ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1819, John Polidori fell from his gig. It destroyed him physically and psychologically. When he got home to 37 Great Pulteney Street in Soho, Polidori told his landlady not to wake him even if he were not up by noon. Polidori was deathly ill. She ran to get help, but by the time his friends came, Polidori was dying. They sent for two doctors, but when they got to his bedside, he was dead. In 1823, Lord Byron decided to help Greece escape from Ottoman dominion. Byron had the bold idea of attacking the Ottoman fortress of Lepanto, the site of a famous naval battle in 1570. Before the fleet could sail and the poet could show he was a second Napoleon, however, he fell ill. His new physician, Julius van Millingen, resorted to the usual remedy of bloodletting, but that only made Byron weaker.
