THE GENIUS OF ROBERT BURNS

RAISE A GLASS OF SOMETHING ON BURNS NIGHT

It is Burns Night on the 25^th 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.