CONSIDERS POLITICS AND RELIGION. CONSULTS OSTEOPATHIC AND HOMEOPATHIC
DOCTORS.
By this time I was beginning to get tolerably well acquainted with myself.
The reader may perhaps think--if he cares enough to think--that I did not
enjoy life; but I did in my evanescent, changeful way. I was always
wavering between optimism and pessimism. Some days one of these qualities
would predominate and some days the other would be in evidence. I never
knew one day what the next would bring forth. I came to understand myself
so well that I never started anything with the determination to carry it
to a finish.
I thought about entering politics, but did not know with what party to
cast my affiliations. The Democrats and the Republicans both claimed to
favor a judicious revision of the tariff as well as a yearning to bridle
the trusts and money power. So did the Populists. Each of them had plenty
of plans for solving the vexed and ever-present problem of capital and
labor. Each party espoused the cause of the masses who toil, and each
likewise favored laws which would enable one to get the highest price if
he had labor or products to sell; or if one happened to be in the market
as a buyer he would, of course, get these things cheap. Their rules seemed
to effect a compromise by working both ways. Out of all these conflicting
and chaotic ideas I knew that I would be unable to decide upon any set of
issues and stay with them a fortnight. So, as I view the matter now, I
think I displayed unusual strength of character in staying out of
politics.
The same puzzling situation confronted me in regard to matters of the
church. There were those who were very firm in the conviction that
immersion was the only true way of being introduced into the church;
others thought pouring was good enough; while still others considered
sprinkling all that was essential to pass the portals. Some believed in
infantile baptism, while a few good, religious people that I chanced to
know did not deem any kind of water-rite at any time in life absolutely
necessary. A certain few clung to fore-ordination which, if true, would
preclude the need of most people making any efforts along that line. Some
of the churches denounced dancing and card-playing in no unmeaning terms,
while others gave holy sanction to card-parties and charity balls. Some
churches were bound down by certain rigid rules which they called creeds;
others were very much opposed to these. For every belief there was an
"anti."
Under such conditions as these it was a big undertaking to try to sift the
wheat from a mountain of chaff and become enthusiastic in one's devotion
to State and Church. Why should there be such a state of chaos on matters
of the most vital importance? Is human nature not sincere? Or is it simply
erratic?
For the present I tried to content myself with the study of subjects that
would in a small way muddle the world in return for the muddling the world
had given me. I pursued the investigation of such things as neoplatonism,
psychic phenomena, platonic friendship, and so forth. After coaching
myself up a little on such topics as these, I could appear in the most
erudite company and pose as an authority on the same. Ah! authority, how
many errors are committed in thy name!
For several months I busied myself in one way and another, and my
infirmities seemed to have given me a respite. Every symptom had for a
while been in abeyance, but now they began to assert themselves with
renewed activity. The reader will perhaps wonder what new restorative
agencies I could now summon to my aid. I was always quite resourceful and
could usually think of something untried.
I remembered that I had never consulted a homeopathic physician. This must
have been on my part an oversight, for I have the greatest esteem for this
class of medical men, mainly on account of their benign remedies. The one
I consulted told me that homeopaths did not treat a disease _name_, but
directed the remedy toward the symptoms at hand. This impressed me that he
would treat my case on its merits and without any guess-work. My relief
would depend upon correct statements in answer to all the doctor's
questions. He was very painstaking in this matter, and the questions asked
were many and diversified. One was: "Do you ever imagine that you see a
big spider crawling up the wall?" Another was: "Do you at times imagine
that you are falling from a high precipice?"
At the time I had a slight tonsillitis, and the doctor was careful to note
that it was the right tonsil involved. He told me that if it had been the
left one, the treatment would be entirely different. Up to this time I
had, in my ignorance of the human frame, supposed that the two halves were
the same in function and symmetrical in anatomy.
The doctor gave me a vial of little red pills about the size of beet
seeds, with explicit directions as to how to take them. If I exceeded the
dosage prescribed I endangered my life, for these pellets were of a high
potency. They were little two-edged swords which might cut both ways.
I took this medicine for perhaps a week; that was longer than I usually
confined myself to one remedy. One day, when in an extremely despondent
mood, I was seized with an impulse to kill myself. Neurasthenics, like
hysterical women, sometimes talk of suicide, but these threats are usually
made to attract attention and gain sympathy. Neither very often make any
well-directed efforts to get their threats into execution. But for me to
plan was to act; so I attempted the "rash act," as the newspapers
invariably call it, by swallowing the contents of that little vial. I then
performed a few ante-mortem details, such as writing good-byes to friends.
About the time I had all my arrangements made and was wondering if it was
not time for the medicine to exert its deadly effect, I changed my mind
about dying. The stuff had been so slow in its action that it had enabled
me to look at life from a different viewpoint. Life now seemed sweet to me
and it was so soon to pass from me! Oh! why had I not used some
deliberation before thus consummating the desperate deed?
To the telephone I rushed. I soon had the doctor, and this was our
conversation:--
_Myself_--"Doctor, come at once; by mistake I swallowed all the medicine
you gave me. Do hurry, doctor."
_Doctor_--"Did you take the entire contents of the bottle?"
_Myself_--"Every one--over a hundred--do hurry, doctor."
_Doctor_--"No alarm, then. You have swallowed so many that they will
neutralize one another and act as an antidote. Calm yourself and you will
be all right!"
I thought more than ever that this was surely a mysterious remedy.
A few weeks later I chanced to remember that in my ceaseless rounds of
trying to regain my health and retain such as I had, no osteopathic doctor
had ever been favored by a call from me. I went to consult with one
post-haste. The osteopath wanted to pull my limbs both literally and
metaphorically. He discovered that I had a rib depressed and digging into
my lungs; also a dislocation of my atlas, which is a bone at the top of my
spinal column. He was not sure but that one of my cranial bones was
pressing upon one of the large nerve centers in my brain. My symptoms were
all reflex from these troubles.
I did not decide upon an immediate course of osteopathic treatment, as I
had been struck by something new. I will tell about it another chapter; it
makes me so tired to write so much at one time. That accounts for these
short chapters all along.