Demarara, Sept. 30.
Alas, my friend! the unwilling expectation is at length fulfilled, and I
now lift my pen with a hand trembling and enfeebled, almost beyond the
power of supporting even a feather! The disease which has committed such
devastations amongst us, has dealt me a blow, which all, who witnessed
it, believed to have fallen from the hand of death; and, indeed, the
shock had nearly brought me to the still home from whence there is no
return. But let me not trespass upon your friendly sympathy by dwelling
upon the dark shade of the picture: let me rather hasten to tell you,
that the danger is past—that I am a convalescent from a severe attack of
the “_yellow_” fever, and am looking towards returning health.
You will expect the particulars: I proceed therefore to lay before you
the history of the case, whilst all the circumstances of it are fresh in
my recollection, although, in truth, I feel them too deeply engraven
ever to be effaced. In perusing them, you will discover that the
invasion of the disease was not less insidious, than its progress has
been dangerous. On Saturday the 17th inst. excepting only the time
occupied in my morning and evening visits at the hospital, I sat the
whole of the day in my room, busily employed in writing. In the evening
I felt an aching sensation in the middles of my thighs, which I
attributed to sitting so many hours upon a rough wooden chair. At
tea-time I joined the gentlemen of the hospital mess, and afterwards
invited the surgeon to accompany me in a promenade, hoping to walk away
the uneasy weight which I felt in my limbs; but the exercise failing of
success, I bathed and went early to bed, not suspecting the enemy that
lurked in my veins. But I was again disappointed; for, instead of being
relieved by sleep, a severe head-ach and pain of the eyes, with great
thirst and dryness of mouth, supervened, and I passed a disturbed and
restless night. Awakened suspicion now taught me that I was attacked by
an evil much more formidable, than the wooden stool; I therefore took
some medicine, and remained in bed until noon: yet from having, several
times, experienced similar symptoms, and nearly equal in degree, whilst
I was on duty at Mahaica, I was willing to believe that it might be only
a false alarm. The medicine produced some benefit; I sat up during the
afternoon, and in the evening made my visit, as usual, at the hospital:
but feelings of languor and general indisposition were hovering about
me, and I returned to my pillow at an early hour, again hoping that
sleep would bring me a cure; but a most wretched night unveiled the
delusion. All the symptoms of disease were highly aggravated, and I was
assured that I had now to oppose, in my own person, the insatiate foe,
whose ravages, upon others, I had so frequently deplored. No time was to
be lost. All the powers of my body seemed to have deserted me; but the
faculties of my mind were unimpaired.
The disorder now rushed upon me with accumulated force, hurrying on
towards rapid destruction. The light was intolerable, and the pulsations
of the head and eyes were most excruciating, feeling as if several hooks
were fastened into the globe of each eye, and some person, standing
behind me, were dragging them forcibly from their orbits, back into the
head; the cerebrum being, at the same time, detached from its membranes,
and leaping about violently within the cranium. A wearying pain occupied
my back and limbs, and in particular the calves of my legs, as if dogs
were gnawing down to the bones; while a tormenting restlessness
possessed my whole frame, and prevented even the slightest approach to
ease or quiet. The skin was burning, and conveyed a pungent sensation
when touched: the pulse was quickened but not very full: the tongue was
white and parched, with great thirst, and constant dryness of the mouth,
lips, and teeth. I know not from which I suffered most, the severe pain,
the insatiable thirst, or the unappeasable restlessness; for each was
equally insupportable, and might have sufficed to exhaust the strongest
frame. Combining their tortures, they created a degree of irritation
amounting almost to phrensy; and which, but for the means used to
alleviate it, must have destroyed me in a few hours. No ease was to be
found: not even a momentary respite was granted from this excessive
torment. It was under these symptoms that I requested the surgeon to
take twelve or fourteen ounces of blood from my arm, and to give me a
strong dose of calomel. This was on Monday morning the 19th inst. the
attack having commenced on the evening of Saturday the 17th. The pain of
the head and eyes was considerably relieved by the bleeding; the
restlessness was also in a slight degree diminished; but the thirst,
with heat and dryness of skin, still continued. I drank copiously of
mild diluents, and the calomel acted freely as an evacuant: still I had
no rest, but passed a third night in extreme suffering. On the 20th the
pain was less severe, and the light less intolerable; but the other
symptoms of fever remained, together with an increased degree of languor
and debility: I therefore avoided further evacuations, and took a saline
medicine with camphire. The night was, again, most painfully restless,
sleep was wholly denied me, and I felt myself sinking into a most
perilous exhaustion.
In the morning of the 21st I was free from the high action of fever; the
heat and pain had subsided, the pulse was less quick, and I was in a
copious perspiration: but the whiteness of tongue remained, with an
irritating and unquenchable thirst; and in proportion as the more
violent symptoms abated, others, equally distressing supervened. My
strength and voice were gone; an indescribable uneasiness affected my
whole body; I was attacked with an exhausting diarrhœa; felt a most
annihilating sensation at the scrobiculus cordis; and sunk into an
inconceivable degree of languor and prostration.
The day and night were passed in a wearisome and distressing manner; and
with my bodily powers so rapidly declining, that I was more and more
enfeebled every hour. On the 22d scarcely a hope remained of my
recovery. Every energy of the system seemed to be subdued; debility had
reached its extremest degree; and it appeared to require only a sigh to
sever the thread of life.
I was now so reduced as to be no longer able to support myself upon my
side, in bed; but lay supine, and prostrate, with my flaccid limbs
stretched in full extension, and which, if they were lifted from their
place, fell lifeless upon the same spot. A weakening diarrhœa continued,
and a still more debilitating vomiting was superadded. Upon the
slightest motion I fell into syncope, and was so exhausted as to faint
if my head were raised from the pillow. My fauces were parched and dry;
I had extreme thirst, together with a feeling of languor and sinking at
the epigastrium, and a degree of restlessness over my whole frame, which
it is utterly impossible to describe.
Thus situated, I contemplated the probable event, and having calmly
reconciled the thought of dying, I endeavoured, in broken whisper, to
utter a few words to the surgeon, for him to commit to paper as my will;
to which, with his guidance, a feeble and trembling hand traced my
signature, but in characters which I now find to be scarcely legible.
This ceremony was executed with the greatest composure of mind; for I
was never more collected, or more tranquil. Death seemed to look me full
in the face, at the time; but I received his commands without a
disturbed emotion. In soft and tender regret, indeed, I lamented that I
could not see my friends in England; nor cast a look of grateful
affection upon my beloved mother, before I departed; but these
privations, deeply sorrowful as they were, yielded also to what seemed
to be the will of Heaven; and, in tranquil resignation, I breathed a
dying blessing to you all. Still I felt that I ought not to reject such
means of relief as my profession offered, whilst even a possibility
remained of being saved; I made myself understood therefore, by Mr.
Blackader, and expressed a wish to have large quantities of bark and
opium, with wine, and the cold bath. Colonel Hislop, the commanding
officer, actuated by the most amiable feelings, very kindly expressed a
wish that I should be visited by some of the medical gentlemen of the
country. This was a proposal to which I could form no possible
objection; although my own sensations had dictated the remedies which I
meant to employ. Two of the most eminent practitioners of the colony
were accordingly requested to see me, and it were ungrateful not to
express the acknowledgments I owe them for their friendly attention and
advice. Happily their opinions coincided very much with my own,
respecting the means to be used in the stage of the disease under which
they saw me; and they approved of every part of my prescription, the
cold bath only excepted. I was wholly incapable of conversing with them,
but their remarks to Mr. Blackader did not escape my ear.
The fierce ardor of fever, the painful throbbing of the head and eyes,
and the pungent dryness of skin, were very much diminished, and the
pulse, though enfeebled, was not much quicker than in health. The
prescribed remedies were used with great freedom. Happily the opium
quickly arrested the retching, and also the diarrhœa; which allowed the
bark and wine, and bathing to be employed with less reserve; and I
persevered with such effect, that in the course of only a few hours, I
had no less than _six ounces_ of the powder of bark (swallowed and
otherwise administered) and a bottle of sound old hock remaining in my
stomach and bowels.
Of the wine and bathing I know not in what terms to speak, for language
has no power to express the delightful sensations which these most
grateful remedies conveyed to my exhausted frame. I was more refreshed
by them, more revived, and more relieved, than words can tell. To the
bark and opium I was perhaps quite as much indebted, but their effects
were less immediate, and less sensible. For many years I had not tasted
wine; now I was to take it as a medical potion; and, in order to rank it
high in this character, the commissary had kindly sent me some very
choice _old hock_, which, in great truth, was both food and medicine to
me! The peculiar and exquisite sensations I experienced, when the first
glass of it wetted my parched lips, and cooled my burning stomach, will
be remembered to my latest hour.
The bathing was scarcely inferior to the wine, for at a moment when
ineffable languor was rapidly sinking my weakened body to the grave, I
was lifted out of my bed, into an empty bathing-tub, and cold sea water
was dashed upon my naked person, with an effect which exceeds all
description. Not only were the sensations of the moment inconceivably
refreshing and delightful, but the more durable and important benefits
were equally striking. Previous to bathing I fainted, on my head being
only lifted up from the pillow; but after being taken out of the
bathing-tub, I was able, with due support, to sit up for nearly ten
minutes, while three persons, with rough cloths, rubbed me dry.
Although I was not delirious, I perceived a peculiar sense of confusion,
or horror about me at various times during this day, and lapsed
occasionally into a sort of stupor, approaching to coma, but it did not
proceed to such a degree as to deprive me of consciousness; the powers
of memory and volition were still at my command; and, when I was roused,
it was remarked that my mental faculties were unimpaired: and, as a
proof that I was not insensible to what passed in the room, I may tell
you that I felt, with full force, all the probability of the remark, and
was too well aware how strongly appearances might justify it, when I
heard some of the officers exclaim, as they turned away, after silently
looking at me through my musquito curtain, “_Ah, poor doctor! we shall
never see him again!_”
This had been my worst day: the feelings of the night I cannot attempt
to describe! All was horror, horror, restless deadly horror! The
sickened mind became unsettled as its troubled mansion, and, like the
body, was only sensible to disease and wretchedness.
The dawn of the next day seemed like an introduction to a new existence.
The indescribable and distressing sensations, which had so cruelly
afflicted me, were in some degree diminished, and the violence of the
other symptoms was slightly moderated:—an important change indeed! But,
however happy, it was such as no man need be anxious to experience.
Circumstanced as I then was, to me it had all the semblance of a change
from death to life: but with such extreme misery and horror was it
accompanied, that, could these have continued many hours longer, life
would have been bought at too dear a purchase, to have regained it at
such a price. The mind was crowded with confused and incoherent ideas,
painting the world as new, and altogether different from that which I
seemed to have so lately left; indeed, so distorted and unnatural did
every thing around me appear, that I felt a kind of hesitation whether
to accept of my return to life, or proceed onward to the grave, which I
saw wide open before me. This was the sixth day. The morning was dark
and gloomy, and highly calculated to favor the sombre impressions of my
mind. The whole day, and a sad long night were dragged out in all the
tumult and distress of regaining an existence, which only a day or two
before, I could have given up almost without a sigh.
After I had escaped from these distracting incoherences, I perceived the
symptoms of the disease gradually declining, and, by persisting in the
use of my remedies, I am become better reconciled to the world, and
again recognise it as the same which I had so quietly resigned. I
continued to drink most liberally of old hock, and took the bark in
unmeasured quantity, the extent and frequency of the dose being limited
only by the power of the stomach and bowels to retain it. The bathing
was also repeated with inexpressible comfort to my languid and trembling
frame. I took also copious draughts of bottled porter, which I found to
be an exceedingly grateful and refreshing drink, as well as one of my
most effectual remedies.
The thirst and dryness of the mouth, lips, and teeth continued to annoy
me until the eighth day. Great languor and prostration of strength were
still present on the ninth; as were likewise, at intervals, the
distressful sensations of horror and wretchedness. On the tenth, the
return of strength was perceptible, although I had much dizziness, and
faintness, and was afflicted with a troublesome deafness, which is still
the companion of my convalescence. Since the tenth day my recovery has
been very rapid. The debility is not so great as might have been
expected, and my appetite is strong and craving. Dainties in eating are
not to be had, and fortunately I do not require them; for no turtle
feast was ever enjoyed with greater relish than I now take, at noon, my
plain English fare, of a crust of bread, with a morsel of cheese, and a
deep draught of bottled porter.
Many apologies are due for troubling you with this tedious detail of
_self_; for sadly tedious I fear you will find it, notwithstanding my
having confined my pen, as much as possible, to a bare narration of the
feelings I experienced, and the perils I had to encounter. During the
whole course of the disease, I have not had any mark of yellowness—that
symptom from which the fever has been, erroneously, named.