CHAPTER LIV.

THE OPIUM PILL BOX.

The statements of the following chapter will include a confession of one

of the principal faults of my life,--a fault, moreover, which, as a

physician, I ought to have guarded against with the most assiduous and

unwearied care. For no man more than the medical man, is bound to let

his light shine--especially in the matter of general temperance, in such

a manner that others may be benefited by it.

When, in the beginning of my medical career, I attempted to establish a

temperance society, though I was exceedingly free from the charge of

using distilled liquors, according to the tenor and spirit of the

pledge, yet exposed, as I was, to colds, and delicate in constitution,

and above all, particularly liable, in the daily routine of business, to

temptation, I was yet one of those who lay aside one stimulus and retain

or resort to another. I did not, indeed, use my substitute with much

freedom, at first. The example daily before me, which was alluded to in

Chapter LII, was sufficient, one would think, to deter me from excess;

and so it proved. All I did for some time, whenever I had been

peculiarly exposed and feared I had taken cold, was to go and swallow a

small pill--say about a grain--of opium.

But as usually happens in such cases, though the pill seemed to remove

all tendency to cold, or in other words to cure me for the time, the

necessity for recurring to it became more and more frequent and

imperious, till I was, at length, a confirmed opium taker. And

yet--strange to say it--all the while I regarded myself as a rigid

temperance man; nay, I was a violent opposer of the use even of opium as

a daily stimulus, in the case of everybody but myself. My apology

was--and here was the ground of self-deception--that I only used it as

a medicine, or rather as a medical means of prevention.

It is, however, quite obvious to my own apprehension now, that a

substance is hardly entitled to the name of medicine, in any ordinary

sense of the term, which is used nearly or quite every day. Yet to this

stage of opium taking I soon arrived. Nay, I went even much farther than

this, and was, at length, pretty well established in the wretched habit

of using this poisonous drug three times a day.

In the summer of 1830, while under the full habitual influence of opium,

I had a slight attack of dysentery. It even went so far as to derange

all my habits, and to break in, among the rest, upon my opium taking.

Opium or laudanum was, indeed, included in the prescription of my

physician,--for I did not wholly rely on my own judgment in the

case,--but as a habitual daily stimulus, at certain fixed hours, it was,

of course, omitted. As I began to recover, however, my old desire for

the opium pill began to recur, at the accustomed former hours, and with

all its wonted imperiousness.

In a moment of reflection, reason resumed her throne, and the inquiry

came up, whether I should ever again wear the chain which had been

temporarily loosened. After a short debate, it was decided in the

negative. But a second question soon came up, whether I could keep my

resolution. This was a matter of serious inquiry, and it caused a

somewhat lengthy mental discussion.

During the discussion a new thought struck me. It was a child's thought,

perhaps; and yet it was interesting, and not to be despised for its

simplicity and childishness. It was that I would take my opium, what I

had in the house, and after carefully enclosing it in my pill box, would

make use of the box as a nucleus for the twine I was daily using. "When

I am inclined to break my resolution," thought I, "nothing shall be done

till I have unwound the ball of twine. I shall thus gain a little time

for reflection; and perhaps before I come to the opium, I may permit

reason to return and to mount the throne. The trial shall, at all

events, be made."

My resolution was carried into effect, and steadily adhered to. The

opium was fairly entombed in the twine, where, for aught I know, it

still remains. Most certainly I never saw it more; nor have I ever

tasted any of the opium or laudanum family, from that day to the

present, whether in sickness or in health.

CHAPTER LV.

BLEEDING AT THE LUNGS.

Having occasion to go to the metropolis, one day, I took the most

expeditious public conveyance which the times and the season afforded.

It was January, 1832. Railroad cars were not so much in vogue that I

could step into one of them, and, unless in case of accident, be there

in four or five hours, as I now could. It required something like

twenty-four hours to perform the journey I proposed, especially in the

winter.

We started at three o'clock in the morning. It had recently snowed, the

snow was deep, and the path was not well broken. Of course it was not

daylight when we set out, and as it was cloudy, it proved, as is not

unfrequent in such cases, to be the darkest time in the whole

twenty-four hours. However, we did as well as we could--driver, horses,

passengers, and all.

Our company consisted of seven males and two females. The coach was

small, and we filled it to the brim. The weather was by no means very

cold for the season; at least, it was not extreme. There was a sound of

rain,--the January thaw, perhaps, as we are wont to call it,--but as

yet, fortunately for us, the storm had not begun.

We had proceeded about ten miles, and the day had not yet dawned, when,

in passing around the point of a hill and winding our way among the deep

drifts, our driver and his charge missed the path, and we were

precipitated down a steep bank. The horses stopped immediately. Every

effort was made to rescue us from the stage-coach, which was lying on

its side, deeply embedded in the snow. I was so situated at the first

moment after the overturn, that most of the affrighted passengers made

use of me as a stepping-stone in their endeavors to reach the door

above, which was either opened or broken. At last we were all fairly

outside of the coach; no one appeared to be seriously injured.

As we were at a considerable distance from any dwelling-house, and as

the stage-coach was somewhat broken, and the harnesses torn, it required

a full hour to put things to rights, so as to enable us to proceed.

Meanwhile, though the weather was not very cold, it was quite chilly.

Some of the passengers stood still or sat still; others walked about.

The day had broken when we renewed our journey.

The sleighing here was better than at the place where we started. At the

next stage-office we exchanged our coach for a huge sleigh, which was

not only more commodious than the coach, but more easily drawn over the

ground, especially for a short time.

About noon it began to rain. Soon the travelling became worse again, and

our progress was slow and tedious. To me, the tediousness of the journey

was increased by a lame shoulder--the effect either of the overturn, or

of being used as a stair when the passengers made their sudden exit, or

of both. No bones were broken, nor joints dislocated; though there were

several considerable bruises.

Our other troubles were not yet over. In the midst of a violent rain,

and at a considerable distance from any public house, our sleigh broke

down, and we were obliged to send for a wagon. In making the exchange,

moreover, we were more or less exposed to the storm. I for one became

considerably wet, and did not get perfectly dry till we reached the

metropolis.

We arrived at evening at a large thoroughfare, forty miles or more from

our point of destination, when, after procuring a comfortable supper and

a good sleigh, with a new relay of horses, we set out to perform the

remainder of our journey. This was fortunate and very expeditious. We

reached our place of destination just before midnight, having travelled

the last forty-two miles in little more than four hours. This was almost

equal to railroad speed; but it was good sleighing, and we had with us,

in the sleigh, the United States mail, which imposed on the driver a

necessity of being as expeditious as the nature of the case would admit.

For even then, we had been twenty-one hours in making our passage.

I soon discovered that I had taken a severe cold during the journey; nor

do I believe my opium itself would have saved me. My only medicine was a

warm bed, into which I threw myself as soon as possible. In the morning

I repaired as early as I could to a boarding-house, in which a friend to

whom I had previously written, had made ready a place for me.

I was at first quite ill; but in the hope that a few days of rest would

restore me, I was not particularly anxious about myself, though some of

my friends were so. Several individuals called to inquire after my

health--nearly every one of whom pressed me to take medicine.

The second day after my arrival I began to expectorate a little blood.

Those who were familiarly acquainted with my consumptive tendencies

became greatly alarmed. They thought me not only presumptuous, because I

took nothing, but absolutely and carelessly ungrateful. And as I refused

to dose myself, they pressed me to send for a physician.

Yielding, at length, to their importunity, they called one of the oldest

and best physicians in the metropolis. He was an eccentric man, but he

had the full confidence of the better sort of people, and richly

deserved it; and I knew I should not be advised by him hastily. He was

acquainted with my peculiar views, at least in part. Besides, I should

not be obliged to follow his counsel implicitly. I should still be my

own physician. My disease had not, at least thus far, impaired my

intellect or taken out of my hands my free agency.

The doctor remained with me half an hour or so, during which time I made

him acquainted, as perfectly as I could, with my whole case. My good

friends, many of them, sat around waiting almost with impatience, to

hear him bid them or me to do some great thing--for great men though

some of them were, they were not great in matters pertaining to health

and disease. They were born, several of them, in the eighteenth

century.

At length the time for prescription and departure had arrived, and my

good brother and father of the lancet rose very deliberately, and said

with great gravity, "You will be obliged to stay in your room a few

days, and keep both your body and mind as quiet as possible. For the

most part, it will be well to maintain a recumbent position. For food,

use a little water gruel. In following this course, I think you will

very soon find yourself convalescent." Then, with a sort of stiff bow,

that every one who knew him could pardon in so excellent a man, he said,

"Good-morning, sir,--Good-morning, gentlemen;" and was making the best

of his way to the door of the chamber. "Will it not be needful for you

to call again?" I said to him. "I shall be most happy to call," said he,

"should it be necessary; but I doubt very much whether my advice will be

any farther required."

My friends were very much astonished that he did not prescribe active

medicine. "What can it mean?" they asked again and again. For myself,

too, I must confess that I was not a little disappointed. Not that I had

any considerable attachment to pills and pill boxes,--such a confidence

had gone by long before, as you know,--but I verily thought my

particular tendencies to pulmonary consumption demanded a little

tincture of digitalis, or something in the shape of strong medicine.

But the physician knew my theories, better than he knew the power of

that habit whose chains, in this respect, he had long ago escaped. For I

learned afterwards, much better than I then knew, that so feeble was his

faith in medicine, at least in all ordinary cases, that whenever the

intelligence of his patients would at all warrant it, he prescribed, as

he had for me, just nothing at all, but left every thing to be done by

Nature and good common-sense attendants. This was, in fact, just what he

attempted to do here. He doubtless supposed my friends were nearly as

well informed in the matter as I was; and that I was as fully

emancipated in practice as I was in theory.

"How much drugging and dosing might be saved," I said to myself, when I

came to reflect properly on the subject, "if mankind were duly trained

to place a proper reliance on Nature and Nature's laws, instead of

fastening all their faith on the mere exhibition of some mystic powder

or pill or tincture--or, at best, a few drops of some irritant or

poison. It is their ignorance that makes their physicians' and

apothecaries' bills so heavy, and the grave-digger's calling so good and

so certain."

It is hardly necessary for me to say that I followed the advice which

had been so wisely given, and which, after all, was but the echo of my

own judgment, when that judgment was freely exercised. My friends were

not satisfied at first; but when they saw that I was slowly recovering,

they submitted with as good a grace as they could. The fact was that

they had no court of appeal. They had selected a man who was at the head

of his profession, and whose voice, in the medical world, and as a

medical man, wherever he was known, was law. Had some young man given

such "old woman's" advice, as they would most certainly have regarded

it, they would have appealed to a higher court.

No man ever did better, when placed in similar circumstances, with the

aid of medicine, than I did without it. In two weeks, at farthest, I was

as well as I had been at any time in ten years or even twenty. What more

or greater could I have asked? What more could my friends have expected?

What more could have been possible? Could Hippocrates or Galen have done

more?

CHAPTER LVI.

BUTTER EATERS.

About the year 1833, I became somewhat intimately acquainted with the

dietetic and general physical habits of a young woman in a family where

I was a boarder, whose case will be instructive.

She was about twenty-five years of age, and resided in a family that had

adopted her as their own, her parents being unknown. She possessed a

good natural constitution; and was, for the most part, of good habits.

If there was any considerable defect of constitution, it consisted in a

predominance of the biliary and lymphatic over the nervous and sanguine

temperaments. Yet she was not wholly wanting in that susceptibility, not

to say activity, which the sanguine temperament is wont to impart. But

the same necessity which is so often the mother of invention, is also

sometimes the progenitor of a good share of activity; and this was, in a

remarkable degree, the lot of Miss Powell.

Although her skin was not by any means fair, it was not a bad skin. It

was firm in its structure, and very little susceptible of those slight

but ever recurring diseased conditions in which persons of a sanguine

temperament so often find themselves involved. Such I mean to say was

her natural physical condition, when uninfluenced by any considerable

practical errors.

And yet I had not been many months one of her more intimate

acquaintances, ere her face--hitherto so smooth and transparent--became

as rough and congested as any drunkard's face ever was, only the

eruption was more minute. It was what the common opinion of that region

would have called a rash. It came on suddenly, was visible for a short

time, and then gradually disappeared, leaving, in some instances, a

branny substance, consisting of a desquamation of the cuticle.

When the eruption had once fairly disappeared, her skin was as smooth as

ever. Then again, however, in a little time, its roughness would return,

to an extent which, to young ladies, is usually quite annoying. Young

men, in general, are not so much disturbed by a little roughness of the

skin, as the young of the other sex.

My particular acquaintance with her habits and annoyances continued as

many as four or five years. During this period there were several

ebbings and flowings of this tide of eruptive disease. My curiosity,

towards the end of this period, was so much excited that I sought and

obtained of her an opportunity for conversation on the subject. The

result was as curious as it was, to me, unexpected. It appeared, in the

sequel, that she understood, perfectly well, the whole matter, and held

the control of her cutaneous system in her own hands, nearly as much as

if she had been a mere piece of mechanism. She had not sought for

medical advice, because she knew the true method of cure for her

complaints as well as anybody could have told her.

In truth, she cured it about once a year, simply by omitting the cause

which produced it. This she had found out was butter, salted butter, of

course, eaten with her meals. She had somehow discovered that this

article of food was the real cause of her disease, and that entire

abstemiousness in this particular, would, in a reasonable time, remove

it.

I inquired why, after a long period of abstinence from butter, she ever

returned to its use. Her reply was that she was too fond of it to omit

it entirely and forever. She preferred to use it till the eruption began

to be quite troublesome, which was sometimes many weeks; then abstain

from it till she recovered, and then return to it. This gave her an

opportunity to use it from one-third to one-half of the time; and this

she thought greatly preferable to entire abstinence.

At this time I did not press her to abandon wholly an article of food,

which, though partially rejected, was yet slowly producing derangement

of her digestive system, and might, in time, result in internal disease,

which would be serious and irremediable. I did not do it; first, because

I knew my advice would not be very acceptable; secondly, for want of

that full measure of gospel benevolence which leads us to try to do

good, even in places where we have no right to expect it will be

received; and, lastly, no doubt for want of moral courage.

Were I to live my life over again, particularly my medical life, I would

pray and labor for a little more of what I am accustomed to call holy

boldness. By this term I do not mean _meddlesomeness_,--for this is by

no means to be commended,--but true Christian or apostolic boldness.

Of late years the young woman above referred to has been in

circumstances which, I have reason to believe, practically precluded the

use of the offending article. I meet her occasionally, but always with a

smooth face, which greatly confirms my prepossessions.[H] Happy would it

be for a multitude of our race if their circumstances were such as to

exclude this and many other articles of food and drink which are well

known to injure them.

One instance occurred in the very neighborhood of the foregoing, which,

though I received it at second hand, is not a little striking, and is

wholly reliable. A certain young mother--the wife of a merchant in easy

circumstances, was so excessively fond of butter, that, though she was a

dyspeptic, and knew it increased her dyspepsia, she used to eat it in a

manner the most objectionable which could possibly have been devised.

For example: she would take a ball of this article,--say half or

three-quarters of a pound,--pierce it with the point of a firm stick,

and having heated it, on all sides, over the fire, till the whole

surface was softened, would then plunge it into a vessel of flour, in

such a manner that the latter would adhere to it on all sides, till a

great deal was absorbed by the butter. Having done this, she would again

heat the surface of the ball and again dip or roll it in the flour. This

alternate melting the surface of the ball and rolling it in flour, was

continued till the whole became a mass of heated or scorched flour,

entirely full of the melted butter, and as completely indigestible as it

possibly could be, when she would leisurely sit down at a table and eat

the whole of it.

Did it make her sick?--you will ask. It did, indeed, and she expected it

would. She would go immediately to bed, as soon as the huge bolus was

swallowed, and lie there a day or two, perhaps two or three days.

Occasionally such a surfeit cost her the confinement of a whole week.

It is truly surprising that any Christian woman should thus make a beast

of herself, for the sake of the momentary indulgence of the appetite;

but so it is. I have met with a few such. Happily, however, conduct so

low and bestial is not so frequent among females as males, though quite

too frequent among the former so long as a single case is found, which

could be prevented by reasoning or even by authority.

There is one thing concerning butter which deserves notice, and which it

may not be amiss to mention in this place. What we call butter, in this

country,--what is used, I mean, at our tables,--is properly pickled or

salted butter. Now, I suppose it is pretty well understood, that in some

of the countries of Europe no such thing as salted or pickled butter is

used or known. They make use of milk, cream, and a little fresh butter;

but that is all. In the kingdom of Brazil, among the native population,

at least, no such thing as butter, in any shape, has ever yet been

known.

Fresh butter is sufficiently difficult of digestion; but salted butter

is much more so; and this is the main point to which I wish to call your

attention. Why, what is our object in salting down butter? Is it not to

prevent change? Would it not otherwise soon become acid and

disagreeable? And does not salting it so harden or toughen it, or, as it

were, fix it, that it will resist the natural tendency to decomposition

or putrefaction?

But will not this same "fixation," so to call it, prepare it to resist

changes within the stomach as well as outside of it; or, in other words,

prevent, in a measure, the work of digestion? Most unquestionably it

will. And herein is the stronghold of objection to this article. Hence,

too, the reason why it causes eruptions on the skin. The irritation

begins on the lining membrane of the stomach. The latter is first coated

with eruption; and, after a time, by what is called sympathy, the same

tendency is manifested in the face.

These things ought to be well understood. There is great ignorance on

this subject, and what is known is generally the _ipse dixit_ of

somebody. Reasons there are none for using salted butter. Or, if any,

they are few, and frequently very flimsy and weak. Let us have hygiene

taught us, were it only that we may know for ourselves the right and

wrong of these matters.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] Since this was penned, the young woman has died of erysipelas. Can

it be that she has been compelled, in this form, to pay a fearful

penalty for her former abuses? One might think that twenty years of

reformation would have worn out the diseased tendencies. Perhaps she

recurred, in later years, unknown to the writer, to her former favorite

article.

CHAPTER LVII.

HOT HOUSES AND CONSUMPTION.

If any individual in the wide world needs to breathe the pure

atmospheric mixture of the Most High,--I mean a compound of gases,

consisting, essentially, of about twenty parts of oxygen and eighty of

nitrogen,--it is the consumptive person. Mr. Thackrah, a foreign writer

on health, says, "That though we are eating animals, we are breathing

animals much more; for we subsist more on air than we do on food and

drink."

And yet I know of no class of people, who, as a class, breathe other

mixtures, and all sorts of impurities, more than our consumptive people.

First, their employments are very apt to be sedentary. Under the

impression that their constitutions are not equal to the servitude of

out-of-door work, agricultural or mechanical, they are employed, more

generally, within doors. They are very often students; for they usually

have active, not to say brilliant minds. And persons who stay in the

house, whether for the sake of study or anything else, are exceedingly

apt to breathe more or less of impure air.

Secondly, it is thought by many that since consumptive people are

feeble, they ought to be kept very warm. Now I have no disposition to

defend the custom of going permanently chilly, in the case of any

individual, however strong and healthy he may be; for it is most

certainly, in the end, greatly debilitating. It would be worse than

idle--it would be wicked--for consumptive people to go about shivering,

day after day, since it would most rapidly and unequivocally accelerate

their destruction.

And yet, every degree of atmospheric heat, whether it is applied to the

internal surface of the lungs through the medium of atmospheric air, or

externally to the skin, is quite as injurious as habitual cold; and

this in two ways: First, it weakens the internal power to generate heat,

which, no doubt, resides very largely in the lungs. Secondly, it takes

from them a part of that oxygen or vital air which they would otherwise

inhale, and gives them in return a proportional quantity of carbonic

acid gas, which, except in the very small proportion in which the Author

of nature has commingled it with the oxygen and nitrogen of the

atmosphere, is, to every individual, in effect, a rank poison.

Hence it is that those who have feeble lungs, or whose ancestors had,

should pay much attention to the quality of the air they breathe,

especially its temperature. And this they should do, not only for the

_sake_ of its temperature, but also for the sake of its purity. Such a

caution is always needful; but its necessity is increased in proportion

to the feebleness of the lungs and their tendency to suppuration,

bleeding, etc.

I was once called to see a young woman (in the absence of her regular

physician) who was bleeding at the lungs. She had bled occasionally

before, and was under the general care of two physicians; but a sudden

and more severe hemorrhage than usual had alarmed her friends, and, _in

the absence of better counsel_, they sought, temporarily, the advice of

a stranger.

It was a cold, spring day, and in order to keep up a proper temperature

in her room, I had no doubt that a little fire was needful. But instead

of a heat of 65 deg. in the morning and something more in the afternoon, I

found her sitting in a temperature, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, of

not less than 75 deg. or 80 deg. On inquiry, I was surprised to find

that the temperature of her room was seldom much lower than this, and

that sometimes it was much higher. I was still more surprised when I

ascertained that she slept at night in a small room adjoining her

sitting-room, and that a fire was kept all night in the latter, for her

special benefit.

No wonder her cough was habitually severe! No wonder she was subject to

hemorrhage, from the irritated vessels of the lungs! The wonder was that

she was not worse. The greatest wonder of all was, however, that two

sensible physicians should, for weeks if not for months, have

overlooked this circumstance. For I could not learn, on inquiry, that a

single word had been said by either of them on the subject.

If you should be inclined to ask whether she had no exercise in the more

open and pure air, either on horseback or in a carriage, the reply would

be, none at all. Horseback exercise was even regarded as hazardous, and

other forms of exertion had not been urged, or, that I could learn, so

much as recommended.

I was anxious to meet her physicians, that I might communicate my views

and feelings directly to them; but as this was not convenient I gave

such directions as the nature of the case seemed to require, requesting

them to follow my advice till the arrival of her physicians, and then to

lay the whole case before them. My advice was, to reduce the temperature

of the sitting-room as low as possible, and yet not produce a sensation

of chilliness, and to have her sleeping-room absolutely cold, taking

care to protect her body, however, by proper covering. I also

recommended exercise in the open air, such as she could best endure; and

withal, a plain, unstimulating diet.

What was done, I never knew for many months. At last, however, I met

with a neighbor of the family, one day, who told me that the young

woman's physicians entirely approved of my suggestions, and that by

following them out for some time, she partially recovered her wonted

measure of health.

Whether she recovered entirely, I never knew. The far greater

probability is, that she remained more comfortable through the summer

and autumn, but that the injudicious management of the next winter and

spring reduced her to her former condition, or to a condition much

worse. People are exceedingly forgetful even of their dearest rights and

interests. They may, perhaps, exert themselves in the moment of great

and pressing danger; but as soon as the danger appears to be somewhat

over they relapse into their former stupidity.

There is, however, much reason for believing that consumptive people

might often live on many years beyond their present scanty limit, could

they be made to feel that their recovery depends, almost wholly, on a

strict obedience to the laws of health, and not on taking medicine. If

Miss H., by strict obedience, could recover from a dangerous condition,

and enjoy six or eight months of tolerable health, is it not highly

probable, to say the least, that a rigid pursuance of the same course

would have kept her from a relapse into her former low and dangerous

condition?

It is in this way, as I suppose, that consumption is to be cured, if

cured at all. It is to be _postponed_. In some cases it can be postponed

one year; in some, five years; in some, ten, fifteen, or twenty; in a

few, forty or fifty. It is in this respect with consumption, however, as

it is with other diseases. In a strictly pathological sense, no disease

is ever entirely cured. In one way or another its effects are apt to be

permanent. The only important difference, in this particular, between

consumption and other diseases, is, that since the lungs are vital

organs, more essential to life and health than some other organs or

parts, the injury inflicted on them is apt to be deeper, and more likely

to shorten, with certainty, the whole period of our existence.

Connected with this subject, viz., the treatment of consumption, there

is probably much more of quackery than in any other department of

disease which could possibly be mentioned. One individual who makes

pretensions to cure, in this formidable disease, and who has written and

spoken very largely on the subject, heralds his own practice with the

following proclamation: "Five thousand persons cured of consumption in

one year, by following the directions of this work." Another declares he

has cured some sixty or seventy out of about one hundred and twenty

patients of this description, for whom he has been called to prescribe.

Now, if by curing this disease is meant the production of such changes

in the system, that it is no more likely to recur than to attack any

other person who has not yet been afflicted with it, then such

statements or insinuations as the foregoing are not merely groundless,

but absolutely and unqualifiedly false, and their authors ought to know

it. For I have had ample opportunity of watching their practice, and

following it up to the end, and hence speak what I know, and testify

what I have seen. But if they only mean by cure, the _postponement_ of

disease for a period of greater or less duration, then the case is

altered; though, in that case, what becomes of their skill? No book

worthy of the name can be consulted by a consumptive person without his

deriving from it many valuable hints, which if duly attended to may

assist him in greatly prolonging his days; and the same may be said of

the prescriptions of the physician. Yet, I repeat, it is a misnomer, in

either case, to call the improvement a cure.

Consumptive people continue to live, whenever their lives are prolonged,

as the consequence of what they do to promote their general health. One

is roused to a little exercise, which somewhat improves his condition,

and prolongs his days. Another is induced to pay an increased regard to

temperature, and he lives on. Another abandons all medicine, and throws

himself into the open arms of Nature, and thus prolongs, for a few

months or a few years, his existence. If this is _cure_, then we may

have all or nearly all of our consumptives cured, some of them a great

many times over. Some few aged practitioners may be found to have cured,

during the long years of their medical practice, more than five thousand

persons of this description.

There is no higher or larger sense than this in which any individual has

cured five thousand, or five hundred, or even fifty persons a year, of

consumption. On this, a misguided, misinformed public may reply: Many,

indeed, revive a little, as the lamp sometimes brightens up in its last

moments; but this very revival or flickering only betokens a more speedy

and certain dissolution.

On the other hand, predisposition to consumption no more renders it

necessary that we should die of this disease in early life, at an

average longevity of less than thirty years, than the loading and

priming of a musket or piece of artillery renders it necessary that

there should be an immediate or early explosion. Without an igniting

spark there will be no discharge in a thousand years. In like manner, a

person may be "loaded and primed" for consumption fifty years, if not

even a hundred, without the least necessity of "going off," provided

that the igniting spark can be kept away. Our power to protect life,

both in the case of consumption and many more diseases, is in proportion

to our power to withhold the igniting spark.

And herein it is that medical skill is needful in this dreadful disease,

and ought to be frequently and largely invoked. If the estimate which

has been made by Prof. Hooker, of Yale College, that one in five of the

population of the northern United States die of consumption, is correct,

then not less than two millions of the present inhabitants of New

England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, are destined, as things now

are, to die of this disease. What a thought! Can it be so?

Can it be that two millions of the ten millions now on the stage of

action in the northern United States, are not only _predisposed_ to

droop and die, but are laid under a constitutional necessity of so

doing? Must the igniting spark be applied? Must the disease be "touched

off" with hot or impure air, by hard colds, by excitements of body and

mind, and in a thousand and one other ways? People are not wholly

ignorant on this great subject. Would they but _do_ as well as they

_know_, the fatal igniting spark would be much oftener and longer

withheld; and, indeed, in many instances, would never prove the

immediate cause of dissolution. The lamp of life would burn

on--_sometimes, it may be, rather feebly_--till its oil was wholly

exhausted, as it always ought. Man has no more occasion, as a matter of

necessity, to die of consumption, than the lamp or the candle.

This, if true,--and is it not?--should be most welcome intelligence in a

country where, at some seasons and in particular localities, one-fourth

of all who die, perish of this disease. In March, 1856, twenty-one

persons out of eighty who died in Boston in a single week, were reported

as having died of consumption; and in June of the same year, the

proportion was nearly as great. In Newton, a few miles from Boston, the

proportion for the last ten years has been also about one in four.

But place the proportion for the whole northern United States, at one in

five only, or even one in six. Yet even at this rate, the annual

mortality for New York or New England, must be about twelve or fourteen

thousand. Yet it seems to excite little if any surprise. But when or

where has the cholera, the yellow fever, or the plague depopulated a

country of three millions of people, for each succeeding year, at the

rate of twelve thousand annually, or one hundred and twenty thousand

every ten years?

One reason why the statements I have made, of the possible postponement

of consumptive disease, should be most welcome intelligence, is found in

the fact that they inspire with the hope of _living_. The ordinary

expectation that those who inherit a consumptive tendency must die

prematurely, has been fatal to thousands. Mankind, in more respects than

one, tend to become what they are taken to be. If we take them to be

early destined to the tomb, they go there almost inevitably. There is, I

grant, one most fortunate drawback upon this tendency. Most people who

have the truly consumptive character, are disposed to disbelieve it.

They are generally "buoyant and hopeful," which, in some degree,

neutralizes the effect of sombre faces, and grave and prognosticating

jeremiades.

It will not be out of place to present the patient reader with an

anecdote, which may or may not be true, but which I received as truth

from the people of the neighborhood where the facts which it discloses

are said to have occurred.

In the eastern part of Connecticut, not many years since, a young man

lay on his bed, very feeble and greatly emaciated, almost gone, as

everybody supposed but himself, with pulmonary consumption. And yet, up

to that very hour, the thought that his disease was consumption, had

never obtained a lodgment in his own mind for a moment. On the contrary,

he was still fondly hoping that sooner or later he should recover.

It was fortunately about the middle of the forenoon one day,--an hour

when his body and mind were in the best condition to endure it,--that

his listening ear first caught from those around him the word

_consumption_. Starting up, he said, "Do you think my disease is

consumption?" They frankly told him their fears. "And do you think," he

added, "that I must die?" They did not conceal longer their real

sentiments.

He was for a few moments greatly distressed, and seemed almost

overpowered. At length, however, a reaction came, when, raising his head

a little, he deliberately but firmly exclaimed, "I can't die, and I

won't die." After a few moments' pause and reflection, he said, "I must

be got up." His attendants protested against the effort, but it was to

no purpose. Nothing would satisfy him but the attempt. He was bolstered

up in his bed, but the effort brought on a severe fit of coughing, and

he was obliged to lie down again.

The next forenoon, at about the same hour, he renewed the request to be

got up. The result was nearly as before. The process, however, was

repeated from day to day, till at length, to the great joy and surprise

of his friends, he could sit in his bed fifteen or twenty minutes. It is

true that it always slightly increased the severity of his cough; but

the paroxysm was no worse at the twentieth trial than at the first,

while he evidently gained, during the effort, a little muscular

strength. It was not many weeks before he could sit up in bed for an

hour or more, with a good degree of comfort.

"Now," said he, "I must be taken out of bed and placed in a chair." At

first his friends remonstrated, but they at length yielded and made the

attempt. It was too much for him; but he persevered, and after a few

repeated daily efforts, as before, at length succeeded. Continuing to do

what he could, from day to day, he was, ere long, able to sit up a

considerable time twice a day.

He now made a third advance. He begged to be placed in an open carriage.

As I must be brief, I will only say that, after many efforts and some

failures, he at length succeeded, and was able to ride abroad several

miles a day, whenever the weather was at all favorable. Nor was his

cough at all aggravated by it. On the contrary, as his strength

increased, it became rather less harassing and exhausting.

One more advance was made. He must be helped, as he said, upon a horse.

It was doubtful, even to himself, whether he had strength enough to

endure exercise in this form; but he was determined to try it. The

attempt was completely successful, and it was scarcely a week before he

could ride a mile or two without very much fatigue.

The final result was such a degree of recovery as enabled him to ride

about on horseback several miles a day for six years. He was never quite

well, it is true, but he was comfortable, and, to some extent, useful.

He could do errands. He could perform many little services at home and

abroad. He could, at least, take care of himself. At the end of this

period, however, his strength gave way, and he sank peacefully to the

tomb. He was completely worn out.

Now the principal lesson to be learned from this story is obvious.

_Determination_ to live is almost equivalent to _power_ to live. A

strong will, in other words, is almost omnipotent. Of the good effects

of this strong determination, in case of protracted and dangerous

disease of this sort, I have had no small share of experience, as the

reader has already seen in Chapter XXIII.

Another fact may be stated under this head. A young man in southern

Massachusetts, a teacher, was bleeding at the lungs, and was yielding at

length to the conviction--for he had studied the subjects of health and

disease--that he must ere long perish from consumption. I told him there

was no necessity of such a result, and directed him to the appropriate

means of escape. He followed my directions, and after some time regained

his health. Ten or twelve years have now passed away, and few young men

have done more hard work during that time than he; and, indeed, few are

able, at the present moment, to do more. It is to be observed, however,

that he made an entire change in his dietetic habits, to which he still

adheres. He avoids all stimulating food--particularly all animal

food--and uses no drink but water.

I did not advise him, while bleeding, to mount a hard-trotting horse,

and trot away as hard as he could, and let the blood gush forth as it

pleased. It is a prescription which I have not yet hazarded. I might do

so in some circumstances, when I was sure of being aided by that almost

omnipotent determination of which I have elsewhere spoken. I might do it

occasionally; but it would be a rare combination of circumstances that

would compel me. I might do it in the case of a resolute sea captain,

who insisted on it, would not take _no_ for an answer, and would assume

the whole responsibility. I might and would do it for such a man as Dr.

Kane.

I have, myself, bled slightly at the lungs; but while I did not, on the

one hand, allow myself to be half frightened to death, I did not, on the

other hand, dare to meet the hemorrhagic tendency by any violent

measures; not even by the motion of a trotting horse. I preferred the

alternative of moderate exercise in the open air, with a recumbent

position in a cool room, having my body well protected by needful

additional clothing, with deep breathing to expand gently my chest, and

general cheerfulness. But I have treated on this subject--my own general

experience--at sufficient length elsewhere.

CHAPTER LVIII.

POISONING BY A PAINTED PAIL.

A child about a week old, but naturally very sensitive and irritable,

became, one night, unusually restless and rather feverish, with

derangement of the bowels. The condition of the latter was somewhat

peculiar, and I was not a little puzzled to account for it. There was

nothing in the condition of the mother which seemed to me adequate to

the production of such effects. She was as healthy as delicate females

usually are in similar circumstances.

The derangement of the child's bowels continued and increased, and I was

more and more puzzled. Was it any thing, I said to myself, which was

imbibed or received from the mother? Just at the time, I happened to be

reading what Dr. Whitlaw, a foreign medical writer, says of the effects

which sometimes follow when cows that are suckling calves feed on

buttercup. The poison of the latter, as he says, instead of injuring the

cow herself, affects, most seriously, the calf, and, in some few

instances, destroys it. This led me to search more perseveringly than I

had before done, for a cause of so much bowel-disturbance in my young

patient.

At length I found that a wooden pail, in which water was kept for family

use, had been but recently painted inside; and that the paint used was

prepared in part, from the oxyde of lead, usually called white lead. On

this I immediately fastened the charge of poisoning.

My suspicions were confirmed by the fact that the mother had been more

thirsty and feverish than usual, during a few hours previous to the

child's first manifestation of disease, and had allowed herself to drink

very freely of water, which was taken from the very pail on which our

suspicions now rested. Another fact of kindred aspect was, that the

child recovered just in proportion as the mother left off drinking from

the painted pail, and used water which was procured in vessels of whose

integrity we had no doubt.

Most people who had any knowledge of the facts in the case, said that

the cause I assigned could not have been the true one, since it was

inadequate to the production of such an effect. But the truth is, we

know very little about poisons, in their action on the living body,

whether immediate or remote. Till this time, although I had read on it

as much as most medical men, yet I knew--practically knew--almost as

little as the most illiterate. Yet the subject was one with which

professional physicians should be familiarly acquainted, if nobody else

is. Many an individual, as we have the most abundant reason for

believing, loses his health, if not his life, from causes which appear

to be equally slight. A Mr. Earle, of Massachusetts, cannot swallow a

tumbler of water containing a few particles of lead, without being made

quite sick by it. Nor is he alone in this particular. Such sensitiveness

to the presence of a poisonous agency is by no means uncommon. It may be

found to exist in some few individuals in every country, and almost

every neighborhood.

CHAPTER LIX.

ONE DROP OF LAUDANUM.

A babe, not yet a day old, came under my care for treatment. What the

symptoms were, except those of nervous irritation, I have now forgotten;

but there was ample evidence of much disturbance in the system, and the

parents and friends were exceedingly anxious about the results.

Now it was one of those cases in which a large proportion of our medical

men are exceedingly ignorant, and only guess out the cause or causes as

well as they can. I was thus ignorant, and would not--and as an honest

man, _could_ not--attempt to divine the cause or give a name to the

disease. Yet I must needs, as I verily thought, prescribe something and

somehow. So I took a single drop of laudanum, and diluted it well, and

made the child swallow it.

He soon became easy, quite too easy, and fell into a profound sleep. So

deep and profound, in fact, was its sleep, or rather its _stupor_, that

I began to be afraid it never would awake. How strange, I thought within

myself, that a single drop of this liquid should produce so much effect!

Yet it taught me wisdom. It taught me to let medicine alone--strong

medicine, at least--in the diseases of very young children. It also

taught me not to give too large doses to anybody, especially to those

who had never taken any before. The first dose, for unperverted nature,

must be very small indeed!

How much my little patient was injured, permanently, by this act of

unpardonable carelessness, I never knew. It may have laid the foundation

for many ills which he has since experienced, some of which have been

severe and trying. Or, if otherwise, it may have aggravated such ills as

had their origin in other causes. Or, if nothing more, it may have

contributed to a delicacy and sensitiveness and feebleness of

structure, which can never, in all probability, be fully overcome, and

which have more to do, even with our moral tendencies and character,

than most of us are fully aware.

How much would I give to be able to blot from my history such errors and

defects of character as this! For, though I confess to nothing worse

than haste and carelessness, in the present instance, yet a medical man,

like the commander in the battle field or elsewhere, has no right to be

careless. My aged, honored father gravely insisted, all his life long,

that no accidents, as they are termed, in human life, ever take place,

unless there is in the first place, carelessness, somewhere. Much more

is it true that many an individual who sickens and loses his life, is

the victim of carelessness; or, what is the same thing, want of

attention, when great care and attention were necessary, and the issues

of life and death were suspended, as it were, on a thread!

CHAPTER LX.

MRS. KIDDER'S CORDIAL.

Should you ever go to Boston, and pass along a certain street called

Court Street, almost to its western extremity, you may probably see at

your left hand, in large letters of various fantastical shapes, the

words which I have placed at the head of this chapter; viz., "MRS.

KIDDER'S CORDIAL." Sometimes, I believe, it is called her cholera

cordial; but it is sufficiently well known, as I suppose, by the former

name.

But how is it known? Not merely by the sign I have mentioned, fastened

up at the door of that aforesaid shop in Court Street, but by a host of

advertisements in the public papers; and in other cities as well as

Boston. You may find them in almost every public house, post-office,

railroad depot, and grocery in New England; or, as I might perhaps say,

in the whole Union.

I once had a child severely sick, at a season of the year when not only

the Asiatic cholera prevailed, but also the cholera morbus. She was

teething at the time, which was doubtless one cause of her illness,--to

which however, as I suppose, other causes may have been added. In any

event, she was in a very bad condition, and required the wisest and most

careful medical attention. There was also a young woman in the house who

was ill in the same way, but not so ill as the child.

At that time my residence was very near the metropolis, though, as I

have already told you, Mrs. Kidder's cordial could be had almost

everywhere. Having occasion to go to town, I fell in with an old friend

who kindly inquired after the health of my family. When I had told him,

he boldly and with true Yankee impertinence, asked what I had done for

my family patients; to which I replied, with a frankness and simplicity

which was fully equal to his boldness, "Nothing, as yet." "Do you mean

to do nothing?" said he, with some surprise. I told him that I did not

know what I might do in future, but that I saw no necessity of using any

active medication at present. "Are you not aware," I added, "that

physicians seldom take their own medicines or give them to their

families?"

"I know very well," said he, "that physicians theorize a good deal about

these matters; but after all, experience is the best school-master.

Should you lose that little girl of yours, simply because you are

anxious to carry out a theory, will you not be likely to regret it? As

yet you have lost no children, and therefore, though much older than

myself, you have not had all the experience which has fallen to my lot;

and experience is the best school-master."

"True," I answered, "I am not too old to learn from that experience,

which, in a certain sense, is the basis of all just knowledge,

especially in medicine. What you call my theory, or at least all the

theory I have, is grounded on this same experience; not, indeed, that of

one man in one neighborhood, nor, indeed, in one nation. I have looked

the world over."

"And you have come to the very wise conclusion, it would seem," said he,

"that medicine never does any good, and that you will never give it

more, except to those who are determined to have it, or will not fasten

their faith on any thing else."

"Not exactly that," I replied. "I can think of a great number of cases

in which I would give medicine. For example: suppose one of my children

had by the merest accident taken a dose of poison, which, if retained,

must inevitably destroy it, I would much sooner give that child an

active emetic--which, of course, is medicine--than stand still and see

it die."

"Very well," said he, "your child and Miss L., are, in one point of

view, poisoned. They will probably die, if you stand still and do

nothing; at least I have not a doubt that the little girl will. Now take

my advice, and do something before it is too late. Give up all your

theories and fine-spun reasonings, and do as others do, and save your

child."

As I had but little time for conversation with him, even on a highly

important and deeply interesting subject, above all to point out the

difference between the two cases he mentioned. I was now about ready to

say "Good-morning," and leave him. "Stop a moment," said he, "and go

with me to the second shop beyond that corner, and get a bottle of Mrs.

Kidder's cordial for your sick folks."

Here I smiled. "Well," said he, "you may continue to smile; but you will

mourn in the end. I have used Mrs. Kidder's cordial in my family a good

deal, and I assure you it is no humbug. It is all it promises. Now just

go with me, for once, and get a bottle of it. Depend upon it, you will

never regret it."

Although my good friend had not succeeded in changing my views by his

many affirmations, nor by his strong appeal to his experience of the

good effects of the cordial in his own family (for I well knew he had

lost almost all his children), I consented to go with him to the shop,

partly to get rid of him. When we arrived I bought a bottle of the

cordial,--I believe for fifty cents,--put it in my pocket, and carried

it home with me.

When I reached home I put away the bottle, on a shelf in our family

closet which was quite unoccupied, and inquired about the patients. The

little girl was rather better, it was thought, but Miss L. was still

weak and low. I told them about the adventure with the bookseller, but

omitted to state that I had purchased the cordial.

In a very few days, by dint of good care and attention, and the blessing

of a kind Providence, the sick were both of them much better, and I

could leave them for a whole day at a time. My business in town demanded

my presence, and I repaired thither again. And who should I meet, on

getting out of the omnibus, but my old friend, who had reasoned with me

so patiently and perseveringly, in defence of Mrs. Kidder's cordial?

He inquired, almost immediately, about my family; to which I joyfully

replied, "Better, all better. They were better in less than two days

after I last saw you;--yes, they were a little better that very

evening."

"I told you it would be so," said he. "I never knew the cordial to fail

when taken in season. I have lost several children, it is true; but they

did not take it soon enough. I am profoundly glad you were in season.

Does it not operate like a charm?"

"Exactly so," said I, "if it operates at all; exactly like a charm, or

like magic. Shall I tell you the whole story?"

"By all means," he replied; "let us have the whole of it; keep nothing

back."

"Well, then, I went home, and placed the bottle of cordial on a high and

obscure shelf, where nobody would be likely to see it, and proceeded

with our sick folks just as before. The bottle of cordial remained

unknown, except to myself, and untouched, and is probably untouched to

the present hour. So you see--do you not?--how like a charm it

operates."

"Just _like_ you, doctor. Well, as long as they recovered I do not care.

But I shall always have full faith in the medicine. I know what I know;

and if all the world were of your opinion I could not resist a full

belief in the efficacy of Mrs. Kidder's Cholera Cordial."

My friend was not offended with me, for he was, in the main, a sensible,

rational man. He pitied me; but, I believe from that time forth, gave up

all hopes of my conversion. I come to this conclusion because he has

never uttered a syllable on the subject, in my hearing, from that day to

this hour, though I have met with him probably fifty times.

There can be no doubt that were we to place full faith in the

recuperative efforts of nature, three-fourths of our medicine--perhaps I

may just as well say nine-tenths--would be quite as useful were it

disposed of in the way I disposed of Mrs. Kidder's cordial, as when

swallowed. Nay, it is possible it might be much more useful. If a sick

person can recover without it just as well as _with_ it, he certainly

will get well more easily, even if it should not be more quickly, than

if he had a load of foreign substance at his stomach to be disposed of.

In other words, to get well in spite of medicine seems to me much less

agreeable, after all that is said in its favor, than to get well in

Nature's own way.

CHAPTER LXI.

ALMOST RAISING THE DEAD.

So many people regarded it, and therefore I use the phrase as a title

for my chapter. I have heard of families of children so large that it

was not easy to find names for them all. My chapters of confession are

short, but very numerous, and I already begin to find it difficult to

procure titles that are _apropos_.

Mary Benham was the second daughter, in an obscure and indigent family

that resided only a little distance from my house, just beyond the

limits of what might properly be called the village. I do not know much

of her early history, except that she was precocious in mind, and

scrofulous and feeble in body.

The first time I ever heard any thing about her, was one night at a

prayer-meeting. Mr. Brown, the minister, took occasion to observe, at

the close of the meeting, in my hearing, that he must go to Mr. Benham's

and see Mary, for she was very ill, and it was thought would not live

through the night.

She survived, however, as she had done many times before, and as she did

many times afterward, in similar circumstances. More than once Mr. Brown

had been sent for--though sometimes other friends were called, as Mr.

Brown lived more than a mile distant--to be with her and pray with her,

in what were supposed to be her last moments. But there was still a good

deal of tenacity of life; and she continued to live, notwithstanding all

her expectations and those of her friends.

It appeared, on inquiry, that her nervous system was very much

disordered, and also her digestive machinery. She was also taking, from

day to day, a large amount of active medicine. Still no one appeared to

doubt the propriety of such a course of treatment, in the case of a

person so very sick as she was; for how, it was asked, could she live

without it?

In one or two instances I was sent for; not, indeed, as her physician,

but as a substitute for the more distant or the absent minister. At

these visits I learned something, incidentally, of her true physical

condition. I found her case a very bad one, and yet, as I believed, made

much worse by an injudicious use of medicine.

Yet what could I do in the premises? I had not been asked to prescribe

for her, nor even to give counsel as a supernumerary or consulting

physician. Dr. M. paid her his weekly and semi-weekly visits, and

doubtless supposed all the wisdom of the world added to his own would

hardly improve her condition. I was, of course, by all the rules of

medical etiquette, and even by the common law of politeness, obliged to

bite my lips in silence. One thing, indeed, I ventured to do, which was

to send her a small tract or two, in some of the departments of hygiene

or health.

Soon after this her physician died; and died, too, by his own

confession, publicly made, of stomach disease,--at least, in part. He

was a man of gigantic body and great natural physical force. His

digestive apparatus was particularly powerful, and it had been both

unwisely cultivated and developed in early life, and unwisely and

wickedly managed afterward. For an example of the latter, he would,

while abroad among his patients, sometimes go without his dinner, and

then, on his return to his family and just as he was going to bed, atone

for past neglect by eating enough for a whole day, and of the most solid

and perhaps indigestible food. In this and other abusive ways he had

been suicidal.

But he was now gone to his final account, and on whose arm could Mary

lean for medical advice? Her parents were too poor to pay a physician's

bill. What had been paid to her former medical attendant--which, indeed

was but a mere pittance--was by authority of the town. Mary felt all the

delicacy she should have felt, in her circumstances, and perhaps more,

for she refused for some time to ask for farther aid, preferring to

groan her way alone.

One evening, when I was present on a moral errand, she spoke of the

great benefit she had derived from the perusal of the little books I had

sent her, and modestly observed that, deprived as she was by the wise

dispensation of Providence, of her old friend and physician, she had

sometimes dared to wish she could occasionally consult me. I told her I

hoped she would not hesitate a moment to send for me, whenever she

desired, for if in a situation to comply with her requests, I would

always do so immediately. She was about to speak of her poverty, when I

begged her not to think of that. The only condition I should impose, I

told her, was that she should do her very best to follow, implicitly, my

directions. With this condition she did not hesitate to promise a full

and joyful compliance.

From that time forth I saw her frequently, since I well knew that even

voluntary visits would be welcome. I found she had become convinced of

the necessity of breathing pure air, and of ventilating her room every

day. Nor did she neglect, as much as formerly, the great laws of

cleanliness. Yet, alas! in this respect, the hard hand of necessity was

upon her. She could not do all she wished. However, she could apply

water to her person daily, if she could not to her clothing and bedding;

so that, on the whole, she did not greatly suffer. Her mother did what

she could, but she was old and decrepit.

She had also made another advance. She had contrived to obtain, I hardly

know from what source, but probably from the hands of kind friends, a

small amount of good fruit to use daily, with one or more of her meals.

This excluded a part or portion of that kind of food which was more

stimulating and doubtful.

But the greatest difficulty we had to encounter was to shake off the

enormous load of narcotic medicine which had been so long prescribed for

her that she seemed unable to live without it. Morphine, in particular,

she had come to use in quantities which would have destroyed a person

who was unaccustomed to its influence, and in frequently repeated

doses. I told her she might as well die in one way as another; that the

morphine, though it afforded a little temporary relief, was wearing out

her vital energies at a most rapid rate, and that the safest, and, in

the end, the easiest way for her was, to abandon it entirely. She

followed my advice, and made the attempt.

I have forgotten how long a time it required to effect a complete

emancipation from her slavery to drugs; but the process was a gradual

one, and occupied at least several months. In the end, however, though

not without considerable suffering, she was perfectly free, not only

from her slavery to morphine, but to all other drugs. All this time,

moreover, she was as _well_, to say the least, as before; perhaps, on

the whole, a little better.

I now set myself, in good earnest, to the work of improving her physical

habits. The laws of ventilation and cleanliness, to which her attention,

as I have already intimated, had become directed, were still more

carefully heeded. She was required to retire early and rise early, and

to keep her mind occupied, though never to the point of fatigue, while

awake. Her habits with regard to food and drink were changed very

materially. The influence of the mind on the condition of the body was

also explained to her, and the influence of temperature. In short, she

was brought, as fast as possible, to the knowledge of physical law in

its application to her circumstances, and encouraged to obey it.

The recuperative powers of nature, even in unfavorable circumstances,

were soon apparent. This greatly increased her docility and inspired her

with faith and hope. The greatest trouble was in regard to muscular

exercise. Much of this was needed; and yet how could it be obtained? She

could not walk, and yet, in her indigence, she had no means of

conveyance, except at the occasional invitation of some friend.

But this even had its good tendencies. To take her up, as we would have

taken a child, set her in a carriage and let her ride half a mile or a

mile, was obviously of great service to her. She was far less fatigued

by it than was expected; her subsequent sleep was far better; nor did

any remote evil effects follow. This greatly increased her courage, and

raised the hopes of her friends.

She was at length able to be placed in the railroad cars, and with the

aid of coaches, at embarking and disembarking, to travel about a good

deal, to the distance of ten, twelve, or twenty miles; and all this with

favorable effects. Her recovery, at no distant day, began to be

regarded, by the most sceptical, as quite probable.

My removal, a hundred miles or so from the village, just at this time,

was, however, a misfortune to her. In one of her excursions, she

received and accepted an invitation to spend a few months with a distant

relative, where she came under the influence of one of the phases of

modern quackery, by means of which her progress to the promised land of

health was very considerably retarded. She even sickened, but afterward

recovered.

Sometime after this, as I subsequently learned, she partially regained

her good condition of steady progress, and returned to her father's

house. Finding herself, at length, able to do something for her support,

she entered into the service of a neighboring family, at first with

little compensation except her board, but subsequently at half pay or

more. Her domestic duties were such as only taxed her system to a degree

which she was able to endure without any injury.

It was in this condition, that, after two or three years of absence, I

found her and rejoiced with her. For, though she could no more be said

to be restored to perfect health, than a vessel could be considered

perfectly sound that is full of shot holes, yet her condition was far

enough from being desperate, and was even comparatively excellent. I

left her once more with the tear of gratitude to God on her cheek, and

again, for many long years, neither saw her nor heard from her.

At our next interview she brought with her a gentleman whom she

introduced to me as her husband. The meeting was to me wholly

unexpected, but most happy. She lived in this relation, but without

progeny, a few years more, and then sank in a decline, to rise no more

till the sound of the last trumpet.

Of the particulars of her decline and death, I have never heard a word.

Her scrofulous temperament and tendencies rendered her liable to

numerous diseases of greater or less severity and danger, to some of

which she probably fell a victim. It is, however, by no means impossible

that her numerous cares and anxieties--for she was naturally very

sensitive--may have hastened her exit.

If I have any misgivings in connection with this protracted, but very

interesting case, and consequently any confessions to make, it is with

reference to the point faintly alluded to in a preceding paragraph.

While I honor, as much as any man, the marriage relation,--for it is in

accordance with God's own intention, and is the first institution of

high Heaven for human benefit and happiness,--I must freely confess that

in the present fallen condition of our race, it occasionally happens

that an individual is found unfit for the discharge of its various

duties, as well as for the endurance of some of its peculiar

responsibilities. Such, as I believe, among others, was Mary Benham.

CHAPTER LXII.

FEMALE HEALTH, AND INSANE HOSPITALS.

A female, about thirty-five years of age, and naturally of a melancholic

temperament, was very frequently at my room for the purpose of

conversing with me in regard to her health. Most of her complaints--for

they were numerous--were grafted upon a strongly bilious habit, and were

such as required in the possessor and sufferer, more than an ordinary

measure of attention to the digestive organs and the skin. And yet both

these departments, especially the latter, had been in her case,

hitherto, utterly neglected. To speak plainly, and with some license as

a physiologist, _she had no skin_. It was little more than a mere

wrapper, so far as the great purposes of health were concerned. A dried

and even tanned hide, could it have been fitted to her person with

sufficient exactness, would have subserved nearly the same purposes.

Perhaps you will excuse the tendency in the description of this case, to

exaggeration, when you are informed that the treatment of themselves, in

the particular here alluded to, by females especially, is one which

habitually fills one with disgust, and sometimes with indignation.

Persons of good sense, of both sexes, who from month to month, perhaps

from year to year, never wash their skins, nor use much muscular

exercise, ought to know that they must, sooner or later, experience the

dreadful penalty attached to violated physical law, and from which there

is, neither on earth nor in heaven, any possible escape. Can any one

suppose, for a moment, that so curious and complicated an organ as the

skin, and one of such considerable extent, has nothing to do?

Nearly every living person has some idea, of greater or less intensity,

of pores in the skin; at least, they use language which implies such an

idea. They talk, often, of the necessity of keeping these pores open.

But how is it to be done? Not certainly while they use little or no

muscular exercise, by washing, once a day, their hands and faces merely,

or, as some say, their fingers, their noses, and the tips of their

chins. They may talk, on occasions, very boldly and flippantly, about

_sweating_ away a cold, as they term it; but do they vainly suppose that

the sweat vessels or sweating machinery has nothing to do, from day to

day, which might prevent the necessity of resorting to these sweating

processes?

Miss L. appeared to be in utter ignorance of any laws of the skin, or of

the digestive or muscular systems. And yet her thoughts had been turned,

often and frequently, to her own feelings and sensations. She would

talk, almost incessantly, if anybody would hear her, about her aches and

pains, and could describe her whole train of feelings, from morning to

evening, with a faithfulness and patience and minuteness that would have

furnished a genius less than Defoe with material sufficient for quite a

huge volume.

Now I could have visited and counselled Miss L., at least once a week,

with great profit to herself, had she been as intelligent, in general,

as she was familiar with her own sensations. As things were, her

confidence was rather more troublesome than agreeable; but she was,

practically, a standing patient; and physicians, as you know, cannot

choose. They must be, among mankind, like the Great Physician, as they

who "_serve_;" not as those who are _to be served_, or accommodated. And

they must serve those who come to them.

Miss L. was evidently somewhat disappointed, when she found I was not

disposed to give her any medicine. A little, she thought, might

sometimes be useful; a great deal she did not believe in, of course.

Experience had forced upon her some of the lessons of wisdom. However,

she contrived to fasten a good deal of faith on the laws of health,

which I continually held forth to her. In particular, I urged on her the

necessity of endeavoring to keep up what I was wont to call a

centrifugal tendency in her system. A good plump, healthful, ever

active, and ever vigorous skin was, as I told her, our only hope in her

case. As a means to this end, and also as a means of withdrawing her

attention from the slavery of a constant attendance on her own

sensations, I urged her to mingle with society much more, and go about

doing good to others, on the great principle, "It is more blessed to

give than to receive." I warned her, however, against the danger of

falling into the habit of giving an account of herself--her woes and

sorrows--to every one she might meet with, who should kindly inquire

about her condition, since it would greatly retard her improvement, even

if it did not keep up or renew her disease.

Among other things, I ventured to suggest to her the importance of

having something to do--something of a permanent nature. "We hear," I

said, "of gentlemen at large, and you seem to be a lady at large. You

have, in the usual acceptation of the phrase, nothing to do. Would it

not be well for you to take charge of something or of somebody? You

might, perhaps, assume the office of teacher, and take the charge of a

few pupils; or even adopt a child or two as your own, where you might

receive compensation. Or," as I finally added,--for I perceived she

shrunk from all responsibilities of this kind,--"you might, perhaps,

become the mistress of a family."

On the last mentioned topic, I was also obliged, for obvious reasons, to

speak with considerable caution. She was unsocial, timid, fearful of

being burdened with cares--the very stuff, though she knew it not, that

human life is made of, ay, and human happiness too. But I could not

hesitate to make the trial. My suggestions, however, were of little

avail. She went on for some time, in the old way, and made very little

progress.

I lost sight of her about this time, and never met her more. The sequel

of her history I only know from report. It is painful in the extreme. It

is, however, the history, in all its essential features, of thousands of

selfish people, who, after all, by dint of numbers, force, and

influence, contrive to rule the world.

Being fully determined to have no cares or responsibilities connected

with children or household, she not only refused to hearken to my

advice, but also to one or more truly kind and promising offers of

marriage. She pursued her selfish course undisturbed, unless by

occasional misgivings, till her brain and nervous system suffered so

severely that she began to approach the confines of insanity.

It was, however, a considerable time before the silver cord was loosed,

the golden bowl broken, and the wheel broken at the cistern. But the

terrible result at length came. The demands of violated physical law are

inexorable. She was conveyed, as a last resort, in the hope of cure, to

an insane hospital. Here, after many and patient attempts to restore the

crippled and broken down machinery to healthful motion, she ended her

days.

My female patients were not all equally unfortunate. One I had, whose

case, if minutely described, would present an array of facts painful in

the extreme. She, too, approached the dark regions of insanity; but she

did not enter. She still lives, and is at once a useful and happy woman,

and an excellent wife and housekeeper. As a means to her recovery,

however, she pursued a course diametrically opposite to that pursued by

Miss L. She did not shrink from care and responsibility; on the

contrary, she submitted to both. First, she sought increased activity

and usefulness in her father's family; and, secondly, in a family of her

own.

Concerning the last mentioned case, I have few misgivings, and equally

few confessions to make. I call it a remarkable case; but it must not be

revealed in its details, for other reasons besides its tediousness. In

the case of Miss L., however, I have one deep and lasting regret.

In the early part of my acquaintance with her, as a medical man, she

probably had more confidence in my integrity and skill than in those of

any other living individual. She had been early left an orphan; and I

was among the first--perhaps the very first--to take the attitude

towards her of a true father. Such kindness, and especially such

paternal care, never fail to make their impression.

"Love, and love only, is the loan for love."

At this early sympathizing period, had I been more faithful, I might,

perhaps, have saved her. But I was remiss--disposed to delay. I waited,

a thousand times, for a better opportunity. I waited till the favorable

moment--ay, the _only_ moment--had passed by.

Physicians often err here. God gives to many individuals the most

unbounded confidence in medical men; and this remarkable provision of

his has a deep meaning. It is not, however, to the intent that they

should abuse the influence thus secured to them, by filling their

patients' stomachs with pills and powders; but for such purposes,

rather, as have been indicated by the general tenor of the foregoing

remarks. It is that they may give them wise paternal counsel and sound

physiological and pathological instruction.

Such counsel and such instruction were indeed given to Miss L., but not

to that extent which the nature of the case required, and which a little

more moral courage and Christian plainness would have secured. She was

worth saving, and I might, perchance, have been the honored instrument

of saving her, and of thus rendering to society a most valuable service.

That vital energy of hers which was expended in watching over her own

internal feelings, might have been rendered a much more profitable

investment.

But the account is closed and sealed, to be agitated or questioned no

more till the inquisitions of the last day. Let such considerations and

reflections as this remark suggests to the human mind have their

intended effect. Let us ever increase our zeal and watchfulness, that we

may avoid such a course of conduct as makes confessions meet, or

needful, or even salutary.

CHAPTER LXIII.

A GIANT DYSPEPTIC.

There have been giants in the earth, in nearly every age, if not in

every clime--giants mentally, and giants physically. Of course they may

have been rare exhibitions, and may thus have elicited much attention;

and some of them have attained to quite a memorable place in history.

There have been and still are, on the earth, giants of other

descriptions. We sometimes even meet with giant dyspeptics. Dyspepsia,

at best, is formidable, many-headed, but not always gigantic. If

gigantic size, in this case, were the general rule, what we now call

giants would, of course, cease to be regarded as such.

It may be thought that what I shall here call dyspeptic giants, or giant

dyspeptics, were better designated as monsters, than giants. Be it so,

for we will not quarrel about names; though a difficulty might be found

in making the required distinction between giants and monsters; for is

not every giant a monster?

Not far from the year 1830, perhaps a little earlier, you might have

seen, in connection with a certain private seminary of education, in New

England, one of these giant dyspeptics. I do not mean, of course, that

he had already attained to giant size, but only that what proved in the

result to be gigantic was already a giant in miniature, and was rapidly

advancing to one of magnitude.

He had early been a cabin boy; and like many other cabin boys, had been

gluttonous, and in some respects intemperate. Not by any means, that he

had ever been guilty of downright intoxication; for of this I have no

certain knowledge. My belief is, however, that he had gone very far in

this direction, though he might not have--probably _had_ not--been

justly chargeable with going quite to the last extremity.

But why should such a young man be found at a seminary of learning? Was

he with "birds of a feather?" Do not these attract each other?

Mr. Gray, for that is the name I shall give to our young dyspeptic, had

been recently subjected to the influences of one of those seasons of

excitement well known in the religious world by the name of _revivals_;

and what is not at all uncommon with the rude and uncultivated minds of

even more hardened sailors than he, a great change had come over him. In

short, he had the appearance, in every respect, of being a truly

converted young man.

Why this change of character had led him to this school-house, may not

at first appear. Yet such a result is by no means unusual. This waking

up the mind, by awakening the soul, and causing it to hunger and thirst

after knowledge, has been observed long since, by those who have had

their eyes open to what was going on around them.

Young Gray was penniless, and his parents not only poor, but

overburdened with the cares of a large family, so that they could give

him no aid but by their prayers. He was not, however, to be discouraged

by poverty. He agreed to ring the bell, sweep the hall, build fires,

etc., for his board and tuition. As for clothing, he had none, or almost

none. Charity, cold as her hand oftentimes is, supplied him with

something. Dyspepsia had not, as yet, marred his visage or weakened his

energies.

In his connection with this seminary and others of kindred character,

such as he could attend and yet pay his expenses by his labor, he

became, ere long, able to teach others. Here was a new means of support,

of which he eagerly availed himself. In whatever he undertook, moreover,

he was singularly successful. He was in earnest. An earnest mind, in

connection with an indomitable will--what may it not accomplish? It is

every thing but omnipotent.

"Heaven but persuades, almighty man decrees," as I have before said,

assuming our old English poets as standard authority; but this saying

has more in it than mere poetry. Or, if Heaven more than

persuades--somewhat more--does not man still decree? But I am inclined,

I see, to press this thought, perhaps in undue proportion to its

magnitude. Whether or not it abates one half the guilt, I make the

confession.

For several years Gray pushed his devious course, through "thick and

thin," sustaining himself chiefly by his teaching. In 1835, he was the

private instructor of a wealthy family in Rhode Island; but so puzzling,

not to say erratic, were some of his movements, that he was not very

popular. Subsequently to this, he was found in another part of New

England, editing a paper, and teaching at the same time a small number

of pupils.

All this while he paid great attention to physical education; but being

either a charity scholar, or obliged to pay his way by his own

exertions, he had not at command the needful time to render him thorough

in any thing, even in his obedience, as he called it, to Nature's laws.

Nearly all his studies were pursued by snatches, or, at least, with more

or less irregularity.

In nothing, however, was he more irregular than in his diet. This, to a

person already inclined, as he certainly was, to dyspepsia, was very

unfortunate. Perhaps, as generally happens in such cases, there was

_action and reaction_. Perhaps, I mean, his dyspeptic tendencies led to

more or less of dietetic irregularity; while the latter, whenever

yielded to, had a tendency, in its turn, to increase his load of

dyspepsia.

There was, indeed, one apology to be found for his irregularity with

regard to diet, in his extreme poverty. There were times when he was

actually compelled to subsist on the most scanty fare; while his

principles, too, restricted him to very great plainness. In one

instance, for example, after he had finished his preparatory, course of

study and entered college, he subsisted wholly on a certain quantity of

bread daily; and as if not quite satisfied with even this restriction,

while he needed his money so much more for clothing and books, he

purchased stale bread--sometimes that which was imperfect--at a cheaper

rate. Now a diet, exclusively of fine flour bread, and withal more or

less sour or mouldy, is not very suitable for a dyspeptic, nor yet,

indeed, for anybody whatever. However, he learned, at length, to improve

a little upon this, by purchasing coarse, or Graham bread.

Subsequently to this period, not being able, either alone or with the

aid of friends, most of whom were poor, to pursue a regular academic

course of instruction, he accepted the proposition that he should become

an assistant teacher in the English department of a school in Europe.

This, he feared, might postpone the completion of his studies, but would

enable him, as he believed, to improve his mind, establish his health,

and add greatly to his experience and to his knowledge of the world. It

would also perfect him in teaching, so far at least as the mere

inculcation of English grammar was concerned.

His health was by no means improved by a residence of three or four

years in Europe, but rather impaired. He returned to America, in the

autumn of 1839, and as soon as he had partially recovered from the

effects of a tedious and dangerous voyage, went to reside in the family

of a near relative who was a farmer, with a view to learn, for the first

time, what the labors of the farm would do for him.

Here he often resorted to the same rigid economy which he had before

practised, both at academy and college, and in Europe. The very best

living he would allow himself was a diet exclusively of small

potatoes--those, I mean, from which the larger ones had been separated

for the use of others.

This, his dyspeptic stomach would not long endure. His digestive and

nervous systems both became considerably deranged; and even his skin,

sympathizing with the diseased lining membrane of his stomach and

intestines, became the seat of very painful boils and troublesome sores.

These, while they indicated still deeper if not more troublesome

disease, gave one encouraging indication--that the recuperative powers

of the system were not as yet irrecoverably prostrated.

He now came to me and begged to become my patient, and to reside

permanently under my roof, so that he might not only receive such daily

attention and counsel as the circumstances required, but also such

food, air, exercise, and ablutions as were needful. He was accordingly

admitted to the rights, privileges, and self-denials of the family.

Here he spent a considerable time. While under my care, I made every

reasonable exertion for his recovery which I would have made for a

favorite child. Indeed, few children were ever more obedient or docile.

He would sometimes say to me: "Doctor, I have no more power over myself

than a child, and you must treat me _as you would_ a child." Nor was he

satisfied till I restricted his every step, both with regard to the

quantity and quality of his food, and the hours and seasons of bathing,

exercise, reading, etc. It was to me a painful task, and I sometimes

shrunk from it, for the moment. There was, however, no escape. I had

embarked in the enterprise, and must take the consequences.

At first, his improvement was scarcely perceptible, and I was almost

discouraged. But at length, after much patience and perseverance, the

suffering digestive organs began, in some measure, to resume their

healthful condition, and the whole face of things to wear a different

aspect. He left us to take charge of a public school.

For some time after the opening of this school, his health seemed to be

steadily improving, and the world around him began to have its charms

again. He was in his own chosen, and, I might say, native element, which

was to him a far more healthful stimulus than any other which could have

been devised, whether by the physician or the physiologist.

Nothing in this world is so well calculated to preserve and promote

human health, as full and constant employment, of a kind which is

perfectly congenial and healthful, and which we are fully assured is

useful. In other words, the first great law of health is benevolence. It

keeps up in the system that centrifugal tendency of the circulation of

which I have already spoken, and which is so favorable for the rejection

of all effete and irritating matters. It would have been next to

impossible for our Saviour, with head, heart, and hands engaged as his

were, to have sickened; nor was it till the most flagrant physiological

transgressions had been long repeated, that even Howard the

philanthropist sickened and died. Not the whole combined force of

malaria and contagion could overcome him, till continual over-fatigue,

persistent cold, and strong tea,--an almost matchless trio,--lent their

aid to give the finishing stroke.

Mr. Gray was a boarder with a gentleman who kept a grocery store, and

who was glad to employ him on certain days and hours of vacation or

recess, in taking care of the shop and waiting on his customers. Here

the tempter again assailed him, in the form of foreign fruits, raisins,

figs, prunes, oranges, dried fish, cordials, candy, etc. For some time

past he had been wholly unaccustomed to these things; they had even been

forbidden him, especially between his meals. As a consequence of his

indulgences, and his neglect of exercise, his health again declined, and

he came a second time under my care.

He was partially restored the second time, but not entirely. His labors,

which were teaching still, became more exhausting than formerly.

Cheerfulness, hope, sympathy, conscious usefulness, and the force of

many good habits, sustained him for a time, but not always. His great

labors of body and mind, with a deep sense of responsibility, and the

indulgences to which I have alluded, preyed upon him, and dyspepsia

began once more her reign of tyranny.

Doubtless he attempted too much here, for he was an enthusiast on the

subject of common schools and common school instruction. And yet, under

almost any circumstances of school-keeping, dyspepsia, nurtured as it

was by every physical habit, would most certainly have assailed him.

With regard to his food and drink he was very unwise. It contributed

largely to an extreme of irritability, which was unfavorable, and which

at the end of a single term compelled him to resign his place and seek

some other employment.

This was a grievous disappointment to Mr. Gray, and, as some of his

friends believe, was the mountain weight that crushed him. The horrors

of the abyss into which he believed he had plunged himself, were the

more intolerable from the fact that he now, for the first time, began

to despair of being able to consummate a plan by means of which both his

sorrows and joys, especially the latter, would have been shared by

another.

Yet, even here, he did not absolutely despair. Hope revived when he

found himself, a third time, my patient. I did all in my power to

encourage him till I had at length, to my own surprise as well as his,

the unspeakable pleasure of finding him again returning to the path of

health and happiness. It is indeed true, that a capricious appetite

still retained its sway, in greater or less degree, and whenever he was

not awed by my presence, he would indulge himself in the use of things

which he knew were injurious to him, as well as in the excessive, not to

say gluttonous, use of such good things as were tolerated. He

occasionally confessed his impotence, and begged us to keep every thing

out of his way, even those remnants which were designed for the domestic

animals!

And yet, after all, strange to say, he absented himself very frequently,

as if to seek places of retirement, where he could indulge his

tyrannical appetite. I saw most clearly his danger, and spoke to him

concerning it. I appealed to his fears, to his hopes, to his conscience.

I reminded him of the love he bore to humanity, and the regard he had

for Divinity.

Once more, being partly recruited, he resumed his labors as a teacher.

This was doubtless a wrong measure, and yet I was not aware of the error

at the time, or I should not have encouraged the movement, or assisted

him as I did in procuring a situation. But I then thought he had been

punished so effectually for his transgressions, that he would at length

be wise. Besides he was exceedingly anxious to be at work, and to avoid

dependence, a desire in which his friends participated, and in regard to

which they were so unwise as to express their over anxiety in his

hearing.

Three months in the school-house found him worse than ever before. He

had attempted to board himself, to subsist on a very few ounces of

"Graham wafers" at each meal, and to be an hour in masticating it. As an

occasional compensation for this, however, a sort of _treating

resolution_, he allowed himself to pick up the crusts and other

fragments left about the school-house by his pupils, and when he had

collected quite a pile of these, to indulge his appetite with them, _ad

libitum_. Nor was this all. He erred in other particulars, perhaps in

many.

He came to my house a fourth time, but my situation was such that I

could not well receive him. He staid only a day or two, but his

residence with us was long enough to enable me to mark the progress of

his case, and to deplore what I feared must be the final issue. From me

he went to a friend in an adjoining State; not, however, till he had

alluded to certain errors of his recent life that he had not yet

devulged, even to his best friend. "Doctor," said he, "there are some

things that I have not yet told you about."

To me, also, it belongs, at this point of Gray's lamentable history, to

make confession of great and glaring error. To have received the young

man to my house, and to have devoted myself to the work of endeavoring

again to raise him, would, most undoubtedly, have been a sacrifice to

which few people in my circumstances would have thought themselves

called. Yet, difficult as it was, the sacrifice might have been made.

Had he been my only brother, I should, doubtless, have received him. The

Saviour of mankind, in my circumstances, would probably have taken him

in. Was I not his follower? And was I not bound to do what I believed he

would do, in similar circumstances?

His more distant friend, but more consistent Christian brother, opened

wide his doors for his reception, and did the best he could for him. It

was his intention, at first, to employ him, as I now think he ought to

have been employed long before; viz., on a small farm. In this point of

view this friend's house was particularly favorable. Yet there were

offsets to this advantage. One thing in particular, cast a shade upon

our efforts in his behalf. It was about April 1st, and the house and

farm had an eastern aspect, and the easterly winds, which at that season

so much prevailed, were very strong and surcharged with vapor at a low

temperature. For a few days after his arrival he was worse than ever.

This was discouragement heaped upon discouragement, and he began soon to

sink under it. For a short time he was the subject of medical treatment.

What was the character of the medicine he took, I never knew. At length

there were signs of convalescence; but no sooner did his bodily health

and strength begin to improve, than his mental troubles began to press

upon him, till he was driven to the very borders of insanity. Indeed, so

strong was the tendency to mental derangement that his relatives

actually carried him, _per force_, to an insane hospital.

But his residence at the hospital was very short. Provision having in

the mean time been made for his reception in a private family, among his

acquaintance, and the superintendent of the hospital having advised to

such a course, he was remanded to the country, to familiar faces, and to

a farm.

On reaching the place assigned him, he became extremely ill,--worse, by

far, than ever before,--so that, for several weeks, his life was

despaired of. But by means of careful medical treatment, and a judicious

and very simple diet, which at the hospital had been exchanged for a

stimulating one, nature once more rallied, and in three or four weeks he

appeared to be in a fair way for recovery. His strength increased, his

mind became clear; his digestive function, though still erratic,

appeared about to resume its natural condition, and to perform once more

its wonted office; and the other troublesome symptoms were all gradually

disappearing, except one;--he had still a very frequent pulse.

But even this rapid arterial action was at length abating. From a

frequency of the pulse equal to 100, 110, and sometimes 120 in a minute,

it fell in two weeks to from 70 to 75; and this, too, under the

influence of very mild and gentle treatment. There was no reduction of

activity or power, by bleeding, or by blistering, or in any other way;

on the contrary, as I have intimated, there was a general increase of

strength and vigor, both of body, and mind. He did not even take

digitalis or morphine. The prospect, therefore, was, on the whole, truly

encouraging.

And yet he had a set of friends--relatives, I should say, rather--who

were not satisfied. It was strongly written on their minds that he was

about to die; and they sternly insisted on removing him to his native

home, that if he should die, he might die in the bosom of his own

kindred. I was consulted; but I entered my most solemn protest against

the measure, as both uncalled for and hazardous. It was to no purpose,

however. In their over-kindness they determined to remove him; and the

removal was effected. I ought also to say that though Mr. Gray highly

appreciated their kindness, he was himself opposed to the measure, as

one attended with much hazard.

On the road to his paternal home, influenced in no small degree by

mental excitement, his delirium returned, and with an intensity that

never afterwards abated. He was, for about three weeks, a most

inveterate and raving maniac, when, worn out prematurely with disease,

he sunk to rise no more till the general resurrection.

There was no post-mortem examination of this young man, though there

should have been. Not that there was any lurking suspicion of

peculiarity of disease, but because such examinations may always be made

serviceable to the cause of medical science, while they cannot possibly

injure either the dead or the living.

I have been the more minute in my account of this man, because the case

is an instructive one, both to the professional and non-professional

reader, and also because it places medicine and physicians in the true

light, and holds forth to the world the wonderfully recuperative power

of nature, and the vast importance of giving heed to the laws of health

and to the voice of physiology.

CHAPTER LXIV.

GETTING INTO A CIRCLE.

The oddity of some of my captions may seem to require an apology; but I

beg the doubtful reader to suspend any unfavorable decisions, till he

has read the chapter which follows. He will not, either in the present

instance or in any other, be introduced to a magic ring, or to the

mysteries of modern "spiritualism." The circle into which my patient

fell, was of a different description.

A young mother from the west, about the year 1840, came to consult me

with regard to her health. Not being able to receive her into my own

family, I made arrangements for her reception in the immediate

neighborhood, where she remained for a long time. She was a

dyspeptic--if not of giant magnitude, but little short of it.

I spent many an hour in endeavoring to set all right, both in mind and

body. It was, however, much easier to set her head right, than her

hands, feet, and stomach. She had been under the care of almost all

sorts of medical men--hydropathic, homoeopathic, and allopathic. Some of

them, from all these schools, had been men of good sense, while a much

larger proportion of them had turned out to be fools, and had done her

more harm than good. In short, like the woman in the New Testament, she

had spent much on many physicians, and was nothing bettered by it, but

rather made worse.

Under such circumstances what ground was there for hope? What she most

needed, it was easy to see, was a little more of resolution to carry out

and complete what she believed to be her duty. I told her so. I told her

how many times I had repeated to her the same directions; while she,

after the lapse of a very few days,--sometimes only a day or two,--had

come round again, in her remarks and inquiries, to the very point whence

she had first started. I told her how easy a thing this getting into a

circle was, and how difficult it was to escape from it.

Although she perfectly understood her condition, there was still a

strange and almost unaccountable reaching forth for something beyond the

plain path of nature, which I had faithfully and repeatedly pointed out

to her. She wished for some shorter road, something mysterious or

magical. She was, in short, a capital subject for humbuggery, had she

not tried it already to her heart's content.

Occasionally, I must confess, I felt somewhat disposed to put her on the

"starvation plan," as Dr. Johnson calls it,--on a diet of two pints only

of plain gruel (thin hasty pudding, rather) a day,--for she would have

borne it much better than did Mr. Gray, of the preceding chapter. I am

sorry I did not. However, I prescribed for her, in general, very well;

and, except in the last-mentioned particular, have no reason for regret

nor any call for confessions.

She remained under my care several weeks--all the while in a mill-horse

track or circle, beginning at the same point and coming round to the

same result or issue, when I frankly told her, one day, that it was a

great waste, both of time and money, for her to remain longer. I saw,

more and more clearly, that all her thoughts were concentrated on her

own dear self. _Her_ troubles, _her_ health, _her_ concerns, _her_

prospects in life and death, were, to her, of more importance than all

the world besides. No woman, as good as she was,--for she was,

professedly, a disciple of him who said to his followers, "Feed my

lambs,"--whom I have ever seen, was so completely wrapped up in self,

and so completely beyond the pale of the world of benevolence.

My final advice to her, in addition to that general change of personal

habits which, from the first, I had strongly recommended to her, was to

return to her native city, and, after making her resolution and laying

her plan, give herself no rest, permanently, till by personal appeal or

otherwise she had brought all the females within her reach into

maternal associations, moral reform societies, and the like.

On her return to her husband and children, she made an attempt to carry

out the spirit of my prescription, and not without a good degree of

success. But the great benefit which resulted from it--that, indeed,

which it was my ultimate object to secure--was that it diverted her

thoughts from their inward, selfish tendency, and placed her on better

ground as to health than she had occupied for some time before.

I saw her no more for ten or twelve years. Occasionally, it is true, I

heard from her, that she was better. Yet she was never entirely well.

She was never entirely beyond the circle in which she had so long moved.

She returned, at times, to medical advice and medicine; but, so far as I

could learn, with little permanent good effect. She died about twelve

years after she left my "guardianship," an extreme sufferer, as she had

lived; and a sufferer from causes that a correct education and just

views of social life, and of health and disease, would, for the most

part, have prevented.

CHAPTER LXV.

POISONING WITH MAPLE SUGAR.

A particular friend of mine purchased one day, at a stand in the city,

two small cakes of maple sugar. It was early in the spring, and very

little of the article had as yet been manufactured. My friend, in his

eagerness, devoured them immediately. He observed, before eating them,

that they had a very dark appearance; but the taste was correct, as far

as he could judge, and he did not hesitate. He was one of those

individuals, moreover, who are not greatly given to self-denial in the

matter of appetite.

The next day he had as sore a mouth as I ever saw. The inflammation

extended not only to the back part of the mouth, but into the throat,

and probably quite into the stomach, and was attended with a most

distressing thirst, with loss of appetite, and occasional nausea. In

short, it unfitted him for business the whole day; indeed it was many

days before he recovered entirely.

My own conclusion, after a careful investigation of the facts, was, that

the sugar was cooled down in vessels of iron, which were, in some way,

more or less oxydated or rusted, and that a small quantity of free acid

having been, by some means unknown, developed in the sugar, it entered

into a chemical combination with the metallic oxyde, to form a species

of copperas--perhaps the genuine sulphate of iron itself.

No medicine was given, nor was any needed. It was sufficient to let the

system rest, till Nature, with the assistance of small quantities of

water,--such as she was constantly demanding,--could eject the intruding

foe. It required only a little patient waiting.

There is scarcely a doubt that the sufferer learned, from his

experiment, one important lesson; viz., to let alone every thing which,

by cooking, has been changed to a dark color. Beets are sometimes

blackened by cooking in iron vessels, as well as sugar; and so are

apples and apple-sauce, and sundry other fruits and vegetables.

The word apple-sauce reminds me of an incident that recently occurred in

my own family. A kind neighbor having sent us some apple-sauce, such of

the family as partook of it freely, suffered, soon afterward, in a way

that led to the suspicion of poison. This apple-sauce was quite

dark-colored, but tasted well enough.

We have seen, in Chapter XXVIII., that in the use of apple-sauce, or

apple butter, or, indeed, any thing containing an acid, which has been

in contact with the inner surface of red earthen ware, glazed with the

oxyde of lead, people are sometimes poisoned; but for common, plain,

apple-sauce, recently cooked, to be poisonous, is rather unusual.

However, we can hardly be too careful in these matters. Serious evils

have sometimes arisen from various kinds of complicated cookery, even

when the healthiness of the vessels used was quite above suspi. A

powerful argument this in favor of simplicity.

It should also be remembered, with regard to sugar, that this is a

substance whose use, even when known to be perfectly innoxious, is, at

best, of doubtful tendency, beyond the measure which the Divine Hand has

incorporated into the various substances which are prepared for our use.

That sugar, in considerable quantities, leads to fulness, if not to

fatness, is no proof of its healthfulness; since fatness itself is a

sign of disease in man and all other animals, as has, of late, been

frequently and fully demonstrated.

CHAPTER LXVI.

PHYSICKING OFF MEASLES.

The father of a large family came to me one day, and, with unwonted

politeness, inquired after my health. Of course, I did not at first

understand him, but time and patience soon brought every thing to light.

His family, he said, were all sick with measles, except his wife, and he

wished to ask me a question or two.

The truth is, he wanted to consult me professionally, without paying a

fee; and yet he felt a little delicacy about it. But I was accustomed to

such things; for his was neither the first nor the hundredth application

of the kind; so I was as polite as he was, in return.

Another individual stood near me just at that moment, who supposed he

had a prior claim to my attention; and I was about to leave Mr. M. for a

moment, when he said, in a low voice, and in a fawning manner: "I

suppose, doctor, it is necessary to physic off well for the measles; is

it not? The old women all say it is; but I thought that, as I saw you,

it might be well to ask."

This species of robbery is so common, that few have any hesitancy about

practising it. Mr. M., though passing for a pattern of honesty and good

breeding, wherever he was known, was nevertheless trained to the same

meanness with the rest of the neighborhood where I resided, and was

quite willing--even though a faint consciousness of his meanness chanced

to come over him now and then--to defraud me a little in the fashionable

or usual manner.

Perhaps I may be thought fastidious on this point. But though I have

been sponged,--I may as well again say robbed,--in this or a similar

way, a hundred or a thousand times, I believe I never complained so

loudly before. Yet it is due to the profession of medicine, and to those

who resort to it, that I should give my testimony against a custom which

ought never to have obtained foothold.

But to return to our conversation;--for I was never mean enough to

refuse to give such information as was required, to the best of my

abilities, even though I never expected, directly or indirectly, to be

benefited by it;--I told him, at once, that if costiveness prevailed at

the beginning of convalescence, in this disease, some gentle laxative

might be desirable; but that, in other circumstances, no medicine could

be required, the common belief to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mr. M. seemed not a little surprised at this latter statement, and yet,

on the whole, gratified. It was, to him, a new doctrine, and yet he

thought it reasonable. He never could understand, he said, what need

there was of taking "physic," when the body was already in a good

condition.

This physicking off disease is about as foolish as taking physic to

prevent it--of which I have said so much in Chapter XI. and elsewhere. I

do not, indeed, mean to affirm that it is quite as fatal; though I know

not but it may have been fatal in some instances. Death from measles is

no very uncommon occurrence in these days. Now how do we know whether it

is the disease that kills or the medicine?

And when we physic off, in the way above mentioned, how know we, that

if, very fortunately, we do not kill, some other disease may not be

excited or enkindled? You are aware, both from what has been said in

these pages, and from your own observation, that measles are not

unfrequently followed by dropsy, weak eyes, and other troubles. No

individual, perhaps, is, by constitution, less inclined to dropsy than

myself; yet he who has read carefully what I have noted in Chapter IV.,

will not be confident of his own safety in such circumstances. Yet if

they are endangered who are least predisposed to this or any other

disease, where is the safety of those who inherit such a

predisposition?

CHAPTER LXVII.

TIC DOULOUREUX.

Some fifty years ago, I saw in a Connecticut paper, a brief notice of

the death of an individual in Wellingworth, in that State, from a

disease which, as the paper proceeded to state,--and justly too,--not

one in a million had then ever felt, and which not many at that time had

ever heard of; viz., _tic douloureux_.

This notice, though it may have excited much curiosity,--it certainly

arrested my own attention,--did not give us much light as to the nature

of the disease. "What _is_ tic douloureux?" I asked my friends; for at

that time, of course, I knew nothing of the study of medicine. They

could not tell me. "Why do medical men," I asked, "give us such strange

names? Is it to keep up the idea of mystery, as connected with the

profession, in order thus to maintain an influence which modest worth

cannot secure?"

It was largely believed at that time, by myself and many others, that

science, like wealth,--especially medical science,--was aristocratical;

that the learned world, though they saw the republican tendencies of

things, were predisposed to throw dust in the people's eyes as long as

they could. The fact that almost all our medicines, whether in the

condition in which we see them labelled at the apothecary's shop, or as

prescribed by the family physician, have Latin names,--was often quoted

in proof of this aristocratic feeling and tendency.

Now there was doubtless some foundation for this opinion. Medical men

did then and still very generally do believe, that it is better, on the

whole, for the mass of mankind to have nothing to do with these matters,

except at the prescription of those who have given the best part of

their lives to the study of medicine and disease. That they are weapons

of so much power, that even physicians--men who only partially

understand the human constitution and their influence on it--are almost

as likely to do harm with them as good, and that it is quite enough for

society to bear the evils which are connected with the regular study and

practice of the profession, without enduring a much larger host,

inflicted by those who have other professions and employments, and must

consequently be still more ignorant than their physicians. And may not

this be one reason why a foreign language has been so long retained in

connection with the names of diseases and medicines?

But though physicians entertain the belief alluded to, and though it

were founded in truth, it does not thence follow that mankind are to

remain in ignorance of the whole subject of life and health, nor is it

the intention of enlightened medical men that they shall. The latter are

much more ready, as a general rule, to encourage among mankind the study

of the most appropriate means of preventing disease, than they are

willing to take the needful pains. In short, though physicians by their

slowness to act, in this particular, are greatly faulty, the world as a

mass are still more so.

I was speaking, at first, of tic douloureux. This is a painful affection

of a nerve or a cluster of nerves. When it first began to be spoken of,

it was confined chiefly to an expansion of nerve at the side of the

face, called in anatomical works _pes anserina_. But, of late years, it

has been found to attack various nerves and clusters of nerves in

different parts of the body. In truth, under the general name of

neuralgia, which means about the same thing, we now have tic douloureux

of almost every part of the human system, and it has become so common

that instead of one in a million, we have probably one or two if not

more in every hundred, who have suffered from it in their own persons.

About the year 1840, I had a patient who was exceedingly afflicted with

this painful disease. She was, at the same time, consumptive. The

neuralgia was but a recent thing; the consumption had been of many

years' standing, and was probably inherited. The physicians of her

native region had exhausted their skill on her to no purpose.

There was no hope of aid, in her case, from medicine. The only thing to

be done was to invigorate her system, and thus palliate the neuralgia

and postpone the consumption. She was accordingly placed under the most

rigid restrictions which the code of physical law could demand. She was

required to attend to exercise and bathing with great care; to avoid

over anxiety and fretfulness; to drink water, and to eat the plainest

food. It was not intended to interdict _nutritious_ food; but only that

which was _over-stimulating_.

It required considerable time to show her and her friends the practical

difference between nutrition and stimulation. They thought, as thousands

have thought beside them, that without a stimulating diet she could not

be properly nourished. But they learned at length that good bread of all

sorts, rice, peas, beans, and fruits, especially the first two, while

they were unstimulating, were even more nutritious than the more

stimulating articles of flesh, fish, fowl, butter, and milk and its

products.

The treatment to which she was directed was at length pretty carefully

followed. The Friends--of which religious connection she was a

member--are generally thorough, when we gain their full confidence. Her

health was so far restored, that at one period I entertained strong

hopes of her ultimate recovery; or, at least of a recovery which would

permit of her continuance some twenty or twenty-five years longer. But

after seven or eight years of comfortable though not very firm health,

she again declined. She died at forty years of age.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

COLD WATER IN FEVER.

My daughter, then about three years of age, was feverish; and as the

lung fever was somewhat prevalent, the family became considerably

alarmed.