Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life

Chapter 18. Media Vitae in Morte Sumus

CHAPTER 18 media vitae in morte sumus (1916–1924) Symptoms of heart disease began to show themselves. He was still extremely active, his curly hair was thick, though getting gray. Heart disease made gradual progress. He was never confined to his room, or even to the house. On the last morning of his life he arose as usual. He had long known that his end was approaching, and had awaited the hour with fortitude and resignation.1 No. This paragraph does not describe Victor Herbert’s finale. It is an excerpt from an article by his mother in which she discusses the life of her father, Samuel Lover. But in this, as in so many ways, Victor Herbert’s life mirrored that of his grandfather. The same vigor, the same dedication to the creative work at hand that characterized Lover was typical of Herbert to the end. To understand Herbert’s decline and death it is necessary to go back almost to the beginning of his career, to Stuttgart in 1886. This was the year in which Herbert courted Theresa, and in which they married and left Europe to continue their careers in New York. It was also the year when a great friendship began between Herbert and the man who was to become his physician—a friendship that began at his stepfather’s home and lasted, literally until the hour of his death. Emmanuel Demarnay Baruch was another of the many fascinating characters to occupy the stage where the drama of Herbert’s life played out. Born in San Francisco in 1870, he had emigrated to Tübingen, Germany , to earn his medical degree. But his interest in music and drama was as great as his dedication to the healing profession, and it was this breadth of spirit that caught the attention of Herbert’s stepfather, Dr. Schmid, a faculty member at the University Medical College. Baruch became a frequent guest at the Schmid home in Tübingenstrasse. Herbert, though ten years his senior, immediately took to the younger man, and shortly after Victor and Theresa sailed for New York Baruch completed his studies and followed them. He enrolled for post-graduate 508 study at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and soon became a leader among the medical advocates of homeopathy, specializing in bacteriology and pathology as professor at the New York Homeopathic Medical College (later Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospital). A powerful advocate of the homeopathic approach, ‘‘Similia similibus curantur’’—the same that causes a disease cures it—he became a strong defender of this approach as science through his extensive publications.2 But his writing was not limited to medical matters. He worked avidly to promote the appreciation of German literature in the United States and was elected President of the Goethe Society of America. His drama, Judith and Arropherius, was produced in London by Dame Sybil Thorndyke and given a warm critical reception. He was truly a remarkable man. Baruch once said, ‘‘My interest in the stage has been heightened by my work with actors and their ailments. They are difficult as patients because they demand all one’s time.’’3 Herbert, however, was different. ‘‘He had no irritating idiosyncrasies. He was just a big, generous, good natured man, who went through life with a smile. His only hobbies were his music, his friends and his family.’’4 What a roster of patients Baruch treated! His celebrity practice was such that he had to arrange two separate waiting rooms so that the actor Sir Henry Irving, the ballerina Modjeska, and the prime donne Nordica and Sembrich could enjoy privacy. Sarah Bernhardt had no such problem , since she consulted with Baruch by cable from Paris. This was the man, the friend, the physician who cared for Herbert and his family for three decades. Between 1921 and 1924, generalized arterial sclerosis began the work that culminated in Herbert’s death on May 26, 1924. Although his passing shocked the world, there was nothing surprising about it. This was, after all, a sixty-five-year-old man, 5⬘8⬙ in height, who weighed over 250 pounds. Herbert was not a fat man, although his barrel-chested physique often gave that impression to casual observers. All his life he had been very active, and he was in fact very muscular. Years of vigorous conducting activity would naturally produce that result. His short legs caused him to run when he walked, a characteristic pace that made him...