Item of the month, July 2010: The name of the rose

Six years ago today, Francis Crick died of colon cancer in San Diego at the age of 88.

Most famous for his 1953 discovery (with James Watson) of the structure of DNA, Crick was also a keen rose cultivator, filling the garden of Wells Cottage, his summer retreat in Suffolk, with blooms. When the BBC wrote to him in the late 1980s to ask if he would participate in a proposed series ‘Portrait of the Twentieth Century’, Crick pithily replied ‘Nice of you to ask me but I think I’d rather water my roses’.

Sadly, there appears to be no ‘Francis Crick’ rose commemorating Crick’s scientific or horticultural passions. But a recently catalogued letter in Crick’s last set of papers poignantly uses a rose metaphor drawn from Umberto Eco to reflect on his last few weeks. Christof Koch, Crick’s longterm collaborator and friend, writes on 5 May 2004 to the neurologist Oliver Sacks:

‘Unfortunately, Francis’s health is deteriorating in an alarming manner. The various medications have made his mind drowsy and sluggish and it takes his brain hours to ‘warm up’ and be his usual decisive self. He is, of course, very much aware of his condition, which is deeply frustrating to him; but he bravely soldiers on. To me, Francis resembles… Sherlock Holmes, the embodiment of the perfect calculating machine, including that ‘all emotions… were abhorrent to his cold, precise, yet admirably balanced mind’. And so to experience Francis’s brilliant mind in this state of decay is sad, very sad… The closing words of The Name of the Rose come to mind: ‘Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus’ [‘The ancient rose continues to exist through its name, yet its name is all that remains to us’ (translation courtesy of Christof Koch)].

But despite Koch’s melancholy reflections on Crick’s waning health, Crick was still hard at work in hospital only hours before his death. Turning the pages of his draft of 28 July 2004 for the posthumously published paper ‘What is the Function of the Claustrum?' is enough to give even the most hardened researcher goose bumps.

This final ‘Claustrum’ draft marks the culmination of nearly 30 years of research by Crick on consciousness at the Salk Institute in San Diego. In works like The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994) he strove to place consciousness studies on a firm scientific footing, looking inside the human brain and studying the networks, connections, and firing patterns of neurons, which in his view gave rise to mental activity and consciousness.

Along the way Crick aimed to explode the myth, as he saw it, that human consciousness is linked to a soul, or a vital spark somehow separate from the ordinary biochemistry of the body. Crick may not have considered himself to have a perpetual soul, but the name and works of this hardy rose live on in perpetuity not only through his scientific legacy but also through his archive here at the Wellcome Library.

The final batch of Crick papers is due for release in autumn 2010, and the archive is currently being digitised for the library’s 'Modern Genetics and its Foundations Project'.

References:
Koch letter, 5 May 2004: temporary ref. PP/CRI/Batch 3 file 2/6
'Claustrum' draft, 28 July 2004: temporary ref. PP/CRI/Batch 3 file 27/8

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Clues in the Wellcome Library

We started 2010 with a post on material from our collections which had been opened under the Data Protection Act, on the case of Charles H.M. Kerr: from our records, patient of Manor House Asylum in Chiswick, but identified - after a little detective work of our own - as illustrator of some of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

Now, on the day of the 80th anniversary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death, we can announce the release of material with a more direct connection to Conan Doyle himself: letters written by Sir Arthur himself.

Whilst relatively minor pieces of correspondence, these letters have made us ponder the other material in the Wellcome Library's collections with a link to Conan Doyle: clues that when put together offer a portrait of the creator of the most famous of all fictional detectives.

Starting with the facts, a simple search on the Wellcome Library catalogue reveals a number of works on Conan Doyle. These range from biographical works to journal articles examining his career and the influences upon it.

Conan Doyle was a medical man, of course, training at Edinburgh University Medical School, seeing service as a ship's doctor on a Greenland whaler and later working as a general practitioner in both Plymouth and Southsea. His attempts to set up himself as a specialist in eye-surgery in London in the 1890s did not have great success, but by this stage in his life, his career as a writer - through the creation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson - was beginning to bear fruit.

Famously, the analytic deductive powers of Holmes appear to have (at least in part) been based on Dr Joseph Bell, professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh University during Conan Doyle's days as a student. And for those who want to see if Bell's powers of reason come through in his publications, a number of Bell's works are held in the Wellcome Library.

Always rather in the shadow of Holmes is the stories narrator, Dr John Watson - again, another man of medicine. From the Holmes stories, we know that Watson picked up a war wound whilst serving as a Military Doctor in Afghanistan, and literary detectives have attempted to ascertain at which precisely which battle. In the Wellcome Library, the Royal Army Medical Corps Muniments Collection contains letters and diaries from fellow military doctors who served in the same campaigns, so offering up the voices of real-life Dr John Watsons.

One of the other threads of medicine running through the Holmes stories is drug use - often that of Holmes himself. The Sign of Four memorably starts with Holmes injecting himself with cocaine, and this image of a stage portrayal of Holmes and Watson's adventures, illustrates Holmes' far-away gaze and Watson's tense consternation at his friend's activities.

Towards the end of his life Conan Doyle became fascinated with Spiritualism, and for some fans of his work, this sits uneasily with his creation of the eternal rationalist Holmes. The Wellcome Library's collections do encompass a range of works on Spiritualism, helping to assess and understand why the movement was so successful in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

And his interest in Spiritualism takes us back to Conan Doyle's death in 1930. As we wrote above, he died 80 years ago today. But, six days later, at a packed seance in the Royal Albert Hall, the medium Estelle Roberts declared the spirit of Conan Doyle had returned and was sitting in - to the eyes of unbelievers - an empty chair on stage. Whether such evidence bares out Holmes's famous dictum - "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth" - we will leave for others to judge.

But in the spirit of the serialisation of Conan Doyle's Holmes' stories, we will leave you with an unfinished tale from our collections. It's of Conan Doyle, fellow novelist H Rider Haggard and a mysterious hallucinogenic plant. For the moment - to paraphrase Holmes and Watson's case of the Giant Rat of Sumatra - we will merely say this is a blog post for which the world is not yet prepared...

Addicted artists and the corridors of power: archive material opened January 2010

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back…
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four: opening words)

Every year, at the start of January, the Wellcome Library opens various archive items to the public that have been closed under the Data Protection Act until this point. As usual, this year’s collection of expired closures is widely varied, the subjects spanning madness, animal experimentation, the skin pigmentation disorder Argyria, and the discussions of Allied leaders during World War II. The items’ formats include patient records, personal diary notes, fellowship applications and organisational subject files. But what do any of these have to do with the opening words of The Sign of Four, possibly the best-known depiction of drug use in English literature until Trainspotting came along?

Among the items opened are several from the Manor House asylum, a private mental hospital located in Chiswick House, south-west London, some of whose papers are held at the Wellcome Library. MS.6224 comprises a volume of case notes for male patients in the years 1906-1925. The very first case provides our link. The patient, Charles Henry Malcolm Kerr, is an artist aged 48 who arrived at Chiswick in 1906. The doctor examining him on admission takes up the story:

"He is described as being normally rather reserved, and has done some good work painting, his portraits having been accepted by the Academy…. Broke down last spring and became irritable & excitable. Taken by Dr Lord to his "home" at Hampstead, then began to smash things, & threaten, and evidently in a condition of absolute insane excitement, was certified & sent to the Priory."

From the Priory Kerr was transferred to Chiswick. What his problems were may perhaps be indicated by the following undated note inserted between the pages of the newly-opened casebook:

"Dear Dr Tuke,
I wish I c[oul]d have some more brandy: it is like being in prison to be deprived like this of ordinary necessities.
C.K.
Also if you c[oul]d lend me a hypodermic syringe I s[houl]d be very much obliged."

Another note sheds light on the syringe:

"Dear Dr Tuke
Last night, the morphia bottle was not found in my room: so Mr [illegible] refused to give me a dose at all: this, I regard as the most monstrous piece of insolence in a paid [illegible] I have ever heard of: but not by any means the only bit of impertinence I have been subject to.
The morphia you have given me has had no effect at all. Mr Savage said definitely that I was to have it in doses strong enough to have some effect. I have told you over and over again that I have to take morphia in larger doses than people who are not accustomed to it: but you never attend to anything I say.
C.K"

Finally, another undated note suggests possible withdrawal symptoms:

"Sir
For heaven's sake send me some brandy or something, I never felt so ill in my life. If I had been at my own home I c[oul]d have put myself right hours ago.
C.K"

But the link to Sherlock Holmes? Although the doctor making notes on Kerr’s admission concentrates on his portrait work, Kerr was also a book illustrator of some note, providing pictures for works by Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson – and Conan Doyle. In fact, when The Sign of Four, with its vivid opening depicting intravenous drug use, was published in 1890, it was with illustrations by Charles H.M. Kerr.

Holmes’s drug of choice is said to be cocaine rather than the morphia Kerr uses, but Doyle does make a reference to “the drowsiness of the drug” when talking of cocaine use in a way that suggests this is one of his notorious errors of detail and that, at least sometimes, Holmes should be seen as taking morphia. Does art imitate life in this case, or life imitate art? Did the illustrator work on a text describing a dependency he knew only too well, or only later fall victim to the same addiction? The case-notes await work that would flesh this out.

What is only too clear is that the two addicts had different fates: Holmes, famously, is weaned off his drug-use by Watson, but Kerr has a less happy end. On September 8th 1906 he leaves the Manor House for his wife’s care, noted as "Discharged ‘Relieved’", but a note below this comments "Died at Burgess Hill, December 1907", a little over a year later.

Elsewhere in the papers newly open, we find a notebook by Winston Churchill’s physician Lord Moran, containing observations on many topics including Churchill’s character and oratory, and the meetings of Allied leaders. In February 1945 he accompanies Churchill to the meeting of Allied leaders at Yalta and comments on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s poor health:

There was a good deal of talk last night about the afternoon Conference at the President's house. Everyone thought he had gone to bits physically and there was much speculation ab[ou]t the cause. It was at [illegible] that I first realized there was something wrong and that he was losing weight. Now anyone can see that he is a very sick man. It is not only his physical deterioration that they notice. He intervened in the discussion very little, his mouth dropped and he seemed to have little grip on things. He has al[wa]ys been short of knowledge about the subject under discussion but his shrewdness as covered this up to the present. Now, they say, the shrewdness is gone and there is nothing left.
Stalin doesn't seem to be taking advantage of the new situation…
Cadogan [Sir Alexander George Montagu Cadogan (1884-1968), permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office] told me he did not think Stalin liked the PM's theatrical style. He had noticed him looking at Winston when he was making gestures with tears in his eyes. I wonder if this only means Cadogan himself doesn't like this particular style of oratory…"
(PP/CMW/K.4/2)

This is one of only three items from the Moran papers to be opened this year, but these few are the prelude of a long series to come: January 2011 will see twenty-one items from that collection newly opened. Fascinating revelations can be expected.

From addicted artists to the corridors of power: the full varied list of items newly opened is given below. Readers are warmly invited to visit the Library and enjoy the sensation of being among the first people to read these papers for decades.

MS.6224 Manor House asylum: case notes, male patients (surnames A-K only), 1906-1925
MS.6226 Manor House asylum: case notes, female patients (surnames L-Z only), 1906-1925
MS.6334 Ticehurst House hospital: patient Certificates and Notices: Admission dates 1905-1909.
MSS.6347-6348 Ticehurst House hospital: Margaret Georgina Finch patient file (2 parts)
MS.6788 Ticehurst House hospital: Photograph Album
PP/CMW/D.6/1/1 Lord Moran papers: notes on London teaching hospitals and metropolitan regions
PP/CMW/D.6/1/3 Lord Moran papers: notes on teaching hospitals in the provinces
PP/CMW/K.4/2 Lord Moran papers: notebook containing miscellaneous observations on Winston Churchill character, oratory, meeting Stalin, Teheran, 1943
PP/HUN/C/1/7 Donald Hunter papers: Argyria
PP/RAS/D.41/3 Hugo Rast papers: patient file, Wladimir Wolkoff
SA/BMF/A.2/95-98, 100, 106 Beit Memorial Fellowship records. Files on: Eagles, George Hardy; Needham, Dorothy May; Chamberlain, Ernest Noble; Allott, Eric Newmarch; Denny-Brown, Derek Ernest; Irvine, James Tutin
SA/BRA/C.1/3/1 Brain Research Association papers: response to the 1979 Protection of Animals (Scientific Purposes) Bill and the 1979 Laboratory Animals Protection Bill (Includes papers from the Committee for the Reform of Animal Experimentation, The Physiological Society, the Research Defence Society, The Royal Society, and the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare)
SA/MAC/G.1/1 Mental Aftercare Association records: Registers
SA/MAC/G.2/5 Mental Aftercare Association records: Case Agenda Books
SA/RDS/J/12/3-9 Research Defence Society: files relating to the 1979 Protection of Animals (Scientific Purposes) Bill
SA/RDS/J/17 Research Defence Society: correspondence, 1980

All are described in the Archives and Manuscripts catalogue: simply search on the reference given at the start of each entry.

Illustrations: the upper illustration shows the first page of The Sign of Four. The lower shows Lord Moran aboard a ship.