The French Revolution was brewing many years before it came to a head, and Marat lived in an atmosphere of moral unrest and intellectual turmoil. But environment, like all exciting causes, requires a favoring soil or it will not produce insanity. The soil is the protoplasm as it exists in germ cell and sperm cell at conception. Was the soil of Marat's personality, his protoplasm, favorable to the growth of mental disease? Undoubtedly, yes. He, as a youth, became saturated with the doctrines of Rousseau. Boys of other types react in other ways toward such doctrines, most of them merely negatively, not having understanding, while a few, those having real intellectual acumen, can see and have sympathy with the portion of truth mixed with Rousseau's emotional idealism. He had great, indeed, overwhelming ambition, mediocre intelligence, infinite conceit, was very emotional (like the murderer who weeps to see a fly killed), had no real sense of justice, was a worshipper of the god Gab, and was entirely selfish. He had a little undigested learning, but no power of reasoning. He lived in a wild time, when the crooks and the cranks led the imbeciles, of whom there are many in every country, to wholesale murder. Marat wanted to be a leader. He believed that he could rule the country if only enough people were killed. He was shrewd enough to know, that if he shouted long enough and loud enough that he was the people's friend, many would believe and follow him. His creed was simple-all that the rich own belongs to the poor because they stole it from the poor. His theory of government was equally simple. If you do not agree with me you are not a patriot; if you are not a patriot the proper punishment is death. Therefore we will kill everybody who disagrees with us, and then we will have the millennium, the brotherhood of man. So he justified himself, and as time went on his murder-lust increased. His creed, thus far, would be interpreted by many as indicating criminality,

not insanity; but this opinion is unjust to him.

An important and unquestionable symptom of mental disease was his delusion of persecution. From the time of publishing his "Chains of Slavery" till his death, he was the victim of this delusion. True, he had many real enemies in the Revolution who would gladly have killed him, but everyone, the English cabinet, philosophers, men of science, everybody, was, from his point of view, intriguing against him, preventing his success in medicine, stopping by conspiracy the sale of his scientific works, keeping him from political power, just because they envied him. Another symptom was his megalomania. Statecraft, which the wisest men of all the ages have been struggling to master, he comprehended intuitively, with an infallibility of judgment equal to that of a god. Lacking all power of reasoning, of examining the facts of any question, weighing them and then drawing conclusions, he imagined he was a political genius, and more, a saviour of the people.

He belongs then among the insane, and is an example of paranoia of the political type. He presents the cardinal symptoms of paranoia, intense egoism, delusions of persecution, and an angry grandiosity. He has a common secondary symptom, viz., unlimited verbosity, the matter of his speeches being always the same, the wickedness of his persecutors, his own virtue, wisdom, and unselfishness. He had the paranoiac's intensity of manner in speaking, and the tremendous verbal diarrhoea which deceives the common man, who, overwhelmed by the cataract of talk, goes home feeling that the orator must be a profound thinker because he talks so well.

His moral code was wrong, and yet like all paranoiacs he regarded himself as virtuous. It was not a hypocritical pose. His career was cut short by Charlotte Corday, but some of his sane contemporaries say he would have been locked up as a madman in

a short time had he not been killed. They were right, because his obsession of persecution was growing stronger and stronger every month in the latter part of his life.

The alternative would have been the guillotine, which his political enemies would not have hesitated to use when infuriated by some special act of violence.

Here I shall detail an anecdote of value, as furnishing an insight into the character of the man, and as it prepares us for understanding that feature in his after-life for which he was justly distinguished-namely, his collectedness of mind and vigour of action in cases of difficulty and danger. He had embarked at Genoa, in a brig bound for Sicily. The captain and crew were Sicilians, and there were no passengers on board but himself and a poor Spaniard, who became his companion and messmate. Soon after quitting the land, they encountered a terrific gale from the north-east, with which the ill-found, ill-manned, and badly commanded vessel soon showed herself unable to contend. The sails were blown out of the bolt-ropes, the vessel was leaking, the pumps choked, and the crew, in despair, gave up the attempt to work the ship. At this juncture, Graves was lying on a couch in the cabin, suffering under a painful malady, when his fellow passenger entered and, in terror, announced to him, that the crew were about to forsake the vessel; that they were then in the very act of getting out the boat; and that he had heard them say, that the two passengers were to be left to their

fate. Springing from his couch, Graves flung on his cloak, and, looking through the cabin, found a heavy axe lying on the floor. This he seized, and, concealing it under his cloak, he gained the deck, and found that the captain and crew had nearly succeeded in getting the boat free from its lashings. He addressed the captain, declaring his opinion, that no boat could live in such a sea, and that the attempt to launch it was madness. He was answered by an execration, and told that it was a matter with which he had nothing to do, for that he and his companion should remain behind. "Then," exclaimed he, "if that be the case, let us all be drowned together. It is a pity to part good company." As he spoke, he struck the sides of the boat with his axe, and destroyed it irreparably. The captain drew his dagger, and would have rushed upon him, but quailed before the cool, erect, and armed man. He then virtually took command of the ship. He had the suckers of the pump withdrawn, and furnished by cutting from his own boots the leather necessary to repair the valves. The crew returned to their duties, the leak was gained on, and the vessel was saved. WILLIAM STOKes (1854).

I

T is now just forty-six years since Henry Bence Jones died, forty-six years in which wonderful progress has been made in that subject which was so dear to this man. He was one of the first men of our present era in medicine to value chemistry as an aid in the explanation and cure of disease.

He was born in England. William Bence Jones, the Irish agriculturist, was a brother. At twelve years of age he went to Harrow and at eighteen entered Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated with the degree of B.A. in 1836, M.A. in 1842, M.B. in 1845, and M.D. in 1849.

On leaving Cambridge he studied medicine at St. George's Hospital in London, and chemistry with Thomas Graham at University College. In 1841 he went to Giessen and studied chemistry with Liebig, to whom he was always attached by bonds of friendship and respect because of Liebig's wonderful work. He became licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1842, fellow in 1849 and was afterwards senior censor. In 1842 he married his cousin Lady Millicent Acheson, daughter of the second Earl of Gosford. In 1846 he became a fellow of the Royal Society and was from 1860 till almost the end of his life, secretary of the Royal Institution. In 1846 he was elected full physician to St. George's Hospital, resigning in 1862. He died at his home in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London.

Henry Bence Jones was an accomplished physician and acquired a large and renumerative practice. He was very well acquainted with the scientific men at home and abroad-a warm friend and admirer of Michael Faraday, whose life he wrote in two splendid volumes, and the physician and friend of Huxley. In Huxley's auto

Herbert Spencer was also a friend. In Spencer's "An Autobiography," he states: "Speaking of drugs, Bence Jones said that there is scarcely one which may not under different conditions produce opposite effects." Spencer also states that Bence Jones approved of the bed for invalids which he had invented.

Helmholtz3 had a great deal of respect for Bence Jones. In speaking of his trip to London, he says: "In the first place, I went to see Bence Jones, physician, physiologist, and chemist, hoping to get news of du Bois Reymond and of the chemist Hofman. But he had gone off to du Bois' wedding. In the evening I dined at seven with Dr. Bence Jones. Bence Jones is a charming man. Simple, harmless, cordial as a child and extraordinarily kind to me."

Bence Jones was also physician and friend of the celebrated chemist, A. W. Hofman. In the Hofman memorial lecture the following incident was narrated: "One day when Hofman was going his usual rounds in the general laboratory of the Royal College of Chemistry, a student standing not far from him poured a quantity of concentrated sulphuric acid into a thick glass bottle he was holding in his hand which contained a small quantity of water. The consequence was that the heat evolved caused it to crack and the bottom to fall out. Some of the acid splashed up from the floor into Hofman's eye. He had to be kept in a dark room for several weeks and during this time his old friend, Dr. Bence Jones, attended him."

Jones was also a friend of Benjamin C. Brodie, as is shown by the accompanying reproduction of an autograph of the late Sir Benjamin C. Brodie inscribed in his autobiography which is in my possession.

2 Herbert Spencer: "An Autobiography," vol. ii, 106 and 174.

3 Koenigsberger: "Life of Helmholtz," 109. 'Perkins: Proc. Chem. Soc., Lond. 1893.

I have found an interesting story of consultations held in Bence Jones's time, in a recent book." The anecdote is told by Sir T. Clifford Albutt. "Many years ago in the days of my studentship at St. George's Hospital, a case came case came under my notice. which I see as vividly as if the patient were still before me. A man of some thirty or thirty-four years, of vigorous frame and apparently of vigorous constitution, lay propped up in bed in extreme agony. He complained, when he could whisper to us, of intense retrosternal pain, never absent, indeed, but returning upon him in paroxysms. The pain radiated about the shoulder or shoulders, whether it extended lower down the arm I cannot remember. The respiration was restrained in dread. There were no physical signs to betray the presence of the disease within. What I vividly recall as if burnt into my mind, is the aspect of the man, bound on a rack in the presence of death, and yet, for the agony at the centre of his being unable to cry out. Consultations were held but to little purpose, save to certify that the case, if one of angina pectoris, was a strange one, because of its continuous if still paroxysmal character, and because of the fever with it. Bence Jones, whom no man exceeded in brilliancy

Ir Bence Jones.

from BC Beadic

with his kind regards.

Oxford April 1865

and rapidity of diagnosis, declared for acute aortitis. The patient died suddenly soon afterwards, and the necropsy justified Bence Jones's opinion. On the inner surface of the ascending aorta were groups of gray semitranslucent patches disfiguring the walls of

5 "The Sensory and Motor Disorders of the Heart," by Alexander Morison, 1914, 91.

the slack and dilated vessel; and let this be carefully noted-no other cause of death could be discovered. The heart and coronary vessels were healthy."

As a physician it has been said that Bence Jones's chief characteristics were, "Scientific truth, accuracy, and a dislike to empiricism."

During the last years of his life he suffered great bodily weakness and at times had a little irritability of manner no doubt due to his physical ailment. As a rule he was cheerful to the last and interested in the progress of the Royal Institute and of science. His bust stands in the Royal Institute and in St. George's Hospital, London."

The catalogue of the Royal Society shows thirty-four scientific memoirs credited to Bence Jones. He was the first to describe the occurrence of xanthine in urine'; the priority of describing alkaloidal substances in animals is claimed by Dupré and Bence Jones. They described an alkaloid which

6 Obituaries: Ber. d. deut. pharm. Gesellsch. 1873, vi, 1585; J. Chem. Soc., Lond., 1874, xxvii, 1201. 7 Quart. J. Chem. Soc., Lond. xv, 78.

they separated from the solid and liquid tissues of animals and named it "animal quinoidine." He was the first to describe that very interesting substance occurring in the urine, since known as the Bence Jones protein.9

Bence Jones's first scientific memoir was "On a cystic oxide calculus."10 Besides these memoirs, he was the author of the following books: "Gravel, Calculus, and Gout; the Application of Liebig's Physiology to These Diseases," 1842; "On Animal Electricity, Being an Abstract of the Discoveries of Emil Du-Bois Reymond," 1852; "The Chemistry of Urine," 1857; "Lectures on Animal Chemistry in Its Application to Stomach and Renal Diseases," 1850; “Lectures on Some of the Applications of Chemistry and Mechanics to Pathology and Therapeutics," 1867;"Croonian Lectures on Matter and Force," 1868; and "Life and Letters of Faraday," two volumes, 1870.

8 Proc. Roy. Soc., Lond., xv, 73; Ztschr. f. Chem., 1866, 348.

9 Proc. Roy. Soc., Lond., 1843, v, 673; "Animal Chemistry," 1850, p. 108; Trans. Roy. Soc., Lond., 1848, i, 55.

10 Med.-Chir. Tr. Lond. 1840.