The Tsar's Doctor

by Mary McGrigor

  Already Wylie’s Handbook of Operations, again much sneered at by Lyall, had now been in print for nearly ten years, and reprinted several times. Likewise his magnum opus, The Pharmacopoeia Castrensis Ruthiena, again many times reprinted, remained the authorized text-book on the subject for over half a century. Of still more lasting importance are the scientific Journal of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Academy and The Military Medical Journal, established initially by Wylie and which continue to the present day.

  Amazing as it now may seem, during the first quarter of the nineteenth century the three chief public offices in Russia were held by men with Edinburgh degrees. While Wylie headed the medical branch of the army department, James Leighton held a similar position for the Navy and Alexander Crichton for the civil department. All three found themselves struggling against corruption, endemic in all government offices throughout the land.

  Lyall’s obviously jaundiced view of Wylie may have sprung from the fact that, before being able to practise in Russia, Lyall was forced to pass the examination of the Medico-Chirurgical Academy as dictated by law. Although advised to bribe the professors he refused to do so and, to his own and everyone else’s surprise, he passed successfully nonetheless.

  Sir Alexander Crichton, on the other hand, was already distinguished as an expert on mental disorders before going to Russia as physician to Alexander I in 1804. On becoming head of the civil medical department he found his office to be infested with corruption which he struggled to remove. Most notably he wrestled with a bad outbreak of cholera in 1809 which, thanks largely to his competence, was eventually subdued. He also succeeded in organizing universal vaccination against smallpox, one of the most dreaded diseases of the time. Crichton, reportedly a very likeable man, was one of the many emigrants in Russia who made his fortune within a few years. Popular at court, he collected pictures, some of which remain in the Hermitage to this day.

  Sir James Leighton, head of the medical department of the navy, was another of Wylie’s compatriots against whom Robert Lyall vented his spleen. Lyall claimed in his autobiography that ‘although the medical services of the Navy needed reorganizing, Doctor Leighton probably thought it better to take the salary and let the Russians get on with things themselves’.55

  Despite Lyall’s scathing assertion, Leighton’s reputation is vindicated by a fellow physician, Doctor Robert Lee who, himself working in Russia at a later date, was taken round the Marine Hospital in St Petersburg. Noting in his own journal that ‘Leighton had taken great trouble to set up an excellent surgical theatre and that the whole hospital was in very good order,’ he added that he had found Leighton’s medical views to be ‘quite up to those of the most scientific doctors in London’.

  Lee, having shortly left England, should at that point have known what he was talking about. Observant and literate, he left in his journal a vivid picture of life in Russia at that time. It is largely thanks to him that a clear picture emerges of the illness which was to affect Alexander in the final months of his life. A fellow Scot, Lee had much in common with Wylie, whom he held in great respect although, with twenty-four years between them, he was young enough to have been Wylie’s son. Wylie had already been in Russia for three years when Lee was born in the Scottish Border town of Galashiels in 1793. Following in the footsteps of the man who was to become his mentor, he had taken his degree in medicine at Edinburgh University, aged only nineteen, in 1814.

  While there, because it was a common topic, even if he did not buy a newssheet, he must have heard of the tsar’s visit to London, widely reported as it was. The identity of the doctor who travelled with him, tall and distinguished as the emperor himself, probably escaped his notice for, unlike in Russia, Wylie’s name in Scotland was known only to a few. Little could Lee, at that time just emerging on his career, have guessed at his own future involvement with the Tsar of Russia and with the man of his own profession who would fight such a desperate battle to save his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Prophetess

  On returning from England, Tsar Alexander remained in St Petersburg for only two months. Then he was off again, this time with his wife, the Empress Elizabeth, their horses as usual driven at a frantic speed, over the many miles to Austria, the most central empire in Europe, chosen as the venue for the great debate that would become known as the Congress of Vienna, aimed at settling the future of the continent.

  On 25 September, together with Frederick William, King of Prussia, the tsar made a ceremonial entry into the Austrian capital. The Emperor Francis, having made over a whole wing of his Hofburg Palace to the Russian delegation, then spent the modern equivalent of £5,000,000 in entertaining his guests.

  Alexander and Elizabeth borrowed Count Razumovsky’s enormous Neoclassical palace to hold a banquet for a great number of guests – from 400 to 700 according to various writers of the time. The count’s protégé Beethoven, although invited, was one of the few who did not attend, perhaps due to his deafness. The scene was remembered as magnificent. Fifty tables within the enormous panelled hall were set with porcelain and silver brought from Russia, as were the cucumbers, lettuces and cherries which came from the hothouses of the tsar’s summer palace of Tsarskoe Selo. The room glowed with the light of thousands of candles, burning in the vast chandeliers. Guests were dazzled by the sheer ostentation of the spectacle but the sight that drew most eyes was that of the Russian empress, a slight, almost fairy-like figure, in a dress of shimmering silk and gauze enhanced with tiny pink roses. Declared by those who were present to be unsurpassable both for her beauty and graciousness, it was also to be remembered afterwards how, whenever they fell on his wife, Alexander’s eyes shone with pride.

  Later some chroniclers were to accuse the tsar of spending too much time in gaiety but, although he enjoyed the many entertainments, he came to the Conference of Vienna with a clear purpose in mind. Foremost among the problems which faced the assembled delegates were the position of Poland and the fate of Saxony. Alexander intended to restore Poland as a kingdom and to cede Saxony to Prussia, but both Britain, as represented by Castlereagh, and the Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich, spoke forcefully against this plan. A secret agreement signed by both men, together with the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand, who had cunningly exploited the jealousy between the delegates, resulted in Castlereagh’s announcement that George III’s government, under Lord Liverpool, would not agree to any reconstruction of Poland except that it be independent of Russia.

  Alexander, frustrated, quarrelled openly with Metternich more than once, but at last a compromise was reached. Three quarters of Poland, known as the Duchy of Warsaw, became a subject kingdom of Russia, the remainder would be part of Austria. Saxony was to remain independent under King Frederick Augustus, although one third of his territory was to be ceded to Prussia. France, while forced back to her 1792 frontiers, was to be allowed to keep her former colonies.

  In the middle of December, as was typical of him, Alexander, who had so much enjoyed the social life of Vienna, had a sudden change of mood. His health was partly to blame. The erysipelas broke out on his leg again, and Wylie made him sit with his leg in a bucket, filled with a block of ice, sent on the orders of the Emperor Francis every day. Also it was rumoured that he had syphilis, which, although feasible, cannot be proved.

  It was at this point, his mental and physical health plainly at a low ebb, that he began an association with the mysterious Baroness Julie von Krüdner, who claimed to have visionary sight. Firstly, while still in Vienna he received a message from her telling him that he was ‘one upon whom the world has conferred much greater power than the world recognizes’.56 Then when she sent a warning of ‘a storm approaching . . . the Bourbon lilies of France have appeared only to disappear’ shortly before the news came of Napoleon’s escape from Elba, Alexander became convinced of the woman’s magical power. When Napoleon sent Alexander a copy of the secret treaty made between Austria, Great Britain and France, Alexander, having
read the document, summoned Metternich to his side and told him that ‘notre sainte loi commande de pardoner les offenses’.

  Alexander finally left the Austrian capital on 25 May. Reaching the town of Heilbronn on 4 June,57 he had retired to read his Bible when his aide-de-camp, Prince Peter Volkonsky, tapped timidly on his door. A strange woman had arrived, he said, looking rather like a peasant dressed in simple clothes, but she claimed she was the Baroness von Krüdner and insisted she must see the tsar.

  This was the first of many meetings. She spoke to him with words of hope and consolation, in his words, ‘as though able to read my very soul’. We can only imagine what Wylie thought of her, suspicious of her integrity as he, along with so many others, must certainly have been. But he may have believed her harmless, perhaps even beneficial, as she seemed to bring comfort and tranquillity to Alexander’s troubled mind.

  From Heilbronn Alexander moved to Heidelberg, where he heard of the British and Prussian victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. He then travelled on to Paris, which he reached on 10 July. This time, rather than accepting the offer of Talleyrand’s mansion, he stayed in the Elysée Palace, still associated in the minds of Parisians, as in Alexander’s, with the Empress Josephine, whose town residence it once had been.

  The trial of Napoleon’s adherents was now the main talk of the city. Several of these desperate men, headed by General Lebedoyère, planned to overpower the guards at the houses where the allied sovereigns were staying and assassinate them all. The plan failed. Lebedoyère confessed and his wife threw herself at the feet of King Louis and then at those of Alexander, pleading that his life be spared. Alexander replied that, although he truly pitied her, he could not interfere with the decision of the French tribunals and Lebedoyère, accordingly, was executed.

  Alexander knew that his life was in danger. On 7 August, at a ball held by the Duke of Wellington, a letter was handed to him signed ‘the Captain of the Regicides’ who threatened to kill him if he did not proclaim Napoleon’s son as king of France. It is claimed that a bottle of poisoned wine was placed on his table and that his cook, who tasted it, nearly died as a result.58

  The baroness pursued Alexander to Paris where he spent some time with her nearly every day. It was noticed that he became increasingly withdrawn, taking part in only formal ceremonies such as taking the salute of his own troops and standing beside Wellington, whom he greatly admired as, in the Place Louis XV, the Guards and the Highland regiments marched by in a review.59 In September, at another ceremony, when Wellington and Marshal Blücher and the monarchs of Austria and Prussia were present, Julie von Krüdner actually stood by Alexander, wearing a straw hat.

  Julie von Krüdner is thought to have been the inspiration behind the Holy Alliance, which, modified by Metternich, was signed by Alexander, Frederick William of Prussia and the Emperor Francis of Austria, on 26 September 1815.

  This strange pledge was designed to unite the rulers of the continent by taking as their only guide ‘the precepts of the Christian religion’. Emperor Francis, having read it, decided that it simply confirmed his suspicion that Alexander was mad. Nonetheless he signed it, although Metternich shared his doubts as to the sanity of the tsar. So too did Wellington, who happened to be with Castlereagh when Alexander came to explain his idea, and found it hard to keep a straight face.

  Julie von Krüdner herself claimed the idea of the Holy Alliance as her own. However, by the time that the treaty, toned down by Metternich, was signed, Alexander, for some unexplained reason, had grown tired of her. Her association with him, however, had now become so well known that shortly after leaving Paris for the German states, suspected by the authorities of being a Russian spy, she was chased from town to town.

  A decree of the Second Treaty of Paris declared Alexander King of Poland. Entering Warsaw on 7 November, wearing the Polish uniform with the order of the White Eagle, which he had re-established, he was loudly and joyfully acclaimed. He refused to accept the keys offered by civic dignitaries, saying he had come not as a conqueror but as a friend. Instead he partook of the traditional municipal gift of bread and salt.

  ‘The Poles exhausted demonstrations of respect, joy, and attachment,’ wrote Count Joseph de Maistre, the lawyer, diplomat and philosopher who, a native of Savoy, was the ambassador of the King of Sardinia to Russia from 1803–17.

  The winter had now set in with heavy falls of snow so that it was not until 12 December that, after an atrocious journey over ice-bound roads, the tsar reached St Petersburg at last.

  Once there he was back in harness, immediately shouldering the affairs of state. De Maistre, describing the tsar’s amazing physical and mental resilience, describes how ‘Yesterday he went to bed at three a.m., rose at six, and visited all the military hospitals. So active a mind would be useless if it did not command an iron body.’

  The ambassador does not mention the even more surprising endurance of the tall, uniformed figure of Wylie, who despite the fact that he was nearly fifty, as head of the medical department was, as his great-niece testifies, dragged out of bed to be present beside the emperor on these exhaustingly thorough tours of inspection, which kept the hospitals and other civic authorities so constantly on the alert.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Rebuilding From the Ruins of the War

  Alexander returned to St Petersburg to find the Persian ambassador waiting to see him. He brought with him presents from the shah sent with the intention of persuading him to restore the two provinces ceded by Persia to Russia in 1813. The gifts consisted of three elephants in black accoutrements and red leather boots to protect their feet from the snow. Sadly, however, the huge animals slipped about on the ice.

  Alexander did not agree to the shah’s request, to the great consternation of the Persian ambassador, who claimed he would lose his head as the result. He did, however, send his own envoy, General Yermolov, with presents of enormous mirrors, rich furs and crystal ornaments, which so pleased the shah that he agreed to forgo his demands.

  The tsar left St Petersburg for Moscow in August. Then it was Warsaw in October, where he found great changes taking place. New houses were appearing and the streets of the city were paved. He then raced north to Vilna before returning to St Petersburg within a matter of days.

  This was a time of innovation, as a new steam boat, one of the first in Europe, plied its way back and forth to Cronstadt (Kronstadt), Russia’s great naval base. In the following year Alexander reviewed the fleet there before proceeding to Moscow where, with the rest of his family, he spent the winter. Here again, while staying in the Kremlin, in the very part used by Napoleon from where he had watched the city burn, he was constantly occupied at most hours of the day and night.

  An Englishman visiting Moscow a short time later was amazed by the cleanliness and order in the hospitals and public buildings which were ‘enforced by the constant, unexpected visits Alexander pays to them, for he is liable to appear and go through a minute inspection at any hour of the day, and sometimes in the middle of the night’.

  Alexander had returned to Russia to find that the Medical Academy in Moscow, established by his grandmother, Catherine the Great, had been burned to the ground by the French. Ordering Wylie to replace it, he gave him a free hand.

  Wylie had long since decided that the policy of importing doctors – many of whom were Scottish – into Russia, as established by Catherine the Great, was now greatly out of date. He believed it to be better by far to train native doctors, familiar with Russian customs and with indigenous disease.

  Told that a house of three storeys with Doric pillars was available, he successfully approached the government for a grant of money to allow the building to be bought. Once converted, and with large extensions added, it became the centre for the new training college for doctors. The pediment, showing the cipher of Alexander I, bore the inscription in Russian: ‘The Medical-Chirurgical Academy’.

  A similar institution was commissioned in St Petersburg. As in Mosco
w, it was modelled on the Medical Society of Edinburgh University where Wylie had studied as a young man. Each Academy contained an anatomical museum and a botanical garden where much rhubarb, then thought a panacea for most illnesses, was grown. In addition there was a Medical Section, a Veterinary Section and a Pharmaceutical Section. Three languages – Latin, Greek and German – were compulsory, being essential to medical students, the first two for medical classification, and the third as the language in which many treatises were transcribed. The annual cost of the maintenance of the St Petersburg Academy alone was 169,000,300 roubles60 while the building in Moscow took 147,000,340 roubles. In addition a sum of 69,000,650 roubles, common to them both, included pensions to professors, prizes to the students, uniforms for the pupils on taking up professions, and finally travelling expenses and the upkeep of libraries and museums.

  Wylie remained head of both colleges for thirty years. In April 1836, a contributor to the British and Foreign Medical Journal paid tribute to his achievement with these words:

  It is to Sir James Wylie that Russia is indebted for the organization of her medical schools both civil and military and it has been by his persevering industry that the medical academy of Petersburg and Moscow has arrived at the honourable rank which it now holds amongst medical institutions.61

  Wylie, with the tsar’s encouragement, had already begun transforming the military hospitals, which, at the time of his arrival in Russia, were in the most deplorable state. Old dilapidated buildings, dark and badly ventilated, infested with rats and other vermin such as lice, were, to the patients who entered them, practically a death sentence. Yet despite this he met with great obstruction in his attempts to modernize and reform these long-established institutions. The old Russian doctors, hidebound in their methods, were utterly opposed to change. To convince them, he hit on the simple but clever idea of placing plants in various windows. Those facing south sprouted happily while the others withered and died.