About Frederick the Great and my conversation with him shortly before his death
About Frederick the Great and my conversation with him shortly before his death are memoirs that the Swiss doctor Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann published in Leipzig and Karlsruhe in 1788 .
Frederick the Great died on August 17, 1786 in Potsdam "on a stick river". The terminally ill ruler had Johann Georg Zimmermann come from Hanover in the early summer . The doctor, valued throughout Europe, tells of his stay from June 23 to July 11, 1786 with the Prussian king in Sanssouci .
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Zimmermann remembers his last visit to the king in 1771. His compatriot Sulzer had introduced him to the ruler at that time.
Now, in 1786, the doctor and patient once again speak exclusively in French . Zimmermann reproduces the content of the conversation mainly in German.
- consultation
On June 20, 1786, Zimmermann traveled from Hanover via Braunschweig , Magdeburg and Brandenburg to Potsdam following two letters invitations from the king . When he arrived at night, Zimmermann lied to the officer on watch at the city gate that he only wanted to show his wife Potsdam. The arrival does not remain hidden from the king. On the morning of the following day at half past five a king's hunter knocked at the inn in Potsdam and asked Zimmermann to come to Sanssouci at eight. The doctor follows the call and is received “extremely graciously and kindly”. The patient - in boots - has put "a terribly swollen leg on" a stool. Zimmermann takes a closer look at the patient. The legs are filled with water up to the loins. The king spits blood, but the pulse doesn't feel like a dying man's.
After the first above-mentioned audience, Zimmermann found out privately from Mr. Schöning that the patient was not taking any medicine prescribed by the personal physician Professor Selle from Berlin, except for a laxative made from rhubarb and Glauber's salt .
At the next consultation, Zimmermann learns the whole truth from the king's mouth. The ruler had "adopted" Professor Selle because he had revealed to him the incurability of his illness too clearly. Frederick the Great now expects a written healing plan from Zimmermann, and right away. The Swiss doctor does not commit the mistake of his predecessor in Berlin. He doesn't write anything down either, but instead prescribes a remedy made from dandelions for digestive complaints with a feeling of fullness. The king initially does not take the remedy, but promises to take it. The next day old Fritz praised the medicine; promises miracles from it. Zimmermann cautiously contradicts: "But one cannot run into storm with an illness such as your Majesty's illness." Frederick the Great knows that he will soon die. The comment of the narrator Zimmermann: “It was absolutely impossible to do anything emphatic for the king. He himself wanted, basically just to be relieved, at most he wanted to see to it that he was ... eager to eat. ”The terminally ill person has an astonishing appetite - eats meringues , strawberries, cherries and cold meat for breakfast. Then he lets himself be heaved onto his horse and crosses the Sanssouci garden at a gallop. Then he vomits.
Old Fritz had eaten well to the end. Zimmermann writes that two days before his end the king ate half a spider crab .
- Other
Zimmermann also observes members of the king's dinner party, for example Count Lucchesini and General Count von Goertz . In one of the ante-rooms his gaze falls on a portrait of Emperor Joseph II. During the visit, the king reads incoming mail and signs each letter with a trembling hand.
“Cheerful and alert” the king talks to his current doctor about French literature, calls the two Englishmen Locke and Newton “the greatest thinkers among men”, Gottsched scolds a flat, obnoxious pedant and praises the Swiss members of his Berlin academy . The “Swiss love of the king” brings up a story from 1749 - the time when Maupertuis headed the Berlin Academy. On behalf of the king, the academy president was supposed to bring the “most important German scholar”, the Swiss Albrecht von Haller , to Berlin - no matter what the cost. Zimmermann can have a say. At the time when Maupertuis' letter arrived in Gottingen , Zimmermann had lived in Haller's house. Although Haller had not come to Berlin, the king later forgave him for staying away.
Zimmermann has to chat about his correspondence with the Tsarina . The king raved about the buildings in Potsdam and finally claims: "I never have a greater pleasure than when I can have a poor man build a house." Zimmermann stands up for Dr. Fritze, a doctor in Halberstadt . Fritze wants to renew the hospital system. The king pays attention. Although he does not know his subjects, he has him called to Potsdam and actually entrusts him with the supervision of the field hospitals in any future war times.
Quotes
- Friedrich II.
- to Zimmermann: "I am not afraid of death, only pain."
- on July 11, 1786: “My life is running out; I have to use the time I have left. It does not belong to me, but to the state. "
literature
- First editions
- About Frederick the Great and my conversation with him shortly before his death (Leipzig 1788): online from the BSB
- About Frederick the Great and my conversation with him shortly before his death (Karlsruhe 1788): online from the BSB
- Other issues
- Frederick the Great's Last Days. My conversations with him shortly before his death. From the knight von Zimmermann, royal personal physician in Hanover . Pp. 45–102 in: Frederick the Great Last Days. Memories from Johann Georg Zimmermann. With Zimmermann's tragic biography of Ricarda Huch . Rhein-Verlag AG Basel 1920 (1st edition). With a one-page report on this edition of DH (edition used)
Remarks
- ↑ Ernst Buchner writes that the stick flow results from an overfilling of the heart and the lungs with blood ( Friedreich's Blätter für gerichtliche Medicin, Nürnberg 1869 )
- ↑ Schöning was the king's chamber hussar. (Reference from 1808 to the Privy Council page no longer available , search in web archives: Schöning )
- ^ The old Fritz thinks of Beguelin , Merian ( Merian ), Bernoulli , Henri de Catt , Euler , Lambert , Sulzer and Wegelin . (Edition used, p. 68, 1. Zvo)
Web links
- Literature by and about About Frederick the Great and my conversation with him shortly before his death in the catalog of the German National Library
- WorldCat entry for the English edition Doctor Zimmermann's Conversations with the late King of Prussia by C. Forster, London 1791