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ELSON'S COLUMN: It really is all in the mind; Dr Samuel Johnson was convulsed with tics C E LSON'S.(Comment)

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From: Daily Post (Liverpool, England)
Date: 20031020
Author:

Byline: PETER ELSON

THE giants of history take on an immortal tone that completely detaches them from their physical reality.

Yet Edward Gibb on, who wrote the monolithic six-volumeDeclineand Fall of the Roman Empire , was far from the colossus that one imagines.

He was a 4ft 8 ins fatty,nicknamed Chubby-Chubb .His overweight condition was worsened by a love of fine wines which caused chronic gout and endless pain. He also suffered from a testicular swelling which smelled and eventually killed him.

Lawrence Sterne wrote one of the seminal English comic ...

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