| Description Of Item | Case of Dr Johnson. 'Dear Sir - Dr Johnson has been very ill for some time; and in a letter of anxious apprehension, he writes to me 'Ask your Physician about my Case'. This you see is not authority for a regular consultation. But I have no doubt of your readiness to give your advice to a man so eminent, and who in his life of Garth has paid your profession a just and elegant compliment. 'I believe every man has found in Physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art, where there is no hope of lucre'. Dr Johnson is aged 74. Last summer he had a stroke of the palsy, from which he recovered almost entirely. He had before that been troubled with a catarhous cough. This winter he was seised (sic) with a spasmodick (sic) asthma, by which he had been confined to his house for about three months. Dr Brocklesby writes to me, that upon the least admission of cold, there is such a constriction upon his breast, that he cannot lye (sic) down in his bed, but is obliged to sit up all night, and gets rest and sometimes sleep, only by means of laudanum and syrup of poppies; and that there are edematous tumours on his legs and thighs. Dr Brocklesby trusts a good deal to the return of mild weather. Dr Johnson says that a Dropsy gains ground upon him; and he seems to think that a warmer climate would do him good. I understand he is now rather better, and is using vinegar of squills. I am with great esteem Dear Sir your most obedient humble servant, James Boswell. The letter is quoted in Boswell's 'Life of Samuel Johnson'. |