Charles Darwin
Page 23
To Hooker, in November, he wrote,
You ask about my health: I have been unusually well for a week past, owing, I believe, to what sounds a great piece of quackery, viz. twice a day passing a galvanic stream through my insides through a small-plate battery for half an hour [a practice commonly known as ‘galvanization’]. I think it certainly has relieved some of my distressing symptoms.12
Darwin wrote to Emma, who was staying with the children at Tenby on the South Wales coast on 25 June 1846 to say,
I have been stomachy & sick again, but not very uncomfortable; I will take the blue-pill [presumably bismuth] again.13
Then, in early July,
I have had a good deal more sickness than usual.14
And on 3 September,
I have of late been slaving extra hard, to the great discomfiture of [my] wretched digestive organs… .15
Hooker received an apology from Darwin on 7 April 1847.
I should have written before now, had I not been almost continually unwell, & at present I am suffering from four boils & swellings, one of which hardly allows me the use of my right arm & has stopped all my work & dampened all my spirits.16
To the Swiss geologist Bernhard Studer, Darwin wrote on 4 July,
Shortly after my return from my long voyage, I had a tedious & severe illness, & I have never since recovered my strength & suppose I never shall … . I appear quite well, but from being a strong man, I am become incapable of any continued muscular exertion; or indeed of much exertion of mind, for even conversation, if it excites me, tires me in a very short time, so that I am compelled to live a most retired life.17
In October, Darwin told Emma that he was still being plagued by boils.18
In late April/early May 1848, Darwin described to Emma a particularly severe bout of illness.
My attack was very sudden: it came on with fiery spokes & dark clouds before my eyes [presumably abnormal visual images]; then sharpish shivery & rather bad [or] not very bad sickness. I got up yesterday about 2, & about 7 I felt rather faint & had a slight shaking fit & [a] little vomiting & then slept too heavily; so today I am languid & stomach bad … .19
In November, wrote Darwin,
So much was I out of health that when my dear father died on November 13th … I was unable to attend his funeral or to act as one of his executors.20
This speaks volumes for the severe degree of Darwin’s incapacity, bearing in mind his devotion to his family.
Darwin later told Hooker that,
All this winter I have been bad enough, with dreadful vomiting every week, & my nervous system began to be affected, so that my hands tremble & head was often swimming.21
Darwin’s vomiting attacks appear to have occurred without warning, giving him too little time to reach the lavatory. If such an attack occurred when he was at work in his study, he was therefore obliged to pull back the screen and vomit into the washbasin, which had been installed within a cubby hole in that room.
On 24 February 1849 Darwin told Professor Richard Owen that he intended to visit Malvern Wells, Worcestershire, to see ‘whether there is any truth in [Dr] Gully & the water cure: regular Doctors cannot check my incessant vomiting’.22
Dr James Manby Gully and his Water-cure
Gully was an advocate of clairvoyance, homeopathy, and hydropathy. In his book The Water-cure in Chronic Diseases, published in 1880, he gave details of what the Water-cure entailed, and what its beneficial effects were likely to be.
Hot and warm fomentations
A warm flannel is
placed over the part to be fomented … . The most ordinary place for applying this process is on the belly and especially the portion of it between the bottom of the breastbone and the navel, and across [and] far back on both sides … . In this manner you include … the stomach in all its length … .
Packing in damp towels and sheets
A towel is placed on ‘the front of the trunk’ and subsequently on the back of the trunk, and warmed to an
appropriate temperature. … it is expedient to wring the sheet out of warm water, and have it applied around the body at a temperature of about 70o or 75o.
The sitz bath [in German sitzbad – a bath in which a person sits in water up to the hips – from the words sitzen (sit) and bad (bath)]
The patient is immersed in cold water ‘for a time varying from five to fifteen minutes’, it being necessary to repeat this process ‘as often as six or seven times in the 24-hours’.
The abdominal compress
The object of the compress is to produce and maintain over the abdominal viscera an amount of moist warmth which shall act as a counteracting and soothing agent to the irritation which is fixed in those viscera. [Such a compress] should be worn only for two or three hours at a time, or should be frequently refreshed from cold water.
The dripping or rubbing sheet
The patient is enveloped in a cold or tepid sheet which serves the same function as having a tepid bath.
The shallow bath
Seated in eight or ten inches of water, with the legs extended in it, the patient is sponged and splashed with the water of the bath ….
The douche
The stimulus afforded by the repeated changes of [cold] water is very much greater [than with the shallow bath], for the water is pouring incessantly upon the body and therefore is incessantly changing. By this, too, a great amount of heat is withdrawn from the surface.
The sweating process
In this process, the excitation of the whole nervous system and of the circulation is produced by accumulated heat applied to the surface; and although in this it differs from the douche, which excites by the incessant application of cold, the result upon the functions in question is pretty nearly the same.
There were also ‘foot and hand baths, and minor ablutions and frictions’ to be undertaken.
Water drinking
Gully recommended the drinking of ‘from three to six tumblers daily’ of water, ‘and that should be taken in very divided quantities …’.
In some of the worst instances of nervous indigestion, the great centre of the nutritive nerves is so exquisitely sensitive, that the shock of even half a tumbler of cold water upon the stomach is transmitted to the brain and there causes giddiness, confusion, nervous aching &c … . On this account I have now and then raised the water [temperature] to 55° or 58°, when the drinking of it was indispensable, until the nerves of the stomach became more able to bear the natural temperature … .
Diet
Experience gives me no room to doubt that by appropriate regulation of the diet to each case, restoration is secured in much less time, and at much less of that constitutional term, tumult, which harsh practice rouses.
Under the heading ‘Diet Table for Patients under Water Treatment: Things Permitted’ were included a variety of soups, including ‘plain beef, mutton or chicken broth … or with the additional of carrots, young peas, cauliflower, rice’ etc.; a variety of fish dishes; ‘Meat and animal products, including beef, mutton, lean pork, veal, venison’ etc., and various ‘vegetables and roots’.
Also permitted were
milk, but without cheese; Sweets and fruits, eaten with butter or sugar [and] drinks [including] water, toast and water, barley or rice water and sometimes milk, milk and water [and] weak black tea, almost cold.
However, said Gully,
I have to forbid some patients the use of animal food [presumably meat and dairy products] three or four days in the week, and others for a week together: to some I forbid all puddings, even farinaceous [farina being flour or meal derived from cereal, nuts, or starchy roots], after meat: to others all vegetable matter but bread, &c. All this is subject for [i.e. to] weekly or even daily change; and it is impossible to lay down rules applicable to all cases.
Clothing
It is desirable to avoid all clothing which shall have for view [i.e. as its purpose] to keep the body in a state of artificial heat.
&nbs
p; Habits of life
The sufferer from chronic disease … must learn to rise early and to walk or work so as to gain appetite: when this appetite is acquired he must eat, whether the hour be fashionable or not: and he must go to bed early from the motive of fatigue alone.23
From Gully’s own description, the Water-cure was clearly not for the faint-hearted. ‘Torture’ might be deemed too strong a word, but it was certainly a severe ordeal to be undergone. For Darwin, what small benefit was obtained proved to be of a purely transient nature, which indicated that even when his symptoms were temporarily ameliorated, the underlying disease process – whatever its nature might be – was continuing unabated.
* * *
Darwin told Hooker on 28 March 1849 that, on his return to Down House from Malvern, he had persisted with Dr Gully’s treatment which involved being
heated by spirit lamp till I stream with perspiration, & am then suddenly rubbed violently with towels dripping with cold water: have two cold feet-baths, & wear a wet compress all day on my stomach.24
In that same year, Darwin
erected a waist-high tub within a specially constructed wooden shelter near the [water] well… . Here, in pursuit of a cure for his persistent stomach problems, he showered with ice-cold water from the cistern above, and was then scrubbed from head to foot by the faithful [butler] Parslow.25
Such were the lengths to which Darwin was prepared to go in order to improve his health. Alas, it was largely to no avail.
NOTES
1. Darwin, Francis, op. cit., pp.38–9.
2. FitzRoy, op. cit., Volume II, p.76.
3. Darwin to Henslow, 14 October 1837, Cor.2, pp.51–2.
4. Darwin, Francis, op. cit., pp.43–4.
5. Ibid, p.45.
6. Ibid, p.53.
7. Darwin to Emma, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 704.
8. Darwin to Adolf von Morlot, 9 August 1844, Cor.3, p.51.
9. Darwin to Emma, 3–4 February 1845, Cor.3, p.132.
10. Darwin to Hooker, 31 March 1845, Cor.3, p.166.
11. Darwin to Susan, 3–4 September 1845, Cor.3, p.247.
12. Darwin to Hooker, 5 or 12 November 1845, Cor.3, p.264.
13. Darwin to Emma, 25 June 1846, Cor.3, p.326.
14. Darwin to Hooker, 8 or 15 July 1846, Cor.3, p.327.
15. Darwin to John Maurice Herbert, 3 September? 1846, Cor.3, p.338.
16. Darwin to Hooker, 7 April 1847, Cor.4, p.29.
17. Darwin to Bernhard Studer, 4 July 1847, Cor.4, p.54.
18. Darwin to Emma, 31 October 1847, Cor.4, pp.91–2.
19. Darwin to Emma, 27–8 May 1848, Cor.4, p.147.
20. Darwin, Francis. Autobiography of Charles Darwin, p.55.
21. Darwin Hooker, 28 March 1849, Cor.4, p.227.
22. Darwin to Richard Owen, 24 February 1849, Cor.4, p.219.
23. Gully, The Water-cure in Chronic Diseases, pp.328–74.
24. Darwin to Hooker, 28 March 1849, Cor.4, p.227.
25. Reeve, Tori, op. cit., p.17.
Chapter 28
Darwin’s Continuing Ill-Health: Possible Causes
Despite his efforts, and those of the physicians who attended him, Darwin continued to suffer the frustrating and debilitating effects of his mysterious illness.
In March 1851 Darwin confessed that
in old days my greatest pleasure was the conversation of scientific men, but I find by dear-bought experience that I cannot visit anywhere, as the excitement invariably does me harm for days afterwards.1
And in October,
All excitement & fatigue brings on such dreadful flatulence; that in fact I can go nowhere. The other day I went to London & back, & the fatigue, though so trifling [brought] on my bad form of vomiting.2
Darwin suffered from chronic flatulence – this being defined as an accumulation of gas in the alimentary tract.3 This fact may have been an additional reason – other than his lassitude and malaise – why he shunned company and public meetings, i.e. out of potential embarrassment to himself.
Two years later, in July 1853, Darwin told his cousin William D. Fox, ‘my bugbear is hereditary weakness’.4 Darwin was aware that there had been inbreeding in the family, and was also aware of the potential deleterious effects which this might have. Therefore, in the absence of any other specific suggestion by him as to the nature of this hereditary illness, it is assumed that it was to the mysterious illness described above to which he was referring. The subject will be discussed in more detail later.
On 13 March the following year, in his so-called, ‘Diary of Health’,5 Darwin recorded that he felt ‘Very Poorly much vomiting Bad Boil’.6 He kept this diary from January 1849 to 30 January 1855, during which six-year period he reported frequent ‘fits of flatulence’.
The following day he told Hooker that
I am very unwell & must write briefly, for I am & have been suffering from an immense Boil or almost [an] abscess.7
In his autobiography Darwin said of A monograph on the fossil Balanidae and Verrucidae of Great Britain, published in 1855 that,
Although I was employed during eight years [i.e. from 1846 until 1854] on this work, yet I record in my diary that about two years out of this time was lost by illness.8
In that year of 1855 Darwin describes outbreaks of eczema which affected his face. This led Emma to suggest that he grew a beard in order to disguise it – advice that he accepted.9 Because no detailed description exists of the nature of Darwin’s eczema, Dr Ralph Colp (see below) agrees with the diagnosis of US dermatologist Gordon Sauer that this had an allergic basis that was not related to the other symptoms from which Darwin suffered.10
In November Darwin wrote to Hooker to say that he was hoping to attend a meeting of the Council of the Royal Society but would not be able to do so if he happened to have a headache.11 (It should be noted that this was one of the few occasions when Darwin complained of a headache.)
Darwin made a request to Fox, in October 1856, that he (Darwin) be ‘most kindly’ remembered to Dr Gully, and to tell him that ‘never (or almost never) the vomiting returns, but that I am a good way from being a strong man’.12 Alas, the benefit was to be short lived.
In April 1857 he wrote that
My health has been very poor of late & I am going in a week’s time for a fortnight of hydrotherapy & rest. This was to be at [physician and hydrotherapist] Dr Edward Wickstead Lane’s hydropathic establishment at Moor Park, Farnham, Surrey.13
Sadly, whatever benefit Darwin may have derived was again short lived, for a month later, he wrote
It is very disheartening for me, that all the wonderful good which Moor Park did me at the time, has gone away like a flash of [lightning] now that I am at work again.14
And in early June he declared that
It is most provoking that a cold on leaving Moor Park suddenly turned into my old vomiting, & I have been almost as bad since my return home as before … .15
In April 1858,
My health has been lately wretched … .16
Later that month Darwin was to be found once again at Moor Park ‘for a fortnight’s hydropathy as my stomach had got from steady work into a horrid state’.17 (The terms ‘hydropathy’ and ‘hydrotherapy’ are synonymous, meaning the treatment of illness through the use of water, either internally or through external means such as steam baths.18 Exercises in a pool may also be part of the treatment.) On 28 April a seemingly improved Darwin wrote, in relaxed and cheerful mood, to Emma from Moor Park to say that
The weather is quite delicious. Yesterday after writing to you I strolled a little beyond the glade for an hour & half & enjoyed myself … . At last I fell fast asleep on the grass & awoke with a chorus of birds singing around me, & squirrels running up the trees & some Woodpeckers laughing, & it was as pleasant a rural scene as ever I saw, & I did not care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been formed.19
For once, he was relaxing and enjoying nature, rather than making a study of it.
On 8 May, by which time he had returned to Down, Darwin told Fox
I got splendidly well the last few days at Moor Park, & walked one day two miles out & back; & I am now hard at work again as usual.20
But a month later,
I am confined to sofa with Boil … .21
In the new year of 1859 a despairing Darwin declared that
My health keeps very poor & I never know 24 hours comfort. I force myself to try & bear this as incurable misfortune.22
From Moor Park, to which he had returned despite the lack of progress, Darwin wrote to John Phillips, Deputy Reader in Geology at Oxford University, on 8 February to say that he was too ill to receive the award of the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society, but would ‘ask Lyell to receive the medal for me …’.23 Four days later he reported being
extra bad of late, with the old severe vomiting rather often & much distressing swimming in the head.24
In May Darwin stated that his health had ‘quite failed’. He therefore left Down for Moor Park for another week of hydrotherapy.25 From there, on 26 May, he wrote to Hooker to say, ‘I had bad vomiting before starting [the treatment] & great frustration of mind & body….’26
For the period from 2 October until 7 December, Darwin was resident at the Wells House Hydropathic Establishment, Ilkley, Yorkshire, for a course of homeopathy under the care of its proprietor physician, Dr Edmund Smith.27 On 16 November he told Fox that he had suffered ‘a frightful succession of Boils – 4 or 5 at once’.28 And on Christmas Day,