Shakespeare’s Death

402 years ago next Monday the Playwright William Shakespeare died – well he is thought to have died on the 23rd April 1616. Aged just 52, he had recently retired to his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, where his body was interred in the local parish church on the 25th of April. That much we are confident about but we don’t know what he died from. Many years after his death a local clergyman, John Ward, wrote in his diary that

Shakespear, Drayton, and Ben Jhonson had a merry meeting and itt seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted.

The anecdote paints a suggestive picture of Shakespeare and his fellow authors Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton out on the town, enjoying themselves rather too much, but where the consequence for Shakespeare was a fatal fever rather than just a run-of-the-mill hangover.

Shakespeare’s Medical Son-in-Law

At the time of his death, the local doctor in Stratford-upon-Avon was Shakespeare’s own son-in-law Dr John Hall. Hall married Shakespeare’s elder daughter Suzanna in 1607, meaning the Shakespeares were well placed for medical treatment. After Hall’s death James Cook, another doctor, edited his casebooks for publication. These patient notes only offer a few insights into the health of the Shakespeare family, such as Suzanna’s bout of colic, and her daughter Elizabeth’s convulsions. So while it is reasonable to think that Hall might have treated Shakespeare we don’t have any specific examples of when, what for, or by what methods. We do know Hall treated Shakespeare’s apparent drinking buddy the poet Michael Drayton on one occasion for a fever. The 1679 edition of Hall’s casenotes records that

MR. Drayton, an excellent Poet, labouring of a Tertian, was cured by the following: Rx the Emetick Infusion … Syrup of Violets a spoonful: mix them. This given, wrought very well both upwards and downwards.

To translate: Drayton had a tertian fever, one which the sufferers’ fever spikes every three days, and Hall prescribed a medicine to induce vomiting and diarrhoea removing the corrupt humours from Drayton’s body and allowing him to recover.

Pigeon Slippers

Perhaps Shakespeare also took some of Hall’s syrup of violets whenever he had a fever too. That would surely be preferable to one treatment which was used on Dr Hall’s own body. One case note described how when he was in his fifties and suffering from a fever, his wife summoned two other doctors to attend him. The treatment these physicians settled upon involved live birds. Hall described how ‘a Pigeon [was] cut open alive, and applied to my feet, to draw down the Vapours’. While Dr Hall recovered, he doesn’t appear to have tried prescribing this cure to his own patients afterwards.

Perhaps the pigeon cure was the inspiration for these shoes which featured in the Ellen DeGeneres TV Show Instagram feed recently!

Maladies and Medicine

If John Hall’s medical practice has caught your attention you can read more of his cases in Maladies and Medicine: exploring health and healing 1550-1740, available now from Pen & Sword Press.

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