"Full half the time from seventeen to eighteen was passed in the sick-ward of Christ's Hospital, afflicted with jaundice and rheumatic fever. From these indiscretions and their consequences may be dated all his bodily sufferings in future life--in short, rheumatism sadly afflicting him, while the remedies only slightly alleviated his sufferings, without hope of a permanent cure. Medical men are too often called upon to witness the effects of acute rheumatism in the young subject. In some the attack is on the heart, and its consequences are immediate; in others it leaves behind bodily suffering, which may indeed be palliated, but terminates only in a lingering dissolution.
"In early life he was remarkably joyous. Nature had blessed him with a buoyancy of spirits, and even when suffering he deceived the partial observer.
"At this time (while a soldier) he frequently complained of a pain at the pit of his stomach, accompanied with sickness, which totally prevented his stooping, and in consequence he could never arrive at the power of bending his body to rub the heels of his horse. During the latter part of his life he became nearly crippled by the rheumatism."
Under date of July 24, 1800, Coleridge writes: "I have been more unwell than I have ever been since I left school. For many days was forced to keep my bed, and when released from that incarceration I suffered most grievously from a brace of swollen eyelids and a head into which, on the least agitation, the blood was felt as rushing in and flowing back again, like the raking of the tide on a coast of loose stones."
In January, 1803, he says: "I write with difficulty, with all the fingers but one of my right hand very much swollen. Before I was half up the _Kirkstone mountain_, the storm had wetted me through and through. In spite of the wet and the cold I should have had some pleasure in it, but for two vexations; first, an almost intolerable pain came into my right eye, a smarting and burning pain; and secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my seat, extremely uneasy and burdensome feelings attacked my groin, so that, what with the pain from the one, and the alarm from the other, I had no enjoyment at all!