Well, I learned the story from you for the first time, and then saw it on tumblr, so...
Mind you: I dimly seem to recall Münchow Jr. might have mentioned something like this in one of his two letters. Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing, because it sounds like the type of anecdote he'd include.
Well, I learned the story from you for the first time, and then saw it on tumblr, so...
Well, I learned it in high school [ETA: not literally in my terrible school, as you know, but during that period when I was reading everything on the 18th century I could get my hands on at the public and occasionally university library], so...*facepalm*
MacDonogh mentions it, citing both Thiebault and a 1997 article in the endnote to this paragraph. Now, Thiebault I would believe (despite his reliability issues, he did know Fritz for twenty years), but unfortunately, I'm not seeing coffee with mustard on the page cited (he says everything had to be very spicy, even the soup, but nothing about coffee), which means it may come from:
Hans-Joachim Neumann, ‘Friedrich der Grosse: ein medizinhistorischer Beitrag über seine Krankheiten und seine ärzte’, in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, July 1997,
if anyone has access to that.
Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing
Büsching says: Early in the morning he first drank a few glasses of water, into which a little distilled fennel water was poured in the later years of life, and afterwards 2 or 3 small cups of coffee, with and without milk. As a means of preservation against a stroke, he had a spoonful of white mustard put in his coffee.
While looking for that, I also saw that he has a date for the "days without sleep anecdote", saying that Fritz used to tell the story in his old age: 1734, while he was on campaign at the Rhine, "he tried, together with a couple of other young people, not to sleep at all, but be busy all the time, in order to live double the time as other people did, so to speak. With the help of large amounts of coffee, he made it to four days and then had to stop because he fell asleep at the table and his blood was running too hot."
Wikipedia reminds me that Büsching met Fritz, but didn't know him well, so it's possible something got changed in the telling (like how often it happened), but something like it must have happened (and perhaps it happened exactly like that all the time).
I also saw that he has a date for the "days without sleep anecdote", saying that Fritz used to tell the story in his old age
YAY! Look, I buy it totally, given 1) his lifelong commitment to at least minimizing sleep, 2) the fact that doing without sleep is an idea that occurs to a lot of workaholics, myself at ~16 included. ;) (If you joined salon late enough not to have heard this story, the upshot is that I was arrogant enough that I assumed that just because other people couldn't do without sleep didn't mean I couldn't, but finding out that *Fritz* couldn't made me think that, okay, this limitation probably applied to me too, and thus that I shouldn't bother trying the experiment. And I didn't. Thank you, Fritz, for nearly killing yourself with coffee so I didn't have to! (You are one of the few people my past self would have drawn that conclusion from.))
Also, the 1734 campaign date makes PERFECT sense for this experiment. (Note that he's also cutting down on sleep to study in 1736, and Suhm is trying to convince him this is a bad idea.)
I was going to ask whether the fennel water was mentioned in the "last hours" write-up. It's mentioned as the last thing he drank in his life (August 16) in numerous accounts, which probably go back to Carlyle, who evidently read this.
It's apparently used for medical reasons, including digestive problems (which Fritz had all his life) and water retention/edema/dropsy (which he had in his last months due to what sounds very much like congestive heart failure).
It's apparently used for medical reasons, including digestive problems
To this day, too, so not just an 18th century thing. I have drunk fennel tea for that reason myself, but I can't tell you if it made a difference or if there is any scientific proof for its effectiveness. It's also given to babies (mixed with milk!) when they are having digestive troubles, so it can't have hurt at least.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-24 08:11 am (UTC)Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 12:51 am (UTC)Brilliant!
Fritz: My servant put poison in my coffee!
Everyone else: What's the difference?
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 12:54 am (UTC)The Fritz of my youth and the Fritz of salon are slowly turning into a Ship of Theseus paradox...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 06:06 am (UTC)Mind you: I dimly seem to recall Münchow Jr. might have mentioned something like this in one of his two letters. Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing, because it sounds like the type of anecdote he'd include.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 01:33 pm (UTC)Well, I learned it in high school [ETA: not literally in my terrible school, as you know, but during that period when I was reading everything on the 18th century I could get my hands on at the public and occasionally university library], so...*facepalm*
MacDonogh mentions it, citing both Thiebault and a 1997 article in the endnote to this paragraph. Now, Thiebault I would believe (despite his reliability issues, he did know Fritz for twenty years), but unfortunately, I'm not seeing coffee with mustard on the page cited (he says everything had to be very spicy, even the soup, but nothing about coffee), which means it may come from:
Hans-Joachim Neumann, ‘Friedrich der Grosse: ein medizinhistorischer Beitrag über seine Krankheiten und seine ärzte’, in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, July 1997,
if anyone has access to that.
Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing
<333
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 02:20 pm (UTC)While looking for that, I also saw that he has a date for the "days without sleep anecdote", saying that Fritz used to tell the story in his old age: 1734, while he was on campaign at the Rhine, "he tried, together with a couple of other young people, not to sleep at all, but be busy all the time, in order to live double the time as other people did, so to speak. With the help of large amounts of coffee, he made it to four days and then had to stop because he fell asleep at the table and his blood was running too hot."
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-26 01:10 am (UTC)Wikipedia reminds me that Büsching met Fritz, but didn't know him well, so it's possible something got changed in the telling (like how often it happened), but something like it must have happened (and perhaps it happened exactly like that all the time).
I also saw that he has a date for the "days without sleep anecdote", saying that Fritz used to tell the story in his old age
YAY! Look, I buy it totally, given 1) his lifelong commitment to at least minimizing sleep, 2) the fact that doing without sleep is an idea that occurs to a lot of workaholics, myself at ~16 included. ;) (If you joined salon late enough not to have heard this story, the upshot is that I was arrogant enough that I assumed that just because other people couldn't do without sleep didn't mean I couldn't, but finding out that *Fritz* couldn't made me think that, okay, this limitation probably applied to me too, and thus that I shouldn't bother trying the experiment. And I didn't. Thank you, Fritz, for nearly killing yourself with coffee so I didn't have to! (You are one of the few people my past self would have drawn that conclusion from.))
Also, the 1734 campaign date makes PERFECT sense for this experiment. (Note that he's also cutting down on sleep to study in 1736, and Suhm is trying to convince him this is a bad idea.)
I was going to ask whether the fennel water was mentioned in the "last hours" write-up. It's mentioned as the last thing he drank in his life (August 16) in numerous accounts, which probably go back to Carlyle, who evidently read this.
It's apparently used for medical reasons, including digestive problems (which Fritz had all his life) and water retention/edema/dropsy (which he had in his last months due to what sounds very much like congestive heart failure).
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-26 06:51 am (UTC)Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-26 07:38 pm (UTC)To this day, too, so not just an 18th century thing. I have drunk fennel tea for that reason myself, but I can't tell you if it made a difference or if there is any scientific proof for its effectiveness. It's also given to babies (mixed with milk!) when they are having digestive troubles, so it can't have hurt at least.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-26 09:53 pm (UTC)It's also given to babies (mixed with milk!) when they are having digestive troubles, so it can't have hurt at least.
That I didn't know! And yeah, probably one of his least harmful remedies.