Batty Langley (bap. 1696, d. 1751) wrote works on gardening, garden design, and ancient and modern architecture.
Reference:
Eileen Harris, ‘Langley, Batty (bap. 1696, d. 1751)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16022 [accessed 20 Aug 2013]).
James Petiver was a botanist and entomologist who worked in England. He joined the Royal Society in 1695. He travelled little, getting his specimens locally or from contacts. He travelled to Leiden on behalf of Sloane to the auction of Paul Hermann’s collection in 1711. Like Sloane, he was a collector and had a collection of several thousand plants. All of these were purchased by Sloane, along with his books and manuscripts, after his death. Nowadays these all reside in the British Museum alongside Sloane’s collection.
Reference:
D. E. Allen, ‘Petiver, James (c.1665–1718)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22041, accessed 8 June 2011].
“Fellow Details.” The Royal Society. [https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27Petiver%27%29, accessed August 17, 2017.]
Robinson hopes the letter finds Sloane well in St Iago ‘notwithstanding the great reports at London of the Dks dying at sea, and his being taken by Pyrates’. He assures Sloane that he ‘sacrificed daily to Neptune for your preservation’. A doctor was recently fined by the College of Physicians. The College received a mandamus ‘to make one Cox (an Anabaptist Preacher) Honorary fellow’. Robinson gossips about the latest happenings in the Royal Society and the fact that Monsieur Papin was to go to Germany the coming week. He believes the Society is in decline. The Lord Chief Justice Herbert had two windfalls recently, one valued at £1500 and the other at £7000. Mr Charleton was well and claims that Sloane’s health was drunk to ‘in Noble Florence’. Tourenfort was at Montpellier and Helevius died in Danzig. Robinson was a naturalist, physician, and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians from 1685. He was appointed physician-in-ordinary to King George I 1714 (G. S. Boulger, Robinson, Sir Tancred (1657/81748), rev. Kaye Bagshaw, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23873, accessed 26 June 2013]).
Sloane's friends at 'Dicks and Bettys' were mourning for Sloane.
Robinson had been treating them with 'Cordiall and Alexipharmick draughts'.
They are well now.
Recently, I found myself doing a little seat dance in the British Library when I came across a fascinating series of letters (Sloane MS 4076) from 1715, written by apothecary William Lilly about the Countess of Suffolk, Henrietta Howard. Historians of medicine, of course, are generally loathe to engage in retrodiagnosis, but sometimes it’s just too tempting… What Lilly seemed to be describing was a case of Cotard Delusion!
Cotard Delusion, or Walking Corpse Syndrome, was first described as a cluster of symptoms by Jules Cotard in the 1880s. The symptoms include insensitivity to physical pain, a preoccupation with guilt and despair, and the belief that one is already dead, damned or possessed (or, conversely, immortal). Cotard was not the first to observe this sort of case, but he categorised it as a syndrome: hypochrondriac delusion and anxious melancholy, or lypemania—drawing on an earlier classification from Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840).
The corpse of a lady wearing a ruff and an elaborate head-dress.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
According to modern studies, Cotard Delusion starts off with a sense of general anxiety that could last weeks or years, but increases over time until the patient believes s/he is dead and is preoccupied with guilt and despair. Sometimes this is accompanied by muteness or paralysis. In some cases, the disorder might be accompanied by physical problems, such as a brain tumour or injury, multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson’s disease.
So what were Lady Suffolk’s symptoms? In a letter dated 20 July (ff. 7-8), Lilly noted that Lady Suffolk was taking little rest, but
“when she waked from her slumber call’d out in a frightfull manner for half an hour that she was deceased and a great deal of such Language”.
Once this “raveing fitt” ended, she became profoundly drowsy and “lay still without any motion”. She needed help with the bedpan, even “though she walk’d severall turns in her Bed Chamber yesterday”. Lilly bled her nine or ten ounces, which he hoped would prevent worse lethargy. Lady Suffolk’s blood was viscous and sizy. Lilly thought it suggested, along with her stopped urine, a “phrenites [acute inflammation of the mind and body] with the Mania”. Lilly also applied blisters on her legs to draw the bad humour down and out, laid pigeons to her feet (sometimes used to treat headaches and migraines) and shaved her head to relieve the excess heat in the head.
Four days later, Lilly had administered Sloane’s prescriptions “without the desired effect” (f. 9). Lady Suffolk no longer had a fever, but her other symptoms continued and she was drowsy, “which made me fear her turning lethargical or some other distemper on her Braine which I perceved to be already affected”. Lilly gave Lady Suffolk a glister, inducing her to flow in several ways. She produced a large stool and plenty of urine and spoke more than she had in two days.
On 26 July, Lilly reported that Lady Suffolk had vomited phlegm and choler, as well as had three stools. She could walk around her chamber, but “still continues very melancholy and silent and seldom speaks without being importuned to it”. Lilly was deeply worried. He hoped that Lord Suffolk would take his wife to London “where you may see her oftener”, as her “present indisposition will not quickly be removed”. Lilly again suggested that it might be an affectio hypochondrica [melancholy] or mania, and provided details about Lady Suffolk’s conversation:
“for what she sayes is that she is undone in soul and body that she is sure she will be damned at other times when I urge her to speaks she tells me she is dead and has been so for some time”.
After M. de Vos, A woman beleaguered by demons, death and deceiving angels; representing faith resisting the evils of the world. Source: Wellcome Library, London.
In an undated letter that seems to come at this point in the series (ff. 12-13), Lilly listed Lady Suffolk’s symptoms as diarrhoea, fever and head pain and insisted again that the disorder was hysterical, not feverish. Given Lilly’s repeated attempts to persuade Sloane that the real problem was hysterical, it’s not clear that Sloane initially trusted Lilly’s diagnosis.
But by late July, Sloane had started prescribing anti-hysterical medications, including cordials and drops (29 July, ff. 10-11). Even so, Lady Suffolk “is more than usually melancholy” and complained of heart palpitations and swimming in the head: more symptoms of hysteria. Since Lady Suffolk’s fever had not returned, Lilly hoped that the danger had passed.
This sort of delusion was distressing to observers, including Lilly who was uncertain of his ability to help, but Lady Suffolk’s disorder was readily classified as hysteria or hypochondria—ailments that were as much physical as mental. The diagnosis and treatment for Lady Suffolk was humoral in nature, treating her emotions as fluids and using remedies to make her body and mind flow.
Although retrodiagnosis is tempting in Lady Suffolk’s case, eighteenth-century medicine already had a place for her religious delusions. Robert Burton, for example, included a lengthy section on religious melancholy in his famous Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). Eighteenth-century books on hypochondria also emphasised the often religious nature of sufferers’ fears, such as despair and damnation, especially in women (e.g. Nicholas Robinson, A New System of the Spleen, Vapours, and Hypochondriack Melancholy, 1729).
Retrodiagnosis is unhelpful in another way. Lady Suffolk was ill with problems besides the delusion, which had even lessened toward the end. In particular, Lady Suffolk’s ailments progressed rapidly in less than a month.
Lady Suffolk never made it to London to see Sloane in person. The danger had not passed: she died on the 10th of August.
References
G.E. Berrios & R. Luque, “Cotard’s Delusion or Syndrome?: A Conceptual History”, Comprehensive Psychiatry 36, 3 (1995): 218-223.
Hans Debuyne, Michale Portzky, Frédérique Van den Eynde, Kurt Audenaert, “Cotard’s Syndrome: A Review”, Current Psychiatry Reports 11, 3 (2009): 197-202.
[fol. 145] Hon:d Sir I deferred making my returne to your last obliging letter till I could give you some satisfactory account of the malignant Fevere which has been so fatall in this place which is now very much abated, not above three or fouer persons are dead of it since my last, & all of them old persons; it has of late appeared to be of the intermitting kind in some a regulare tertion & in others a double tertion when it showd it selfe of this kind I was in hopes that the Bark might have been of very great use, but upon repeated trials I found it did not answer my expectation without the addition of Alexapharmick & these alone were of more service; those yt perspired pretty freely recovered the best; one thing I generally observed that the sweat of these persons had an usuall suffocalinty smel, I was desired to visit a neighboure who was seized with a paralytic motion in his left side I found upon in: :quiry that this reaction was periodical & had returned about twelve o clock for three or fouer days swieffively, & continued about two houres in each pmaxyme; by the use of alexapharmaticks he is now recoverd, though the fits continued upon him about fourteen days. I was shown a poor man in Bradford by an Apothecarry there, who in his fitts had such indent motions in his leggs & armes that (dark) the bent of the skin from his leggs & ellbows, & was forced to (^) his lyed sown in his bed though at the same time he was perfectly sensible. I ordered him to be blushed in severall places & by the use of Alex: :apharmatick is in a prossessing was of recovery. Woodcocks are come to as trip year sooner then usuall; perhaps you may not have them yet in the fourth in plenty, which makes me take the freedome to send you a pott of them on Wednesday last by Tho: Fenton a Bradford Carrier. Fol. 145v that they came to you safe & in good order wil be very velu[…] accounts to Hon’d Sr Ric: Richardson North Bierley Nov: 4th 1721
Richardson was a physician and botanist who traveled widely in England, Wales, and Scotland in search of rare specimens. He corresponded and exchanged plants with many well-known botanists and naturalists (W. P. Courtney, Richardson, Richard (16631741), rev. Peter Davis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23576, accessed 31 May 2011]).
The man is from Bradbury and was visited by an apothecary. He had 'violent motions in his leggs and armes'. The man was bedridden.
Richardson had the man 'blistred in several places' and prescribed 'Alexapharmicks'.
The man is recovering.
Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland (1675-1722), was a prominent politician during the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. He studied at the University of Leiden and was interested in scholarship as well as being fluent in several foreign languages.
Reference:
Henry L. Snyder, Spencer, Charles, third earl of Sunderland (1675–1722), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26117, [accessed 30 May 2011]).
Cadogan informs Sloane that he has been in Berlin for a week and will be leaving for Vienna on Thursday. If Sloane has any business he wants Cadogan to do for him in Paris he is to write to him in Vienna. He describes Berlin as ‘a large town, the streets broad, strait and well built. The Kings Palace is a noble structure […] without any garden’. The curiosities in the Palace are not comparable to Sloane’s collection. The ‘late King of Prussia’ was fond of his city and its amenities, which the current monarch passes on to his soldiers. Cadogan is enjoying himself in Berlin, and is regularly invited to ‘dine with the King; either at Court, or elswhere. The entertainment on these occasions are magnificent’. Charles Cadogan (1685-1776), 2nd Baron Cadogan was the younger brother of William Cadogan, Earl Cadogan, who was an army officer and diplomat. Charles was an army officer, elected MP for Reading in 1716, and married Sir Hans Sloane’s daughter Elizabeth in 1717 (James Falkner, Cadogan, William, Earl Cadogan (1671/21726), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4310, accessed 15 July 2013]).
Charlett has been waiting for a response from Sloane for ten days. He wants to know what he should do about the Physic Garden, which is currently being taken care of by ‘a Regular MD, Fellow of Wadham Coll’. Charlett asks whether a catalogue of the contents of the Museum should be compiled. He and several other ‘Fellows of this College’ are going to use the funds from Dr Radcliffe’s estate to fund ‘two travelling Physitians’. Charlett was elected Master of University College at Oxford in 1692 and held that post until his death in 1722. Charlett used the mastership to gain influence, especially through persistent letter-writing to numerous correspondents, sharing the latest literary, political, and scholarly gossip (R. H. Darwall-Smith, Charlett, Arthur (16551722), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5158, accessed 1 June 2011]).
Robinson was glad to hear Sloane made the voyage to Jamaica safely and was surviving ‘under the fiery sun, and new climate.’ He forwarded Sloane’s letter to his ‘friends at Dicks, Bettys, Trumpet, etc.’ Mr Courten showed Robinson Sloane’s letters. Robinson sent John Ray’s latest book by Captain Brooks. For Ray’s next volume Robinson believes Sloane can furnish ‘dryd samples, seeds, or written observations, Mr Key publishing them in your name’. Robinson expects ‘many discoveries of North America from Mr Bannister’. Van Drakensteen and Dr Claudius were expected to return from the East Indies soon where they visited ‘all the Dutch plantations and Colonies’. Dr Claudius spent 10 years in Asia, including China, Japan, and Java. He also visited Africa. Dr Hermann was working on a history of Ceylon. Robinson hopes Sloane makes progress on a history of the West Indies while he is in Jamaica. He heard rumours Dr Trapham was growing ‘Jesuits Tree in his garden at Port Royall’. The apothecaries and surgeons have been complaining about the ‘late laws made by the College of Physitians’. Robinson does not expect a war with the Dutch despite recent problems. A ‘Prince of Wales is expected next July’. Colonel Talmash was leading a regiment in Holland and Lord Cook ‘is master of the Houshold to the Prince of Orange.’ Sloane did not respond to Robinson’s letters of the previous November and December, making him think they were lost en route. Robinson was a naturalist, physician, and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians from 1685. He was appointed physician-in-ordinary to King George I 1714 (G. S. Boulger, Robinson, Sir Tancred (1657/81748), rev. Kaye Bagshaw, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23873, accessed 26 June 2013]).
George Brown (1650-1730) was a mathematician. Between 1682 and 1684 he was Minister at Stranraer and in 1685 he was appointed to Kilmaurs in Ayrshire. The Glorious Revolution uprooted Brown. He was forced to move his family to Edinburgh in 1689, from whence he was banished for not praying publicly for William and Mary. He taught Mathematics in Sterling where he invented an instrument for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing called the ‘rotula arithmetica’ and published several mathematical works to accompany the apparatus. He went to London in 1712.
Reference:
D. J. Bryden, “Brown, George (c.16501730)”, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [ http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3606?docPos=3 accessed 17th March 2017].