EFFICACY OF COLD SPRING WATER.
An aged man not far from where I was studying, had an attack of
dysentery which was long and severe. Whether the fault of its long
continuance lay in his own bad habits, or the injudicious use of
medicine, or in both, we can inquire to better advantage by and by. I
was not, however, very much acquainted with his physician, so as to be
able in the premises to form a very correct opinion concerning him.
The greatest puzzle with me, at that time, was why he should live so
long after the disease appeared to have spent itself, without making any
advances. The physician used to call on him day after day, and order
tonic medicine of various kinds, all of which was given with great care
and exactness. Every thing in fact, seemed to be put in requisition,
except what were most needful of all, pure air and water. The former of
these was, as is usual in such cases, neglected; the latter was
absolutely interdicted.
For this last, as not unfrequently happens at this stage of acute
diseases, the poor man sighed from day to day as though his heart would
break. But, no; he must not have it. The effect on his bowels, he was
told, would be unfavorable. And such at that day was the general
_theory_. It was not considered that a very small quantity at first, a
few drops merely, would be a great relief, and might be borne, till by
degrees a larger quantity would be admissible.
After repeated efforts, and much begging and crying for a little water
to cool his parched tongue, the old gentleman, one night dreamed that he
drank from a certain cold spring, which really flowed at a remote corner
of his farm and was a great favorite both with him and his whole family,
and that it almost immediately restored him. Delighted with his dream,
he no sooner fairly awaked than he called up his eldest son and sent him
with a bottle, to the spring. He did not now _plead_, he _commanded_.
The son returned in due time, with a bottle of water. He returned, it is
true, with great fear and trembling, but he could do no less than obey.
The demands and commands were peremptory, and the father was almost
impatient.
"Now, my son," said the father, "bring me a tumbler." It was brought,
and the father took it. "Now," said he, "pour some of that water into
it." Samuel could do no other way than submit to the lawfully
constituted authority, though it was not without the most painful
apprehensions with regard to the consequences, and he kindly warned his
father of the danger. Nor were his sufferings at all diminished when the
father, in a decided tone of voice, ordered him to fill the tumbler
about half full.
Whether he had at first intended to drink so large a draught and
afterwards repented, is not known; but instead of swallowing it all at a
draught, the son's distress was greatly mitigated when he saw that he
only just tasted it, and then set down the tumbler. In a few minutes he
drank a little more, and then after a short time a little more still. He
was about half an hour drinking a gill of water. When that was gone, he
ordered more; and persisted in this moderate way till morning. By ten
o'clock, when his physician arrived, he had drunk nearly a quart of it,
and was evidently better. There was a soft, breathy perspiration, as
well as more strength.
The physician no sooner saw him than he pronounced him better. "What
have you been doing?" he said, rather jocosely. The sick man told him
the simple story of his rebellion from beginning to end. The doctor at
first shook his head, but when he came to reflect on the apparent good
consequences which had followed, he only said: "Well, I suppose we must
remember the old adage, 'Speak well of a bridge that carries you safe
over,'" and then joined in the general cheerfulness.
The patient continued to drink his spring water from day to day, and
with increasing good effects. It acted almost like a charm; it was not
only food and drink to him, but also medicine. Doubtless his great faith
in it was not without its efficacy; still it was not to be denied that
the water did him great and positive good.
He soon found his newly discovered medicine not only more agreeable to
his taste, but cheaper also than Huxham's tincture and quassia. He also
found that his son's daily visits to the spring cost him less than Dr.
Physic's daily rides of three or four miles. So that though he was
greatly delighted to see the smiling face, and hear the stories and
jolly laugh of the latter, he was glad when he proposed to call less
frequently than he had done and to lay aside all medicine.
He recovered in a reasonable time, and lived to a very advanced age. A
friend of his and mine, found him in his eighty-sixth year, mowing
thistles barefooted. Two or three years still later, I found him--it was
during the cold month of January, 1852--in the woods with his hired man
far from his house, assisting in cutting and loading wood; in which
employment he seemed to act with much of the energy and not a little of
the activity of his earlier years.
I do not of course undertake to say that he owed his recovery from his
long sickness, above described solely to drinking cold water, there are
so many other circumstances to be taken into the account, in settling
all questions like this, that such an assertion would be hazardous, not
to say foolish. His fever at the time of making his experiment, had
already passed away; and having great tenacity of life, it was but
reasonable to expect nature would ere long, rally, if she _could_ rally
at all. It is also worthy of remark, that though his physician was one
of those men who place their chief reliance on the medicine they give,
rather than on the recuperative powers of the system, yet to his credit
be it said, he had in this instance departed from his usual routine, and
given comparatively little.
Perhaps we may explain the phenomenon of his recovery, as follows:
nature long oppressed, yet by rest partially restored to her wonted
energy, was now ready to rally as soon as she could get the opportunity;
this the moderate draughts of water by their effects on the circulation
enabled her to do; then, too, one consideration which I forgot to
mention in its place, deserves to be noticed. When the sick man began
the use of water, he laid aside (without the knowledge of his physician)
most of what pills and powders and tinctures were prescribed him. And
finally he had great faith in the water, as you have already seen;
whereas he had lost all faith in drugging and dosing. And the efficacy
of faith is almost sufficient in such cases, to work a cure, were this
our only reliance. Of this we shall have an illustration in Chapter
LXXVI.
But though the water, as I now fully believe--and as I more than half
believed when I heard of the facts at the time,--was fairly indicated,
there is great hazard, in such circumstances in its use. Had this
gentleman taken a large draught at first, or had he swallowed more
moderate draughts with great eagerness, and a quick succession, it might
have produced an ill effect; it might, even, have provoked a relapse of
his dysentery and fever. Many a sick patient in the same circumstances,
would have poured the cooling liquid into an enfeebled throat and
stomach without the least restraint. And why did not he?
I will give you one reason. He was early taught to govern himself. He
told me, when eighty-eight years of age, he had made it a rule, all his
life long, never to eat enough, but always to leave off his meals with a
good appetite. He did not indeed, follow out with exactness the rule of
the late Amos Lawrence: "Begin hungry and leave off hungrier," but he
came very near it. He managed so as always to have a good appetite, and
never in the progress of more than fourscore years, whether by night or
day, to lose it. Such a man, if his mind is not too much reduced by long
disease, can be safely trusted with cold spring water, even during the
more painful and trying circumstances of convalescence from acute
disease.
Another thing deserves to be mentioned in this connection. He had not
kept his bowels and nervous system, all his life long, under the
influence of rum, tobacco, opium, coffee, tea, or highly seasoned food.
He did not it is true, wholly deny himself any one of these, except
opium and tobacco; but he only used them occasionally, and even then in
great moderation. Nor was it from mere indigence, or culpable stinginess
that he ate and drank, for the most part in a healthful manner. It
seemed to be from a conviction of the necessity of being "temperate in
all things;" and that such a course as he pursued tended to hardihood.
As one evidence of a conviction of this kind, I have known his children
and their school teacher to carry to the schoolroom for their dinner, a
quantity of cold Indian cake--ycleped Johnny cake--and nothing else; nor
was there an attempt at the slightest apology. Such a man would not be
very likely to have an ulcerated alimentary canal, or bad blood; or to
be injured by swallowing every five minutes a table-spoonful of cold
water; no, nor to sink as quickly as other people under the depressing
tendency of irritating or poisonous medicine.
This last-mentioned fact concerning the use of water,--for it is a fact
on which we can rely, and not one of those statements which Dr. Cullen
was accustomed to call "false facts,"--was to me exceedingly
instructive. It taught me more concerning the human constitution and the
laws of health and disease than I had ever before learned from a single
case of mere disease, in my whole life; and I endeavored to make a wise
use of it--of which as I trust, I shall give some evidence in the very
next chapter.