The "Fev-Nag."--Conflicting Theories.--"Oxergin and
Hydergin."--Teazle's Rationale.--The Scourge of the
West.--Sile Bates, and his Condition.--Squire Longbow and
Jim Buzzard.--Puddleford Prostrate.--Various
Practitioners.--"The Billerous Duck."--Pioneer
Martyrs.--Wave over Wave.
During my first fall's residence at Puddleford, I frequently heard a
character spoken of, who seemed to be full as famous in the annals of the
place as Squire Longbow himself. He was called by a great variety of names,
and very seldom alluded to with respect. He was termed the "Fev-Nag," the
"Ag-an-Fev," the "Shakin' Ager," the "Shakes," and a great variety of other
hard names were visited upon him.
That he was the greatest scourge Puddleford had to contend with, no one
denied. Who he really was, what he was, where born, and for what purpose,
was a question. Dobbs had one theory, Short another, and Teazle still
another. Dr. Dobbs said "that his appearance must be accounted for in this
wise--that the marshes were all covered with water in the spring, that the
sun began to grow so all-fir'd hot 'long 'bout July and August, that it
cream'd over the water with a green scum, and rotted the grass, and this
all got stewed inter a morning fog, that rose up and elated itself among
the Ox-er-gin and Hy-der-gin, and pizened everybody it touched."
Dr. Dobbs delivered this opinion at the public house, in a very oracular
style. I noticed several Puddlefordians in his presence at the time, and
before he closed, their jaws dropped, and their gaping mouths and expanded
eyes were fixed upon him with wonder.
Dr. Teazle declared that "Dobbs didn't know anything about it. He said the
ager was buried up in the airth, and that when the sile was turned up, it
got loose, and folks breath'd it into their lungs, and from the lungs it
went into the liver, and from the liver it went to the kidneys, and the
secretions got fuzzled up, and the bile turn'd black, and the blood didn't
run, and it set everybody's inards all a-tremblin'."
Without attempting the origin of the ague and fever, it was, and always has
been, the scourge of the West. It is the foe that the West has ever had to
contend with. It delays improvement, saps constitutions, shatters the whole
man, and lays the foundation for innumerable diseases that follow and
finish the work for the grave. It is not only ague and fever that so
seriously prostrates the pioneer, but the whole family of intermittent and
remittent fevers, all results of the same cause, press in to destroy.
Perhaps no one evil is so much dreaded. Labor, privation, poverty, are
nothing in comparison. It is, of course, fought in a great variety of ways,
and the remedies are as numerous as they are ridiculous. A physician who is
really skilful in the treatment of these diseases is, of course, on the
road to wealth, but skilful physicians were not frequent in Puddleford, as
the reader has probably discovered.
I recollect that, during the months of September and October, subsequently
to my arrival, all Puddleford was "down," to use the expression of the
country; and if the reader will bear with me, and pledge himself not to
accuse me of trifling with so serious a subject, I will endeavor to
describe Puddleford "in distress."
I will premise by saying that it is expected that persons who are on their
feet during these visitations, give up their time and means to those who
are not. There is a nobleness of soul in a western community in this
respect that does honor to human nature. A village is one great
family--every member must be provided for--old grudges are, for the time,
buried.
I have now a very vivid remembrance of seeing Sile Bates, one bright
October morning, walking through the main street of Puddleford, at the pace
of a funeral procession, his old winter overcoat on, and a faded shawl tied
about his cheeks. Sile informed me "that he believed the ager was comin'
on-ter him--that he had a spell on't the day before, and the day before
that--that he had been a-stewin' up things to break the fits, and clean out
his constitution, but it stuck to him like death on-ter a nigger"--he said
"his woman and two boys were shakin' like all possess't, and he railly
believed if somebody didn't stop it, the log-cabin would tumble down round
their ears." He said "there warn't nobody to do nuthin' 'bout house, and
that all the neighbors were worse off than he was."
Sile was a melancholy object indeed. And in all conscience, reader, did you
ever behold so solemn, woe-begone a thing on the round earth, as a man
undergoing the full merits of ague and fever? Sile sat down on a barrel and
commenced gaping and stretching, and now and then dropped a remark
expressive of his condition. He finally began to chatter, and the more he
chattered, the more ferocious he waxed. He swore "that if he ever got well,
he'd burn his house, sell his traps, 'bandon his land, pile his family into
his cart, hitch on his oxen, and drive 'em, and drive 'em to the north
pole, where there warn't no ager, he knew. One minit," he said, "he was
a-freezin', and then he was a-burnin', and then he was a-sweatin' to death,
and then he had a well day, and that didn't 'mount to nothin', for the
critter was only gettin' strength to jump on him agin the next." Sile at
last exhausted himself, and getting upon his feet, went off muttering and
shaking towards his house.
The next man I met was Squire Longbow. The Squire was moving slower, if
possible, than Bates. His face looked as if it had been just turned out of
yellow oak, and his eyes were as yellow as his face. As the Squire never
surrendered to anything, I found him not disposed to surrender to ague and
fever. He said "he'd only had a little brush, but he'd knock it out on-him
in a day or two. He was jist goin' out to scrape some elder bark _up_, to
act as an emetic, as Aunt Sonora said if he scraped it _down_, it would
have t'other effect--and that would kill it as dead as a door-nail."
I soon overhauled Jim Buzzard, lying half asleep in the bottom of his
canoe, brushing off flies with an oak branch. Jim, too, was a case, but it
required something more than sickness to disturb his equilibrium. Jim said
"he warn't sick, but he felt the awfulest tired any dog ever did--he was
the all-thunderest cold, t'other day, _he_ ever was in hot
weather--somethin' 'nother came on ter him all of a suddint, and set his
knees all goin', and his jaws a quiv'rin', and so he li'd down inter the
sun, but the more he li'd, the more he kept on a shakin', and then that
are all went off agin, and he'd be darned to gracious if he didn't think
he'd burn up--and so he just jumped inter the river, and cool'd off--and,
now he feel'd jist so agin--and so he'd got where the sun could strike him
a little harder this time. What shall a feller do?" at last inquired Jim.
"Take medicine," said I.
"Not by a jug-full," said Jim. "Them are doctors don't get any of their
stuff down my throat. If I can't stand it as long as the ager, then I'll
give in. Let-er-shake if it warnts to--it works harder than I do, and will
get tir'd byme-by. Have you a little plug by-yer jest now, as I haven't had
a chew sin' morning, as it may help a feller some?" Jim took the tobacco,
rolled over in his canoe, gave a grunt, and composed himself for sleep.
This portrait of Buzzard would not be ludicrous, if it was not true.
Whether Socrates or Plato, or any other heathen philosopher, has ever
attempted to define this kind of happiness, is more than I can say. In
fact, reader, I do not believe that there was one real Jim Buzzard in the
whole Grecian republic.
But why speak of individual cases? Nearly all Puddleford was
prostrate--man, woman, and child. There were a few exceptions, and the aid
of those few was nothing compared to the great demand of the sick. It was
providential that the nature of the disease admitted of one well day,
because there was an opportunity to "exchange works," and the sick of
to-day could assist the sick of to-morrow, and so _vice versa_.
I looked through the sick families, and found the patients in all
conditions. One lady had "just broke the ager on-ter her by sax-fax tea,
mix'd with Colombo." Another "had been a-tryin' eli-cum-paine and pop'lar
bark, but it didn't lie good on her stomach, and made her enymost crazy."
Another woman was "so as to be crawlin'"--another was "getting quite
peert"--another "couldn't keep anything down, she felt so qualmly"--another
said, "the disease was runnin' her right inter the black janders, and then
she _was_ gone"--another had "run clear of yesterday's chill, and was now
goin' to weather it;" and so on, through scores of cases.
It is worthy of note, the popular opinion of the character of this disease.
Although Puddleford had been afflicted with it for years, yet it was no
better understood by the mass of community than it was at first. I have
already given the opinion of Dobbs and Teazle of the _causes_ of the ague;
but as Dobbs and Teazle held entirely different theories, Puddleford was
not much enlightened by their wisdom. (If some friend will inform me when
and where any community was ever enlightened by the _united_ opinion of its
physicians, I will publish it in my next work.) Aunt Sonora had a theory
which was a little old, but it was hers, and she had a right to it. She
said "nobody on airth could live with a stomach full of bile, and when the
shakin' ager come on, you'd jest got-ter go to work and get off all the
bile--bile _was_ the ager, and physicians might talk to her till she was
gray 'bout well folks having bile--she know'd better--twarn't no such
thing."
Now Aunt Sonora practised upon this theory, and the excellent old lady
administered a cart-load of boneset every season--blows to elevate the
bile, and the leaf as a tonic. However erroneous her theory might have
been, I am bound to say that her practice was about as successful as that
of the regular physician.
Mr. Beagle declared "that the ager was in the blood, and the patient must
first get rid of all his bad blood, and then the ager would go along with
it." Swipes said "it was all in the stomach." Dobbs said "the billerous
duck chok'd up with the mash fogs, and the secretions went every which way,
and the liver got as hard as sole-leather, and the patient becom' sick, and
the ager set in, and then the fever, and the hull system got-er goin'
wrong, and if it warn't stopped, natur'd give out, and the man would die."
Teazle said "it com'd from the plough'd earth, and got inter the air, and
jist so long as folks breath'd agery air, jist so long they'd have the
ager." Turtle said "the whole tribe on 'em, men-doctors and women-doctors,
were blockheads, and the surest way to get rid of the ager, was to let it
run, and when it had run itself out, it would stop, and not 'afore."
Here, then, was Puddleford at the mercy of a dozen theories, and yet men
and women recovered, when the season had run its course, and were tolerably
sure of health, until another year brought around another instalment of
miasma.
How many crops of men have been swept off by the malaria of every new
western country, I will not attempt to calculate! How many, few persons
have ever attempted! This item very seldom goes into the cost of
colonization. Pioneers are martyrs in a sublime sense, and it is over their
bones that school-houses, churches, colleges, learning, and refinement are
finally planted. But the death of a pioneer is a matter of no moment in
our country--it is almost as trifling a thing as the death of a soldier in
an Indian fight. There is no glory to be won on any such field. One
generation rides over another, like waves over waves, and "no such
miserable interrogatory," as Where has it gone? or How did it go? is put;
but What did it do?--What has it left behind?
Any one who has long been a resident in the West, must have noticed the
operation of climate upon the constitution. The man from the New England
mountains, with sinews of steel, soon finds himself flagging amid western
miasma, and a kind of stupidity creeps over him, that it is impossible to
shake off. The system grows torpid, the energies die, indifference takes
possession, and thus he vegetates--he does not live.
And, dear reader, it does not lighten the gloom of the picture to find
Dobbs, and Teazle, and Short, quarrelling over the remains of some departed
one, endeavoring to delude the public into something themselves have no
conception of, about the manner in which he or she went out of the world.
Not that all the physicians are Dobbses or Teazles, but these sketches are
written away out on the rim of society, the rim of western society, where
the townships are not yet all organized, and a sacred regard to truth
compels me to record facts as they exist.