Charles Darwin's illness

A temporary page for working on a section of Charles Darwin.

While onboard the ship, Darwin suffered from seasickness. In October 1833 he caught a fever in Argentina, and in July 1834, while returning from the Andes down to Valparaíso, he fell ill and spent a month in bed. From 1837 onwards Darwin was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severe boils, palpitations, trembling and other symptoms. These symptoms particularly affected him at times of stress, such as when attending meetings or dealing with controversy over his theory. By March 28, 1849, Darwin felt that he was dying:

"I was not able to do anything one day out of three, & was altogether too dispirited to write to you or to do anything but what I was compelled. I thought I was rapidly going the way of all flesh."

Darwin diagnosed his own condition as "nervous dyspepsia" and on the advice of a cousin, he traveled with his family over 100 miles to the clinic and “water-cure” spa of Dr James Manby Gully at Malvern on March 10, 1849. Dr Gully had written a popular book called The Water Cure in Chronic Disease and identified himself as a homeopathic physician. Darwin was skeptical of homeopathy, and on March 19 he wrote:

“I grieve to say that Dr Gully gives me homeopathic medicines three times a day, which I take obediently without an atom of faith.”

Just eight days after arriving at Malvern, Darwin experienced a skin eruption all over his legs. After two weeks of treatment, Darwin wrote "I much like and think highly of Dr Gully." On March 28, he had not have any vomiting for 10 days (a rare experience for him). On April 19 Darwin wrote:

“I now increase in weight, have escaped sickness for 30 days, which is thrice as long an interval, as I have had for last year; & yesterday in 4 walks I managed seven miles! I am turning into a mere walking and eating machine.”

Darwin stayed at the clinic for four months. Shortly after returning home, he re-experienced his nausea, and he continued to experience digestive problems throughout his life, though he no longer experienced many of his other symptoms which he had experienced for two to twelve years (fainting spells, spots before his eyes, severe fatigue, and extensive boils) and was able to resume working. When Darwin's daughter Annie had persistent indigestion he took her to Gully's clinic on 24 March 1851. Gully repeatedly reassured them that she was recovering, but Annie died on 23 April. Darwin never returned to Malvern, but found another hydrotherapist, Dr Edward Wickstead Lane. Darwin's condition then was much as when he had first seen Gully, and Dr Lane later wrote

"I cannot recall any [case] where the pain was as poignant as his. When the worst attacks were on, he seemed crushed with agony."

The cause of Darwin's illness was unknown during his lifetime. Recent speculation has suggested he caught Chagas disease from insect bites in South America.

Hydrotherapy

Hydrotherapy, as practised by Dr Gully and others, was a treatment for chronic illness, and was conceived as working by promoting the "Power of Nature" to effect a cure. Treatment involved withdrawal from all drugs; according to Gully,"in a large proportion of the cases treated by allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by Nature and not by them"; that "in a lesser, but still not a small proportion, the cured by Nature in spite of them"; and that consequently, in most cases it would be better "if all remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned." Hydrotherapy involved removing all stimulants including alcohol from the diet, and required quiet rest and a degree of seclusion - the cure would not work, according to Gully, if attempted amidst the gaiety and distractions of city life. Gully asserted nothing miraculous or supernatural about the healing properties of water; for him hydrotherapy involved a clean and simple diet in restful surroundings and drinking mainly water, with frequent mineral water baths, foot baths, douches etc.

"The Power of Nature" was a term used by Dr John Forbes (1787-1861) in an article in the January 1846 issue of the British and Foreign Quarterly Journal in which he vigorously attacked both homeopathy and allopathy. Forbes had been a student of homeopath Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Fleischman, and was sympathetic to the intentions of homeopaths - and an admirer of Samuel Hahnemann, declaring that it was ‘but simple justice to admit that Hahnemann was a man of profound learning and perfect integrity, and that many of his disciples were sincere, honest and learned men‘. This sympathy did not inhibit his skepticism however; in Of Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease (Forbes 1857), Forbes wrote that “a large proportion of cases of disease [which] recover under homeopathy…recover by means of the curative powers of Nature alone.” and concluded that homeopathy is “one of the greatest delusions…of the healing art” and the only good that ensues from its practice is the reduction in “the monstrous polypharmacy which has always been the disgrace of our art – by at once diminishing the frequency of administration of drugs and lessening their dose.” (Chapter VII, pp 162-63).

"I was at the time so unwell that I was unable to travel which added to my misery. Indeed all this winter I have been bad enough, with dreadful vomiting every week, & my nervous system began to be affected, so that my hands trembled & head was often swimming. I was not able to do anything one day out of three, & was altogether too dispirited to write to you or to do anything but what I was compelled.— I thought I was rapidly going the way of all flesh. Having heard, accidentally, of two persons who had received much benefit from the Water Cure, I got Dr Gully's bookf1 & made further enquiries, & at last started here, with wife, children & all our servants. We have taken a house for two month & have been here a fortnight. I am already a little stronger & now have had no vomiting for 10 days. Dr G. feels pretty sure he can do me good, which most certainly the regular Doctors could not. At present, I am heated by Spirit lamp till I stream with perspiration,f2 & am then suddenly rubbed violently with towels dripping with cold water: have two cold feet-baths, & wear a wet compress all day on my stomach. I eat simply, dine at 1 oclock & take several short walks daily. Even in first 8 days the treatment brought out an eruption all over my legs. I mention all this to you, as being a medical man, you might possibly like to hear about it.— I feel certain that the Water Cure is no quackery.— How I shall enjoy getting back to Down with renovated health, if such is to be my good fortune, & resuming the beloved Barnacles."

Despite the benefits that Darwin seemed to experience, he remained skeptical about homeopathy. Three months after leaving Dr. Gully’s clinic, he wrote:

"You speak about Homœopathy; which is a subject which makes me more wrath, even than does Clairvoyance: clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are put out of question, but in Homœopathy common sense & common observation come into play, & both these must go to the Dogs, if the infinitesimal doses have any effect whatever. How true is a remark I saw the other day by Quetelet, in respect to evidence of curative processes, viz that no one knows in disease what is the simple result of nothing being done, as a standard with which to compare Homœopathy & all other such things. It is a sad flaw, I cannot but think in my beloved Dr Gully, that he believes in everything when his daughter was very ill, he had a clairvoyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep, an homœopathist, viz Dr. Chapman; & himself as Hydropathist! & the girl recovered.”

Even though Darwin was skeptical of homeopathy and of Dr. Gully's various treatments provided by Gully's team of practitioners, his quote above notes that he acknowledged that recovery occurred in the girl's health. Darwin's own health benefits from Dr. Gully's care in a short period of time was also significant.