A gentleman who was in a railway collision in 1869, wrote to the _Times_
in November of that year. After stating that he had been threatened with
a violent attack of rheumatic fever; in fact, he observed, “my condition
so alarmed me, and my dread of a sojourn in a Manchester hotel bed for
two or three months was so great, that I resolved to make a bold sortie
and, well wrapped up, start for London by the 3.30 p.m. Midland fast
train. From the time of leaving that station to the time of the
collision, my heart was going at express speed; my weak body was in a
profuse perspiration; flashes of pain announced that the muscular fibres
were under the tyrannical control of rheumatism, and I was almost beside
myself with toothache. From the moment of the collision to the present
hour no ache, pain, sweat, or tremor has troubled me in the slightest
degree, and instead of being, as I expected, and indeed intended, in bed
drinking _tinct. aurantii_, or absorbing through my pores oil of
horse-chestnut, I am conscientiously bound to be at my office bodily
sound. Don’t print my name and address, or the Midland Company may come
down upon me for compensation.”