268 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. X. 
were spent at the Deanery. The best medical opinions 
were consulted in vain. The cause of the illness baffled 
the highest skill, but to the last it was hoped that the 
malady might disappear as mysteriously as it had come. 
Acting on the advice of the first doctors of the day, 
Buckland continued to hold his Deanery, the duties of 
the office being discharged by the Sub-Dean, Lord John 
Thynne. “Lord John,” writes Mrs. Buckland to Faraday, 
“ has carried on the business of the Chapter for my poor 
husband. You may judge how deeply I feel indebted to 
him.” But science proved unavailing. Nothing relieved 
the apathetic gloom and depression which gradually settled 
down upon this gifted man. As the symptoms became 
worse, his doctors recommended the quiet and fresh air of 
Islip, since medical remedies proved of no avail against 
the peculiar and apparently unprecedented malady of 
which he was the victim. 1 The sight of the garden and 
his favourite allotments seemed to cheer him for a time, 
but the terrible weakness, torpor, and loss of flesh rapidly 
1 Frank Buckland writes: “In a medical point of view Dr. Buck- 
land’s illness is at once most interesting and important. The best 
medical opinions could decide only as to the symptoms and treatment 
of the malady; the real cause of the cerebral disturbance, and 
consequent mental suffering, was never suspected, and was ascer¬ 
tained only after death. No symptom of it, strange to say, was ever 
exhibited in life, and even if it had been, medical aid would have been 
unavailing. Those who made the examination ascertained that the 
brain itself was perfectly healthy in every respect; but the portion 
of the base of the skull upon which the brain rested, together with the 
two upper vertebrae of the neck, were found to be in an advanced state 
of caries, or decay. The irritation, therefore, communicated by this 
diseased state of the bones above was quite sufficient cause to give 
