HEZEKIAH AND DELIRIUM TREMENS.
One morning, about two o'clock, in the depth of winter, I was roused
from my slumbers by a stranger's voice, requesting me to get up and go
immediately along the sides of the mountain and see Hezekiah. "And who
is Hezekiah?" I said, only half awake; "and where is the side of the
mountain? And who are you with whom I am conversing?"
The mystery was easily cleared up, and I mounted my horse and was soon
on the road through the sides of the mountain. It was wild and
unfrequented; nay, it was, in places, almost impassable, especially in
the night. Mr. Judkins, the father of the sick man, not only resided
quite beyond my usual range of practice, but almost out of the range of
everybody else, squirrels and rabbits and wild fowls excepted.
In passing along, I made many inquiries with regard to the particular
condition of the young man, in order to prepare myself for a more rapid
investigation of his case whenever I should arrive. But I sought in
vain. The messenger's lips were almost wholly sealed. The cause, at that
time, I did not at all understand; but I had, subsequently, great reason
to believe he was silent and reserved by the special command of the
patient's friends. All I could obtain from my guide, was that Hezekiah
had an ill turn; that he was occasionally subject to ill turns, and that
the family were greatly alarmed about him.
On my arrival, I found a group of friends large enough, almost, for a
train band, gathered so closely round the bed of the young man that he
could hardly breathe. There was, also, a monstrous fire in the chimney,
sufficient to heat well the whole house, had the heat been properly
distributed. The air was, at best, greatly confined; but it was
particularly so to the poor patient, who lay panting as if in a dying
condition.
Yet I soon saw, and, as it were, instinctively, that he was not likely
to die immediately. Some adventitious cause was evidently operating to
throw his brain and nervous system into an abnormal condition, nor was I
long in determining what it was. The father was a farmer. He possessed
immense orchards, and made great quantities of cider, and one of his
neighbors owned a distillery. For every barrel of cider Mr. J. carried
to the distillery, he received in return a certain amount of
cider-brandy; and at the time when I was called to see Hezekiah, he had
more than two barrels of this "precious commodity" in his cellar. At the
close of autumn he had had three barrels.
Why this deposit of an article so doubtful? And what had become of the
one barrel which had disappeared? Not a member of the family would touch
it, but Mr. J. himself, and Hezekiah. The women and children did,
indeed, sometimes taste a little molasses toddy, as it was called. Mr.
J. would prepare it and pass it round in the morning just before
breakfast, in the hope and expectation that all would taste it; and they
usually did so. It was not, however, quite a voluntary thing on their
part, but a species of moral compulsion. Left entirely to themselves,
they never would have tasted it.
Now think, reader, of two persons in a family, with two or three barrels
of brandy at their entire disposal, with the expectation of consuming
it, or the far greater part of it, during autumn and winter. Why, three
barrels are more than a quart a day, for every day of the year. Mr. J.
drank freely; but not more freely than his son. The latter was treading
in the steps of his father, with the almost certain prospect of going,
in the end, quite beyond him.
It was not difficult to prescribe for the young man. The far greater
difficulty was to induce him to follow out the prescription. I was
honest enough to tell the father what ailed the son, and what ought to
be done, and to plead with him to change his own habits immediately. I
could not, it is true, quite prevail, when I urged him to pour his
brandy, the whole of it, into the street; for that, as he said and
doubtless thought, would be a waste of property. But he _did_ promise to
_sell_ it; though even this promise he never kept. He even continued to
drink it; though as he always insisted, with great moderation. But the
greatest drinkers we have among us, are usually the first to speak of
their own moderation.
The sequel of the story may easily be guessed. Hezekiah became a
miserable creature, and ere he reached the age of fifty came to a most
miserable end,--the drunkard's death, by the drunkard's mania. Mr. J.
having inherited a strong constitution passed on to sixty-three, when,
like a mighty tree with decayed trunk, a slight wind crushed him to the
dust.
His family, most of them, still survive; but they are daughters, and
have not inherited the vices of their father, so much as his diseases.
They have, at least, inherited the disease which drinking is so apt to
entail on the next generation,--I mean scrofula. Several of Mr. J.'s
elder daughters are already dead; and the younger ones--for he had a
very large family--are feeble, and always will be so; and their children
are still more feeble. Thus "earthward," and not heavenward, "all
things" in the family of the drunkard have a tendency.
How painful the reflection that I did not labor with this family, not
only in season, as I certainly did, but also out of season, and try to
save it! I had influence with them. My honest plainness at my first
visit, above described, did not prevent them from calling on me again
for counsel; though at first I had feared such a result. I was often in
the family, but not so often as I might have been; nor was I so bold as
I ought to have been. Shall I be able to render up my account of the
intercourse I had with them, in the great day, with joy, or must it be
with grief and shame?