The Project Gutenberg eBook, Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare, by Benjamin Rush Field

MEDICAL THOUGHTS
OF
SHAKESPEARE.

By B. RUSH FIELD, M. D.,

MEMBER OF THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.

EASTON, PA.:
ANDREWS & CLIFTON, PUBLISHERS.
1885.

TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

The occasion is taken to acknowledge the kind consideration that the first edition of this little work has received. This edition appears in a thoroughly revised and much enlarged form; to what extent, may be judged by the fact that chapters on The Physician, Surgery, Physiology, Anatomy and Pharmacy have been added, together with many allusions to the other medical subjects, making an increase of over four hundred quotations. It has been impossible to resist the temptation of adding a few medical thoughts from other authors, which will be found under their appropriate heads. The labor necessary to accomplish this has not interfered in any way with professional duties; it being a task entirely of the leisure hours of the night.

Easton, Pennsylvania, June, 1885.

CONTENTS.

Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s education was not, by any means, hedged in by plots and characters; besides these, his mighty mind seems to have teemed with the knowledge of languages, medicine, law and court etiquette. It is wonderful that one brain could shine forth such a vast variety, and surprising that he has even gone into the minutiæ of the different avenues of learning through which he has stridden. Shakespeare paid considerable attention to medicine, and has furnished some of the finest specimens of the medical character that have ever been drawn by any writer. His Cerimon, in Pericles, is a most noble one. He speaks for himself:

And others speak of him:

Dowden says, “Cerimon, who is master of the secrets of nature, who is liberal in his ‘learned charity,’ who held it ever

is like a first study of Prospero;” while Furnivall thinks that he represents to some extent the famous Stratford physician, Dr. John Hall, who married Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna.

What an excellent physician was Gerard de Narbon, Helena’s father, who is referred to in All’s Well:

This young gentlewoman had a father, whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made Nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king’s sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease. * * * * He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his right to be so. * * * The king * * * spoke of him admiringly and mournfully: he was skillful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

Act I., Sc. I. 

Another worthy physician is to be found in Cymbeline. Cornelius argues with the queen against her designs, and failing in this he completely thwarts her murderous intentions by giving her a false compound.

Macbeth supplies us with a wise member of the profession, who, at a time when charlatans without number were promising to cure every malady, sees clearly that Lady Macbeth’s disease is beyond his power, and so informs Macbeth.

In King Lear also appears a physician worthy of the name. The last scene of the fourth act shows his excellent skill in treating Lear’s case. Dr. Bucknill, of England, in writing of it twenty-five years ago, says: “We confess, almost with shame, that although near two centuries and a half have passed since Shakespeare thus wrote we have very little to add to his method of treating the insane as thus pointed out.”

Dr. Butts, in Henry VIII, and Dr. Caius, in Merry Wives, play rather unimportant parts. He compliments the profession by putting this speech in the mouth of a madman:

And bringing this one from the lips of an ignorant prostitute:

[Pg 11] Reference to the physician is frequently made throughout his works.

A side thrust at the experimenters in the profession is found in Cymbeline.

He has in several plays shown his contempt for the “prating mountebank” or “doting wizard.”

[Pg 13]

Shakespeare’s maladies are many and the symptoms very well defined. Diseases of the nervous system seem to have been a favorite study, especially insanity; Lear, Timon, and Hamlet being excellent examples.

Shakespeare certainly had the true idea of the great value of sleep, and he also knew of its importance in the treatment of brain diseases. Sleep serves as an excellent stimulant, promoting the growth of the brain. The infant, during the first ten weeks of its life, sleeps most of the time and hence during that period its brain is overdeveloped in proportion to its size.

Music was held as one of the remedies in the treatment of insanity. It plays an important part in King Lear, (IV-VII), and finds mention as a remedy in other plays.

The accuracy with which Shakespeare has written of apoplexy is justly alluded to in Bell’s Principles of Surgery, (1815, Vol. II, p. 557): “My readers will smile, perhaps, to see me quoting Shakespeare among physicians and theologists; but not one of all their tribe, populous though it be, could describe so exquisitely the marks of apoplexy, conspiring with the struggles for life, and the agonies of suffocation, to deform the countenance of the dead: so curiously does our poet present to our conception all the signs from which it might be inferred that the good duke Humfrey had died a violent death.” [Pg 18]

How concisely he describes epilepsy, giving the most prominent symptoms.

Julius Cæsar was the only epileptic among his characters: Othello is spoken of as being one, but this is merely Iago’s lie to Cassio, which is clearly shown in Othello’s conversation after the trance, it being a continuation of the former subject, which is never the case in epilepsy.

He takes some notice of the other affections classed under nervous diseases.

Hysteria, in Shakespeare’s time, was considered a disease common to both sexes, and was known as “Hysterica passio,” or more popularly termed “the mother.”

Percy thinks that Shakespeare read of this disease in Harsnet’s “Declaration of Popish Impostures” while he was looking up material for his character of Tom of Bedlam. The following is taken from (p. 25) the work referred to: “Ma: Maynie had a spice of the Hysterica passio as seems from his youth, hee himself termes it the Moother, and saith that hee was much troubled with it in Fraunce, and that it was one of the causes that mooved him to leave his holy order whereinto he was initiated and to returne into England.”

Diseases of the nervous system have not been overlooked by other writers. How excellently we have described the chief symptom of locomotor ataxia:

And Byron well portrays vertigo.

Taking up diseases of the circulatory system next we find Shakespeare displaying considerable knowledge in regard to them. The extended impulse of the heart under intense excitement is nicely shown in the Rape of Lucrece.

Again,

Death from “broken heart,” caused by excessive grief, finds mention in several plays.

Dyer in his “Folk-Lore of Shakespeare” quotes the following from Mr. Timb’s “Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity,” (1861, p. 149.) “This affection (broken heart) was, it is believed, first described by Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples: among them, that of George II., who died in 1760; and, what is very curious, he fell a victim to the same malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine’ Dr. Townsend gives a table of twenty-five cases, collected from various authors.”

A very good case of syncope is presented in Pericles. “The cases of apparent death, in which it is believed that premature interment sometimes takes place, are of this kind. Instances have occurred in which the pulse, respiration and consciousness have been absent for several days, and yet the patient has ultimately recovered. The system is in a sort of hybernation, in which vitality remains, though the vital functions are suspended. It is probable that, in such cases, a very careful auscultation might detect a slight sound in the heart.” (Dr. George B. Wood’s Practice. 1858. Vol. II., p. 211.)

Some attention has been paid to chlorosis:

Ben Jonson in writing of this disease has happily and properly recommended marriage as an important step toward recovery.

Diseases of the respiratory system were quite overlooked by Shakespeare.

He has not forgotten the diseases affecting the digestive organs.

An old superstition regarding toothache was that it was caused by a small worm, formed like an eel, which bored a hole into the tooth, and various methods were employed to remove it. Dyer notes the fact that John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authorities, attributed decay of the teeth to this cause.

Diseases of the secretory system have not escaped his eagle eye.

Leprosy was sometimes called measles, from the French of leper, meseau or mesel. This is the sense in which Shakespeare uses the word measles—an entirely different one from that now in vogue. The word “hoar,” occurring in several of the quotations, refers to the white spots so characteristic of the disease.

In the midland counties of England a pimple was frequently called “a quat.”

The examination of the urine as an aid to diagnosis has been resorted to for many centuries, but the processes of to-day are, of course, vastly different from and hardly to be compared with those of earlier times, when blind ignorance caused urine-examining, or “water-casting,” to be a mere mockery. The practice, says Dr. Bucknill, arose “like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical interdicts upon the medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and monks, being unable to visit their former patients, are said first to have resorted to the expedient of divining the malady, and directing the treatment upon simple inspection of the urine.” The College of Physicians, in an old statute, denounced it as belonging only to charlatans, and members were not allowed to give advice on inspection only. Shakespeare has frequently referred to it, as have also many others of the old writers, who condemn strongly what was then a shallow deception, but what has now become, by the light of knowledge, one of the most important diagnostic aids to many diseases.

Fevers and other general diseases are often referred to and very many excellent allusions have been made to them.

Plague has been alluded to frequently, but generally only the symptoms of carbuncles and the petechiæ are mentioned. As the latter only occur in very bad cases, they were called “God’s tokens,” and their appearance denoted a fatal termination of the disease. Hence the home of the patient was closed and “Lord have mercy on us” placed upon the door. [Pg 34]

Diseases of the absorbent system are well represented by scrofula, or “King’s evil,” as it was known in Shakespeare’s time. This disease, so called on account of the supposed power of cure being invested in the handling and prayers of the king, was first so treated by Edward the Confessor, in 1058, and by all the succeeding rulers until William III., who refused. Queen Anne resumed the practice, but King George I. put an end to it. During the twenty years following 1662 upwards of 100,000 persons were touched for the malady.

[Pg 38] On the action of medicines he has given us abundant cause to think he was much better informed than the average man of his time.

Commentators think that Shakespeare found the name of this root in Bateman’s Commentary on Bartholeme de Propriet Rerum: “Henbane (Hyoscyamus) is called Insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or drunke, it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly Mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason.”

Lib. XVII., Ch. 87. 

It would indeed be interesting to know the source of Shakespeare’s knowledge on the physiological action of this alkaloid of tobacco. Most true it is that he has selected an excellent drug for his purpose in taking up the crude oil—Nicotia nin (hebenon). Birds will fall dead as they approach it; one drop is sufficient to kill a dog; and man dies in from two to five minutes after taking a poisonous dose: but the drug produces death by the failure of respiration, not by its direct action on the blood. “In nicotia-poisoning the blood is, however, not perceptibly affected. The amount of the alkaloid necessary to take life is exceedingly small, and although death by asphyxia causes the vital fluid to be everywhere dark, yet the microscope reveals only normal corpuscles. Moreover, Krocker has found that the dark blood rapidly assumes an arterial hue when shaken in the air, and that its spectrum is normal.” (H. C. Wood’s Toxicology, 1882, p. 370.) It is thought by many that Shakespeare did not intend “hebenon” to mean the alkaloid of tobacco, and very plausible arguments have been brought forward to show that he meant hebon or the juice of the yew. Dyer, in his chapter on plants, gives the following extract of a paper read by Rev. W. A. Harrison before the New Shakespeare Society in 1882: “It has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ (I-V.), when he speaks of the ‘juice of cursed hebenon,’ is that of the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s ‘juice of hebon.’ (Jew of Malta, III-IV.) The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of Shakespeare’s age; and in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; next, that the symptoms attending upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous [Pg 40] snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the lazar-like ulcerations on the body, upon which Shakespeare, in this passage, lays so much stress.” From these arguments there seems to be every reason for believing that Shakespeare did mean the juice of the yew, and it is to be hoped that the continual harping on this subject, as an evidence of his medical ignorance, will soon cease.

The rapidity with which aconite, in poisonous doses, acts, is forcibly shown in the comparison of it with gunpowder.

The curative properties of balm or balsam have been known and valued for ages past.

A solution of gold was supposed to possess great medical power; even the actual contact of the pure metal, according to their belief, kept the wearer ever in good health. Dyer quotes from John Wight’s translation of the “Secrets of Alexis,” in which is given a receipt “to dissolve and reducte golde into a potable licour which conserveth the youth and healthe of a man, and will heale every disease that is thought incurable in the space of seven daies at the furthest.” The term “grand liquor,” as it appears in Shakespeare, refers to this solution.

The ignorant and superstitious were of the opinion that poisons could be prepared so that the effect could be produced at certain periods after their ingestion. They were also in error in the thought that poisons caused great swelling of the body.

A few miscellaneous quotations referring to medical subjects must here find a place.

What a catalogue have we here:

Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’ the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i’ the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I. 

How nicely does he describe the decay of man, the second childhood, the wasting away of the organism:

Again:

Thus Swift predicted his own end as early as 1731. History mournfully testifies that his candle burnt out as he anticipated. “Fits of lunacy were succeeded by the dementia of old age. For three years he uttered only a few words and broken interjections. He would often attempt to speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, upon which he would sigh heavily. Babylon in ruins (to use a simile of Addison’s), was not a more melancholy spectacle than this wreck of a mighty intellect! In speechless silence his spirit passed away October 19, 1745.” (Chamber’s Eng. Lit.)

The signs of a probable fatal termination are most beautifully portrayed by Shakespeare. The death of Falstaff can not fail to be regarded by the profession as an excellent description of approaching dissolution.

’A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; ’a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger’s ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’a babbled of green fields. * * * ’A bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were ’as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upwards, and upwards, and all was as cold as any stone.

Henry V., Act II., Sc. III.

[Pg 47]

Shakespeare paid much more attention to the practice of medicine and obstetrics than to surgery. Perhaps the cause of this was that at that time surgery had not reached its present perfection. A more probable reason is that his son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, may not have been a surgeon.

The king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs, and arms, and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all——We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some, upon their wives left poor behind them.

Henry V., Act IV., Sc. I. 

Syphilis is frequently referred to, and he represents several of his characters as having it; among them Falstaff and Dame Quickly.

I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to * * * * three thousand dollars a year.

Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. II. 

The symptoms of secondary and tertiary syphilis are accurately expressed in this curse of Timon’s. Leprosy is referred to in the sentence “hoar the flamen,” or in other words, make white the priest. Shakespeare here shows a very fine point by using these most dreaded of all diseases: leprosy, syphilis, and consumption—maladies that are hereditary, incurable, and contagious. They are certainly lasting, as he wishes the curse to be.

A pox on ’t!

A common expression scattered through many of his plays.

Dr. Macdonnell, of Canada, has thrown much light on these quotations in his works on Syphilis. He says: “It appears to have been the custom to prescribe for syphilitic patients, in addition to inunction, a prolonged diaphoresis and a very low diet. On the continent the patient was placed in a cave, oven, or dungeon, and Wiseman says it was the custom in England to use a tub for this purpose.”

In the footnote to the passage in Johnson & Steven’s edition of Shakespeare’s works the following quotations from old plays are given:

Again, in the Family of Love, (1608), a doctor says:

“O for one of the hoops of my Cornelius’ tub, I shall burst myself with laughing else.”

In Monsieur d’Olive, (1606):

“Our embassage is into France, there may be employment for thee: Hast thou a tub?”

A little attention is paid to diseases of the eye, thus in Winter’s Tale:

Commentators have the thought that Shakespeare wished to express the idea of cataract by the term pin and web—this is, without doubt, a mistake; he did not intend to make lovers so cruel that they should desire to deprive every one else of sight. Pin and web (being a varicose excrescence of the conjunctiva, sometimes to such an extent as to totally prevent vision), was meant to express a veil, or in other words, the eyelid.

Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

The term “sand-blind” was meant to express a dimness of sight, as if sand had been thrown in the eyes.

The subject of wounds has received frequent mention. [Pg 54]

A scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough; * * * go, villain, fetch a surgeon. * * * ’Tis not deep as a well, nor as wide as a church door; but ’tis enough, * * * ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. I. 

For the love of God, a surgeon! send one presently to Sir Toby. * * * H’as broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God your help!

Twelfth Night, Act V., Sc. I. 

Many surgical subjects receive but little attention from him.

In case of a recent burn it was the custom to place the part near the fire, thus upholding the old homœopathic doctrine that what hurts will cure.

The surgery described in Titus Andronicus is, of course, impossible.

Obstetrics was Shakespeare’s favorite branch of the profession, and he has not been at all sparing in reference to it. Under this head will be included many topics which could more properly be placed in the chapter on physiology, but it is thought better to have such intimate subjects classed together. They have been arranged in the order of their natural occurrence.

In the old poem Juliet’s age is put down as sixteen; in Paynter’s novel she is said to be eighteen. Shakespeare, however, makes her fourteen, but who ever imagines her of these tender years while enjoying the play? It seems absurd to think of her as being less than twenty or twenty-two until we recollect that she grew and developed into early womanhood under the sun of an Italian clime. The wonderful development of the girls of Italy can easily be seen in the Eternal city. Taking a stroll down to the Spanish staircase which is daily filled with Roman models lazily awaiting the engagements of the artists, or a walk on the Corso, or around the Theatre of Marcellus, convinces one at once that Shakespeare’s Juliet, young as she is, is not overdrawn, and that the Italian girl of fourteen is indeed fully “ripe to be a bride.” [Pg 60]

Shakespeare has hinted several times that it was a common occurrence for girls of this “sun-burnt nation” to be mothers at the age of fourteen. Paris assures Juliet’s father that “younger than she are happy mothers made,” and Lady Capulet, in her conversation with her daughter, alludes to the fact that she was her mother when she was but thirteen. She also echoes Paris in saying:

Another reference is found in Winter’s Tale:

Perhaps Byron had a better idea of this climatic effect than any other poet. He has frequently written of it; indeed, it forms the foundation of some of his poems.

What a beautiful comparison Shakespeare has made between the virgin and flowers.

Fecundation is not overlooked, and Shakespeare shows his knowledge of the fact that the penis is merely the spout or funnel by which the semen is conveyed to the uterus, and aptly compares the womb to a bottle, which in his time gradually tapered toward the neck. The word tundish is an old Warwickshire name for a funnel.

The production of either sex at will agitated the minds of physiologists to a considerable extent during Shakespeare’s time. Indeed he seems to have held an ancient theory that the more vigorous of the parents produced the opposite sex. Dr. Robert, of Paris, in his paper entitled Megalanthropogenesis, somewhat followed up this theory and maintained that “the race of men of genius might be perpetuated by uniting them to better physically developed women having clever minds,” which, according to his theory, would, of course, result in nothing but male children.

The child would therefore resemble the parent of opposite sex. [Pg 64]

Paulina pleading to Leontes on the birth of a daughter to his wife Hermione:

It is a very old opinion that the mental state of parents during coition influenced to a certain extent the mental activity of the offspring. Bastards were supposed to excel in this respect on account of the mental excitement during the intercourse from which they took their origin. Burton held this view in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” and, after reading King Lear, we know that Shakespeare also held it.

His allusions to pregnancy are many.

A mistake of ten weeks is truly a bad one; quickening generally being experienced four and a half months after impregnation. [Pg 65]

Shakespeare knew of the importance of pregnant women, being particularly careful that nothing should excite them.

The longings or desires of pregnant women are very nicely shown in Measure for Measure:

Parturition is referred to in many instances.

History records the fact that the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., was born with teeth, uneven shoulders, one leg shorter than the other, deformed back, with a clump of hair on it. These facts Shakespeare never forgot, and continually harps on them.

The term “unlick’d bear-whelp,” in the last quotation, refers to an old notion existing before Shakespeare’s time: that the bear brings forth masses of animated flesh, having no resemblance whatever to her, and that she then licks this shapeless lump into a cub. There is a thread of truth running through this idea, as will be seen by the following extract taken by Dyer from “Arcana Microcosmi,” by Alexander Ross: “Bears bring forth their young deformed and misshapen, by reason of the thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is covered over with a mucous matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the winter-time, by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the eye the cub appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is afterwards licked away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that which before seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape.” Ross holds that this was well known by the ancients and that they entertained no other idea in regard to it.

A few other quotations referring to labor are here found.

A few quotations on abortion, and some others that are intimately related to obstetrics, remain.

Shakespeare has interwoven some of his family history here, and made the advent of Philip, the Bastard, correspond exactly to the untimely birth of his eldest daughter Susanna, who appeared only five and a half months after his marriage—“full fourteen weeks before the course of time.” Later on in the play we find the following:

—thus furnishing proof of legitimacy in such cases.

This supposed charm against sterility, says Dyer, “is copied from Plutarch, who, in his description of the festival Lupercalia, tells us how ‘noble young men run naked through the city, striking in sport whom they meet in the way with leather thongs,’ which blows were commonly believed to have the wonderful effect attributed to them by Cæsar.”

Surely Byron knew of the stimulating qualities of eggs and oysters, and no doubt took them with as much faith as the worn-out debauchee of to-day does, as he sits down to his “plate of raw” and his “sherry and egg.” [Pg 73]

Mr. Hackett, noticing the numerous allusions in Shakespeare to the blood, and to a circulation of this fluid to and from the heart or the liver, was led, in 1859, to express the absurd idea that William Shakespeare had anticipated Harvey in the discovery of the circulation of the blood.

Mr. Hackett found many thoughts in Shakespeare concerning the circulation which were applicable to Harvey’s theory.

Shakespeare died in 1610. Harvey first published his theory in 1619. It must be remembered that at this time many ideas were afloat concerning the circulation. Among the older theories were those of Hippocrates, Praxagoras, and Erasistratus, who held that the arteries contained air, and that, therefore, the veins were the only blood-holding vessels, and that they had their origin in the liver. Galen, the most celebrated of ancient medical writers, who lived as early as 150 A. D. taught that the left ventricle of the heart was the common origin of all arteries, and that the arteries of living animals contained blood, not air; but he did not advance with his studies so as to learn in what direction the blood flowed, or whether it was movable or stationary. The [Pg 76] distinguished Michael Servetus, who was burned with his books, by order of Calvin, in 1553, taught that the blood flowed from the right ventricle, through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, and thence through the pulmonary vein and left auricle into the corresponding ventricle from which it was conveyed by the aorta to all parts of the body. Dr. Bucknill is of the opinion that Shakespeare followed Hippocrates in his theory that the veins were the only blood vessels and that they came from the liver. It is very evident, from the many allusions given below, that he did at different periods adhere to this belief.

The arteries or “air pipes” were supposed, according to this theory of Hippocrates, to contain an ærial fluid.

It is more reasonable to suppose that Shakespeare did not tie himself down to any one theory concerning the circulation, but that sometimes he had in mind the theory of Michael Servetus, (to which all the heart allusions will apply), and at other times that of Hippocrates, (which accounts for all the thoughts regarding the liver as the propeller of the blood through the veins). The immortal Harvey was the first to point out the true idea of the circulation: the idea that the blood was forced by the heart through the arteries, a pure live-supporting fluid; that it went to the extreme parts of the body, giving nutriment, taking up impurities, and then returning by way of the veins to the heart,—thence to the lungs to be purified before being again sent out on it’s life-sustaining journey. None of the quotations from Shakespeare express this idea, excepting perhaps one, and that rather vaguely.

We can not believe, however that he possessed the knowledge of Harvey’s theory, and can only say in his own words:

The physiology of the digestive system is excellently described in Coriolanus.

A few remaining physiological thoughts are interesting. As is well known, we are much better able to judge the size and distance of objects on the same level with us than we are when they are either above or below us. When we view objects from a height they appear much less than they would were we at the same distance from them on the same level. Shakespeare has beautifully shown this effect in King Lear.

The subject of pupillary reflexes has received mention by many of the older writers. It was a source of amusement to lovers in the old time to look into each others eyes in search of their own reflection.

Massinger—Renegado. Act II., Sc. IV.

It has been a view long held that the height of the forehead is an index of the intellectual character of the individual. Shakespeare has referred to this in several plays.

The old superstition that much hair on the head indicated a want of intellect is alluded to in Two Gentlemen of Verona.

[Pg 82] He had some idea of the sympathetic connection between the organs of the body, and has furnished us with a good example of superstition connected with sympathy. It was an old superstition that the wounds of a murdered person would bleed afresh if the body was touched by the murderer, and this has nicely been brought out in Richard III.

Dunglison explains these superstitions “either on purely physical principles, or on the excited imagination of the observer,” and cites two interesting cases—one attested by John Demarest, coroner of Bergen county, New Jersey, (1767), and the other which occurred near Easton, Pennsylvania. Of the latter case he says: “The superstition has, indeed, its believers among us. On the trial of Getter, who was executed about five years ago (1833) in Pennsylvania, for the murder of his wife, a female witness deposed on oath as follows: ‘If my throat was to be cut, I could tell, before God Almighty, that the deceased smiled when he (the murderer) touched her. I swore this before the justices, and that she bled considerably. I was sent for to dress her and lay her out. He touched her twice. He made no hesitation about doing it. I also swore before the justice that it was observed by other people in the house.’” Dyer cites a number of similar cases, and quotes the following as a supposed cause of the phenomenon from the “Athenian Oracle,” (1-106): “The blood is congealed in the body for two or three days, and then becomes liquid again, in its tendency to corruption. The air being heated by many persons coming about the body is the same thing to it as motion is. ’Tis observed that dead bodies will bleed in a concourse of people, when murderers are absent as well as present, yet legislators have thought it fit to authorize it, and use this trial as an argument, at least to frighten, though ’tis no conclusive one to condemn them.” The practice, however, caused many an innocent spectator to receive the fatal penalty. [Pg 83]

Anatomy received some attention.

The old superstition that our bodies consisted of the elements—fire, water, earth and air—has been mentioned. [Pg 84]

The brain was thought only to have three ventricles by the old anatomists; what is now the fourth ventricle was called by them the third, and was supposed to be the seat of memory.

A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. II. 

Pharmacy was not overlooked.