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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    SWIFT AND MENIERE’S DISEASE. Prom the Academy, June 25. 1881. Vol, XIX. p. 475. 47. Green St. w. June 1881. Those who have looked over the letters of Swift to Stella and other correspondents must have been struck with his many complaints of giddiness and “fits.”' In the journal to Stella, January 18. 1710-11. he says: “Oh faith I had an ugly giddy fit last night;” and on October 31. 1710 again “I had a fit of giddiness ; the room turned round for about a minute, and then it went off, leaving me siekish, but not very.” Later on in life, he writes: (letter to Mr. Blashford, December 17. 1784.) “1 was seized with so cruel a fit of that giddiness which at times hath pursued me from my youth that I was forced to lie down on a bed in the empty house for two hours.” With this giddi¬ ness there was a deafness of the left ear; (journal to Stella, September 7. 1711.) and on September 21. 1710 he promises to see Dr. Cockburn about his ears. This “ giddiness and weak¬ ness and sickness in my stomach ” are spoken of almost to the last, with “ being extremely deaf.” This giddiness and sickness Swift himself attributed to a surfeit of fruit; and we find him careful not to eat fruit, nor drink “bohea tea,” and he takes abundant exercise to keep his troubles under. I have only met with one explanation of this set of symptoms, that in Dr. Beddoes’ Hygeia, towards the end of the ninth essay, an explanation which need not be further pursued here; but I would venture to suggest, if it have not been already suggested, that these symptoms of Swift’s are amply explained by a supposition of his having been the subject of Meniere’s disease, or Meniere’s vertigo. This group of sym¬ ptoms has only been recognised by physicians for about twenty years ; giddiness or vertigo, followed by sickness with some disease of the ear, or deafness, forming its notes. It was believed by Meniere to be due to some disease of the semi-
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