Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-05
ROMANCE OF MEDICINE.
Course of History Changed by Sore
Tooth or Torpid Liver.

From the Lancet.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, speaking to
some London medical students, told sew
eral stories illustrating what he called
the romance of medicine
The fashion of wearing wigs for in
stance, was due TO skin disease which
produced bald patches on the august head
oil FRANCIS / of France. He got a wig and
his courtiers followed suit just as they all
whispered when he had an attack of
laryngitiS.
'One can trace for many years" saws
the same authority, Certainly from 1907
the inception of that disease which killed
Napoleon at St Helena in 1921. In 1902
B +, HTrI,,n, said: I have often seen him
at Malmaison lean against the. right arm
OF his chair and unbuttoning his coat and
"alstcoat exclaim, What pain ! feel
mat was perhaps the first allusion to
his stomachic and hepatic trouble: but
from then onward il continually appeared,
like Banauo at the banquet He could
scatter the hosts of Europe and alter it's
Kingdoms, but he was powerless against
the mutinous cells of his own mucous
membrane.
Again and again he had attacks of
lethargy. amounting almost to collapse. at
moments when all his energy was most
required. At the crisis OF Waterloo he
had such an attack and sat his horse like
O mail odZeu lOT nOuTS Oh the action.
FINALLY the six years at ST. Helena fur
nish clinical study of gastric disease
which was all explained in the historical
postmortem examination, which disclosed
cancer covering the whole wall of the
stomach and actually perforating it at
the hepatic border.
Napoleon's whole career was pro-
1oundly modified by his complaint There
have been many criticisms-not unnatural
ones-of his petty. querulous and undig-
1t $;,,tx,-
his critics knew what it was to digest
their food with an organ which had hard
ly square inch of healthy tissue upon it
they would perhaps take a more generous
view of the conduct of Napoleon. For my
own part / think that his fortitude was
never more shown than during those
years-the best proof of which was that
his guardians had no notion how ill he
was until within few days of his actual
death.
History abounds with examples of
what 1 have called the romance Of medi-
cine. Look at the men, for example, who
were the prime movers in the French
revolution. They were a diseased COM
pany-a pathological museum. Was
Marats view of life tainted by his 1oath-
some skin disease, for which he was TAX
ing hot baths when Charlotte Corday cut
him Off? Was the inc0rruptible but bill
ious Robespierre the victim Of his own
liver? Was Couthons heart embittered
by his disfigured limbs?
These are the problems where medicine
infringes upon history and these are the
illustrations of the philosophy which is
only open to the medical thinker. How
many times do the most important his
torical developments sappear to depend
upon small physical causes? There is,
for example, the case of the revocation
of the edict of Nantes. BY this measure
the whole history of France has been pro-
foundly modified because by that action
there were driven forth the Huguenots.
Now. how came Louis XIV, who had
always held out upon this point. to give
way at last to the pressure of Nine. de
Maintenon and his clerical advisers The
answer lay in one of his molar teeth. 1t
is historical that he had for some months
bad toothache. carries, abscess of the jaw
and finally sinus which required opera
ton, and it was at this time. when he
was patholOgically abnormal and irritable
that he took the step which has modified
history. Great results may depend upon
a kings jaw or a statesmans digestion