Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-08-08
MEDICINE IN FICTION.
Some Great Writers Have Put Great Nom
sense in Their Books. =,

Some Great Writers Have Put Great Nom
sense in Their Books. =,
From the British Medical Journal.
We laughed when Mark Twain proposed to
deliver q course Of lectures upon chemistry be-
fore the Royal Society, adding that he was in q
position to do this with greater freedom, be-
cause he knew nothing whatever about the
science, but the public do not laugh at but take
in all seriousness the medical incidents and
opinions scattered up and down the pages Of
the novels and poems which SO commonly deal
with medical matters. One OF the strange
medical things in ''Monte Cristo' is the way in
which the old revolutionist Nortier manages to
live on, paralyzed in every part of his body OK
cept his eyelids. which he winks oaly. Yet the
old fellow reasons acutely and finds no difficulty
whatever in swallowing food or drink. Dumas
seemed absolutely unaware that such paralytic
condition as he describes in Nortier's case in
yolved OF necessity brain damage ofsthe most
serious kind. Elsewhere Dumas made gull
lotined head speak and weep. In one of
his tales in the volume lies mile ct
un Fantomes" there is a story of q man en-
gagged in making experiments on heads
fresh from she .guillotine in the reign
Chancellor" in BLEAK House," who went off
the earthly stage by spontaneous combustion.
Dickens might well be excused for falling into
an error which was at that time commonly be-
levcd il by people who ought 20 know better.
Bulwer Lytton went in for medical marveis in
"ZaEOnl, but, as lie was student of mystic
lore, and actually learned magic from a pro-
fessed thaumaturgist, the Able Constant, his
wonders were attributed not much to bis ig-
norance OF medical science rs to his belief ia
the elixir of life and the trancmuiation Of
metals. 1t il not surprising tina. even George
rAt hn~ loo, la. L.
workings OF the human mind, should have lost
her way when dealing with the morbid changes
of mind and brain. Titos father, Baldassare,
had been great scholar, but after q long ILL.,
ness his memory upon recovery became a per-
feet blank; he could recall nothing Of his
scholarship, though he had not forgotten who
he was.
With all this Baldnsssre is not represented
as having lost his reason; he remembers his
past life. but he can no longer read or write
or recall any of his scholarship for which he
had been 30 distinguished. 1t was not amnesia
nor agrai hia with which he was afflicted; it was
a form OF cerebral disease known only to the
eminent novelist. WiIkie Collins made q
specially Of his medical knowledge, and it was
upon this account that he was induced to un-
dertake an anti-vivisection novel. which he
published under the name Of Heart and
Science" The work was equally unsatisfac-
tory both to the persons who inspired 1t and
to the general public. Wilkie Collins effort
In this direction was a complete failure and
his medical men and his wonderful drugs
could never have existed outside his own imug-
ination.
In Dickens "Tale Of Two Cities" where sgd
ney Carton substitutes himself for the con-
demned Evremonde, We have premonitions Of
the chlorofofm which was to be discovered fifty
years lnter-the chioroform Of popular imagina-
ton, however, and by no means the CHCl of
the pharmaeopcia. The poets are. if possible,
even worse offenders in the matter Of their
death scenes than the novelists man pulls
two-drachm phial of some poison from his
breast, swallows the contents, proceeds to make
200-line speech without a pang or o gasp,
staggers gracefully backward to q conveniently
placed seat, drops upon it, clasps the region OF
the heart with both hands and dies after q little
convulsive movement OF the legs. Heart dis
ease, too, carries of heroines in q fashion quito
unknown to doctors, and, although it is Of tho
variety known a. "broken heart" has charac.
tcfistics which must not be generally associated
with fracture Of 30 important an organ.