Your letter of friday & Saturday (30th & 1st)2 came to hand this afternoon and has made me feel very anxious for you. I fear you are suffering a great deal. I have written to Osler3 urging him to try and do something to releive that horrible irritation of the bladder that keeps you getting up so much at night and it seems to me imperative that the bowels should be kept open. I fear that Osler is too busy to give you the attention you require and it seems to me that you ought to have him recommend a good man who would see you every day, and twice a day if necessary while O. himself loc_es.00501.jpg would come over from time to time and see you with him. I have also written to Traubel4 urging him to make some arrangement by which you will be seen at least once a day by some good doctor—I wish I could be with you but that is impossible at present. I shall hope to hear very soon that proper arrangements have been made and that you are more comfortable
I am always affectionately yours R M Bucke loc_es.00498.jpg loc_es.00499.jpgCorrespondent:
Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).