Benjamin Rush Field

“ But born beneath a brighter sun, For love ordain’d the Spanish maid is And who when fondly, fairly won,— Enchants you like the girl of Cadiz?
In each her charms the heart must move Of all who venture to behold her; Then let not maids less fair reprove Because her bosom is not colder: Through many a clime ’tis mine to roam Where many a soft and melting maid is, But none abroad and few at home May match the dark-eyed girl of Cadiz. Byron—Poems.
What a beautiful comparison Shakespeare has made between the virgin and flowers. ”

“ Into her womb convey sterility! Dry up in her the organs of increase; And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honour her! If she must teem, Create her child of spleen; that it may live, And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits To laughter and contempt: that she may feel How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child! ”

“ Man’s very sympathy with their estate Has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, But form good housekeepers to breed a nation. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XXIII.
They are as children but one step below, Even of your mettle, of your very blood; Of all one pain, save for a night of groans Endur’d of her, for whom you bid like sorrow. Richard III., Act IV., Sc. IV.
Would I had died a maid, And never seen thee, never borne thee son, Seeing thou hast prov’d so unnatural a father! Hath he deserv’d to lose his birthright thus? ”

“ What, is Brutus sick, And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, To dare the vile contagion of the night, And tempt the rheuma and unpurged air To add unto his sickness? Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage. Swift.
Yet am I better Than one that’s sick o’ the gout, since he had rather Groan so in perpetuity, than be cur’d By the sure physician, death. Cymbeline, Act V., Sc. IV.
A rich man that hath not the gout. ”

“ Men. True it is, quoth the belly, That I receive the general food at first, Which you do 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 the seat o’ the brain; And, through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves and small inferior veins, From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live. Act I., Sc. ”

“ THE PHYSICIAN.
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. ”

“ Counts cent. per cent., and smiles or vainly frets, O’er hoards diminish’d by young Hopeful’s debts; Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life’s lessons—but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time, save times like these; Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires unwept—is buried—let him rot! Byron—Hints from Horace.
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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ It is a hard, although a common case, To find our children running restive—they In whom our brightest days we would retrace, Our little selves reform’d in finer clay; Just as old age is creeping on apace, And clouds come o’er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, But in good company—the gout and stone. Byron—Don Juan, Canto III., Verse LIX.
Life’s thin thread ’s spun out Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout. ”

“ What! no physician speak his right? None here! but fees their toil requite. Let, then, Intemperance take the wand, Who fills with gold their zealous hand. You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest— Whom wary men as foes detest— Forego your claim. No more pretend Intemperance is esteemed a friend; He shares their mirth, their social joys, And as a courted guest destroys. The charge on him must justly fall, Who finds employment for you all.” Gay—“Court of Death.” [Pg 49]
PART III.
SURGERY.
Shakespeare paid much more attention to the practice of medicine and obstetrics than to surgery. ”

“ Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.
Out, alas! she’s cold; Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. V.
Do you notice How much her grace is alter’d on the sudden? How long her face is drawn? how pale she looks, And of an earthy cold! Mark her eyes. * * * She is going. Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. II.
Her physician tells me She hath pursu’d conclusions infinite Of easy ways to die. Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. ”

“ Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right, Condemn’d to child-bed, as men for their sins, Have shaving too entail’d upon their chins,— A daily plague, which, in the aggregate, May average on the whole with parturition. ”

“ 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 ”

“ S. Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit. Dro. S. Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair. Ant. S. Why, thou did’st conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit. Comedy of Errors, Act II., Sc. II.
This great voluminous pamphlet may be said To be like one that hath more hair than head; More excrement than body: trees which sprout With broadest leaves have still the smallest fruit. ”

“ Act V., Sc. V. [Pg 10]
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.
This disease is beyond my practice: * * * * * * infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician:
Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. ”

“ Thou art a boil, A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle, In my corrupted blood. King Lear, Act II., Sc. IV.
Boils and plagues Plaster you o’er; that you may be abhorr’d Further than seen, and one infect another Against the wind a mile! Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. IV.
Men take diseases, one of another: Therefore, let men take heed of their company. Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. I.
Being sick * * * * * * And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints, Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life. Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. ”

“ And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire Within the scorched veins of one new burn’d. King John, Act III., Sc. I.
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights founder, strength by strengths do fail. Coriolanus, Act IV., Sc. VII. [Pg 57]
One fire burns out another’s burning, One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish. Romeo and Juliet, Act I., Sc. II.
Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love Is by a newer object quite forgotten. Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II., Sc. ”

“ Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I.
As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood, The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint Disorder breeds by heating of the blood: Surfeits, imposthumes, grief and damn’d despair, Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair. Venus and Adonis. [Pg 45]
How nicely does he describe the decay of man, the second childhood, the wasting away of the organism:
The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side ”

“ Hamlet, Act I., Sc. V.
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. ”

“ 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.
How long is’t, count, Since the physician at your father’s died? ”

“ 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.
How fearful And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low! The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air, Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade! Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice. * * * * Act IV., Sc. ”

“ 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.
A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other.
Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. ”

“ The word “hoar,” occurring in several of the quotations, refers to the white spots so characteristic of the disease.
As for my country I have shed my blood, Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs Coin words till their decay against those measles, Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought The very way to catch them. Coriolanus, Act III., Sc. I.
Gold! * * * * * * This yellow slave will make the hoar leprosy ador’d. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. III.
Hoar the flamen, That scolds against the quality of flesh, And not believes himself. Timon of Athens, Act IV., Sc. ”

“ When slow Disease, and all her host of pains, Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins; When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing, And flies with every changing gale of Spring: Not to the aching frame alone confined, Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind. Byron—Childish Recollections.
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 ”

“ Byron—Don Juan, Canto II., Verse CXL.
So much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit; But, like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life. Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. I.
Diseases desperate grown, By desperate appliance are reliev’d Or not at all. Hamlet, Act IV., Sc. III.
His dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine. Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. III.
O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, In their continuance, will not feel themselves. Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts, Leaves them insensible. ”