ABSTRACT
The ailment from which Chatham suffered was diffused gout, probably complicated with Bright’s disease. In the weak physical state to which this reduced him, his nervous system, already overwrought by excessive labours, temporarily became utterly deranged ; and the prolonged fits of mental depression to which he had often been subject were now interrupted by attacks of excitement bordering on insanity. In the family there was undoubtedly a strain of madness : the grandfather showed it in his uncontrollable fits of savage fury, Chatham’s brother and two of his sisters by abnormal passions or ab normal violence. Chatham probably saved himself from more such attacks only by extraordinary self-control and constant abstemiousness. Unfortunately at this crisis he committed the care of his health to a new physician, Dr. Addington, hitherto known chiefly as a mad-doctor and spoken of by Horace Walpole as a mere empiric. Nothing could shake the confidence felt in him by both Lord and Lady Chatham. The King urged Chatham almost affectionately to consult one of his own physicians, but, ‘ sunk as his health was,’ Lord Chatham humbly submitted to his Majesty ‘ that his entire confidence is placed in Dr. Addington . . . and implores that he may be allowed still to pursue his direction without the intervention of another physician.’ Addington’s treatment of his patient would certainly not be approved by the faculty to-day. A sparse meat diet, very little alcohol, fresh air, and a warm, dry climate in the winter would now be recommended
for his ailments; and this was the regimen which Chatham had been wont to impose on himself, for he loved fresh air, was temperate at table, and delighted in horse-exercise. Addington’s treatment was almost exactly the opposite. ‘ My lord, I hope, goes on with animal food for dinner and abates not of his wine. I cannot recommend exercise in the air at present,’ he writes to Lady Chatham.
