Long hours, poor food, hard physical exercise, midwifery duties in the slums (long hours and little sleep) and time put in at the Battersea mission must have taken their toll. In October 1896, only a year after he had started at St George’s, Dr Rolleston, one of the Assistant Physicians supervising Wilson’s training, told him to go home for a week.24 An unusual suggestion, but Wilson had tonsillitis and was obviously run down. The illness may well have been psychological as well as medical. He had cause for stress: another of his sisters, his older sister Nellie (Helen Edith, 1869–96), a nurse at Leicester Infirmary, had died of typhoid in March after looking after one of her colleagues.25 After his enthusiastic start in London he was beginning to hate the life. He could not escape to the countryside often enough, he was shy and increasingly nervous of social gatherings (where he must have been a bit of a social disaster), he was under great pressure and was getting little sleep, and at twenty-four, he was beginning to wonder where life was taking him. His spiritual life could not sustain him completely. He reported episodes of ‘abject misery, almost suicidal, alternating with feelings of extraordinary freedom and happiness’ and he began to take sedatives.26 A break in Cheltenham and at the farm, away from the smog and pea soup pollution of industrial London, helped to recharge his batteries temporarily. Then back to London, where, like the Impressionist painter Monet, he revelled again in the startling colours of the amazing London sunsets caused by that same thick smog; back to the daily over-filled routine of hospital, debating societies, rowing, drawing and visiting art galleries. His father writes that he was ‘smitten to distraction’ by Turner but disappointed by Tissot.27 He moved lodgings again to the Caius Mission, near the River Thames, in the (then) slum area of Battersea. The building is still there. Although Battersea was as run down as Paddington, the move was sensible. The Mission was run by a couple, Mr and Mrs Leighton-Hopkins, who not only did their best to improve the lives of the slum-dwellers of Battersea but also tried to improve the life of their independent lodger by integrating him into their family. He wrote in November 1896, ‘Living here in Battersea is a really good healthy change for me, as I hate Society, and here I will have to learn to put up with a certain amount every day’.28 He also commented, ‘The Warden and his wife were real parents to me in their kindness’.29 This enlightened couple tried to look after him and to make sure he ate properly, but Wilson’s particular gremlin was out again. For the next two years he skipped meals to attend lectures or visit galleries. He heard Nansen (the famous Norwegian Arctic explorer) lecture at the Albert Hall in London: ‘a tall powerful fair-haired man with a good sense of humour and a good sense of pathos’.30 He became increasingly involved in mission work and ran an evening club for children two nights a week. On Sundays too, he was occupied with church work, writing that ‘croup, adenoids, eczema, fleas and lice were the commonest variations to the universal smell which was worse in the fine weather and worst with the girls’.31 Babies were brought along, to add to the general confusion. They had to be taken outside when they cried. Eye infections were so common that children who came to a lantern show with both eyes bandaged had to peep out from under the bandages for a few seconds, every time the picture changed.32 He became an ex-officio member of the Church Council.33 He walked miles on Sunday evenings to Marlborough Street to listen to his favourite priest, the Reverend Thomas Henry Passmore (1865–1941), who ‘never said a commonplace sentiment’ and was a forceful and original preacher who included a strain of mysticism in his sermons.34 ‘The little, fluent, hook-nosed, don’t-care-a-damn man – as sound a Christian as I have ever heard’.35
At St George’s Wilson inevitably joined societies. He sketched continuously. The specialists in the hospital recognised his talent and commissioned him to make drawings of their pathology specimens. He had to be quick and efficient, having to draw with whatever was available because of the rapid deterioration of the specimens. When he had to draw a diseased brain, he made do with an old paint-box, some throat brushes and shiny foolscap.36 Dr Rolleston, his supervisor, asked him to illustrate his book on liver diseases and a friend asked him to illustrate a book on fishing. More distractions, but at least these new ventures had the advantage of payment and allowed him to repossess some of the things that he had taken to the pawnbroker. But these further activities were excessive, since his medical work continued unrelenting. He was part of a ‘firm’, a number of students assigned to a particular consultant, doing surgery as well as midwifery. He wrote, ‘In the Hospital from 9a.m. till midnight, One accident after another’.37 Somehow or other he had to fit in dentistry as well. He wrote home that he had ‘nearly drawn three teeth (by mistake) in one go. A lower molar came out so suddenly that the impetus nearly brought two teeth out of the upper jaw; but I assured him he would have no more trouble with the lower one’.38 In 1897 he had to take two more exams that counted towards the final M.B.: Part 1 in the Easter term (eyes, women, operative and theoretical surgery and surgical pathology),39 Part 2 in the autumn.40 On top of all this he seriously considered the possibility of working in Zanzibar under the auspices of the Universities Mission. He told his sister that he wanted to work as a doctor rather than a medical missionary ‘which is more than one man can be’.41 Fortunately parental objections resulted in an agreement to postpone this idea, at least until after qualification. Such unrelenting pressure must have had an effect on the physique as well as the psyche, but 1897 produced one unexpected bonus; in the Caius Mission he met his wife-to-be, Oriana Souper, who was staying with the warden, Mrs Leighton-Hopkins.42 With Oriana, he instantly felt a rapport; here, he sensed was a woman to whom he could speak with freedom and confidence. For a few weeks after meeting Oriana he did not pretend to work but sat in Abercrombie’s (a fellow student) room, smoking endless cigarettes. After this period of dumbstruck idleness he wrote to his mother, ‘I have quite made up my mind to be a bachelor for life. I have thought about it a good deal recently and maybe I will write a paper on marriage sometime with all the symptoms and signs of acute love. They are very interesting when you come to think of them’.43 He was clearly hooked.
It was a happy meeting. Oriana Fanny Souper (1873–1945) was a good-looking young woman with clear skin, brown hair, a straight nose and lovely blue eyes. She immediately showed a sympathetic and intelligent interest in Wilson that was a balm to him. She could listen to his ideas and return them to him, enriched by her contributions. For his part Wilson introduced her to the concept of mysticism and intensified her love of nature. Oriana was the eldest of five children; she had lost her mother when she was twelve and, with a younger sister and three younger brothers, she was well schooled in responsibility and self-discipline. The relationship soon became a wondrous necessity for both of them but there must have been many times when they despaired of the outcome. They were to marry four years after their first meeting but during that time they had to put up with separation and anxiety: Wilson became so ill that Oriana must have assumed that he would die. He was to spend twelve months away from England hoping for a cure for his illness.
The beginning of 1898 was a spiritually happy time for Wilson since he read the Life of St Francis of Assisi for the first time. He was never a man of theory. He had to wrestle with the Church’s doctrine in the light of his own experience before he could accept it. Thoughts had to be translated into deeds to be of use to him. St Francis was a man who had rejected his wealthy and privileged background to become a poor and humble workman, who had started the Order on St Francis and who carried the stigmata of Christ’s suffering on his body. The saint’s life illustrated perfectly what Wilson, albeit in a very modest way, was striving for. By working for others St Francis epitomised all the truths Wilson had painstakingly worked out for himself. He wrote some time later to Oriana, ‘I admire the man more than anyone else I ever heard of, and that’s a thing no one can do without trying to follow him. I despair sometimes of ever seeing my way to it, yet I always feel that the method and the opportunity will turn up when it�
��s time’.44
Although the start of 1898 was spiritually happy, Wilson was now obviously ill. His father noted shivering, bouts of temperature, dry cough, aches and pains and headaches. When Wilson returned to London from Cheltenham after a short Christmas break he stoically ignored his symptoms and restarted his usual hectic round: church services, working at the hospital, doing double duties at the mission, going to art galleries. But his temperature and cough persisted. Bravely, he avoided mentioning his problems when he wrote to his parents to introduce Oriana who was taking the post of Matron at a school near Cheltenham, ‘There is a girl I have met at Battersea, a Miss Souper who is going to be ‘Matron’, she says, Useful Help I say, to the James’ School. You must be kind to her because she is a connection of Mrs Warden. But you will like her I think’.45 He seems to have deferred seeking medical advice (perhaps fearful of the diagnosis) until March, when he consulted his mentor, Dr Rolleston. He was sent home again. His father recorded in his memoirs the dreaded news that tuberculosis had been diagnosed by the physicians in London. His sputum had been examined microscopically and a Mycobacterium, an organism that can be associated with tuberculosis, had been seen.46 Immediate treatment was advised. His parents must have made the awful assumption that they were going to lose the fourth of their children. Tuberculosis was then a terrible disease caused by a pathogenic bacterium first identified by Robert Koch in 1882. It was ‘the perpetual spectre in the background carrying off the young the beautiful and the talented’.47 Half of the sufferers died.
With hindsight, it is unclear whether Wilson actually had tuberculosis or another serious respiratory disease. The evidence is inconclusive. What is certain is that he had a debilitating febrile illness with loss of weight, chest symptoms and subsequent scarring in his lungs. There are many types of mycobacterium; some cause illness, others do not.48 Precise details of the mycobacterium type found during Wilson’s illness are not available.49 An alternative explanation to tuberculosis is a chronic pneumonia, with the mycobacteria seen under the microscope being non-pathogenic contaminants.50 He certainly made an excellent recovery eventually; he lost his symptoms, regained his weight and, in the Antarctic, was one of the strongest man-haulers.
At the time, no one, certainly not Wilson, questioned the diagnosis. Tuberculosis had no cure and ideas as to the cause varied from divine retribution to vitamin D deficiency. Treatment, such as it was, depended on the patient’s, or his relatives’, income. Experience showed that high altitude and expensive spas or sanatoria might help cure patients, who were also given frequent high-calorie meals and obliged to rest for hours on verandas outside their rooms in the fresh, cold air. Exercise was forbidden in the early stages of ‘the cure’. These measures were thought to allow the tuberculous lesion to heal.51 So for many patients the diagnosis meant separation from family and friends, often for years, with death far from home a common outcome. Wilson would have known all this. He must have felt that his fate was to live a short life only. He could not think of a future with Oriana. Perhaps he was resigned to this. In the event he does not seem to have panicked or sunk into a deep depression, or become a hedonist like so many other sufferers, ‘I have got me a bit soot-sodden’ and he went home in apparent good spirits.52
In the 1890s spas accommodated not only patients but also any of their relatives and friends who could afford to visit.53 Patients and visitors ate together at communal tables, no doubt giving ample opportunity for uninfected visitors or lightly-infected patients to develop full-blown disease. If he did not actually have tuberculosis when he went, Wilson was lucky not to catch it there.
Back then, the diagnosis was made predominantly on clinical signs and microscopic examination; no specialised X-rays or DNA probes were available in the 1890s. X-rays were only discovered in 1895 and it was some time before chest radiography became generally accepted; physicians were suspicious of the new-fangled technique and the apparatus was low powered and the films difficult to interpret. Wilson does not appear to have had an X-ray, although the consultants at St George’s were aware of the development. Almost as soon as X-rays were available a ‘Mr Bennett desired to bring to the notice of the Board the desirability of occasionally having photographs taken under the new system for the discovery of certain injuries’. The hospital purchased the equipment, plus an officer who hopefully could use it, in 1898.54
Arrangements were made for Wilson to go to a spa in Davos, Switzerland. However he sidestepped this treatment and, with the agreement of his physician, accepted an invitation to visit friends in Norway. Here he would benefit from the advised cold air, sunshine and heights, as a member of a house party rather than ‘a patient’ in a spa. He spent the summer of 1898 as a houseguest in Norway with his presumably uninfected hosts and other guests. He got on very well with his hosts, Mr and Mrs Rice, and called the place ‘Liberty Hall’. Although obviously ill, suffering from chest pain and very thin, he was still physically strong enough to walk, climb, fish, observe birds, sketch and paint as he pleased.55 He sketched, wrapping himself to the eyes in scarves and puffing on tobacco smoke to try and ward off mosquitoes and clegs, but his fingers and legs were so swollen with bites ‘that they looked like German sausages’.56 However he managed to capture the beauty and the vibrant colours of Norway, writing to his parents in 1898:
Sunsets which get all the mountain flaming in yellow and red and gold, with contrasting greys and purples in their shadows, the red trunks of the Scotch firs blaze out like rods of fire, and the greens of the Spruces in the light all become orange and red. Then the snow patches become rose and blue in the shadow and the tones up from a yellow into a very light green and blue and then in a few minutes when you wonder what is coming next it all goes out. And you are left with sober greys and greens and mosquitoes. It takes a lot of yellow paint, a cast iron resolution and a power of tobacco to sit and sketch.57
He sketched and painted in the northern light from dinner to early morning and slept in the afternoon. He reported to his father that he was well and in August 1898 he returned home to spend the remainder of the summer at The Crippetts. However, secretly he still thought that he was going to die ‘and that alone brings extraordinary peace of mind’.58 He read the New Testament and this encouraged him. He said he was intensely happy. His intuition that he was still not well was confirmed by a medical examination, presumably clinical, which found ongoing signs in his chest. Arrangements were reinstated for Davos.
Davos was gloomy, overcast, cold, white and deadly dull, full of pensions and hotels. He was in a hotel initially. The regimen imposed on patients was strict but somehow Wilson managed, at least at first, to keep his sense of humour. He wrote that ‘all the conversation at meals is all on bacilli (the cause of Tuberculosis) and hearts and weights and Huggard, (the doctor), and expectoration, even among decent looking people so that one hardly dares clear one’s throat without feeling one has said something tuberculosis’.59 The treatment depended to a large extent on the patients’ temperature. A raised temperature meant active disease and this meant that physical activity and smoking, (which was surprisingly allowed in the sanatorium although patients were told not to inhale), were forbidden. No temperature meant that a gradual resumption of activities and smoking was allowed. Wilson was one of the patients with a temperature and he was therefore trapped, an unwilling prisoner, without the comfort of tobacco, the craving for which made him want to ‘bite everyone and run away’.60 Although, as his beliefs dictated, he tried to gain spiritually from the experience of suffering and to cling to his belief that this life is only part of a bigger picture, he became anxiously uncertain. It is easy to understand why. He felt that he was probably beyond cure, or at any rate without a useful future, and he knew that he could die in Davos, aged 26, separated from everyone he cared for, as happened all too frequently to other patients. His family did not visit and the wearisome days were spent lying for hours outside in the fresh air, attempting huge meals and listening to other patients’ problems,
‘becoming a cabbage’.61 He read, he sketched, he wrote letters – the ink freezing in the bottle – and his confidential, understanding correspondence with Oriana gained pace at this time as his reserves gradually melted away. He read and meditated, particularly on the life of St Francis anticipating death and trying to prepare himself for it.
But unexpectedly and miraculously, or so it must have seemed to him, his temperature settled to normal, exercise was allowed. He was allowed to smoke again. As his physical condition improved so did his confidence and his mood. He managed to climb to 800 feet, where he saw bear tracks in the snow and although the climb caused breathlessness, chest pains and dizziness, the attempt would have been completely impossible if his infection had remained severe. He went walking in snowstorms and returned exhilarated. By early 1899 he was definitely better physically. He started to skate, he made friends and, as he wrote triumphantly, he smoked all day. In spite of his definite clinical improvement he continued to look gaunt and ill and must have remained a concern to the doctors for a fellow-patient said, years later, that the greatest miracle he had ever heard of was that Wilson should have reached the South Pole.62 But best, from his point of view, was the fact that other patients started to ask him for advice. He continued to feel that this role was a blessing and he thanked God for the assurance that he was wanted. He wrote to his father, ‘I have come to feel that these last five months are an equaliser. I did too much during the last two years and now I have to sit back awhile. But I know there are one or two here who are happier for that very reason and that makes me as happy as anyone can wish’.63 Overall he looked on the months in Davos as an experience that he had benefited from. With better health and spirits he wrote to Oriana, ‘Take life as it comes and do what lies straight in front of you. Its only real carelessness about one’s own will and absolute hope and confidence in God’s that can teach one to believe that whatever is, is best. Don’t you think this is the key to happiness in this apparently spoilt and disappointing life’?64 By February 1899 he was out and about all day, filling a sketchbook with sketches of scenery, birds and local flowers. He found he could walk eight miles after a day spent climbing. Whether tuberculosis was the correct diagnosis or not, his respiratory illness had definitely resolved. He was allowed to ‘regain his freedom’ and go home in May 1899 ‘looking and feeling much better’.65 He had been in the Spa for the best part of seven months.
With Scott in the Antarctic Page 5