12.5. Faraday’s Health#
Faraday’s health was a constant concern in his 50s and later. He might have suffered from mercury poisoning. He was terribly worried about his memory losses and found that only trips to the country and a heavily-enforced isolation from anything scientific would restore him to working form. However, he had to exit himself for a couple of years to recover from a particularly bad episode and it never quite left him alone after that.
Faraday continued to experiment and unravel a number of mysteries in both chemistry and physics. He never forgot his modest education and worked hard to perfect a speaking and demonstration ability, giving many public talks in London through his senior years.
What we take from Faraday’s work is of course the list of phenomena that he demonstrated. But, as important, or maybe even more so since other natural scientists would have come upon these same events. It was rather that mathematical intuition which when combined with his naivety about how things were “supposed” to be, that is his enduring contribution. Those lines of force, which he carefully mapped and measured in a number of electrical and magnetic configurations were the direct inspiration to arguably the most accomplished mathematical physicist apart from Newton and Einstein.
He died at the age of 73. Increasingly aware of his inability to remember and function, he resigned from the Royal Institution. His last lecture was given on a Friday and his notes bear some scorch marks where apparently they got too close to an open flame. He announced his retirement at that lecture to what must have been a stunned audience.
“It is with the deepest feeling that I address you.\ I entered the Royal Institution in March 1813, nearly forty-nine years ago, and, with exception of a comparatively short period, during which I was absent on the Continent with Sir Humphry Davy, have been with you ever since.\ During that time I have been most happy in your kindness, and in the fostering care which the Royal Institution has bestowed upon me. I am very thankful to you, and your predecessors for the unswerving encouragement and support which you have given me during that period. My life has been a happy one and all I desired. During its progress I have tried to make a fitting return for it to the Royal Institution and through it to Science.\ But the progress of years (now amounting in number to threescore and ten) having brought forth first the period of development, and then that of maturity, have ultimately produced for me that of gentle decay. This has taken place in such a manner as to render the evening of life a blessing:—for whilst increasing physical weakness occurs, a full share of health free from pain is granted with it; and whilst memory and certain other faculties of the mind diminish, my good spirits and cheerfulness do not diminish with them.
Still I am not able to do as I have done. I am not competent to perform as I wish, the delightful duty of teaching in the Theatre of the Royal Institution, and I now ask you (in consideration for me) to accept my resignation of the Juvenile lectures… I may truly say, that such has been the pleasure of the occupation to me, that my regret must be greater than yours need or can be.”
He and his wife, Sarah, never had children but they were very content with one another, as evident in a letter her on one of his last trips,
“My head is full, and my heart also, but my recollection rapidly fails, even as regards the friends that are in the room with me. You will have to resume your old function of being a pillow to my mind, and a rest, a happy-making wife.”
He referred to himself as “altogether a very tottering and helpless thing, and requested a small funeral, attended by only his family. He died in 1867 and at the ceremony planned for family, friends and colleagues “came out from the shrubbery” to say goodbye.
The Times of London obituary said in part,
The Late Professor Faraday “The world of science lost on Sunday one of its most assiduous and enthusiastic members. The life of Michael Faraday had been spent from early manhood in the single pursuit of scientific discovery, and through his years extended to 73, he preserved to the end the freshness and vivacity of youth in the exposition of his favourite subjects, coupled with a measure of simplicity which youth never attains…as a man of science he was gifted with the rarest of felicity of experimenting…It was this peculiar combination which made his lectures attractive to crowded audiences in Albemarle-street for so many years, and which brought, Christmas upon Christmas, troops of young people to attend his expositions of scientific processes and scientific discovery with as much zest as is usually displayed in following lighter amusements…
Faraday was beloved around the world and the Times listed a few of his honors:
Oxford conferred on him an honorary degree…He was raised from the position of Corresponding Member to be one of the eight foreign Associates of the Academy of Sciences. He was an officer of the Legion of Honour, and Prussia and Italy decorated him with the crosses of different Orders. The Royal Society conferred on him its own medal and the Romford medal. In 1858 the Queen most graciously allotted to him a residence at Hampton Court, between which Albemarle-street where he spent the last years of his life, and where he peaceably died on Sunday…No man was ever more entirely unselfish, or more entirely beloved. Modest, truthful, candid, he had the true spirit of a philosopher and of a Christian… The cause of science would meet with fewer enemies, its discoveries would command a more ready assent, were all its votaries imbued with the humility of Michael Faraday.”