In his statement he mentions that he has cough,
shortness of breath, wasting, a purulent expectoration, loss of
appetite at times, loss of strength, fever, a rapid pulse,
intervals of slight improvement and subsequent exacerbations.
"This shortness of breath, he says, has steadily increased. This
group of symptoms makes it certain that he had tuberculosis of
the lungs, in other words, was slowly progressing in consumption.
"His darting pains in his side were due to the pleurisy which
always occurs in such an illness.
"His account shows also the absence of hopelessness which is a
characteristic state of mind in patients with pulmonary
tuberculosis.
"I do not think that the opinion of the Montpellier professor
deserves Smollett's condemnation. It seems to me both careful and
sensible and contains all the knowledge of its time. Smollett,
with an inconsistency not uncommon in patients who feel that they
have a serious disease, would not go in person to the Professor,
for he felt that from his appearance the Professor would be sure
to tell him he had consumption. He half hoped for some other view
of the written case in spite of its explicit statements, and when
Professor F - wrote that the patient had tubercles in his lungs,
this was displeasing to poor Smollett, who had hoped against hope
to receive - some other opinion than the only possible one, viz.,
that he undoubtedly had a consumption certain to prove fatal."
The cruel truth was not to be evaded.
