Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

was in them. But here steps in a difficulty which we cannot overcome, namely, six of the plays never appear except in the 1623 edition, and all the others are completely rewritten and enlarged to about double their original size. For instance, Richard Third's whole opening speech, commencing "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" is not found in any of the early editions of the plays. So of them all, they are so changed from the first printed copies that there is no use in citing them in any way, so that we are forced to abide by the 1623 edition and no other.

This being the case, and as the 1623 is the only edition having all the so-called SHAKESPEARE plays, we will use that as the basis of comparison. If my hearers will, when they go home, take their fac similie of the 1623 and turn to Coriolanus, page 2, they may read the first of the quotations I shall make:

"Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers and thus answered:
True is it, my incorporate friend, quoth he,
That I receive the general food at first
Which do you 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 th' seat o' th' braine;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves, and small inferiour veines,
From me receive that natural competencie
Whereby they live: and though that all at once,
You, my good friends (this says the belly) mark me,

Now please turn to Romeo and Juliette, page 53, and read:
With purple fountains issuing from your veins.

Then the same, page 71:

Take thou this, viole being then in bed,
And this distilling liquor drink thou of,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress but surcease;
No warmth nor breath shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade.

Next turn to Love's Labour Lost, page 135:

Why, universal plodding poisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries:
As motion, and long during action, tires
The sinewy vigor of the traveller.

Now drop down the same column and read:
Lives not alone emured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,

Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;

Turn to the same play, page 134, and read:

When a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, a gait, a state, a brow, a breast a

Now Twelfth Night, page 255:

Liver, brain and heart,

[waist, a leg, a limb.

These sovereign thrones are all supplied and filled.

The same, page 266:

If he were opened and you find so much blood in his liver
As will clog the foot of a flea, I will eat th' rest of th' anatomy.

Now turn to Henry the Sixth, part II, page 134:

See how the blood is settled in his face
Oft have I seene a timely-parted ghost
Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless
Being all decended to the labouring heart
Who in the conflict that it holds with death
Attracts the same for aydance 'gainst the enemy.
Which with the heart there cools and ne're returneth
To blush and beautifie the cheeke againe.

But see his face is blacke and full of blood,
His eyeballs further out than when he lived,

Staring full gastly like a strangled man;

His hayre up rear'd, his nostrils stretched with struggling;
His hands abroad display'd as one that graspt,

And tugged for life.

Now read Henry the Fourth, part II, page 92:

The vitall commoners and inland pettie spirits

Muster me all to their capitaine, the heart, who great

And puft up with his retinue, doth any deed of courage.

Winter's Tale, page 302, reads:

Let be, let be would I were dead but that methinks alreadie

[What was he that did make it] see [my Lord] would you not deeme

It breathed and that those veines

Did verily beare blood?

Masterly done.

The very life seems warm upon her lippe;

The fixture of her eye has motion in it, as we

Are mock'd with art.

Merchant of Venice, page 179, reads:

A messenger with letters from the doctor, new come from Padua.

And just below it read:

My flesh, blood, bones and all

Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.

As You Like It, page 204, William, Sir;

And Henry the Fourth, part first, page 50:

Falstaff, Harvey Rossil.

Merry Wives of Windsor, page 42:

Master Doctor Caius.

Love's Labour Lost, page 122:

The which I hope well is not enrolled there.

Much Ado About Nothing, page 121, reads:

A college of witcrackers.

Page 144:

Ile change my blacke gowne.

You shall this twelve months terme from day to day

Visite the speechlesse sicke and still converse

With groaning wretches with all the fierce endeavour of your wit

To enforce the pained impotent to smile;

To move wild laughter in the throate of death

A twelve month well befall what will befall

Ile jest a twelve month in an hospitall.

Now, Henry the Fourth, part II, page 84:

Little Tydie Bartholomew.

Midsomers Night's Dreame, page 151:

If I cut my finger I shall make bold with you.

All's Well That Ends Well, page 235:

When our most learned doctors leave us and

The congregated college have concluded

That labouring art can never ransome nature

From her inaydible estate.

The same, page 238:

Strange it is that our bloods

Of colour, waight, and heat pour'd all together would quite confound

Winter's Tale, page 278:

I have tremor cordis on me, my heart daunces

But not for joy, not joy.

King John, page 11:

Had bak'd thy blood and made it thicke and heavy
Which else runs tickling up and downe the veines.

[destinction.

As You Like It, page 193:

My lungs began to crow like chanticleere
The same

That in civility thou seemst so emptie

You touched my veines at first the thorny point.

Richard the Second, page 27:

But lanceth not the sore.

Henry the Fifth, page 73:

Some say knives have edges.

Henry the Fourth, second part, page 85;

And changes fill the cup of alteration with divers liquor.

If my hearers will now read these quotations all together I think they will be obliged to admit that the author of the plays had a very good knowledge of the great discovery. See how the words meet and join, arteries, veins, inferior veins, spirits run through the veins pulse surcease mocked with art. Purple distilling liquor lanceth blush and beautifie the cheek nimble spirits through the arteries, et cetera. Is this chance? If it were in one place it might be, but as it recurs again and again it must have been put there for some purpose and as the author was in his grave, that is if SHAKESPEARE was the author of the plays, HARVEY must have stolen the great discovery. But as a member of the medical profession I will not admit that our great brother of the seventeenth century was indebted to a man who, we are told by the best of his biographers, never went to school in his life. And I am sure that no one within sound of my voice to-night but will uphold me in the following statement, that no ignorant man could by any possibility have made the necessary experiments for the finding out of this wonderful discovery. Further, how could a man not a member of a hospital or college have had the chance to make the experiments necessary to prove his theory? He could not have gained admittance to the dissecting room unless he become a student, for in those days the student of medicine was compelled to take a long course of preliminary training before he was allowed to practice upon the public. If you will now permit me to place these quotations together I think I can amuse you for a moment; see if it will not read about as follows:

"I have oft seene DR. WILLIAM HARVEY, the new doctor at Bartholemew hospital, in the presence of the learned doctors, force a purple, distilling liquor through the veines of a dead body, and, after it had descended to the heart, liver, and lungs, the blood-coulored liquor returneth againe to the face which blacke and full of blood, or pale, meagre, and bloodless before, doth blush and beautifie, as if with life; you would think the body breathed; the very lippe is warme to look upon; but we are mock'd with art as there is no pulse gainst the finger and though the arteries seeme full yet no life is present. The legs, waist, arms, hand, brow, and limes seem alive, but we can never ransome nature. The Doctor was enrolled at Caius college."

And now, in conclusion, I will be very glad to answer any questions that the

members of the society wish to ask me, and will be glad to have them examine the fac similie of the 1623 edition of the plays that I have with me; you can understand that I cannot in this lecture read all the quotations to be found in the play regarding medicine, but I am in hopes that I have given you something new, and for the most part never before given to the world, and thanking you for your kind attention, I will, like the epilogue to an old play, make my bow and exit.

GASTROTOMY.*

By H. C. GUILLOT, M. D., PONTIAC, MICHIGAN.

THE subject which I have chosen for this evening is one which, on account of its individuality, is extremely interesting, the comparative infrequency of operations of this character making the case which I shall present, worthy of your careful consideration. During the past two years the literature on the subject of gastrotomy has increased to such an extent that cases too numerous to mention have been reported, many of the operations having been performed for the removal of foreign substances from the stomach, others for cancerous growths of the pylorus, but very few for stab wounds where there has been great laceration of the stomach walls, with perforation. It is to the last variety that I wish to call your attention, and incidently refer to the influence which old adhesions of the omentum to the abdominal parietes, exert over a mind already impaired, causing the development of visceral illusions, which in this case resulted in the patient attempting to disembowel himself, for no less reason than that be believed that another being inhabited his person and was anxious to be set free.

The patient, a man aged forty-one, who has resided in the asylum since May, 1889, is suffering from a form of disease known as dementia monomania. At the time of his admission he was under the influence of delusions of a persecutory type. Visual and auditory hallucinations were also present and, at times, were the cause of much uneasiness and mental distress. He had never exhibited any violent or suicidal tendencies and was, everything considered, quite trustworthy and a typical case of chronic insanity. He was industrious and had been working in the kitchen for more than a year prior to the time that he injured himself. His work consisted of peeling potatoes and preparing other vegetables for cooking. On the morning of July 23, 1891, he went to the kitchen immediately after breakfast and prepared to work, as he had been in the habit of doing. After having peeled potatoes for some time his knife became blunted, and he sharpened it on the window sill, after which he went to the water-closet, carrying the knife with him. Not returning immediately, the kitchen boy who had been placed in charge of patients while they were at work, went to investigate, and learn if possible the cause of so much delay. Upon opening the door of the closet he saw the patient standing opposite the urinal, and noticed that he was making a peculiar sawing motion with both hands. Immediate investigation revealed the fact that patient was trying to disembowel himself, using a case knife for the purpose. Word was immediately sent to the medical office, notifying the physicians of what had occurred. Upon reaching his side we discovered that he had opened *Read at a stated meeting of the PONTIAC MEDICAL SOCIETY, and published exclusively in The Physician and Surgeon.

« ForrigeFortsæt »