ABSTRACT
Doctors are malignant or benign, like tumours. Though Lewis seemed to have recovered from his urinary disease and his four operations of the 1930s, his health had in fact been radically and permanently damaged. In October 1941, when Lewis was living in Toronto, his visual problems recurred. In December 1949, when Lewis’ vision began to deteriorate rapidly and he had difficulty in seeing the people he was painting, his eyes were examined and his teeth once again became the prime septic suspect. When Lewis returned from Canada in 1945 he was warned by an ophthalmologist that he had a growth in his skull and had ignored this condition for at least five years. In June 1950 Lewis and Froanna took two trips abroad to consult specialists in Switzerland and Sweden. By April 1951, when Lewis was overtaken by blindness, he seemed to have achieved a bitter acceptance of his condition, for he told Joe Ackerley.
