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1 <!DOCTYPE html> 2 <html lang="en"> 3 <head> 4 <link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css" type="text/css"> 5 <meta charset="utf-8"> 6 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> 7 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> 8 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style.css"> 9 <link rel="icon" href="data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 viewBox=%220 0 100 100%22><text y=%22.9em%22 font-size=%2290%22>🏕️</text></svg>"> 10 <title></title> 11 </head> 12 <body> 13 <div id="page-wrapper"> 14 <div id="header" role="banner"> 15 <header class="banner"> 16 <div id="banner-text"> 17 <span class="banner-title"><a href="/">beauhilton</a></span> 18 </div> 19 </header> 20 <nav> 21 <a href="/about">about</a> 22 <a href="/now">now</a> 23 <a href="/thanks">thanks</a> 24 <a class="nav-active" href="/posts">posts</a> 25 <a href="https://notes.beauhilton.com">notes</a> 26 <a href="https://talks.beauhilton.com">talks</a> 27 <a href="https://git.beauhilton.com">git</a> 28 <a href="/contact">contact</a> 29 <a href="/atom.xml">rss</a> 30 </nav> 31 </div> 32 <main> 33 <h1> 34 The first detailed description of living with esophageal cancer - 35 John Casaubon’s 1690 diary 36 </h1> 37 <p> 38 <time id="post-date">2024-04-12</time> 39 </p> 40 <p id="post-excerpt"> 41 John Casaubon was an English surgeon in the late 1600s 42 who developed an esophageal tumor in late 1690 43 and wrote about it in his diary 44 before dying in January of 1691. 45 It's harrowing, enlightening, and strangely beautiful. 46 This blog post is the only place in the world you can read the full transcription of the diary entry. 47 </p> 48 <h2> 49 John Casaubon’s diary 50 </h2> 51 <blockquote> 52 <p> 53 Monday Dec 29. 90. 54 </p> 55 </blockquote> 56 <blockquote> 57 <p> 58 At dinner I was almost choaked by swallowing a bit of a roasted Sd of 59 mutton which as I thought stuck in the passage about the mouth of the 60 stomach. But it suffered noething to goe downe and the stomach threw all 61 up, though never soe small in quantitie, to all our amazements the 62 sckilfull not knowing what 2 make of my condition. It being an unusuall 63 afflixion wch. my melancholi suggested it an extraordinarie judgment. I 64 could swallow about 2 spoonfulls about half way (as I thought) and then 65 it would flush up in spite of my hart. Some small humiditie or dropps of 66 what I dranck, rather distilld, or dropt into the stomach which afforded 67 a bare living nourishment and on a sudden I grew lean as a skeleton and 68 at some tymes very faint and feeble, although I recouerd in some measure 69 and had stomach 2 eate, my meate doeth noe gt. good and I am in a kind 70 of atrophie. What warme weather may do I cant’ tell, but hope well. 71 Alwayes after I have bine at Stoole I am for a whyle very faint or weake 72 which I much wonder at. It is a sine of gt weakenes certainly and of 73 insoaed decay. 74 </p> 75 </blockquote> 76 <h2> 77 Context 78 </h2> 79 <p> 80 A couple of friends and I wrote a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers16030618">paper</a> on the history 81 of esophageal cancer, mentioned elsewhere on this blog. 82 </p> 83 <p> 84 One of the neat things in the paper is the first full transcription 85 of a diary entry from John Casaubon, which is the first first-person 86 detailing of esophageal cancer I can find. It’s the last entry in the 87 diary, and from what I could gather he died within the next week or two. 88 It has been transcribed in partial form in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gtc.2009.01.003">other</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28952239/">papers</a>, but I had 89 to know what I was missing in the ellipses, so wrote to the archivist at 90 the Southampton City Archives in the United Kingdom, who was great and 91 sent me a scan of the relevant page. The copyright for the microfilm 92 scan of the diary is owned by the British Library (oh, the complexities 93 of copyright), but the text itself is ancient and therefore public 94 domain, so I finished the transcription and included it in the paper. My 95 transcription also does not attempt to modernize or “correct” any of the 96 spelling or punctuation: this is exactly what he wrote (including using 97 “2” instead of “to,” and the absolutely delightful 1600s British 98 phonetic spelling of the word “inside” as “insoaed”). 99 </p> 100 <p> 101 However! I should say, “One of the neat things in the paper was 102 <em>supposed</em> to be…” 103 </p> 104 <p> 105 Somehow, at some point in the revision process, a line in the 106 transcription disappeared. None of us noticed the omission, focused as 107 we were on other things the reviewers wanted tuned up. The transcription 108 is also present in full in my author’s working copy, so I have no idea 109 how a small chunk was omitted. There was no copy-pasta, I sent the 110 working copy to the journal in full. In any case, I wrote to the journal 111 to ask that the missing line be added, and, after a review process, was 112 refused. It doesn’t change the scientific conclusions of the paper, and 113 would require publishing a correction, so they said no. I pushed back, 114 as it is the only truly unique discrete data in the whole paper 115 (everything else is contextualization, arrangement, and interpretation 116 of prior publications). Alas, I suppose my humanist’s heart has 117 different priorities than the scientific journal’s editors. 118 </p> 119 <p> 120 So, now, this blog post is the only public place you can find the 121 whole transcription. That’s a bummer, I wish it was immortalized in a 122 PubMed-indexed journal article, but this is the next best thing. 123 </p> 124 <p> 125 If you are interested in what was omitted in the journal article’s 126 version, I split out the missing section below. 127 </p> 128 <blockquote> 129 <p> 130 At dinner I was almost choaked by swallowing a bit of a roasted Sd of 131 mutton which as I thought stuck in the passage about the mouth of the 132 stomach. But it suffered noething to goe downe and the stomach threw all 133 up, though never soe small in quantitie, to all our amazements the 134 sckilfull not knowing what 2 make of my condition. It being an unusuall 135 afflixion wch. my melancholi suggested it an extraordinarie judgment. I 136 could swallow about 2 spoonfulls about half way (as I thought) and then 137 it would flush up in spite of my hart. Some small humiditie or dropps of 138 what I dranck, rather distilld, or dropt into the stomach which 139 afforded 140 </p> 141 </blockquote> 142 <blockquote> 143 <p> 144 <em>a bare living nourishment and on a sudden I grew lean as a 145 skeleton and at some tymes very faint and feeble, although I recouerd in 146 some measure and had stomach 2 eate, my</em> 147 </p> 148 </blockquote> 149 <blockquote> 150 <p> 151 meate doeth noe gt. good and I am in a kind of atrophie. What warme 152 weather may do I cant’ tell, but hope well. Alwayes after I have bine at 153 Stoole I am for a whyle very faint or weake which I much wonder at. It 154 is a sine of gt weakenes certainly and of insoaed decay. 155 </p> 156 </blockquote> 157 </main> 158 <div id="footnotes"></div> 159 <footer></footer> 160 </div> 161 </body> 162 </html>