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Winston
Churchill's Illnesses, 1886-1965 Courage, Resilience, Determination
Allister Vale
and John Scadding
Foreword by Randolph Churchill Barnsley (Yorkshire) and Havertown (Pennsylvania): Frontline, 2020 Hardcover. xx + 522 pages. ISBN 978-1526789495. £30
Reviewed by Antoine Capet Université de Rouen
The general
public interested in Churchill is no doubt
familiar with Lord Moran’s 1966
controversial volume on his patient’s health, Churchill : The
Struggle for Survival, 1940/65, widely quoted in the
profusion of Churchill biographies which has appeared since then. More
specialised readers, either confirmed Churchillians or members of the medical
profession, are probably aware that Professors Vale and Scadding have been publishing a series of
learned articles on
Churchill’s health in medical journals for a few
years, and following this previous research they now offer us a
substantial book which not only extends the period covered by Lord Moran, but nuances or even contradicts him on many points. Even though it is often pointed out that medicine is an art, not a science
(as Churchill himself
does twice in his speech on the unveiling
of the portrait of Lord Moran in 1951 [207]), it does use the highly technical vocabulary – incomprehensible to the
layman – which one associates with
contemporary scientific research. So, in order to dispel any fear that the book
could be inaccessible to the non-medical reader, it must be said straightaway
that the authors always strive to give the explanation of technical words in
plain English.
One example will suffice, when they discuss the well-known ‘Acute Stroke in
June 1953 in London’ [Chapter 19]: The stroke consisted of a left hemiparesis (weakness of the left
side of the body). The dysarthria (slurring of speech) was probably in
proportion to the observed facial weakness, rather than indicating a cerebellar
deficit (a motor coordination centre of the brain). [227] In any case
these technical passages are mostly limited to the final clinical discussion
which concludes each chapter. The chapters themselves are arranged in
chronological order, and they follow the same pattern: a state-of-the-art presentation
and analysis of the large body of existing evidence (Churchill’s reminiscences
in My Early Life, the Official Biography and
accompanying Churchill Documents, memoirs
by his contemporaries, press reports, recollections and correspondence by his
family and entourage, including his male and female nurses – and of course the
medical records left by Lord Moran and the consultants who examined Churchill at some
stage in his long life), followed by a post
hoc assessment – as far as a retrospective diagnosis is possible so long
after the event, and without seeing the patient – of the nature (correct or incorrect) of the conclusions
and treatment offered by Churchill’s physicians at the time, naturally taking
into account the evolution of medical knowledge, of the aids to diagnostic
procedures and of the pharmaceutical prescriptions and other treatments
available since Churchill’s time. To take only two
examples of this evolution, the authors tell the lay reader that Churchill’s
blood pressure ‘regarded as borderline normal for a man of 74 […] would now be
considered too high’ [192], thus judging his doctors during his 1949 stroke
episode according to their lights (as Churchill would have said approvingly)
and not according to the criteria of 2020. And in their Introduction, they
underline the ‘huge medical advances since the time of Churchill’s death in
1965’ like the introduction of the ‘computerised X-ray (CT) head scan’ or the
‘magnetic resonance (MRI) scan’ [xx]. The
chronological narrative starts with Chapter 1 in 1886, when Churchill
contracted pneumonia at school in Brighton. Then follow 27 other chapters, 2-17,
19-28 and 32, specifically devoted to accidents, diseases, fevers, operations,
strokes, phases of convalescence and the terminal illness: all magnificently
documented and discussed from a medical point of view – which of course
conventional biographies do not and cannot do. Chapter 20, ‘Churchill’s Triumph
at the Conservative Party Conference in October 1953 in Margate’, seems to deviate from
this list of themes, but in fact it follows the usual pattern, ending as usual
on a ‘Medical Aspects’ final section. The last chronological chapter is, not
unexpectedly, devoted to ‘Churchill’s terminal Illness in January 1965 in London’ [Chapter 32]. As always, it
ends on a discussion of its ‘Medical Aspects’ – which itself does not end on
clinical, but human reflections as Churchill would have liked them: ‘Churchill
died with the greatest dignity. One might be forgiven for feeling that Jock,
the cat, understood how much Churchill meant to the nation and to the world’
[428]. In order to break what could have been the monotony of the
general structure, the book offers a short chapter of a different (and
entertaining) type entitled ‘Churchill unveils a Portrait of Lord Moran in July 1951’ [Chapter 18]. But four other ‘different’ chapters take us back
to serious matters. The first three are devoted to thematic aspects stretching
all through Churchill’s life. Chapter 29, written with Dr Ian White, a
Consultant Dermatologist, examines ‘Churchill’s Skin Diseases’ – an unsual
topic, not often broached in the great conventional biographies – and it tells
us that ‘Churchill was 72 when the first record of a dermatological complaint
is available’ [369]. The next two chapters, on the other hand, deal with
questions which have been extensively examined – seldom with the academic
rigour which they require and which the authors provide here: ‘Did Churchill
suffer from the “Black Dog”?’ [Chapter 30, co-authored with Dr Anthony Daniels,
Consultant Psychiatrist] and ‘Was Churchill an Alcoholic?’ [Chapter 31]. For
the authors, the answer to the latter question is an easy one, in spite of all
the common misapprehensions, if one follows the list of eleven possible
criteria for Alcohol Use Disorder (the current technical word for alcoholism)
defined by the medical literature: ‘We conclude, to use the familiar lay term,
he was not an alcoholic’ [409]. It is perhaps in the discussion of Churchill’s supposed
‘Black Dog’ that the general scepticism which pervades the volume about the
value of Lord Moran’s published testimony appears
most clearly, with no less than eleven pages [382-393] methodically demolishing
– there is no other word – his spurious psychologising and non sequiturs, often
based on invented evidence: of course the most damning of indictments in the
scholarly community. These pages alone vindicate the authors’ claim in their
Introduction: ‘We believe that our account of a supremely accomplished and
gifted world leader not only amplifies what has been published previously but
also sets the record straight’ [xix]. That they have achieved this objective is in no doubt. The
book also features a very useful 25-page comprehensive repertory of ‘Churchill’s
Doctors’ [Chapter 33], with many names that even seasoned Churchillians will
discover besides the well-known ones, from Dr Roose, the family doctor when he
was a child, to Lord Moran after 1940. Needless to say, all this is
abundantly and impeccably footnoted – curiously, though, the many medical
journal articles (most previously unknown to this reviewer) quoted in the notes
are not taken up in the Select Bibliography, which is just that, not ‘Works
Cited’, as it only lists the books mentioned. And as a further reservation
about the Bibliography, one may wince at the entry ‘Churchill, W. The Gathering Storm… Penguin Classics,
2005’ [495], with no mention of the original date of publication: one never
knows these days, some undergraduate somewhere might infer from this that
Churchill was well and alive in 2005, still writing his memoirs. In contrast, the copious Index is exemplary, giving the names of diseases and drugs as
well as people and places. Finally, one must not forget the 16-page central
section of Plates on glossy paper, which offers excellent uncommon photographs of many
of the nurses and physicians mentioned in the text besides more familiar
pictures of Churchill in various surroundings. Unreservedly recommended. No
serious Churchill author will now be
able to routinely quote Lord Moran as a source on Churchill’s health without
taking account of the decisive caveats introduced by this
fine monograph.
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