An address on the medical history of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Pepys : Read before the Abernethian Society on March 6th, 1895 / by D'Arcy Power, M.B. Oxon, F.R.C.S. Eng., surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children.
- D'Arcy Power
- Date:
- [1895]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An address on the medical history of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Pepys : Read before the Abernethian Society on March 6th, 1895 / by D'Arcy Power, M.B. Oxon, F.R.C.S. Eng., surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![1 wife atd there she being: in bed. he and [ alone to look again upon ner [perineum] and there he do fitid that though it would not be much pain, jet she is so fearful, and the thing will be somewhat painful in the tending which I shall not be able to look after, but must require a nurse and people about her, so that upon second thoughts he believes that a fomentation will do as well, and though it will be troublesome yet no pain, and what her majd will be able to do without knowing directly what it is, but only that it may be for the piles For though it be nothing but what is honest, yet my wife is loth to give occasion to discourse concerning it.” The affection ran its usual tedious course ; but eventually the fistula healed, and shortly after Christmas Pepys “ went after dinner straight on foot to Mr. Hollyard’s, and there paid him £3 in full for his physic and work to my wife [about the abscess], but whether it is cured for ever or no I cannot tell, but he says it will never come to anything, though it may be it may ooze now and then a little. ” 1 cannot find out when the abscess causing this fistula began, but so far back as 1661 there is an entry that she was suffering from some abdominal trouble, for on May 12th, 1661, “ My wife had a troublesome night this night and in great pain but about the morning her swelling broke, and she was in great ease presently as she useth to be. So I put in a vent (which Dr. Williams [of Eltham?] sent me yesterday) into the hole to keep it open till all the matter be come out, and so I question not that she will soon be well again.” It was some time before the abscess healed, for on Midsummer Daj Pepys went with his father “and Dr. Williams (who is come to see my wife, whose soare belly is now grown dangerous as she thinks) to the ordinary over against the Exchange, where we dined and had great wrangling with the master of the house when the reckoning was brought to us, he setting down exceeding high everything ” There is, however, no further entry in regard to this illness of his wife, though it may have been the starting point of the subsequent fistula. Mrs. Pepys suffered from earache and from toothache on one or two occasions, but otherwise she appears to have been a tolerably healthy woman Her earache was cured on June 27th, 1662, by “ Mr. Holliard, who bad been with my wife to-day, and cured her of her pain in her ear by taking out a most prodigious quantity of hard wax that had hardened itself in the bottom of the ear, of which I am very glad.” On Sept. 14tb, 1663. she fainted, probably from overfatigue, for setting out from London betimes she came](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30799193_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
