Mrs. Longbow taken sick.--General Interest.--Dr.
Teazle.--His Visit.--"The Rattles."--Scientific
Diagnosis.--A Prescription.--Short and Dr. Dobbs.--"Pantod
of the Heart."--Dismissal of Teazle.--Installation of
Dobbs.--"Scyller and Charabides."--Ike's Views.--The
Colonel's.--Bates's.--Mrs. Longbow dies.--Who killed her:
conflicting Opinions.--Her Funeral.--Bigelow Van Slyck's
Sermon.--Interment.
Not long after this jolly little gathering at my house, I heard that Mrs.
Longbow was sick. Her symptoms were very alarming, and, as she was the wife
of Squire Longbow, and as the Squire was _the_ man of Puddleford, her
critical condition was a matter of public concern.
"What is the matter with Squire Longbow's woman?" "How did she rest last
night?" "Did she roll and tumble much?" "Is her fever brok't onto her?"
were questions frequently put. Now Mrs. Longbow was a very worthy person,
and entitled to all the sympathy she received; but that is not to be the
subject of this chapter.
When Mrs. Longbow was first taken ill, Dr. Teazle was called--yes, reader,
Dr. Teazle--who had been as good authority in medicine, as Longbow ever was
in law. I say had been--"Things were different now."
Teazle was one of the pioneers of Puddleford. He was there when the first
log-house was laid up--the first field cleared--the first child born.
Teazle possessed a very little learning, a very great deal of impudence,
and a never-ending flow of language. He was opinionated, and tolerated no
practice but his own. (What physician ever did?) Teazle never let a doubt
enter his mind--he intuitively read a case, as rapidly as though he were
reading a printed statement of it. Teazle was about the size of Longbow,
but _he_ had two eyes.
"How long have you been attackted?" inquired Teazle, approaching the
bedside of Mrs. Longbow, and placing his fingers over the lady's pulse.
Mrs. Longbow said "it was some time during the night."
"Run out your tongue," continued Teazle.
Mrs. Longbow obeyed.
"Very bad tongue--all full'er stuff--you ain't well, Mrs. Longbow; there's
a kind of collapse of the whole system, and a sort of debility going on,
everywhere all over you."
Squire Longbow, who sat by, anxiously inquired what the disease was.
Teazle said it might be a sour stomach, or it might be fever, or it might
be rheumatiz, or it might be the liver, or it might be that something else
was out of order--or it might be the _rattles_.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the Squire, "the _rattles_--what is that?"
"The rattles," answered Teazle, "the rattles is a disease treated of in the
books--Folks catch cold; the nose stops up; the throat gets sore, and there
is a kind of rattling going on when they breathe, whether we can hear it or
not--and that's the rattles."
Mrs. Longbow said "she hadn't got any rattles as she know'd on."
Teazle said he would make up a prescription that would make a sure business
of it, as he always did when he was in doubt. "He would prepare a compound
of the particular medicines used for the particular diseases he had
mentioned, and fire at random, and some of the shot would hit, he knew."
"Gracious! doctor!" exclaimed Longbow, "what comes of the rest on 'em?"
"All passes off--all passes off," answered Teazle glibly, with a flourish
of the hand, "through the pores of the skin--" continued Teazle; "and you
must also take four quarts-er water, two pounds-er salt, a gill-er
molasses, a little 'cumfrey root, some catnip blows (but mind don't get in
any of the leaves; that'll kill her), stir it all up together, and soak her
feet just ten minutes; then get five cents worth-er sassyfarilla, three
cents worth-er some kind of physic, pour in some caster-ile, and I'll put
in some intergrediences and stuffs, and will give it inwardly every two
hours; and in the morning I will 'quire agin into the condition of the
patient."
This, reader, was the result of Teazle's call. Mrs. Longbow was really
suffering under an attack of bilious fever.
In a few days there was an uproar among the physicians of Puddleford. Dr.
Short and Dr. Dobbs had united their influence and tongues together, and
Teazle was denounced as a quack and a fool. Short and Dobbs never united
for any other purpose but the abuse of Teazle. Sometimes Short and Teazle
abused Dobbs, and sometimes Dobbs and Teazle abused Short. Short declared
that "Mrs. Longbow had nothing but a kind of in'ard strictur', and a little
salts would clear it right out."
Dobbs said it "was either that or the _pantod_ of the heart, and that
Teazle's medicine would lay out the poor soul as cold as a wedge."
I endeavored to ascertain by Dobbs what he wished us to understand by
"pantod of the heart."
Dobbs said it was "unpossible for him to explain it without the books--it
was something that laid hold of the vessels about the heart, and throw'd
everything into a flutter."
The war went on--Squire Longbow's friends finally joined the force of
opposition to Teazle--and in two or three days Teazle was ejected very
unceremoniously from the Squire's house, and Dobbs took his place.
The first thing Dobbs did, when he was fairly installed, was to gather up,
and pitch headlong into the fire, all of Teazle's remaining medicines. He
wondered whether Teazle "really _intended_ to kill Mrs. Longbow! Perhaps he
was only a fool!" The whole system of practice was now changed. A new
administration had come into power, and with it new measures. Dobbs "didn't
know but he might raise Mrs. Longbow, but he couldn't hold himself
responsible--Teazle had nearly finished her--but he would try."
Dobbs immediately introduced a seton into the side of his patient, "to get
up a greater fluttering somewhere else, and get away the flutter at the
heart, and when _that_ went, the fever would go away with it," _he_ said.
Dobbs moved around Puddleford for a day or so, with great pomp of manner.
He had unseated Teazle, and now occupied his place. But what was his
surprise to find Short and Teazle united, and out upon him, in full cry!
Short had become chagrined because Dobbs had been called to fill the place
of Teazle, instead of himself.
The war was renewed with increased fury. Dobbs's seton failed to produce
the desired effect, and he, therefore, resorted to blistering and calomel.
In a week he had nearly skinned and salivated the poor woman, and yet she
lived. The fact was, Dobbs was a greater blockhead than Teazle, if that
were possible. Ike Turtle said the "old 'oman was between Scyller and
Chara_bi_des!"--Ike had heard this classical allusion at some time,--"and
she'd got-ter go for it--and she'd better just step out at onst, and save
trouble and expense."
The "Colonel" said that he "once read a story in AEsop's Fables, called the
'Fox and the Brambles,' and he recollected that the Fox refused to shake
off a swarm of flies that were sucking out his life-blood, because a more
hungry swarm would succeed; and _he_ thought Mrs. Longbow made a great
mistake in discharging Teazle; for Teazle had exhausted his energies upon
his patient, and nature was about restoring the ruin he had wrought."
Bates expressed a different opinion. He was a strong advocate of lobelia
and cayenne-pepper--he was, in short, a supporter of the "hot-water"
practice. All mineral medicine Bates declared poisonous. Bates said "Nature
knew enough to take care of herself--for every disease a remedy had been
provided--what we call weeds were all valuable remedies: and he thought
Teazle and Dobbs ought both to be indicted for malpractice."
This war between men, soon became a war of systems. Philista Filkins, Aunt
Sonora, Bates & Company, raised a tempest around Longbow's ears; and Dobbs
was finally thrown overboard, and his medicines after him; and Mrs.
Filkins was placed at the helm, and the hot-water practice introduced.
But what is the use, reader?--Mrs. Longbow died. Who wouldn't? Nature
cannot endure everything--she died, and was buried. But who killed her?
That was a question for months afterwards. Dobbs said Teazle--Teazle said
Dobbs; and Teazle and Dobbs, when _talking together_ on the subject, said
Mrs. Filkins--and Bates said "_the calomel_"--and Turtle said "the 'oman
had been conspir'd agin, and was killed."
I attended the funeral of Mrs. Longbow. A funeral is solemn anywhere--in
the wilderness it is impressive. In a city it is too often an exhibition of
pride, carried down to the very gates of death--the poor handful of dust is
used to glorify, a little longer, the living--it preaches no sermon,
chastens no feeling; but a funeral in the wilderness is as lonely as one at
sea. Nature becomes almost oppressive. The scattered population, for miles
around, gathered at the log-chapel, and Bigelow Van Slyck preached over the
remains of Mrs. Longbow. The sermon was characteristic of Bigelow--strange
and inappropriate, perhaps, in the opinion of the reader; but, after all,
the very thing for Bigelow's audience. This was his text: "Man that is born
of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble!" Bigelow said his "text
used the word '_man_ that is born,' &c., but it was jest as applicable to a
woman as to a man, for woman was, after all, a kind of a man; not that a
woman _was_ a man, nor a man a woman--but texts allers spoke of things in
general, 'cause the Bible was writ for all time." In dwelling upon the
words "that is _born_," Bigelow said, "he would go into the history of the
Longbow family"--and he did go into their history, with a vengeance. He
began with Squire Longbow's grandfather, who, he said, "fit in the old
French war," and told us when _he_ was _born_, and how he lived, and where
he lived, and when he died, and gave us a kind of synopsis of the old man's
services in the flesh. He then seized, violently, hold of the Squire
himself, informed us he was born "down in the Pennsylvanys 'bout the old
Tom Jefferson times, was the last of ten children, whose history he
couldn't go into for want of time--that the Squire hadn't any larnin' until
after he becom'd of age, and then got what he did get himself." Bigelow
hoped his audience "would improve on this lesson, and get larnin'
themselves." He then followed up the Squire through his immigration and
settlement at Puddleford, and informed us, I recollect, among other things,
that he built the first frame-house, being "twenty feet by thirty-four."
Bigelow was still more specific in his history of Mrs. Longbow. If there
was anything overlooked in the poor woman's life, I do not know what it
was. Bigelow labored some half hour over her virtues, and brought them out
so systematically, at last, that the list, when completed, reminded me of
an inventory of the personal effects of a deceased person--of the
preparation of a document, to file away somewhere.
The latter part of Bigelow's text, upon the brevity of life, was well
managed--roughly, perhaps, but pointedly. He drew copiously from nature, by
way of illustration, as all persons do who live more with nature than with
man. "The corn," he remarked, "died in the ground, sprouted, grew green,
then the blades died agin"--"the flowers jest breathed a few times, then
_they_ died"--"day died into night, and night died in the
morning"--"everything died everywhere; and man died, and woman died, and
we'd all got-ter die." I have selected only a few sentences, at random,
from this part of Bigelow's discourse.
Then there was an address to the audience, an address to the aged, another
to those in middle life, another to the young, and finally, one to the
mourners, standing. Some two hours and a half were occupied in the sermon
altogether; and when it finally closed, the remains of Mrs. Longbow were
silently and sadly deposited in the grave.
The death of Mrs. Longbow created a great chasm in society. The
"settlement" was so small, that the loss of any one was severely felt. In
small places, every person has a great deal of individuality--in large,
only here and there is one distinguished from "the crowd." Mrs. Longbow was
certainly fortunate in one respect, if she was unfortunate in another. If
the physicians of Puddleford hastened her end, its population have not
forgotten her, nor her many virtues.