of feavers, Poyson; either by way of prevention or after Infection.
In the Moneth of March take Toades, as many as you will, alive;
putt them into an Earthen pott, so yt it be halfe full; Cover it
with a broad tyle or Iron plate, then overwhelme the pott, so yt ye
bottome may be uppermost; putt charcoals round about it and over it
and in the open ayre not in an house; sett it on fire and lett it
burne out and extinguish of itself; when it is cold take out the
toades; and in an Iron morter pound them very well; and searce
them; then in a Crucible calcine them; So againe; pound them &
searce them again. The first time they will be a brown powder, the
next time blacke. Of this you may give a dragme in a Vehiculum or
drinke Inwardly in any Infection taken: and let them sweat upon it
in their bedds: but let them not cover their heads; especially in
the Small-Pox. For prevention half a dragme will suffice."
I do not know what meteorological influence was assigned to the month of
March; perhaps it was chosen because toads would be uncommonly hard to
get in New England during that month.
All the medicines in Dr. Stafford's little collection were not,
however, so unalluring, and were, on the whole, very healing and
respectable. He prescribed nitre, antimony, rhubarb, jalap, and
spermaceti, "the sovereignest thing on earth--for an inward bruise;" and
he also culled herbs and simples in vast variety. He gave some very good
advice regarding the conduct of a physician, the latter clause of which
might well be heeded to-day.
"Nota bene. No man can with a good Conscience take a fee or Reward
before ye partie receive benefit apparent and then he is not to
demand anything but what God shall putt it into the heart of the
partie to give him. A man is not to neglect that partie to whom he
had once administered but to visit him at least once a day & to
medle with no more than he can well attend."
The account books of other old New England physicians, and other medical
books such as "A Treatise of Choice Spagyrical Preparations," show to us
that the seventeenth and eighteenth century medicines, though
disgusting, were not deadly. We know what medicines were given the
colonists on their sea journey hither: "Oil of Cloves, Origanum, Purging
Pills, and Ressin of Jalap" for the toothache; a Diaphoretic Bolus for
an "Extream Cold;" Spirits of Castor and Oil of Amber for "Histericall
Fitts;" "Seaurell Emplaisters for a broken Shin;" and for other
afflictions, "Gascons Powder, Liquorish, Carminative Seeds, Syrup of
Saffron, Pectoral Syrups and Somniferous Boluses."
Cod livers were given then as cod-liver oil is given now, "to restore
them that have melted their Grease." A favorite prescription was
"Rulandus, his Balsam which tho' it smel not wel" was properly powerful,
and could be gotten down if carefully hidden in "poudered shuger."
Cotton Mather, who tried his skilful hand at writing upon almost every
grave and weighty subject, composed a book of medical advice called the
"Angel of Bethesda." It was written when he was sixty years of age, but
was never printed; the manuscript is preserved in the library of the
American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. It begins characteristically
with a sermon, and is fantastically peppered with pompous scriptural and
classical quotations, as was the Mather wont. The ingredients of the
prescriptions are vile beyond belief, though, as Mather said in one of
his letters, they are "powerful and parable physicks," which are two
desirable qualities or attributes of any physic. The book gives an
interesting account of Mather's share in that great colonial revolution
in medicine--the introduction of the custom of inoculation for the
small-pox. His friend, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, of Boston, was the first
physician to inaugurate this great step by inoculating his own son--a
child six years old. Deep was the horror and aversion felt by the
colonial public toward both the practice and practitioners of this
daring innovation, and fiercely and malignantly was it opposed; but its
success soon conquered opposition, and also that fell disease, which six
times within a hundred years had devastated New England, bringing
death, disfigurement, and business misfortunes to the colonists. So
universal was the branding produced by this scourge that scarcely an
advertisement containing any personal description appears in any
colonial print, without containing the words, pock-fretten, pock-marked,
pock-pitted, or pock-broken.
Through the possibility of having the small-pox to order, arose the
necessity of small-pox hospitals, to which whole families or parties
resorted to pass through the ordeal in concert. Small-pox parties were
made the occasion of much friendly intercourse; they were called
classes. Thus in the _Salem Gazette_ of April 22, 1784, after Point
Shirley was set aside as a small-pox retreat, it was advertised that
"Classes will be admitted for Small pox." These classes were real
country outings, having an additional zest of novelty since one could
fully participate in the pleasures, profits, and pains of a small-pox
party but once in a lifetime. Much etiquette and deference was shown
over these "physical gatherings," formal invitations were sometimes sent
to join the function at a private house. Here is an extract from a
letter written July 8, 1775, by Joseph Barrell, a Boston merchant, to
Colonel Wentworth: "Mr. Storer has invited Mrs. Martin to take the
small-pox in her house; if Mrs. Wentworth desires to get rid of her
fears in the same way we will accommodate her in the best way we can.
I've several friends that I've invited, and none of them will be more
welcome than Mrs. Wentworth." These brave classes took their various
purifying and sudorific medicines in cheerful concert, were "grafted"
together, "broke out" together, were feverish together, sweat together,
scaled off together, and convalesced together. Not a very prepossessing
conjoining medium would inoculation appear to have been, but many a
pretty and sentimental love affair sprang up between mutually
"pock-fretten" New Englanders.
The small-pox hospitals were of various degrees of elegance and comfort,
and were widely advertised. I have found four separate announcements in
one of the small sheets of a Federal newspaper. From the luxurious
high-priced retreat "without Mercury" were grades descending to the
Suttonian, Brunonian, Pincherian, Dimsdalian, and other plebeian
establishments, in which the patient paid from fifteen to as low as
three dollars per week for lodging, food, medicine, care, and
inoculation. At the latter cheap establishment each person was
obliged to furnish for his individual use one sheet and one
pillow-case--apparently a meagre outfit for sickness, but possibly
merely a supplemental one.
This is a fair example of the prevailing advertisement of small-pox
hospitals, from the _Connecticut Courant_ of November 30, 1767:
"Dr. Uriah Rogers, Jr., of Norwalk County of Fairfield takes this
method to acquaint the Publick & particularly such as are desirous
of taking the Small Pox by way of Inoculation, that having had
Considerable Experience in that Branch of Practice and carried on
the same the last season with great Success; has lately erected a
convenient Hospital for that purpose just within the Jurisdiction
Line of the Province of New York about nine miles distant from N. Y.
Harbour, where he intends to carry said Branch of Practice from the
first of October next to the first of May next. And that all such
as are disposed to favour him with their Custom may depend upon
being well provided with all necessary accomodations, Provisions &
the best Attendance at the moderate Expence of Four Pounds Lawful
Money to Each Patient. That after the first Sett or Class he
purposes to give no Occasion for waiting to go in Particular Setts
but to admit Parties singly, just as it suits them. As he has
another Good House provided near Said Hospital where his family are
to live, and where all that come after the first Sett that go into
the Hospital are to remain with his Family until they are
sufficiently Prepared & Inoculated & Until it is apparent that they
haven taken the infection."
Of all the advertisements of small-pox hospitals, inoculation, etc.,
which appear in the newspapers through the eighteenth century, none is
more curious, more comic than this from a Boston paper of 1772:
"Ibrahim Mustapha Inoculator to his Sublime Highness & the
Janissaries: original Inventor and sole Proprietor of that
Inestimable Instrument, the Circassian Needle, begs leave to
acquaint the Nobility & Gentry of this City and its Environs that
he is just arrived from Constantinople where he has inoculated
about 50,000 Persons without losing a Single Patient. He requires
not the least Preparation Regimen or Confinement. Ladies and
Gentlemen who wish to be inoculated only acquaint him with how many
Pimples they choose and he makes the exact number of Punctures with
his Needle which Produces the Eruptions in the very Picquers.
Ladies who fancy a favorite Pitt may have it put in any Spot they
please, and of any size: not the Slightest Fever or Pain attends
the Eruption; much less any of those frightful Convulsions so usual
in all the vulgar methods of Inoculation, even in the famous Peter
Puffs. This amazing Needle more truly astonishing and not less
useful than the Magnetic one, has this property in common with the
latter, that by touching the point of a common needle it
communicates its wonderful Virtues to it in the same manner that
Loadstone does to Iron. And that no part of this extensive
Continent may want the Benefit of this Superlatively excellent
Method, Ibrahim Mustapha proposes to touch several Needles in order
to have them distributed to different Colonies by which means the
Small Pocks may be entirely eradicated as it has been in the
Turkish Empire."
Generous Ibrahim Mustapha! despite the testimony of the Janissaries and
the entire Turkish Empire, I cannot doubt that in your early youth you
frequently kissed the Blarney Stone, hence your fluent tongue and your
gallant proposition to becomingly decorate with pits the ladies.
Besides the scourge of small-pox, the colonists were afflicted
grievously with other malignant distempers,--fatal throat diseases,
epidemic influenzas, putrid fevers, terrible fluxes; and as the art of
sanitation was absolutely disregarded and almost unknown, as drainage
there was none, and the notion of disinfection was in feeble infancy, we
cannot wonder that the death-rates were high. Well might the New
Englander say with Sir Thomas Browne: "Considering the thousand doors
that lead to death, I do thank my God that we can die but once."
Cotton Mather was not the only kind-hearted New England minister who set
up to heal the body as well as the soul of the entire town. All the
early parsons seem to have turned eagerly to medicine. The Wigglesworths
were famous doctors. President Hoar, of Harvard College, President
Rogers, President Chauncey, all practised medicine. The latter's six
sons were all ministers, and all good doctors, too. It was a parson,
Thomas Thatcher, who wrote the first medical treatise published in
America, a set of "Brief Rules for the Care of the Small Pocks," printed
as a broadside in 1677. Many of the early parsons played also the part
of apothecary, buying drugs at wholesale and compounding and selling
medicines to their parishioners. Small wonder that Cotton Mather called
the union of physic and piety an "Angelical Conjunction."
Other professions and callings joined hands with chirurgy and medicine.
Innkeepers, magistrates, grocers, and schoolmasters were doctors. One
surgeon was a butcher--sadly similar callings in those days. This
butcher-surgeon was not Mr. Pighogg, the Plymouth "churregein," whose
unpleasant name was, I trust, only the cacographical rendering of the
good old English name Peacock.
With all these amateur and semi-professional rivals, it is no wonder
that Giles Firmin, who knew how to pull teeth and bleed and sweat in a
truly professional manner, complained that he found physic but a "meene
helpe" in the new land.
So vast was the confidence of the community in some or any kind of a
doctor, and in self-doctoring, that as late as the year 1721 there was
but one regularly graduated physician in Boston--Dr. Samuel Douglas; and
it may be noted that he was one of the most decided opponents of
inoculation for small-pox.
Colonial dames also boldly tried their hand at the healing art; the
first two, Anne Hutchinson and Margaret Jones, did not thrive very well
at the trade. The banishment of the former has oft been told. The latter
was hung as a witch, and the worst evidence against her character, the
positive proof of her diabolical power was, that her medicines being so
simple, they worked such wonderful cures. At the close of King Philip's
War the Council of Connecticut paid Mrs. Allyn £20 for her services to
the sick, and Mistress Sarah Sands doctored on Block Island. Sarah
Alcock, the wife of a chirurgeon, was also "active in physick;" and
Mistress Whitman, the Marlborough midwife, visited her patients on
snow-shoes, and lived to be seventy-eight years old, too. In the Phipps
Street Burying Ground in Charlestown is the tombstone of a Boston
midwife who died in 1761, aged seventy-six years, and who, could we
believe the record on the gravestone, "by ye blessing of God has brought
into this world above 130,000 children." But a close examination shows
that the number on the ancient headstone, through the mischievous
manipulation of modern hands, has received a figure at either end, and
the good old lady can only be charged with three thousand additions to
wretched humanity.
Negroes, and illiterate persons of all complexions, set up as doctors.
Old Joe Pye and Sabbatus were famous Indian healers. Indian squaws, such
as Molly Orcutt, sold many a decoction of leaves and barks to the
planters, and, like Hiawatha,
"Wandered eastward, wandered westward,
Teaching men the use of simples,
And the antidotes for poisons,
And the cure of all diseases."
A good old Connecticut doctor had a negro servant, Primus, who rode with
him and helped him in his surgery and shop. When the master died, Doctor
Primus started in to practise medicine himself, and proved
extraordinarily successful throughout the county; even his master's
patients did not disdain to employ the black successor, wishing no doubt
their wonted bolus and draught.
In spite of the fact that everyone and anyone seemed to be permitted,
and was considered fitted to prescribe medicine, the colonists were
sharp enough on the venders of quack medicines--or, perhaps I should
say, of powerless medicines--on "runnagate chyrurgeons and
physickemongers, saltimbancoes, quacksalvers, charlatans, and all
impostourous empiricks." As early as 1631, one Nicholas Knapp was fined
and whipped for pretending "to cure the scurvey by a water of noe worth
nor value which he sold att a very deare rate." The planters were
terribly prostrated by scurvy, and doubtless were specially indignant at
this heartless cheat.
Tides of absurd attempts at medicine, or rather at healing, swept over
the scantily settled New England villages in colonial days, just as we
have seen in our own day, in our great cities, the abounding
success--financially--of the blue-glass cure, the faith cure, and of
science healing. The Rain Water Doctor worked wondrous miracles, and did
a vast and lucrative business until he was unluckily drowned in a
hogshead of his own medicine at his own door. Bishop Berkeley, in his
pamphlet Siris, started a flourishing tar-water craze, which lived long
and died slowly. This cure-all, like the preceding aquatic physic, had
the merit of being cheap. A quart of tar steeped for forty-eight hours
in a gallon of water, tainted the water enough to make it fit for
dosing. Perhaps the most expansive swindle was that of Dr. Perkins, with
his Metallic Tractors. He was born in Norwich, Conn., in 1740, and found
fortune and fame in his native land. Still he was expelled from the
association of physicians in his own country, but managed to establish a
Perkinean Institution in London with a fine, imposing list of officers
and managers, of whom Benjamin Franklin's son was one. He had poems and
essays and eulogies and books written about him, and it was claimed by
his followers that he cured one million and a half of sufferers. At any
rate, he managed to carry off £10,000 of good English money to New
England. His wonderful Metallic Tractors were little slips of iron and
brass three inches long, blunt at one end, and pointed at the other, and
said to be of opposite electrical conditions. They cost five guineas a
pair. When drawn or trailed for several minutes over a painful or
diseased spot on the human frame, they positively removed and cured all
ache, smart, or soreness. I have never doubted they worked wonderful
cures; so did bits of wood, of lead, of stone, of earthenware, in the
hands of scoffers, when the tractorated patients did not see the bits,
and fancied that the manipulator held Metallic Tractors.
As years passed on various useful medicines became too much the vogue,
and were used to too vast and too deleterious an extent, particularly
mercury. Many a poor salivated patient sacrificed his teeth to his
doctor's mercurial doses. One such toothless sufferer, a carpenter,
having little ready money, offered to pay his physician in hay-rakes;
and he took a revengeful delight in manufacturing the rakes of green,
unseasoned wood. After a few days' use in the sunny fields, the doctor's
rakes were as toothless as their maker.
Physicians' fees were "meene" enough in olden times; but sixpence a
visit in Hadley and Northampton in 1730, and only eightpence in
Revolutionary times. A blood-letting, or a jaw-splitting tooth-drawing
cost the sufferer eightpence extra. No wonder the doctor cupped and bled
on every occasion. In extravagant Hartford the opulent doctor got a
shilling a visit. Naturally all the chirurgeons eked out and augmented
their scanty fees by compounding and selling their own medicines, and
dosed often and dosed deeply, since by their doses they lived. In many
communities a bone-setter had to be paid a salary by the town in order
to keep him, so few and slight were his private emoluments, even as a
physic-monger.
The science of nursing the sick was, in early days, unknown; there were
but few who made a profession of nursing, and those few were deeply to
be dreaded. In taking care of the sick, as in other kindnesses, the
neighborly instinct, ever so keen, so living in New England, showed no
lagging part. For it is plain to any student of early colonial days
that, if the chief foundation of the New England commonwealth was
religion, the second certainly was neighborliness. There was a constant
exchange of kindly and loving attentions between families and
individuals. It showed itself in all the petty details of daily life, in
assistance in housework and in the field, in house-raising. Did a man
build a barn, his neighbors flocked to drive a pin, to lay a stone, to
stand forever in the edifice as token of their friendly goodwill. The
most eminent, as well as the poorest neighbors, thus assisted. In
nothing was this neighborly feeling more constantly shown than in the
friendly custom of visiting and watching with the sick; and it was the
only available assistance. Men and women in this care and attention took
equal part. As in all other neighborly duties, good Judge Sewall was
never remiss in the sick-room. He was generous with his gifts and
generous with his time, even to those humble in the community. Such
entries as this abound in his diary: "Oct. 26th 1702. Visited
languishing Mr. Sam Whiting. I gave him 2 Balls of Chockalett and a
pound of Figgs." And when Mr. Bayley lay ill of a fever, he prayed with
him and took care of him through many a long night, and wrote:
"When I came away call'd his wife into the Next Chamber and gave
her Two Five Shilling Bits. She very modestly and kindly accepted
them and said I had done too much already. I told her if the State
of my family would have born it I ought to have watched with Mr.
Bayley as much as that came to."
To others he gave China oranges, dishes of marmalet, Meers Cakes,
Banberry Cakes; and even to well-to-do people gave gifts of money,
sometimes specifying for what purpose he wished the gift to be applied.
The universal custom of praying at inordinate length and frequency with
sick persons was of more doubtful benefit, though of equally kind
intent. One cannot but be amazed to find how many persons--ministers,
elders, deacons, and laymen were allowed to enter the sick-room and pray
by the bedside of the invalid, thus indeed giving him, as Sewall said,
"a lift Heavenward." Sometimes a succession of prayers filled the entire
day.
Judge Sewall's friendly prayers and visits were not always welcome.
After visiting sick Mr. Brattle the Judge writes, but without any
resentment, "he plainly told me that frequent visits were prejudicial
to him, it provok'd him to speak more than his strength would bear,
would have me come seldom." And on September 20, 1690, he met with this
reception:
"Mr. Moody and I went before the others came to neighbor Hurd who
lay dying where also Mr. Allen came in. Nurse Hurd told her husband
who was there and what he had to say; whether he desir'd them to
pray with him; He said with some earnestness, Hold your tongue,
which was repeated three times to his wives repeated entreaties;
once he said Let me alone or Be quiet (whether that made a fourth
or was one of the three do not remember) and, My Spirits are gon.
At last Mr. Moody took him up pretty roundly and told him he might
with some labour have given a pertinent answer. When we were ready
to come away Mr. Moody bid him put forth a little Breath to ask
prayer, and said twas the last time had to speak to him; At last
ask'd him, doe you desire prayer, shall I pray with you. He
answered, Ay for Gods sake and thank'd Mr. Moody when had done. His
former carriage was very startling and amazing to us. About one at
night he died. About 11 o'clock I supposed to hear neighbor Mason
at prayer with him just as my wife and I were going to bed."
One cannot but feel a thrill of sympathy for poor, dying Hurd on that
hot September night, fairly hectored by pious, loud-voiced neighbors
into eternity; and can well believe that many a colonial invalid who
lived through mithridate and rubila, through sweating and blood-letting,
died of the kindly and godly-intentioned praying of his neighbors.
XV
FUNERAL AND BURIAL CUSTOMS
The earliest New Englanders had no religious services at a funeral. Not
wishing to "confirm the popish error that prayer is to be used for the
dead or over the dead," they said no words, either of grief,
resignation, or faith, but followed the coffin and filled the grave in
silence. Lechford has given us a picture of a funeral in New England in
the seventeenth century, which is full of simple dignity, if not of
sympathy:
"At Burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made, but all
the neighborhood or a goodly company of them come together by
tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and
then stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most
commonly present."
As was the fashion in England at that date, laudatory verses and
sentences were fastened to the bier or herse. The name herse was then
applied to the draped catafalque or platform upon which the candles
stood and the coffin rested, not as now the word hearse to a carriage
for the conveyance of the dead. Sewall says of the funeral of the Rev.
Thomas Shepherd: "There were some verses, but none pinned on the Herse."
These verses were often printed after the funeral. The publication of
mourning broadsides and pamphlets, black-bordered and dismal, was a
large duty of the early colonial press. They were often decorated
gruesomely with skull and crossbones, scythes, coffins, and
hour-glasses, all-seeing eyes with rakish squints, bow-legged skeletons,
and miserable little rosetted winding-sheets.
A writer in the _New England Courant_ of November 12, 1722, says: