Then, “in order to rouse the vocal organs, I took two drams. Wine has been celebrated for the production of eloquence, so I put myself into violent motion and I think repeated it; but all was in vain.” It is hardly fair to comment upon this action of a man bemused with terror and aphasia that probably wine was the very worst thing he could have taken; for it tends to raise the blood-pressure. Not that it made much difference; Death was focussing his eyes on Dr. Johnson; the call was coming, and no earthly power could avert it. But apparently even Boswell nods; for after telling of Johnson’s terrible illness in 1783 he goes on to tell how in _1784_ he was able to put a woman on his back and carry her home. Well, one simply does not believe it; the thing is impossible; Boswell must have got his dates mixed a little; for to carry a woman, even though she were starving and the man a giant, is no small feat; and if the man were very old and had just recovered from an attack of aphasia, it would be absolutely incredible. Really, wonderful though we men are—in no way more wonderful than in our power of believing nonsense—we are not such terrible fellows as some say. After the paralytic stroke all the devils in hell seem to have settled upon the poor old gentleman, with their gout, dropsy, and continual fear of death. Probably the gout was simply another manifestation of the defect of metabolism—faulty chemical physiological process, or dystrophy—that had caused his high blood-pressure. The asthma and oppression in his chest were probably due to a failing heart; and thence also doubtless came the dropsy; for dropsy is not a disease—it is a symptom of many things, generally cardiac or renal. And his cough became exceedingly troublesome, possibly due to congestion of the base of his lungs that would be caused in a way much the same as caused the dropsy; he was becoming “water-logged.” A rather remarkable thing is that, once having become filled up with dropsy, he got rid of it apparently suddenly. If I remember rightly Dr. Johnson was taking squills at the time, and squills is still used for getting rid of fluid from the body, though it has been supplanted by more efficient drugs. One might perhaps think that hope told Johnson a flattering tale, but he says expressly that he got rid of twenty pints. Queer things happen in dropsy, and even such a pseudo-miracle as Johnson’s is not unknown. Once water-logged with dropsy, legs, belly, lungs and all, it would have seemed to require a miracle to get him emptied, and miracles seldom happen.