RAISE A GLASS OF SOMETHING ON BURNS NIGHT
It is Burns Night on the 25th
January. Here on West Uist we'll be having a Burns supper and undoubtedly will be raising a glass or two in honour of Scotland's national bard.
The Padre will most likely be addressing the haggis:
‘Fair fa’ your honest,
sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the
puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your
place,
Painch, tripe or thairm;
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm.’
A life well lived
Burns’ life was all too short. He
died in 1796 at the age of 37, from a mixture of rheumatic heart disease and
probable endocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, thanks in part to dubious
medical advice to bathe in the Solway Firth. Many biographers have said that
his dissolute lifestyle caught up with him. In fact, it is likely that a
Streptococcal infection entered his blood after he had a dental extraction in
the winter of 1795. Poor nutrition was also a probable factor, for there were
three months of food riots until March 1796. On the day of his funeral, which
drew a crowd of many thousands, his widow, was giving birth to his fifth child,
his son Maxwell. She was literally without a shilling to her name.
The poet’s lumps and bumps
Robert Burns was originally
buried in St Michael's Churchyard, Dumfries, in a simple grave, but his body
was removed in 1817 and placed in a mausoleum built by public subscription.
When his wife Jean died in 1834 the mausoleum was opened so that she could be
laid beside him. Bizarrely, a plaster cast of his skull was then made to see
whether phrenology could show where the genius of Robert Burns was located in
his brain.
Phrenology was the name given
to a school of thought devised by a certain Dr Gall in 1800. Essentially, it
attempted to associate faculties of the mind with anatomical areas of the
brain. It was at that time thought that the contours of the brain were mirrored
by the contours and bumps on the skull. Interestingly, the phrenologist who did
the examination, George Combe, one of the foremost practitioners commented that
he had a remarkable degree of ‘philoprogenitiveness.’ This was a Victorian way
of saying that he had a high sex drive.
In this conclusion George Combe seems
to have been correct, for Burns was known to have had a remarkably active
love life. Of course, phrenology is now known to be utter nonsense, yet if you
are interested in the bizarre, if you go to the Robert Burns centre in Dumfries
you will still see this curious exhibit.
Happy Burns Night.
