Such finding would seem to suggest that Sulphur might have done a great deal for Johnsons physical as well as mental health. Indeed, the two are indivisible a fact that was known to Montaigne many years before Johnson lived.
To explain just how Sulphur would have helped Johnson is not easy it is difficult to say how homoeopathic drugs act unless we accept the theory that disease is disharmony and that homoeopathic drugs, if properly chosen, restore that harmony by their action on the whole system.
Johnson was a complex character, therein lies part of his fascination. It is not generally known for instance that he had a love of fox-hunting equal to that of another literary figure, Anthony Trollope. He told Fanny Burnley: “To be sure, its the most contemptible delight that ever man took, and I never knew three men in the world who pursued it with equal pleasure that were not idiots.” (It was left to Oscar Wilde to call it “the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable”).
No doubt Boswells father was justified in dubbing his sons friend “Ursa Major”, but we should recollect Goldsmiths dictum: “Johnson to be sure has a coarseness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. He had nothing of the bear but his skin.”.
G.K. Chesterton said him: “Johnson was a demagogue; he shouted against a shouting crowd. Johnson was an insolent equal and therefore was loved by all who knew him and handed down in a marvellous book which is one of the mere miracles of love.” No doubt if he had been given potentized Sulphur he might have worn a clean shirt more often, and been healthier and happier, but he could scarcely have been better loved by his friends.
The British Homoeopathic Journal, Vol., XXXVII. No. 2.
