A health librarian and poetry: Robert Burns

Reposting on Burns Night 2022, but with a new title.  I think a new series may be needed.

Nothing new in PubMed about Burns, so last year's post is still good!

On Burns' Night it seems appropriate to write about Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, or one of them anyway!   Today, 25th January, is the anniversary of his birth.

Some of his poems, including Address to a Haggis, will be read all over Scotland and beyond (even in my house), tonight at Burns' Suppers.    As well as that light hearted verse, he wrote in Scots a wide variety of styles and on a wide variety of subjects - try A red, red rose, The wren's nest and A man's a man for a' that.    He took part in a grand project to, effectively, collect Scottish folk songs (perhaps the first of those is one he collected).   

There are links to many of his poems at the bottom of the Scottish Poetry Library's biography.  There are also lots linked from an archived BBC page.

The Scottish Poetry Library's biography says a little about his health (he died aged only 37), so this health librarian has been to see what there is in the literature (as we do).    That biography records he had heart trouble, allied with a rheumatic condition, and had tried immersion in the sea as a treatment, which might have contributed to his demise.

There are 16 items in PubMed found by burns r[ps].   One is definitely another R. Burns.    Of the ones that are the poet, there are some that discuss his poetry (Death and Dr Hornbook, and Address to the Toothache).

Then there are some discussing if he had melancholia, and some that discuss the cause of his death.   One of those discusses if he was treated with mercury, and there is one more that discusses mercury in his hair.

Two that caught my eye were:

Hansen M, Smith DJ, Carruthers G. Mood disorder in the personal correspondence of Robert Burns: testing a novel interdisciplinary approach. J R Coll Physicians Edinb. 2018 Jun;48(2):165-174. 

This is open access. 

It uses clinical diagnostic techniques (one author is a psychiatrist) and literary approaches to textual analysis (the other two are literature scholars) to explore Burns' letters as a source of information about his mental health.   It also gives an overview of biographers' approaches to Burns' mental health.

and

Buchanan WW, Kean WF. Robert Burns's illness revisited. Scott Med J. 1982 Jan;27(1):75-88. 

This I cannot access but the abstract indicates it reviews Burns' correspondence and indicates he may have died of endocarditis and rheumatic heart disease, although there are other possibilities.  From the abstract we see that the authors conclude there is no evidence Burns was an alcoholic (it seems from Hansen et al, above, that many earlier biographers decided he was).