The recovery was as rapid as could have been expected, even in the most

vigorous young person. Nor was there any after-trouble, to require

physic, or eye-water, or remedies for the dropsy. And,--what added to my

own surprise, if not to that of the neighbors in general,--though she

was a feeble woman, constitutionally, she recovered with as much

rapidity as the most healthy and robust, and as well, to say the least,

as if she had taken "_snakeroot and saffron_."

CHAPTER LXXXV.

THE CONSUMPTIVE PAIR.

A young man, recently married, called on me one day, and requested me to

visit his family as soon as I could conveniently, for the purpose of

having what he was pleased to call a general consultation.

I called in due time, and found the case as follows: Both the husband

and wife were descended from consumptive families, and though they had

got along tolerably well till very recently, there were now, in them

both, many evidences of approaching disease; and though consumptive

people are said to be slow in admitting they have consumption, yet this

young couple formed an exception to the general rule.

In the bosom of the family, and possessed of their entire confidence, I

had an ample opportunity for examining the case of this interesting

couple. I found the tendency downward much more marked and rapid than I

had expected, and I frankly told them so. Some of the circumstances

were, indeed, rather peculiar. Consumptive people are generally sensual,

while indulgence is peculiarly fatal to them. But here was a case more

glaring than I had before seen. They had been married but about three

months; nor were the indulgences of the table believed to be remarkable,

as they were forbidden by a due regard to economy. They suffered much by

excessive heat in their rooms, both by day and by night, and in several

other ways, much more than by high living.

But I endeavored to put all things right, and to convince them of the

necessity of keeping them so. In a long, but very familiar series of

conversations,--for the most part separately,--I endeavored to show them

that conjugal life was a life of duty, as well as of enjoyment; and that

consumptive people, in order to live out more than half their days,

must forego a great many gratifications to which they might very

naturally lay claim.

The results of this conversation were probably worth a hundred-fold the

expense they involved. This young couple are, to this hour, for aught I

know, enjoying tolerable health; and their health is improving. Their

children, though not strong, reap the full benefit of thorough parental

reform; and their scrofulous tendencies seem every day more and more

receding.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

HOW TO CURE CHOLERA.

While cholera was prevailing in our large towns and cities, and a few

cases were occurring and proving fatal in my own neighborhood, a friend

of mine, who had till recently been a sea captain, complained, one day,

of cholera symptoms, and begged to know what he could do to ward off the

threatened disease.

On inquiry I found he was more than half right, that cholera, surely

enough, was already marking him for its victim. The rice-water

discharges, so called, had actually commenced. Had he been any thing but

a resolute tar, he would have gone on, most evidently, into severe if

not fatal disease.

I gave him the best advice I was able, with regard to diet, exercise,

etc.,--probably the same, or about the same, that any thoughtful medical

man, in the same circumstances, would have given. He was to be cheerful,

quiet, and abstinent. For food, he was to use nothing but a little

boiled rice,--at least, till the symptoms of cholera began to abate. He

was especially directed to avoid all medicine.

Several weeks passed away, during which I heard nothing from him. As I

did not hear of his death, however, I concluded he must have recovered.

One day, rather unexpectedly, I met him again, and inquired familiarly

how he got along with his cholera? He laughed outright, but immediately

added,--"Sit down, sir, and I will tell you the whole story."

"After I left you," said he, "the thought struck me,--Why cannot I

control the muscles of my system as well as my appetites and passions?

Indeed, on occasions, I have done it, at least for a short time. These

little rice-water evacuations cannot, in the nature of things, do much

harm by being retained. I can do what any man can. These frequent

demands of nature seem to me very unreasonable. I will not yield to

them. And, like a good sailor, I kept my word. For nearly a whole day I

never permitted a single evacuation. Then, after yielding obedience, for

once, to nature's clamorous demands, I again enforced my prohibitory

law. My task, the second day, was less severe than it was the first, and

on the third day I got along very comfortably. The fourth day I was

well; and to-day you see me here."

Whether he told me the truth, I do not know, of course; but I give the

statement, as nearly as I can recollect, just as it was given to me. I

have reason, however, for believing it to be true. The man is still

alive, and is as likely to live for twenty or twenty-five years to come,

as you or I, or any other individual.

Mrs. Willard, of Troy, New York, under the full impression that the seat

of human life is in the lungs, and not in the heart, and that even the

blue color of the skin during the collapse of Asiatic cholera, is owing

to an accumulation of unburnt carbon in the air cells of the lungs, made

the experiment of trusting a few patients, in this disease, to the full

influence of pure air, and nothing else. According to her account the

experiments were most admirably successful. She cured every individual

she experimented on (and it was a considerable number), and in a

comparatively short period.

It was my good fortune to escape cholera patients, with the single

exception mentioned above. However, I am quite confident that, but for

the alarm, which more than half paralyzes our efforts, we might much

more frequently recover, under its deadly influences, especially if we

begin the work of preparation in good season, and duly and faithfully

persevere. There is much in enduring to the end.

CHAPTER LXXXVII.

OBSTINACY AND SUICIDE.

Without examining the term suicide, in regard to its various shades of

meaning, I have placed it at the head of this chapter; for I think it

properly belongs there. Of this, however, I leave the reader to judge

when he has heard a statement of the facts in the case to which I have

applied it.

A young woman was admitted to the family where I was, to be treated for

a nervous complaint so obstinate as to remind one who was not wholly

insane nor strikingly imaginative, of the demoniacal possessions of

eighteen hundred years ago. She would not eat; she would not drink; she

would not or _could_ not sleep. In short, she would not, if she could

help it, do any thing which did not have an immediate bearing on her own

well-being, for the moment. She was, in truth, one of the most selfish

creatures in human shape I ever yet saw. If Dr. Johnson, who is said to

have held that every sick person is a rascal, had seen her, I wonder

what he would have said of the case.

She was one of those young women who have never been governed, and hence

cannot govern themselves. If she took it into her head to do or not to

do a thing, she would be sure to carry her point, if not in one way, at

least in another.

How she came to consent to be placed under my care, I never knew; for

all the neighbors and friends of the poor girl well understood that if

she came there she would have to obey me; and yet that, if she _did_

obey me, it would be the first instance in which she ever yielded to any

mind or will but her own, either earthly or heavenly. Perhaps it was a

last resort--a sort of desperation.

I began my directions, however, as if I expected to be obeyed, and had

no fears of any disinclination on her part. Some things which pleased

her, she consented to attempt; others she would tell me she _could_ not

do. When I was quite confident nothing was wanting but a will, I

sometimes asked for a reason; but it could, in no instance, be obtained.

If I pressed her for an answer, or for a reason, she would either be

silent or groan most dreadfully with pain!

At length I saw that nothing could be obtained in this way, and that she

must either attend to my directions, as far as was really in her power,

or I could have nothing to do with her; and I told her so. She did not

appear to care. Her alienation of feeling was so rapid that in a very

few days she seemed almost to hate the very sight of me. Indeed, I

believe she made statements to this effect to several of her friends.

Her report, so unfavorable and so very strange, soon reached the ears of

several very respectable people, who in wonder and surprise came to me,

to learn what it meant, and among the rest came her minister. They made

diligent though respectful inquiry whether the facts were as she

represented them to be. I believe that, for the most part, they were

satisfied with the treatment.

But the girl herself was not satisfied. She could not leave the house

without help; and yet it was easy to see that she was determined not to

remain. She preferred, as she said, to die. Everybody seemed to pity

her, despite of her unreasonableness, and the more for her

unreasonableness. Her friends assured her that this treatment of mine

afforded her the last chance of recovery, and begged her not to decide

to leave us too hastily. It was all to no purpose, however; she said she

preferred death in the street to a cure at my hands.

There had been serious difficulty about her diet. I had strenuously

forbidden the use of certain condiments which I thought injurious to

her, but which she was resolutely determined to have. At first, a few

things prepared to her taste had been smuggled in by certain psuedo

friends; but this, when discovered, was absolutely prohibited.

One evening, just at dark, some of her friends called to see her and

me. They found me in the sitting-room. We had a short conversation

concerning the patient, in which they were made most distinctly to

understand that they must either leave her to be treated wholly

according to my discretion or remove her. They were left at a loss what

course was best; but at length, in compliance with her clamors, they

placed her in their carriage and carried her away.

This was both the first and last patient that ever ran away from me, or

that ever appeared to be desirous of doing so. On the whole, though no

one pitied her more than myself, I was glad when she was gone. She was

hardly worth curing. I never heard from her more, except vaguely, some

time afterward, that she was dead, which was probably correct. Most

certainly I could not have lived long, in her circumstances.

I was very unwise in taking the charge of her, or, at least, in

retaining her a moment after she refused to obey me. However, I had my

reward. The public not being possessed of all the facts in the case,

probably lost confidence in me. It was proper that they should. He who

takes a viper to his bosom, must not be surprised if he suffers the

natural consequences of his presumption.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

HEALTH HOSPITALS.

Some of my friends, fully aware of my strong reliance on the

recuperative powers of nature, and of my growing scepticism in regard to

medicine, entered into combination and proposed to place me at the head

of a hospital, in which I should have an opportunity, as they supposed,

to test the superiority of my favorite practice.

The buildings needful for the purpose, were to be furnished by one of

the company, gratuitously. For the rest, a subscription was to have been

started. The salary was to have been $1,000 a year. Matters were, in

fine, carried so far that nothing remained but my own acceptance or

non-acceptance, of the proposal, as there was no doubt that the

subscription would readily succeed.

But I saw, at the moment, so many difficulties, that after a careful

consideration of the subject I was compelled to decline. Situated as I

then was, and with very little self-confidence, perhaps the decision was

right. And yet I have at times, ever since, regretted it. I was not then

so fully aware as I now am, of the stern necessity of such institutions.

Still later than this, I made an effort to establish a Hospital, on my

own responsibility, and on my own plan. This was, simply, to receive

patients at my house, and teach them, both by precept and example, _how

to live._ In other words, I was to teach the art of preventing disease

by obeying the physical and moral laws. Even disease itself was to be

cured by obedience to these laws,--those of hygiene.

At this time, I was residing in the country. Had I been in the crowded

city, I might, perhaps, have succeeded. As it was, I found many

difficulties. Just now, too, among other difficulties, my pecuniary

condition became embarrassed, and I was anxious to be freed from debt

before I begun a work which, at best, required a good deal of capital.

Not to be able to labor wholly gratuitously would, as I thought, defeat

my whole plan.

In these circumstances, and after considerable delay, the whole thing

was indefinitely postponed; and soon after, I removed to a region still

less promising. I shall not, at present, if ever, repeat my attempts, at

least on the plan of doing my work gratuitously. What costs little is,

usually, little valued.

And yet, such institutions are needed; and the time must come when they

will succeed. Some eminent medical man who already possesses wealth,

will perhaps make the trial. For myself, I prefer a more radical work. I

prefer to throw my own make-weight, while I live, into the scale of

early and correct physical education.

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

DESTRUCTION BY SCROFULA.

Much is said in these days about scrofula, and much indeed should be

said about it; for it has become a most frequent, not to say fatal,

disease. For, if few die of it, immediately, it leads to, or renders

more severe, numerous other diseases, which are more directly fatal. In

truth, a scrofulous constitution not only prepares us for many other

diseases, but renders them, when they assail us, much more severe than

they otherwise would have been. Colds, fevers, and consumption, in

particular, are not only more frequent in scrofulous people than in

others, but also more intense or severe, as well as less manageable by

medical skill.

This disease itself, though often inherited, may, on the one hand, be

greatly aggravated by improper treatment; or, by a proper course of

living, may, on the other hand, be postponed many years, if not

indefinitely. Living much in the open air, cheerfulness of mind, plain

food and drink, and a proper regard to the skin, will do a vast deal

towards arresting its progress, and in some instances will wholly

prevent its doing us any harm. For though five millions of the

inhabitants of the United States were probably born with a tendency to

this formidable disease, and the same proportion--if not a greater--of

each generation to come will be likely to have the same tendency, I do

not believe it to be indispensably necessary that one-half of this

number should die, as now they do, of consumption. I have not a doubt

that two-thirds of them might, by proper management, be made to last

many years, and some of them to what is usually called old age.

It has been my lot to have a very great number of scrofulous patients,

daring the last twenty-five years, from almost every part of the United

States. One of the worst cases I ever had was that of Mrs. ----, of New

Hampshire. Her history, prior to the period when she came to me, is very

briefly as follows.

She was born of parents, who, at the time of her birth, were very near

their dotage; in consequence of which, as it was believed, she held her

existence by a very feeble tenure. At two and a half years of age, she

was nearly destroyed by dysentery, or by the medicine given to arrest

her disease, or by both. In addition to this and almost before she

recovered, she had an attack of scarlet fever, which was very severe,

and which was also probably treated freely by medicine. By this time

there is no doubt that scrofula, at first slightly inherited, had become

pretty well riveted on a constitution already but poorly prepared to

endure it.

In her seventeenth year, she was afflicted with a troublesome eruption,

which was cured, or at least checked, by a wash of sugar of lead. (See

Chapter XIII.) She was married at twenty-one; and though stinted in her

growth, so as to be almost a dwarf, she seemed, at first, to be

tolerably healthy. But in the course of a year she suffered from various

complaints, to which scrofulous and otherwise debilitated females are

subject in early conjugal life, for which she was treated--as I suppose

very injudiciously--with active medicine, especially calomel.

And now, as if to render what was already bad enough a great deal worse,

she made use of a certain patent medicine, which had been greatly lauded

in the public papers. She was also persuaded to make use of a more

stimulating diet than before; which was doubtless to her great

disadvantage, in such a feeble condition. Her diet, though it should

have been _nourishing,_ should have been _less stimulating_ than usual,

and not more so.

Falling in with the famous Sylvester Graham, who was lecturing near her

at the time, she was overpersuaded to change her habits very suddenly,

especially her dietetic habits. From a highly seasoned diet, she was at

once transferred to a very plain one, to which was added cold bathing

and abundant exercise in the open air. This change, though it caused

great emaciation, appeared to restore her health entirely. Her appetite

and general strength were such that she thought it almost impossible she

could ever be sick again.

But now a heavy domestic affliction befell her, which again very much

reduced her; and, as she was wont to say afterward, "killed her." What

it was, however, I was never informed. Being greatly depressed, she

undoubtedly confined herself to the house too much, and in one instance

when she ventured out, she unluckily exposed herself to a damp east

wind, which appeared to give her cold. To remove this, and for other

purposes, she fasted rigidly, for several days.

It was at this time that she came, in part, under my care. But she was

already so much diseased in mind and body, and so ignorant of any just

principles of hygiene, as to be greatly liable to be led about by the

fancy or whim of this friend or that--sometimes by Mr. Graham and

others, who only relied on Nature; and at others, by those who went to

the opposite extreme. I could do little for her to any valuable purpose,

and was glad to send her to the elder Dr. Jackson, of Boston. Not,

however, till I had given her to understand, in general, that aside from

her scrofulous tendencies, I did not know what ailed her; and that, so

far as I could understand her case, her safest course was to avoid

medicine and depend almost wholly on a careful obedience to God's laws,

physical and moral, especially to his laws of hygiene. I had not then

fully learned how much she had been abused, in early life, by

unnecessary dosing and drugging.

Dr. Jackson told her it was evident there was something in her case very

much out of the way; but he would be honest with her, and confess that

he did not know what it was. He proposed to have Dr. Putnam see her, and

another physician at Lowell. He insisted, however, on a more nutritious

diet.

The last suggestion was heeded for awhile, but evidently to her

disadvantage. Under the impression that in order to obtain more

nutriment she must do so, she suddenly returned to the free use of

flesh, butter, eggs, milk, etc., which, for a long time, till now, she

had refused. This course brought upon her much acidity of the stomach.

She returned once more to the plain diet, and by avoiding extremes and

letting alone medicine, according to the general tenor of my directions,

she partly recovered, and seemed destined to still higher advance

towards the land of health and life.

But here, again, domestic trials, like a flood, came upon her, and

brought her into great mental anxiety and embarrassment, as well as into

that weak and vacillating condition which had once before existed, and

which I have already described. To-day she would use her well-balanced,

plain diet; to-morrow, perhaps, resort to the starvation system, for a

few days. Then, in the fear of suffering from that, she would resort

again, for a few days, to luxurious living.

Now, too, she would adhere to and follow this physician, now that, and

next, none at all; or, perchance, follow some quack. I was not in a

situation to exert much influence over her, or it is possible she might

still have been saved. She would, indeed, adhere to my general plan,

when all else that promised more seemed to fail, and perhaps would have

been more persevering, but for her friends. They wanted to have the

"prophet" do "some great thing," and cure her as by magic or miracle.

In saying these things, it is far enough from being my intention to be

reproachful. She was not educated to a knowledge of herself; and she was

by no means, at the present time, what she had been in her best days. It

is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she acted like a wayward

child; though it is greatly to be regretted, since, in her

circumstances, it probably cut off every chance of her recovery.

In the spring, two or three years after her first change of diet, a

cough with which she had occasionally been troubled before, came on with

renewed violence, and never after wholly left her. She remained in this

condition till the opening of the next year, when her cough made still

farther advances, and was attended with hectic fever. She died in the

month of May following.

A post mortem examination was made, which determined the case to have

been what Dr. Jackson and myself and many others supposed, a case of

scrofula or struma; though it was certainly attended with many curious

and rather anomalous symptoms. Though there were no ulcers in the lungs,

they were found full of tubercles; and so were the mesenteric glands,

and the lining membrane of the alimentary canal. It was even said by the

principal individual concerned in the examination, that her whole body

was but a mass of disease. For myself, I was necessarily absent at the

time, and therefore have no facts of my own to present.

I never had a case, either before or since, in which my hands were so

completely tied as in this. The patient probably had as much confidence

in me as in anybody; and yet she would not long follow me implicitly and

strictly, without yielding to the whims of her friends or her enemies,

and halving the practice with some physician or quack, either known or

unknown. Under the care of some good, common-sense physician, and with

full faith in him on the part of all concerned, I am still of opinion,

as I always have been, that she might have recovered and lived many

years, and, perhaps, been able to do a vast amount of good.

CHAPTER XC.

STARVING OUT DISEASE.

Dr. Johnson, one of the best British writers on dyspepsia, advises his

medical brethren to starve out the disease, as the surest way of getting

rid of it. He says he has by far the best success with those patients

who submit to this course. It is not starvation, exactly, though it

savors of it. He says, keep them on just two pints of Indian-meal

gruel--by which he appears to mean thin hasty pudding--a day, and no

more. If they are really afraid of starving, after the trial of a few

weeks, let them eat a few times of something else; but they must soon

return to the starvation plan.

I have usually preferred cakes of Indian meal, or wheat meal unbolted

and baked very hard, to gruel or pudding. The reason is, that I consider

mastication very essential to good digestion, especially in the case of

dyspeptics. I believe the small quantity of Indian meal that goes into

two pints of gruel, or even of pudding, were it firmly baked, would hold

out and sustain the health and strength of an individual much longer

than gruel; and it will, by most persons, be preferred.

One of my dyspeptic patients, a young man of great resolution, was put

upon ten ounces a day of thin Indian-meal cake, or johnny cake; and it

wrought wonders. The prescription was made about twenty years ago, and

no young man under forty years of age, in Massachusetts, is more

efficient, at the present time, than he.

To another young man, similarly afflicted, I recommended eight ounces of

the same kind of food. He was from a family that had long known me, and

that appeared to confide in me. I have never heard from him since. My

conjecture is that he refused to follow the directions, and hence did

not wish to communicate with me any farther. He may be still a

dyspeptic, as the consequence, though it is certainly possible he may

have obeyed the prescription, to the saving of his health.

Some have supposed that a quantity of food so small, is not sufficient

to keep alive an ordinary adult; but they are mistaken. Much smaller

quantities than eight ounces have proved sufficient for this purpose, in

a great many instances. Three or four ounces have been found adequate to

every want, in these circumstances.

As I regard this as a highly important point, I will endeavor to

establish it by two or three facts, which have come, in part, under my

own observation. The first appeared in the _Boston Medical and Surgical

Journal_, for 1851, and in several other papers. The other is from a

Philadelphia paper, and is as reliable as the former. It is, however, of

much later date; viz., December, 1853.

Jervis Robinson,[K] of Nantucket, was a ship-master, born in 1800. In

1832, he became a most miserable dyspeptic. For three or four years he

relied on the popular remedy of beef-steak three times a day, and with

the usual consequences. It made him worse rather than better.

In the year 1836, a friend of his who had heard lectures on dyspepsia,

or had read on the subject, suggested a new remedy. It was three Graham

crackers daily, one at each meal, without any drink at the time of

eating. This, it was said, if persevered in long enough, would certainly

effect a radical cure.

But I prefer to let Mr. Robinson tell his own story, which he does in

the following manner:--

"The novelty as well as simplicity of this prescription, greatly

interested my mind, and I laid the case before my friends. But they, as

with one voice, endeavored to dissuade me from a course which they said

would certainly destroy me. They were particularly afraid of the sudden

change from a full flesh diet to one entirely vegetable.[L] But I told

them I might as well die in one way as another, and that I was resolved

on the experiment.

"At first I had no Graham crackers; I therefore used the common soft

Graham bread cut in thin slices and thoroughly dried. Twenty-one ounces

a week was my allowance. Of these I made three meals a day, at the hours

of six, twelve, and six. Small as the allowance was, I spent half an

hour in consuming it. Occasionally at evening, I omitted one-half of

even these scanty rations.

"My drink, for twenty-four hours, was one gill of water, divided into

three equal parts, and one of them to be taken just two hours after each

meal. I also used a cold shower-bath at rising in the morning, and

walked a mile before breakfast, having retired at ten the previous

evening.

"Under this course, my flesh and strength wasted fast. I was weighed

every week, and for the first three or four weeks, I lost half a pound a

day. The daily loss then diminished somewhat, but was not entirely

discontinued till the lapse of two months. At this time I had lost, in

all, twenty pounds weight.

"All this time the cry of starvation was heard from every quarter, and I

must frankly own that, for a week or so, I was not myself wholly without

fears. However, my head felt so much better, and my spirits so much

revived, that I began to take courage. My bowels, moreover, which up to

this time had rarely moved, and never to much purpose, now began to move

more regularly, and in about three weeks they resumed their functions

entirely, both as regarded time and quantity.

"At the end of two months, I ceased to lose flesh, and remained, in this

respect, about stationary for four weeks; but after this I began to

gain. At first, the increase of weight was very slow indeed, but soon it

became much more rapid, so that in two months more I gained nearly what

I had lost, or at the average rate of five or six ounces a day. For a

part of this time, however, the gain was half a pound a day, or nearly

three times as much as the whole weight of my food, and more than the

whole weight of my food and drink together.

"I have said that I ate three ounces, by weight, of Graham bread,

daily,--an ounce at each meal. But I afterwards procured the Graham

crackers in Boston, and used them a part of the time. Of these, too, I

continued frequently to omit half a cracker at evening. The water,

also,--one-third of a gill,--was generally omitted at evening.

"As to my appetite, during the experiment, I can truly say that, though

I never in my life came to the table with a better appetite, I was never

better satisfied with my meals when they were finished. After the first

three weeks, I had little or no thirst. Nor had I, so far as I now

recollect, any desire to eat between meals. In truth, food, except at my

meals, was seldom thought of. But, on this subject, my mind had been

made up at the outset. I will only add, on this point, that my bread,

during the whole time, tasted better, far better, to me than the nicest

cake formerly had.

"As regards perspiration, my skin, after the first three or four weeks

(during which it was dry and hard), became soft and moist. When I used

much exercise, I perspired very freely. My sleep was sound and

satisfying. Indeed, the whole "machinery," so far as I could judge,

worked admirably during the latter part of the experiment, and at its

close I could perform a good day's work at my trade.

"I was about thirty years of age when I made the experiment. I am now

above fifty. I have not always, nor indeed generally, been as rigid in

my habits since that time. In one instance, however, I worked two weeks

on a ship, at "sheathing," on but five ounces of food a day, and was

never better in my life, and never felt less fatigue at night. In fact,

I felt much better at night than I did in those instances in which I

indulged myself in eating two pounds of food a day.

"During a part of the time of my principal experiment, I kept a grocery.

On leaving this, I established a Graham boarding-house, in which I

continued for one year.

"About a year after the termination of my experiment, I had occasion,

for about three weeks, to work in a bake-house, where the mercury in the

thermometer was at 90 deg. While here, I ate twelve ounces of dry bread

and two apples a day, and drank nothing. Yet I perspired as freely as ever,

nor did I perceive any difference in the quality or the quantity of any

other secretions or excretions."

The reader will take notice that Mr. Robinson's principal or starvation

experiment, lasted five months, or one hundred and fifty days. He will

also observe that he left off the experiment with nearly or quite as

much flesh as he had when he commenced, and with a very great increase

of muscular strength.

The above statement was so remarkable, that not a few medical men and

others regarded it as a hoax. "To live on three ounces of bread, and yet

be in daily employment," they said, "even though such employment were of

a kind likely to call for very little muscular effort, is altogether

incredible. And what renders the whole so much more unlikely, is, the

yet more extraordinary assertion, that, part of the time, he gained more

in weight than the whole amount eaten and drank."

It was no wonder that medical and all scientific men were staggered at

the account. I was in doubt myself, in regard to the functions of waste,

and made a very rigid examination, in order to be certain of the facts,

before I ventured to publish any thing. On one or two points, I

afterward obtained Mr. Robinson's particular statement, as follows:--

"In regard to the question you propose, I shall have to guess a little.

So far as the fluids are concerned, however, I think it was about half a

pint a day. The solids--for I weighed them this morning, and they appear

to me about equal to those voided during the experiment--are fully half

a pound."

I also recently ascertained another curious fact. Mr. Robinson's

eyesight, prior to the experiment, had, for many years, been very poor,

but was perfectly restored during its progress. It appeared, also, that

he had again resorted to the exclusive use of bread and water for food;

but not in such small quantities as before. Mr. Robinson, of course, is

now above sixty years old.

One medical correspondent of the _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_,

pressed Mr. Robinson, very hard, for corroborative testimony concerning

the facts just stated, to which Mr. Robinson very kindly replied, by

sending him the certificate of his wife, Mrs. E. D. Robinson, whose

veracity is undoubted. The certificate was as follows:--

"The most of the facts which my husband has written, I well recollect,

and will give my name as a voucher for the truth of them."

A brother of Mr. Robinson, at Holmes' Hole, whom I called on, appeared

to give full credence to the statements of the latter, although he was

much opposed to the experiment, at the time it was made, and mortally

detested all his bread and water tendencies.

I will only add, that a medical man who was sceptical in regard to the

whole matter, became finally convinced that the story bore the marks of

truth, and made public his conviction, in the subjoined statements and

reasonings.

"It is no true philosophy to refuse credence to a statement of fact

supported by competent evidence, simply on the ground that we cannot

understand how it can be. That his system (Robinson's) absorbed a very

considerable amount of weight from the moisture at all times existing in

the atmosphere, I have no doubt--partly through the skin, but chiefly,

as I apprehend, through the mucous membrane of the lungs. The fact that

they are capable of transmitting such an amount of water in a very short

time, as may be rendered evident by breathing on a cold, polished

surface, is a pretty conclusive proof that they may, under favorable

circumstances, be as active in absorption.

"That the alvine evacuations are purely and entirely a secretion, to

become an excretion, I have been satisfied for a number of years; and I

am glad of this new and striking--I might say incontrovertible--proof

that it is so. To be sure, all matters incapable of solution and

digestion, pass off through the alimentary canal, but they are purely

accidental. One of the most satisfactory proofs, to my mind, of the

fact, has been the discharges from the bowels of a healthy infant. The

whole of the milk is so digested that there is no residuary matter to

pass through the canal, and yet the discharges are abundant."

The case of Mary B. Adams, of Oakham, Mass., though differing

considerably from that of Mr. Robinson, is, nevertheless, remarkable. I

have dwelt so long on the preceding case, however, that I must study

brevity. What I shall say, was published in the papers of some years

since, and is from her own pen.

"In June, 1840, I had an abscess in my throat, accompanied by slow

fever, and in the fall, dysentery. In the autumn of the same year, I

discontinued the use of animal food.

"In 1842, I had an attack of spinal complaint, which lasted me three

months. In the spring of 1843, I had lung fever, followed, for nearly

two years, by a cough, and accompanied by a very indifferent appetite. A

piece of bread three inches square and one inch thick would serve me for

a meal. A hard fit of coughing, however, was sure to follow every meal.

I also became very much emaciated. In the fall of 1844, I took some

medicine which removed my cough.

"Through the winter and spring of 1845, I had diarrhoea; and in the

last of May, I was suddenly and completely prostrated. I had risen in

the morning more unwell than usual, but before flight I was suffering

intolerable pain through the kidneys and back; and it was not till the

lapse of two weeks that I was able to walk about the house. All this

while I was entirely destitute of an appetite, though my stomach

continually craved acids. For six months, I lived almost wholly on

fruit. Four good-sized apples a day,[M] was all that I required. My

drink was, for the most part, catnip tea. Sometimes I could take sugar

and milk in my tea; at others, milk could not be borne. I drank four

teacupfuls of it a day.

"While I was at one period expectorating largely, I had custards made

from the white of eggs, sweetened with loaf sugar, of which I took

three table-spoonfuls, every twenty-four hours. I slept but little--not

more than two hours in twenty-four.... My bowels were very costive; I do

not suppose there were more than two or three natural evacuations during

the whole of the six months I am describing."

A more particular account of her diet, in 1846, is elsewhere given. It

is in the following words: "During this year I took but little food, and

that of the simplest. I lived chiefly on fruit, such as apples,

currants, strawberries, gooseberries, and blueberries, and other acid

fruits."

Some years later than this, Miss Adams was still living very simply. "My

food," she says, "is raised bread, and butter, apple or pumpkin pie, and

fruit in small quantity. I do not require more than a third as much food

as most females. In fact, I can eat but little of any thing. My food,

even now, distresses me very much, unless I vomit it. I eat no animal

food, and roots of every kind distress me. I drink tea; I cannot drink

water; it seems, in swallowing it, more like a solid than a liquid."

There would be no difficulty in adding largely to the list of cases of

dyspepsia which have been cured on the starvation plan; but these must

suffice for the present chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] For obvious reasons, I give real names and dates in this chapter.

[L] Even Mr. Graham himself, whom he accidentally met, repeated to him

the same caution!

[M] Or other fruits equal to them. The reader must not forget that she

had already subsisted five years without animal food, and that what she

took of vegetable food was a very small quantity--little more than was

taken by Mr. Robinson.

CHAPTER XCI.

DIETING ON MINCE PIE.

A recent letter from a patient of mine, contains the following

statement: "I met, yesterday, with a poor dyspeptic. He said he felt

very bad indeed, and that he had been _dieting_ for a long time. I asked

him what his diet had been. He said 'Bread and butter, for the morning

meal; beef, etc., for dinner; and nothing at all, for supper, but a

piece of mince pie and one or two glasses of cider.'"

Admitting this to be dieting, it is, at least, such a kind of dieting as

will not be likely, very soon, to cure dyspepsia. And yet to hundreds,

if not thousands, _dieting_ is little more than an increased attention

to what they eat--I mean, from meal to meal. Yet no changes of food,

even for the better, will compensate for this increased watchfulness

over--I might perhaps say devotion _to_--the stomach. The Philippians,

to whom Paul wrote so touchingly, are not the only people in the world

whose god is their abdominal region. Such an anxious attention to the

demands of an abnormal appetite, only tends to increase that

determination of blood to the stomach, to prevent which all judicious or

effective dieting is intended.

Dyspepsia only renders her devotees--her very slaves--the more enslaved.

With such, every attempt to cure the disease by dieting is still stomach

worship. They must have their very medicine taste agreeably and _sit_

well. At all events, they must and will have their minds continually

upon it, and must and will be continually inquiring whether they may

safely eat this article or that or the other.

It would be almost true to affirm that the fall of man from primeval

integrity, consists essentially in dyspepsia, and that every descendant

of Adam and Eve is a dyspeptic. The attention of mankind generally, is

directed too exclusively as well as too anxiously, to the inquiry, what

they shall eat, and what they shall drink. That we must eat, and drink

too, is quite obvious--nothing more so. That the Author of nature

intended, also, that we should take pleasure in our eating and drinking,

is scarcely less so. But does he secure to himself the most pleasure who

thinks most about it? Most certainly there is pleasure--_much_ pleasure

in the anticipation of good. We may, by aid of imagination, then, feast

upon the same dish half a dozen times. Yet, does not this--I repeat the

idea--tend to determine an increased amount of blood and of nervous

energy to the stomach, and to aggravate the disease? Let the reader

ponder this question.

My own most deliberate conviction is, that the stomach, in general, is

best managed, and the greatest amount of gustatory enjoyment secured,

when it is subjected most fully to good habits; that this organ, being

blind and deaf, is best served when directed by the wiser head; or, to

express the same truth in a better way, instead of asking the stomach at

any time what it will have, _we should ask the head what is right_, and

follow its directions. If the stomach is pleased, why, very well; if

not, let it go without being pleased. Give it what you think is right,

all things considered, and think no more about it. If it rebels, give it

a smaller quantity. If it still complains, lessen still more the

quantity, and perhaps diminish the frequency of your meals. There is no

danger of starving to death, as every one must be convinced who has read

carefully the two preceding chapters. When the system is really in a

suffering condition for want of nutriment, then the stomach will be able

to receive more, and dispose of it. If you give it what is right for it,

there will be no want of appetite--at least, very long. Nay, more; the

mere animal or gustatory enjoyment of that food which the head tells us

is right, and to which we conscientiously adhere, will, in the end, be

far greater than in the case of continual inquiry and anxiety and

anticipation and agitation about it.

Dyspepsia, I know, has a great variety of causes--as many, almost, as it

has forms. And yet I do not believe it can often be induced by other

causes alone, as long as the stomach is treated correctly. Give to that

organ, habitually, what is exactly right for it, both as regards quality

and quantity, and I do not believe we shall hear any more, in this

world, about dyspepsia.

But he who would confine his stomach to food which his head tells him is

right, will not surely put mince pie into it. He must know that such a

strange compound, however agreeable, will in the end be destructive, not

only of health, but of gustatory enjoyment.

The mince pie dyspeptic is just the man for quackery to feed upon. He

will keep his nerves in such a state as to render him liable to read

about and swallow all the wonderful cures of the day--whether hunger

cures, nutrition cures, clairvoyant cures, "spiritual" cures, or any

other cures. Now it is great gain, when we have got beyond all these,

when we simply put into our stomachs what is right, and think no more

about it, leaving ourselves to the event; and this in sickness and

health both.

A man in the eastern part of Massachusetts,--an asthmatic,--told me he

had spent six hundred dollars in fourteen years, on quack medicines, and

that he was nothing bettered by them. That man, you may depend, is the

slave of his feelings. No man who has been accustomed to dictate to his

stomach what it shall have, and make it submit, would ever do this. A

very poor woman, on the Green Mountains, assured me she had spent, or

rather wasted, four hundred dollars in the same way. We must drop all

this. I do not now say we must drop or lay aside all medicine, in all

cases; that is quite another question. But I do say, we must rely on

obedience to the laws of God, or on doing right, not on medicine. It

will be time enough to rely on medicine when our family physician urges

it upon us as indispensable.

If I have a single regret with regard to the instruction I have given

my patients, from time to time, it is that I have not pressed upon them

more forcibly and perseveringly, such views as are comprised in the

foregoing reasonings and reflections. They are all-important to the

dyspeptic, and by no means less important to the healthy than to the

diseased.

CHAPTER XCII.

GIANTS IN THE EARTH.

It is said of Job, and his friends who visited him to condole with him

in his sufferings, that they sat down together and said nothing, for

seven days and seven nights.

Nearly twenty years ago, a man of gigantic frame, but haggard

appearance, came to me, and after the usual compliments,--which were

indeed very dry ones,--sat down by my side, and said nothing; and this

for the very same reason which is assigned as the cause of the long

silence of Job and his friends--his grief and his sufferings were very

great.

His disease, however, was very different in its nature from that of Job.

It was more like insanity than small pox, or eruptive disease of any

kind. But hear him tell his own story, which I solicited at his hands

for the express purpose of publication:

"My business, until I was twenty years of age, was farming. Since that

time, it has been mechanical, and for the most part sedentary. From my

youth, I ate animal food of all kinds, prepared in the usual manner.

Twice a day I partook, more or less freely, of such vegetables as are in

general use. Fruits, as they came in their season, I ate whenever and

wherever I could lay hands on them, more especially apples; these last

at almost all hours of the day, and almost without number. I was also in

the habit of eating a luncheon at nine or ten o'clock in the morning,

and just before going to bed.

"My drinks, till 1830, were principally tea, coffee, cider, and beer;

but sometimes I used rum, brandy, molasses and water, milk and water,

etc. For twelve years previous to 1837, I used tobacco. From my youth, I

have had a fondness for reading and study--have spent many hours in

reading after the whole village were asleep.

"My health I considered good, compared with that of my acquaintances,

and I was able to labor hard, although I was subject to dizziness and

vomiting with such intensity that I could not walk or stand without

assistance; and for a number of days, the complaint seemed to bid

defiance to all medical aid. Here began the day of retribution, and

bitterly have I suffered for my intemperance, both in eating and

drinking. At length, my dizziness in some measure wore away, so that I

returned to my work; but my system had received a shock that was not to

be got rid of at once. And although my dizziness and inclination to

vomit were in some measure removed, yet I grew weaker by degrees, so

that by spring I was unable to perform my daily labor.

"I continued to decline until summer, when I was attacked with a violent

cough--from what cause I did not know. Some said it was the

hooping-cough, some said it was _la grippe_. Suffice it to say, I took

all the medicines prescribed by our family physician, followed all his

good advice, and took all to no purpose. I was also persuaded to try the

prescription of a celebrated physician in a neighboring town; but, alas!

his prescription was tried in vain.

"My cough and dizziness not having left me, I tried a respectable

physician of Boston, who, with an honesty of heart that does credit to

his profession, bid me buy a ninepence worth of liquorice, keep my mouth

and throat moist by chewing a little of that, and let my cough have its

course; 'For,' said he, 'though I should like to sell you medicine and

give you medical advice, for the sake of the emolument, it will do you

no good. Your disease will have its course, and you cannot help it.' I

now thought my days were few; but, as a last resort, I repaired to you."

He here enters into particulars which are not needful to my present

purpose; and the detail, by one so intimately concerned, and withal so

complimentary to me as his physician, would be fulsome. It is

sufficient, perhaps, to add the following paragraphs.

"Agreeably to your advice, I now began to reform, in good earnest. With

a constitution broken down, and almost rotten with disease, it was no

easy matter for me to cure myself; but to it I went, determined to

overcome or die in the attempt.

"I now began to think of eating what God created for man to eat. And now

it was that my health began to return; and by the time I had practised

the rules and prescriptions you laid down for me, about three months, my

cough ceased, my dizziness left me, and my health and strength partly

returned.

"Since that time I have lived on bread made of wheat meal, rye and

Indian bread, rice boiled or stewed, rice puddings, corn puddings,

apples, potatoes, etc. I sleep soundly and sweetly, on a straw bed; rise

at four in summer and five in winter, refreshed both in body and mind;

do as much work as it is necessary for any man to do; am cheerful,

happy, contented, and thankful to God for all his mercies; go to bed at

nine and go to sleep without having the night mare or any thing else to

disturb my rest. I ought to add that I eat no luncheon; and but about as

much in a whole day, as I used to eat at one meal."

As I have already intimated, it is about twenty years since I prescribed

for this individual, at which time he had a wife and two or three

children. The latter seemed to require not a little watching and dosing.

Now, in 1858, he has a very large family, many of whom have either

arrived at maturity or nearly so; and the whole family have, for many

years, been strangers to dosing and drugging. Except the mother, they

seem like a family of giants, so large are their frames, and so marked

and strong are their muscles. They are pictures of health, so to speak;

and if Mr. Barnum would exhibit them at his museum, or elsewhere, he

might, for aught I know, retrieve his shattered fortunes.

I know another great family, in New England, whose history, so far as

physical inheritance is concerned, is not unlike that of the family just

described. "There were giants in the earth in those days," hence appears

to be applicable to the world since the flood, as well as to that which

was before it.

CHAPTER XCIII.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN PATIENT.

Not many years since, I received a letter from a family in a retired

village of the Green Mountains, begging me to visit one of their number,

a young woman about twenty-seven years of age. She was a farmer's

daughter, and had been, in early life, employed as is customary in such

families in that region; but, for a few years past had been employed, a

considerable portion of the time, in teaching in the district or public

schools. It is probable she exchanged the employments of home for the

labors of the pedagogue, on account of increasing ill health (though of

this I am not quite certain), since nothing is more common or more

hazardous. The daughters of our agriculturalists, who inherit, as she

did, a scrofulous constitution, and who appear to be tolerably healthy

while they remain at home, almost always break down within a few years

after leaving the broom and duster.

But whatever may have been the first cause or causes of her diseased

condition, it is probable there had been both action and reaction. She

was now, at the time I received her most piteous petition, quite ill,

and had been so for a considerable time. However, in order to come at

the case and the results, it may be as well to make a few extracts from

the letters of her friends and herself. For, though they were not

accustomed to such descriptions of a case as a medical man would be apt

to give, yet, for popular perusal, they are, after all, the more useful.

My first extract will be made from a long letter written by her brother.

"The first attack of what we suppose to be her present disease, was a

year ago last spring, and was believed to be the result of taking

severe colds repeatedly, while teaching school among the mountains of

New Hampshire, and which ended in what Dr. K. (their family physician)

called inflammation of the lungs, and was treated accordingly. There was

much cough and expectoration of mucus. Though she partially recovered,

so as to be able to teach again the ensuing summer, yet her cough was

somewhat troublesome till autumn, when health seemed again to smile upon

her.

"Late in the fall, however, she had a very severe attack of

diarrhoea,--caused, perhaps, by imprudence in diet, and sundry other

deviations from a straight line,--which has been her constant companion

ever since. (This was a period of eight months.) During all this time

her food has passed almost without being dissolved. There is much pain

in the stomach and bowels, unless mitigated by opiates, morphine or

something analogous. But very little cough has attended her since the

last attack of diarrhoea. There has been some pain and soreness in the

right side; an eruption over the region of her stomach, swelling of the

feet and ankles, whenever fatigued by walking, with pain and soreness in

the left ankle.

"I will now give you, briefly, her physician's views. He was called soon

after the disease had taken hold of her, and made an examination of her

case, which he then called dyspepsia, attended with a little

inflammation of the right lung, or perhaps, said he, a slight filling up

of the air passages, and he thought the lower part of her right lung

might be somewhat indurated. 'Still,' said he, 'the case is not a

serious one.' These were his very words. He said he could cure her; and,

till very lately, he has always held out to her the language of hope.

But now he speaks very differently; he says the case is a hopeless

one--that of tubercular consumption; and he says he has always known it

to be such!--and adds that there is, even now, a small cavity in her

right lung, and that her lungs are passing off in her diarrhoea,

without any inconvenience in breathing, or any disagreeable sensation in

filling the lungs to fulness."

It is difficult to believe that a medical man who has any regard for his

own reputation, would tell such a downright falsehood, as that above

represented; and still more difficult to believe he would make the

strange mistake of representing her lungs as passing off through the

bowels! Why, they might almost as well pass though the moon! Probably my

correspondent did not exactly and truly apprehend his meaning; at least,

I would charitably hope so.

The appeal for relief was so very urgent, and withal so humble, I

visited and examined her, the family physician being present. I found

the latter to be a timid invalid, for whom, before I left, I was

requested to prescribe; which may account, in part, for his very

inefficient practice. I also found him ignorant, in many particulars, of

the first principles of his profession; and it was with extreme

difficulty--like that of mingling oil with water--that we could unite on

any thing reasonable or desirable. He still clung to medicine, as his

sheet-anchor in the case, while I was for depending, mainly, on a strict

conformity to the laws of health, and the restorative efforts of Nature.

There were other difficulties. A part of the family still inclined to a

reliance on him and his old system, while the rest were in favor of my

general views, as far as they understood them. The patient herself

sometimes inclined to one, and sometimes to the other. While in health,

she had been a woman of much decision of character; but, in her present

condition, she was weak and vacillating.

But there was, at length, a partial blending of the inharmonious

elements, and a prescription made out. It did not satisfy, however.

There was so strong a leaning to nature, that, after my departure, Dr.

K. gradually worked his way back to his old system of full medication,

as a letter received a few weeks afterwards plainly indicated. For, as

the great change in her treatment which we made, left her no mystical

props to lean upon, and as Dr. K. was a little disposed to speak to her

in a way which was calculated to increase her fears, it preyed upon her

mind so much that, though her diseased tendencies gradually diminished,

yet the continual croakings of her would-be friends, and the

faithlessness of a half-sick and wholly sombre physician, more than

counteracted every favorable tendency.

In about two weeks after I saw her, she began to have more heat and pain

in the stomach, with some other threatening symptoms,--probably induced

by an attempt to use food prescribed for her, but which was too

stimulating. Her physician now, to gratify both his own morbid feelings,

and the clamor of her friends, ordered brandy and other stimulating

drinks; also morphine and camphor powders, and a new relay of

stimulating food.

The sequel of the story, as related by a sister of the patient, is as

follows:--

"Soon after I wrote you last (which was the letter containing an account

of the strange resort to beef, brandy, morphine and camphor), she began

to fail very fast, and Dr. K. informed her that she could live but a

very short time. But she clung to life, and it was distressing to see

her going down to the grave, while we were doing nothing to help her. We

spoke to her about sending for you again; but she said you were a great

way off, and if you could come at all, which was doubtful, it would be a

long time before you could arrive; whereas, if she could not have help

soon, she must be compelled to leave us. We asked her if she could think

of any other physician that she would like to see? She replied, that she

should like to see Dr. Q.,--an old physician about twenty miles distant.

We sent for him immediately. He came, and with him her old physician,

Dr. K.

"I wish to say that she had taken but very little medicine before Dr. Q.

came, except the morphine, camphor, and brandy. But the counselling

physician said that would not do, and he could not help her unless she

took three opium pills, eighteen drops of laudanum, and from six to nine

drops of the chloride of iron, a day; and when she hesitated about being

able to bear it, he told her to drink down the white part of two eggs in

cold water, which would keep the medicine from hurting her.

"We inquired if he would come again and see her: to which he replied in

the affirmative. She proceeded to take his medicine for one day, but it

quickly increased her diarrhoea. Instead of six movements a day, they

were increased to thirty-five. Under these circumstances, her weakness

increased so fast that she could help herself very little; and her feet,

hands, and limbs were very much bloated. As Dr. Q. did not come,

according to his agreement, we sent for her old physician. When he saw

her, he said it was a wonder she had lived so long after taking Dr. Q.'s

medicine."

We are not told, in the letter from which the above is extracted, why

her old physician, Dr. K., consented, in the first place, that she

should take the medicine, if he regarded it as so very bad for her. But,

then, he was a timid as well as a Janus-faced man, and probably said as

he did because he did not know what else to say. But I will go on with

the extracts, since they reveal another most astounding fact in regard

to medical dishonesty.

"He also (the family physician) told us that we must not expect Dr. Q.

any more, for he told him expressly that he should not come again, as he

could do nothing for her, and that if he had known how she was before he

came, he never would have come so far in a case so hopeless. And, true

to his engagement with Dr. K., but contrary to his promise, both to my

sister and my father, separately, he never came again.

"But the other doctor came again, and attended her as formerly. He gave

her a powder of morphine, and some gum myrrh, and a little anise, which

reduced the evacuations from thirty-three to three a day. But her

distress was still very great, and her feet soon began to turn purple,

and she began to bloat in her stomach and bowels. This continued till

she was as full as she could be; and you could have heard her scream and

groan as far as the road (a distance of three or four rods). The

physician then applied ether, to relieve her distress, and gave

twenty-five drops of laudanum, and a morphine powder, upon which her

distress left her for a very short time, but soon returned, not to leave

her again while she lived. Almost her last breath was a scream. She died

in just eight days after Dr. Q. came to see her.

"But I must close by saying that we think if our sister could have been

a patient of yours, she would have been restored to health. But it is

past, and we cannot recall it; and all I can now do, is to tender our

thanks to you for your kindness and attention during our sister's

sickness. I trust you will have life and health, long to pursue your

noble vocation."

I am afraid the patient reader of this long chapter, will be led to one

conclusion which the writer would exceedingly regret; viz., that all

medical counsel, in chronic disease, is of more than doubtful utility;

and that it would be safer to leave it wholly to nature and to good

nursing. There are medical men in the world who are honest as well as

skilful, and who, because a case is difficult to manage, will not,

chameleon-like, tell two or three different stories, and thus half ruin

a profession that embraces so many noble and honorable-minded men; nor

will they persist in a course of treatment which is evidently murdering

their patients.

It is hardly needful to say that the patient above described was

murdered; but I am obliged to say, without doubt, that there was no

necessity of her coming to such an untimely end. Her sister, it seems,

thought that, had she fallen into my hands from the first, she might

have been saved. I think so too. And yet, it might have been otherwise.

In any event, she ought not, at the first, to have been treated for

consumption, but for dyspepsia. Starvation, and a little mental

quietude, with daily exercise, such as she could bear, in the open air,

would have greatly changed her condition, when her diarrhoea first

commenced.

I never knew a case which was worse managed in my whole life. It is a

wonder to me, when I think of it, that she so long survived under it.

But it is a wonder, greater still, that medical men who are so

unqualified for the duties of their profession as the physicians who

were most concerned in the treatment of the above case appear to me to

have been, do not feel compelled, by the remonstrances of their own

consciences, to quit their profession, and do something for a living for

which they are better prepared.

CHAPTER XCIV.

CURE OF POISON FROM LEAD.

Cases of poisoning by lead are occurring in our country almost daily;

and it becomes a matter of much importance to know how to treat them.

Indeed, there are many who are so susceptible to the action of this

deleterious agent, that the reception of a single tumbler of water

brought through lead pipes, in a certain condition, into their stomachs,

will cause serious disturbance. I have had one patient of this

description--a Mr. E., of Worcester, Mass.

Some twenty years ago, much of the water used in the village of Dedham,

Mass., was conveyed to the village, for half a mile or so, in lead

pipes. Many who drank the water were injured by it; some of them for

life. A Mr. R., a printer, is believed to have lost his life, by disease

which was either induced or aggravated by this cause. I have, myself,

been called to prescribe for several, who were probably led into a state

of ill health by this unhealthy water. One of the clergymen of the

village suffered from it very greatly, though he is, as I believe, yet

living.

There is some difference of opinion as to the circumstances which most

favor the action of the lead, or, rather, which cause its dissolution in

the water. But, with regard to its danger, in certain circumstances,

either known or unknown, there can be no doubt. Nor can we doubt that,

in view of facts which exist, it is our duty to banish lead pipes, as

much as possible, from common use.

During the early part of the year 1855, Capt. J. H., near Boston, aged

thirty-four years, of good natural constitution and comparatively

healthy habits in general, had a slow typhoid fever, from which,

however, he finally recovered, though not without a continued liability

to a relapse. About this time, he began to use water brought to his

kitchen in lead pipes.

Late in the year 1856, he was taken down very suddenly, with fever and

great debility, and in four or five days his upper and lower limbs

became completely paralyzed. He was not able to stir so much as one of

his hands. Indeed, the whole abdominal region seemed to be almost as

inactive as his limbs; for very severe friction across the hips, and

along the spine, down the legs, produced no sensation; and his bowels

were so constipated, as to remain motionless from five or six days to a

fortnight at a time, unless excited by medical agents.

His case was examined by several eminent medical men in the vicinity of

Boston, who gave it as their unanimous opinion, that the cause of his

disease was the irritation of the water. Some of them prescribed for his

case, but all to no apparent purpose.

On the first day of November, he was sent to an electro-chemical bathing

establishment, to be treated according to the usages of that

institution. I was intimately acquainted with the establishment, and, in

circumstances like his, was understood to regard it with favor. I was,

therefore, from time to time, consulted in the case of Captain H. To

give an impulse to the nervous and arterial systems of Capt. H., one

bath was administered. The use of his limbs was restored, as if by

magic. When he came out of the bath, he walked some twenty feet or more,

to his bed, without assistance; and, to his great surprise, could raise

his hands to his head. The second day's bath, and treatment with simple

diet, not only restored sensation, but gave him a better use of his

hands than he had enjoyed before for many months. His bowels, also,

became immediately regular, and continued so.

It is, however, to be confessed, that his recovery was not so rapid as

at first seemed probable. The baths seemed to give an impulse; but it

was reserved for a proper diet, suitable exercise, and good air, to work

out, slowly, a perfect cure. How much was attributable to the baths,

considered by themselves, is not known. No medicine was given, from

first to last, except the electricity.

It should also be confessed, that no belief was entertained, by myself

or my associates, of any mechanical power possessed by the electricity,

of forcing the lead out of the system; though some individuals had

believed in such a power. The most we claimed was, that the invisible

agent had an immediate influence on the nerves, and a more remote one on

the absorbent system.

As a farther proof, if more proof had been needed, that the paralysis

was induced by lead, some of the water from which he had drank was

analyzed by Dr. Hayes, City Assayer for Boston, who pronounced it to be

strongly impregnated with lead, and "utterly unfit for culinary

purposes."

CHAPTER XCV.

FAITH AND WORKS.

In the autumn of 1856, a fine young man, a clerk in a large mercantile

house in Boston, came to me with complaints not unlike those of

thousands of his own age and sex, and begged for relief; but was

surprised when he learned that I treated all such cases as his without

medicine. Added to the surprise, moreover, was a degree of mortification

at the idea of attempting to cure himself by a change of habits,

especially of dietetic habits, which, in a boarder in a family, might be

observed. He would have been much better pleased to take medicine, so

concentrated that a few drops or a few small boluses or pills could be

taken a few times a day unperceived--than to run the risk of awakening

suspicions of diseases to which he was unwilling to make confession.

And herein, by the way, comes out the secret of such a wonderful

imposition on our young men, by what I have elsewhere called land-sharks

in the shape of physicians. The fondness of young men for secret

cures,--or, at least, their money, which is the thing most wanted after

all,--leads them, almost directly, into the mouths of these monsters.

My young patient, however, had faith in me; and, after the first shock

of surprise and the first feelings of mortification were over, resolved

to follow my directions, and did so. He came to me, it is true, several

times, and said he could not endure it; that he was losing flesh very

fast, and that he was already so weak that he could scarcely walk to his

desk. I comforted him as well as I could, told him there would be a

change soon for the better, and kept him on through the tedious months

of December, January, and February, when his strength began to return,

and his flesh to be restored. Between March and May, he gained

twenty-one pounds; and in June, he was in as good health as he ever had

been before in his life. And yet he took not a particle of any thing

medicinal, from first to last.

If you desire to know, in few words, what he _did_ do, I will tell you.

First, he took a long walk, regularly,--sufficiently long to induce a

good deal of muscular fatigue,--as the last thing before he went to bed

which was at an early hour. Secondly, he used a cold hand-bath, followed

by much friction, daily. Thirdly, he abandoned tea and coffee (tobacco

and rum he had never used), and drank only water. Fourthly, he abandoned

all animal food and all concentrated substances and condiments, and

lived simply on bread (unfermented), fruits, and a few choice

vegetables.

It was faith that served this young man,--not faith without works, but

faith which is manifested by works. "According to your faith be it unto

you," might be enjoined on every patient, under all circumstances. But

the most remarkable thing connected with this case, is the fact that

this young man had been brought up _in the lap of ease and

indulgence_--an education which is as unfavorable to faith as it is to

works.

CHAPTER XCVI.

WORKS WITHOUT FAITH.

A female, in Worcester County, Massachusetts, nearly sixty years of age,

having for many years been a sufferer from domestic afflictions, till,

along with certain abuses of the digestive function, it had brought upon

her a full load of dyspepsia, was at length subjected to a trio of

evils, which capped the climax of her sufferings, reduced her to a very

low condition, and laid her on her bed.

While lying in this condition, a young woman who was her constant

attendant, and who was acquainted with my no-medicine practice,

recommended to her to send for me. She hesitated, for a time, on account

of the expense; for, though by no means poor, she felt all the pangs of

poverty in consequence of the hard and unworthy treatment of the

individual who was to have justly executed the last will and testament

of her husband.

But I was at length sent for. I found her under the general care and

oversight of a homoeopathic physician; but as he was ten or twelve miles

distant and had not been informed of my visit, I did not see him. His

practice, however, in the case, was similar to what I had usually met

with in cases which had come under the care of physicians of the same

school, and was, at most, as it appeared to me, negative. She had indeed

been drugged by some one most fearfully, and her whole system was

suffering as the consequence; but it was a physician who had preceded

Dr. A., and who was of an entirely different school.

I found no great difficulty in persuading her to ask Dr. A., when he

should next call, to suspend his medicine a week or two; and, after

ordering a warm bath two or three times a week, and certain changes in

diet, with particular care about ventilation and temperature, left her,

to call again the next week.

On calling, at the time appointed, I was greatly disappointed in finding

her with many better symptoms. There was indeed cough, which busy rumor

had converted into an indication of galloping consumption; but I found

no other symptom which belonged to that disease. The homoeopathic

medicine had been suspended, and the warm bath had been applied with

apparent success.

I left, with the promise of calling again in ten days--but not sooner,

unless they sent for me. At the end of the ten days, I called and found

all things ajar again. Her female attendant had left her about a week

before; and the new attendants--two of them--being destitute of faith in

me, had found no great difficulty in persuading her that she had a fever

of the lungs, and that she would die if she did not take a _little_

medicine, and that she would do well to recall Dr. A., and take his

medicine.

When I arrived, at this third visit, I found her taking a small amount

of homoeopathic medicine, but without appetite or strength, and

evidently tending downward. It was too late to do any thing, especially

when there was no faith in anything but pills and powders; and I left

her to her native strength of constitution, her homoeopathic

physician, her croaking nurses, and God, vainly mourning, all my way

home, about the inefficiency of works without faith, especially in the

case of the sick. This woman's case is recent, and it is possible that

she may recover, in spite of pills, powders, croakings, and

faithlessness. I have witnessed such things. Nature is tough.

But while I lament the inefficiency of works, where faith is wanting, I

have had one case which seems an exception to the general rule,

"according to your faith," etc., which I take great pleasure in

recording.

In June, 18--, a young man from the interior of New England called on me

while abroad on business, and desired to receive my advice concerning

certain complaints, attended with great debility, and accompanied by

hernia and varicocele, and, in general, by dyspepsia. On examination, I

found the case a very obstinate one, of long standing. The patient was a

young man of twenty-two, a clerk in a country store, a man of some

principle, and yet trained to find his chief happiness in the indulgence

of his appetite, especially in what is called good eating.

I gave him some general directions, promising him something still more

specific as soon as I got home. In July, I gave him written directions,

in full, and urged him to push the treatment as fast as possible, in

order to get into a beginning state of convalescence, soon enough to

take advantage of the naturally recuperative effects of autumn. If he

could find himself recruiting in September, the month of October, I told

him, would produce on him a very decided change.

He went to work accordingly, but it was because it was a last resort,

and he must do so. It was not because he had much faith in me. Some of

his friends, it seems, had directed his attention this way; but when I

came to talk of the starvation plan of cure, to which I so much

inclined, both they and he revolted. However, he made a faint beginning.

I had foreseen most of the difficulties I had to contend with, and was

prepared to meet them. Thus, knowing full well that if I laid down the

laws of diet in great strictness, either as regards, quality or

quantity, he would be discouraged and do nothing at all, I permitted him

to use almost all kinds of food, and only insisted on a rigid adherence

to the great law, and avoiding medicine. These two points I made much

of, and explained them fully.

For example: I told him that all kinds of cookery or preparations which

prevented the necessity of teeth labor, such as soaking in milk, forming

into toast, mashing, or in any way softening, were wrong, and must be

avoided. Also, that all additions to our food, whether of foreign

bodies, such as pepper, mustard, vinegar, salt, etc., or of more

concentrated substances, such as molasses, sugar, honey, butter, gravy,

etc., should, for the same reason as well as others, be shunned as much

as possible.

When, therefore, said I, the question comes before your mind, whether

you may or may not eat a particular thing, consider first, whether its

use would be a violation of the general laws I have laid down for you. I

gave him many specific directions, at first, and yet continued to urge

it upon him to reason for himself.

But it seemed, for a long time, a hopeless case. He kept writing to me,

to know if he might eat toast, bread and butter, soup, milk, etc., or to

know why it was that he ought not to make additions of foreign or

concentrated substances, as of pepper, mustard, molasses, syrup, etc. I

have before me sixteen letters from him, in most of which his pleadings

abound, up to the very last but one. This fifteenth letter, dated

December 27, more than six months after my interview with him and first

prescription, has the following inquiries:--

"Will a diet do for me that admits of any pastry?--of pies, of any kind?

What _kind_ of puddings, pies, and cake will answer? What kind of meats?

What food shall I be obliged to avoid to keep my passions in check? What

am I to eat this winter--next spring--next summer? How much at a time?

Can I eat tripe--corned beef--oysters--lean pork steak? What kinds of

meat and fish will do for me to eat? Any salt fish? Is milk bad in case

of liver disease? Is there any objection to baked sour apples and milk,

or to sour apples after using a little milk or bread? Will you allow me

to eat any simple thing between meals?"

And in this same letter, after six months' instruction, as aforesaid, he

undertakes to tell me what his habits of living are, which, despite of

all said and done, in the way of personal counsel and nearly twenty

letters, strangely reads thus:--

"I use some milk three times a day, and almost always soak my toasted

bread in milk. Since I have been out in the open air, I have usually had

some wild game, or a piece of beef steak, or raw eggs, twice a day. My

suppers, lately, have been toasted bread, of any convenient kind

(usually Graham), with milk, about a tumbler full, at a time, or

three-fourths full. I usually eat two apples, with or after each

breakfast and dinner. I use considerable cream soaked into my bread,

when I can obtain it, and some molasses. Now, which is the best for me

to use on my bread, at supper time--cream, milk, molasses, or a little

butter?--or with my other meals? Is there any objection to my using all

these now, in proper quantities? Will a little plain sauce do with my

supper? Why do you so strongly object to cream toasts, or cream on

bread? Is chewing gum from spruce trees injurious?--or birch bark? Any

objections to eating two sour apples after breakfast and dinner?"

Now the great difficulty with this young man was, that he had but little

faith, either in me or in principles--though if I would direct him, from

step to step, like a child, he would obey me, for the moment: though,

like a child, too, he would forget my directions at almost the next

moment, and ask for information on the very same point.

Was not such a trial almost too great? However, he was destined to

survive it, to live on in spite of it, notwithstanding my after fears.

In March, 18--, he wrote me as follows:--

"As I have been getting better all the while, and have troubled you with

so many little queries from time to time, I thought I would delay this

letter a while. My health has been constantly improving all winter, and

I think I have not enjoyed as good health before for many years. People

now say, 'How well you are looking!' and 'How fleshy you are!' I mean to

live according to the '_laws_.'"

In short, this young sufferer from dyspepsia in one of its worst forms,

after more than half a year of works without faith, and of whining and

complaining a part of the time, without either works or faith, is at

last shouting victory! And a glorious victory it is! Would that the rest

of our dyspeptics, with land by millions, might stand on as good a

footing, with as good prospects before them, as this young man! And yet

he might have come up to the same point long ago, had he used more

common sense, and exercised but a little more faith and trust in just

hygienic principles.

CHAPTER XCVII

DISEASES OF LICENTIOUSNESS.

Not far from the end of July, 1857, I received the following, in a

letter through the post office, as usual, and dated at Boston, but

signed by a name probably fictitious.

"It was with no small degree of interest that I noticed, in a book

written by yourself,--I cannot recollect its name,--some remarks upon

certain diseases which you called nameless; yet, through a dread to

introduce so delicate a subject, I have neglected so to do, till it has

become an imperative task. And now, laying aside all feelings of

modesty, allow me to be familiar with you, as with a father, and to lay

my case before you, assuring you that, however unfortunate I have been,

it is not my fault, but has come upon me while living with my husband,

having never betrayed _his_ confidence."

She then proceeded at once to describe her disease and sufferings, which

were terrible. It appeared that she had not been of the number of those

who, in circumstances akin to hers, so often fall into shark's mouths.

She had taken but little medicine of any kind, except balsam copaiba.

After the details of her symptoms and sufferings were finished, she

added:

"Now, if you are able to understand me, I wish to ask you whether, from

the description I have given, you cannot prescribe something that will

relieve me. If so, you can be assured that you will put your humble

correspondent and her erring but repentant companion under great

obligation to yourself, and that you will be rewarded for all your

trouble and advice."

As the result of this request, a correspondence followed, which

continued several months. At first, the patient clung to the idea that

she could not possibly be restored without minerals, or at least

without active medicine of some sort or other, she scarcely knew what.

But she at length understood me, and followed, quite implicitly, my

directions. There was indeed a little shrinking, at first, from the

rigidity, or, as she would call it, the nakedness, of a diet which it

was indispensable to use in order to purify her blood effectually; but

she finally came bravely up to the mark, and probably reaped her reward

in it.

It is true, I did not hear from her till she came to the end of a very

long road; but up to the last of our correspondence, she was slowly

improving. My belief is that, before this time, she has fairly

recovered, and with far less injury to the vital powers than if

mercurial or other strong medicines had been used.

And herein we are reminded of a crime that not only has no name, but

deserves none. I allude to the act of communicating a disease so

distressing to an innocent and unoffending female. We had an instance of

this same crime in Chapter LXXIV. If there be such a thing as punishing

too severely, I am sure it is not in cases like these. The individual in

human shape, who, with eyes open, will run the risk of injuring those

whom he professes to love better, if possible, than himself, deserves a

punishment more condign and terrible than he to whom is so often awarded

a halter or a guillotine.

CHAPTER XCVIII.

CURIOUS AND INSTRUCTIVE FACTS.

It is morally impossible for any medical man who has kept his eyes open

for forty years, not to have been struck with certain obvious and

incontrovertible facts, of which I present a few specimens.

The _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, a few years since, in an

obituary notice of Dr. Danforth, who had long been an eminent

practitioner in Boston, makes the following remarks:--

"Though considered one of the most successful practitioners, he rarely

caused a patient to be bled. Probably, for the last twenty years of his

practice, he did not propose the use of this remedy in a single

instance. And he maintained that the abstraction of the vital fluid

diminished the power of overcoming the disease. On one occasion, he was

called to visit a number of persons who had been injured by the fall of

a house frame, and, on arrival, found another practitioner engaged in

bleeding the men. 'Doctor,' said the latter, 'I am doing your work for

you.' 'Then,' said Dr. Danforth, 'pour the blood back into the veins of

those men.'"

Dr. Thomas Hubbard, of Pomfret, Conn., long a President of the Medical

Society in that State, was, on the contrary, accustomed to bleed almost

all his patients. Yet both of these men were considered as eminently

successful in their profession. How is it that treatment so exactly

opposite should be almost, if not quite, equally successful?

There was a discussion in Boston, many years ago, between Dr. Watson,

one of the most successful old-school practitioners of medicine, and a

Thomsonian practitioner, whose name I have forgotten, in the progress of

which the former made the open and unqualified declaration, that, in the

course of four years' practice, he had drawn one hundred gallons of

human blood, and that he was then on the use of his thirty-ninth pound

of calomel.

Now both these men had full practice; and while one did little or

nothing to break up disease or destroy the enemy, the other did a great

deal; and yet both were deemed successful. Can we explain this any

better than we can the facts in regard to Drs. Danforth and Hubbard?

Let us look at the case of Dr. M., of Boston, a successful allopathic

practitioner. In order to satisfy his curiosity, with regard to the

claims of homoeopathy, he suddenly substituted the usual

homoeopathic treatment for allopathy, and pursued it two whole years

with entire success. Curiosity still awake, he again exchanged his

infinitesimal doses of active medicine for similar doses, as regards

size, of fine flour, and continued this, also, for two years. The latter

experiment, as he affirms, was quite as successful as the former.

Do not such facts as these point, with almost unerring certainty, to the

inefficiency of all medical treatment? Do they not almost, if not quite,

prove that when we take medicine, properly so called, or receive active

medical treatment; we recover in spite of it? Is there any other

rational way of accounting for the almost equal success of all sorts of

treatment,--allopathic, botanic, homoeopathic, hydropathic,

etc.,--when in the hands of good, sound, common sense, and conjoined

with good nursing and attendance? Is it not that man is made to live,

and is tough, so that it is not easy to poison him to death?

But the most remarkable fact of this kind with which I am acquainted, is

the case of Isaac Jennings, M.D., now of Ohio. He was educated at Yale

College, in Connecticut. During the progress of his education, he served

a sort of medical apprenticeship in the family of Prof. Eli Ives, of New

Haven. He took his medical degree in 1812, and soon after this commenced

the practice of his profession in Trumbull, in Fairfield County. Here,

for eight years, he had ample opportunity to apply the principles with

which, at the schools, he had been fully indoctrinated. In the summer

of 1820, he removed, by special request, to Derby, nine miles from New

Haven. Up to his second year in Derby, he pursued the usual, or

orthodox, course of practice. The distance from his former field of

labor was not so great but that he retained a portion of his old friends

in that region. He was also occasionally called to the town of

Huntington, lying partly between the two.

On meeting one day with Dr. Tisdale, of Bridgeport, an older physician

than himself, he said to him, very familiarly, "Jennings, are you aware

that we do far less good with our medicine than we have been wont to

suppose?" He replied in the affirmative, and observed that he had been

inclining to that opinion for some time. "Do you know," added Dr.

Tisdale, "that we do a great deal more harm than good with medicine?"

Dr. Jennings replied that he had not yet gone as far as that. Dr.

Tisdale then proceeded to state many facts, corroborating the opinion he

had thrown out concerning the impotency of medicine. These statements

and facts were, to the mind of Dr. Jennings, like a nail fastened in a

sure place.

From this time forth his medical scepticism increased, till he came, at

length, to give his doubts the test of experiment. Accordingly, he

substituted for his usual medicaments, bread pills and colored water;

and for many years--I believe five or six--gave nothing else. The more

rigidly he confined himself to these potions, the better he found his

success, till his business was so extended, and his reputation so great,

as to exclude all other medical men from his own immediate vicinity.

His great conscientiousness, as well as a desire of making known to his

medical brethren what he believed to be true, and thus save them from

the folly of dealing out that which he was assured was only a nuisance,

especially under the shelter of what they supposed to be his example,

led him, at length, to call a meeting of physicians, and reveal to them

his discovery. The surprise was great; but greater or less, according to

their tact for observation, and the length of their experience.

But the secret was now out, and Dr. Jennings soon began to lose

practice. Instead of employing a man to give them bread pills and

colored water, many chose to take care of themselves, and let the

physician wholly alone; while a far greater number, though they dearly

loved and highly respected Jennings, as an old friend and physician and

an eminent Christian, began to seek medical counsel at other hands.

The result was, that his business became so much diminished as to leave

him without a full support, except from past earnings, and he began to

make preparations for a removal to the West. But this his friends were

unwilling to have him do, and they accordingly raised, by subscription,

$300 a year, to induce him to remain. In a few years, however, the

subscription failed to be renewed, and in 1839 or 1840 he removed to

Ohio, where he still remains. He does a little business, and what he

does is attended with great success; and yet, the number of those who

follow him is small.

Facts of similar import, in very great numbers, some more and some less

striking, might be related, to almost any extent; but can it be

necessary? Suffice it to say that some of the oldest physicians in

Boston and its vicinity, the oldest physician in Cleveland, and some of

the most intelligent ones in New York and Philadelphia, as well as

elsewhere, are coming rapidly to the same conclusions with Dr. Jennings,

and a few of them have already arrived there.

It is from stumbling on such facts as these, together with my own long

experience, all bearing in the same direction, that I have long since

renounced dependence on medicine, properly so called, as a means of

restoring the system, when out of order, to a state of health. In other

words, I have ceased to employ poison to _cure_ poison.

But, lest it should still be thought I make too much of my own

experience, and of the facts which have been adduced in this chapter, I

subjoin another of kindred character, containing the written testimony

of others, especially medical men, on the subject.

CHAPTER XCIX.

ANTI-MEDICAL TESTIMONY.

A very large amount of testimony, going to show the inefficiency and

inutility of medicine, might be presented; but I have limited myself to

a selection of some of the more striking and important.

Let me begin with Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. In a published lecture of

his, more than half a century ago, he made the following remark:--

"Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of disease, and cause us

to blush at our prescriptions. What mischief have we done under the

belief of false facts and theories! We have assisted in multiplying

diseases; we have done more; we have increased their mortality.... The

art of healing is like an unroofed temple, uncovered at the top, and

cracked at the foundation."

Magendie, late a distinguished French physician and physiologist, says,

as follows:--

"I hesitate not to declare,--no matter how sorely I shall wound our

vanity,--that so gross is our ignorance of the real nature of the

physiological disorders called diseases, that it would, perhaps, be

better to do nothing, and resign the complaint we are called upon to

treat, to the resources of nature, than to act, as we are frequently

compelled to do, without knowing the why and the wherefore of our

conduct, and at the obvious risk of hastening the end of our patient."

Dr. Good, a learned and voluminous British writer, also says:--

"The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon; and the effects of our

medicines upon the human system, are, in the highest degree, uncertain,

except, indeed, that they have already destroyed more lives than war,

pestilence, and famine combined."

Professor Clark, of the Harvard Medical School, in Boston, in an address

of his, recently published, insists, again and again, that medicine

never cures, and that it rarely, if ever, so much as _aids_ nature;

while he exalts, in an unwonted degree, the remedial effects of every

hygienic influence. Let him who longer doubts, read this most remarkable

production; and with the more care from the fact that it is a very fair

exponent of the doctrines now held at the very fountain-head of medical

orthodoxy.

From a work entitled, "Memoirs of James Jackson, Jr.," late of Boston,

written by his father, I have extracted the following. It is part of a

letter, written from Europe, to his venerable father, the present elder

Dr. James Jackson, of Boston.

"But our poor pathology and worse therapeutics--shall we ever get to a

solid bottom? Shall we ever have fixed laws? Shall we ever _know_, or,

must we always be doomed to _suspect_, to _presume_? Is _perhaps_ to be

our qualifying word forever and for aye? Must we forever be obliged to

hang our heads when the chemist and natural philosopher ask us for our

laws and principles?... If honest, must we not acknowledge that, even in

the natural history of disease, there is very much _doubtful_, which is

received as _sure_? And in therapeutics, is it better yet, or worse?

Have we judged--have we deduced our results, especially in the last

science--from _all_, or from a selection of facts?

"Do we know, for example, in how many instances such a treatment fails,

for the one time it succeeds? Do we know how large a proportion of cases

would get well without any treatment, compared with those that recover

under it? Do not imagine, my dear father, that I am becoming a sceptic

in medicine. It is, not quite as bad as that. I shall ever believe, _at

least_, that the rules of _hygeia_ must be and are useful, and that he

only can understand and value them, who has studied pathology. Indeed, I

may add that, to a certain extent, I have seen demonstrated the actual

benefit of certain modes of treatment in acute diseases. But, is this

benefit immense? When life is threatened, do we very often save it? When

a disease is destined by _Nature_ to be long, do we very often

materially diminish it?"

It is worthy of remark, that the discussions in the pages of the _Boston

Medical and Surgical Journal_, for two or three years past, concerning

the treatment of scarlatina, have usually resulted, practically, in

favor of the no-medicine system. It clearly appears that the less our

reliance on medicine, in this disease, the better. But what shall hinder

or prevent our coming to similar results, in the investigation, in time

to come, of other diseases?

Dr. Reynolds, one of the most aged as well as most distinguished medical

men of Boston, has been heard to affirm that if one hundred patients

were to call on him during the day, and he could induce them to follow

such directions as would keep them from injuring themselves from eating

and drinking,--no matter what the disease,--he should be surprised at a

mortality of more than three per cent of their number; and he should

_not_ be surprised if every one who implicitly followed his direction

should finally recover.

I will only add, in this place, the testimony of two or three

distinguished individuals on this subject, whose opinion, though they

were not medical men, will with many have weight, as it certainly ought.

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia,

thus writes: "I have lived to see the disciples of Hoffman, Boerhaave,

Stahl, Cullen, and Brown succeed each other, like the shifting figures

of a magic lantern.... The patient treated on the fashionable theory,

sometimes recovers in spite of the medicine. The medicine, therefore,

restores him (!!!), and the doctor receives new courage to proceed in

his experiment on the lives of his fellow-creatures!"

Sir Walter Scott says, of Napoleon: He never obeyed the medical

injunctions of his physician, Dr. O'Meara, and obstinately refused to

take medicine. "Doctor," said he, "no physicking. We are a machine made

to live. We are organized for that purpose. Such is our nature. Do not

counteract the living principle. Let it alone; leave it the liberty of

defending itself; it will do better than your drugs. The watchmaker

cannot open it, and must, on handling it, grope his way blindfold and at

random. For once that he assists and relieves it, by dint of tormenting

it with crooked instruments, he injures it ten times, and at last

destroys it."

CHAPTER C.

AN ANTI-MEDICAL PREMIUM.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, in the year 1856, were authorized by

an unknown individual to offer a premium of one hundred dollars for the

best dissertation which should be presented to them, on or before April

15, 1857, on the following subject, viz.: "_We would regard every

approach towards the rational and successful prevention and management

of disease without the necessity of drugs, to be an advance in favor of

humanity and scientific medicine._"

A number of essays were accordingly presented, having, as is usual in

such cases, various degrees of merit; but the preference was given to

one written by Worthington Hooker, M. D., of New Haven, Conn. This essay

is to be published in due time, and it is devoutly hoped there will be

as little delay as possible in the circulation of so remarkable, and, as

I have no doubt, valuable, an essay.

The facts in connection with this essay, taken as an item in the history

of human progress, are truly remarkable. The very title of the essay is

at once peculiar and striking; but the main idea which it suggests to

the mind is much more so. That a learned society, in the literary

metropolis of New England, if not of the United States, should, at the

present time, in any way or shape, encourage a discussion of the

question, whether, in the practice of medicine, drugs can be dispensed

with, was not an event to be expected or so much as dreamed of. It is,

therefore, I repeat, very remarkable, and must have a deeper meaning

than at first appears.

What, then, let us inquire, is that meaning? Does it intimate that there

is a belief,--a lurking belief, if you choose to call it so,--among our

scientific medical men, that drugs might be entirely dispensed with?

Or, does it rather imply a belief in the possibility of approximating to

such a point,--with those approximations of two mathematical lines, of

which we sometimes hear,--without the possibility of ever reaching it?

It is by no means improbable, at least in my own view, that the essay

intended by the Boston Society had its origin in a growing tendency,

everywhere, among scientific medical men, to the belief that, in the

most rational and successful practice of medicine, drugs are not

indicated; and that they are only necessary on account of the ignorance

or credulity of the community.

The family practice of many sensible physicians, perhaps I might say of

most, is strongly corroborative of this main idea. I can point to more

than a score of eminent individuals, in this department, who never, or

at most but seldom, give medicine in their own families; above all, they

never take it themselves. It is indeed true, that some of them are

hardly willing to own it, when questioned on the subject; but this does

not alter the plain matter of fact.

Thus Dr. S----, ten miles from Boston, is subject to attacks of a

species of neuralgia, which sometimes last two days; and yet, none of

his family or friends or medical brethren have ever been able to

persuade him to do any thing to mitigate his pain, except to keep quiet

and abstain almost entirely from food; and a daughter of his assures me

that she can scarcely recollect his giving a dose of medicine to any

member of his family. Dr. H., seven miles from Boston, not only does the

same, but frequently disappoints the expectations of his patients, by

giving them no medicine. Yet both these individuals are exceedingly slow

to be seen in company with those men of heterodoxy in medicine, who dare

to advocate, everywhere and on all occasions, what they habitually

practice on themselves and their families.

What, then, I repeat it, can these things mean? Is there not reason for

believing that the truly wise men of the medical profession, at the

present time, are beginning to see, in certain facts which in the

providence of God are forced upon them, that in the general management

of disease, and as the general rule of treatment, no drugs or medicines

are needful?

There is a wide difference between that practice of our profession

which, as a general rule, excludes medicine, and that which, as a

general rule, includes it. And an entire change from the latter to the

former, is, perhaps, too great to be expected immediately. Yet, in the

progress of society towards a more perfect millennial state of things,

must it not come?

CHAPTER CI.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

It is a notorious fact, that while the number of physicians and the

expenditure for drugs and medicines is constantly increasing, in every

civilized country where they have been much employed, diseases have been

multiplied in proportion. Perhaps, too, they have, in a like proportion,

become more fatal; but this does not so clearly appear. Nor is it quite

so certain that acute diseases have been multiplied, as chronic ones.

Another fact deserves to be placed by the side of this; viz., that in

those countries, or portions of country, where no physicians have ever

been in vogue, and very little medicine beyond a few herbs, and roots,

and incantations, or charms, the health of the people is quite as good,

and the longevity quite as great, all other things being equal, as in

those countries and places where physicians and medicine have obtained a

strong foothold.

There is no evidence that the want of physicians before the flood,--if

such a want or deficiency there was, which appears probable,--had any

influence in shortening human life, since Methuselah, who lived at the

end of the series, was the oldest of all. Nor does it appear at all

probable that there were more diseases, or more fatal ones, at that

early period, than since.

One thought more. It is confidently expected that a better day than the

present is yet to dawn upon our dark world. Not only is it predicted

that the child shall die a hundred years old, by the highest authority,

and that men, like the oak tree, shall live several hundred years, but

profane writers no less than prophets and sacred ones, have expected

and still expect it. The better time coming is, as it were, in

everybody's mouth.

But, is it probable that this better day will dawn on a world which, in

respect to health and longevity, is going in the other direction? While

nearly half our children die under ten years of age, and the mortality

is increasing, are we tending towards the point when a child shall die a

hundred years old? And are our physicians and our medicines likely to

bring us there?

If not, and if a radical change is desirable, when is it to be made?

Shall we wait till we have run down a century or two longer, or shall we

begin the work immediately? And if we are to begin it at once, on whom

shall the work devolve?

These are questions, I grant, more easily asked than answered.

Nevertheless, they must soon be met; they cannot much longer be shuffled

off. Would it not be the part of wisdom to meet them now, rather than

postpone?

Here, then, I leave the subject. Let it be pondered in the light of

reason, common sense, conscience, and, above all, the truth of God. Let

there be no immature or hasty decisions. Truth, in truthful hands, has

nothing to fear.

CHAPTER CII.

A LAST CHAPTER.

William A. Alcott was born in Wolcott, Conn., August 6th, 1798. His

father, a farmer in the rough mountain town, employed his son, as soon

as he was old enough to be useful, in laboring on the farm, so that,

from childhood, he was trained to habits of industry. His early

employments were, in many respects, beneficial, and his feeble

constitution was probably invigorated by this out-of-door work. The only

apparent drawback was being kept at work too closely, with very little

time left for amusement; and, as he was too conscientious to neglect the

tasks assigned him, he plodded on, thus losing, in a great measure,

while young, the natural and healthy relish of boys for athletic games

and sports. As a natural consequence, his mind developed too rapidly. He

early showed a great fondness for books, and the love of reading came to

be his chief and almost only amusement.

Till eight years of age he attended the district school, in summer and

winter, but after this period his father employed him in farm labor

constantly, except during the winter term. At the age of fourteen he had

measles, from which he suffered greatly at the time, and in its

consequences for several years. He grew rapidly, was, when a lad, tall

and thin, and his strength, when young, and, indeed, through his whole

life, lay chiefly in a strong will, combined with great energy and

perseverance. To these qualities, doubtless, is owing the continuance of

his life for many years.

When little more than eighteen years of age, he commenced teaching,

which was continued, during the winter, for several years; sometimes

through the entire year. But a strong desire to improve and elevate the

schools, led him to overtask himself. Mr. Barnard's _Journal of

Education_, speaks thus of his labors at this period: "The severity of

his exertions and self-denials, joined to other causes, especially a

feeble constitution, brought on him a most violent attack of erysipelas,

from the effects of which, though he escaped with his life, he never

entirely recovered."

About this time he commenced the study of medicine, and the succeeding

winter, 1825-6, attended medical lectures in New Haven, not so much with

the design of making it a profession, as with the hope that it might

prove an aid in fitting him to become a more thorough teacher. The

following March he received a license to practice medicine and surgery.

But his health was far from being good, and he was, himself, more

apprehensive of a fatal result, than consumptive people usually are.

However, he soon found an opportunity to engage in teaching again, and

embraced it eagerly. But here he was destined to disappointment. His

pulmonary tendencies, which had for ten years been increasing upon him,

aggravated, no doubt, by hard study and improper diet of the preceding

winter, now became very alarming. Beside a severe cough and great

emaciation, he was followed by hectic fever, and the most exhausting and

discouraging perspirations. He fought bravely to the last moment, but

was finally compelled to quit the field, and endeavor to regain his

health.

For a time, he followed the soundest medical advice he could obtain;

kept quiet, took a little medicine, ate nutritious food, and when his

strength would permit, breathed pure air. This course was at length

changed, for one of greater activity and less stimulus. He abandoned

medicine, adopted for a time the "starvation system," or nearly that,

and threw himself, by such aids as he could obtain, into the fields and

woods, and wandered among the hills and mountains.

In autumn, he was able to perform light horticultural labors, a few

hours of the day, and to ride on horseback. For six months he rode

almost daily in company with a physician; at the end of which period he

commenced the practice of medicine, in the place where he had last

labored, and where he was born.

After continuing in the practice a few years, and his health seeming to

be restored, he ventured to return again to the work dearer to him than

any other--that of teaching. But his labors seemed again to be slowly

undermining his health, and, fearful of a relapse of the pulmonary

tendencies, he abandoned for a time all hope of teaching permanently.

The following year, he became connected with Rev. William C. Woodbridge,

and continued to labor in the cause of education for several successive

years.

In Jan. 1833, he removed to Boston, and during the winter had a severe

attack of bleeding at the lungs, and other dangerous symptoms. These,

however, passed away; and the great change which, in 1830, had been made

in his physical habits, seemed to be working one equally great in his

constitutional tendencies. For while his labors were constant and often

severe, there was a steady gain in health. The strength and elasticity

of youth returned, and, to use his own words it was with him, now,

"morning all day." The effects of an unfavorable climate, which he had

feared, were apparently held in check, and he sometimes said that

"Obedience gave him command over climate, in a great degree." Yet,

during all these years when his health was apparently most firm, it was

kept in this condition only by a rigid obedience to the laws of life and

health, as he understood and expounded them. His precepts and practice

were in harmony.

In the spring of 1848, owing to some unusual exposure, a return of the

cough and other symptoms of his old disease made their appearance.[N]

But, with care, and light labor in the garden, they gradually passed

away, and his usual measure of health returned, and continued, with

slight interruptions, till 1855. During this year he was confined to his

room several months with a broken limb. The change, at his age, from

exercise daily in the open air, to confinement without exercise nearly

all winter, was very unfavorable, in its results, to his general health.

The lungs, doubtless, suffered greatly, and were never able to resist,

as before, the effects of exposure to sudden changes of temperature.

Still he labored on from year to year, untiringly as ever, writing,

lecturing, visiting schools, etc. During the last winter, his time was

employed more exclusively in reading and writing, and he went out less

than usual. His lungs were weak and very easily affected. A difficulty

of breathing after much exertion was frequent. His feet and ankles were

often much swollen, and there was a loss of strength and general

debility quite new to him.

These indications were not to be mistaken, and in the retirement of his

own home he often spoke of the possibility and even probability, that

his earthly labors were drawing to a close.

On the 18th of March, he left home to be absent a few days, partly with

the hope that being more in the open air might prove beneficial. On

Friday of the following week, though scarcely able to be moved, he was

brought home, having been prostrated by what appeared to be a violent

attack of pleurisy, which terminated his earthly existence, on Tuesday,

March 28, 1859.

In many minds the question will naturally arise: What should induce such

an apparently violent disease, in a person who so rigidly obeyed the

laws of health? A satisfactory answer to this can be given only by

supposing the acute disease to have been merely a finishing up or

termination of that disease which for years had been held in check. His

own views on the subject were in accordance with this conclusion, and

the condition of the lungs, as shown by a post mortem examination,

served to confirm it. The amount of disease found in the lungs was so

great that the examination could not be as careful and satisfactory as

would have been desirable.

The hand that wrote this volume, and that would have drawn important

lessons from this page of life, now moulders in the dust. To the reader

it is left to gather from it instruction and motive and courage, for a

like battle against evil, for a like victory over self, until he, too,

shall accomplish his mission upon earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[N] See Chapter LXIX.