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]
Catalogue details

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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    in the evening to Buntingford on the Cambridge road, twenty- nine miles from London, “where my wife by drinking some cold beer, being hot herself, presently after ’lighting, begins to be sick and became so pale, ?nd I alone with her in a great chamber there, that 1 thought she would have died, and so in great horror, and having a great tryall of my true love and passion for her, called the mayds and mistresse of the house, and so with some strong water, and after a little vomit, she came to be pretty well again : and so to bed, and I having put her to bed with great content, I called in my company and supped in the chamber by her. and being very merry in talk, supped and then parted, and I to bed and lay very well.’’ She was well next nay, for they went on to Godmanchester [Gumcester] in Huntingdon and sixty miles from London, where they ate and drank and then to Brampton in Suffolk, which was their journey’s end. Once, and once only, she got a black eye—on Dec. 19th, 1664. “Going to bed betimes last night we waked betimes, and from our people’s being forced to take the key to go out to light a candle I was very angry, and begun to find fault with my wife for not commanding her servants as she ought. Thereupon, she giving me some cross answer. I did strike her over her left eye such a blow as the poor wretch did cry out, and was in great pain, but yet her spirit was such as to endeavour to bite and scratch me. But I, coying with her, made her leave crying, and sent for butter and parsley, and friends presently one with another, and I up vexed at my heart to think what I had done, for she was forced to lay a poultice or something to her eye all day, and is black, and the people of the house observed it. ” We have no detailed account of the death of Mrs, Pepys. 'the fear of becoming blind led to the abrupt termination of the Diary in 1669 Pepys obtained leave of absence from the duties of his office, and set out on a tour through France and Holland, accompanied by his wife. Some months after his return he spoke of his journey as having been “full of health and content,” but no sooner bad he and his wife returned to London than the latter became seriously ill with a fever. The disease took a fatal turn, and on Nov. 10th, 1669, Elizabeth Pepys died at the early age of twenty-nine years, to the great grief of her husband. Looking to the time of year, to the fact that she had lately returned home from a trip abroad, and to her age, an attack of typhoid fever seems to be the most plausible cause of her premature death, but such a suggestion must be the merest guess. She is buried in St. Olave’s Church, Hart-street.
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