A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. 267 



Other forms of lung diseases are only mentioned fifteen times. 

 The striking point here is the remarkable frequency of asthma in so 

 small a group. It occurs nine times. It is fairly evident that in nearly 

 all these cases we are concerned with true spasmodic asthma, a malady 

 of the nervous system, and apt to arise, often in early life, on the basis 

 of a somewhat neurotic organism. 



Another malady to which we may judge that men of intellectual 

 eminence are specially liable, since it is so often referred to, is angina 

 pectoris. Heart disease — doubtless because its exact diagnosis is of 

 comparatively recent date — is only referred to eighteen times, but in as 

 many as eight or nine of these cases the disease is either distinctly stated 

 to be, or may reasonably be inferred to be, angina pectoris. None of 

 these cases are purely literary men, but four of them are artists. 



There is, however, a pathological condition which occurs so often, in 

 such extreme forms, and in men of such preeminent intellectual 

 ability, that it is impossible not to regard it as having a real association 

 with such ability. I refer to gout. This is by no means a common 

 disease, at all events at the present day. In ordinary English medical 

 practice at the present day, it may safely be said that cases of gout sel- 

 dom form more than one per cent, of the chronic disorders met with. 

 Yet gout is of all diseases that most commonly mentioned by the na- 

 tional biographers; it is noted as occurring in thirty-eight cases, often 

 in very severe forms. We have, indeed, to bear in mind that gout has 

 been recognized for a very long time, and that it is moreover a disease 

 of good reputation. Yet, even if we assume that it has been noted in 

 every case in which it occurs among our 902 eminent persons (an 

 altogether absurd assumption to make), we should still have to recog- 

 nize that it occurs in over four per cent. Moreover, the eminence of 

 these gouty subjects is as notable as their number. They include 

 Milton, Harvey, Sydenham, Newton, Gibbon, Fielding, Johnson, 

 Wesley, Landor, W. E. Hamilton and Darwin, while Bacon was of gouty 

 heredity.* It would probably be impossible to match the group of 

 gouty men of genius, for varied and preeminent intellectual ability, by 

 any combination of non-gouty individuals on our list. It may be added 

 that these gouty men of genius have frequently been eccentric, often 

 very irascible — 'choleric' is the term applied by their contemporaries — 



* Sydenham, the greatest of English physicians, who suffered from gout for 

 thirty-four years, and wrote an unsurpassed description of its symptoms, said in 

 his treatise, 'De Podagra,' that "it may he some consolation to those sufferers 

 from the disease who, like myself and others, are only modestly endowed with 

 fortune and intellectual gifts, to know that great kings, princes, generals, 

 admirals, philosophers and many more of like eminence have suffered from the 

 same complaint, and ultimately died of it. In a word, gout, unlike any other 

 disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise than simple." And another 

 ancient (Father Balde) called gout Dominus morborum et morbus dominorum. 



