Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 -- Last years; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Dr. Bruno opposed this with the greatest warmth, and pointed out to
them that the symptoms were those, not of an alteration in the
disease, but of a fever flying to the brain, which was violently
attacked by it; and that the wine, the china, and the stimulants,
would kill Lord Byron more speedily than the complaint itself could;
while, on the other hand, by copious bleedings and the medicines that
had been taken before he might yet be saved. The other physicians,
however, were of a different opinion; and it was then that Dr. Bruno
declared to his colleagues that he would have no further
responsibility for the loss of Lord Byron, which he pronounced
inevitable if the china were given him. In effect, after my lord had
taken the tincture, with some grains of carbonate of ammonia, he was
seized by convulsions. Soon afterwards they gave him a cup of very
strong decoction of china, with some drops of laudanum. He instantly
fell into a deep lethargic sleep, from which he never rose.
The opening of the body discovered the brain in a state of the highest
inflammation; and all the six physicians who were present at that
opening were convinced that my lord would have been saved by the
bleeding, which his physician, Dr. Bruno, had advised from the
beginning with the most pressing urgency and the greatest firmness.
F. B.
DR. MILLINGEN'S ACCOUNT
Mr. Finlay and myself called upon him in the evening, when we found
him lying on a sofa, complaining of a slight fever and of pains in the
articulations. He was at first more gay than usual; but on a sudden he
became pensive, and, after remaining some few minutes in silence, he
said that during the whole day he had reflected a great deal on a
prediction which had been made to him, when a boy, by a famed
fortune-teller in Scotland. His mother, who firmly believed in
cheiromancy and astrology, had sent for this person, and desired him
to inform her what would be the future destiny of her son. Having
examined attentively the palm of his hand, the man looked at him for a
while steadfastly, and then with a solemn voice exclaimed: 'Beware of
your thirty-seventh year, my young lord--beware!'
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