Other forms of lung diseases are only mentioned fifteen times. The striking point here is the remarkable frequency of asthma in so small a group. It occurs nine times. It is fairly evident that in nearly all these cases we are concerned with true spasmodic asthma, a malady of the nervous system, and apt to arise, often in early life, on the basis of a somewhat neurotic organism.
Another malady to which we may judge that men of intellectual eminence are specially liable, since it is so often referred to, is angina pectoris. Heart disease—doubtless because its exact diagnosis is of comparatively recent date—is only referred to eighteen times, but in as many as eight or nine of these cases the disease is either distinctly stated to be, or may reasonably be inferred to be, angina pectoris. None of these cases are purely literary men, but four of them are artists.
There is, however, a pathological condition which occurs so often, in such extreme forms, and in men of such preeminent intellectual ability, that it is impossible not to regard it as having a real association with such ability. I refer to gout. This is by no means a common disease, at all events at the present day. In ordinary English medical practice at the present day, it may safely be said that cases of gout seldom form more than one per cent, of the chronic disorders met with. Yet gout is of all diseases that most commonly mentioned by the national biographers; it is noted as occurring in thirty-eight cases, often in very severe forms. We have, indeed, to bear in mind that gout has been recognized for a very long time, and that it is moreover a disease of good reputation. Yet, even if we assume that it has been noted in every case in which it occurs among our 902 eminent persons (an altogether absurd assumption to make), we should still have to recognize that it occurs in over four per cent. Moreover, the eminence of these gouty subjects is as notable as their number. They include Milton, Harvey, Sydenham, Newton, Gibbon, Fielding, Johnson, Wesley, Landor, W. E. Hamilton and Darwin, while Bacon was of gouty heredity.[1] It would probably be impossible to match the group of gouty men of genius, for varied and preeminent intellectual ability, by any combination of non-gouty individuals on our list. It may be added that these gouty men of genius have frequently been eccentric, often very irascible—'choleric' is the term applied by their contemporaries—
- ↑ Sydenham, the greatest of English physicians, who suffered from gout for thirty-four years, and wrote an unsurpassed description of its symptoms, said in his treatise, 'De Podagra,' that "it may he some consolation to those sufferers from the disease who, like myself and others, are only modestly endowed with fortune and intellectual gifts, to know that great kings, princes, generals, admirals, philosophers and many more of like eminence have suffered from the same complaint, and ultimately died of it. In a word, gout, unlike any other disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise than simple." And another ancient (Father Balde) called gout Dominus morborum et morbus dominorum.
