HOW TO MAKE ERYSIPELAS.
My periodical tendency to a species of eruptive disease closely
resembling measles, was mentioned in Chapter IV. During the summer of
1823 this affection became unusually severe, and seemed almost beyond
endurance. The circumstances were as follows:--
I had in charge a large and difficult school. The weather was very hot,
and I was not accustomed to labor in summer within doors. Besides, my
task was so difficult as to call forth all the energies of body and mind
both; and the "wear and tear" of my system was unusually great. It was
in the very midst of these severe labors, in hot and not well-ventilated
air, that the eruption appeared. Perhaps it was aggravated by my diet,
which, in "boarding around," was of course not the best.
The eruption not only affected my body and reached to the extremities,
but was accompanied by an itching so severe that I was occasionally
compelled to lie awake all night. My general strength at last began to
give way under it, and I sought the advice of our family physician.
He advised me to use, as a wash to the irritated and irritable surface,
a weak solution of corrosive sublimate. I hesitated; especially as I
believed it to be, with him, an experiment. But on his repeated
assurance, that if I would take special care of myself and avoid taking
cold, there was no danger, I waived my objections, and proceeded to
carry out his plan.
The solution was applied, accordingly, to the letter of the doctor's
directions. For many days no change appeared, either favorable or
adverse. At length a most distressing headache came on and remained. My
sufferings became so severe that I was obliged to postpone my school
and return to my father's house.
On the road, I observed that an eruption of a peculiar kind had
appeared, particularly about the forehead, accompanied with small
blisters. It was not here that I had applied the solution, but on the
arms, chest, and lower limbs. Of course the corrosive sublimate, if at
all operative, had affected me through the medium of the circulation and
not by direct contact.
Our physician came, pronounced the disease erysipelas, and without
saying a word about the cause, prescribed; and I followed out carefully
his prescription. But the disease had its course in spite of us both,
and was very severe. It took away my sleep entirely for a day or two. It
proved a means of removing the hair from one side of my head, and of so
injuring the skin that it never grew again. Indeed, gangrene or
mortification had actually commenced at several points. Suddenly,
however, the pain and inflammation subsided, and I recovered.
Now my physician never said that I was poisoned by the corrosive
sublimate, probably for the two following reasons: 1, I never made the
inquiry. 2, He would probably have ascribed the disease to taking cold
rather than to the mercury, had I inquired. I do not believe I took
cold, however. How it came to affect me so unfavorably I never knew with
certainty; but that it was the medicine that did the mischief I never
for one moment doubted. I suppose it was absorbed; but of the manner of
its introduction to the system I am less certain than of the fact
itself.
But besides the absorption of the corrosive sublimate into the system,
and its consequences--a terrible caution to those who are wont to apply
salves, ointments, washes, etc., to the surface of the body
unauthorized--I learned another highly important lesson from this
circumstance. Active medicines, as I saw more plainly than ever before,
are as a sword with two edges. If they do not cut in the right
direction, they are almost sure to cut in the wrong.
I must not close, however, without telling you a little more about the
treatment of my disease. After I had left my school and had arrived at
home, a solution of sugar of lead was ordered in the very coldest water.
With this, through the intervention of layers of linen cloth, I was
directed to keep my head constantly moistened. Its object, doubtless,
was to check the inflammation, which had become exceedingly violent. Why
the sugar of lead itself was not absorbed, thus adding poison to poison,
is to me inconceivable. Perhaps it was so; and yet, such was the force
of my constitution, feeble though it was, that I recovered in spite of
both poisons. Or, what is more probable, perhaps the lead, if absorbed
at all, did not produce its effects till the effects of the corrosive
sublimate were on the wane; so that the living system was only
necessitated to war with one poison at a time. Mankind are made to live,
at least till they are worn out; and it is not always easy to poison a
person to death, if we would. In other words, human nature is tough.
Now I do not know, by the way, that any one but myself ever suspected,
even for one moment, that this attack of erysipelas was caused by the
corrosive sublimate. But could I avoid such a conclusion? Was it a hasty
or forced one? Judge, then, whether it was not perfectly natural that I
should be led by such an unfortunate adventure to turn my attention more
than ever to the subject of preserving and promoting health.
For if our family physician--cautious and judicious as in general he
was--had been the unintentional cause of a severe attack from a violent
and dangerous disease, which had come very near destroying my life, what
blunders might not be expected from the less careful and cautious man,
especially the beginner in medicine? And if medical men, old and young,
scientific as well as unscientific, make occasional blunders, how much
more frequently the mass of mankind, who, in their supposed knowledge of
their own constitutions and those of their families, are frequently
found dosing and drugging themselves and others?
I do not mean to say that in the incipiency of my observations and
inquiries my mind was mature enough--well educated enough, I mean--to
pursue exactly the foregoing train of thought; but there was certainly a
tendency that way, as will be seen more fully in the next chapter. The
spell at least was broken, and I saw plainly that if "died by the
visitation of God" _never_ means any thing, it _generally_ does not. And
as it turned out that the further I pushed my inquiries the more I found
that diseases were caused by transgression of physical and moral law,
and hence not uncontrollable, why should it not be so, still farther on,
in the great world of facts which I had not yet penetrated?