258 Statements concerning Sir Walter Scott 



mercilessly. He also gave up exercise too much latterly, 

 when in Edinburgh ; but frequent bleeding was probably 

 not far behind as a cause of evil. 



It has been remarked — it is only of recent times that the 

 medical faculty have taken in what Eutherford taught — that 

 all disease is less than health, and therefore to be met by 

 keeping up the strength of the patient ; and at this time 

 there was no tradition of treatment which was of any use 

 to Rutherford's grandson. Cutting off fermented liquors 

 entirely in illness was doubtless injurious also. 



I am sorry to see a recrudescence of "starving" in s me 

 recent works. One is inclined to think that the fillip given, 

 at ruinous cost by bleeding, will follow. Nature seems 

 quite able to provide bleeding herself when it is wanted. 

 Lady Louisa Stuart, the last of the Traquair family in the 

 direct line, who lived to within seven months of a hundred — 

 dying then to the great disappointment of Dr Anderson, who 

 had hoped to point to a centenarian among his patients, 

 whose history could be authenticated from the peerage — 

 about ten or twelve years previously had had a violent 

 bleeding of the nose, which lasted for days; and, when 

 stopped, was brought on again by a fall, so that everybody 

 thought she must bleed to death. After about ten days 

 altogether it stopped, and she does not seem to have been 

 any the worse of it. 



Sir Walter would hardly stop for the monuments of 

 German chivalry at Inspruck, though they had been one of 

 his objects; but was pleased with the scenery of the Rhine, 

 the names connected with which were very familiar to him, 

 and it was when they emerged into the lower country that 

 the stroke came, which, Lockhart says, was the crowning 

 blow. He was quite insensible at first; but as the one idea, 

 that returned with consciousness, was to get home, he wais 

 lifted on board an English steamer at Rotterdam. At 

 Venice he had still been sufficiently active to scramble down, 

 though painfully enough, into the dungeons. Lockhart and 

 his wife met him in London, and he knew them and other 

 friends, but did not seem to know where he was. 



This went on for about six weeks, when he was brought 

 down by sea to Edinburgh. 



Lockhart's account of Sir Walter's first seizure is a caution 



