DEAN SWIFT'S DISEASE. 815 



giddy fit and swimming in the head. M. D. and God help me. 

 August. Sick with giddiness much. 1710. Jan. Giddy. March. 

 Sadly for a day. 4th. Giddy from 4th. 14th. Very ill. July. 

 Terrible tit. G d knows what may he the event. Better towards the 

 end." 



It is true that the paroxysms were not so numerous as those of 

 most other cases of the disease which are on record, and also that the 

 deafness never became absolute, and therefore that the disease never 

 ceased. It increased in intensity as life advanced, until it confined 

 him to his chamber for weeks at a time. It is also to be remarked 

 that a slight degree of vertigo caused great constitutional disturbance. 

 " I had a little turn in my head this morning, which, though it did 

 not last above a moment, yet, being of the true sort, has made me as 

 weak as a dog all this day." Journal, October 23, 1711. " This morn- 

 ing I felt a little twitch of giddiness, which has disordered and weak- 

 ened me with its ugly remains all this day." Journal, January 25, 

 1812. Another characteristic of the vertigo, noted in a quotation 

 already given, is that at one time any slight movement of the head 

 brought it on. 



It is certain that this feai'ful disease, aggravated with the increase 

 of years, had an influence in the causation of Swift's insanity ; but 

 that its influence was direct that is to say, by the extension of the 

 local disease to the brain is by no means so sure as its indirect effect 

 as one source of the profound depression which marked the latter 

 years of his sane life. We have no authentic account of the first out- 

 break of insanity, and Sir Walter's statement that, after his under- 

 standing failed, " his first state was that of violent and furious lunacy," 

 would seem to have been applicable only to that later period when he 

 suffered indescribable torture from some unknown local disease, pro- 

 ducing exophthalmos of the left eye. It is clear there was emotional 

 depression amounting to melancholia, and " much water in the brain," 

 which was probably sub-arachnoid effusion, is sufficient evidence of 

 dementia. But there was also that form of aphasia in w r hich scraps 

 of reasonable language come automatically, though intentional effort 

 can produce no words, and very curiously, in connection with this fact, 

 comes the evidence of the plaster-cast, "brought to light a hundred 

 years after death," that there was right-sided hemiplegia. The knowl- 

 edge of the importance of this fact also has been acquired since Sir 

 William Wilde wrote his work, and it is not, therefore, surprising that 

 while he so carefully and skillfully marshals the data upon which our 

 diagnosis is now made, he does not connect the right-sided hemiplegia 

 with the very peculiar affection of speech recorded by one of the two 

 authentic witnesses above quoted. Sir William Wilde expresses the 

 opinion that the hemiplegia had existed for several years before 

 death, " for we find the same appearance much glossed over by the 

 artist, together with a greater fullness or plumpness of the right 



