THE MEDICINAL EFFECTS OF STORY TELLING.
My aged father sickened about this time, and remained in a low condition
many months. I was at a distance so great, and in circumstances so
peculiar, that I could not see him often enough to become his medical
adviser. Besides, in my then unfledged condition as a disciple of Galen,
I should not have regarded myself competent to the discharge of so
weighty a responsibility, had I even been at home with him. The result
was that he employed his family physician as usual, and went through, as
might have been expected, with the whole paraphernalia of a dosing and
drugging campaign.
Among other troubles, or rather to cap the climax of his troubles, he
was exceedingly low-spirited. Confined as he had been to the house
almost all winter, and seeing nobody to converse with,--no new faces, I
mean,--was it very strange that his mind turned, involuntarily, to his
complaints, and preyed upon itself, and that he was evidently
approaching the deep vortex of hypochondria? Medicine did him no good,
and could do him none. It is true he had, after three months, almost
left off its use; but the little to which he still clung was most
evidently a source of irritation.
My own occasional visits, as I soon found out, did him more good than
any thing else. This gave me a needful hint. Near him was an old
Revolutionary soldier, full of mirthfulness, and a capital story teller.
Unknown to my father, and even to the family, I employed this old
soldier to visit my father a certain number of evenings in each week,
and tell stories to him.
Sergeant K. complied faithfully with the terms of the contract, and was
at my father's house three evenings of each week for a long time. This
gave the old gentleman something else to think of besides himself, and
it was easy to see, did him much good. During the progress of the fourth
month his improvement became quite perceptible; and in another month he
was nearly recovered.
But, as I have repeatedly said of cold water, and indeed of all other
remedial efforts or applications, whether external or internal, and
whether moral, mental, or physical, too much credit should not be given,
at least hastily, to a single thing. The opening spring was in my
father's favor, as well as the story telling. The bow, so long retained
in an unnatural position, on having an opportunity, sprung back and
resumed its wonted condition. Still, I could never help awarding much
credit to the Revolutionary soldier.
Most persons must have observed the effects which cheerfulness in a
medical man has on his patients. The good-natured, jolly doctor, who
tells a story now and then, and cracks a joke and has occasionally a
hearty laugh _with you_, or _at_ you, about something or nothing, will
do you much more good, other things being equal, than the grave, staid,
sombre practitioner, who thinks it almost a sin to smile, especially at
the sick-bed or in the sick-room.
I think story telling, as an art, should be cultivated, were it only for
its good effects in sickness. But this is not all. Its prophylactic or
preventive tendencies are much more valuable. Few people know how to
tell a story of any kind; while others, in some few remarkable
instances, such as I could name, will make a story of almost any thing,
and bring it to bear upon the precise point or end they wish to
accomplish. It is yet, in reality, a mooted point, which could make the
deepest, or at least most abiding, impression, Daniel Webster by a
Congressional oration, or Jacob Abbott by a simple story. If this is an
indirect or incautious confession of medical imperfection or impotence,
let me say as Patrick Henry once did, in Revolutionary days, "then make
the most of it."
While on this topic of story telling, I must not forget to allude to its
moral effects. Lorenzo Dow, the eccentric preacher, is not the only
pulpit occupant who has acquired the art of "clinching the nail," in
his discourses by a well told story. It was quite a habit, in former
times, with certain preachers of certain denominations of Christians,
whose sermons were chiefly unwritten, to tell stories occasionally. And
I appeal to Father Waldo, late chaplain in the United States Senate, to
see whether the effects of these discourses were not as deep and as
lasting, to say the least, as many of our modern sermons, which, while
they smell much more of the lamp, fall almost lifeless upon the sleepy
ears of thousands of those whom Whitfield by his more practical course
would have converted.