Writing patients’ histories

Abstract

On Christmas Day 1801 Dorothy Wordsworth wrote in her journal, ‘A very bad day … I went to bed after dinner’. Things had not improved on Boxing Day: ‘My head ached and I lay long in bed and took my breakfast there’. She recorded further headaches on 4 days in February 1802 and 6 days in March, including one spell of four continuous days. Her brother William, at that time engaged in writing many of the poems that would seal his place in the pantheon of English literature, was also afflicted: on New Year’s Eve 1801, Dorothy wrote, ‘William had slept very ill—he was tired and had a bad headache’. And again in February, ‘William [had] a bad headache; he made up a bed on the floor but could not sleep …’ (De Selincourt, 1935). ![][1] It is clear from Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals and letters that she suffered from recurrent headaches for much of her adult life. The earliest reference that I have come across was in letter written in 1787 at the age of 16; the last in 1829 at the age of 58, shortly before she experienced a serious illness while visiting friends in Halifax. The Grasmere journals, written between 1800 and 1803, are full of Dorothy’s headaches and bowel complaints, and there can be little doubt that her problem was migraine. She employed various means to deal with them—usually resting or sleeping, occasionally going for a walk and rarely taking laudanum. In February 1804, after a particularly severe attack, she wrote to her friend Catherine Clarkson, imploring her to ask the famous Bristol physician Thomas Beddoes what she should do: ‘I began with sickness, violent head-ache, yellow and pale looks … all times when I am not in uncommon strength (as I was before the last attack) … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif