A Dreamer & A Visionary; H.P. Lovecraft in His Time

Cancer of the small intestine is relatively rare, colon cancer being much more common; as a result, this cancer frequently goes undetected for years, even when patients are examined. Lovecraft, of course, was never examined until a month before his death, at which time it was too late to do anything except relieve his pain— and even massive doses of morphine seemed to offer little alleviation. It can be hypothesized why Lovecraft did not go to a doctor earlier, since he first experienced a serious bout of what he called indigestion as early as October 1934.²⁶ Lovecraft’s habitual term for this condition—’grippe’—is simply an antiquated layman’s term for the flu, although it is quite clear (and was probably clear to Lovecraft) that that is not what he had. But Lovecraft’s phobia of doctors and hospitals may have been of very long standing. Recall that his mother’s death was caused by a gall bladder operation from which she was unable to recover. Although it was probably Susie’s general physical and psychological debilitation that led to her death, rather than any medical malfeasance, perhaps Lovecraft gained a fear and suspicion of doctors from this point onward.

The causes of intestinal cancer are various. Chief among them is diet: a high-fat, low-fibre diet results in the greater absorption of animal proteins in the digestive tract, and cancer can result in this manner. Interestingly enough, in view of the amount of canned food Lovecraft ate, studies have shown that modern food additives and preservatives may actually inhibit intestinal cancer.²⁷ It is not that the preservatives in the canned food Lovecraft ate caused his cancer, but that their possible absence may have done so.

It is a difficult question whether Lovecraft’s kidney problems were related to or actually produced by his cancer or were a separate phenomenon entirely; the latter seems quite possible. Chronic nephritis is a now antiquated term for a variety of kidney ailments. In all likelihood, Lovecraft had chronic glomerulonephritis (formerly known as Bright’s disease)—the inflammation of the renal glomeruli (small bulbs of blood capillaries in the kidney). If unrelated to the cancer, the cause of this ailment is not entirely clear. In some cases it is a function of a breakdown of the immune system; in other cases, poor nutrition may be a factor.²⁸ In other words, poor diet may have caused or contributed to both his cancer and his renal failure.

At this point we may as well study Lovecraft’s anomalous sensitivity to cold, although what relation—if any—it had to his worsening cancer is impossible to determine. It has been thought that Lovecraft suffered from a supposed ailment called poikilothermia. This is, however, not a disease but merely a physiological property of certain animals, whereby their body temperature varies with the external environment; in other words, this property applies to cold-blooded animals such as reptiles. Mammals are all homeothermic, or capable of maintaining a constant body temperature (within narrow limits) regardless of the external environment.

Now there is no explicit evidence that Lovecraft’s actual body temperature decreased during the cold, although it could have; since he was never hospitalized when suffering from exposure to cold, no tests exist on what his body temperature was in such a state. We only have various anecdotes as to his symptoms on such occasions: disturbed cardiovascular and/or respiratory functions; swelling of feet (customarily an indication of poor blood circulation); difficulty in the manipulation of hands; headache and nausea, sometimes leading to vomiting; and in extreme cases (perhaps three or four times in his life) actual unconsciousness. I have no idea what this concatenation of symptoms signifies.

What could have caused this condition? There does not seem to be any actual illness coinciding with these symptoms, but one hypothesis can perhaps be made. Body temperature is, in mammals, almost certainly regulated by the central nervous system. Experiments with animals have shown that a lesion in the caudal section of the hypothalamus can result in homeothermic animals becoming quasi-poikilothermic: they do not sweat in hot weather, nor do they shiver in cold weather.²⁹ Lovecraft, of course, did admit to sweating profusely in hot weather, but claimed nevertheless that he had nearly unbounded energy on these occasions. Nevertheless, I believe it is at least possible that some sort of damage to the hypothalamus—which does not affect intellectual or aesthetic capacity in any way—caused Lovecraft’s sensitivity to cold.