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Special pages :
Letter to Karl Marx, May 2, 1864 (1)
| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 2 May 1864 |
First published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41
TO MARX IN LONDON
Manchester, 2 May 1864
Dear Moor,
The outlook for Lupus grows daily worse. His state of delirium is getting more and more chronic. He still recognises the people who come to see him quite well, but in between times he talks in a completely RAMBLING fashion and it is only after taking a strong dose of stimulants that he has his more lucid moments. However, these moments are becoming dimmer and briefer all the time. Gumpert has very little hope now; his diagnosis is softening of the brain as a result of the prolonged headaches brought on by cerebral hyperaemia and of the insomnia thus induced. There’s no longer any question of Borchardt’s meningitis; he has accepted G.’s diagnosis and generally does everything G. suggests, though he seems to have very hazy ideas about the origin of the headaches.
Each day Lupus spends in this stupor, from which stimulants are incapable of rousing him, naturally makes matters worse and, if the next 3-4 days bring no improvement, the poor devil will go under either from debility or apoplexy or, if he pulls through, he’ll be an idiot. This alternative—death or imbecility—is really too frightful. Gumpert, of course, is extremely guarded when talking about his colleague but I’m sure of the fact that L. could have been saved if the headache had been properly treated and if, in particular, something had been done to enable L. to sleep. But it was not until last Thursday, after five weeks of insomnia, that B. gave him some opium. On top of that the blood-letting on Wednesday. He has persisted in treating him for gout, prescribing nothing but Colchicum and the like. It was only the onset of delirium that evidently caused him to have second thoughts.
There is another consultation at 9 tomorrow morning which I shall also attend to see what he does. B. intends to get a male nurse for him today. If only the poor fellow pulls through!
Your
F. E.