810 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In 1728, in " about eight months," says Wilde, " he had half a 

 dozen attacks of the giddiness and sickness, each of which lasted 

 about three weeks." But in 1731 he wrote to Mr. Gay, " The giddi- 

 ness I was subject to, instead of coming seldom and violent, now con- 

 stantly attends me more or less, though in a more peaceable manner, 

 yet such as Avill not qualify me to live among the young and healthy." 

 In 1736, writing to Pope, " years and infirmities have quite broke me. 

 I mean that continual disorder in my head." In 1737, to Alderman 

 Barker, " I am forced to tell you my health is much decayed ; my 

 deafness and giddiness more frequent ; spirits I have none left ; my 

 memory is almost gone." 



Long before, however, these symptoms had commenced. Impair- 

 ment of memory he complained of as early as 1713, after the attack 

 of shingles ; and later on in the same year he speaks of his horrible 

 melancholy changing into dullness, and from thenceforth increasing 

 irritability of temper and mental depression are traceable throughout 

 his history and correspondence. Not that he was at any time really 

 of unsound mind or incapable ; for, when in 1737, in the Bettesworth 

 affair, a gratifying address was presented to him, it i s recorded that 

 " when this paper was delivered Swift was in bed, giddy and deaf, 

 having been some time before seized with one of his fits ; but he dic- 

 tated an answer in which there is all the dignity of habitual pre-emi- 

 nence and all the resignation of humble piety." 



The above quotations are but a selection from a far greater number 

 of references which might be made to Swift's letters and journals, 

 affording conclusive evidence, as I venture to think, that he suffered 

 from twenty years of age from the disease, whose characteristic 

 symptoms are, " that the patient is suddenly seized with vertigo and a 

 feeling of nausea or positive sickness, with great constitutional de- 

 pression and faintness. Usually the giddiness comes on simultane- 

 ously with ringing or buzzing in one or, it may be, both ears." Fer- 

 rier. 



It has this year been pointed out by Fere, in the " Revue de Mede- 

 cine," that there are two forms of the disease to be recognized, " une 

 forme grave avec etat vertigineux a peu pres permanent interrompu 

 par les paroxysmes, et une forme moins facheuse, constitute par des 

 acces separes par des periodes de sante parfaite. . . . Dans la forme 

 benigne [of which Swift's was an example] les acces ne se produisent 

 quelquefois qu'il des distances tres eloignees. E. Meniere cite une 

 malade qui eut une remission de onze mois. Pendant ces periodes 

 d'accalmie, la surdite persiste avec une intensite variable, et elle s'ac- 

 compagne souvent des sensations subjectives intermittentes de l'ouie. 

 La maladie elle-mume dure tant que la surdite n'est pas absolue." 



Up to the date to which we have traced the progress of the dis- 

 ease, it appears to have been purely a physical malady, with no mental 

 symptoms, unless some degree of loss of memory can be so called. 



