Swift and Ménière's disease / [J. Wickham Legg].

  • John Wickham Legg
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Swift and Ménière's disease / [J. Wickham Legg]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2 circular canals of the ear, and this view is strengthened by the fact that like symptoms follow the injury of the semicircular canals in the brutes. J. WICKHAM LEGO. From the Academy, July 28. 1883. Yol. XXIY. p. 64. London, July 23. 1883. In the Academy for June 25. 1881. p. 475. I pointed out, in a short letter, that the “ giddy fits” with which Swift was troubled for the greater part of his life, and which have been such a puzzle to his biographers, were, in all likelihood,- due to the disease named after Meniere. The symptoms are deafness and sickness, as well as giddiness, from all three of which there will be found good evidence that Swift suffered, if the journal to Stella and the letters to other correspondents be turned over. Xow in the following year, six months after this publication, there appeared in the January number for 1882. of Brain an article which opens with these words : “ During the past autumn I received a letter from a gentleman engaged in literary work, requesting my opinion of the £ mysterious disease ’ of the great author and wit.” The article then goes over the same ground that I had done, proving in the same way, by quotations, the existence of the three symptoms of giddiness, deafness, and sickness, the only difference being that in the one case as many pages are devoted to the subject as in the other were given lines. Directly after the publication of the article, I wrote to Dr. Bucknill, who was at once the author of the communication, and the editor of the journal in which the communication appeared, pointing out to him that I had anticipated all that he had said as to Swift and Meniere’s disease. In reply, he assured me that he had not seen my letter to the Academy. Since February, 1882. therefore, I have been waiting for some public sign from Dr. Bucknill. I can find nothing in Brain since that date. Something, it is true, may have been pub¬ lished elsewhere; but it is not unreasonable to have thought that, in that case, my attention would have been drawn to it. In the mean time, we have all been praising Dr. Bucknill for the great skill which he has shown in detecting the disease under which Swift laboured for so long, as well as for freeing Swift’s memory from an absurd imputation. Mr. Craik quotes Dr. Bucknill, and decrees him a vote of thanks; while in the current number of the Quarterly the reviewer tells us that Dr. Bucknill has come to our assistance, and shown us the true cause of Swift’s symptoms. None has given a word to the earlier publication in the Academy which would seem in all likelihood to have been the force which first set this ball rolling. J. WICKHAM LEGG.
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