THE LAMBSKIN DISEASE.
Should any medical man look through these pages, he may perchance amuse
himself by asking where the writer obtained his system of classification
of disease. It will not, certainly, be very easy to find such a disease
as the lambskin disease in any of our modern nosologies. But he will
better understand me when he has read through the chapter. He may be
reminded, by its perusal and its quaint title, of the classification
which is found in Whitlow's New Medical Discoveries, founded, as the
doctor says, on the idea that "every disease ought to be named from the
plant or other substance which is the principal exciting cause of such
disease." It is as follows:
"The Mercurial Disease,
The Belladonna do
The Stramonium do
The Tobacco do
The Cicuta do
The Butter Cup do
The Colchicum do
The Colocynth do
The Pork or Hog do
The Vinegar do
The Fool's Parsley do
The Fox Glove do
The Nux Vomica do
The Quassia do
The Opium do
The Hellebore do
The Salt do
The Mineral Acid do
The Acrid do
The Putrid do"
If on examination the curious reader should find no such disease as the
"Lambskin disease" in Dr. W.'s catalogue, he should remember that the
list is by no means complete, and that there will be no objection to the
addition of one more. And why, indeed, may I not coin terms as well as
others? All names must have been given by somebody.
But I will not dwell on the subject of nosology too long. I have
something else to do in this chapter than merely to amuse. I have some
thoughts to present on health and sickness,--thoughts, too, which seem
to me of vast importance.
A son of Mr. G., a farmer, had been at work in an adjoining town, all
summer, with a man who was accustomed to employ a great number of hands
in various occupations,--farming, road building, butchering, etc., etc.
Of a sudden, young G., now about twenty years of age, was brought home
sick, and I was sent for late at night--a very common time for calling
the doctor--to come and see him.
I found him exceedingly weak and sick, with strong tendencies to
putridity. What could be the cause? There was no prevailing or epidemic
disease abroad at the time, either where he had been laboring, or within
my own jurisdiction; nor could I, at first, find out any cause which was
adequate to the production of such effects as were before me.
I prescribed for the young man, as well as I could; but it was all to no
purpose. Some unknown influence, local or general, seemed to hang like
an incubus about him, and to depress, in particular, his nervous system.
In short, the symptoms were such as portended swift destruction, if not
immediate. I could but predict the worst. And the worst soon came. He
sunk, in a few days, to an untimely grave. I say _untimely_ with
peculiar emphasis; for he had hitherto been regarded as particularly
robust and healthy.
His remains were scarcely entombed when several members of his father's
family were attacked in a similar way. Another young man in the
neighborhood, who had been employed at the same place with the deceased,
and who had returned at the same time, also sickened, and with nearly
the same symptoms. And then, in a few days more, the father and mother
of the latter began to droop, and to fall into the same train of
diseased tendencies with the rest. Of these, too, I had the charge.
My hands were now fully occupied, and so was my head. Anxious as most
young men are, in similar circumstances, not only to save their
patients, but their reputation, and though the distance at which they
resided was considerable, I visited both families twice a day, and
usually remained with one of them during the night. I was afraid to
trust them with others.
Physically this constant charge was too much for me, and ought not to
have been attempted. No physician should watch with his patients, by
night or by day,--above all by night--any more than a general should
place himself in the front of his army, during the heat of battle. His
life is too precious to be jeoparded beyond the necessities involved in
his profession.
But while my hands were occupied, my mind was racked exceedingly with
constant inquiry into the cause of this terrible disease,--for such to
my apprehension it was becoming. The whole neighborhood was alarmed, and
the paleness of death was upon almost every countenance.
My doubts were at length removed, and the cause of trouble, as I then
supposed and still believe, fully revealed. The disease so putrescent in
its tendencies, had originated in animal putrefaction. The circumstances
were as follows:--
The individual with whom the young men who sickened had been residing
and laboring, had laid aside, in his chamber, some time before, quite a
pile of lambskins, just in the condition in which they were when removed
from their natural owners, and had suffered them to lie in that
condition until they were actually putrescent and highly offensive. The
two young men, owing to the relative position of the chambers they
occupied, were particularly exposed to the poisonous effluvia.
I did not forget--I did not then forget--the oft inculcated and
frequently received doctrine, that animal impurity is not apt to
engender disease. It most certainly had an agency--a prominent one--in
the case before us. Perhaps it has such an influence much more
frequently than is generally supposed.
One of my patients, in the family which I first mentioned,--a little boy
two or three years old,--died almost as soon, after being seized with
disease, as his elder brother had done. The rest, though severely sick,
and at times given over to die, finally recovered. Some of them were
sick, however, many months, and none of them, so far as I now
recollect,--with perhaps a single exception,--ever enjoyed as good
health afterward as before.
I had in these families six or eight of the most trying cases I ever had
in my life; and yet, with the exceptions before named, all recovered.
How much agency my own labors as a medical man had in producing this
result, I am at a loss to conjecture. As an attendant or nurse, I have
no doubt my services were valuable. And it was because a good nurse is
worth more than a physician that I so frequently ran the risk of
watching over the sick so closely as considerably to impair my own
health.
The neighbors and friends of the two sick families, as I have already
intimated, looked on in silent agony during the whole campaign;
expecting, first that _their_ families, too, would soon be called to
take their turn; and secondly, that I, the commander in chief, should be
a sufferer, which of course would be a great public disadvantage. They
were almost as much gratified as I, when we all came forth from the fire
unscathed.
On the whole, except as regards health, I was a gainer rather than a
loser by the affair. I mean, of course, in the way of medical
reputation. I was by this time fairly established as a powder and pill
distributer, of the _first water_. In other words, I was beginning to be
regarded as a good family physician, and to be sought for, not only
within the narrow limits of my own native township, some four or five
miles square, but also quite beyond these narrow precincts. Occasionally
I had patients in three or four adjoining towns, and I was even
occasionally called as counsel to other physicians. My ambition was
high, perhaps higher than it ought to have been; but it had its checks
and even its valleys of humiliation; so that on the whole I retained my
sanity and a full measure of public confidence.
And yet, in conclusion, I have to confess that besides exposing my own
health, I made many medical blunders. I would not again run the risk to
health or reputation which, during this long trial of several months, I
certainly ran, for any sum of money which king Croesus or the
Rothschilds could command. Nor do I believe an intelligent physician can
do it, without being guilty of a moral wrong. Every one has his
province; let him carefully ascertain what that is, and confine himself
to it. The acting commander in an important military expedition has no
right to place himself in the ranks of those who are about to leap a
ditch, scale a wall, or charge bayonet. Paul has no right to labor in
Athens when he knows perfectly well that he can do more good in
Jerusalem, and the voice of God, by his Providence or otherwise, calls
him thither. And "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to
him it is sin."