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.

65/234 page 59

This is a minor one of the thousand illustrations of the inexplicable blunder Carlyle committed in entrust¬ ing his manuscripts and biography to the ineptitude of this caricature “ Greek Chorus.’' How unconquerably tough and sound must have been the natural consti¬ tution that, after 40 years of continuous daily excruciat¬ ing torment, could enjoy 22 years of healthy old age, and die at the ripe age of 85. At 58 Carlyle says: “ It is strange how little decay I feel; nothing but my eyesight gone a little.” At 60 “ the world was well; all was well.” Even at 41 he says of himself that “ nothing was essentially the matter,” and at 42, “ my health is not fundamentally hurt.” His physiologic habits were also of the best possible. His food was always of the simplest but it had to be of the best quality, usually sent from the old Scotch home. He was careful, he was compelled to be most careful, in all matters of personal hygiene, as regards exercise, etc., and physical sin was as impossible to him as moral sin. The reader of his life and letters will per¬ haps wonder if tobacco may have had anything to do with his irritability and bad health. But smoking (in moderation as Carlyle practised it) does not have that physiologic effect, as millions can testify. Carlyle’s judgment in this and in many such matters was most accurate. Some Edinburgh physician in the early years of his “ dyspepsia ” had told him that tobacco was the cause of his digestional difficulty, and by his

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