DR. BEECHAM’S TREATISE ON ANATOMY
OR, THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF MODERN DISEASES
by Dr. William Beecham
24th Edition, 1816
“Thank you,” Hazel said, flipping through the pages. She noticed a few notes in the margins. “You’re sure you don’t mind? Are there notes in it?”
Dr. Beecham waved her off. “Just scribblings, I’m sure. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my notes. Terrible deaths are happening in the heart of the city. Just terrible.”
Hazel sat up at attention. “I’ve heard about them! They say it’s the Roman fever back again. You! You were in a paper, speaking of it.”
“Yes, I found myself examining the bodies. Terrible, truly terrible.”
“Do you think it’s true then?” Hazel asked quietly. “The Roman fever is back again?”
Dr. Beecham looked stricken. He nodded. “It does look as though that’s the case. And there seems to be so little interest in the public when it’s the poor who die. So few who care.”
“My brother, who died—it was of the fever,” Hazel said, avoiding the doctor’s eyes. “My brother George. The last time it struck Edinburgh.”
“George,” Dr. Beecham repeated softly. “George. Of course. My deepest, most sincere condolences on his loss, truly.” He stared beyond Hazel into the distance for so long that Hazel wondered whether she was supposed to leave. Just as she was about to stand, Beecham spoke again. “Morte magis metuenda senectus. Do you know Latin, Miss Sinnett?”
“Only some, I’m sorry to say. Is it—er—something like, ‘We fear old age—’？”
“‘Old age should rather be feared than death.’” Beecham once again assumed that far-off expression, and he and Hazel sat in the silence for a few moments, listening to the fireplace continue to crackle and the whiskered men around them sniff and flip the pages of their newspapers. Finally, Dr. Beecham spoke again. “Well, I do hope that you study hard and pass the examination, Miss Sinnett.” The reflection of the fire glinted orange in his eyes. “Especially if the Roman fever has returned to our fair city. It might be you who finally discovers the cure.”
From A History of the Royal Physician in Practice （1811）：
The philosophy of medicine during the Tudor period was dominated by the notion of the four humours, found in the writings of Hippocrates （ca. 460 B.C.） and further developed by Galen of Pergamon （ca. A.D. 129）， the noted physician of Ancient Rome.
Physicians operated under the understanding that each individual had a dominant humour, or fluid, that governed their personality, and any ailment could be understood in the context of either an excess or deficiency of said humour. The four humours were: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.
BLOOD
Sanguine
Hot and moist
Friendly, frequently joking and laughing; have rose-tinted appearance and good skin
Air
Spring
Liver
PHLEGM
Phlegmatic
Cold and moist
Low-spirited, often forgetful; will grow white hair young
Water
Autumn
Brain
YELLOW BILE
Choleric
Hot and dry
Bitter, short-tempered and miserable; skin might appear greenish
Fire
Summer
Gallbladder
BLACK BILE
Melancholic
Cold and dry
Lazy and sickly; black hair and black eyes
Earth
Winter
Spleen
17
“OI!”
Hazel had been so distracted as she exited the Anatomists’ Society, so buoyed by her own purpose and determination, that she had taken a single, confident stride past the threshold back out onto the rain-dappled stones of the Edinburgh close and immediately collided with a stranger.
“I’m so s— It’s you!”
Hazel had meant to utter an apology, but she looked up as she was straightening her skirts and saw him: the boy from before the surgical demonstration, who had pulled her into the narrow alley and escorted her, like her own Virgil through Hell, to the secret place underneath the riser seating. He stood before her now, seemingly also too stunned by their surprise encounter to speak, and Hazel was able to get a good look at his face.
Yes, it was him, the boy from before, with a tangle of black hair that reached the nape of his neck, and the thin hooked nose bumped in the center. And then there were his odd gray eyes, which up close, Hazel saw, had irises rimmed in navy blue. Blue was laced in his clear gray eyes like poison dissolving in water. He was tall, at least six feet, but his trousers hit only at his ankles, even though someone had released the hem to make them longer. His shirt, too, was too short at the wrists, although Hazel identified no fewer than four spots where tears had been carefully sewn closed with clumsy but small stitches.