The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-05 00:00:00

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THE KING AND SIR ASTLEY COOPER.

the Lotted of this day.)
The public will be surprised and shocked to learn, that thd
illness with which his Majesty is now afflicted commenced as
early as the first month of the present year, if not earlier ; and
while Come of the Journals of that period were tiring a tolerably
correct account of his Majesty's indisposition, and stating that
he was under a stria Cantle of antiphlogistic regimen, and was
bled repeatedly; the Court Circular that vehicle of mystery and
deceptions Concocted in the Palaec;tinder "invisibl
corridor.e influente,"
represented his Majesty as " walking In the " The
King himself considers;, that his pitSeTit disease commenced in
January, and, further, we kneitt that he had expressed it as his
belief, that the repeated small bleedings to which he was then
subjected for an inflammatory afiectiati of the chest, have
proved the foundation of the dropsical aflection tinder which
he now labours: We know not by whom his Majesty was bled
at • that tiirie—by 'Whom he was attended. HOW shoukl
we ? There were thski no " bulletins ;" no " syrflPtolnS."
we suppose. Now if the inditiduals who surrounded his
Majesty in January had been evil-minded persons, havhsg.ex-
traordinary and " invisible" influence amongst the most exai:ed
personages in the great councils of the nation, what plans might
they not have pfejected—what schemes might they not have
set afloat—and especially if they had happened to possess in an
unlimited degree the confidence And regard of their Sovereign !!
These arc political considerations Of fits trifling moment. The
Regency'. But we must leave this part of the subject to abler
and mere experienced hands. We wish tel alifide only to so
much of State affairs as may tend to establish or corroborate the
reprehensive points connected with the " invincible' medical
tactics of the Palace. And here again we shall echo the voice ofthe
whole profession, in demanding why Sir Astley Cooper--cer-
tainly the most experiencedand successful practitioner that Eng-
land has ever known—has not been consulted ?if the magician
be assured that the names of the surgeons whom he hoe selec:ed
(and he does select them) would prove satisfactory to the
country, why does he not attach them to the bulletins P Why'
is there secresy, if there be nothing wrong P The num conscisr
recti might support him, if he had only erred in judgment. Fie
might stand erect, even if his wand were broken. The public
are more acutely alive to the absence of Sir Astley Cooper on the
present occasion, in consequence of the signal service which it is
known the worthy Baronet rendered to the late lamented Duke
of York, whilst he was suffering from dropsy, and subsequent
mortification of the extremities. We stated at the time that Sir
Astley had prescribed blue pill, squill root, and digitalis. We
have ourselves, on several occasions, seen the administration of
these medicines in dropsical affections followed by most unex-
, peeled and permanent benefit. As we have received multi.
tudes of inquiries for Sir Astley Cooper's remedies in
dropsical complaints, we shall here present the public with the
worthy Baronet's formulte has own words, given n
i
a lecture delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital more than
three years before the medicines wed prescribed for
the late Dike of York ;, the lecture was published In
ii. of the Lancet. " The medicines," says Sir Astley,*
" which experience has proved to be the most beneficial in
dropsy? are calomel and squills, or blue pill and squills, with
digitalis; one grain of calomel and three of squills in a pall;
or two grains of blue pill, combined with three grains of squills ;
one of these should be administered every night, or every other
night ; and in the day. you should give a mixture, composed of
from seven to ten grains of carbonate of ammonia, one drachm
of the nitrous spirit of rather, twenty drops of tincture of fox-
glove, and an ounce and a half of camphor julep. This medi-
cine, given once or twice a day, with one of the above pills at
night, will often succeed in restoring a person to health, whose
constitution may be considered so broken and faulty that it
may be deemed impossible for him ever to regain a sound state
of body."
It has been mentioned as an excuse for Sir Astley's absence
from the Castle, that he is confined to his house in the country
by ill health. This is not true. Sir Astley has been visiting his
patients in town within these few days.