One of my neighbors, Major P----, has a daughter, whom we will name
Rose. The Major not having a rose-bush, tried an experiment on his
Rose-girl. This was his method:--
In the first place, he sent her up into New Hampshire in June, and
kept her there, living out in the sunshine, till the last of
September. Then he brought her in town, and we all had a chance to
examine her. She was really in a very strange condition. In the
first place, her manner of walking was singular. I cannot describe
it better than to say that she seemed to go by jerk. In putting one
foot forward to take a step, the foot behind gave a sudden and
vigorous push.
My opinion, as a medical man, was not asked; but my diagnosis,
before a medical class, would have been this:--
"Gentlemen, in the case of Miss Rose P---- there is considerable
physical vigor, which seems to show itself by an extraordinary
activity and strength of muscle, and an unusual ebullition of animal
spirits. And, gentlemen, although these manifestations are
extraordinary, and very rare among young ladies, I do not regard the
case as immediately alarming. Indeed, gentlemen, it is my opinion
that this remarkable malady will disappear without active treatment,
if the patient be confined in a strait jacket, and kept quiet in a
dark room.
"That peculiar sparkle of the young lady's eyes will, likewise, soon
disappear, under this treatment."
Without asking my opinion, or a prescription, the Major did exactly
what I have suggested. The daughter was laced in a strait jacket, or
a corset, (which squeezes a good deal harder,) and she remained in a
dark parlor and curtained bedroom all but about an hour a day; and
then, unless it was particularly bright and pleasant, she rode
during that one hour in a covered carriage.
In two months the experiment was a complete success. As in the case
of the rose-bush, so in the case of the Rose-girl, the absence of
sunshine had produced a limp, weak, sick state.
Miss Rose had lost all the elastic bound in her manner of walking,
all the hearty ring in her laugh, all the color in her face, all the
shine of her eyes, all her power of diffusing joy about her.
There are other experiments of a similar kind in progress, and
persons who are interested in this sort of scientific observation,
will, by calling at their next door neighbor's, find very
interesting opportunities to prosecute such studies.
Shade-trees, piazzas, blinds, curtains, carriage-tops and parasols
produce weak eyes, weak nerves, weak digestion, weak spines, weak
muscles, weak volition, and, in brief, weak women.
As argued in my recent work, "Talks about People's Stomachs," the
function of digestion is powerfully affected by the light.
Place the richest earth and plenty of water about a potato-vine in
the cellar; it can't digest its food, and must remain pale and weak.
Go up stairs into the drawing-room, and you will find girls, (excuse
me, I mean young ladies,) who look so exactly like the potato-vine
in the cellar, that you are not at all surprised to find them under
the same roof, for they are clearly members of the same family,--
the anti-solar family.
The next system of treatment for invalids will be the "Sun-Cure."
Institutions will be established, to which patients will flock for
the cure of chronic maladies. Affections of the stomach and liver,
will, by the "Sun-Cure," be relieved almost as if by a miracle. One,
two or three hours a day, patients will be exposed nude, to the sun,
either in part,--for example, the abdomen or back, or over the entire
person, when the fault is one of digestion and assimilation. Young
ladies in the matrimonial market, who are such ghosts that the men
shudder and run away front them, will spend three months in one of
these institutions, and return as brown and sweet as their admirers
could wish. In the coming "sun-cure," diseases which are now
regarded as well-nigh incurable, for example, some forms of
neuralgia, will be quickly relieved.
Whether the banks pay specie or not, whether trade flourishes or
languishes, whatever may be our success or failure in life, let us
keep wide open the flood-gates of life; let us be true children of
the sun, worshipping, not with prostrate forms, but, standing
upright in the image of God, express our gratitude by baptismal
evolutions in the all-glorious light.