
 cat. Mend the instance, shepherd. As You Like It, iii. 2. 
 
 Yen:. This is referred to under " Cursed hebenon " (see 
 page 56). 
 
 Camomile is mentioned once by FalstafF, as a plant 
 growing the better the more it is trodden on, but it is not 
 referred to as a medicine (/. Henry IV. ii. 4). 
 
 Pharmaceutical Preparations. The following are 
 the modes of administering medicines : 
 
 Potions. 
 
 Lys. Thy love ? out^ tawny Tartar, out ! 
 Out, loathed medicine I hated potion, hence ! 
 
 MichuTyimer-Xight' s Dream, iii. 2, 
 
 Am I politic ? am I subtle ? am I a Machiavel ? Shall I lose my 
 doctor ? no, he gives me the potions and the motions. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 1. 
 
 For that same word, rebellion, did divide 
 
 The action of their bodies from their souls ; 
 
 And they did fight with queasiness, constrained. 
 
 As men drink potions. //. Henry IV. i. 1. 
 
 Fed. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient ; your 
 lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect 
 of poverty ; but how I should be your patient to follow your pre- 
 scriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, 
 a scruple itself. //. Henry I V. i. 2. 
 
 Per. Thou speak'st like a physician, Helicanus ; 
 Who minister'st a potion unto me 
 That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself. 
 
 Pericles, i. 2. 
 Mixtures. 
 
 Come, phial. — 
 
 What if this mixture do not work at all ? 
 
 Romeo and JxO.iet, iv. 3. 
 
64 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 I therefore vouch again 
 That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, 
 Or with some dram conjured to this effect, 
 He wrought upon her. Othello, i. 3. 
 
 Pills. 
 
 Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water ; for 
 my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool 
 the reins. Call her in. Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 5. 
 
 Pro. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills ; 
 And I must minister the like to you. 
 
 7'?fo Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 4. 
 
 Clysters. 
 
 Very good : well kissed ! an excellent courtesy ! 'tis so, indeed. 
 Yet again your fingers to your lips ? would they were clyster-pipes 
 for your sake ! Othello, ii. 1. 
 
 Cataplasms and Poultices. See previous quotation from 
 Hamlet (iv. 7), under poisons (p. 55), "No cataplasm so 
 
 rare." 
 
 Are you so hot ? Marry, come up, I trow ; 
 Is this the poultice for my aching bones ? 
 Henceforward do your messages yourself. 
 
 Romeo and Jtdiet, ii. 5. 
 
 Salve. (An outward adhesive healing application, includ- 
 ing ointments and plasters.) 
 
 A salve for any sore that may betide. 
 
 ///. Henry VI. iv. 6. 
 
 Plaster occurs in the following beautiful figure : 
 
 Gon. My lord Sebastian, 
 The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, 
 And time to speak it in ; you rub the sore. 
 When you should bring the plaster. 
 
 Seh. Very well. 
 
 Ant. And most chirurgeonly. Tempest, ii. 1. 
 
 Therapeutics. No one can fail to observe how wise 
 and reasonable are the views which Shakespeare entertains 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 65 
 
 on the subject of Therapeutics. He neither undervakies 
 nor overestimates the help to be obtained from the admin- 
 istration of medicines. The words of the king in Cymheliiie 
 epitomize his views : 
 
 But I consider 
 By medicine life may be prolong'd, yet death 
 Will seize the doctor too. — How ended she? 
 
 Cymheline, v. 5. 
 
 Cerimon {Ferides, iii. 2) was not only familiar with 
 " the blest infusions that dwell in vegetives, in metals, 
 stones," but he could also "speak of the disturbances that 
 nature works and of her cures." (See p. 72.) 
 
 The following passage might seem to countenance a 
 merely expectant mode of treatment : 
 
 K. Hen. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom 
 How foul it is ; what rank diseases grow, 
 And with what danger near the heart of it. 
 
 War. It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd : 
 Which to his former strength may be restored. 
 With good advice, and little medicine. 
 
 //. Henry IV. iii. 1. 
 
 But we may set against it this other : 
 
 Bru. Sir, those cold ways, 
 That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous 
 Where the disease is violent. Coriolanus, iii. 1. 
 
 The special therapeutic measures may be considered as 
 diet, regimen, purging, blood-letting, and counter-irritation. 
 
 Temperance m diet for the avoidance or curing of disease 
 is inculcated in the following passages : 
 
 Xor. What, are you chafed ? 
 Ask God for temperance ; that's the appliance only. 
 Which your disease requires. Henry VIII. i. 1. 
 
 And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too 
 much, as they that starve with nothing : It is no mean happiness, 
 
 E 
 
66 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 therefore, to be seated in the mean ; superfluity comes sooner by 
 white hairs, but competency lives longer. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, i. 2. 
 
 For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things 
 The deepest loathing to the stomach brings — 
 Or, as the heresies, that men do leave, 
 Are hated most of those they did deceive : 
 So thou, my surfeit, and my heresy. 
 Of all be hated ; but the most of me ! 
 
 Midsummer-Night'' H Dream, ii. 2. 
 
 Here am I left to underprop his land ; 
 
 Who, weak with age, cannot support myself : 
 
 Now comes the sick hour, that his surfeit made ; 
 Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him. 
 
 Richard II. ii. 2. 
 
 Sec. Lord. But I am sure, the younger of ovir nature, 
 That surfeit on their ease, will, day by day, 
 Come here for physic. AlVs Well that Ends Well, iii. 1. 
 
 The advantages of an occasional abstinence from flesh 
 meat are illustrated in Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who says 
 of himself: 
 
 Sir And. Never in your life, I think ; unless you see canary put 
 me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, 
 or an ordinary man has : but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe 
 that does harm to my wit. Twelfth Night, i. 3. 
 
 Here we may also notice Petrucio's excuse for throwing 
 away the overdone mutton : 
 
 Pet. I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away 
 And I expressly am forbid to touch it. 
 For it engenders choler, planteth anger ; 
 And better 'twere that both of us did fast — 
 Since of ourselves, oui'selves are choleric — 
 Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, iv. 1. 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 67 
 
 The advantage of a spare diet to the thinking faculty 
 is tersely put : 
 
 Fat paunches have lean pates ; and dainty bits 
 Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost, i. 1. 
 
 AVith this we may compare Caesar's remarks about Cassius. 
 
 Caes. Let me have men about me that are fat : 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
 He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. 
 
 Julius Caesar, i. 2. 
 
 The treatment by diet in venereal diseases is referred 
 to in Timon of Athens, iv. 3. " To the tub-fast and the 
 diet." (See page 95.) 
 
 Shakespeare inculcates moderation in other respects also, 
 as where Claudio says : 
 
 Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty : 
 As surfeit is the father of much fast. 
 So every scope by the immoderate use 
 Turns to restraint. Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 Purging is often referred to, both literally and as a 
 figure of speech, as in 
 
 Purge him of that humour 
 
 That presses him from sleep. Winter's Tale, ii. 3. 
 
 Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, 
 Heaven reward him ! If I do grow great, I'll grow less, for I'll 
 purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. 
 
 /. Henry IV. v. 4. 
 
 It is used as a figure of speech, in the following passages : 
 
 And with him pour we in our country's purge. 
 
 Each drop of us. Macbeth, v. 2. 
 
 Find her disease, 
 And purge it to a sound and pristine health. 
 
 Macbeth, v. 3. 
 
68 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Let's purge this choler without letting blood : 
 
 This we prescribe, though no physician ; 
 
 Deep malice makes too deep incision : 
 
 Forget, forgive ; conclude, and be agreed : 
 
 Our doctors say this is no month to bleed. — Richard II. i. 1 . 
 
 And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge 
 
 By any desperate change. Antony and Cleopatra, i. 3. 
 
 I take not on me here as a physician ; 
 
 Nor do I, as an enemy to peace. 
 
 Troop in the throngs of military men : 
 
 But, rather, show a while like fearful war 
 
 To diet rank minds, sick of happiness ; 
 
 And purge the obstructions,^ which begin to stop 
 
 Our very veins of life. //. Henry IV. iv. 1. 
 
 Blood-letting. A direct reference to this mode of cure 
 occurs in the jiassage from Ilkliarcl II. i. 1 immediate!}^ 
 above quoted, where certain times are indicated as un- 
 favourable for venesection. The other important references 
 to it are the following : 
 
 Dum. I would forget her ; but a fever she 
 Reigns in my blood and will remember'd be. 
 
 Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision 
 Would let her out in saucers ; sweet misprision ! 
 
 Lovers Labour'.^ Lost, iv. 3. 
 
 Ros. Is the fool sick ? 
 
 Biron. Sick at heart. 
 
 Ros. Alack, let it blood. 
 
 Biron. Would that do it good ? 
 
 Ros. My physic says. Ay. Lovers Labour's Lost, ii. 1. 
 
 ^ Compare with this phrase the passage : 
 
 Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, 
 To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot. 
 
 Measure for Pleasure, iii. 1. 
 
 Dr. Creighton quotes Woodall's Pathology of Obstnicfions in 
 connection with this passage. {History of Epidemics, i., p. 605.) 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 69 
 
 Ajax. I will let his humours blood. 
 
 A;/am. He'll be physician, that should be the patient. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3. 
 
 J/ar. Sir, praise me not : 
 My work hath not yet warmed me : Fare you well. 
 The blood I drop is rather physical 
 Than dangerous to me. Coriolanus, i. 5. 
 
 And with our surfeiting and wanton hours 
 
 Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, 
 
 And we must bleed for it. //. Henry IV. iv. 1. 
 
 Counter-irritatiGii, and even tlie violent kind of it some- 
 times practised in the treatment of inflammation of the 
 eyes, is alluded to in the following passage : 
 
 Ben. Tut, man ! one fire burns out another's burning, 
 One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish : 
 Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning ; 
 One desperate grief cures with another's languish : 
 Take thou some new infection to thy eye. 
 And the rank poison of the old will die. 
 
 Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. 
 
 Ben. For what, I pray thee ? 
 
 Rom. For your broken shin. Romeo and Juliet, i. 2. 
 
 Music as a remedy in madness is spoken of by King 
 Kichard as tending to madden him. 
 
 This music mads me, let it sound no more ; 
 For, though it have holp madmen to their wits. 
 In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad. 
 
 Richard II. v. 5. 
 
 See also the "woful music" referred to under the next 
 heading Resuscitation. (Pericles, iii. 2.) 
 
 The influence of music is referred to by Shakespeare, on 
 the other hand, as the cause of a curious morbid symptom. 
 This may be considered here, although it should scarcely 
 be classed under Therapeutics. The passage is in the well- 
 known statement of Shylock's dislike of Antonio : 
 
70 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Some men there are love not a gaping pig ; 
 Some, that are mad if they behold a cat ; 
 And others, when the bag-pipe sings i' the nose, 
 Cannot contain their nrine. 
 
 As there is no firm reason to be render'd. 
 
 Why he cannot abide a gaping pig ; 
 
 Why he, a harmless necessary cat ; 
 
 Why he, a bollen bag-pipe ; but of force 
 
 Must yield to such inevitable shame 
 
 As to offend, himself being offended ; 
 
 So can I give no reason, nor I will not, 
 
 More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing 
 
 I bear Antonio, that I follow thus 
 
 A losing suit against him. Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 
 
 The influence of this form of music in causing incon- 
 tinence of urine seems to be quite unknown in connection 
 with the sound of the national bagpipes in the Scottish 
 Highlands. The nearest comparable fact appears to be 
 tlie well-known practice of carters, who often whistle, 
 usually with a long-drawn note, in encouraging their 
 horses to pass urine. The simihir influence of the sound 
 of running water on men will be referred to subsequently. 
 The power of the sound of the bagpipe to produce this 
 effect seems to have been proverbial about Shakespeare's 
 time. Ben Jonson says in his play, Ever// Man, in his 
 Humour (iv. 1) : 
 
 E. Kn, What ails thy brother? can he not hold his water at 
 reading of a ballad ? 
 
 Well. 0, no ; a rhyme to him is worse than cheese or a bagpipe. 
 
 Of medical authority on this point the best known seems 
 to be a statement by Julius Ciesar Scaliger in his book 
 De Suhtilitate (1612). It occurs in Exercitatio, 344, 6, where 
 he discourses on Sjmipathy. This case of his has passed 
 into various books. The following quotation from the 
 
MATERIA MEDIC A, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 71 
 
 Hon. Robert Boyle, in his Esmy of the Great Effects of even 
 L'uigiiid and Unheeded Motion (London, 1685, p. 70), gives 
 it in English, with a slight addition of his OAvn at the end, 
 which may be regarded as conforming to a pretty general 
 experience not unfrequently acted on at the present day : 
 " I remember, Scaliger tells a pleasant story of a knight of 
 Gascony, whom the sound of a Bagpipe would force pre- 
 sently to make water ; adding, that a person disobliged by 
 this man, and resolving to be merrily revenged on him, 
 watched a time when he sate at a feast so as he could not 
 well get out, and brought a Bagpiper to play unawares 
 behind him, which he did so unluckily, that the musick 
 had presently its wonted effect upon the poor knight, to 
 his great confusion and the laughter of the company. On 
 which occasion I shall add, that I know a very ingenious 
 gentleman who has confessed to me that the noise of a 
 running tap is wont to have almost the like operation 
 upon him." 
 
 Resuscitation from Unconscious States. When 
 the " caulk'd and bitum'd " chest, containing Pericles' 
 Queen in a state of trance, is washed ashore, we are intro- 
 duced to Cerimon, a gentleman of fortune who delighted to 
 study diseases and their remedies. His character will be 
 best understood from the following noble sentences about 
 the pursuit of medicine : 
 
 Cer. I held it ever, 
 Virtue and cunning w ere endowments greater 
 Than nobleness and riches : careless heirs 
 May the two latter darken and expend ; 
 But immortality attends the former, 
 Making a man a god. 'Tis known, I ever 
 Have studied physic, through which secret art, 
 By turning o'er authorities, I have 
 (Together with my practice) made familiar 
 To me and to my aid, the blest infusions 
 
72 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones ; 
 
 And I can speak of the disturbances 
 
 That nature works, and of her cures ; which gives me 
 
 A more content in course of true delight 
 
 Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, 
 
 Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, 
 
 To please the fool and death. Pericles, iii. 2. 
 
 When the chest is opened Cerimon recognizes that the 
 Queen is in a state of unconsciousness simulating death. 
 The measures taken for her recovery commend themselves 
 as entirely rational and likely to accomplish the object. 
 These are warmth, friction, air,i the application of various 
 restoratives (for he orders all the boxes in his closet to be 
 brought), and the stimulation of the nervous system by the 
 sounds of "rough and woful music." Her return to life is 
 beautifully and naturally described : 
 
 If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart 
 
 That even cracks for woe ! — This chanced to-night. 
 
 Sec. Gent. Most likely, sir. 
 
 Cer. Nay, certainly to-night ; 
 For look, how fresh she looks ! — They were too rough, 
 That threw her in the sea. Make fire within ; 
 Fetch hither all the boxes in my closet. 
 Death may usurp on nature many hours. 
 And yet the fire of life kindle again 
 The overpressed spirits. I have heard 
 Of an Egyptian, had nine hours lien dead, 
 By good appliance was recovered. 
 
 Enter a Servant, u-ith boxes, naj^Hns, and^fire. 
 Well said, well said ; the fire and the cloths. — 
 The rough and woful music that we have, 
 Cause it to sound, 'beseech you. 
 The vial once more . — How thou stirr'st, thou block ! 
 
 ^ While in the trance air is regarded as unnecessary, but when 
 she awakes the order is given : 
 
 I pray you, give her air. Pericles, iii. 2. 
 
MATERIA MEDICA, TOXICOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS 73 
 
 The music there. — I pray you, give her air : — 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The queen will live : nature awakes ; a warmth 
 
 Breathes out of her : she hath not been entranced 
 
 Above live hours. See, how she gins to blow 
 
 Into life's flower again ! Pericles, iii. 2. 
 
 The foolish habit of crowding round a fainting person 
 is turned to metaphorical use by Angelo in Measure for 
 Measure, and in the same passage the effect of nervous ex- 
 citement in disturbing the action of the heart is alluded to. 
 Angelo has already in resolve given way to the temptation, 
 and at the moment when Isabel is announced, he says: 
 
 Heavens ! 
 
 Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, 
 
 Making both it iniable for itself, 
 
 And dispossessing all my other parts 
 
 Of necessary fitness ? 
 
 So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons ; 
 
 Come all to help him, and so stop the air 
 
 By which he should revive : and even so 
 
 The general, subject to a well-wish'd king, 
 
 Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness 
 
 Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love 
 
 Must needs appear offence. Measure for Pleasure, ii. 4. 
 
 When Antony announces his intention to depart, Cleo- 
 patra, evidently with a premonition of fainting, calls out : 
 
 Cleo. Cut my lace, Charm ian, come ; — 
 But let it be. — I am quickly ill and well : 
 So Antony loves. Antony and Cleopatra, i. 3. 
 
 \Yhen King Henry swoons at hearing of Gloster's death, 
 
 Somerset suggests raising him and wringing him by the 
 
 nose : 
 
 [The King sicoons.) 
 
 Q. Mar. How fares my lord ? Help, lords ! the king is 
 
 dead. 
 
 Som. Rear up his body ; wring him by the nose. 
 
74 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Q. Mar. Run, go, help, help ! — Heury, ope thine eyes ! 
 Suf. He doth revive again. — Madam, be patient. 
 
 //. Henrij VI. iii. 2. 
 
 The following quotation deserves notice, not so much from 
 the treatment of the swoon as from the metaphor at the 
 close of the passage : 
 
 K. Hen. And wherefore should these good news make 
 me sick ? 
 Will Fortune never come with both hands full, 
 But write her fair words still in foulest letters ? 
 She either gives a stomach and no food, — • 
 Such are the poor, in health ; or else a feast, 
 And takes away the stomach, — such are the rich, 
 That have abundance, and enjoy it not. 
 I should rejoice now at this happy news ; 
 And now my sight fails and my brain is giddy : — 
 me ! come near me ; now I am much ill. 
 
 [Siroons. 
 
 P. Humipli. Comfort, your majesty ! 
 
 Gla. my royal father ! 
 
 West. My sovereign lord, cheer up j^ourself, look up ! 
 
 War. Be patient, princes ; you do know, these tits 
 Are with his highness very ordinary. 
 Stand from him, give him air ; he'll straight be well. 
 
 Cla. No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs : 
 Th' incessant care and labour of his mind 
 Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in, 
 So thin, that life looks through, and will break out, 
 
 //. Henry I V. iv. 4. 
 
CHAPTEK IV 
 
 SUEGEEY 
 
 The surgical ailments which Shakespeare speaks of in his 
 plays are not numerous, and of some the merest mention is 
 made. They include : Abscess ; Boils and Carbuncles ; 
 Gangrene; Fistula; Wounds and Scars; Fractures 
 and Dislocations; Harelip; Squint; PiN-and-WEB; 
 Venereal Diseases. 
 
 Of the diseases in this list the only one which influences 
 to any extent the action of a play is Fistula. In the 
 opening scene of AlVs Well that Ends Well, we find the 
 King languishing from a fistula, the cure of which has 
 baffled the eftbrts of his physicians, so that he was " re- 
 linquished of the artists — both of Galen and Paracelsus, of 
 all the learned and authentic fellows — that gave him out 
 incurable, not to be helped — uncertain life and sure death," 
 as announced by Lafeu. (Act ii.. Scene 3.) Helena, the 
 daughter of Gerard de Narbon, a distinguished physician, 
 comes to court, and by means of some wonderful " pre- 
 scriptions of rare and prov'd eff"ects " (i. 3), bequeathed 
 to her by her father on his death-bed, accomplishes the 
 King's cure. The "fistula" here spoken of was not the 
 common form technically called " fistula in ano." On 
 referring to the source from which the plot was obtained, 
 
76 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 viz. Painter's Palace of Pleasure, we find that the " French 
 king had a swelling upon his breast, which, by reason of ill 
 cure, was grown to be a 'fistula,' which did put him to 
 marvellous pain and grief." 
 
 A collection of pus in the pleura (technically termed an 
 empyema), which had burst externally and continued 
 to discharge, or possibly a sinus arising from a diseased 
 rib, would agree with the grave constitutional symptoms 
 indicated in the meagre description of the king's ailment. 
 The king is not bedridden, but is able to move about 
 with help. He is subject to attacks of exhaustion, 
 described as "desperate languishes." His physicians have 
 worn him out with several applications, and appear 
 themselves to have lost hope of his improvement, for the 
 King says : 
 
 Our most learned doctors leave us ; and 
 The congregated college have concluded, 
 That labouring art can never ransom nature 
 From her inaidable estate. 
 
 AlUs Well that Ends Well, ii. 1. 
 
 So far the picture, though wanting in details, is true to 
 nature, but the same can hardly be said of the process of 
 cure. We are not told whether the remedy was to be 
 taken internall}'' or to be applied externally, only that its 
 virtue was so great that the cure was accomplished in two 
 days. The foregoing does not show that Shakespeare pos- 
 sessed any technical knowledge of fistulae and their treat- 
 ment, but the subject has given him occasion to pen some 
 sayings about medicine which may well excuse the technical 
 Among these are the following : 
 
 Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 
 Which we ascribe to Heaven. Ibid. i. 1 . 
 
SURGERY 77 
 
 Then we have Lafeu's statement about the King: 
 
 Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, niadam ; under whose 
 practices he hath persecuted time with hope ; and finds no other 
 advantage in the process but only losing of hope by time. Vnd. i. 1. 
 
 The King announces his refusal to resort to quackery with 
 due dignity : 
 
 KiiKj. We thank you, maiden ; 
 But may not be so credulous of cure, — 
 When our most learned doctors leave us ; and 
 The congregated college have concluded, 
 That labouring art can never ransom nature 
 From her inaidable estate, — I say, we must not 
 So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope, 
 To prostitute our past-cure malady 
 To empirics, Ihid. ii. 1. 
 
 The attitude of mind, so favourable to a cure, to which the 
 King resigns himself when he has resolved to try the 
 remedy, is indicated thus : 
 
 King. Here is my hand ; the premises observed, 
 Thy will by my performance shall be served ; 
 So make the choice of thy own time ; for I, 
 Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely. 
 More should I question thee, and more I must ; 
 Though, more to know, could not be more to trust. 
 
 Ihid. ii. 1. 
 
 Among the other surgical ailments mentioned are Boils 
 and Carbuncles. In the following passage these names 
 are used, but probably the last t"svo refer to the marks of 
 the Plague and not to simple carbuncles. King Lear says 
 to Goneril : 
 
 But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter ; 
 
 Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh. 
 
 Which I must needs call mine : thou art a boil, 
 
 A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, 
 
 In my corrupted blood. Kimj Lear, ii. 4. 
 
78 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Again, in the amusing scene with which the second act of 
 Troilus and Cressida opens, we read : 
 
 Ajax. Thersites, 
 
 Ther. Agamemnon — how if he had boils ? full, all over, generally ? 
 
 Ajax. Thersites, 
 
 Ther. And those boils did run ? — Say so, — did not the general run 
 then ? Were not that a botchy core ? 
 
 Ajax. Dog, 
 
 Ther. Then would come some matter from him ; I see none now, 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, ii. 1. 
 
 Gangrene is spoken of in Conolanus, where Menenius 
 says : 
 
 Men. The service of the foot 
 Being once gangren'd, is not then respected 
 For what before it was. 
 
 Bj^u. We'll hear no more. — 
 Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence : 
 Lest his infection, being of catching nature. 
 Spread farther. Goriolanus, iii. 1. 
 
 Again, in Henry VL, Exeter refers to gangrenous processes. 
 The word sinews probably includes the nerves : 
 
 As fester'd members rot but by degrees, 
 Till bones, and flesh, and sinews, fall away, 
 So will this base and envious discord breed. 
 
 /. Henry VI. iii. 1. 
 
 Fractures. The firm repair of broken bones furnishes 
 the following simile : 
 
 And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal. 
 
 If we do now make our atonement well. 
 
 Our peace will, like a broken limb united. 
 
 Grow stronger for the breaking. //. Henri/ IV. iv. 1. 
 
 The setting of fractures is humorously referred to by Falstaff : 
 
 Well, 'tis no matter : honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if 
 honour prick me off when I come on ? how then ? Can honour set to 
 
SURGERY 79 
 
 a leg ? No. Or an arm ? No. Or take away the grief of a wound ? 
 No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then ? No. 
 
 /. Henry IV. v. 1. 
 
 Abscess. The following metaphor evidently refers to 
 the suppurative process, such as a boil coming to a head : 
 
 foul sin, gathering head, 
 Shall break into corruption. Richard II. v. 1. 
 
 Dislocation. We have this allusion : 
 
 Host. No, thou arrant knave ; I would I might die, that I might 
 have thee hanged : thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. 
 
 //. Henry IV. v. 4. 
 
 Wounds and Scars are repeatedly mentioned together, 
 sometimes in a metaphorical sense, as in the well-known line : 
 
 Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, ii. 2. 
 
 More literal applications occur also : 
 
 You were advis'd, his flesh was capable 
 
 Of wounds and scars. //. Henry IV. i. I. 
 
 The more technical term, cicatrices, occurs several times : 
 
 Where is he wounded ? 
 
 Vol. V the shoulder, and i' the left arm : There will be large 
 cicatrices to shew the people, when he shall stand for his place. He 
 received in the repulse of Tarquin, seven hurts i' the body. 
 
 Jlen. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh — there's nine that I 
 know. Coriolanus, ii. 1. 
 
 The appearance of a recently healed wound is referred to 
 metaphorically : 
 
 Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red. Hamlet, iv. 3. 
 
 We come upon the following popular beliefs as to wounds : 
 
 Patr, 0, then beware ; 
 Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves. 
 
 Troilui and Cressida, iii. 3. 
 
80 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This has no doubt some foundation, as the mental condition 
 of those who wilfully wound themselves is one unfavourable 
 to rapid healing. 
 
 The use of leeks and their skin is insisted on by the Welsh 
 officer Fluellen, as being good for the healing of wounds. 
 But " eating the leek " was obviously more important for 
 healing the wounded national vanity of the \Yelshman than 
 for mending Pistol's head : ' 
 
 — Pite, I pray you ; it is goot for your green wound, and your ploody 
 coxcomb. 
 
 Fiiit. Must I bite ? 
 
 the skin is goot for your proken coxcomb. Henry V. v. 1. 
 
 The injurious influence of the air on wounds is men- 
 tioned : 
 
 Tlie air hath got into my deadly wounds, 
 And much effuse of blood doth make me faint. 
 
 ///. Henry VL ii. 6. 
 
 If leeks were good for wounds, prawns seem to have been 
 bad : 
 
 She had a good dish of prawns ; whereby thou didst desire to eat 
 some ; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? 
 
 //. Henry IV. ii, 1. 
 
 Promptitude in the treatment of green wounds is recognized 
 as important : 
 
 Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime, 
 
 Before the wound do grow uncurable. 
 
 For, being green, there is great hope of help. 
 
 //. Henry VI. iii. 1. 
 
 The belief that the wounds of a murdered man opened and 
 
SURGERY 81 
 
 bled in the presence of his murderer ^ is expressed in the 
 following : 
 
 gentlemen, see, see ! dead Henry's wounds 
 
 Open their eongeard months, and bleed afresh ! 
 
 Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity ; 
 
 For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood 
 
 From cold and empt}' reins, where no blood dwells ; 
 
 Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural, 
 
 Provokes this deluge most unnatural. — 
 
 Richard III. i. 2. 
 
 The breaking out of wounds afresh is here made use of as a 
 figure of speech : 
 
 The new heal'd wound of malice should break out ; 
 
 Which would be so much the more dangerous, 
 
 By how much the estate is green, and yet ungovern'd. 
 
 Richard III. ii. 2. 
 
 The extension of a wound is spoken of in this curious com- 
 parison : 
 
 Ant. Thou bleed'st apace. 
 
 Scar. I had a wound here that was like a T, 
 But now 'tis made an H. A ntony and ChoiJoArcL, iv. 7. 
 
 It would almost seem as if the practice of having a sur- 
 geon present at duels, to prevent unnecessary loss of life, 
 may have been in view in the suggestion that Shylock 
 should have a surgeon at hand to prevent fatal haemorrhage 
 from the carrying out of the penalty claimed : 
 
 Por. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge. 
 To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 
 
 ^ King James, in his Daemonologie, says : " In a secret murther, 
 if the dead carkasse bee at any time thereafter handled by the 
 murtherer, it will gush out of bloud, as if the bloud were crying 
 to the heauen for reuenge of the murtherer ^^ God hauing appointed 
 that supernaturall signe, for triall of that secret vnnaturall crime." 
 
 F 
 
82 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Nor can we leave this subject without remembering Mer- 
 cutio's w^ound : 
 
 Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door ; 
 but 'tis enough, 'twill serve : ask for me to-morrow and you shall 
 find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world : — 
 A plague o' both your houses ! — Zovmds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a 
 cat, to scratch a man to death ! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that 
 fights by the book of arithmetic ! — Why the devil came you between 
 us ? I was hurt under your arm. Borneo and Juliet, iii. 1. 
 
 Ulcers. Under this heading we may notice the " King's 
 Evil," which Shakespeare introduces in Macbeth. The Royal 
 Touch is described by Malcolm, after the conversation 
 between him and Macduff : 
 
 Enter a Doctor. 
 
 Mai. Well ; more anon. — Comes the king forth, I pray 
 you ? 
 
 Doct. Ay, sir : there are a crew of wretched souls. 
 That stay his cure : their malady convinces 
 The great assay of art ; but, at his touch, 
 Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand, 
 They presently amend. 
 
 2Ial. I thank you, doctor. {^Exit Doctor. 
 
 Macd. What's the disease he means ? 
 
 3Ial. 'Tis called the evil : 
 A most miraculous work in this good king ; 
 Which often, since my here-remain in England, 
 I have seen him do. How he solicits Heaven, 
 Himself best knows : but straugely-visited people 
 All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye. 
 The mere despair of surgery, he cures ; 
 Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, 
 Put on with holy prayers : and 'tis spoken, 
 To the succeeding royalty he leaves 
 The healing benediction. With this strange virtue 
 He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy ; 
 And sundry blessings hang about his throne, 
 That speak him full of grace. Macbeth, iv. 3. 
 
SURGERY 83 
 
 In the Doctor's speech "convinces" (as in some other pas- 
 sages in Shakespeare) must be understood as meaning 
 " vanquishes." We can readily understand his speaking of 
 the swelKngs and ulcerations of scrofula as vanquishing 
 the effort of medical art. 
 
 The superficial healing of a sore, which had not filled up 
 from the bottom, supplies Hamlet with this fine metaphor : 
 
 Mother, for love of grace. 
 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
 That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks : 
 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place ; 
 Whiles rank corruption, mining all within. 
 Infects unseen. Hamlet, iii. 4. 
 
 Harelip. — Squint. These two are coupled in the insane 
 sayings of Edgar when he simulates madness. Speaking of 
 "the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet," he says : 
 
 He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, 
 
 And makes the hare-lip. KiiKj Lear, iii. 4. 
 
 The Web axd the Pin, mentioned in the last quota- 
 tion, is the same as " pin-and-web " in the next passage. 
 It was a name for opacities of the cornea, and it included 
 the opacity of cataract also : ^ 
 
 And all eyes 
 Blind v.'ith the pin-and-web, but their's, their's only, 
 That would unseen be wicked. Winfer^s Tale, i. 2. 
 
 (See also Chapter v. under Congenital Defects, etc.) 
 
 The modes of Surgical Treatment to which allusion 
 is made are : Incisions, Amputations, Cauterizing, 
 Using Tents, Setons or Issues. 
 
 ^See Peter Lowe's Chirurgerie. Lond. 1612. Lib. v. (chap, 19), 
 " Of the web in the eye," etc. 
 
84 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Incisions, by lancing, are referred to : 
 
 Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more, 
 Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore. 
 
 Richard II. i. 3. 
 But we do lance 
 Diseases in our bodies. Antony and Cleopatra, v. 1. 
 
 Amputations. The danger of amputation, and the 
 possibility of cure without such an extreme measure, are 
 here made use of: 
 
 Sic. He's a disease that must be cut away. 
 Men. O, he's a limb, that has but a disease ; 
 Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy. Goriolanus, iii. 1. 
 
 On the other hand, the doctrine of " cut it off, and cast 
 it from thee," is equally admitted : 
 
 This fester'd joint cut oflf, the rest rests sound ; 
 This, let alone, will all the rest confound. 
 
 Richard II. v. 3. 
 
 Cauterizing, or the use of corrosive caustics, may be 
 found mentioned in the following : 
 
 Q. Mar. Away ! though parting be a fretful corrosive. 
 It is applied to a deathful wound. //. Henry VI. iii. 2. 
 
 Care is no cure, but rather corrosive, 
 For things that are not to be remedied. 
 
 /. Henry VI. iii. J5. 
 
 For each true word, a blister ! and each false 
 
 Be as a caut'rizing to the root o' the tougue. 
 
 Consuming it with speaking ! Timon of Athens, v. 1. 
 
 Tents were pledgets of lint, medicated or otherwise, 
 introduced into wounds and abscesses to promote a healthy, 
 healing action. 
 
 Patr. Who keeps the tent now ? 
 
 Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, v. I. 
 
SURGERY 85 
 
 Leave us to cure this cause. 
 
 Men. For 'tis a sore upon us, 
 You canuot tent yourself : Begone, 'beseech you. 
 
 Coriolanus, iii. 1. 
 
 ^far. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart 
 To hear themselves remember'd. 
 
 Com. Should they not, 
 Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude, 
 And tent themselves with death. Coriolanus, i. 9. 
 
 Imo. Talk thy tongue weary ; speak : 
 I have heard, I am a strumpet ; and mine ear. 
 Therein false struck, can take no greater wound. 
 Nor tent to bottom that. Cymheline, iii. 4. 
 
 I'll observe his looks ; 
 I'll tent him to the quick ; if he do blench, 
 I know my course. Hamlet, ii. 2. 
 
 The wound of peace is surety, 
 Surety secure ; but modest doubt is call'd 
 The beacon of the wise, the tent, that searches 
 To the bottom of the worst. Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2. 
 
 Setons or Issues may be referred to in the following 
 passage : 
 
 I am not glad, that such a sore of time 
 
 Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt. 
 
 And heal the inveterate canker of one wound, 
 
 Bj'' making many. King John, v. 2. 
 
 Possibly, however, the "plaster" referred to may refer to a 
 blistering plaster to produce counter-irritation. 
 
 Eestraining Haemorrhage. Two modes of accom- 
 plishing this are given. Both depend for their efficacy on 
 their causing coagulation of the blood by bringing into 
 contact with it fine filaments — in the one case of cobweb 
 and in the other of fiax. The former method remains a 
 popular tradition to this day. 
 
86 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Bot. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master Cob- 
 web : If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. — 
 
 Midsummer -Night^s Dream, iii. 1. 
 
 Third Serv. Go thou ; I'll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs, 
 To apply to his bleeding face. Now, Heaven help him ! 
 
 King Lear, iii. 7. 
 
 VENEREAL DISEASES. 
 
 The century preceding Shakespeare's era witnessed the 
 rapid spread of syphilis throughout Europe ; this followed 
 the siege of Naples. That the occurrence of this disease 
 was frequent and its sj^mptoms familiar, we may learn 
 from the form of vulgar oath Avhich Shakespeare puts into 
 the mouth of man}'' of his characters, and into none more 
 appropriately than into that of Falstaff (see p. 37) : 
 
 A pox of this gout ! or, a gout of this pox ! 
 
 //. Hejiry IV. i. 2. 
 
 The interpretation of this frequent oath as referring to 
 the disease now termed small-pox cannot be admitted as 
 probable. No doubt " variole " (our small-pox) was called 
 " the poxe," and the ambiguity of this word may have 
 rendered it possible for the current oath to be used with 
 less sense of shame, as where Katharine says : 
 
 A pox of that jest ! Lovers Labours Lost, v. 2. 
 
 Many jesting allusions occur to symptoms of syphilis, as 
 in the following. The baldness (alopecia) produced by 
 this disease came to be known as the " French crown," and 
 the play on the word " crown," as a piece of money, ex- 
 plains the joke : 
 
 Lucio. Behold, behold, where Madame Mitigation comes ! 
 First Gent. I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as 
 come to 
 
SURGER V 87 
 
 Sec. Gent. To what, I pray ? 
 
 First Gent. Judge. 
 
 Sec. Gent. To three thousand dolours a year. 
 
 First Gent. Ay, and more. 
 
 Lucio. A French crown more. Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 Again : 
 
 Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your 
 orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French- 
 crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. 
 
 Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then 
 you will play barefaced. Midsummer - XvjhV s Dream., i. 2. 
 
 Again : 
 
 K. Hen. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to 
 one, they will beat us ; for they bear them on their shoulders : but 
 it is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the 
 king himself will be a clipper. King Henry V. iv. 1. 
 
 The term " pocky corses " used by the Clown in Hamlet 
 refers to this form of pox and not to small-pox : 
 
 First Clo. V faith, if he be not rotten before he die, — as we have 
 many pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in, — 
 he will last you some eight year, or nine year : a tanner will last 
 you nine year. Hamlet, v. 1. 
 
 These quotations serve to sho^Y the M^idespread knowledge 
 of the disease and its symptoms amongst the common people 
 in Shakespeare's plays. A more subtle allusion occurs, 
 probably, in the question already cjuoted (p. 29) : 
 
 First Gent. How now ! which of your hips has the most profound 
 sciatica? Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 This is addressed to Mistress Overdone, and immediately 
 follows the passage quoted above about the "French crown." 
 The question as to whether venereal diseases should be 
 treated by physicians or surgeons was hotly disputed in 
 France ; both sections of the profession were unwilling 
 
88 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to see such a lucrative department of work slipping out 
 of their hands. In Pericles we seem to find that the cure 
 of such disorders fell to the surgeon : 
 
 Lys. You may say so ; 'tis better for you that your resorters 
 stand upon sound legs. How now, wholesome iniquity ? Have you 
 that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon ? 
 
 Pericles, iv. 6. 
 
 The designation of syphilis as the "French disease" 
 (Morbus Gallicus) was current throughout Europe, although 
 those in France might prefer the name Spanish (" Spanish 
 sickness ") or the Neapolitan disease. In connection with 
 this we find the following : 
 
 Pist. Doth fortune play the huswife with me now ? News have I 
 that ray Nell is dead i' the spital of malady of France. 
 
 Henry V. v. 1. 
 In Troilus and Cressida Thersites says : 
 
 After this, the vengeance on the whole camp ! or rather, the bone- 
 ache ! for that, methinks, is a curse dependant on those that war for 
 a placket. Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3. 
 
 In this passage the Quarto has ^^the Neopolitan hone-ache.^' 
 This makes the allusion more definite, although the word 
 "placket" is itself sufficiently suggestive. 
 
 A similar reference to the spread of the disease from 
 Naples occurs in the discourse of the Clown with the 
 musicians in Othello. The allusion is to the alterations 
 in the nose, thereby afi'ecting the voice, produced by 
 syphilis; it is applied, metaphorically, in finding fault 
 with the wind instruments of the musicians : 
 
 Clo. Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that 
 they speak i' the nose thus? Othello, iii. 1, 
 
 The more severe forms of syphilitic disease, its chief 
 symptoms, its treatment, and its mode of communication, 
 all receive mention in the plays. 
 
SURGERY 89 
 
 The most remarkable of these passages occur in that 
 powerful plaj^ Timoii of Alliens, in which the horrors of 
 this disease are made use of to deepen our sense of the 
 intensity of Timon's hatred of and contempt for humanity. 
 
 In the curse which Timon flings at his flatterers, at 
 his farewell banquet, occurs the passage : 
 
 Of man and beast the infinite maladie 
 
 Crust you quite o'er ! — Timon of Athens, iii. 6. 
 
 This refers to syphilitic rupia, or some of the scaly sy- 
 philitic eruptions. When he finds the gold in the earth 
 he says : 
 
 This 5'ellow slave 
 
 Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed ; 
 
 Make the hoar leprosy adored ; place thieves, 
 
 And give them title, knee, and approbation, 
 
 With senators on the bench : this is it, 
 
 That makes the wappeu'd widow wed again ; 
 
 She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous sores 
 
 Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices 
 
 To the April day again. Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 "Wappen'd" here means decayed or diseased, and taken 
 in connection with the lines following, little doubt is left 
 as to what disease is implied. 
 
 We have the following passage following closely on the 
 one last quoted, in which syphilitic disease is further 
 referred to, and in the phrase, "burn him up," some re- 
 ference to gonorrhoea may, perhaps, be traced : 
 
 I'll trust to your conditions : Be whores still ; 
 
 And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you. 
 
 Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up ; 
 
 Let your close fire predominate his smoke, 
 
 And be no turncoats : Yet may your pains, six months, 
 
 Be quite contrary : And thatch your poor thin roofs 
 
 ^Vith burdens of the dead ; — some that were hang'd, 
 
90 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 No matter ; — wear them, betray with them : whore still, 
 
 Paint, till a horse may mire upon your face : 
 
 A pox of wrinkles ! Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 The meaning of the phrase, "Yet may your pains, six 
 months, be quite contrary," is somewhat obscure. It may 
 be understood by taking the word '• contrary " to mean 
 "repugnant to," a significance which, in old authors, it 
 sometimes bears. The " six months " v/ould thus refer to 
 the averasje duration of the exanthematous stas-e of the 
 disease, and some colour is given to this by the sug- 
 gestions which immediately follow, to supply the loss of 
 hair by the wearing of a wig, and to hide the cutaneous 
 appearances by painting the face. 
 
 On the courtezans asking for more gold, Timon tells 
 them what he would further have them do : 
 
 Tim. Consumptions sow 
 In hollow hones of man ; strike their sharp shins. 
 And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice, 
 That he may never more false title plead, 
 Nor sound his quillets shrilly : hoar the flamen, 
 That scolds against the quality of flesh, 
 And not believes himself : down with the nose, 
 Down with it flat ; take the bridge quite away 
 Of him that, his particular to foresee. 
 
 Smells from the general weal : make curl'd-pate ruffians bald ; 
 And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war 
 Derive some pain from you : Plague all ; 
 That your activity may defeat and quell 
 The source of all erection. — There's more gold : — 
 Do you damn others, and let this damn you. 
 And ditches grave you all ! Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 In this passage the lesions which are referred to are 
 those of the tertiary stage. We have first the periosteal 
 nodes which often proceed to suppuration, and the tibia, 
 or shin bone, is indicated as being their favourite seat. 
 Next are mentioned the effects on the voice of tertiary 
 
SURGERY 91 
 
 ulcerations of the throat and larynx. " Hoar the flamen " 
 means "make the priest grey"; it may be intended to 
 depict the general ravages of the disease or some particular 
 cutaneous eruption. In the next sentence is mentioned 
 the characteristic facial appearance of tertiary syphilis 
 produced b}^ exfoliation of the nasal bones. Next comes 
 syphilitic alopecia or baldness, followed by tertiary ulcer- 
 ations of the skin, which would mark with cicatrices those 
 who had escaped that honour in the war. The passage 
 from " Plague all " does not allude to any special lesion, 
 but is the expression of the wish that the disease may 
 spread so universally in its loathsome forms as to quench 
 even the sexual appetite. 
 
 Syphilitic affections of the bones are mentioned also in 
 this passage : 
 
 First Gent. Thou art always figuring diseases in me : but thou art 
 full of error ; I am sound. 
 
 Lucio. Nay, not as one would say, healthy ; but so sound, as 
 things that are hollow ; thy bones are hollow : impiety has made a 
 feast of thee. Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 The " bone-ache " has been already mentioned in con- 
 nection with the name Neapolitan (Troihts and Cressida, 
 ii. 3, see p. 88). With the adjective "incurable" prefixed, 
 it has also been mentioned in a list of diseases, many, if 
 not all of •which, are selected as being results of the 
 "rotten diseases of the South" {Trollus and Cressida, v. 1, 
 see p. 17). 
 
 When lachimo slanders Posthumus to Imogen, he refers 
 to venereal diseases in the following terms : 
 
 A lady 
 So fair, and fasten'd to an empery, 
 Would make the great'st king doiible ! to be partner'd 
 With tomboys, hired with that self exhibition, 
 Which your own coffers yield ! with diseased ventures, 
 
92 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 That play with all infirmities for gold, 
 
 Which rottenness can lend nature ; such boil'd stuff, 
 
 As well might poison poison ! Gymheline, i. 6. 
 
 Eegarding the treatment of venereal diseases, mercury had 
 been introduced as a remedy for syphilis many years before 
 Shakespeare wrote, but no allusion to it can be traced in 
 any of the plays. Baths and the " tub," however, are 
 mentioned several times, and also the " powdering-tub." 
 The treatment by a very strict regimen or diet is also 
 mentioned, sometimes with the "tub," sometimes alone. 
 The cure by sweating, no doubt somewhat connected 
 with the " tub," is also referred to. Pistol says : 
 
 No ; to the spital go, 
 And from the powdering-tub of infamy 
 Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind, 
 Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse. 
 
 Kinri Henry V. ii. 1. 
 
 Ao-ain : 
 
 "■^^ 
 
 Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress ? Procures she 
 still, ha ? 
 
 Pom. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself 
 in the tub. Measure for Measiire, iii. 2. 
 
 When the two courtezans, with Alcibiades, visit Timon, 
 speaking to one of them he mentions "tubs and baths," 
 and " the tub-fast and the diet," among the cures for 
 venereal disease : 
 
 Tim. Be a whore still ! they love thee not that use thee ; 
 Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust. 
 Make use of thy salt hours : season the slaves 
 For tubs and baths ; bring down rose-cheeked youth 
 To the tub-fast and the diet. Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 The treatment by diet alone is mentioned by Pompey in 
 this passage : 
 
SURGERY 93 
 
 Pom. Why, very well : I telling you then, if you be remember'd, 
 that such a one, and such a one, were past cure of the thing you wot 
 of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you. 
 
 Measure for Measure, ii. 1. 
 
 The cure by sweating is thus referred to : 
 
 Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases ; 
 And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, v. 10. 
 
 The following allusion to the danger of concealing "a 
 foul disease," and so aggravating the danger, may refer to 
 this common aggravation of venereal affections, although 
 possibly it is intended to have a more general reference. 
 In connection with the treatment of such cases it seems 
 worth quoting here : 
 
 But like the owner of a foul disease, 
 
 To keep it from divulging, let it feed 
 
 Even on the pith of life. Hamlet, iv. 1. 
 
 The propagation of the contagion of syphilis is repeatedly 
 referred to. Marina says : 
 
 For me 
 That am a maid, though most ungentle fortune 
 Have plac'd me in this sty, where, since I came, 
 Diseases have been sold dearer than physic. 
 
 Pericles, iv, 6, 
 
 Falstaff also expounds the matter : 
 
 Fal. You make fat rascals, mistress Doll, 
 
 Doll. I make them ! Gluttony and diseases make them ; I make 
 them not. 
 
 Fal. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the 
 diseases, Doll : we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you ; grant that, 
 my poor virtue, grant that, //, Henrij IV. ii, 4, 
 
 Probably the infection by kissing is alluded to in this 
 passage. The phrase, " Thy lips rot off," is a curse without 
 
94 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 special significance of this kind, but it is taken up by 
 Timon : 
 
 This fell whore of thme 
 Hath in her more destruction than thy sword, 
 For all her cherubin look. 
 
 Phri). Thy lips rot off ! 
 
 Tim. I will not kiss thee : then the rot returns 
 To thine own lips again. Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 There is also probably an allusion to the idea current 
 then, and even now, that venereal disease may be got rid 
 of by transferring it to a healthy subject. 
 
 The danger of the lips, and the contamination of the 
 cup, are probably referred to by Lucio : 
 
 But whilst I live, forget to drink after thee. 
 
 Measure for Measure, i. 2. 
 
 Occasionally there are allusions to gonorrhoea as a special 
 form of venereal disease (see p. 89), and the curse of a 
 " burning devil " probably refers to this : 
 
 Lechery, lechery : still, wars and lechery : nothing else holds 
 fashion : a burning devil take them ! Troilus and Cressida, v. 2. 
 
 This disease was called the " Brenning " or Burning (see 
 Murray's English Dictionary), and so the word lent itself to 
 various puns. Thus in the Comedy of Errors we find : 
 
 Dro. S. Master, is this Mistress Satan ? 
 
 Ant. S. It is the devil. 
 
 D7^o. S. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam ; and here she 
 comes in the habit of a light wench : and thereof comes that the 
 wenches say "God damn me"; that's as much as to say, " God make 
 me a light wench. " It is written, they apjjear to men like angels 
 of light : light is an effect of fire, and fire will burn : ej^go, light 
 wenches will burn. Come not near her. 
 
 Comedy of Erro7^s, iv. 3. 
 
 In a similar manner Falstaff makes out that one of the 
 women (Doll), inquired about by the Prince, is even now 
 
SURGER Y 95 
 
 iu Hell, as she already "burns," i.e. is affected with the 
 ^'Brenning." 
 
 P. Hen. For the women ? 
 
 Fal. For one of them, — she is in hell already, and burns, poor 
 soul ! For the other, — I owe her money : and whether she is 
 damned for that, I know not. 
 
 Host. No, I warrant you. //. Henry I V. ii. 4. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 *' The powdering tub of infamy" [Henry V. ii. 1). " The tub-fast 
 and the diet." — "Season the slaves for tubs and baths" 
 [Timon of Athens, iv. 3). "She has eaten up all her beef, 
 and. she is herself in the tub." — " Ever your fresh whore and 
 your powdered bawd" [Measure for Pleasure, iii. 2). 
 
 These phrases refer to the treatment of the French dis- 
 ease by means of the " tub." This was essentially a 
 treatment by sweating, although it was associated also 
 with medication. It was famiharly spoken of as " Cor- 
 nelius' tub," but why it was called so remains obscure. 
 Halliwell, in his notes on these " tub " passages in 
 Shakespeare, gives an amusing extract from Davenant's 
 "Platonick Lover" (1636), in which we find the humor- 
 ous suggestion thrown out that some ignorant apothecary, 
 by confusing Diogenes and Cornelius, had given rise to 
 the name ; the former, it was said, " fasted much and 
 took his habitation in a tub, to make the world believe 
 he lived a strict and severe life, he took the diet, sir, 
 and in that very tub swet for the French disease." As 
 Halliwell says, this is not a serious explanation, but a 
 pleasantry : it is doubtful, however, if it is one which 
 the ancient cynic would have appreciated if he could 
 have foreseen it. 
 
 The following extract from Bullein gives an account of 
 the method of cure referred to. The tub ordered by him 
 
96 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 is a " woodden vessel," and it seems to have been the 
 same kind of tub as that used for curing or corning 
 meat; the meat was powdered or sprinkled with salt in 
 the process, and so the tub used for this purpose was 
 actually called a "powdering-tub." This explains the 
 phrase in Measure for Measure, "She hath eaten up all 
 her beef, and she is herself in the tub " : it probably also 
 explains the term, "powdering-tub of infamy" — "the 
 powdering-tub" for curing meat becoming a "tub of 
 infamy " when used for curing the French disease. It 
 is true we find Bullein ordering certain herbs to be pow- 
 dered or "ground" and put into the tub; but the other 
 idea probably supplies the real meaning of the word 
 "powdering": the phrase, "ever your fresh whore and 
 your powdered bawd," seems by the antithesis to confirm 
 this view. 
 
 In the section, " A treatise of the pockes," Bullein gives 
 full directions for the cure of the French disease, especially 
 by the use of guaiacum : the last direction concerns the 
 use of the " tub " : 
 
 Eightly, after ix. or x. dayes be past, ouce in three dayes let the 
 sicke bodye bee bathed on this sort. Set fayre running water on 
 the fyre, and put therto a great deale of ground I vie leaves, and red 
 Sage and Fenell also, and by a good fyre when the sicke body is going 
 to Bed, put the water and herbes into a vessell of wood, and let the 
 sicke Body stand upryght in it, by the fyre, and take up the herbes 
 and rubbe the body of the sicke Pacient dounewards, and then dry 
 him with war me cloathes, use this, iii. weekes, and by the grace of 
 God the sicke body shalbe made whole, etc., etc. 
 
 D urine: this treatment Bullein seems less strict in his 
 diet than some; but he says: "Also the sicke body must 
 eate but little meate, and that kynde of meate as shall 
 here after be prescribed, and at sutch time as shalbe ap- 
 
SURGERY 97 
 
 poynted."— Bullein : Bulwarhe of Defence. London, 1579. 
 Booke of Componndes. Folio 43. 
 
 Owing to the strict diet prescribed during the " tub " 
 treatment, it was termed the "tub-fast." A treatment 
 by "diet" only or chiefly was also practised, and so we 
 have the curious combination "the tub-fast and the diet." 
 The " tub " is referred to apart from the " diet " in two 
 passages quoted above; and the "diet" is also referred 
 to apart from the "tub" {Measure for Measure, ii. 1). 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MIDWIFEEY 
 
 The subjects connected with the Art of Midwifery which 
 are mentioned in the plays include the following : Pre- 
 mature Births, Quickening, Altered Appetite of 
 Pregnancy, Deformity of the Foetus, Eruption of 
 Teeth before Birth, Death of Foetus and its Ee- 
 tention in Utero, Ketarded Labour from Deformity 
 of Child, Foot Presentation, Caesarian Section, 
 Twin Births, Suckling, Weaning. 
 
 There are two Premature Births recorded, which have 
 an important influence on the action of the play. One 
 of these occurs in Pericles. In the third act Gower tells 
 how the Prince is compelled to journey by sea to Tyre, 
 and how his Queen, whose confinement is '' well-a-near," 
 resolves to accompany him. The vessel is overtaken by 
 a storm, and the fear into which the Queen falls brings 
 on premature labour, resulting in the birth of a daughter 
 and the apparent death of the Queen. The story which 
 follows, of the Queen being imprisoned in a water-tight 
 chest, w^ashed ashore, and afterwards resuscitated, has evi- 
 dently been taken by Shakespeare from the original source 
 of the play, without consideration of its violation of 
 natural law^s. With this we are not concerned at present. 
 
MIDWIFERY 99 
 
 our interest being confined to the induction of premature 
 labour by the rolling of the ship and the fear of the 
 storm : and the prayer of Pericles in the first scene, 
 which he closes in these words : 
 
 — Lucina, O 
 Divinest patroness, and midwife, gentle 
 To those that cry by night, convey thy deity 
 Aboard our dancing boat ; make swift the pangs 
 Of my queen's travails ! — Pericles, iii. 1. 
 
 The other premature birth occurs in Winter s Tale, where 
 the Queen Hermione is cast into prison close upon her 
 confinement. On Paulina inquiring for the Queen, the 
 nurse tells her how the Queen fares : 
 
 Emil. As well as one so great, and so forlorn, 
 May hold together : on her frights and griefs, 
 (Which never tender lady hath borne greater.) 
 She is, something before her time, deliver'd. 
 
 Paul. A boy ? 
 
 Emil. A daughter ; and a goodly babe, 
 Lusty, and like to live : the queen receives 
 Much comfort in 't ; saj^s. My x>oor prisoner, 
 I am innocent as you. Winter's Tale, ii. 2. 
 
 Here also the poet required for his play the birth of a 
 living child, and so the labour comes on shortly before 
 the full time. The causes of the premature birth are in 
 this case, as in the previous one, fear and grief. 
 
 Another recognition of mental emotion as sufficient even 
 to cause the death of the foetus, occurs where Queen 
 Elizabeth, on hearing that Edward was taken prisoner, 
 says : 
 
 And I the rather wean me from despair, 
 For love of Edward's offspring in my womb : 
 This is it that makes me bridle passion, 
 And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross ; 
 
100 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear. 
 And stop the rising of blood- sucking sighs, 
 Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown 
 . King Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown, 
 
 ///. Hmry VI. iv. 4. 
 
 Abortions. Lady Anne, invoking a curse on Gloster, 
 the murderer of Henry, says : 
 
 If ever he have child, abortive be it, 
 
 Prodigious, and untimely brought to light, 
 
 Whose ugly and unnatural aspect 
 
 May fright the hopeful mother at the view ; 
 
 And that be heir to his unhappiness ! Richard III. i. 2. 
 
 The influence of physical violence in causing miscarriage 
 is referred to in the following passage : 
 
 Doll. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on ; I'll tell thee what, 
 thou damned tripe-visaged rascal ; an the child I now go with, do 
 miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou 
 paper-faced villain. 
 
 Host. the Lord that Sir John were come ! he would make this 
 a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb 
 may miscarry ! //• Henry IV. v. 4. 
 
 Illegitimacy Proved by the Date of Pregnancy. 
 AVhen Faulconbridge is arguing that his brother is illegit- 
 imate, he refers to his father's death-bed statement : 
 
 And took it on his death, 
 That this, my mother's son, was none of his ; 
 And, if he were, he came into the world 
 Full fourteen weeks before the course of time. 
 
 King John, i. 2. 
 
 And it is interesting to note that the ''fourteen'' weeks 
 named by Shakespeare makes the supposition of his being 
 a son of Sir Robert prematurely born impossible, as it 
 makes his birth take place in the " non-viable " period 
 of pregnancy. 
 
MIDWIFERY 101 
 
 Deformities at Birth. Richard III. speaks of him- 
 self as prematurely born. " \ ", ■ ' ■ 
 
 I, that am cuitail'd of this fair proportion, 
 Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
 Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
 Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 
 And that so lamely and unfashionable, 
 That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them. 
 
 Richard III. i. 1. 
 
 There are other peculiarities about his birth which it is 
 convenient to notice here. In the following passage he 
 describes fully his congenital deformities : 
 
 Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb : 
 And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, 
 She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe 
 To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub. 
 To make an envious mountain on my back, 
 Where sits deformity to mock my body : 
 To shape my legs of an unequal size ; 
 To disproportion me in every part. 
 Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp. 
 That carries no impression like the dam. 
 
 ///. Henry VI. iii. 2. 
 
 Eruption of the Teeth before Birth, Foot Pre- 
 sentation, and Retarding of Labour from Deformity 
 OF the Child. All these are exemplified in Richard's 
 birth, as Avitnessed by the following passages : 
 
 From forth the kennel of thy w^omb hath crept 
 A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death : 
 That dog that had his teeth before his eyes, 
 To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood ; 
 That foul defacer of God's handy- work. 
 
 Richard III. iv. 4. 
 
 For I have often heard my mother say, 
 
 I came into the world with my legs forward : 
 
102 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste, 
 And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right ? 
 The inic\vafe wonder'd ; and the women cried, 
 
 Jesus bless us, lie is horn ivith teeth ! " 
 
 ///. Henry VI. v. 6. 
 
 Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain. 
 
 And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope, 
 
 To wit, — an indigest deformed lump, 
 
 Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree. 
 
 Teeth hadst thou in thy head, M^ien thou wast born. 
 
 To signify, — thou earnest to bite the world. 
 
 ///. Henry VI. v. 6. 
 
 The Death of the Foetus and its retention in the 
 womb, are indicated in the excuse put forward by Henry 
 VIII, for one of his divorces. 
 
 First, methought, 
 
 1 stood not in the smile of heaven ; who had 
 Commanded nature, that my lady's womb, 
 If it conceived a male child by me, should 
 Do no more offices of life to't, than 
 
 The grave does to the dead ; for her male issue 
 
 Or died where they were made, or shortly after 
 
 This world had air'd them. Henry VIII. ii. 4. 
 
 Quickening is described by the Clown as follows : 
 
 Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is 
 cast away : she's quick ; the child brags in her belly already ; 'tis 
 yours. Lovers Labour's Lost, v. 2. 
 
 The following is clearly a reference to the Altered 
 Appetite of Pregnancy : 
 
 Clo. Sir, she came in great with child ; and longing (saving your 
 honour's reverence) for stew'd prunes ; sir, we had but two in the 
 house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit- 
 dish, a dish of some three pence ; your honours have seen such 
 dishes ; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes. 
 
 Measure for Measure, ii. 1. 
 
MIDWIFERY 103 
 
 Labour. The birth of Elizabeth in the play of Henry 
 VIII. is spoken of as a difficult labour. Lovell tells the 
 Bishop of Winchester that 
 
 The queen's in labour, 
 They say, in great extremity ; and fear'd, 
 She'll with the labour end. Henry VIII. v. 1. 
 
 Later, in the same scene, the King makes inquiries : 
 
 Now, Lovell, from the queen what is the news ? 
 
 Lov. I could not personall}' deliver to her 
 What you commanded me, but by her woman 
 I sent your message ; who returned her thanks 
 In the greatest humbleness, and desired your highness 
 Most heartily to pray for her. 
 
 K. Hen. What say'st thou ? ha ! 
 To pray for her ? what, is she crying out ? 
 
 Lov. So said her woman ; and that her sufferance made 
 Almost each pang a death. 
 
 K. Hen. Alas, good lady ! 
 
 Suf. God safely quit her of her burden, and 
 With gentle travail. Henry VIII. v, 1. 
 
 The fortunate termination of the case we learn of from 
 the amusing passage with which the scene closes : 
 
 I guess thy message. Is the queen deliver'd ? 
 Say, ay ; and of a boy. 
 
 Lady. Ay, ay, my liege ; 
 And of a lovely boy : The God of Heaven 
 Both now and ever bless her ! — 'tis a girl. 
 Promises boys hereafter. Sir, your queen 
 Desires your visitation, and to be 
 Acquainted with this stranger ; 'tis as like you 
 As cherry is to cherry. 
 
 K. Hen. Lovell, — 
 
 Enter Lovell. 
 
 Lov. Sir. 
 
 K. Hen. Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the queen. 
 
 [Exit King. 
 
104 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Lady. An hundred marks ! By this light, I'll have more. 
 
 An ordinary groom is for such payment. 
 I will have more, or scold it out of him. 
 Said I for this, the girl is like to him ? 
 I will have more, or else unsay't ; and now 
 While it is hot, I'll put it to the issue. 
 
 Henry VII I. v. 1. 
 
 The following passages refer to the physical suffering and 
 the cries and groans which are the ordinarj^ accompani- 
 ments of parturition : 
 
 Duch. Had'st thou groan'd for him, 
 As I have done, thou'dst be more pitiful. 
 But now I know thy mind : thou dost suspect, 
 That I have been disloyal to thy bed, 
 And that he is a bastard, not thy son : 
 Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind : 
 He is as like thee as a man may be, 
 Not like to me, or any of my kin. 
 And yet I love him. Richard II. v. 2. 
 
 Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried ; but then there was a 
 star danced, and under that was I born. — Cousins, God give you joy ! 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 1. 
 
 Prov. I crave your honour's pardon. — 
 What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet ? 
 She's very near her hour. Measure for Measure, ii. 2. 
 
 Hadst thou but loved him half so well as I, 
 
 Or felt that pain which I did for him once. 
 
 Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood. 
 
 Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there, 
 
 Rather than made that savage duke thine heir. 
 
 And disinherited thine only son. ///. Henry VI. i. 1 . 
 
 But, that I am as well begot, my liege, 
 
 (Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me !) 
 
 Compare our faces and be judge yourself. 
 
 King John, i. 1. 
 
 Can. With news the time's with labour ; and throes forth 
 Each minute some. Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 7. 
 
MIDWIFERY 105 
 
 Queen. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe, 
 And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir : 
 Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy, 
 And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother, 
 Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd. 
 
 Richard II. ii. 2. 
 
 Caesarian Section furnishes the device in Macbeth 
 by which, though slain by Macduff, Macbeth yields not 
 his life to one of woman born. Tradition had invested 
 the birth of Macduff with this incident. 
 
 Macb. Thou losest labour : 
 As easy may'st thou the intreuchant air 
 With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed : 
 Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests ; 
 I bear a charmed life, which must not yield 
 To one of woman born. 
 
 Macd. Despair thy charm ; 
 And let the angel whom thou still hast served, 
 Tell thee, Macduft" was from his mother's womb 
 Untimely ripp'd. Macbeth, v. 7. 
 
 Twin Births are referred to in the following passages : 
 
 Till my factor's death. 
 And the great care of goods at random left. 
 Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse : 
 From whom my absence was not six months old. 
 Before herself (almost at fainting under 
 The pleasing punishment that women bear) 
 Had made provision for her following me. 
 And soon, and safe, arrived where I was. 
 There she had not been long, but she became 
 A joyful mother of two goodly sons. 
 
 That very hour and in the self-same inn, 
 
 A meaner woman was delivered 
 
 Of such a burden, male twins, both alike. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, i. 1. 
 
106 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And he that is approved in this offence, 
 
 Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth, 
 
 Shall lose me. Othello, ii. 3. 
 
 Twinn'd brothers of one womb, 
 Whose procreation, residence, and birth. 
 Scarce is dividant, — touch them with several fortunes ; 
 The greater scorns the lesser. Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 
 
 Cade. By her, he had two children at one birth. 
 W, Staf. That's false. 
 
 Cade. Ay, there's the question ; but, I say, 'tis true. 
 
 //. Henry VI. iv. 2. 
 
 The New-born Babe. Its cry is most aptly made use 
 of by poor King Lear : 
 
 Thou must be patient ; we came crying hither. 
 Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air, 
 We wawl, and cry :— I will preach to thee ; mark me. 
 
 Glo. Alack, alack, the day ! 
 
 Lear. When we are born, we cry, that we are come 
 To this great stage of fools. King Lear, iv. 6. 
 
 The rounded appearance of its belly is thus described 
 by FalstafF: 
 
 Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the after- 
 noon, with a white head, and something a round belly. 
 
 1 1. Henry IV. i. 2. 
 
 Establishment of Puberty : Menstruation and its 
 Cessation. The following quotations may be grouped 
 together. In the first two the age at which puberty is 
 established is set down as fourteen : 
 
 I have three daughters ; the eldest is eleven ; 
 
 The second, and the third, nine, and some five : 
 
 If this prove true, they'll pay for't : by mine honour, 
 
 I'll geld them all ; fourteen they shall not see, 
 
 To bring false generations ; they are co-heirs : 
 
 And I had rather glib myself, than they 
 
 Should not produce fair issue. Winter''s TalCy ii. Ir^ 
 
MIDWIFERY 107 
 
 III Romeo and Juliet we have a discussion as to Juliet's 
 age, which is made out to be fourteen years all but a 
 fortnight. Lady Capulet says : 
 
 Nurse, come back again : 
 I have remember'd me, thou's been our counsel. 
 Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age. 
 
 Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. 
 
 La. Cap. She's not fourteen. 
 
 Well, think on marriage now : younger than you 
 
 Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, 
 
 Are made already mothers. Romeo and Juliet, i. 3. 
 
 In the next extract the cessation of child-bearing, ' as co- 
 incident with the departure of menstruation, is alluded to : 
 
 Have we more sons ? or are we like to have ? 
 Is not my teeming date drunk up with time ? 
 And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age, 
 And rob me of a happy mother's name ? 
 
 Richard II. v. 2. 
 
 The last passage makes reference to the changes of voice 
 which take place at puberty, but which are absent in 
 those who have been subjected to castration : 
 
 My throat of war be turn'd, 
 Which quired with my drum, into a pipe 
 Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice 
 That babies lulls asleep ! Coriolanus, iii. 2. 
 
 Suckling. The two passages which follow seem to 
 refer to the belief that the mental and moral traits of 
 the child are influenced by the character of her who 
 
 suckles the infant : 
 
 Do as thou list. 
 Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me : 
 But owe tliy pride thyself. Coriolanus^ iii. 2. 
 
 He is my son, ay, and therein my shame, 
 Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit. 
 ' ^ Richard III. ii. 2. 
 
108 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The following quotations refer generally to the subject : 
 
 Wilt thou not stoop ? Now cursed be the time 
 
 Of thy nativity ! I would, the milk 
 
 Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck'dst her breast, 
 
 Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake ! 
 
 I. Henry VI. v. 4. 
 
 I have given suck : and know 
 How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me : 
 I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
 Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, 
 And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn, as you 
 Have done to this. Macbeth, i. 7. 
 
 York. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here ? 
 Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear ? 
 
 Richard II. v. 3. 
 
 Here could I breathe my soul into the air, 
 As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe. 
 Dying with mother's dug between its lips. 
 
 //. Henry VI. iii. 2. 
 
 Cleo. Peace, Peace ! 
 Dost thou not see my baby at my breast. 
 That sucks the nurse asleep ? 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 
 
 Weaning. The weaning of Juliet, as described by the 
 Nurse, is familiar to all readers. The points of interest 
 in the description are the age at which she was weaned, 
 which must have taken place when she was all but three 
 years of age, and the mode taken to render the breast 
 distasteful, viz., putting wormwood on the nipple : 
 
 But, as I said. 
 On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen : 
 That shall she, marry ; I remember it well. 
 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years ; 
 And she was wean'd, — I never shall forget it, — 
 Of all the days of the year, upon that day ; 
 For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, 
 
MIDWIFERY 109 
 
 Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall, 
 My lord and you were then at Mantua : — 
 Nay, I do bear a brain : — but, as I said, 
 When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple 
 Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool ! 
 To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug, 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, i. 3. 
 
 Congenital Defects are repeatedly mentioned. Birth- 
 marks. The following are allusions to birth-marks, and 
 coupled with them we find the congenital deformities of 
 hare-lip and squint. Infiltration and ulceration of the cornea, 
 diseases most frequently found in early life, are mentioned 
 here under the common names of "web-and-pin." This 
 seems to have included " cataract " also (see p. 83) : 
 
 Const. If thou, that bid'st me be content, were grim. 
 Ugly and slanderous to thy mother's womb. 
 Full of unpleasing blots, and sightless stains. 
 Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, 
 Patch'd with foul moles, and eye-oflfending marks, 
 I would not care, I then would be content. 
 
 King John, iii. 1. 
 And the blots of nature's hand 
 Shall not in their issue stand ; 
 Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar. 
 Nor mark, prodigious, such as are 
 Despised in nativity. 
 Shall upon their children be. 
 
 Midsummer -Night's Dream, v. 1. 
 
 Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet : he begins at curfew 
 and walks till the first cock ; he gives the web and the pin, squints 
 the eye, and makes the hare-lip ; mildews the white wheat, and 
 hurts the poor creature of earth. King Lear, iii. 4. 
 
 Hours, minutes ? noon, midnight ? and all eyes blind 
 With the pin-and-web, but theirs, theirs only. 
 
 Winter's Tale, i. 2. 
 
 Inheritance of Physical, Moral, and Mental 
 
110 MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Traits. In Winter's Tale, Pauline, in proof of the Queen's 
 innocence, appeals to tlie likeness in physical features 
 which the babe bears to the King : 
 
 — Behold, my lords, 
 Although the print be little, the whole matter 
 And copy of the father ; eye, nose, lip. 
 The trick of his frown, his forehead ; nay, the valley. 
 The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek ; his smiles ; 
 The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger : 
 And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it 
 So like to him that got it, if thou hast 
 The ordering of the mind too, 'mougst all colours 
 No yellow in't ; lest she suspect, as he does, 
 Her children not her husband's ! Winter's Tale, ii. 3. 
 
 Timon of Athens says : 
 
 These old fellows 
 Have their ingratitude in them hereditary : 
 Their blood is caked, 'tis cold, it seldom flows. 
 
 Timon of Athens, ii. 2. 
 
 The following lines draw a distinction between natural 
 and acquired vices : 
 
 Lep, I must not think there are 
 
 Evils enow to darken all his goodness : 
 His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, 
 More fiery by night's blackness ; hereditary. 
 Rather than purchased ; what he cannot change, 
 Than what he chooses. Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4. 
 
 Seh. Well ; I am standing water. 
 Ant. I'll teach you how to flow, 
 Seh. Do so : to ebb, 
 Hereditary sloth instructs me. Tenqoest, ii. 1. 
 
 In Henry VI. there is a practical advantage taken of 
 the law : 
 
 For Henry, son unto a conqueror, 
 Is likely to beget more conquerors. 
 
MIDWIFERY 111 
 
 If with a lady of so high resolve, 
 
 As is fair ISIargaret, he be link'd in love. 
 
 /. Henry VI. v. 5. 
 
 In the second part of Henry the Sixth Suffolk flings at 
 Warwick this taunt : 
 
 Suf. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour ! 
 If every lady wrong'd her lord so much, 
 Thy mother took into her blameful bed 
 Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock 
 Was graft with ci-ab-tree slip ; whose fruit thou art, 
 And never of the Nevils' noble race. 
 
 //. Henry VI. iii. 2. 
 
 That mental capacity does not always pass from parent 
 to child we see in the following : 
 
 That such a crafty devil as is his mother 
 
 Should yield the world this ass ! a woman that 
 
 Bears all down with her brain ; and this her son 
 
 Cannot take two from twenty for his heart. 
 
 And leave eighteen. Cymheline, ii. 1. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEAREAN 
 MEDICINE 
 
 [Some of the entries here given have not been verified. These may 
 be found quoted in the Bibliography of the Article "Shakespeare," in 
 the Encyd. Britannica, 9th edition ; in the Index-Catalogue of the 
 Library of the Surgeon GeneraVs Office, U.S. Ai-my, under "Shake- 
 speare," " Insanity," " Hamlet," or in the Index I\Iediciis. The 
 British Museum Catalogue has also been used.] 
 
 AuBERT (H. R.). Shakespeare als Mediciner. Rostock, 1S73. 
 
 Beisly (S.). Shakespeare's Garden. London, 1864. 
 
 BiANTE. Etude medico-psychologique sur Shakespeare et ses oeuvres, 
 sur r Hamlet en particulier. Echo Med. Toulouse, 1889, 2 s. 
 iii. 52, 65, 76, ^7, 99. 
 
 BiGELOW (H. R.). Hamlet's Insanity. Chicago M. Journal, 1873, 
 XXX. 513. 
 
 Bradack (F.). Shakspere on the Practice of Medicine. Med. Rec. 
 New York, 1879, xv. 116. 
 
 Brierre de Boismont (A. J. F.). Etudes psychologiques ; Shake- 
 speare, ses connaissances en alienation mentale (Hamlet, Lear). 
 Annates Mai.-psychoL, 1868, 4 s. xii. 329 ; 1869, 5 s. vii. 493. 
 
 BuCKNiLL (J. C). The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare. London, 
 i860. 
 
 H 
 
114 BIB LI GRA PHY 
 
 BucKXiLL (J. O- The Psychology of Shakespeare. London, 1859. 
 
 Second edition, revised. The Mad Folk of Shakespeare. 
 
 Psychological Essays. London, 1S67. [Three of these essays 
 appeared in Quart. Journal Mental Science. Reviewed in Aledico- 
 Ckirurgical Reviezu, vol. 26. October, i860.] 
 
 Chesnf.y (J. P.). Shakespeare as a Physician. St. Louis, 1884. 
 
 Cless (G. ). Medicinische Blumenlese aus Shakespeare. Stuttgart, 
 1865. 
 
 CoNOLLY (John). A Study of Hamlet. London, 1863. 
 
 Creighton (C). Falstaff's Death-bed. Blackwood's Magazine, 
 March, 1889. 
 
 Farren (George). Observations on . . . Rates or Laws of 
 
 Mortality Illustrations of the progress of ^Nlania, 
 
 Melancholia, Craziness, and Demonomania, as displayed in 
 Shakespeare's characters of Lear, Hamlet, Ophelia, and Edgar ; 
 on the comparative danger of first and subsequent births, &c., 
 &c. London, 1826. 
 
 Field (B. R.). Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare. Easton, Pa., 1884. 
 
 FoviLLE (A.). Les medecins dans les drames de Shakespeare. Gaz. 
 hebd. de vied. Paris, 1885, 2 s. xxii. 577, 609. 
 
 Gillespie (J. D.). Medical Notes about Shakespere and his Times. 
 Edinb. Medical Journal, ^875- 
 
 Griffiths (L. ]\L). Shakspere and the Medical Sciences. Bristol 
 Med. -Chir. Journal, 1887, v. 225-256. 
 
 Grindon (Leo. H.). The Flora of Shakespeare. London, 1883. 
 
 Hackman (L. K. H.). Shakespeare and Harvey. Lancet, 1888, 
 ii. 789. 
 
 Harrison (Rev. W. A.). Hamlet's Juice of Cursed Hebona. 
 Transactions, Nezu Shakespeare Society, May 12th, 1882, page 295. 
 
 Hawley (R. N.). The Medical Lore of Shakespeare. Med. Age. 
 Detroit, 1892, x. 740-753. 
 
 Hirschfeld. Konig Lear. Danzig, 1882. 
 
 Kellogg (A. O.). Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility, 
 and Suicide. New York, 1866. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY \ \ 5 
 
 Kellogg (A. O.). William Shakespeare as a Physiologist and Psycho- 
 logist. A77iei\ Journal of Insanity. Utica, New York, 1859-60, 
 xvi. 129, 409. 
 
 Shakespeare's Delineations of Mental Imbecility as exhibited in 
 
 his Fools and Clowns. Amer. Journal of Insanity, 1861-63, xviii. 
 97, 224; xix. 176, 322. 
 
 Shakespeare ; Psychological Delineations. Amer. Journal of 
 
 Insanity, 1863-65, xx. and xxi. 
 
 Hamlet of Edwin Booth ; a psychological study, Qicart. Journal 
 
 Psychol. Med. New York, 1872, vi. 209. 
 
 Knott (John). The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare. Medical 
 Press and Circular, 1892, i. 78, loi. 
 
 Lancet, October 13th, 18S8. [A Leading Article on Medicine of 
 Shakespeare.] 
 
 Nicholson (Dr. Brinsley). Hamlet's Cursed Hebenon. Tratis- 
 actions. New Shakespeare Society, November 14th, 1879, page 
 21, see also page 218. 
 
 \Yas Hamlet Mad? Transactions, A^ew Shakespeare Society, 
 
 June 9th, 1882. 
 
 A' parted e'en just between twelve and one, e'en at the turning 
 
 o' th' tyde. Transactions, Nezv Shakespeare Society, November 
 1 2th, 1880, page 212. 
 
 Onimus (E.). La psychologic medicale dans les drames de Shake- 
 speare. Rev. d. deux viondes. Paris, 1876, 3 s. xiv. 635. 
 
 Owen (O. W.). The ^Medicine in Shakespeare. Physician and 
 Surgeon. Detroit and Ann Arbor, 1893, xv. 289, 297. 
 
 Ray (L). Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity. Amer. Journal of 
 Insanity. Utica, New York, 1846-47, iii. 289. 
 
 Richardson (B. W.). Shakspere and the Pia Mater, with a note on 
 the Originality of Harvey. Lancet, 1888, ii. 757. Also A sclepiad. 
 London, 1888, 386-388. 
 
 RORKE (J.). Medical Quotations of Shakspeare. West Lancet, San 
 Francisco, 1879-80, viii. 481, 541. 
 
 Semple (R. H.). a Psychological Study of Shakespeare. Journal 
 Psych. Med. London, 1881, n. s. vii. 193-210. 
 
 h2 
 
1 1 6 BIBLIOGRAPH Y 
 
 SiGlSMUND. Die medizinische Kenntniss Shakespeares, Cor. Bl. d. 
 allg. drztl. Ver. v. Thiij-ingen. Weimar, i88i, x. 357-367 ; 
 1882, xi. 1-17. 
 
 Stearns (C. W.). Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge. New York, 
 1865. 
 
 Turner (T. J.)- The Signs of Approaching Death illustrated from 
 Shakespeare. Shakespeariana. Philadelphia, 1884, i- 274-276. 
 
 Wadd (W.). Commentary on Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge. 
 Medical Ti?)ies and Gazette, 1885, ii. 230. (Reprinted from 
 Brande's Quarterly Journal of Science, No. x. ) 
 
 West (J. F.). William Shakespeare from a Surgeon's Point of View. 
 Birmingham Med. Review, 1881, n. s. iv. 265-286. 
 
 WiNSLOW (F. L. S.). Psychology of Hamlet. Journal Psychol. Med. 
 London, 1879, n. s. iv. 123. 
 
 Wood (W. D.). Hamlet from a Psychological Point of View, 
 London, 1870. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abortion (see also Premature birth), 
 
 100. 
 Abscess, 75, 79. 
 Abstinence, in diet, 66. 
 Acidity, 36. 
 Aconitum, 47, 52. 
 Aesculapius, 7. 
 Age, old, 39. 
 Ague, 17-20. 
 
 Air, in resuscitation, 72, 73. 
 Alcohol (see also Aqua vitae, 
 
 Sherris, Infusions), 58, 59. 
 
 AWs Well that Ends Well, 5, 6, 7, 
 
 31, 37, 66, 75, 76, 77. 
 Alopecia, 86, 90. 
 Amputations, 83, 84. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 12, 16, 23, 
 38, 51, 58, 68, 73, 81, 84, 104, 108, 
 110. 
 
 Aphrodisiacs, 60. 
 
 Apoplexy, 7, 8, 17, 30. 
 
 Appetite, disorders of, 36 ; altered 
 in pregnancy, 98, 102. 
 
 Apprehension, 33. 
 
 Aqua vitae, 47, 59. 
 
 Arrow poison, 56. 
 
 Arsenic, 53, 54. 
 
 Arteries, 14, 15. 
 
 As You Like It, 19, 37, 39. 
 
 Baldness, 86, 90. 
 Balsams, 47, 61. 
 Bagpipes, 70. 
 Baret, 26. 
 Bartholomaeus, 9. 
 Baths, treatment by, 92, 95. 
 Batman or Bateman, 10. 
 
 Bibliography of Shakespearean 
 
 medicine, 113-116. 
 Birth (see Midwifery), premature, 
 
 98, 99. 
 Birth-marks, 109. 
 Bleeding, restraining of, 85. 
 Blister, 84, 85. 
 
 Blood, circulation of, 9, 10, 14. 
 Blood-letting, 68. 
 Boils, 75, 77, 78. 
 Boneache, 17, 30, 88, 91. 
 Bones, syphilis of, 91. 
 Boyle, Hon. Eobert, 71. 
 Brenning, 94. 
 Bullein, Bidwarke, 95, 96, 97. 
 
 Burning and Gonorrhoea, 89, 94, 
 
 95. 
 " Burning Devil," 94. 
 " Burning "= in Hell, 95. 
 Butts, Dr., 5. 
 
 Caesarian section, 98, 105. 
 
118 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Caius, Dr. John, 3 note ; 4. 
 
 Camomile, 63. 
 
 Carbuncles, 75, 77. 
 
 Cardinal Beaufort, death of, 41. 
 
 Catalepsy, 32. 
 
 Cataplasms, 47, 64. 
 
 Cataract, 83, 109. 
 
 Catarrh, 17. 
 
 Caudles, 47. 
 
 Cauterizing, 83, 84. 
 
 Cheese, and digestion, 36; and 
 urine, 70. 
 
 Child (see Midwifery, Foetus, De- 
 formities, etc.). New-born child's 
 appearance and cry, 106. 
 
 Child-bearing (see Midwifery) ; ces- 
 sation of period, 107. 
 
 Chlorosis, 17, 38. 
 
 Cicatrices, 79. 
 
 Circulation of blood, 9, 10; effect 
 of excitement on, 34. 
 
 Civet, 47, 62. 
 
 Clysters, 47, 64. 
 
 Cob-webs, to restrain bleeding, 85. 
 
 Colic, 17, 34, 35. 
 
 Coloquintida, 47, 62. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, 6, 16, 31, 32, 
 43, 59, 61, 94, 105. 
 
 Congenital defects, 109. 
 
 Consumption, 17, 38. 
 
 Contagion, 22. 
 
 Convulsions, 17, 30. 
 
 Coriolanus, 8, 9, 10, 11, 21, 22, 26, 
 30, 35, 36, 37, 61, 65, 69, 78, 79. 
 84, 85, 107. 
 
 Cornea, ulcerations and opacities of, 
 
 109. 
 Cornelius' tub, 95. 
 Cotta, 4. 
 
 Counter-irritation, 69. 
 Cowardice, 11, 12. 
 Cramp, 17, 30. 
 
 Creighton, Dr. C, 26, 27, 68. 
 
 Crooke, Microcosmographia, 13. 
 
 Cry, new-born babe's, 106 (see also 
 Labour). 
 
 Curare, 56. 
 
 Cures (see Therapeutics). 
 
 Cymheline, 37, 47, 48, 49, 53, 65, 
 85, 92, 111. 
 
 " Cyme," 62. 
 
 Davenant's Platonick Lover, 95. 
 
 Death, 9 ; of King John, 24 ; of 
 Falstaff, 25, 26 ; fear of, 33 ; in 
 articulo mortis, 40 ; of Mortimer, 
 40; of Cardinal, 41; post-mortem 
 appearances, 41, 42, 58. 
 
 Defects, congenital (see Deformity), 
 109. 
 
 Deformity of foetus, 98, 101. 
 
 Delirium, 24, 25. 
 
 Despair, 33. 
 
 Diagnosis, methods of, 42, 43, 44. 
 
 Diet, temperance in, 65 ; treatment 
 
 of venereal disease by, 92, 96. 
 Digestion, disorders of, 36 (see 
 
 Dyspepsia). 
 
 Diogenes and his tub for French 
 Disease, 95. 
 
 Dislocations, 75, 79. 
 
 Dog, mad, 31. 
 
 Drink (see Alcohol), 59. 
 
 Dropsy, 17, 36, 37. 
 
 Drowning, appearances in, 42. 
 
 Dyspepsia, 31. 
 
 Ecstasy, 17, 33, 43. 
 
 Elephantiasis, 26, 27. 
 
 Empyema, 76. 
 
 Epilepsy, 17, 28, 33. 
 
 Eryngo, 60. 
 
 Esculapius, 7. 
 
 "Eugh," 57. 
 
 Evil, The, 82. 
 
 Expectoration, in diagnosis, 45. 
 
INDEX 
 
 119 
 
 Fainting, 73, 74. 
 
 Falstaff (as so many references 
 occur in connection with Falstaft' 
 they have been collected here). 
 See in Index under Apoplexy, 
 Camomile, Consumption, Death, 
 Drink, Dropsy, Drowning, Ex- 
 pectoration, Fevers, Fractures, 
 Galen, Gout, Liver, New-born 
 child, Pills, Pox, Purging, Quo- 
 tidian, Sherris, Sweat, Urine, 
 Venereal Diseases. 
 
 Fevers, 17, 23. 
 Fistula, 75. 
 
 Flax, for restraining bleeding, 85. 
 
 Foetus (see Midwifery), deformity 
 of, 98 ; retained, 98 ; labour re- 
 tarded by deformity of, 98, 101 ; 
 death and retention of, 102. 
 
 Foot presentation, 98, 101. 
 
 Fractures, 75, 78. 
 
 France, malady of, 88. 
 
 French crown, 86. 
 
 French disease, 88. 
 
 Gaddesden, John of, 26, 27. 
 
 Galen, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8. 
 
 Gangrene, 75, 78. 
 
 Gerard de Narbon, 5. 
 
 Globus hystericus, 32. 
 
 Gonorrhoea, 89. 
 
 Gout, 17, 37. 
 
 Gravel, 17. 
 
 Grayness of hair, 66, 91. 
 
 Green sickness, 17, 38, 59. 
 
 Grindon' s i^/ora of Shakespeare, 57. 
 
 Gums, 61. 
 
 Haemorrhage, restraining of, 85. 
 Hairs (see Baldness), white hairs, 
 
 66, 91. 
 Halliwell, 95. 
 Hamlet, 28, 33, 34, 39, 43, 55, 64, 
 
 79, 83, 85, 87, 93. 
 
 Harelip, 75, 83. 
 Harrison, Rev. W. A., 56. 
 Harvey, 1, 9. 
 Heartburn, 17, 36. 
 " Heben bowe," 57. 
 Hebenon, 47, 56. 
 Hebona, 56. 
 Heights, giddy, 34. 
 Hemiplegia, 17, 30. 
 Henbane, 56, 57. 
 
 /. Henry IV., 15, 19, 35, 36, 60, 
 
 62, 63, 67, 79. 
 
 //. Henrij IV., 7, 12, 21, 22, 24, 
 30, 37, 38, 39, 43, 45, .52, 53, 59, 
 
 63, 65, 68, 69, 74, 78, 79, 80, 86, 
 93, 94, 100, 106. 
 
 Henr^j V., 15, 19, 22, 80, 87, 88, 
 92, 95. 
 
 /. Henri/ VI., 35, 40, 53, 78, 84, 
 111. 
 
 //. Henry VI., 9, 27, 30, 34, 41, 
 42, 74, 80, 84, 106, 108. 
 
 ///. Henry VI., 61, 64, 80, 100, 
 101, 102, 104, 108, 111. 
 
 Henry VIII., 5, 22, 40, 65, 102, 
 
 103, 104. 
 Hippocrates, 7, 11. 
 Hope, 33. 
 
 Humours, 14, 15, 16. 
 Hydrocyanic acid, 55. 
 Hydrophobia, 17, 31. 
 Hyoscyamus, 56, 57. 
 Hysteria, 32. 
 
 Illegitimacy of birth proved by date 
 of pregnancy, 100. 
 
 Imposthume, 17. 
 
 Incision, 83, 84. 
 
 Infection, 22. 
 
 Infusions, 47. "Hot infusions," 
 
 47, note ; 60. 
 Inheritance, 109. 
 Inoculation, poison by, 56. 
 
120 
 
 INDEX 
 
 " Insane root," 56, 57. 
 
 Insanie, 57. 
 
 Insanity, 45 note (see Ecstasy) : 
 bibliography of Shakespearean 
 Psychological Medicine, 113-116. 
 
 Issues, 83, 85. 
 
 Itch and Itching, 17, 37. 
 
 Jaggard, W., 13. 
 
 James I. on wounds bleeding in 
 presence of murderer, 81. 
 
 Jaundice, 17, 35. 
 
 John : King John, 15, 16, 20, 23, 
 24, 43, 54, 55, 85, 100, 104, 109. 
 
 Joints (see Dislocation). 
 Jonson, Ben, 70. 
 Julius Caesar, 9, 18, 20, 28, 67. 
 King (see Lear, John, Henry, 
 
 etc.). 
 King's Evil, 82. 
 Kissing, contagion by, 93, 94. 
 
 Labour, retarded, 98; premature, 
 
 98 ; difficult, 103. 
 Lancing, 84. 
 " Lazar-like," 28; " Lazar Kite," 
 
 92. 
 
 Leanness, 67. 
 
 Lear, 5, 11, 20, 32, 33, 34, 51, 53, 
 62, 77, 83, 86, 106, 109. 
 
 Leeks and wounds, 80. 
 
 Leprosy, 17, 27 ; leperous distil- 
 ment, 28. 
 
 Lethargy, 17, 30. 
 
 Levins, 26. 
 
 Lips, contagion from, 93, 94. 
 
 Literature of Shakespearean Medi- 
 cine, 113-116. 
 
 Liver, 11, 12, 13 ; rotten, 17. 
 
 Lovers Lahour^s Lost, 13, 14, 15, 
 22, 47 note; 57, 67, 68, 86, 
 102. 
 
 Lowe, Peter, 83. 
 
 Lungs, rotten, 39. 
 
 Marheth, 5, 11, 17, 18, 23, 33, 44, 
 51, 52, 57, 59, 62, 67, 82, 105, 
 108. 
 
 Madness, 45 note. 
 
 Malaria, 20, 21. 
 
 Mandragora, 47, 51. 
 
 Mandrake, 51. 
 
 Materia medica, 46. 
 
 Measles, 17, 26. 
 
 Pleasure for Measure, 16, 27, 29, 
 
 33, 67, 68, 73, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 
 95, 96, 97, 102, 104. 
 
 Medicine and Medical Diseases, 17. 
 " Medicine " and Medicines, 46. 
 Melancholia, 31. 
 Memory, ventricle of, 14. 
 Menstruation, beginning and end of, 
 
 106. 
 Mental qualities, hereditary. 111. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, 11, 13, 16, 18, 
 
 34, 66, 70, 81. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, 3, note ; 
 7, 20, 42, 60, 63, 64. 
 
 Midsummer-N ighV s Dream, 21, 22, 
 
 36, 63, 66, 86, 87, 109. 
 Midwifery, 98. 
 Midwives, 60. 
 Mixtures, 63. 
 Monkshood, 52. 
 Moral qualities, hereditary, 110, 
 
 111. 
 Morbilli, 26. 
 Morbus Gallicus, 88. 
 "Mother," The, 32. 
 Much Ado about Nothing, 15, 23, 
 
 36, 62, 104. 
 Murchison, Dr., 22. 
 Murderers and wounds bleeding, 80. 
 Music, in disease, 69, 72. 
 Musk, 47. 
 
 Naples, 86, 88 (see Neapolitan). 
 Narcotics, 47, 51. 
 
INDEX 
 
 121 
 
 Neapolitan disease, 88 ; boneache, 
 
 88, 91. 
 Nervous diseases, 32. 
 New-born child, appearance and 
 
 cry, lOG. 
 Nicholson, Dr. Brinsley, 56. 
 Nodes, 90. 
 Non-viable period of pregnancy, 
 
 100. 
 
 Obstructions, 16, 68. 
 
 Oils, 47, 61. 
 
 Otlidlo, 15, 16, 29, 33, 51, 53, 60, 
 
 61, 62, 64, 88, 106. 
 Opium, 50. 
 
 Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 76. 
 
 Palsy, 17, 30, 40. 
 
 Paracelsus, 1, 3, 6, 7. 
 
 Parmaceti, 47, 62. 
 
 Pathology, 9. 
 
 Pericles, 7, 38, 43, 47, 63, 65, 69, 
 
 72, 73, 88, 93, 99. 
 Pestilence, 17, 21 ; "red pestilence," 
 
 21. 
 
 Pharmacy, 47, 63. 
 
 Physicians in Shakespeare, 5. 
 
 Physiology, 9. 
 
 Pia mater, 13. 
 
 Pills, 47, 64. 
 
 Pin and web, 75, 83, 109. 
 
 Pinch, 6, 42. 
 
 Placket, 88. 
 
 Plagues, 17, 21; "red plague," 21, 
 22 ; plague sore, 77. 
 
 Plasters, 47, 64. 
 
 Pleura, pus in, 76. 
 
 Post mortem (see Death). 
 
 Poisons (see Toxicology), 51 ; post- 
 mortem appearances, 58. 
 
 Poppy, 47. 
 
 Potato and " Potato-finger," 60, 61. 
 
 Potions, 47, 63. 
 
 Poultices, 47, 64. 
 
 " Powdering-tub," 92, 95, 96. 
 
 Pox, 37, 86, 87, 96. 
 
 Prawns and wounds, 80. 
 
 Pregnancy, altered appetite in, 98, 
 102 ; duration of, and illegiti- 
 macy and viability, 100. 
 
 Premature births (see also Abor- 
 tions), 98, 99. 
 
 Presentation of foot at birth, 98, 
 101. 
 
 Pruritus, 37. 
 
 Psychological Medicine, Shake- 
 spearean, 45 note ; bfbliography 
 of, 113-116. 
 
 Ptisick, 38. 
 
 Puberty, date of, 106. 
 
 Pulmonary consumption, 38, 39. 
 
 Pulse, in fever, 23 ; in diagnosis, 
 42, 43; "pulsidge," 43. 
 
 Purging, 67. 
 
 Quickening, 98, 102. 
 Quotidian, 19. 
 
 "Eadix insana," 56, 57. 
 
 Ratsbane, 47, 53, 108. 
 
 Resuscitation, from unconscious- 
 ness, 71, 72, 73, 74. 
 
 Rheumatism, 17, 20. 
 
 Rheums, 16. 
 
 Rhubarb, 47, 61, 62. 
 
 Richard II., 18, 30, 36, 57, 61, 66, 
 68, 69, 79, 84, 104, 105, 107, 
 108. • 
 
 Richard III., 81, 100, 101, 107. 
 Richardson, Sir B. W., 13. 
 Rigors, 18, 23. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, 5, 14, 33, 38, 49, 
 50, 52, 56, 63, 64, 69, 79, 82, 
 107, 109. 
 
 Rupia, 89. 
 
 Ru^Dture, 17. 
 
122 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Salves, 47, 64. 
 
 Scaliger, 70. 
 
 Scars, 75, 79. 
 
 Sciatica, 17, 29. 
 
 Sea sickness, 17. 
 
 Senility, 39. 
 
 Senna, 47, 61, 62. 
 
 Serpigo, 16. 
 
 Setons, 83, 85. 
 
 Shaking palsy, 30. 
 
 Sherris, 12. 
 
 Shivering, 18, 23. 
 
 Skeat, Prof., 27. 
 
 Sleeplessness, 31. 
 
 Sleepy-drinks, 47. 
 
 Smallpox, 86. 
 
 Somnambulism, 17, 32. 
 
 Spanish sickness, 88. 
 
 Spectra, 17, 32, 57. 
 
 Spit (see Expectoration), 
 
 Squint, 75, 83. 
 
 Stars and Plagues, 22. 
 
 Strangling, post-mortem appear- 
 ances in, 42. 
 
 Suckling, 98, 107, 108. 
 Sugar-candy, 47. 
 Surfeit, 65. 
 
 Surgeon, 5, 81; and venereal dis- 
 ease, 87. 
 
 Surgeon's box, 84. 
 
 Surgery, 75, el seq. ; treatment, 
 
 83. 
 Sweat or Sweating sickness, 17, 
 
 27. 
 
 Sweating, treatment by, 93. 
 
 Swooning, 73. 
 
 Sympathy and sympathetic dis- 
 turbance, 33. 
 
 Syphilis, 17, 86, et seq. (see Venereal 
 disease). 
 
 Syrups, 47, 51, 61. 
 
 Taming of the Shreiv, 66. 
 
 Teeth, before birth, 98, 101. 
 
 Temperance, 65. 
 
 Temperature, rise of, in fever, 24. 
 
 Tempest, 13, 19, 21, 31, 37, 39, 43, 
 58, 64, 110. 
 
 Tents, 83, 84. 
 
 Tertian, 19. 
 
 Tetter, 17, 28. 
 
 Therapeutics, 46, 64. 
 
 Timon of Athens, 18, 21, 27, 30, 
 61, 67, 84, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 106, 
 110. 
 
 Tingling, 30. 
 
 Tobacco, 57. 
 
 Touch, Eoyal, 82. 
 
 Toxicology, 46. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, 12, 13, 17, 
 20, 23, 35, 36, 38, 40, 61, 69, 78, 
 79, 84, 85, 88, 91, 93, 94. 
 
 Tub, Cornelius', 95; Tub, "pow- 
 dering," 92, 95, 96 ; " Tub of in- 
 famy," 96; "Tub-fast," 92, 95, 
 96, 97. 
 
 Tubs, treatment by, 92. 
 
 Twelfth Night, 5, 11, 13, 44, 60, 66, 
 
 Twin births, 98, 105. 
 
 Tico Gentlemen of Verona, 44, 64. 
 
 Tympanites, 35. 
 
 Typhus, 21. 
 
 Urinal, 44. 
 
 Urine, in diagnosis, 44, 45 ; effect 
 of bagpipe on, 70. 
 
 Ulcers, 82. 
 
 Variola and Variole, 26, 86. 
 
 Veins, 11, 14, 15. 
 
 Venereal diseases, 75 ; treated by 
 
 surgeons, 88 ; treatment of, 92 ; 
 
 contagion of, 93, 94. 
 
 Ventricle of memory, 13, 14. 
 
 Viability of child and date of preg- 
 nancy, 100. 
 
INDEX 
 
 123 
 
 Vicary, 2, Anafomie, 14. 
 Visual spectra, 17, 32. 
 Vital spirits, 14. 
 Vivisection controversy, 48. 
 Voice, change of, at puberty, 107. 
 
 " Wappened widow,"' 89. 
 Water (see Urine). 
 Weaning, 98, 108. 
 Wheezing lungs, 17. 
 Web and pin, 83, 109. 
 
 Wigs in syphilis, 90. 
 Wine, 12, 47. 
 
 Winter's Tale, 15, 16, 47 note; 51, 
 58, 60, 67, S3, 99, 106, 109, 110. 
 Wolfsbane, 52. 
 Woodall, Obstructions, 68. 
 Worms, intestinal, 35. 
 
 Wounds, 75, 79, 80, 81: Mer- 
 cutio's, 82. 
 
 Yew, as poison, 56. 
 
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