Volume 1

Biographic clinics / by George M. Gould.

  • George M. Gould
Date:
1903-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biographic clinics / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to 1825. The last relapse was from 1841 to 1844. At other times and after this time there was moderate, not excessive use. This history of his splendid struggle and success in 1844, his absolute abstention for 61 days in 1848, and his wise choice thereafter of moderate use as the lesser of two evils, his ten last years of life in “ quiet and steady activity,” are also noteworthy. There are two factors that should not be lost from view: The first relates to the fact that a man so destined by nature and profession to the life of a scholar and writer as was De Quincey, must devote a certain portion of his time, of each day usually, to reading, writing, and revising proof-sheets. The second is closely related to it—mathematically so, one might say, as well as logically—and concerns the mat¬ ter of physical exercise. No one who has studied the life of De Quincey (or the lives of the other men whom we are to observe later) seems to have adequately pon¬ dered, at least not to have asked for the significance of, the irresistible necessity these men were under to walk or exercise. Ocular accommodative effort and reflexes cease in walking almost entirely, and absolutely so in walking at night. All his life De Quincey walked many miles a day, walked in day and darkness, in sun¬ shine or in rain, and in the worst time of trials he would walk round and round a ring, like a poor, dumb, driven animal, 40 rounds to the mile, from 400 to 500 times a
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