J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1813 > Chemistry and Apuleia Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Symptoms and Treatments of Maltese Plague c.1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Symptoms and Treatments of Maltese Plague’ c.1813
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Symptoms and Treatments of Maltese Plague c.1813
D09889
Turner Bequest CXXXV 1
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 113 mm
Part watermark ‘C Wil | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in ink with plague symptoms and treatments (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXV – 1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page is taken up with the following notes by Turner:
<Matese> Maltese Plague
1 Symptoms. Sickness debility shivering [apparently overwriting a first attempt at the same word] heat thirst | Headach – | 2 Delirium | 3 Darkspots. Ulcers
Emetic 10 Grains of Epicacuina | Purge 5 Grains of Calomel 10 of Jalap | Tea spoonfull of Sal Mandereri [‘e’ inserted above the ‘a’] Evry 2 hours | Common drink Lemonade – Head shaved | Vinegar and Water applied with a sponge | to the Head and Body
There was a major outbreak of plague on the British-controlled Mediterranean island of Malta in 1813. Turner’s notes appear to be taken from the later part of a memorandum of 7 May 1813 issued by Ralph Green, head of the British military medical department there. This was reported and transcribed in William John Monson (later 6th Baron Monson)’s Extracts from a Journal (London 1820), pages 156–7, from which the complete text is transcribed below. Turner’s notes correlate with the seventh point onwards:
1st, That one individual only, from each healthy and unsuspected family, be appointed to go to market, and to avoid contact with others as much as possible. 2nd, That the number and names of each family be written and affixed to the outer door, and the members composing the same to show themselves when required so to do, as this measure will lead to the earliest detection of the disease. 3rd, That no animal food or vegetables should be received at market, unless in a vessel with water in it, mixed with salt or vinegar. 4th, That all excesses and indulgences tending to debilitate the body or mind should be avoided, and the greatest attention paid to personal cleanliness. 5th, The introduction of papers and parcels to be avoided; but, if introduced, to be fumigated. 6th, If an individual feels himself indisposed, to report the same without delay. 7th, The symptoms by which to detect the disease: 1st stage, Debility, sickness at stomach, shivering, followed by great heat and thirst, violent pains in the head, with giddiness and delirium: 2nd stage, Dark-coloured spots, and sometimes boils in different parts of the body, with swellings at or below the groins, in the armpits, neck, or side of the face, and not unfrequently small foul sores at the extremities. These last are the most certain symptoms of plague. The medicines recommended are, an emetic of 15 or 20 grains of ipecacuanha for an adult; 10 for a child: purgative, 5 grains of calomel, 10 of jalop, for an adult; the half for a child; and, after its operation, a sudorific; a table-spoonful of the spiritus mindereri every two hours in a weak liquid. Lemonade is recommended as a drink in the 1st stage, and shaving the head, and applying cloths moistened in vinegar and water, as well as to the whole body.
Signed by the Committee and Ralph Green, May 7th.
Although it is not clear whether Turner’s notes date from 1813, assuming Green’s memorandum was then in circulation or reported in full, or from its publication in some later source such as Monson’s 1820 book, the presence of notes apparently taken from a periodical of 1813 on the verso (D09890) suggests a similar date for the present inscription.
Turner may have feared that the plague would reach England, or noted the symptoms and treatment out of interest or for possible future contingencies. Thornbury gives a potted transcription, noting that it looked ‘as if Turner’s mind were tending eastward’.1 James Hamilton has taken Turner’s inscription as evidence that he had (or thought he had) the unrelated ‘Malta fever’, a common name for brucellosis (Brucella melitensis), sometimes carried in milk or cheese, late in 1812, when he complained to his colleague Joseph Farington of various symptoms and retired for a long stay at Farnley Hall, his Yorkshire friend and patron Walter Fawkes’s country retreat,2 though Turner’s reliance on an 1813 source seems to preclude an earlier self-diagnosis on these lines. John Gage had suggested ‘the Italian scene-painter, James De Maria’ (or Demaria; see the Introduction to the tour) as the direct source for Turner’s notes, on the basis that he may have provided some of the information on chemistry noted later in this book (see the sketchbook’s Introduction), although the apparent published source for the latter is now identified. Gage also notes ‘plague reports’ in the West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser for 6 and 20 August, 17 September and 8 October 1813.3
There are various medical notes scattered through Turner’s sketchbooks, another being a remedy involving camphor in brandy in the Liber Notes (2) book (Tate D12196; Turner Bequest CLIV a 53a).4
1
Thornbury 1862, I, p.359; see also close variation in Thornbury 1897, p.475.
2
See Hamilton 1997, p.156, and 2001, p.137, quoting Farington’s diary.
3
Gage 1969, p.226 note 13.
4
For transcriptions of these and others see ‘Appendix 2: Turner’s Medical Recipes’ in Hamilton 1997, pp.339–41; the present entry is paraphrased in Imms 2011, p.5.
Technical notes:
The whole page shows the offset of the large ‘X’ in ink, cancelling Turner’s accounts inside the front cover of the sketchbook (D41524), and there is also staining from the leather overlapping inside the cover.

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Symptoms and Treatments of Maltese Plague c.1813 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-symptoms-and-treatments-of-maltese-r1147844, accessed 24 April 2024.