The medical side of Benjamin Franklin / by William Pepper.

  • William Pepper
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical side of Benjamin Franklin / by William Pepper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    88/202 page 52
    CHAPTEE IV 1770-1779 Many references can be found to the gout, from which Franklin suffered severly, but the following note on the behaviour of this disease, proves how closely he watched its varying course and that he was aware of the peculiar shifting of the symptoms which at times occur in this malady. London, June 10, 1770. To Mrs. Deborah Franklin. . . . As to myself, I had from Christmas till Easter, a disagree¬ able Giddiness hanging about me, which however did not hinder me from being about and doing Business. In the Easter Holidays being at a Friend’s House in the Country, I was taken with a sore Throat, and came home half strangled. From Monday till Friday, I could swallow nothing but Barley Water and the like. I was bled largely, and purged two or three times. On Friday came on a Fit of the Gout, from which I had been free Five Years. Immediately the inflammation and Swelling in my Throat disappeared; my Foot swelled greatly, and I was confined about three Weeks; since which I am perfectly well, the Giddiness and every other disagreeable Symptom having quite left me. I hope your Health is likewise by this time quite re¬ established, being as ever, my dear child, your affectionate Husband, B. Franklin. London, Jan. 28, 1772. To Anthony Tissington. . . . Mrs. Stevenson keeps about, but is ever ailing, like your Dame, with Rheumatic Pains that fly from Limb to Limb continually. Tis a most wicked Distemper, and often puts me in mind of the Saying of a Scotch Divine to some of his Brethren who where complaining that their Flocks had of late been infected with Arianism and Socinianism. “Mine,” says he, “is infected with a worse ism than either of those.”
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