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Thomas de Quincey, Symptomatologist
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
For more than a century Thomas De Quincey has been regarded as one of the greatest fantasy writers among English authors. Critics list his works as the highest possible flights of imagination. He himself gave them the title of “dreams.” That there was a connection between his writing and his use of drugs has always been recognized, but always with the idea that the opium set him free to exercise his imagination. No one has pointed out that instead of being an imaginist he should be considered a clinical reporter of facts.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945
References
1 These three papers later formed the three final chapters of a volume called Reminiscenses of the English Lakes and the Lake Poets. A convenient edition in the Everyman's Library Series has been used for reference in this paper.
2 In The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey (London, 1896) David Masson quotes De Quincey: “In February … of 1809 … until the depth of summer Miss Wordsworth was employed in the task she had volunteered, of renewing and furnishing the little cottage which … I retained through seven-and-twenty years.” Vol. II, “Autobiography,” p. 361. “My cottage was ready in the summer; but I was playing truant amongst the valleys of Somersetshire… . In November, at last, I, the long expected, made my appearance.” p. 367.
3 De Quincey, Reminiscenses of the English Lakes and the Lake Poets, Everyman's Library edition, p. 322.
4 Ibid., p. 323.
5 Ibid., p. 324.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., p. 322.
8 Ibid., pp. 324-325.
9 Ibid., p. 325.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., p. 325. It is interesting to note that Scott was himself a victim of polio at the age of eighteen months, resulting in the loss of the use of his right leg. (The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott (Philadelphia, 1836), vol. x, p. 7.) He was four years old “when my father was advised that the Bath waters might be of some advantage to my lameness… . My health was by this time a good deal confirmed by the country air and the influence of that imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to which the good sense of my grandfather had subjected me… . Although the limb affected was much shrunk and contracted … the impatience of a child inclined me to struggle with my infirmity, and I began by degrees to stand, to walk, and to run.” (Ibid., p. 9.) Throughout his life Scott was lame. See also pp. 270-271 of Dr. Morris Fishbein's Modern Home Medical Adviser (Garden City, 1935)
12 “Letters on Demonology and Witchraft,” The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott viii, 7.
13 Ibid., pp. 6-7. It should be noted that in the summer of 1812 De Quincey's use of opium and laudanum was at perhaps its lowest point. He mentions that he indulges ordinarily only on Saturday night. It was not until 1813 that he suffered the gastro-intestinal attack that made him increase his use of the drug to extreme amounts. Cf. George M. Gould, Biographic Clinics (Philadelphia, 1903), p. 29.
14 DeQuincey, Reminiscenses, pp. 326-327.
15 Alexander H. Japp, Thomas DeQuincey (London, 1890), p. 129.
16 George M. Gould, Biographic Clinics (Philadelphia, 1903), p. 29.
17 Horace Ainsworth Eaton, Thomas De Quincey, A Biography (New York, 1936), p. 202.
18 Edward Sackville West, Thomas De Quincey, His Life and Work (New Haven, 1936), p. 102.
19 Ibid., pp. 104-105.
20 John Calvin Metcalf, De Quincey: A Portrait (Cambridge, 1940), p. 62.
21 For a brief history of the disease cf. the article on “Poliomyelitis” by Dr. John R. Paul in A Textbook of Medicine, ed. by Dr. Russell L. Cecil (Philaldephia, 1943), pp. 56-57; and Dr. George Draper's Infantile Paralysis (New York, 1935), pp. 12-13.
22 H. A. Page, Thomas DeQuincey: His Life and Writings (New York, 1877), i, 70.
23 Ernest de Selincourt, The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, 1811-1820, ii, 507-512.
24 Paul, “Poliomyelitis,” A Text Book of Medicine (Philadelphia, 1943), pp. 57-58.
25 Editorial, “The Modes of Spread of Infantile Paralysis,” The Journal of the American Medical Association, cxxiii, 14 (December 4, 1943), p. 904.
26 Albert Milzer, “The Effect of Temperature on the Transmission of Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus by Mosquitoes,” The Journal of the American Medical Association, cxviii, 13 (March 28, 1942), p. 1162.
27 Editorial, “The Modes of Spread of Infantile Paralysis,” The Journal of the American Medical Association, cxxiii, 14 (December 4, 1943), p. 904.
28 Paul, op. cit., p. 57.
29 Harry Beckman, Treatment in General Practice, 4th Edition (Philadelphia, 1942), p. 150.
30 Draper, Infantile Paralysis, p. 9.
31 Ibid., pp. 45-46.
32 Paul, op. cit., p. 77.
33 Draper, op. cit., p. 91.
34 Ibid., p. 142.
35 Paul, op. cit., p. 58.
36 Beckman, op. cit., p. 145.
37 Ibid., p. 150.
38 Draper, op. cit., p. 120.
39 Ibid., p. 49.
40 Ibid., p. 134.
41 Paul, op. cit., p. 59.
42 Draper, op. cit., pp. 140-141.
43 Ibid., pp. 131-132.
44 Ibid., p. 46.
45 Ibid., p. 49.
46 Ibid., p. 143.