Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders
by William A. Alcott · English · Gutenberg #34038 · 709,879 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders
Author: William A. Alcott
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[Illustration: Engraved by J. C. Buttre, expressly for Fireside
Lectures.
Doct. W'm. A. ALCOTT.]
FORTY YEARS
IN THE WILDERNESS
OF
PILLS AND POWDERS;
OR, THE
COGITATIONS AND CONFESSIONS OF
AN AGED PHYSICIAN.
BOSTON:
JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY.
NEW YORK:
C. M. SAXTON AND COMPANY.
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK: E. DARROW AND BROTHER.
1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the district of
Massachusetts.
LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY,
17 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON.
Printed by Geo. C. Rand and Avery.
PREFACE.
The present volume was one of the last upon which its author was
engaged, the facts having been gathered from the experience and
observation of a long life. It was his design to publish them
anonymously, but under the changed circumstances this is rendered
impracticable.
A short time previous to his death, the writer spoke of this work, and
said, in allusion to the termination of his own somewhat peculiar
case,--"This _last chapter_ must be added." In accordance with this
desire, a brief sketch, having reference chiefly to his health and
physical habits, with the closing chapter of his life, has been
appended.
Boston, June, 1859.
TO THE READER.
In the sub-title to the following work, I have used the word
"Confessions"--not to mislead the reader, but because _to confess_ is
one prominent idea of its author. It is a work in which confessions of
the impotence of the healing art, as that art has been usually
understood, greatly abound; and in which the public ignorance of the
laws of health or hygiene, with the consequences of that ignorance, are
presented with great plainness. The world will make a wiser use of its
medical men than it has hitherto done, when it comes to see more clearly
what is their legitimate and what their ultimate mission.
These remarks indicate the main intention of the writer. It is not so
much to enlighten or aid, or in any way directly affect the medical man,
as to open the eyes of the public to their truest interests; to a just
knowledge of themselves; and to some faint conception of their bondage
to credulity and quackery. The reader will find that I go for science
and truth, let them affect whom they may. Let him, then, suspend his
judgment till he has gone through this volume once, and I shall have no
fears. He may, indeed, find fault with my style, and complain of my
literary or philosophic unfitness for the task I assigned myself; but he
will, nevertheless, be glad to know my facts.
Should any one feel aggrieved by the exposures I have made in the
details which follow, let me assure him that no one is more
exposed--nor, indeed, has more cause to be aggrieved--than myself. Let
us all, then, as far as is practicable, keep our own secrets. Let us not
shrink from such exposures as are likely, in a large measure, to benefit
mankind, while the greatest possible inconvenience or loss to ourselves
is but trifling.
Some may wish that instead of confining myself too rigidly to naked fact
and sober reasoning, I had given a little more scope to the imagination.
But is not plain, "unvarnished" truth sometimes not only "stranger,"
but, in a work like this, better also, than any attempts at "fiction"?
THE AUTHOR.
AUBURNDALE, March, 1859.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES 1
II. MY FIRST MEDICAL LESSON, 6
III. THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE, 9
IV. THE MEASLES, AND POURING DOWN RUM, 11
V. LEE'S PILLS AND DROPSY, 13
VI. THE COLD SHOWER BATH, 16
VII. MY FIRST SICKNESS ABROAD, 18
VIII. LESSON FROM AN OLD SURGEON, 20
IX. LEE'S WINDHAM BILIOUS PILLS, 23
X. DR. SOLOMON AND HIS PATIENT. 26
XI. PHYSICKING OFF FEVER, 28
XII. MANUFACTURING CHILBLAINS, 31
XIII. HOW TO MAKE ERYSIPELAS, 34
XIV. STUDYING MEDICINE, 38
XV. NATURE'S OWN EYE WATER, 41
XVI. THE VIPER STORY, 43
XVII. STRUCK WITH DEATH, 46
XVIII. EFFICACY OF COLD SPRING WATER, 51
XIX. CHEATING THE PHYSICIAN, 56
XX. MEDICINAL EFFECTS OF STORY TELLING, 58
XXI. OSSIFIED VEINS, 61
XXII. HE WILL DIE IN THIRTY-SIX HOURS, 64
XXIII. ABOUT TO DIE OF CONSUMPTION, 72
XXIV. MY JOURNEYMANSHIP IN MEDICINE, 81
XXV. MY TEMPERANCE PLEDGE, 85
XXVI. TRIALS OF A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, 87
XXVII. A DOSING AND DRUGGING FAMILY, 90
XXVIII. POISONING WITH LEAD, 96
XXIX. STANDING PATIENTS, 102
XXX. KILLING A PATIENT, 105
XXXI. A SUDDEN CURE, 109
XXXII. GIGANTIC DOSES OF MEDICINE, 112
XXXIII. THE LAMBSKIN DISEASE, 115
XXXIV. MILK PUNCH FEVER, 120
XXXV. MY FIRST CASE IN SURGERY, 124
XXXVI. EMILIA AND THE LOVE-CURE, 127
XXXVII. HEZEKIAH JUDKINS AND DELIRIUM, 133
XXXVIII. MY FIRST AMPUTATION, 136
XXXIX. MILK AS A REMEDY IN FEVERS, 138
XL. VIRTUES OF PUMPKIN SEED TEA, 141
XLI. BROKEN LIMBS AND INTEMPERANCE, 144
XLII. DYING FROM FILTHINESS, 148
XLIII. TAKING THE FEVER, 153
XLIV. BLESSINGS OF CIDER AND CIDER BRANDY, 156
XLV. THE INDIAN DOCTOR, 160
XLVI. DYING OF OLD AGE AT FIFTY-EIGHT, 163
XLVII. DAUGHTERS DESTROYING THEIR MOTHER, 169
XLVIII. POISONING WITH STRAMONIUM, 172
XLIX. CURING CANCER, 175
L. SWELLED LIMBS, 179
LI. SUDDEN CHANGES IN OLD AGE, 182
LII. AN OPIUM EATER, 185
LIII. COFFEE AND THE LAME KNEE, 188
LIV. THE OPIUM PILL BOX, 193
LV. BLEEDING AT THE LUNGS, 196
LVI. BUTTER EATERS, 201
LVII. HOT HOUSES AND CONSUMPTION, 206
LVIII. POISONING BY A PAINTED PAIL, 216
LIX. ONE DROP OF LAUDANUM, 218
LX. MRS. KIDDER'S CORDIAL, 220
LXI. ALMOST RAISING THE DEAD, 225
LXII. FEMALE HEALTH AND INSANE HOSPITALS, 231
LXIII. A GIANT DYSPEPTIC, 236
LXIV. GETTING INTO A CIRCLE, 246
LXV. POISONING WITH MAPLE SUGAR, 249
LXVI. PHYSICKING OFF MEASLES, 251
LXVII. TIC DOULOUREUX, 253
LXVIII. COLD WATER IN FEVER, 256
LXIX. COLD-TAKING AND CONSUMPTION, 258
LXX. FREEZING OUT DISEASE, 261
LXXI. THE AIR CURE, 263
LXXII. THE CLERGYMAN, 266
LXXIII. HE MUST BE PHYSICKED OR DIE, 268
LXXIV. WHO HATH WOE? OR, THE SICK WIDOW, 272
LXXV. THE PENALTY OF SELF-INDULGENCE, 275
LXXVI. DR. BOLUS AND MORPHINE, 282
LXXVII. BLEEDING AND BLISTERING OMITTED, 286
LXXVIII. MEDICAL VIRTUES OF SLEEP, 288
LXXIX. CURE BY DEEP BREATHING, 291
LXXX. SPIRIT DOCTORING, 295
LXXXI. REMARKABLE CURE OF EPILEPSY, 301
LXXXII. SCARLATINA CURED BY LETTING ALONE, 312
LXXXIII. IGNORANCE NOT ALWAYS BLISS, 314
LXXXIV. MEASLES WITHOUT SNAKEROOT AND SAFFRON, 317
LXXXV. THE CONSUMPTIVE PAIR, 320
LXXXVI. HOW TO CURE CHOLERA, 322
LXXXVII. OBSTINACY AND SUICIDE, 324
LXXXVIII. HEALTH HOSPITALS, 327
LXXXIX. DESTRUCTION BY SCROFULA, 329
XC. STARVING OUT DISEASE, 334
XCI. DIETING ON MINCE PIE, 342
XCII. GIANTS IN THE EARTH, 346
XCIII. THE GREEN MOUNTAIN PATIENT, 349
XCIV. CURE OF POISON FROM LEAD, 355
XCV. FAITH AND WORKS, 358
XCVI. WORKS WITHOUT FAITH, 360
XCVII. DISEASES OF LICENTIOUSNESS, 365
XCVIII. CURIOUS AND INSTRUCTIVE FACTS, 367
XCIX. ANTI-MEDICAL TESTIMONY, 371
C. AN ANTI-MEDICAL PREMIUM, 375
CI. CONCLUDING REMARKS, 378
CII. A LAST CHAPTER, 380
FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS
OF
PILLS AND POWDERS.
CHAPTER I.
EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES.
I was born in a retired but pleasant part of New England, as New England
was half a century ago, and as, in many places, despite of its canals,
steamboats, railroads, and electromagnetic telegraphs, it still is.
Hence I am entitled to the honor of being, in the most emphatic sense, a
native of the land of "steady habits."
The people with whom I passed my early years, though comparatively rude
and uncultivated, were yet, in their manners and character, quite
simple. Most of them could spell and read, and write their names, and a
few could "cipher" as far as simple subtraction. To obtain the
last-mentioned accomplishment, however, was not easy, for arithmetic was
not generally permitted in the public schools during the six hours of
the day; and could only be obtained in the occasional evening school, or
by self-exertion at home.
The majority of my townsmen also knew something of the dream-book and of
palmistry, and of the influence of the moon (especially when first seen,
after the change, over the right shoulder), not only on the weather and
on vegetation, but on the world of humanity. They also understood full
well, what troubles were betokened by the howling of a dog, the
blossoming of a flower out of due season, or the beginning of a journey
or of a job of work on Tuesday or Friday. Many of them knew how to tell
fortunes in connection with a cup of tea. Nay, more, not a few of them
were skilled in astrology, and by its aid could tell under what planet a
person was born, and perchance, could predict thereby the future events
of his life; at least after those events had actually taken place.
Under what particular planet I was born, my friends never told me;
though it is quite possible some of my sage grandmothers or aunts could
have furnished the needful information had I sought it. They used to
look often at the lines in the palms of my hands, and talk much about my
dreams, which were certainly a little aspiring, and in many respects
remarkable. The frequent prediction of one of these aged and wise
friends I remember very well. It was, that I would eat my bread in two
kingdoms. This prediction was grounded on the fact, that the hair on the
top of my head was so arranged by the plastic hand of Nature as to form
what were called two crowns; and was so far fulfilled, that I have
occasionally eaten bread within the realms of Queen Victoria!
According to the family register, kept in the cranium of my mother, I
was born on Monday, which doubtless served to justify the frequent
repetition of the old adage, and its application to my own case--"Born
on Monday, fair of face." I was also born on the sixth day of the month,
on account of which it was said that the sixth verse of the thirty-first
chapter of Proverbs was, prospectively, a key to my character. It is
certainly true that I have dealt out not a little "strong drink to him
that" was "ready to perish;" and that few of my professional brethren
have furnished a larger proportion of it gratuitously; or as Solomom
says, have _given_ it.
Whether there was any clear or distinct prophecy ever uttered that I
would one day be a knight of the lancet, clad in full armor, is not
certain. If there was, I presume it was unwritten. That I was to be
distinguished in some way, everybody appeared to understand and
acknowledge. I was not only at the head of all my classes at school, in
spelling, reading, and writing, but exalted above most of my competitors
and compeers by a whole head and shoulders. In ciphering, in
particular, I excelled. I understood the grand rules of arithmetic, and
could even work a little in the Rule of Three.
That the thought of being a "doctor" did, in a sort of indefinable way,
sometimes enter my head, even at that early period, I will not deny. One
of my teachers, as I well remember, had medical books, into which bars
and bolts could hardly prevent me from peeping. But there were a
thousand lions in the way--or at least _two or three_. One was extreme
indigence on the part of my parents. They came together nearly as poor
as John Bunyan and his wife, or Sydney Smith and his companion. Or if,
in addition to a knife, fork, and spoon, they had a looking-glass, an
old iron kettle, an axe, and a hoe, I am sure the inventory of their
property at first could not have extended much farther; and now that
they had a family of four children, their wants had increased about as
fast as their income.
Besides, there was a confused belief in the public mind--and of course
in mine--that medical men were a species of conjurors; or if nothing
more, that they had a sort of mysterious knowledge of human character,
obtained by dealing with the stars, or by reliance on some supernatural
source or other. And to such a height as this I could not at that time
presume to aspire; though I certainly did aspire, even at a very early
period, to become a learned man.
As a means to such an end, I early felt an ardent desire to become a
printer. This desire originated, in part at least, from reading the
autobiography of Dr. Franklin, of which I was exceedingly fond. It was a
desire, moreover, which I was very slow to relinquish till compelled. My
father, as we have seen, was a poor laborer, and thought himself unable
either to give me any extra opportunities of education, or to spare me
from the cultivation of a few paternal acres. Still, in secret, I I
clung to the hope of one day traversing the lengths and breadths and
depths and heights of the world of science.
But for what purpose, as a final end? for, practically, the great
question was, _cui bono_? As for becoming a lawyer, that, with me, was
quite out of the question; for lawyers, even thus early, were generally
regarded as bad men. All over the region of my nativity the word lawyer
was nearly synonymous with liar; and to liars and lawyers the Devil was
supposed to have a peculiar liking, not to say affinity. I had never at
that time heard of but one honest lawyer; and him I regarded as a sort
of _lusus naturae_ much more than as an ordinary human being. My friends
would have been shocked at the bare thought of my becoming a lawyer, had
the road to that profession been open to my youthful aspirations.
The clerical profession was in some respects looked upon more favorably
than the legal or the medical. I was scarcely "three feet high" when an
aged and venerable grandmother said one day, _in my hearing_, and
probably _for_ my hearing, "I always did hope one of my grandsons would
be a minister." This, however, neither interested me much nor encouraged
me; for (reader will you believe it?), as the doctor was regarded in
those days as more than half a sorcerer, and the lawyer three-fourths
devil, so the minister was deemed by many as almost half an idiot,
except for his learning.
I am not, by any means, trifling with you. It was the serious belief of
many--I think I might say of most--that those boys who "took to
learning" were by nature rather "weak in the attic," especially those
who inclined to the ministry. It was a common joke concerning an idiot
or half idiot, "send him to college."[A]
In short, so strongly was this unfounded impression concerning the
native imbecility of ministers, and in general of literary men, fastened
on my mind as well as on the minds of most people, that I grew up nearly
to manhood with a sort of confused belief that as a general rule they
were below par in point of good, common sense. One prominent reason, as
I supposed, why they were sent to college and wrought into that
particular shape, was to bring them up to an equality with their
fellows. Hence, I not only repelled with a degree of indignation the
thought of becoming a minister, but felt really demeaned by my natural
fondness for books and school; and like the poet Cowper, hardly dared,
all my early lifetime, to look higher than the shoe buckles of my
associates. Still, I could not wholly suppress the strong desire to
_know_ which had penetrated and pervaded my soul, and which had been
nurtured and fed not only by an intelligent mother but by a few books I
had read. Perhaps the life of Franklin, already referred to, had as much
influence with me as any thing of the kind. For along with the love of
knowledge which was so much developed by this book, the love of doing
good was introduced. The doctor says, somewhere, that he always set a
high value on a doer of good; and it is possible, nay, I might even say
probable, that this desire, which subsequently became a passion with me,
had its origin in this very remark.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] To illustrate this point, and show clearly the state of the public
opinion, I will relate an anecdote. A certain calf in the neighborhood,
after long and patient trial, was pronounced too ignorant to be able to
procure his own nourishment, or in other words, was said to be a fool.
On raising the question, what should be done with him, a shrewd colored
man who stood by, said, "Master, send him to college!"
CHAPTER II.
MY FIRST MEDICAL LESSON.
Straws, it is said, show which way the wind blows; and words, and things
very small in themselves, sometimes show, much better than "two crowns,"
or the "stars," what is to be the future of a person's life. The choice
of a profession or occupation, were we but trained to the habit of
tracing effects up to their causes, will doubtless often be found to
have had its origin, if not in _straws_, at least in very small matters.
When I was ten years of age, my little brother, of only two years, sat
one day on the floor whittling an apple. The instrument in his hand was
a Barlow knife, as it was then called. The blade was about two inches in
length, but was worn very narrow. How his parents and other friends,
several of whom were in the same room, came to let him use such a
plaything, I cannot now conceive; but as the point was almost square,
and the knife very dull, they do not seem hitherto to have had any
fears.
Suddenly the usual quiet of the family was disturbed a little by the
announcement, "Somebody is going by;" an event which, as you should
know, was quite an era in that retired, mountainous region. All hastened
to the window to get a view of the passing traveller. The little boy
scampered among the rest; but in crossing the threshold of a door which
intervened, he stumbled and fell. A sudden shriek called to him one of
our friends, who immediately cried out, "Oh dear, he has put out his
eye!" and made a hasty but unsuccessful effort to extract the knife,
which had penetrated the full length of its blade. The mother hastened
to the spot, and drew it forth, though, as she afterward said, not
without the exertion of considerable force. Its back was towards the
child, and by pressing the ball of the eye downward, the instrument had
been able to penetrate to the bottom of the cavity, and perhaps a little
way into the bone beyond. The elasticity of the eyeball had retained it
so as to render its extraction seemingly difficult.
Most of those who were present, particularly myself and the rest of the
children, were for a short time in a state of mental agony that bordered
on insanity. Not knowing at first the nature of the wound, but only that
there was an eye there, and brains very near it, we naturally expected
nothing less than the loss of this precious organ of vision, if not of
life. There was no practising physician or surgeon, just at that time,
within five or six miles, and I do not remember that any was sent for.
We probably concluded that he could do no good.
The child's eye swelled, and for a few days looked very badly; but after
the lapse of about two weeks the little fellow seemed to be quite well;
and so far as his eyes and brain are concerned, I believe he has been
well to this time, a period of almost half a century.
Although we resided at a considerable distance from the village, and
from any practising physician, there was near by a very aged and
superannuated man, who had once been a medical practitioner. Our
curiosity had been so much excited by the wonderful escape of the little
boy from impending destruction, that we called on the venerable doctor
and asked him whether it was possible for a knife to penetrate so far
into the head without injuring the brain and producing some degree of
inflammation. From Dr. C. we received a good deal of valuable
information concerning the structure of the eye, the shape of the cavity
in which it is placed, the structure and character of the brain, etc.
This was a great treat to me, I assure you. It added not a little to the
interest which was imparted by his instructions when he showed us, from
the relics of better days, some of the bones of the skull, especially
those of the frontal region, in which the eye is situated. Of course the
sight of a death's head, as we were inclined to call it, was at first
frightful to us; but it was a feeling which in part soon passed away. It
was a feeling, most certainly, which in me was not abiding at all.
Indeed, as the title to the chapter would seem to imply, I received in
this dispensation of Providence and its accompaniments my first medical
lesson; though without the remotest thought, at the time, of any such
thing. I was only indulging in a curiosity which was instinctive and
intense, without dreaming of future consequences.
CHAPTER III.
THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE.
Two years after this, an aged man, a distant relation, came to reside in
my father's family for a short time, and brought with him a small
electrical machine. He was a person of some intelligence, had travelled
much, and had been an officer in the army of the American Revolution. On
the whole, he was just such a man as would be likely to become a
favorite with children. He was, moreover, fully imbued with the
expectation of being able to cure diseases by means of electricity;
which in our neighborhood, at the least, was quite a novel, not to say a
heterodox idea.
Curiosity alone had no small share of influence in bringing my mind to
the study of electricity; but a general desire to understand the subject
was greatly strengthened by the hope of being able to apply this
wonderful agent in the cure of disease. One of the most interesting
phases of Christianity is that the love and practice of healing the
bodily maladies of mankind are almost always seen in the foreground of
the New Testament representations of our Saviour's doings; and it is no
wonder that a youth who reverences his Bible, and has a little
benevolence, should entertain feelings like those above mentioned.
The owner of the machine had brought with him a book on the subject of
curing by electricity. It was a volume of several hundred pages, and was
written by T. Gale, of Northern New York. It had in it much that was
mere theory, in a highly bombastic style; but it also professed to give
with accuracy the details of many remarkable cures, in various forms and
stages, of several difficult diseases; and some of these details I knew
to be realities. One or two cases at or near Ballston Springs were
those of persons of whom I had some knowledge; and one of them was a
relative. This last circumstance, no doubt, had great influence on my
mind.
As I had in those days some leisure for reading, and possessed very few
books, I read--and not only read but studied--Dr. Gale's work from
beginning to end. It is scarcely too much to say, that I read it till I
knew it almost "by heart;" and my heart assented to it. I believed a new
dispensation was at hand to bless the world of mankind; and what
benevolence I had, began to be directed in this particular channel. I do
not mean to say, that at twelve years of age I began to be a physician,
for I do not now recollect that either our aged friend or myself ever
had a patient during the whole year he remained with us.
Eight or ten subsequent years at the plough and hoe, and the absence of
book, electrical machine, and owner, did much towards obliterating the
impressions on this subject I had received. Still, I have no doubt that
the affair as a whole had a tendency to lead my thoughts towards the
study and practice of medicine, and even to inspire confidence in
electricity as a curative agent. In other and fewer words, it was, as I
believe, a part of my medical education.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MEASLES AND POURING DOWN RUM.
When I was about fourteen years of age, an event occurred which left a
stronger impression on my mind than any of the foregoing; and hence in
all probability did more to give my mind a medical bias and tendency.
It was in the month of August. My father, assisted by two or three of
his neighbors, was mowing a swamp meadow. It was an unusually wet
season, and the water in many places was several inches deep,--in some
few instances so deep that we were obliged to go continually with wet
feet. To meet, and as it was by most people supposed to remove the
danger of contracting disease, a bottle of rum was occasionally resorted
to by the mowers, and offered to me; but at first I steadfastly refused
it.
At length, however, I began to droop. A feverish feeling and great
languor came over me, and I was hardly able to walk. I was not then
aware, nor were my friends, that I had been exposed to the contagion of
measles, and therefore was not expecting it. I spoke of my ill health,
but was consoled with the answer that I should soon get over it. But no;
I grew worse, very fast. "Turn down the rum," said one of the mowers,
"if you mean to work." But I hesitated. I was not fond of rum at any
time, and just now I felt a stronger disinclination to it than ever
before. "Turn down the rum," was repeated by the mowers, from time to
time, with increased emphasis.
At length wearied with their importunity; and, not over-willing to be
the butt of their mirth and ridicule, I went to the spring, where the
bottle of rum was kept, and, unperceived by any one, emptied a large
portion of its contents on the ground. The mental agitation of
temporary excitement dispelled in part my sufferings, and I proceeded
once more to my work.
In a very short time my noisy alcoholic prescribers went to the spring
to pour rum down their _own_ throats. "What," said they, with much
surprise, "has become of the rum?" "Have you drank it?" said they,
turning to me. "Not a drop of it," I said. "But it is almost all gone,"
they said; "and it is a great mystery what has become of it." "The
mystery is easily cleared up," I said; "you told me to turn it down, and
I have done so."--"Told you to turn it down!" said one of them, the most
noisy one; "I told you to drink it."--"No," said I, "you told me to turn
it down; and I have poured it down--my part of it--at the foot of the
stump. If you have forgotten your direction to turn it down, I appeal to
two competent witnesses."
The joke passed off much better than I expected. For myself, however, I
grew worse rapidly, and was soon sent home. My mother put me into bed,
applied a bottle of hot water to my feet, and gave me hot drinks most
liberally, and among the rest some "hot toddy." Her object was to sweat
away a supposed attack of fever. Had she known it was measles that
assailed me, or had she even suspected it, she would almost as soon have
cut off her right hand as apply the sweating process. She would, on the
contrary, have given me cooling drinks and pure air. She was not wholly
divested of good sense on this point, neither was the prevailing public
opinion.
I suffered much, very much, and was for a part of the time delirious. At
length an eruption began to be visible, and to assume the appearance
which is usual in measles, both to my own relief and that of my parents
and other friends. But the mistaken treatment, or the disease, or both,
gave a shock to my already somewhat delicate constitution, from which I
doubt whether I ever fully recovered. The sequel, however, will appear
more fully in the next chapter.
CHAPTER V.
LEE'S PILLS, AND THE DROPSY.
In consequence either of the disease or its mismanagement, I was left,
on recovering from the measles, with a general dropsy. I might also say
here, that at the recurrence of the same season, for many years
afterwards, I was attacked with a complaint so nearly resembling measles
that some who were strangers to me could hardly be diverted from the
belief that it was the veritable disease itself.
But to the dropsy. This disease, so unusual in young people, especially
those of my sanguine and nervous temperament, alarmed both my parents
and myself, and medical advice was forthwith invoked. Our family
physician was an old man, bred in the full belief of the necessity in
such cases of what are called "alteratives," which, in plain English,
means substances so active as to produce, when applied to the body
either externally or internally, certain sudden changes. Alteratives, in
short, are either irritants or poisons.
Our aged doctor was called in to see me; and after the usual
compliments, and perhaps a passing joke or two,--for both of which he
was quite famous,--he asked me to let him see my tongue. Next, he felt
my pulse. All the while--a matter exceedingly important to success--he
looked "wondrous wise." He also asked me sundry wondrous wise questions.
They were at least couched in wondrous words of monstrous length.
The examination fairly over, there followed a pause; not, indeed, an
"awful pause," but one of a few seconds, or perhaps in all of half a
minute. "Now," said he, "you must take one of Lee's pills every day, in
roasted apple." There were other directions, but this was the principal,
except to avoid taking cold. The pills, of course, contained a
proportion of mercury or calomel, on the alterative effects of which,
as I plainly perceived, he placed his chief dependence.
I took the pills, daily, for about six weeks; but they produced very
little apparent effect, except to spoil my appetite. What their remoter
effects were on my constitution generally, is quite another question.
Suffice it to say, for the present, that for his occasional calls and
wondrous wise looks, and his Lee's pills, he made quite a considerable
bill. We were, it is true, always glad to see him, for he was pretty
sure to crack a joke or two during his stay, and he sometimes told a
good story. Nor, after all, were his charges remarkably high. For coming
two or three miles to see me, he only made a charge of fifty cents a
visit.
It was near the beginning of October, and I was "getting no better very
fast." A young physician had in the mean time come into the place, and
my friends were anxious to call him in as "counsel." He proposed
digitalis, and the family physician consented to it. But it was all to
no purpose; I was still a bloated mass, and extremely enfeebled.
At length, after some two or three months of ill health and loss of
time, and the expenditure of considerable money on physicians and
medicine, our good family doctor proposed a tea made from certain sweet
roots, such as fennel, parsley, etc. Of this I was to drink very freely.
I followed his advice, and in a few days the dropsy disappeared. Whether
it was ready to depart just at this precise time, or whether the tea
hastened its departure, I never knew. In any event, one thing is
certain; that, either with its aid or in spite of it, I got rid of the
dropsy; and it nevermore returned.
But it is one thing to get rid of an inveterate disease, and quite
another to be restored to our wonted measure of health and strength. The
disease or the medicine or both had greatly debilitated me. I tried to
attend school, but was unable till January or February; nor even then
was I at all vigorous. I was able in the spring to work moderately; but
it was almost a whole year before I occupied the same ground,
physically, as before. Indeed, I have very many doubts whether I ever
attained to the measure of strength to which I might have attained had
it not been for the expenditure of vital power in a long contest with
Lee's pills and disease.
One lesson I learned, during my long sickness, in moral philosophy. I
allude to the power of associated habits. Thus I was accustomed to take
my pills daily for a long time, in combination with the pulp of a
certain favorite apple. By degrees this apple, before so congenial to my
taste, became so exceedingly disgusting to me that I could hardly come
in sight of it, or even of the tree on which it grew, without nausea;
and this dislike continued for years. By the aid of a strong will,
however, I at length overcame it, and the apple is now as agreeable to
my taste, for any thing I know, as it ever was.
CHAPTER VI.
THE COLD SHOWER-BATH.
My long experience of ill health, and of dosing and drugging, had led me
to reflect not a little on the causes of disease, as well as on the
nature of medicinal agents; and I had really made considerable progress,
unawares, in what I now regard as the most important part of a medical
education. In short, I had gained something, even by the loss of so
precious commodity as health. So just is the oft-repeated saying, "It is
an ill wind that blows nobody any good."
It was about this time that I began to reflect on bathing. What gave me
the first particular impulses in this direction I do not now recollect,
unless it was the perusal of the writings of Dr. Benjamin Rush and Dr.
John G. Coffin. My attention had been particularly turned to cold shower
bathing. I had become more than half convinced of its happy adaptation
to my own constitution and to my diseased tendencies, both hereditary
and acquired.
But what could I do? There were in those times no fleeting shower-baths
to be had; nor indeed, so far as I knew, any other apparatus for the
purpose; and had there been, I was not worth a dollar in the world to
buy it with; and I was hardly willing to ask for money, for such
purposes of my father.
I will tell you, very briefly, what I did. My father had several clean
and at that time unoccupied stables, one of which was as retired as the
most fastidious person could have wished. In one of these stables,
directly overhead, I contrived to suspend by its two handles a corn
basket, in such a way that I could turn it over upon its side and retain
it in this position as long as I pleased. Into this basket, when
suspended sideways, and slightly fastened, I was accustomed to set a
basin or pail of water; and when I was ready for its reception, I had
but to pull a string and overturn the basket in order to obtain all the
benefits of a cold and plentiful shower.
Here, daily, for almost a whole summer, I used my cold shower-bath, and,
as I then thought and still believe, with great advantage. My
consumptive tendencies were held at bay during the time very
effectually. I was fortunate, indeed, in being able always, with the aid
of a coarse towel and a little friction, to secure a pretty full
reaction.
This season of cold bathing was when I was about sixteen years of age. I
shall ever look back to it as one of the most important, not to say most
interesting, of my _experiences_. Indeed, I do not know that in any six
months of my life I ever gained so much physical capital--thus to call
it; by which I mean bodily vigor--as during these six months of the year
1814.
I may also add here, that it has been my lot all my life long to learn
quite as much from experiment and observation as in any other way. The
foregoing experience gave me much knowledge of the laws of hygiene.
Sometimes, while reflecting on this subject, I have thought of the
assurance of the Apostle John, that he who "doeth truth cometh to the
light," and have wondered whether the good apostle, along with this
highly important truth, did not mean to intimate that the natural
tendency of holy living was to an increase of light and love and
holiness. And then I have gone a step further, and asked myself whether
it was not possible that the doing of _physical_ truth as well as
_moral_, had the same tendency.
I have alluded to experience, or experiment. It is sometimes said that
medical men are very much inclined to make experiments on their
patients. Now, although I have a few sad confessions of this sort to
make hereafter, yet I can truly say, in advance, that while I have made
comparatively few experiments on other people, I have probably, during
the progress of a long life, made more experiments on myself, both in
sickness and in health, than any other existing individual. Whether I
have learned as much in this way as I ought, in such favored
circumstances, is quite another question.
CHAPTER VII.
MY FIRST SICKNESS ABROAD.
When I was about half-way through my nineteenth year, a desire to see
the world became so strong that I made up my mind to a little
travelling. Accordingly, having provided myself with an employment which
would, without a great deal of hindrance, enable me to earn my passing
expenses, I set out on my journey.
It was in the month of March, and near its close. The weather was mild,
and the snow was fast disappearing--but not as yet the mud. In walking
all day, my boots became soaked and my feet wet. The era of India
rubbers had not then arrived. In truth, I went with my feet wet in the
afternoon two or three days.
On the evening of the third day I came to the house of the friends with
whom I was desirous of stopping not only for the Sabbath's sake, which
was now at hand, but to rest and recruit. The next morning I was quite
sick, and my friends were alarmed. It was proposed to send for a
physician; but against this I uttered my protest, and the plan was
accordingly abandoned.
The next purpose of my kind friends was to bring on a perspiration. They
were accustomed in these cases to aim at sweating. This is indeed a
violence to nature; but they knew no better. The mistress of the house
was one of those self-assured women who cannot brook any interference or
submit willingly to any modification of their favorite plans. Otherwise
I should even then have preferred a gentle perspiration, longer
continued. Yet on the whole, for the sake of peace, I submitted to my
fate, and went through the fiery furnace which was prepared for me. More
than even this I might say. I was cooler, much cooler, when I got
through the fire than when I was in the midst of it!
In three days I was, in a good measure, restored. I was, it is true,
left very weak, but was free from fever. My strength rapidly returned;
and on the fifth day I was able to set out for home, where in due time I
safely arrived.
During this excursion I learned one good lesson, if no more. This was,
the danger of going day after day with wet feet. A vigorous person may
go with wet or damp feet a little while, in the early part of the day,
when in full strength, with comparative safety; but towards evening,
when the vital forces are at ebb tide, or at least are ebbing, it is
unsafe. The feeble especially should guard themselves in this direction;
nor should those who may perchance at some future time be feeble,
despise the suggestion.
One important resolution was also made. This was never to use violent
efforts to induce perspiration. Such a course of treatment I saw
clearly, as I thought, must be contrary to the intentions of nature; and
time and further observation and experiment have confirmed me in this
opinion. There may of course be exceptions to the truth of such a
general inference; but I am sure they cannot be very numerous. What
though the forcing plan seems to have succeeded quite happily in my own
case? So it has in thousands of others. So might a treatment still more
irrational. Mankind are tough, and will frequently live on for a
considerable time in spite of treatment which is manifestly wrong, and
even without any treatment at all.
CHAPTER VIII.
LESSON FROM AN OLD SURGEON.
Five or six miles from the place of my nativity a family resided whom I
shall call by the name of Port. Among the ancestry of this family, time
out of mind, there had been more, or fewer of what are usually called
natural bone setters. They were known far and near; and no effort short
of miraculous would have been sufficient to shake the confidence which
ignorance and credulity had reposed in them.
One or two of these natural bone setters were now in the middle stage of
life, and in the full zenith of their glory. The name of the most
prominent was Joseph. He was a man of some acquired as well as inherited
knowledge; but he was indolent, coarse, vulgar, and at times profane.
Had it not been for his family rank and his own skill as a surgeon, of
which he really had a tolerable share, he would have been no more than
at best a common man, and occasionally would have passed for little more
than a common blackguard.
I was in a shop one day conversing with Capt. R., when Dr. Port came in.
"Capt. R., how are you?" was the first compliment. "Very well," said the
captain, "except a lame foot." "I see you have one foot wrapped up,"
said Dr. Port; "what is the matter with it?"--"I cut it with an axe, the
other day," said he, "very badly."--"On the upper part of the foot?"
said the doctor. "Yes, directly on the instep," said Capt. R. "Is it
doing well?"--"Not very well," he replied; "and I came into town to-day
partly to see and converse with you about it."--"Well, then, undo it and
let me have a look at it."
Wrapper after wrapper was now taken from the lame foot, till Dr. Port
began to scowl. "You keep it too warm," said he. "A wound of this sort
should be kept cool, if you don't wish to have it inflame. A slight
wrapping is all that is needful." They came at length to the wound. "It
does not look very badly," said Dr. Port; "but you must keep it cool.
And then," added he with an oath, the very thought of which to this day
almost makes me shudder, "You must keep your nasty, abominable ointments
away from it. Remember one thing, Capt. R., whenever you have a new
flesh wound, all you can possibly do with any hope of advantage is to
bring the divided edges of the parts together and keep them there, and
nature will take care of the rest."
"Would you, then, do nothing at all but bind it up and keep it still?"
said Capt. R. "Nothing at all," said he, "unless it should inflame; and
then a little water applied to it is as good as any thing."--"But is
there nothing of a healing nature I can use?" said the captain. "I have
told you already," said he, with another strange oath, "that you don't
want any thing healing on the outside, if you had a cart-load of
medicaments. All wounds, when they heal at all, heal from the bottom;
and of course all your external applications are useless, except so far
as is necessary to protect the parts from fresh injury and keep them
from the air."
The crowd around looked as if they were amazed; but it was Dr. Port who
said it, and therefore it must be swallowed. I was somewhat surprised
with the rest. And I have not a doubt that what he said was to most of
them an invaluable lecture. For myself, as a student of _man_, it was
just what I needed. It set me to thinking. It was a lesson which I could
never forget if I were to live a thousand years.
It was a lesson, moreover, which I have repeated almost a thousand
times, in circumstances not dissimilar. Indeed, I believe this very
occurrence did much to turn my attention to the medical profession. I
saw at once it was a rational thing; a matter of plain common sense; a
thing of principle; and not on the one hand a bundle of mysteries, nor
on the other a mere humbug.
Dr. Port long ago paid the debt of nature; but not till he had made his
mark on the age he lived in. If, indeed, he died as the fool dieth,--and
thus it was said he _did_ die,--he was at least a means of teaching
others to live right. He did great good by his frequent wise precepts,
as well as not a little harm by his sometimes immoral example. For
myself, I honor him because he was my teacher on a point of great
practical importance, and because he was to thousands of over-credulous
people a light and a benefactor.
Although I had not at this time any very serious thoughts of becoming a
physician and surgeon, yet I certainly inclined in that direction. My
great poverty was the chief difficulty that lay in my way; but this
difficulty at that time seemed insurmountable. Besides, I was wedded to
my father's farm, and I did not see how the banns could very well be
sundered.
CHAPTER IX.
LEE'S WINDHAM BILIOUS PILLS.
I was, at length, twenty-two years of age. I had about fifty dollars in
my pocket, besides a few books. But what would this do towards giving me
a liberal education? And yet, to an education in the schools, of some
sort, either as a means to a profession, or as affording facilities for
obtaining knowledge or communicating it to others, I certainly did
aspire. But I seemed compelled for the present to plod on in the old
way.
There had been, but recently, a gold fever--not, it is true, of
California, but of Carolina. The young men of the North, shrewd,
intelligent, active, and ambitious Yankees, had flocked by hundreds, if
not by thousands, from New England to the Southern States, to sell tin
ware and clocks, especially the former. The trade at first had been very
lucrative. Though many had been made poor by it, yet many more had been
made rich. I do not say how honorably the trade had been conducted. To
sell tin lanterns, worth fifty cents each, for silver, at fifty dollars,
and tin toddy sticks, worth a New York shilling, for twelve dollars, did
not in the final result redound much to our New England credit. Though
it brought us gold, it did not permanently enrich us.
A much better trade had now, in 1820, sprung up with the South. The
North--the great nursery of America--had still a surplus of young men
who wanted to go somewhere. A part of them found their way to Carolina
and Georgia, and engaged during the winter, and occasionally through the
year, in teaching; while another part labored on their canals and
railroads and in their shops. This was to furnish the South with a
commodity of real value, for which we received in return a fair
compensation. Besides, it had a better effect than clock and tin
peddling, both on the seller and buyer.
To improve my pecuniary condition, and to acquaint myself with the
world, I prepared to embark for the South. My purpose was to teach. It
was the beginning of October, and yellow fever was said to be raging in
Charleston, where I purposed to disembark. Was it, then, safe for me to
go? Should the prospect of doing good, improving my mind, and bettering
my condition in many other respects, weigh against the danger of
disease; or was it preferable that I should wait?
My numerous friends counselled me according to their various
temperaments and prepossessions. The strong and vigorous in body and
mind said, _Go on_; the feeble and timorous and trembling interposed
their caution. But the vessel was ready and would soon sail; and I saw
on board many of my acquaintances. The temptation was before me, and was
great; the dangers, though many, were remote--the dangers of the sea
excepted. For these, it is true, I was, like everybody else, entirely
unprepared, having never before in my life crossed more than a single
river. I was moreover exceedingly timid.
One kind friend--kind, I mean, in general intention--who had been many
years at the South, amid the ravages of the gold fever, as well as other
fevers more or less yellow, whispered me just at this critical moment,
"Take with you a box of Lee's Windham Bilious Pills; and as soon as you
arrive at Charleston, make it your rule to swallow, every other day, one
of these pills. That will prevent your getting the fever. I have often
tried it, and always with success."
My friend's words gave me more courage than his pills. I saw that he had
been in the midst of sickness and had lived through it. Why might not I?
My mind was soon made up to proceed on the journey.
We sailed from New Haven in Connecticut, and were seventeen days on our
passage. When we reached Charleston, either the yellow fever had spent
itself or it had not recently been there, except in a few rare
instances. I found no use for pills of any kind, except _such as grew on
fruit-trees_--the apple, peach, orange, persimmon, etc., or such as
were the products of the corn, potato, and rice fields; nor did I ever
take any other while I remained in the South. A queer idea, I often said
to myself, that of taking poison while a person is well, in order to
prevent becoming sick! In any event, I did not do it.
There was sickness in the country, however, if not in the city; and I
was much and often exposed to it. But what then? How would one of Lee's
pills defend me from it, even for two days? I preferred to eat and drink
and sleep correctly, and then trust to my good fortune and to Him who
controlled it, rather than to nauseous and poisonous medicine. And I had
my choice, and with it a blessed reward. I was in the low country of
North and South Carolina and Virginia six months or more, and often and
again much exposed to disease, and yet I never had a sick day while I
remained there. And yet, as I have before intimated, I never took a
particle of medicine during the whole time.
Once, indeed, I was beguiled into the foolish habit of using French
brandy with my dinner, under the idea that it would promote digestion.
But I did not continue it long; and I verily believe that it did me more
harm than good while I used it; for I have at no other period of my life
suffered so much from dyspeptic tendencies as during the summer which
followed this temporary indulgence of brandy with my dinner.
During my wanderings in the South, I had, much of the time, a fellow
traveller, who, though he took no medicine, was less cautious than
myself, and less fortunate. Perhaps his very recklessness served as a
warning to me. In truth, without being much of a theologian, I have
sometimes thought that the errors of mankind were intended in the divine
plan--at least in part--for this very end. Happy, then, if this is so,
are they who make a wise use of them!
CHAPTER X.
DR. SOLOMON AND HIS PATIENT.
I have said that my fellow traveller was less cautious than myself, and
have intimated much more. He was in some respects cautious, and yet in
others absolutely reckless. When hot and thirsty, for example, instead
of just rinsing out his mouth and swallowing a very little water, he
would half-fill his stomach with some of that semi-putrid stuff, ycleped
water, which you often find in Virginia and the Carolinas; and when
hungry, he would eat almost any thing he could lay hold of, and in
almost any quantity, as well as at almost any hours, whether seasonable
or unseasonable.
This course of conduct seemed to answer very well for a few months; but
a day of retribution at last came. He was then in Norfolk, in Virginia.
I had been absent from the place a few weeks, and on my return found him
sick with a fever, and without such assistance as was absolutely and
indispensably necessary. There were Yankees in the place in great
numbers, and some of them were his personal acquaintances and friends;
but they had hitherto refused to come near him, lest they should take
the fever.
I proceeded to take care of him by night and by day. At the suggestion
of an old citizen, in whom I placed great confidence, Dr. Solomon was
called in as his physician. There was some bleeding and drugging, and a
pretty constant attendance for many weeks; but the young man finally
recovered.
If you ask what this chapter has to do with my medical confessions, I
will tell you. Dr. Solomon was an old school physician, and made certain
blunders, which I am about to confess for him. He prescribed--as very
many of us his medical brethren formerly did, for the _name_ of a
disease rather than for the disease itself, just as it now appeared.
Thus, suppose the disease was typhus fever; in that case he seemed to
give just about so many pills and powders every day, without much regard
to the circumstances; believing that somehow or other, and at some time
or other, good would come out of it. If his patient had sufficient force
of constitution to enable him to withstand both the disease and the
medicine, and ultimately to recover, Dr. S. had the credit of a cure;
not, perhaps that he claimed it,--his friends awarded the honor. If the
patient died, it was on account of the severity of the disease. Neither
the doctor nor his medicine was supposed to be at fault. Some, indeed,
regarded it as the mysterious work of Divine Providence.
Dr. S. attended my young companion in pedestrianism a long time, and
sometimes brought a student into the bargain. He probably kept his
patient insane with his medicine about half the time, and greatly
prolonged his disease and his sufferings. But he knew no better way. He
was trained to all this. The idea that half a dozen careful visits,
instead of fifty formal ones, and a few shillings' worth of medicine
instead of some twenty or thirty dollars' worth, would give the young
man a better prospect of recovery than his own routine of fashionable
book-dosing and drugging, never for once, I dare say, entered his head.
And yet his head was large enough to hold such a simple idea, had it
been put there very early; and the deposit would have done much to make
him--what physicians will one day become--a rich blessing to the world.
Reader, are here no confessions of medical importance? If not, bear with
me awhile, and you will probably find them. We have yet a long road to
travel, and there are many confessions to be made in which I have a
personal concern and responsibility, and, as you may perhaps conclude,
no small share of downright culpability.
CHAPTER XI.
PHYSICKING OFF FEVER.
The eyes of my mind having just begun to be opened to the impotence of a
mere routine of medication as a _substitute for nature_, rather than _as
an aid to her enfeebled efforts_, I was prepared to make a wise use of
other facts that came before me, especially those in which I had a
personal concern and interest. Here is one of this description.
On the morning of March 12, 1821, during the very period when I was
watching over my sick friend, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, I
took from the post-office a letter with a black seal. It contained the
distressing intelligence of the death of a much-valued sister and her
husband, both of whom, but a few months before, I had left in apparently
perfect health.
On a careful inquiry into the particulars, both by letter and, after my
return, in other ways, I learned that the Connecticut River fever, as it
was then and there called, having carried off several persons who were
residing in the same house with my brother, the survivors were advised
to do something to prevent the germination and development of such seeds
of the disease as were supposed to be in their bodies and ready to burst
forth into action. I do not know that any medical man encouraged this
notion, the offspring of ignorance and superstition; but my brother and
his wife had somehow or other imbibed it, and they governed themselves
accordingly.
Both of them took medicine--moderate cathartics--till they thought they
had physicked off the disease; and all seemed, for a time, to be well,
except that they complained still of great weakness and debility. It was
not long, however, before they were both taken with the disease and
perished; my brother in a very short time, and my sister more slowly.
My sister, on being taken ill, had been removed to the house of her
mother, in the hope that a change of air might do something for her; but
all in vain. My mother and a few other friends who were with them as
assistants sickened, but they all ultimately recovered. They, however,
took no medicine by way of prevention.
Now I do not presume to say, that my young friends were destroyed solely
by medicine, for the assertion would be unwarranted. I only state the
facts, and tell you what my convictions then were, and what they are
still. My belief is, that though they might have sickened had they taken
no medicine or preventive, yet their chance of recovery after they
sickened was very much diminished by the unnecessary and uncalled-for
dosing and drugging.
The notion that we can physick off the seeds of disease, or by our
dosing prevent their germination, is as erroneous as can possibly be,
and is a prolific source of much suffering and frequent death. The best
preventive of disease is good health. Now, physicking off generally
weakens us, instead of giving strength. It takes away from our good
health instead of adding to or increasing it. As a general rule, to
which there are very few exceptions, all medicine, when disease is
unusually common or fatal, is hazardous without sound medical advice,
and not generally safe even then. It is fit only for extreme cases.
You may be at a loss to understand how such facts and reflections as
these could allure me to the study and practice of medicine as a
profession. Yet they most certainly had influence. Not that I felt a
very strong desire to deal out medicine, for to this I felt a repugnance
which strengthened with increase of years and experience. What I most
ardently desired was to know the causes of disease, and how far they
were or were not within human control. Such a science as that of
_hygiene_--nay, even the word itself, and the phrase _laws of
health_--was at that time wholly unknown in the world in which I moved.
There was, in truth, no way then to this species of knowledge, except
through the avenues opened by a course of medical study. Hence it was
that I blundered on, in partial though not entire ignorance, for some
time longer, groping and searching for that light which I hardly knew
how or whence to seek, except in pills and powders and blisters and
tinctures.
CHAPTER XII.
MANUFACTURING CHILBLAINS.
At the period of my life to which we have at length arrived, I was for
four or five months of every year a school teacher. This was, in no
trifling degree, an educational process; for is it not well known that,
"Teaching we learn, and giving we retain?"
It was at least an education in the great school of human nature.
Every morning of one of these winter sessions of school keeping, Lydia
Maynard, eight years of age, after walking about a mile, frequently in
deep snow, and combating the cold northwest winds of one of the southern
Green Mountain ranges, would come into the schoolroom with her feet
almost frozen, and take her seat close to the stove, so as to warm them
and be ready for school as quickly as possible. Here she would sit, if
permitted to do so, till the bell rang for school.
It was not long before I learned that she was a great sufferer from
chilblains. Whether she inherited a tendency to this troublesome and
painful disease, which was awakened and aggravated by sudden changes of
temperature, or whether the latter were the original cause of the
disease, I never knew with certainty. But I was struck with the fact
that sudden warming was followed by such lasting and terrible
consequences.
And herein is one reason why I have opposed, from that day to this, the
custom or habit, so exceedingly prevalent, of rushing to the fire when
we are very cold, and warming ourselves as quickly as possible. I have
reasoned; I have commanded; and in some few instances I have ridiculed.
Every one knows it is hazardous to bring the ears or fingers or toes,
or any other parts of the body, suddenly to the fire when really
frozen,--that is, when the temperature is lowered down in the part to
32 deg.; and yet, if it is only down to 33 deg., and the part not quite
frozen, almost every one, young and old, will venture to the fire. Can
there be such a difference in the effects when there is only a difference
of one degree in temperature? No reflecting person will for one moment
believe it. The trouble is we do not think about it.
Sudden changes from heat to cold are little more favorable than when the
change is in the other direction. Indeed, it often happens that children
at school are subjected to both these causes. Thus, in the case of
Lydia, suppose that after roasting herself a long time at the stove, she
had gone to her seat and placed her feet directly over crevices in the
floor, through which the cold wind found its way at almost freezing
temperature. Would not this have greatly added to the severity of the
disease?
There are, it is true, other reasons against sudden changes of
temperature, particularly the change from cold to heat, besides the fact
that they tend to produce chilblains; but I cannot do more just now than
barely advert to them. The eyes are apt to be injured; it renders us
more liable than otherwise we should be to take cold. Occasionally it
brings on faintness and convulsions, and still more rarely, sudden
death. I will only add now, that sudden warming after suffering from
extreme cold, whether we perceive it or not at the time, is very apt to
produce deep and lasting injury to the brain and nervous system.
But my main object in relating the story is answered if I have succeeded
in clearly pointing out to the reader one of the avenues through which
light found its way to my benighted intellect, and led me to reflection
on the whole subject of health and disease. Here was obviously one cause
of a frequent but most painful complaint. It was natural, perfectly
natural, that by this time I should begin to inquire. Have all diseases,
then, their exciting causes? Many certainly have; and if many, perhaps
all. At least, how do we know but it may be so? And then again, if the
causes of chilblains are within our control, and this troublesome
disease might be prevented, or its severity mitigated if no more, why
may it not be so with all other diseases?
To revert for a moment to the case of Lydia Maynard. Though I was the
cause, in a certain sense, of her suffering, yet it was a sin of
ignorance. But it taught me much wisdom. It made me cautious ever
afterward. I do not doubt but I have been a means of preventing a very
considerable amount of suffering in this form, since that time, by
pointing out the road that leads to it.
Prevention is better than cure, was early my motto, and is so still. And
from the day in which I began to open my eyes on the world around me,
and to reason from effects up to their causes, I have been more and more
confirmed in the belief that mankind as a race are to be the artificers
of their own happiness or misery. All facts point in this direction,
some of them with great certainty. And facts, everywhere and always, are
stubborn things.
CHAPTER XIII.
HOW TO MAKE ERYSIPELAS.
My periodical tendency to a species of eruptive disease closely
resembling measles, was mentioned in Chapter IV. During the summer of
1823 this affection became unusually severe, and seemed almost beyond
endurance. The circumstances were as follows:--
I had in charge a large and difficult school. The weather was very hot,
and I was not accustomed to labor in summer within doors. Besides, my
task was so difficult as to call forth all the energies of body and mind
both; and the "wear and tear" of my system was unusually great. It was
in the very midst of these severe labors, in hot and not well-ventilated
air, that the eruption appeared. Perhaps it was aggravated by my diet,
which, in "boarding around," was of course not the best.
The eruption not only affected my body and reached to the extremities,
but was accompanied by an itching so severe that I was occasionally
compelled to lie awake all night. My general strength at last began to
give way under it, and I sought the advice of our family physician.
He advised me to use, as a wash to the irritated and irritable surface,
a weak solution of corrosive sublimate. I hesitated; especially as I
believed it to be, with him, an experiment. But on his repeated
assurance, that if I would take special care of myself and avoid taking
cold, there was no danger, I waived my objections, and proceeded to
carry out his plan.
The solution was applied, accordingly, to the letter of the doctor's
directions. For many days no change appeared, either favorable or
adverse. At length a most distressing headache came on and remained. My
sufferings became so severe that I was obliged to postpone my school
and return to my father's house.
On the road, I observed that an eruption of a peculiar kind had
appeared, particularly about the forehead, accompanied with small
blisters. It was not here that I had applied the solution, but on the
arms, chest, and lower limbs. Of course the corrosive sublimate, if at
all operative, had affected me through the medium of the circulation and
not by direct contact.
Our physician came, pronounced the disease erysipelas, and without
saying a word about the cause, prescribed; and I followed out carefully
his prescription. But the disease had its course in spite of us both,
and was very severe. It took away my sleep entirely for a day or two. It
proved a means of removing the hair from one side of my head, and of so
injuring the skin that it never grew again. Indeed, gangrene or
mortification had actually commenced at several points. Suddenly,
however, the pain and inflammation subsided, and I recovered.
Now my physician never said that I was poisoned by the corrosive
sublimate, probably for the two following reasons: 1, I never made the
inquiry. 2, He would probably have ascribed the disease to taking cold
rather than to the mercury, had I inquired. I do not believe I took
cold, however. How it came to affect me so unfavorably I never knew with
certainty; but that it was the medicine that did the mischief I never
for one moment doubted. I suppose it was absorbed; but of the manner of
its introduction to the system I am less certain than of the fact
itself.
But besides the absorption of the corrosive sublimate into the system,
and its consequences--a terrible caution to those who are wont to apply
salves, ointments, washes, etc., to the surface of the body
unauthorized--I learned another highly important lesson from this
circumstance. Active medicines, as I saw more plainly than ever before,
are as a sword with two edges. If they do not cut in the right
direction, they are almost sure to cut in the wrong.
I must not close, however, without telling you a little more about the
treatment of my disease. After I had left my school and had arrived at
home, a solution of sugar of lead was ordered in the very coldest water.
With this, through the intervention of layers of linen cloth, I was
directed to keep my head constantly moistened. Its object, doubtless,
was to check the inflammation, which had become exceedingly violent. Why
the sugar of lead itself was not absorbed, thus adding poison to poison,
is to me inconceivable. Perhaps it was so; and yet, such was the force
of my constitution, feeble though it was, that I recovered in spite of
both poisons. Or, what is more probable, perhaps the lead, if absorbed
at all, did not produce its effects till the effects of the corrosive
sublimate were on the wane; so that the living system was only
necessitated to war with one poison at a time. Mankind are made to live,
at least till they are worn out; and it is not always easy to poison a
person to death, if we would. In other words, human nature is tough.
Now I do not know, by the way, that any one but myself ever suspected,
even for one moment, that this attack of erysipelas was caused by the
corrosive sublimate. But could I avoid such a conclusion? Was it a hasty
or forced one? Judge, then, whether it was not perfectly natural that I
should be led by such an unfortunate adventure to turn my attention more
than ever to the subject of preserving and promoting health.
For if our family physician--cautious and judicious as in general he
was--had been the unintentional cause of a severe attack from a violent
and dangerous disease, which had come very near destroying my life, what
blunders might not be expected from the less careful and cautious man,
especially the beginner in medicine? And if medical men, old and young,
scientific as well as unscientific, make occasional blunders, how much
more frequently the mass of mankind, who, in their supposed knowledge of
their own constitutions and those of their families, are frequently
found dosing and drugging themselves and others?
I do not mean to say that in the incipiency of my observations and
inquiries my mind was mature enough--well educated enough, I mean--to
pursue exactly the foregoing train of thought; but there was certainly a
tendency that way, as will be seen more fully in the next chapter. The
spell at least was broken, and I saw plainly that if "died by the
visitation of God" _never_ means any thing, it _generally_ does not. And
as it turned out that the further I pushed my inquiries the more I found
that diseases were caused by transgression of physical and moral law,
and hence not uncontrollable, why should it not be so, still farther on,
in the great world of facts which I had not yet penetrated?
CHAPTER XIV.
STUDYING MEDICINE.
My thoughts were now directed with considerable earnestness and
seriousness, to the study of medicine. It is true that I was already in
the twenty-fourth year of my age, and that the statute law of the State
in which I was a resident required three years of study before receiving
a license to practise medicine and surgery, and I should hence be in my
twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year before I could enter actively and
responsibly upon the duties of my profession, which would be rather late
in life. Besides, I had become quite enamored of another profession,
much better adapted to my slender pecuniary means than the study of a
new one.
However, I revolved the subject in my mind, till at length, as I
thought, I saw my path clearly. It was my undoubted duty to pursue the
study of medicine. Still, there were difficulties which to any but men
of decision of character were not easily got removed. Shall I tell you
how they were gradually and successfully overcome?
Our family physician had an old skeleton, and a small volume of anatomy
by Cheselden, as well as a somewhat more extended British work on
anatomy and physiology; all these he kindly offered to lend me. Then he
would permit me to study with him, or at least occasionally recite to
him, which would answer the letter of the law. Then, again, I could,
during the winter of each year of study except the last, teach school,
and thus add to my pecuniary means of support. And lastly, my father
would board me whenever I was not teaching, and on as long a credit as I
desired. Were not, then, all my difficulties practically overcome, at
least prospectively?
It was early in the spring of the year 1822 that I carried to my
father's house an old dirty skeleton and some musty books, and commenced
the study of medicine and surgery, or at least of those studies which
are deemed a necessary preparation. It was rather dry business at first,
but I soon became very much interested in the study of physiology, and
made considerable progress. My connection with our physician proved to
be merely nominal, as I seldom found him ready to hear a recitation.
Besides, my course of study was rather desultory, not to say irregular.
In the autumn of 1824, having occasion to teach school at such a
distance as rendered it almost impracticable for me to continue my
former connection as a student, I made arrangements for studying with
another physician on terms not unlike those in the former case. My new
teacher, however, occasionally heard me recite, especially in what is
properly called the practice of medicine and in surgery. His
instructions, though very infrequent, were of service to me.
In 1825 I became a boarder in his family, where I remained about a year.
Here I had an opportunity to consult and even study the various standard
authors in the several departments which are usually regarded as
belonging to a course of medical study. So that if I was not in due time
properly qualified to "practise medicine and surgery in this or any
other country," the fault was chiefly my own.
However, in the spring of 1825, after I had attended a five months'
course of lectures in one of the most famous medical colleges of the
Northern States, I was regularly examined and duly licensed. _How_ well
qualified I was supposed to be, did not exactly appear. It was
marvellous that I succeeded at all, for I had labored much on the farm
during the three years, taught school every winter and two summers, had
two or three seasons of sickness, besides a severe attack of influenza
(this, you know, is not regarded as a disease by many) while attending
lectures, which confined me a week or more. And yet one of my fellow
students, who was present at the examination, laughed at my studied
accuracy!
One word about my thesis, or dissertation. It was customary at the
college where I heard lectures--as it probably is at all others of the
kind--to require each candidate for medical license to read before the
board, prior to his examination, an original dissertation on some topic
connected with his professional studies. The topic I selected was
pulmonary consumption; especially, the means of preventing it. It was,
as may be conjectured, a slight departure from the ordinary routine, but
was characteristic of the writer's mind, prevention being then, as it
still is, and probably always will be, with him a favorite idea. I go so
far, even, as to insist that it should be the favorite idea of every
medical man, from the beginning to the end of his career. "The best part
of the medical art is the art of avoiding pain," was the motto for many
years of the _Boston Medical Intelligencer_; and it embraced a most
important truth. When will it be fully and practically received?
But I must recapitulate a little; or rather, I must go back and give the
reader a few chapters of incidents which occurred while I was a student
under Dr. W., my second and principal teacher. I will however study
brevity as much as possible.
CHAPTER XV.
NATURE'S OWN EYE WATER.
When I began the study of medicine, my eyes were so exceedingly weak,
and had been for about ten years, or indeed always after the attack of
measles, that I was in the habit of shading them, much of the time, with
green or blue glasses. My friends, many of them, strongly objected to
any attempt to pursue the study of medicine on this very account. And
the attempt was, I confess, rather hazardous.
What seemed most discouraging in the premises was the consideration that
I had gone, to no manner of purpose, the whole round of eye waters,
elixir vitriol itself not excepted. Was there room, then, for a single
gleam of hope? Yet I was resolutely, perhaps obstinately, determined on
making an effort. I could but fail.
Soon after I made a beginning, the thought struck me, "Why not make the
experiment of frequently bathing the eyes in cold water?" At that very
moment they were hot and somewhat painful; and suiting the action to the
thought, I held my face for some seconds in very cold water. The
sensation was indescribably agreeable; and I believe that for once in my
life, at the least, I felt a degree of gratitude to God, my Creator, for
cold water.
The practice was closely and habitually followed. Whenever my eyes
became hot and painful, I put my face for a short time in water, even if
it were _twenty_ times a day. The more I bathed them, the greater the
pleasure, nor was it many days before they were evidently less inflamed
and less troublesome. Why, then, should I not persevere?
I carried the practice somewhat further still. I found from experiment,
that I could open my eyes in the water. At first, it is true, the
operation was a little painful, and I raised, slightly, its temperature.
Gradually, however, I became so much accustomed to it that the sensation
was not only less painful, but even somewhat agreeable. In a few weeks I
could bear to open my eyes in the water, and keep them open as long as I
was able to hold my breath, even at a very low temperature.
Perseverance in this practice not only enabled me to proceed with my
studies, contrary to the expectation of my friends, and in spite, too,
of my own apprehensions, but gave me in addition the unspeakable
pleasure of finding my eyes gaining every year in point of strength, as
well as clearness of sight. My glasses were laid aside, and I have never
used any for that specific purpose since that time. Of course I do not
mean by this to say that my eyes remain as convex as they were at
twenty-five or thirty years of age, for that would not be true. They
have most certainly flattened a little since I came to be fifty years of
age, for I am compelled to wear glasses when I would read or write. I
mean, simply, that they have never suffered any more from inflammation
or debility, since I formed the habit of bathing them, even up to the
present hour.
The more I observe on this subject, the more I am persuaded--apart from
my own experience--that pure water, at the lowest temperature which can
be used without giving pain, is the best known eye medicine in the
world, not merely for one, two, or ten in a hundred persons, but for
all. I recommend it, therefore, at every opportunity, not only to my
patients but to others. It may doubtless be abused, like every other
good gift; but in wise and careful hands it will often accomplish almost
every thing but downright miracles. We may begin with water a little
tepid, and lower the temperature as gradually as we please, till we come
to use it ice cold.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE VIPER STORY.
I was, early in life, greatly perplexed in mind by the oft-recurring
question, why it was that in the hands of common sense men, every known
system of medicine--even one which was diametrically opposed to the
prevailing custom or belief, like that of Hahnemann, seemed to be
successful. Not only the botanic practitioner with his herbs, and the
homoeopathist with his billionth dilutions, but even the no-medicine
man[B] could boast of his cures, and, for aught I could see, of about an
equal number--good sense and perseverance and other things being equal.
And then, again, he that bled everybody, or almost everybody, if
abounding in good sense, like the late Dr. Hubbard, of Pomfret, in
Connecticut, was about as successful as those who, like Dr. Danforth,
once an eminent practitioner of Boston, would bleed nobody, nor, if in
his power to prevent it, suffer the lancet to be used by anybody else.
While cogitating on this subject one day, the following anecdote from a
surgical work--I think a French work--came under my eye, and at once
solved the problem, and relieved me of my difficulty. It may probably be
relied on.
When the Abbe Fontana, a distinguished medical man and naturalist, was
travelling, once, in some of the more northern countries of Europe, he
was greatly surprised to find such a wonderful variety of applications
to the bite of the viper, and still more to find them all successful, or
at least about equally so. Even those that were in character
diametrically opposed to each other, _all cured_. His astonishment
continued and increased when he found at length that those who applied
nothing at all recovered about as readily as any of the rest.
In the sequel, as the result of diligent and scientific research, it
turned out that the bite of this animal, however dangerous and fatal in
hot climates, is scarcely dangerous at all in cold ones. Hence it was
that all sorts of treatment appeared to cure. In other words, the
persons who were bitten all recovered in spite of the applications made
to their wounds, and generally in about the same period of time.
Thus, as I began to suspect,--and the reader must pardon the suspicion,
if he can,--it may be with our diversified and diverse modes of medical
treatment. A proportion of our patients,--perhaps I should say a large
proportion,--if well nursed and cared for and encouraged, would recover
if let alone so far as regards medicine. And it is in proof of this
view, that nearly as many recover under one mode of practice, provided
that practice is guided by a large share of plain, unsophisticated
sense, as another. And does not this fully account for a most remarkable
fact?
Hence it is, too,--and perhaps hence alone,--that we can account for the
strange development in Boston, not many years since, during a public
medical discussion; viz., that he who had given his tens of pounds of
calomel to his patients, and taken from their arms his hogsheads of
blood, had been on the whole about as successful a practitioner as he
who had revolted from the very thought of both, and had adopted some of
the various forms of the stimulating rather than the depleting system.
"Is there, then, no choice between medication and no-medication? For if
so, what necessity is there of the medical profession? Why not
annihilate it at once?"
My reply is,--and it would have been about the same when these
discoveries began to be made,--that there is no occasion to give up the
whole thing because it has been so sadly abused. Every mode of medical
practice, not to say every medical practitioner from the very beginning,
has been, of necessity, more or less empirical. The whole subject has
been involved in so much ignorance and uncertainty, that even our wisest
practitioners have been liable to err. They have been led, unawares, to
prescribe quite too much for names rather than for symptoms; and their
patients were often glad to have it so. And were the whole matter to
come to an end this day, it might well be questioned whether the
profession, as a whole, has been productive of more good than evil to
mankind. But then, every thing must have its infancy before it can come
to manhood. And it is a consolation to believe that the duration of that
manhood always bears some degree of proportion to the time required in
advancing from infancy to maturity.
Medicine, then, as a science, is valuable in prospect. And then, too, it
is worth something to have a set of men among us on whom we may fasten
our faith; for, credulous as everybody is and will be in this matter of
health and disease, till they can duly be taught the laws of hygiene,
they will lean upon somebody; it is certainly desirable that they should
rely on those whom they know, rather than upon strangers, charlatans,
and conjurors, of whom they know almost nothing.
But I shall have frequent occasion to revert to this subject in other
chapters, and must therefore dismiss it for the present, in order to
make room for other facts, anecdotes, and reflections.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Of the hydropathist at that time I had not heard.
CHAPTER XVII.
STRUCK WITH DEATH.
Throughout the region where I was brought up, and perhaps throughout the
civilized world, the notion has long prevailed that in some of the last
moments of a person's life, he is or may be "struck with death;" by
which, I suppose the more intelligent simply mean that such a change
comes over him as renders his speedy departure to the spirit-world
inevitable.
Now that we are really justified in saying of many persons who are in
their last moments, that they are beyond the reach of hope, is doubtless
true. When decomposition, for instance, has actually commenced, and the
vital organs have already begun to falter, it would be idle to conceal
the fact, were we able to do so, that life is about to be extinguished
beyond the possibility of doubt.
In general, however, it is never quite impossible for the sick to
recover even after recovery _seems_ to be impossible. So many instances
of this kind have been known, that we ought at least, to be exceedingly
cautious about pronouncing with certainty, and to encourage rather than
repel the application of the old saying, "as long as there is life,
there is hope."[C]
I had a lesson on this subject while a medical student, which was
exceedingly instructive, and which, if I were to live a thousand years,
I could never forget. It was worth more to me in practical life
afterward, than all my books and recitations would have been without it.
The facts were these:--
My teacher of medicine used occasionally to take his students with him
when he rode abroad on his professional visits. One day, it fell to my
lot to bear him company. His patient was an aged farmer, a teamster
rather, who had been for some time ill of a fever, and had not been
expected to recover. Yet his case was not so desperate but that the
physician was expected to continue his daily visits.
On our arrival at the house of the sick man, we were met by a member of
the family, who said, "Come in, doctor, but you are too late to do us
any good. Mr. H. is struck with death; all the world could not save him
now."
We entered the room. There lay the patient almost gone, surely. So at
least, at the first view, it appeared. It was a hot summer day, and
hardly a breath of air was stirring. The friends were gathered around
the bed, and there was less freedom of circulation in the air of the
sick-room than elsewhere. It was almost enough to kill a healthy man to
be shut up in such a stagnant atmosphere; what, then, must have been the
effect on one so sick and feeble?
The doctor beckoned them away from the bed, and requested them to open
another window. They did it rather reluctantly; but then, _they did it_.
The sufferer lay panting, as if the struggle was almost over. "Don't you
think he is struck with death, doctor?" whispered one and another and
another. Almost out of patience, the doctor at length replied: "Struck
with death? What do you mean? No; he is no more struck with death than I
am. He is struck much more with the heat and bad air. Raise another
window."
The window was raised. "Now," said he, "set that door wide open." It was
quickly done. "Now bring me a bowl of water, and a teaspoon." The bowl
of water was quickly brought. "Put a little water into his mouth with
the teaspoon," said he. "O doctor," they replied, "it will only distress
him; he is already struck with death."--"Try it then, and see."
Tremblingly they now moistened his parched lips. "Put a little of it in
his mouth, with the teaspoon," he said. They shuddered; the doctor
persisted. "Why," said the attendant, "he has not been able to swallow
any thing these two hours." "How do you know?" said he. "Why, he has
been all the while struck with death."--"Nonsense! have you tried it?"
"Tried it? oh, no; by no means."--"Why not?"--"Because we knew it would
only distress him. He is too far gone to swallow, doctor; you may rely
on it."
The physician's patience was now well nigh exhausted, as well it might
have been, and seizing the bowl and teaspoon with his own sacrilegious
hands, "I will see," said he, "whether he is struck with death or not."
He not only wetted his lips and tongue, as they had partially done
before, but gradually insinuated a few drops of Nature's best and only
drink, into the top of his throat. At last he swallowed! The doctor's
hopes revived; while the family stood as if themselves struck, not with
death, but with horror. At length, he swallowed again and again. In half
an hour, he opened his eyes; before we left him, he had become quite
sensible, and, had we encouraged it, might have spoken.
To make my story as short as possible, the next day he could swallow a
little gruel. The third day, he could be raised upon the bed. The
fourth, though still weak, he was dressed and sat up an hour. In a
fortnight, he was once more driving his team; and for ought I know to
the contrary, unless debarred by reason of age, he may be driving it at
this very moment!
Going home together from our visit, already so fully described, the
conversation turned on the silly notion which so extensively prevails
about being struck with death. We talked of its origin, its influence,
and its consequences. It had done no good in the world, while it had
been the means, we could not doubt, of indirectly destroying thousands
of valuable lives.
OF ITS ORIGIN.--How came the notion abroad that a person can be struck
with death, so affected that there is no possible return for him, to
life and health? Struck! By whom? Is there a personage, spiritual but
real, that strikes? Is it the Divine Being? Surely not. Is it an arch
enemy? is it Satan himself?
"No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot."
The doctor and I had, however, one conjecture concerning it, which, if
it should not instruct the reader, may at least, afford him a little
amusement. It certainly amused us.
You have seen the old-fashioned New England Primer. It has been in
vogue, I believe, a full century; perhaps nearer two centuries. It has
done not a little to give shape to New England character. In its
preliminary pages is a sort of alphabet of couplets, with cuts prefixed
or annexed. One of the couplets reads thus:--
"Youth forward slips,
Death soonest nips."
While at its left, is the representation of a skeleton, armed with a
dagger, and pursuing a youth--a child rather--with the apparent
intention of striking him through. Now I cannot say how this picture may
have affected others, but to my medical teacher and myself, as we
mutually agreed, it always brings up the idea of striking down a youth
or child prematurely, and sending him away to the great congregation of
the dead.
Nor am I quite sure that this representation, innocent as may have been
its intention, has not been the origin of a relentless and cruel
superstition. I know certainly, that my own early notions about being
struck with death, had, somehow or other, a connection with this
picture; and why may it not be so with others?
But the _influence_ and _consequences_ of this superstition must be
adverted to for a moment. I said they affect and have affected
thousands; perhaps I ought to have said millions. Under the confused and
preposterously silly idea that Death, the personification of Satan or
some other demon, has laid hold of the sick or distressed, and that it
would be a sort of useless, not to say sacrilegious, work to oppose, or
attempt to oppose, the grim messenger, we sometimes leave our sick
friends in the greatest extremity, to suffer and perhaps die, when the
gentle touch of a kind hand, a mere drop of water, or a breath of fresh
air, might often bring them back again to life and health and happiness
and usefulness.
If this chapter should not be deemed a confession of medical impotence,
it is at least a practical confession of medical selfishness or
ignorance. If duly enlightened themselves, medical men ought long ago,
to have rid society of this abominable superstition; and if not
sufficiently enlightened to perceive its existence and evil tendency,
they ought to have abandoned their profession.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] Dr. Livingstone, in his work of Travels and Researches in Africa,
tells us that during his residence among the Backwains, a tribe in the
African interior, two persons who had been hastily buried, perhaps
"struck with death" in the first place, returned home "to their
affrighted relatives." p. 143.
CHAPTER XVIII.
EFFICACY OF COLD SPRING WATER.
An aged man not far from where I was studying, had an attack of
dysentery which was long and severe. Whether the fault of its long
continuance lay in his own bad habits, or the injudicious use of
medicine, or in both, we can inquire to better advantage by and by. I
was not, however, very much acquainted with his physician, so as to be
able in the premises to form a very correct opinion concerning him.
The greatest puzzle with me, at that time, was why he should live so
long after the disease appeared to have spent itself, without making any
advances. The physician used to call on him day after day, and order
tonic medicine of various kinds, all of which was given with great care
and exactness. Every thing in fact, seemed to be put in requisition,
except what were most needful of all, pure air and water. The former of
these was, as is usual in such cases, neglected; the latter was
absolutely interdicted.
For this last, as not unfrequently happens at this stage of acute
diseases, the poor man sighed from day to day as though his heart would
break. But, no; he must not have it. The effect on his bowels, he was
told, would be unfavorable. And such at that day was the general
_theory_. It was not considered that a very small quantity at first, a
few drops merely, would be a great relief, and might be borne, till by
degrees a larger quantity would be admissible.
After repeated efforts, and much begging and crying for a little water
to cool his parched tongue, the old gentleman, one night dreamed that he
drank from a certain cold spring, which really flowed at a remote corner
of his farm and was a great favorite both with him and his whole family,
and that it almost immediately restored him. Delighted with his dream,
he no sooner fairly awaked than he called up his eldest son and sent him
with a bottle, to the spring. He did not now _plead_, he _commanded_.
The son returned in due time, with a bottle of water. He returned, it is
true, with great fear and trembling, but he could do no less than obey.
The demands and commands were peremptory, and the father was almost
impatient.
"Now, my son," said the father, "bring me a tumbler." It was brought,
and the father took it. "Now," said he, "pour some of that water into
it." Samuel could do no other way than submit to the lawfully
constituted authority, though it was not without the most painful
apprehensions with regard to the consequences, and he kindly warned his
father of the danger. Nor were his sufferings at all diminished when the
father, in a decided tone of voice, ordered him to fill the tumbler
about half full.
Whether he had at first intended to drink so large a draught and
afterwards repented, is not known; but instead of swallowing it all at a
draught, the son's distress was greatly mitigated when he saw that he
only just tasted it, and then set down the tumbler. In a few minutes he
drank a little more, and then after a short time a little more still. He
was about half an hour drinking a gill of water. When that was gone, he
ordered more; and persisted in this moderate way till morning. By ten
o'clock, when his physician arrived, he had drunk nearly a quart of it,
and was evidently better. There was a soft, breathy perspiration, as
well as more strength.
The physician no sooner saw him than he pronounced him better. "What
have you been doing?" he said, rather jocosely. The sick man told him
the simple story of his rebellion from beginning to end. The doctor at
first shook his head, but when he came to reflect on the apparent good
consequences which had followed, he only said: "Well, I suppose we must
remember the old adage, 'Speak well of a bridge that carries you safe
over,'" and then joined in the general cheerfulness.
The patient continued to drink his spring water from day to day, and
with increasing good effects. It acted almost like a charm; it was not
only food and drink to him, but also medicine. Doubtless his great faith
in it was not without its efficacy; still it was not to be denied that
the water did him great and positive good.
He soon found his newly discovered medicine not only more agreeable to
his taste, but cheaper also than Huxham's tincture and quassia. He also
found that his son's daily visits to the spring cost him less than Dr.
Physic's daily rides of three or four miles. So that though he was
greatly delighted to see the smiling face, and hear the stories and
jolly laugh of the latter, he was glad when he proposed to call less
frequently than he had done and to lay aside all medicine.
He recovered in a reasonable time, and lived to a very advanced age. A
friend of his and mine, found him in his eighty-sixth year, mowing
thistles barefooted. Two or three years still later, I found him--it was
during the cold month of January, 1852--in the woods with his hired man
far from his house, assisting in cutting and loading wood; in which
employment he seemed to act with much of the energy and not a little of
the activity of his earlier years.
I do not of course undertake to say that he owed his recovery from his
long sickness, above described solely to drinking cold water, there are
so many other circumstances to be taken into the account, in settling
all questions like this, that such an assertion would be hazardous, not
to say foolish. His fever at the time of making his experiment, had
already passed away; and having great tenacity of life, it was but
reasonable to expect nature would ere long, rally, if she _could_ rally
at all. It is also worthy of remark, that though his physician was one
of those men who place their chief reliance on the medicine they give,
rather than on the recuperative powers of the system, yet to his credit
be it said, he had in this instance departed from his usual routine, and
given comparatively little.
Perhaps we may explain the phenomenon of his recovery, as follows:
nature long oppressed, yet by rest partially restored to her wonted
energy, was now ready to rally as soon as she could get the opportunity;
this the moderate draughts of water by their effects on the circulation
enabled her to do; then, too, one consideration which I forgot to
mention in its place, deserves to be noticed. When the sick man began
the use of water, he laid aside (without the knowledge of his physician)
most of what pills and powders and tinctures were prescribed him. And
finally he had great faith in the water, as you have already seen;
whereas he had lost all faith in drugging and dosing. And the efficacy
of faith is almost sufficient in such cases, to work a cure, were this
our only reliance. Of this we shall have an illustration in Chapter
LXXVI.
But though the water, as I now fully believe--and as I more than half
believed when I heard of the facts at the time,--was fairly indicated,
there is great hazard, in such circumstances in its use. Had this
gentleman taken a large draught at first, or had he swallowed more
moderate draughts with great eagerness, and a quick succession, it might
have produced an ill effect; it might, even, have provoked a relapse of
his dysentery and fever. Many a sick patient in the same circumstances,
would have poured the cooling liquid into an enfeebled throat and
stomach without the least restraint. And why did not he?
I will give you one reason. He was early taught to govern himself. He
told me, when eighty-eight years of age, he had made it a rule, all his
life long, never to eat enough, but always to leave off his meals with a
good appetite. He did not indeed, follow out with exactness the rule of
the late Amos Lawrence: "Begin hungry and leave off hungrier," but he
came very near it. He managed so as always to have a good appetite, and
never in the progress of more than fourscore years, whether by night or
day, to lose it. Such a man, if his mind is not too much reduced by long
disease, can be safely trusted with cold spring water, even during the
more painful and trying circumstances of convalescence from acute
disease.
Another thing deserves to be mentioned in this connection. He had not
kept his bowels and nervous system, all his life long, under the
influence of rum, tobacco, opium, coffee, tea, or highly seasoned food.
He did not it is true, wholly deny himself any one of these, except
opium and tobacco; but he only used them occasionally, and even then in
great moderation. Nor was it from mere indigence, or culpable stinginess
that he ate and drank, for the most part in a healthful manner. It
seemed to be from a conviction of the necessity of being "temperate in
all things;" and that such a course as he pursued tended to hardihood.
As one evidence of a conviction of this kind, I have known his children
and their school teacher to carry to the schoolroom for their dinner, a
quantity of cold Indian cake--ycleped Johnny cake--and nothing else; nor
was there an attempt at the slightest apology. Such a man would not be
very likely to have an ulcerated alimentary canal, or bad blood; or to
be injured by swallowing every five minutes a table-spoonful of cold
water; no, nor to sink as quickly as other people under the depressing
tendency of irritating or poisonous medicine.
This last-mentioned fact concerning the use of water,--for it is a fact
on which we can rely, and not one of those statements which Dr. Cullen
was accustomed to call "false facts,"--was to me exceedingly
instructive. It taught me more concerning the human constitution and the
laws of health and disease than I had ever before learned from a single
case of mere disease, in my whole life; and I endeavored to make a wise
use of it--of which as I trust, I shall give some evidence in the very
next chapter.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHEATING THE PHYSICIAN.
It was by no means an uncommon thing with me, while studying medicine,
to take long walks. One day, in the progress of one of these rambles, I
came so near the family mansion of a young man with whom I had formerly
been acquainted, that I thought I would, for once, go a little out of my
way and make a call on him. And judge, reader, if you can, of my
surprise, when I found him exceedingly sick. For residing, as we did,
only a few miles apart, why had I not heard of it? Most people, in
truth, would have called on some of the young doctors--for there were
three or four of us together,--to take care of the sick man, especially
by night. Young doctors, I grant--and this for various reasons which
might be named, were it needful--are usually the very worst of watchers
and nurses of the sick; but the public often appear to think otherwise,
and even to prefer them.
I found him under the care of an old school physician;--one who, though
he otherwise prescribed very well, gave quite too much medicine; and
like the old physician mentioned in the preceding chapter, mortally
detested cold water; at least he detested its use in bowel complaints.
The young man's case, however, was as yet wholly unlike that of the
elderly gentleman of the foregoing chapter; and cold water at first, was
not particularly needed; nor perhaps quite safe.
Some few days afterward, I called again. Found my young friend rather
less feverish, but no better; in fact, he was much worse, and was most
obviously running down. I continued after this to call on him daily,
till he too, like the old man before mentioned, began to beg for cold
water. But his physician said, "No, not a drop," and with a good deal of
emphasis.
One day, while I was at his bedside, he turned to me, and with a most
imploring look begged to know whether I believed a very little cold
water would really hurt him. I told him no; but that a good deal
doubtless would, and might even prove the means of his destruction.
"Simple a thing as water is," I said, "it is to you, in circumstances
like yours, a sword with two edges. If it should not cut away the
disease, it would probably cut in the other direction, to the
destruction of your health, if not of your life."
My remarks had both awakened his curiosity and increased his desires for
the interdicted beverage. I found I had gone too far, and I frankly told
him so. I told him it was not in accordance with medical etiquette, nor
even with the rules of good breeding, for one medical man to prescribe
for another's patient without his knowledge. But this explanation did
not satisfy him. Water was what he wanted; and as I had opened the
budget and removed some of his fears, water he must have. He was
willing, he said, to bear the responsibility.
Water, then, in exceedingly small quantity at a time, was permitted; but
it was to be given by stealth. The physician was not allowed to know it,
or, at all events, he was not to know under whose encouragement he
acted. His friends were very careful in regard to the quantity, and I
had the happiness of finding him, in a few days, very much better. But,
as I said in reflecting on the recovery of my aged friend before
mentioned, it is not quite certain, after all, how much was effected by
the water, and how much by the recuperative efforts of Nature herself.
She might have been long waiting for that opportunity to rally, which
the judicious introduction of the water, and the partial or entire
discontinuance of other medicine, greatly facilitated.
CHAPTER XX.
THE MEDICINAL EFFECTS OF STORY TELLING.
My aged father sickened about this time, and remained in a low condition
many months. I was at a distance so great, and in circumstances so
peculiar, that I could not see him often enough to become his medical
adviser. Besides, in my then unfledged condition as a disciple of Galen,
I should not have regarded myself competent to the discharge of so
weighty a responsibility, had I even been at home with him. The result
was that he employed his family physician as usual, and went through, as
might have been expected, with the whole paraphernalia of a dosing and
drugging campaign.
Among other troubles, or rather to cap the climax of his troubles, he
was exceedingly low-spirited. Confined as he had been to the house
almost all winter, and seeing nobody to converse with,--no new faces, I
mean,--was it very strange that his mind turned, involuntarily, to his
complaints, and preyed upon itself, and that he was evidently
approaching the deep vortex of hypochondria? Medicine did him no good,
and could do him none. It is true he had, after three months, almost
left off its use; but the little to which he still clung was most
evidently a source of irritation.
My own occasional visits, as I soon found out, did him more good than
any thing else. This gave me a needful hint. Near him was an old
Revolutionary soldier, full of mirthfulness, and a capital story teller.
Unknown to my father, and even to the family, I employed this old
soldier to visit my father a certain number of evenings in each week,
and tell stories to him.
Sergeant K. complied faithfully with the terms of the contract, and was
at my father's house three evenings of each week for a long time. This
gave the old gentleman something else to think of besides himself, and
it was easy to see, did him much good. During the progress of the fourth
month his improvement became quite perceptible; and in another month he
was nearly recovered.
But, as I have repeatedly said of cold water, and indeed of all other
remedial efforts or applications, whether external or internal, and
whether moral, mental, or physical, too much credit should not be given,
at least hastily, to a single thing. The opening spring was in my
father's favor, as well as the story telling. The bow, so long retained
in an unnatural position, on having an opportunity, sprung back and
resumed its wonted condition. Still, I could never help awarding much
credit to the Revolutionary soldier.
Most persons must have observed the effects which cheerfulness in a
medical man has on his patients. The good-natured, jolly doctor, who
tells a story now and then, and cracks a joke and has occasionally a
hearty laugh _with you_, or _at_ you, about something or nothing, will
do you much more good, other things being equal, than the grave, staid,
sombre practitioner, who thinks it almost a sin to smile, especially at
the sick-bed or in the sick-room.
I think story telling, as an art, should be cultivated, were it only for
its good effects in sickness. But this is not all. Its prophylactic or
preventive tendencies are much more valuable. Few people know how to
tell a story of any kind; while others, in some few remarkable
instances, such as I could name, will make a story of almost any thing,
and bring it to bear upon the precise point or end they wish to
accomplish. It is yet, in reality, a mooted point, which could make the
deepest, or at least most abiding, impression, Daniel Webster by a
Congressional oration, or Jacob Abbott by a simple story. If this is an
indirect or incautious confession of medical imperfection or impotence,
let me say as Patrick Henry once did, in Revolutionary days, "then make
the most of it."
While on this topic of story telling, I must not forget to allude to its
moral effects. Lorenzo Dow, the eccentric preacher, is not the only
pulpit occupant who has acquired the art of "clinching the nail," in
his discourses by a well told story. It was quite a habit, in former
times, with certain preachers of certain denominations of Christians,
whose sermons were chiefly unwritten, to tell stories occasionally. And
I appeal to Father Waldo, late chaplain in the United States Senate, to
see whether the effects of these discourses were not as deep and as
lasting, to say the least, as many of our modern sermons, which, while
they smell much more of the lamp, fall almost lifeless upon the sleepy
ears of thousands of those whom Whitfield by his more practical course
would have converted.
CHAPTER XXI
OSSIFIED VEINS.
While I was studying medicine with my new or second master, I had
several excellent opportunities for studying health and disease through
the medium of the doctor's patients.
One of them was a swaggering man of wealth, about sixty-three years of
age. He had long lived very highly, had eaten a good deal of roast beef,
and drunk a good deal of wine, and had almost swum in cider. He was in
short, one of that class of men who "go off" in very many instances, at
the grand climacterical period, some of them very suddenly.
"Doctor," said the general, exhibiting himself in full size and the
boldest relief, "I want to be bled."--"What do you want bleeding for?"
said the doctor. "Oh," said he, "bleed me, and you will see. You will
find my blood in a very bad state."--"Your blood, general, was always in
a very bad state," said the shrewd son of Galen, with a sardonic grin.
"None of your fun, doctor," was the prompt reply; "I must be bled. I
have headache and giddiness half the time, and must have some blood
taken."--"Very well," said Dr. S. "It shall be as you desire. Here, my
son, bring me a bowl."
An older student assisted, while I, glad of the privilege, kept aloof,
and at a distance. The general's brawny arm was mauled a long time; and
even then not much blood was obtained. At last the attempt was given up,
and the man returned home, though not, as might have been expected, very
well satisfied.
When he was gone, I inquired of Dr. S., as modestly as I could, what
serious difficulties he had to encounter in his attack on Gen. Upham's
arm. "Why was it," said I, "that you could get no more blood?" "For the
plainest reason in the world," he answered; "his veins were all
ossified."
I was quite satisfied at the time, with this answer; for I knew so well
the habits of Gen. U. that I stood ready to believe almost any thing in
regard to him, especially when it came from a highly respectable source.
Yet I have often suspected since that time, that there was a serious
mistake made. Ossified or bony arteries, even at this great distance
from the heart, in such a man, ought not to excite surprise; but these
would hardly be met with in attempting to open a vein, since the
arteries are much more deeply imbedded in the flesh than the veins are.
And as for ossified veins themselves, especially in the arm, they are
seldom if ever heard of.
You may wonder why I did not satisfy my curiosity at the time, by making
diligent inquiry at the proper source of information; and I almost
wonder too. But, in the first place, my curiosity did not rise so high
on any occasion whatever, as it has since done. For, though I was
hungering and thirsting for knowledge thirty years ago, my solicitude to
know has so increased with increasing years that my present curiosity
will admit of no comparison with the former. Secondly, I was exceedingly
diffident. Thirdly, my mind was just then fully occupied with other
things. And lastly, whenever I was in the company of Dr. S., both while
I remained in the office and subsequently, it was only for a very short
time, perhaps a single half hour, at best; and we had always so many
other things to talk about, that Gen. U. and his _ossified veins_ never
entered our minds.
However, it was not many years afterward that I heard of the old
general's death. Of the manner of his exit except that it was sudden, I
never heard a word, up to this hour. It is by no means improbable that
there was ossification about his heart, for he was a very fit subject
for ossification of any parts that could be ossified. I do not know,
indeed, that a post mortem examination was ever made; the family would
doubtless have opposed it. The uses of the dead to the living are in
general very little thought of.
Such cases of disease are, however, a terrible warning to those who are
following in the path of Gen. Upham. They may or may not come to just
such an end as he did, but of one thing we may be well assured; viz.,
that the wicked do not live out half their days, or, in other words,
that sins against the body, even though committed in ignorance, can
never wholly escape the heaven-appointed penalty of transgression. "The
soul that sins must die." For no physical infraction of God's holy,
physical laws, do we know of any atonement. We may indeed, be thankful
if we find one in the moral world or anywhere else.
CHAPTER XXII.
HE'LL DIE IN THIRTY SIX HOURS.
In the autumn of 1824, while a severe sickness was sweeping over one or
two towns adjacent to that in which I resided, and considerable
apprehension was felt lest the disease should reach us, the wife and
child of my medical teacher, and myself, suddenly sickened in a manner
not greatly dissimilar, and all of us suffered most severely.
It was perfectly natural, in those circumstances, to suspect, as a cause
of our sickness, the prevailing epidemic. And yet the symptoms were so
unlike those of that disease, that all suspicions of this sort were soon
abandoned. Besides, no other persons but ourselves, for many miles
around, had any thing of the kind, either about that time or immediately
afterward. I have said that the symptoms of disease in all three of us
were not dissimilar. There was much congestion of the lungs and some
hemorrhage from their organs, and occasionally slight cough, and in the
end considerable tendency to inflammation of the brain. The last
symptom, however, may have been induced at least, in part, by the large
amount of active medicine we took.
When the news of my own sickness reached my near relatives who resided
only a few miles distant, they were anxious to pay such attention to me
as the nature of the case appeared to require. But they soon tired; and
it was found needful to employ an aged and experienced nurse to take the
general charge, and under the direction of the physician, assume the
entire responsibility of the case.
This nurse was one of those conceited people whose aid, after all, is
worth very little. He was as far from affording the kind of assistance
I required as could possibly be. And yet his intentions were in the main
excellent.
The selection of physician was equally unfortunate. My teacher had
nearly as much as he could do to take care of his wife and child. At his
request, and in accordance with the wishes of my friends, their and my
former physician were called in. When the danger became more imminent, a
third was occasionally consulted. It was supposed, no doubt, that in the
midst of counsellors there was safety.
The counsels of our third man, or umpire, may have had influence; but
his manners were coarse, and in many respects objectionable. He was in
favor, also, of a highly stimulating treatment, which appeared to me to
add fuel to the flame, for I soon began to be at a loss when called upon
to recollect things and circumstances. He saw the tendency, and, partly
by way of "showing off" his powers of diagnosis, as well as in part to
gain applause should a case so desperate turn out favorably, said, in
the hearing of my nurse, "He'll die in just thirty-six hours."
Now, whatever his intentions were, and however honest his declaration,
my nurse swallowed it at once, and was restless till he had an
opportunity to divulge what he regarded as an important secret. It is by
no means improbable that he entertained the usual impressions that a
special preparation should be made for death, and that it was needful I
should know my danger and attend to the subject before it was too late.
In one of my most lucid intervals, therefore, he said to me, "Do you
expect to recover from your disease?"--"Most certainly I do," was the
reply. "Do you know what Dr. Thornton thinks about it?"--"Not certainly;
but from his cheerful manner, I suppose he thinks favorably."--"Do you
think you could bear to know the truth? For if it was unfavorable, would
it not be too much for you in your enfeebled condition?"
My heart was in my mouth, as the saying is, at this broad hint; and with
a strong and earnest curiosity, I begged to know the worst, and to know
it immediately. My attendant saw, in my agitation, his error, and would
doubtless have receded had it been in his power; but it was too late;
the die was cast; my curiosity was all on tiptoe, and I trembled, as a
sailor would say, from stem to stern. "Well," said he, at length,
putting on a face which of itself was enough to destroy some very feeble
persons, "he says you cannot live more than thirty-six hours."
My friend, in divulging what he deemed an important secret, doubtless
felt relieved; but not so with me. My philosophy had disappeared with
the progress of my disease, and I was now, in mind, a mere child. In
short, I was so much agitated by the unexpected intelligence, that I
sank at once under it, and remained in this condition for several hours.
When I awoke from this delirium, the symptoms of my disease were more
favorable, and from that day forth I began to recover.
But the risk was too great for my enfeebled and diseased frame, and
should not have been incurred. Dr. Thornton, though a physician of much
reputation, was nevertheless a man of very little principle, and though
respected for his medical tact and skill, was beloved by very few. He
died, moreover, not many years afterward, as the fool dieth; viz., by
suicidal hands. Nor do I know that as a man--a mere citizen--he had many
mourners.
The reader will pardon me, perhaps, for saying so many times, and with
so much emphasis, that "it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good."
But I must be allowed to repeat the saying here, and to observe that
while I entirely disapprove of the course my attendant took in the
present instance, I am by no means sure that the delirium into which I
was thrown by his tattling propensity was not safer for me than a
restless apprehension of danger would have been, especially when long
continued; nor that it did not contribute, indirectly, to bring about my
recovery.
I was confined to the house by my sickness about five or six weeks, or
till it was midwinter. And yet, all covered as the earth was when I
first ventured forth, no Paradise could ever appear more beautiful to
any son or daughter of Adam than did this terrestrial abode to me. And
if ever I shed tears of devout gratitude to my Father in Heaven, it was
on this very occasion.
It was a long time, however, after I got out of doors, before I was
strong enough, in body or mind, to attempt to perform much labor. At the
time of being taken sick, I was teaching a public school; and as soon as
I began to be convalescent my patrons began to be clamorous about the
school. They were hardly willing to wait till my physicians and myself
deemed it safe to make a beginning. Indeed, notwithstanding all my
caution, I was hurried into the pedagogic chair quite too soon.
But it is time for me to inform my readers what were the probable causes
of my sickness; for I have already said, more than once, that to be able
to do this is a matter of very great importance, both as it concerns
ourselves and others; and it is a thing which can be done, at least to a
considerable extent, whenever parents and teachers shall be wise enough
to put their children and pupils upon the right track. I am well
acquainted with a minister of the gospel, now nearly sixty years of age,
who says he never had any thing ail him in his whole lifetime of which
he could not trace out the cause.
For some months before my sickness I had been curtailing my hours of
sleep. I had resolved to retire at eleven and rise at four. But it had
often happened that instead of retiring at exactly eleven and rising
exactly at four, I had not gone to bed till nearly twelve, and had risen
as early as half-past three. So that instead of sleeping five full
hours, as had been my original intention, I had often slept but about
four.
How far this abridgment of my sleep had fallen in with other causes of
debility, and thus prepared the way for severe, active disease, I cannot
say. I was at this time tasking my energies very severely, for I was not
only pursuing my professional studies with a good deal of earnestness,
but at the same time, as has been already intimated, teaching a large
and somewhat unmanageable district school. If ever a good supply of
sleep is needful, whatever the quantum required may really be, I am sure
it is in such circumstances.
But then it should be remembered, in abatement of all this, that the
symptoms of disease, in all the three cases which I have alluded to, as
occurring in the family with which I was connected, were very much
alike; whereas neither the mother nor the child had suffered, prior to
the sickness, for want of sleep. Must we not, therefore, look for some
other cause? Or if it is to be admitted that sleeplessness is
exceedingly debilitating in its tendencies, must there not have been in
addition some exciting cause still more striking? We will see.
During the latter part of the autumn which preceded our sickness, the
water of the well from which we were drinking daily had a very
unpleasant odor, and a fellow student and myself often spoke of it. As
it appeared to give offence, however, we gradually left off our remarks
and complaints about the water, and only abstained, as much as we could
conveniently, from its use.
In the progress of the autumn, the well became nearly dry, and the
offensive odor having become troublesome to others no less than to
ourselves, it was very wisely concluded to draw out the water to the
bottom, and thus find and remove the impurities. The task was
exceedingly trying, but was at length accomplished.
Besides other impurities, there were found at the bottom of the well,
several toads in a state of putrefaction, and so very offensive that it
was difficult to approach them, or even to approach the top of the well
that contained them. They were of course removed as soon as possible,
and every practicable measure was adopted which was favorable to
cleanliness. This final clearing of the well was about two months before
the sickness commenced.
Now whether there was a connection between the use of this water and the
sickness which followed, is a curious, and at the same time, a very
important question. Against this belief, at least apparently so, is the
fact that our disease resembled in no trifling degree, the prevailing
disease in certain neighboring towns. Another fact is also worthy of
consideration. The rest of the family drank freely of the water, why did
not they sicken as well as we?
But as a deduction from the force of these facts, it is to be observed
that nobody else around us for several miles had the prevailing
epidemic unless it was ourselves. And then as to the objection that only
a part of the family sickened, it is to be recollected that in the case
of some of them who sickened there might have been, nay, probably were,
other debilitating causes in operation previously, to prepare the way;
such as, for example, in my own case, the want of sufficient sleep.
Thus far, then, though we arrive at nothing positive, we yet find our
suspicions of a poisonous influence emanating from the putrid reptiles
remaining. Indeed, it were impossible wholly to suppress them, and I
will ask the candid reader's attention for a few moments to certain
analogical evidence in the case, which, it is believed, will greatly aid
the mind in coming to a right decision on the subject.
An eruptive disease broke out in two families residing in a house in
Eastern Massachusetts, a few years ago, which was observed to affect
more or less, every member of the two families who had drunk water from
the common family well, except two; and these last had drank but very
little. On cleaning the well, the same species of reptiles which I have
already mentioned, were found in it, in a state of decomposition, and
highly offensive. No eruptive complaints of the same general kind
prevailed at the time in the neighborhood, and those which I have
mentioned disappeared soon after resuming the use of pure water.
Another instance occurred in this same region, a few years afterward. In
the latter case, however, the putrid animals were rats and mice, and the
eruption, instead of having a diffused or miliary appearance, partook
largely of the character of the common boil.
Forty years ago a sickness broke out in Litchfield county in
Connecticut, in a neighborhood where the wells were all very low; and
the water which remained being in a cavity of rock, and continuing
unchanged or nearly so, had at length become putrid. It was late in the
autumn when the disease broke out, and it disappeared as soon as the
wells were duly filled for the winter. It is true, I never heard in the
latter case, any thing about putrid animals, but their existence and
presence under such circumstances, would be natural enough.
It has, I know, been sometimes said that putrid animal substances,
however unpleasant their odor might be, were not poisonous. But this
opinion is doubtless unfounded; and, for myself, I find it difficult to
resist the belief that in all the foregoing cases, except the last, and
very possibly in that too, animal putridity had influence.
The practical lessons to be derived from the developments of the
foregoing chapter are exceedingly numerous. I shall direct your
attention for a few moments, to some of the more important.
First, we learn the necessity of keeping our wells in a proper
condition. Could it be even proved that dead reptiles never produce
disease, it is at least highly desirable to avoid them. No reasonable
person would be willing to drink water highly impregnated with their
odor, even if it did not reach his own seat of sensation.
Secondly, we should avoid the use of stagnant water, even though it
should be free from animal impurities. Especially should we be cautious
where there is a liability, or even a possibility, to impurity and
stagnation both. Either of these causes may, as it is most fully
believed, produce disease; but if so, what is not to be expected from a
combination of the two?
Our wells should be often cleaned. It is not possible, of course, to say
with exactness, how often, but we shall hardly err in the line of
excess. Very few wells are cleaned too often. Once a year, in ordinary
cases, cannot be too much; nor am I quite sure that twice would be
useless.
It seems to me quite possible to exclude animals from our wells, would
we but take the necessary pains; and this, too, without covering them
closely at the top. I can not see how any toad, unless it be the
tree-toad so called, could climb a well-curb three feet high. Other
animals, however, might do so, and therefore I would keep a well as
closely covered as possible.
Many, I know, believe it desirable that the surface of the water in a
well should be exposed to the air. I do not believe there is any
necessity for this, though it is certainly desirable to avoid stagnation
of the air at the bottom. Motion is essential, I might even say
indispensable. I have sometimes thought the modern endless or chain pump
as perfect a fixture as any other.
Thirdly, we may learn from the details of the foregoing chapter, the
necessity of having in our sick-chambers the right sort of nurses or
attendants. There should be a class of persons educated to this service,
as a profession; and most happily for the prospects of the great human
family, such efforts are now being made; it is hoped and believed they
will be crowned with success.
One thing more may, as I think, be inferred from the story of my
sickness as above:--the folly of multiplying physicians. In the present
case, when the physician's own family was in a condition to demand a
large share of his attention, if not to absorb all his energies, it may
have been desirable to call in an additional medical man as counsellor.
But the multiplication of counsel, besides adding to the danger of too
much dosing and drugging, brings with it a host of ills too numerous to
be mentioned in this place, and should be studiously avoided. My full
belief is, that Dr. Thornton was a principal agent in creating the
dangers he deprecated, and which came so near effecting my own
destruction.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ABOUT TO DIE OF CONSUMPTION.
I have already mentioned more than once,--or at least done so by
implication,--that I hold my existence, on this earth by a very feeble
tenure. Consumption, by right of inheritance, made very early claims;
and its demands, as I approached manhood, became more and more cogent,
in consequence of measles, dropsy, Lee's Pills, and the injudicious use
of medicine and many other errors. My employment, too, as school teacher
had been far enough from favorable to health. While thus engaged from
winter to winter, and sometimes from year to year; I was accustomed to
have cold upon cold, till at length especially towards the close of
winter and at the opening of the spring, I was often apparently on the
verge of a rapid decline. A ramble up and down the country, with a
summer or part of a summer on the farm or garden, did indeed for a time
partially set me up again, so that I could return to my favorite
employment of teaching in the autumn and during the winter; and thus
time with me went on.
A course of medical lectures which I heard in 1825-6, left me, in March,
1826, in about as bad a state of health as school keeping usually had
done. However I was too indigent, I might even say too destitute, to be
idle. Scarcely was my license to practise medicine and surgery fairly in
my pocket, than I found myself turning towards the district school
again. Yet I did not continue it many weeks before my old enemy returned
upon me with renewed strength; till I was at length compelled to abandon
the school entirely. I had as much as I could do, in attempting to keep
up a successful war with cough, night-sweats, purulent expectoration,
and hectic fever.
This was one of the darkest periods of my life. Destitute of money, and
even somewhat in debt, yet too proud or self-relying to be willing to
ask my friends to aid me; my hopes of usefulness defeated in two
favorite fields of activity, teaching and medicine; and practically
given up to linger out a year or two and then die, how could I avoid
discouragement? Was it strange even, if I approached at times, the very
borders of despair?
For some time prior to this crisis--indeed at certain seasons all my
life long,--I relied not a little on medicine, in various forms,
especially in the shape of tonics. Strange that I should have done thus,
when my general impressions were so unfavorable to its exhibition; and
yet such inconsistencies have been, and may be again. Huxham's tincture,
quassia, ale, and other bitter infusions and tinctures, had been
successively invoked, and I still clung to ale. I also used some wine,
and I attached a good deal of importance to a stimulating diet. But it
was all to no purpose, the disease was marching on steadily, and
appeared destined to triumph; and that, too, at no very distant period.
In these circumstances, I repeat, what could be done? Nature's extremity
is sometimes said to be God's opportunity. But without assuming that
there was any special providence about it, I will say, that I was driven
to desperation, nay almost to insanity or madness. I deemed myself on
the very verge of a mighty precipice, beneath which yawned a gulf
unfathomable. I must make a last mighty struggle, or perish
irretrievably and forever.
It was July 4th, the anniversary of American Independence; I sought and
found a few moments of calm reflection, and began to interrogate myself.
Why was I so dependent on the physician and the apothecary's shop, and
so tremblingly alive to every external impression of atmospheric
temperature, or purity? Why must I, at the early age of twenty-eight, be
doomed to tread the long road of decline and death? Why can I not
declare independence of all external remedial agents, and throw myself
wholly on nature and nature's God? I know, full well, the laws of my
being. If trust in these, and faithful and persevering obedience will
not save me, nothing will. Thus I mused; but alas! it was to muse only.
Though almost ready to take the critical step,--I will not say make the
desperate plunge,--the fourth of July finally passed away, and found me
still lingering, to use a Scripture expression, "between the porch and
the altar."
July the fifth at length arrived. And is it all over? I said to myself.
Has the "glorious" _Fourth_ gone by and I have not acted up to the
dignity of a well-formed and glorious resolution? Must I, alas! now go
on to woe irretrievable? Must I go down to the consumptive's grave? Must
I perish at less than thirty years of age, and thus make good the
declaration that the wicked shall not live out half his days?
A new thought came to me. "One of the South American provinces
celebrated her Independence to day, the fifth. I will take the hint,--I
will yet be free. I will escape from present circumstances. I will fly
from my native home, and all that pertains to it. I will fly from
myself,--It is done," I added, "and I go with the first conveyance."
I could indeed walk a little distance, but it either set me to coughing,
severely, or else threw me into a profuse perspiration which was equally
exhausting. One favorable symptom alone remained, a good appetite and
tolerable digestion. Had there been, in addition to the long train of
troublesome and dangerous symptoms above mentioned, a loss of digestive
power and energy, with colliquative diarrhoea, my hopes must have been
forever abandoned.
But I had made my resolution, and was prepared to execute it, let the
consequences be what they might. With little more than a single change
of clothing, I contrived to find a conveyance before night, quite beyond
my immediate neighborhood. Fatigued, at length I stopped, and without
much delay, committed myself to the friendship of Morpheus.
On the top of a considerable eminence, in the very midst of a mountain
range, one of the most delightful in all New England, only a few miles
from the place of my lodging, was a tower some sixty or seventy feet
high, which commanded a view of the surrounding country. I had often
wished to enjoy the prospect which this tower afforded. Was there, now
an opportunity? I had the leisure, had I the needful strength? Could I
possibly reach it? And by what means?
I rested for the remainder of the day and the night following, at the
foot of the eminence, in order to prepare myself for the excursion of
the following morning. It was as much as I could do, that night to take
care of my irritable and irritated lungs. At length, however, I slept,
and was refreshed. The only drawback upon my full renewal, was my usual
night--or rather as I ought to say morning--perspiration, which was
quite drenching and exhausting; though not much worse after all my fears
than usual.
God is good, I said to myself, when I saw from my chamber window the top
of the hills I wished to climb, and perceived that the first rays of the
morning sun were already falling upon them. By the middle of the
forenoon I was at the foot of the mountain, and prepared to ascend it.
After a little rest, I wound my way to the tower, and finally to its
top, when I took a survey of what seemed to me like a new world. Here I
renewed my declaration of independence with regard to those earthly
props on which I had so long been wont to lean, and of dependence on
God, and on his natural and moral enactments.
Here, too, I formed my programme for the day and for the week. Distant
from the point which I occupied not more than eight miles was a most
interesting educational institution I had long wished to see; and near
it was an old acquaintance, with, whom I might perhaps spend the
Sabbath, which was now approaching. Could I carry out my plan? Had I the
needful strength?
My resolution was at length made; and no sooner made than begun to be
executed. The public houses on the way were miserable things; but they
were better far than none.
They gave me a temporary home, such as it was. I reached the
institution, had a partial view of it, and, half worn out with my week's
labor, was glad to rest the seventh day, "according to the
commandment," in the house of an old acquaintance.
Monday morning came, and with the aid of the intervening Sabbath,
brought to my attenuated and almost sinking frame a new recruit of
strength. With a new object of interest some fifteen miles distant, I
was once more on the road. I could now walk several miles a day without
greatly increasing my cough, or ride in a stage coach many miles. Nor
was the nightly perspiration, nor even that which was induced by
exercise, any more distressing than it had been, if indeed it was as
much so.
In due time I reached my point of destination, and curiosity became
fully gratified. What next? A few miles distant was a high mountain
which I greatly desired to climb. I reached its base; but the heat was
great, so dog-days like, that my courage failed me. I had the necessary
strength, but dared not use it for such a purpose. Perhaps I acted
wisely.
Twelve miles in the distance still was my father's house, now grown from
a few patrimonial acres to full New England size; viz., a hundred acres
or more, and well cultivated. My wandering abroad had given me a little
strength and very much courage. Why should it not? Was it not truly
encouraging that while I was making a long excursion, chiefly on foot,
in the heats of midsummer, my cough and hectic and night sweats should
become no worse, while my muscular strength had very much increased?
My mind's eye turned towards my father's house as a place of refuge. In
a day or two I was in it; and in another day or two I was caparisoned as
a laborer, and in the field. It is true that I did not at first
accomplish a great deal; but I held the implements of husbandry in my
hands, and spent a certain number of hours every day in attempting to
work. Some of the workmen laughed about me, and spoke of the vast
benefits to be derived from having a ghost in the field with them; but I
held on in spite of their jokes. I had been accustomed of old to the
labor of a farm, which greatly facilitated my efforts. Habit is
powerful.
Not many weeks passed ere I was able to perform half a day's work or
more in a day. My consumptive tendencies, moreover, were far less
exhausting and trying. In a word, I was better. The Rubicon was already
passed. I did not, indeed, expect to get entirely well, for this would
have been a hope too big for me. But I should not die, I thought,
immediately. Drowning men, as you know, catch at straws; and this is a
wise arrangement, for otherwise they would not often be saved by planks.
One point, at least, I had gained. I was emancipated from slavery to
external forms, especially medicated forms. But I had not only declared
and found myself able to maintain independence of medicine, but I had
acquired much confidence in nature and nature's laws. And this faith in
the recuperative powers of nature was worth more to me than worlds would
have been without it.
Much was said, in those days, not only in books but by certain learned
professors, about shaking off pulmonary consumption on horseback.
Whether, indeed, this had often been done--for it is not easy, in the
case of a joint application of various restorative agencies, such as
air, light, full mental occupation etc., to give to each agency its just
due--I am not quite prepared to say. But as soon as I was able to ride
on horseback several miles a day, the question was agitated whether it
was or was not advisable.
In prosecuting this inquiry, another question came up. How would it do,
thought I, to commence at once the practice of medicine? But
difficulties almost innumerable--some of them apparently
insurmountable--lay in my way. Among the rest, I had no confidence in my
medical knowledge or tact; I was a better school-master. But teaching,
as I had every reason to fear, would bring me down again, and I could
not think of that: whereas the practice of medicine, on horseback, which
at that time and in that region was not wholly out of date, might, as I
thought, prove quite congenial.
Besides being "fearful and unbelieving" in the matter, I was still in
the depths of poverty. I had not even five dollars. In fact, during my
excursion already described, I had lived on a few ounces of solid food
and a little milk or ale each day, in order to eke out my almost
exhausted finances; though, by the way, I do not know but I owed my
partial final recovery in no small degree to this very starvation
system. However, to become a practising physician, money would be
indispensable, more or less. What could be done without it? My father
had credit, and could raise money for me; but _would_ he? He had never
wholly approved of my medical tendencies and course; and would it be
right to ask him to aid me in an undertaking which he could not
conscientiously approve?
Just at this time our own family physician wanted to sell, and offered
me his stand. His practice, he said, was worth a thousand dollars a
year. He had an old dilapidated house and a couple of acres of miserable
land, and a horse. These, he said, he would sell to me for so much. I
might ride with him as a kind of apprentice or journeyman for six
months, at the expiration of which time he would vacate the field
wholly.
The house, land, and horse were worth perhaps one-third the sum
demanded, but probably not more. However, the price with me, made very
little difference. One sum was much the same with another. For I was so
anxious to live, that I was willing to pay almost any price which might
be required by a reasonable man, and till that time, it had not entered
my heart that a good man would take any serious advantage of a fellow
being in circumstances so desperate. And then I was not only anxious to
live, but very confident I should live. So strong was my determination
to live on, and so confident was I in the belief that I should do so,
that I was willing to incur a debt, which at any other period of my life
would have discouraged me.
There was another thing that tended to revive me and restore my courage.
The more I thought of commencing business, and talked about living, the
more I found my strength increasing. That talking about dying had a
downward or down-hill tendency, I had long known; but that the tendency
of talking up-hill was exactly the reverse, I had not fully and clearly
understood.
My father tried to dissuade me from a hasty decision, but it was to no
purpose. To me, it seemed that the course I had proposed was my only
alternative. "I must do it," I said to myself, "or die;" and life to me,
as well as to others, was sweet. But although it was a course to which I
seemed shut up, and which I must pursue or die, it was a step which I
could not take unaided. I had not the pecuniary ability to purchase so
much as a horse, or, had I needed one, hardly a good dog.
It was at length proposed by my medical friend, the seller, to accept of
a long credit for the amount due for the place and appurtenances,
provided, however, I would get my father or some other good man to be my
endorser. But here was a difficulty almost or quite insurmountable. My
father had always said he would endorse for nobody. And as for asking
any one else to endorse for me, I dared not.
But I cannot dwell at this point. My father at length became my
endorser, and the bargain was signed and sealed. It was indeed, a
desperate effort, and I have a thousand times wondered how I could have
ventured. Why! only one or two years before, I was miserable for several
days because I was in debt to the extent of only two dollars for a
much-needed article, and actually procured the money with considerable
difficulty, and went and paid the debt to get rid of my anguish; whereas
now, without much pain and without being worth fifty dollars in the
world, I could be willing to contract a debt of from twelve to fifteen
hundred dollars, and involve my good old father in the consequences
besides. How entirely unaccountable!
But mankind love life, and fear death. The scheme proposed was, as I
believed, not only a dernier but a needful resort. It was a wrong step
no doubt, but I did not then think so. I believed the end "sanctified"
or at least sanctioned the means. How could I have done so? "What
ardently we wish, we soon believe." I had most ardently wished, I now
began to believe!
My consumptive tendencies now receded apace, even before I was astride
of my horse. The stimulus of the hope of life with a forgetfulness of
myself, were better tonics than Huxham or ale or rich food. There was
the expectation of living, and consequently the beginning of life. Mind
has great power over even inert matter; how much more over the living
animated machine!
CHAPTER XXIV.
MY JOURNEYMANSHIP IN MEDICINE.
Journeymen in medicine, though without the full responsibilities of the
profession, have yet their difficulties. I had mine; and I had not only
the ordinary complement of ordinary men, but some which were a little
extra.
For example, I was no horseman at all, and people around me knew it. At
the first attempt to mount a new horse, and ride out with the old
physician, of whom I had purchased my stand, to see his patients, I made
an exhibition of my horsemanship which I shall not soon forget, and
which I am sure certain wags and half-buffoons and common loungers who
witnessed the scene _never_ will.
My horse stood at the post all caparisoned, while I made ready. In
setting off, I knew well I must submit to the ordeal of being gazed at
and commented on by a crowd assembled in an adjoining store. It was a
rainy day, and the crowd would doubtless be much larger than usual. Now
my love of approbation was excessive; so great as at times to defeat
entirely its object. So in truth, it proved on the present occasion.
When I was ready to go forth on my journey, I mounted my horse and
attempted to place my right foot in the stirrup. At this critical
instant the gaping multitude in the grocery, presented themselves in
quite a formidable column at the door to see the young doctor on his new
horse. Their appearance threw my mind off its balance to an extent that
prevented me from well-balancing my body, and with every possible
exertion I could not get my feet firmly fixed in the stirrups. To add to
my trouble, my horse was in haste and trotted off high and hard before I
could muster presence of mind enough to check him. I rolled this way and
that, till at length, down I came headlong. My hat went one way, and my
whip another. A great shout was at once raised by the spectators, but
being cured by this time, of my excessive diffidence, and not at all
hurt, I could soon join in the laugh with the rest. I could most
heartily adopt my old maxim, "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any
good;" and I had learned by my fall at least, one thing, at least for
the moment; viz., my excessive regard to human approbation.
Thenceforward, I rode as I pleased.
But before I enter upon the details and particular confessions of my
professional career, it is needful that I should say something of those
changes which were made about this time in my physical habits, by means
of which I gained at least a temporary victory over my great enemy, the
consumption. For it must not be supposed that because I could sit on a
horse and ride six, eight, ten, or twelve miles a day, or work in the
field or garden half the day, I was out of danger. I had, indeed, gained
important victories, but there remained very much land yet to be
possessed.
Of my abandonment of all medicine, I have already told you. But I had
also greatly changed my dietetic habits. During my excursion of the
fifth of July, and subsequently, I had lived almost wholly on what might
have been denominated the starvation system. The case was this: I
started with less than five dollars in my pocket, and with too much
pride to borrow more. That my money might hold out, therefore, though I
took care to secure a good, clean bed by nights, even at the full market
price (except when I was entertained occasionally, by particular
friends), I almost went without food. Many a time was I satisfied,
because I was determined to have it so, with a tumbler of milk and a
couple of crackers for my breakfast, or even my dinner; and as for
supper, I often dispensed with it wholly; and all this too, strange
though it may seem, not only without the loss of strength, but with a
slow, yet steady, increase.
These dietetic changes, though they were a necessity, were continued and
extended from principle. I had known, for a long time, what the laws of
digestion, respiration, circulation, cleanliness, exercise, etc., were,
but had not fully obeyed them. But I now set myself obeying them up to
the full extent of my knowledge. I do not mean to affirm that my
obedience was perfect and entire--wanting in nothing; but only that I
made an attempt at sinless perfection. However, I speak here, of course,
of the physical code; for to moral obligation, at that time, I do not
mean, now, to refer.
My diet was exceedingly plain and comparatively unstimulating. It
consisted chiefly of bread, fruits, potatoes; and, once a day of salted
meats. These last should have been exchanged for those which were not
pickled, and which are of course less stimulating; but at that time I
was not fully aware of their tone and tendency. My drink was water and a
little tea; for cider I had long before abandoned.
I paid particular attention to purity of air, and to temperance.
Fortunately I resided in a house which from age and decrepitude, pretty
effectually ventilated itself. But temperature, as I well knew, must be
carefully attended to, particularly by consumptive people. While they
avoid permanent chilliness, and even at times, the inhalation of very
cold air on the one hand, it is quite indispensable that they should
breathe habitually as cool an air as possible, and yet not be
permanently chilly. This, by means of a proper dress, by night and by
day, and proper fixtures for heating my room, I contrived to secure.
Cleanliness, too, by dint of frequent bathing, received its full share
of my attention. It was a rule from which I seldom if ever departed, to
wet my body daily with cold water, and follow it up by friction. At home
or abroad, wherever I could get a bowl of water I would have a hand
bath.
Need I say here that a medical man--one who rode daily on
horseback--paid a proper regard to the laws of exercise? And yet I am
well persuaded that not a few medical men exercise far too little.
Riding on horseback, though it may sometimes shake off consumption, is
not so good an exercise for the mass of mankind--perhaps not even for
consumptive people themselves--as an alternation of walking with the
riding. This, also, I took good care to secure.
Physicians are usually either very greatly addicted to the habit of
dosing and drugging for every little ill, real or imaginary, or
particularly hostile to it. I have seldom found any such thing as a
golden mean in this respect, among them. My feelings, saying nothing at
present of the sober convictions of my head, led me almost to the
extreme of no medicine, if extreme it can be called. I did not even
retain my daily tumbler of ale.
Though I began my medical career as an apprentice or journeyman, merely,
and went abroad chiefly as the associate of my predecessor, I was soon
called upon in his absence, and in other circumstances, to take the
whole charge of patients; or at least to do so till a longer experience
was available. Thus I was gradually inducted into an important office,
without incurring a full and proportionate share of its
responsibilities.
CHAPTER XXV.
MY TEMPERANCE PLEDGE.
The subject of Temperance, in its present associated forms, had, at this
time, just began to be agitated. At least, it had just begun to receive
attention in the newspapers which I was accustomed to see. It could not
be otherwise than that I should be deeply interested in its discussion.
I had been brought up, as I have before intimated, to a pretty free use
of cider and tea; but not of ardent spirits or coffee. Neither of these
was regularly used in my father's family; though both occasionally were.
But I had abandoned cider long before this time, because I found it had
a tendency to produce, or at least to aggravate, those eruptive diseases
to which I was greatly liable. Temperance, then, in the popular sense of
the term, was, to me, an easy virtue.
And yet as a temperance man--in the circle of my acquaintance--I stood
nearly alone. No individual around me was ready to take the ground I
occupied. Of this, however, I was not fully apprised, till a patient
attempt to recruit the temperance ranks convinced me of the fact. But I
will give you a full account of my enterprise, since it has a bearing on
my subsequent history and confessions.
With the aid of a Boston paper which I habitually read, I drew up the
customary preamble, declaration, and pledge of a temperance society. It
involved the great idea of total abstinence from spirituous liquors;
though by the term spirituous liquors, as used at that day, was meant
chiefly _distilled_ spirits. Having first affixed my own name to the
paper I went to the most influential of my patrons and friends and asked
them to sign it likewise. But, reader,--will you believe it?--not a
single subscriber could I obtain far, or near. They all, with one
consent, made excuse.
The elder deacon of the most evangelical church in the place where I
resided, had for his apology that he suffered seriously from a complaint
for which his physicians had prescribed the daily use of gin, "Now,"
said he, "though there is nothing in the pledge which goes to prohibit
the use of spirits in a case like my own, yet as some might think
otherwise and charge me with inconsistency, I must on the whole be
excused from signing it."
His son, who was also a deacon in the same church with the father,
excused himself by saying he was young, and without influence, and it
would be far better for the old people to put their names down first.
"Perhaps," said he, "I may conclude to sign the paper by-and-by. I will
consider well the matter, and if I conclude to sign it, I will let you
know."
Other leading men in the church as well as in the town affairs, refused
to sign the pledge, because Deacon H. and son would not. It belonged to
the deacons in the church, they said, to take the lead in all good
things, and not to them. When _they_ had put _their_ names to the
document, others would not long hesitate to follow.
In short nobody would consent to sign the paper, and it remains to this
day, just as it was when I drew it up; and it is now more than thirty
years old. There it is, with my name attached to it, as large as life. I
have been President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and "all
hands too," of my would-be Temperance Society, from that day to this. I
doubt whether many societies can be found which in thirty years have
made so little change as the one under consideration.
For about four years from the time of getting up the above-named
temperance society, strange as the assertion may seem, I retained the
right to use a little beer and a good deal of coffee. But in May, 1830,
I abandoned all drinks but water, to which custom I have ever since
adhered and in which I shall probably die.
CHAPTER XXVI.
TRIALS OF A YOUNG PHYSICIAN.
The poet Cowper, in his delineations of a candidate for the pulpit,
prescribes, as one needful condition or qualification,
"That he is honest in the sacred cause."
So, when I entered upon the medical profession, which I regarded as next
of kin to sacred, I deemed honesty quite a high recommendation; and
whatever in the abstract appeared to me to be right, I endeavored to
pursue through the routine of every-day life. Alas, that I should ever
have had occasion to doubt the policy of common honesty!
I was called to see Mrs. ----. The case was an urgent one. There was no
time for deliberation or consultation. I understood her case but very
poorly; yet I knew that in order to success I must at least _seem_ to be
wise. Besides, what was to be done must be done quickly; so I boldly
prescribed. My prescription was entirely successful, and I left the
house with flying colors. I left, moreover, with the full consciousness
of having acted in the main like an honest man.
A few days afterward I was sent for by Mrs. ----, who immediately filled
my ears with the most piteous complaints, the sum total of which was
that she was exceedingly _nervous_, and I told her so. Of course I did
not complain of culpability or crime. But I told her, very plainly, that
she needed no medicine--nothing but plenty of air and exercise, and less
high-seasoned food. My great frankness gave offence, and impaired my
reputation. She employed, in my stead, Dr. Robinson, who continued to
attend her till his bill amounted to a sum sufficient to buy a good
carriage and harness, and till his credit for skill was advanced in a
degree corresponding.
Mr. B.'s child was sick, and his wife besides. He came for my
predecessor; but, not finding him at home,--though he still remained in
the place,--he was compelled to Hobson's choice--myself or nobody; Dr.
Robinson lived at too great a distance. I was accordingly employed, and
was soon on the spot. The child was very sick; and for some little time
after my arrival I was so much occupied in the performance of my duties
that I paid no attention to any thing else. But having prescribed for
both my patients, I sat down quietly to look over the newspaper.
Presently I heard from Mrs. B. a deep groan. I was immediately at her
bedside, anxious to know the cause. "Oh, nothing at all," she said,
"except a momentary feeling of disappointment because Dr. ---- did not
come." I said to her, "You can send for him now, madam, as soon as he
returns. Do not think yourselves compelled to adhere to me, simply
because you have been obliged to call me once. I will yield most
cheerfully to the individual of your preference."
Mrs. B. apologized. She knew I had done as well as I could, she said;
and perhaps no one could have done better. "But little Leonora," said
she, "is dreadfully sick; and I do very much want to see Dr. B. He has
had more experience than you. These young doctors, just from the
schools, what can they know, the best of them?"
I saw her difficulties; but, as I have already intimated, I did not look
so wise as Dr. B., nor had I so grave a face, nor so large an abdomen. I
could neither tell so good a story, nor laugh so heartily; I could not
even descend to that petty talk which is so often greatly preferred to
silence or newspaper reading, not only by such individuals as Mrs. B.
and her friends, but by most families. A physician must be a man of
sympathy. He need not, however, descend to so low a level as that of
dishonesty; but he must come down to the level of his people in regard
to manners and conversation. He must converse with them in their own
language. He must not only _seem_ to be devoted, unreservedly, to their
interests, but must actually _be_ so. This confession is most cheerfully
and sincerely and honestly made; and may he who reads it understand.
On a certain occasion I was called to prescribe in a family where the
disappointment was so great that the patient was actually made worse by
my presence, and an unfavorable turn given to the disease. It may be
said that people ought not to yield themselves up to the influence of
such feelings; and it is certainly true that they ought not. But sick
people are not always rational, nor even judicious. Dr. Johnson says:
"Every sick man is a rascal;" but we need not go quite so far as that.
Sickness changes us, morally, sometimes for the better, but much oftener
for the worse; and in general it makes us much less reasonable.
But it is far enough from being my intention to present a full account
of the trials incident to the life of a young medical man; for, in order
to do this, I should be obliged to carry you with me, at least mentally,
to places which you would not greatly desire to visit. Physicians can
seldom choose their patients; they are compelled to take them as they
find them. They will sometimes be called to the vilest of the vile and
the filthiest of the filthy.
Their office is indeed a noble one; but is noblest of all when performed
honestly, in the fear of God, with a view to do good, and not merely to
please mankind and gratify their own ambition. Above all, they should
not practise medicine for the mere love of money. A physician should
have a heart overflowing with benevolence, and should feel it incumbent
upon him, at every step in his professional life, not only to do good to
his patients, but to all around him. He should be a guide to mankind,
physically, for moral ends. He should let his light so shine, that they,
seeing his good works, may be led to glorify the Father who is in
heaven. His object should be to spread, by the good he performs, the
everlasting gospel, just as truly as this should be the object of him
who ministers in holy things at the altar. Such a physician, however, at
first, I was not. Such, however, I soon aspired to be; such, as I trust,
I at length became. Of this, however, the reader will judge for himself,
by-and-by. "By their fruits ye shall know them."
CHAPTER XXVII.
A DOSING AND DRUGGING FAMILY.
For several months of the first year of my medical life, I was a boarder
in a family, all of whom were sickly. Some of the number were even
continually or almost continually under the influence of medicine, if
not of physicians. Here my trials were various, and some of them severe.
But I must give you a particular description of this family; for I have
many things to say concerning it, some of which may prove instructive.
Mr. L. had been brought up a farmer; but being possessed of a delicate
constitution, had been subsequently converted into a country
shop-keeper,--a dealer, I mean, in dry goods and groceries. As is usual
in such cases, he was in the habit of keeping a small assortment of
drugs and medicines. The circumstance of having medicine always at hand,
and often _in_ hand, had led him, as it has thousands of others, into
temptation, till he had formed and confirmed the habit of frequent
dosing and drugging his frail system. But as usually happens in such
cases, the more medicine he took, the more he seemed to require, and
consequently the more he swallowed. One thing prepared the way for
another.
With Mrs. L. matters were still worse. In the vain belief that without a
course of medication, _she could never have any constitution_, as she
was wont to express it, her mother had begun to dose and drug her as
early as at the age of twelve or fourteen years. And what had been thus
early begun, had been continued till she was twenty-four, when she
married Mr. L. But she was feebler, if possible, at twenty-four, than at
fourteen, and believed herself under the necessity of taking medicine in
order to be able to sit up a part of the day and perform a little
light, but needful, family labor, such as sewing, mending, etc.
When I first had a seat at their family table, it was by no means
uncommon for Mr. and Mrs. L. to begin their meal, as soon as "grace" was
over, with Stoughton's bitters, or some other supposed cordial, or
strengthener of the appetite. As I not only refused to join them, but
occasionally spoke a kind word against the custom into which they had
fallen, the bitters at length fell into disuse; and it was found that
their meals could be digested as well without the stimulus, as with its
aid.
But I was much less successful in preventing the torrent of medicine
from producing its wonted ---- upon this family, at other times and
seasons; for which Mr. L.'s business furnished such facilities. But you
must not think of Mrs. L. as a mere tyro in this business of compounding
medicine, nor in that of administering it, especially to herself. From
the apothecary's shop of her husband, as well as from other sources, she
selected one thing after another, not merely for the time, but for
permanent purposes, till it was almost difficult to say which had the
best assortment, she or her husband. And she not only had it on hand,
but she took it, as freely, almost so, as her food and drink.
More than even this should be affirmed. Had she at any time flagged in
this work of self-destruction, she would have been brought up again to
the line by her mother. For though the latter resided at a considerable
distance, she paid Mrs. L. an occasional visit, and sometimes remained
in the family several weeks. Whenever she did so, little was heard of in
the usual hours of conversation,--especially at the table,--but Sarah's
stomach, Sarah's nerves, and what was good for Sarah. It was enough to
make one _sick at the stomach_, to witness the conversation even for a
single day; and above all to be compelled to join in it.
She was there once, in the early spring, and remained until the ground
was fairly settled. No sooner could she get into the woods, and come to
the naked surface of the earth, than the whole country around was laid
under tribute to furnish roots "good for the blood." These were put
into a beer to be prepared for Sarah. It was supposed by many,--and by
this wondrous wise old lady, among the rest,--that the efficacy of these
medicinal beers in cleansing the blood, must ever be in due proportion
to the number of their respective ingredients. Thus, if twenty articles,
"good for the blood," could be procured and boiled in the wort, the
result would be a compound which would be worth twenty times as much, or
at least be _many_ times as useful, in accomplishing its supposed
specific purpose, as if only one kind of root had been obtained.
It was a long time before I could break in upon this tissue of error, to
any practical purpose. For so deeply imbedded in the human brain is the
idea of purifying the blood by some such unnatural means, that one might
almost as well think of building a railroad to the moon, as of
overcoming it. They never thought--perhaps never knew--that the blood of
the human body of to-day, will be little more the blood of the body
to-morrow, than the river which flows by our door to-day will be the
river of to-morrow; and that the one can no more be purified
independently of any and all things else, than the other.
But it is said to be a long road which never turns. Some good
impressions had been made on this family, as we shall see hereafter.
Not, indeed, until there had been much unnecessary suffering, and many
an unwilling penalty paid for transgression, as well as much money
uselessly expended for physicians and medicine. For though I was
somewhat a favorite in the family, I was as yet young and inexperienced,
and many a wiser head than mine was from time to time invoked, and much
time and money lost in other ways, that might have been saved for better
and nobler purposes.
Among the items of loss, as well as of penalty, was that of offspring.
These were generally still-born. One, indeed, lived about two weeks and
then perished. The parents seemed to be written childless. Or rather,
they seemed to have written themselves so. They seemed destined
moreover, to follow their premature children, at no great distance, to
an untimely grave. For nothing was more obvious--I mean to the medical
observer--than at an age when everybody ought to be gaining in bodily no
less than in mental and moral vigor, they were both of them growing
feeble as well as irresolute.
As a boarder, I left the family some time afterward, though I did not
lose sight of it wholly; nor did they entirely forget or disregard the
numerous hints I had given them. They made some progress every year. At
length, however, I lost sight of them entirely, and only kept up a faint
recollection of them by means of an occasional word of intelligence from
the place where they resided, showing that they were still alive.
One day, after the lapse of about eight years, as I was passing through
a charming New England village, the stage-coach stopped to let the
passengers dine, when, to my great surprise, on stepping out of the
coach, whom should I see but my old friend Mr. L.? He was equally
surprised, and perhaps equally rejoiced, to see me. The interview was
utterly unexpected to us both.
"How do you do?" said he, grasping my hand. I returned the compliment by
inquiring after his own health and that of Mrs. L. It turned out that he
had failed in his business a few months before, and that, as a
consequence, he had been compelled to remove to the place where he now
was, and engage in an employment which brought his skin into contact
with the air, and his muscles into prolonged and healthful activity. It
appeared also that both he and his family had long since banished the
use of medicine. "And now," said he, "thank God I know what it is, once
more, to enjoy health; I can not only eat, but work."
It was Monday, the great _washing-day_ of Yankee house-keepers; and
while we were talking together with so much earnestness, that, like
Milton's first pair in innocence, we "forgot all time," a female
approached, with her sleeves rolled up, greeted me with much cordiality
and seized me by the hand. "Can this be Mrs. L.?" I asked. How changed!
She was, it is true, like her husband, a little sunburnt; but then she
was as she assured me, and, as I had every reason for believing to be
true, comparatively healthy.
While I was still in amazement, hardly knowing whether I was awake or
dreaming, a little girl approached us. Though somewhat slender and
delicate, she was only slightly diseased; rather, she was only
predisposed to disease by inheritance; and mere predispositions no more
destroy us, than a train of powder explodes without igniting. The girl
was about four or five years old. "Who is this?" I inquired. "Not yours,
most certainly," I added, turning to Mr. and Mrs. L. "We call her ours,"
they said, "and yours; for we, no doubt, owe her life and health, in no
small degree, to your instructions."--"This," said I, "is what I little
expected to see; but you may thank God for it rather than me, since she
lives by virtue of obedience to his laws, and not mine. Then you are not
only pretty healthy yourselves," I added, "but you have a healthy
child."--"We have two," said they. "The other is in the cradle; we will
go and bring her."
At this moment, the loud declaration, "The coach is ready, gentlemen,"
reminded us that our conversation was at an end for the present, and we
were obliged to separate. Not, however, till we had enjoyed a most
luxurious mental repast in "the feast of reason, and the flow of soul,"
with no abatement but the consciousness, on my part, of a little loss to
the landlord, who had provided for the passengers a smoking dinner.
This, reader, to speak somewhat paradoxically, was one of the proudest,
and yet one of the humblest days of my life. To have been the
Heaven-appointed instrument of such a marked change for the better in a
human family, was more than could have been foreseen or even expected.
It is more than has often fallen to my lot. True, I do not hesitate to
regard it as an extreme case; and yet it is, in magnitude, just what I
could show you in miniature, at various points in the same vicinity, and
indeed, all over the country.
Mr. and Mrs. L. still pursue the even tenor of their way, and have their
reward in it. One of their two daughters,--buds of early
promise,--though probably more or less scrofulous, hardly reached
maturity, ere she descended to the tomb. The rest enjoy a tolerable
degree of health. Of course, I do not speak of their health as greater
than that of the average of mankind, notwithstanding their thorough
reformation. It is much, all things considered, that it should be equal
to that average.
As for the mother of Mrs. L., who still occasionally visits the family,
she looks on in silent amazement, hardly knowing whether to recommend
any more beer, with all sorts of roots good for the blood in it, or
whether to give up the pursuit. I believe, however, that she does not
often presume to interfere with their habits. Perhaps she has
learned--if not, she may possibly live long enough to acquire the
lesson,--to "let well alone," as her children and grandchildren already
have. I certainly hope she has. It will conduce greatly to her health
and happiness, as well as make her a better citizen and better
Christian.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
POISONING WITH LEAD.
Nearly at the beginning of my practice in medicine, I was called to see
a fine and hitherto healthy youth, twelve years old, but who had for
several weeks before application was made to me, complained of a steady
and sometimes severe pain in his bowels, attended with more or fewer
febrile symptoms and a loss of appetite.
In endeavoring to trace out carefully the causes of his disease, the
first thing that attracted my attention was his employment. His father
was a blacksmith, and being in moderate circumstances and destitute of
any other help besides this son, had for a considerable time required
him to perform the work of an adult, or nearly such. It had not been
suspected at the time, that the work injured him, though he had
sometimes complained of great fatigue, and of a slight weakness and
uneasiness in the place where the pain had now become fixed. As the
result of my investigations, I came to the conclusion that he had been
overworked, and certain ligaments of the bowels had been weakened.
My treatment in the case was at first mild and palliative, in the hope
that after a few days of rest the trouble would disappear. Instead of
this, however, it grew worse. At my special request, various counselling
physicians were called in; but I do not know that they were of any
service to me. No new light was thrown on the case, though we could all
converse very learnedly on the subject.
Like many other young practitioners, I was at that time apt to indulge
in gloomy fears about poisons. I seldom had a case of acute disease,
without suspecting their influence. I suspected poison now, and
accordingly made search into every possible nook and corner whence such
an influence could possibly have emanated. For a long time nothing could
be found.
One day, on examining a pot of pickled cucumbers which had hitherto
escaped observation, I found that a part of its glazing had been
destroyed by the acid. I no sooner saw this than I was ready to say,
_eureka_ (I have found it), and to inform the family and my patient. It
appeared that the pickles had been there for some time, and that the boy
had eaten of them very freely. The parents and friends, though they had
much confidence in the wisdom and skill of their physician, were very
slow to believe in the injurious tendency of the pickles. They admitted
the danger of such cases generally; but how could the boy be injured,
and not the rest of them? they asked. They forgot, or did not know, that
the poison would be more likely to affect one who was weakened in the
abdomen from other causes, than those who were sound; especially when he
took much more of it into his stomach than they did.
In my suspicion about lead poisoning, I had very little sympathy from
those around me. Even the counselling physicians had little confidence
in any such existing cause of disease. They were nearly as ready as
other people to leave the case in the dark, and to say, practically,
"The finger of Providence is here;" or, in other words, It comes of some
cause which God alone knows or _can_ know.
How much of human ignorance--ay, and of human credulity and folly,
too--is clustered round the well-known decision of many a court of
inquest; viz., "Died by the visitation of God!" What do they mean by it?
Do they suppose that since Satan or some other personage whom we call
Death, is guilty of striking us down here and there, those who are not
"struck with death" are struck down by the great Source of light and
life?
The far greater probability is, that they know not what they _do_ mean.
Mankind are not addicted to thinking, especially on subjects of this
sort. It is much easier, or at least much lazier, to refer all our ills
and complaints, as well as their unfavorable terminations, to God or
Satan, friend or foe,--to some agency exterior to themselves,--than to
consider themselves as the probable cause, and proceed to make diligent
search for their own errors.
Thus it was, in a remarkable degree, in the region where it was my lot
to meet and palliate and try to cure diseases. I say, here, _cure_; for
the idea would hardly have found a lodgment, at that early period, in
any human brain which could have been found in that region of rural
simplicity, hardly in my own somewhat more highly enlightened cranium,
that _medical men never cure_; and that when people get well, it is the
result of the operations and efforts of nature, or of nature's God, who
is doing the best thing possible to set matters right.
It was even deemed by many as not only foolish, but almost sacrilegious,
to say much about the causes of disease, and especially about lead. And
then to talk about lead as connected with the use of their favorite red
earthen, which had been in use time immemorial, and which had never, in
all past time, killed anybody, as they supposed, was the dictate of
almost any thing else rather than of good, sound, sober, common sense.
You can hardly imagine, at this day, in the year 1859, what an air of
incredulity the gaping countenances of the family and neighbors of my
young friend and patient presented, when I told them stories of lead
disease in different parts of the country, especially of such cases as
were then recent and fresh in my memory. One of these stories may not be
out of place in the present connection.
About the year 1812, the people of Elizabethtown, Penn., put up what
they called their apple butter in these same red earthen vessels,
glazed, as almost everybody now knows, with an oxyde of lead. There had
been a pottery established near the village that very year, and it was
thought not a little patriotic to purchase and use its products, thus
favoring the cause of home manufacture. Nearly every family, as it
appeared in the sequel, had bought and used more or fewer of these
vessels.
This was, of course, some time in the autumn. In the progress of a few
months a dreadful disease broke out in the village, which baffled the
skill of the best physicians, and consigned some forty or fifty of the
inhabitants to the grave. The cause, at first, was not at all suspected.
At length, however, from a careful examination of facts, it was
ascertained that the disease which had proved so fatal must have had its
origin in the glazing of these vessels. The sickness abated only when it
had attacked all whose bowels--already weakened by some other cause or
causes--were duly prepared for the poisonous operation of the lead. It
is indeed true that the physicians supposed the disease came to a stand
on account of the overwhelming tendency of huge doses of calomel, which
they gave to almost everybody who had used the apple butter; but of this
there was no satisfactory evidence. It ceased, as I believe, and as I
have already intimated, because--except in the case of those who were
enfeebled by other causes, nature was too strong for it, or her
recuperative powers too energetic.
Now this story illustrates a case which, in magnitude or in miniature,
is in our country of almost every-day occurrence; and the only reason
why the results everywhere else are not like those at Elizabethtown, is
simply this: that there is not so much of the poison used in any one
village, at the same time, as there was at that place in the
circumstances which have been mentioned. One is sick here, another
there, and another elsewhere. In one, owing to peculiar predisposition
or habit, it takes the shape of fever; in another, of palsy; in another,
of eruptions or boils; in another, of bowel complaint. And as all these
and many other diseases have been known before, and have been induced by
other causes equally unobserved or obscure, we have fallen into the
habit of supposing that these things must needs be, do what we will. In
other words, God the Creator, is supposed to have made the world and
appointed to us, for trial or otherwise, these various forms of disease;
and they are for the most part dealt out to us arbitrarily; or, if not
arbitrarily, by chance or hap-hazard.
But to return to the young man. There was such a hostility of the public
mind to the idea that his disease was induced or even aggravated by
lead, that I receded in part from my suspicions. At least, I proceeded,
with fresh energy and enthusiasm, to search for other and more probable
or popular causes. Cause there must have been, of some sort, I was
confident; while to all my efforts of this kind the friends of the boy
stood opposed. They did not, it is true, say much against it; but then
it was perfectly evident from all their conversation and conduct that
they regarded it as not only idle, but presumptuous, perhaps wicked. How
can it be, they seemed to say, by those looks and actions which so often
speak louder than words, that this young doctor is always trying to
ferret out the causes of disease, while Dr ---- (my predecessor) never
attempted any such thing, but rather dissuaded us from it?
Yet thus it was precisely. For three long months I was endeavoring to
meet and obviate the symptoms of a disease which I secretly believed was
induced by lead, but of which I had no such strong evidence as would
have justified the positive affirmation that it was so, or prevented me
from searching for other causes. This state of mind was by no means
favorable to my success as a medical practitioner; for it somehow
greatly impaired or weakened their general confidence in my wisdom and
skill. Had I, on the other hand, "looked very wise," declared the
disease to be so and so, with great pertinacity, and adhered, through
good report and through evil, to my opinion, whenever it was assailed,
and withal manifested no desire to receive medical counsel, I should
have had a larger measure of their esteem, and a very much larger
measure, as a professional man, of their confidence. They might then
have thought me a very wise and good physician.
A man who wishes to be greatly popular in the world must learn the ways
of the world, and walk in them more or less, whether they are crooked or
straight. He must not be over-modest, or over-honest; nor must he be
over-solicitous to improve his own mind or heart, or encourage others,
by precept or example, to walk in the way of improvement. He must not
only make up his mind to take the world as it is, but to suffer it to
remain so. The world does not like to be found fault with; it has a
great deal of self-confidence.
The young man, in the end, recovered; not, as I now believe, in
consequence of the treatment, but in spite of it. Had he been nursed
carefully from the first, and kept from every source of irritation, both
external and internal, even from food, except a very little of the
mildest sort, just enough to keep him from absolute starvation; and had
his air been pure and his temper of mind easy, cheerful and hopeful, he
would probably have recovered much sooner than he did, and with far
better prospects for the future. But he had been frightened about
himself, from the very first, by my own inquiries about poison,--which
had unwarily been communicated to him,--and his fears never wholly
subsided.
How much wisdom from both worlds does it require in order to be a
physician! The office of a medical man, I repeat, is one of the noblest
under the whole heaven. The physician is, or should be, a missionary. Do
you regard this assertion as extravagant or unfounded? Why, then, was it
made an adjunct, and more than an adjunct, in the first promulgation of
the gospel, and this, too, by the gospel's divine Author? Why is it that
our success in modern times, in spreading the gospel, has been
greater--other things being equal--in America or China, in proportion as
its preachers have attended to the body as well as to the soul?
At the time of my commencing the practice of medicine, I was no more fit
for it than I was to preach the cross of Christ; that is, I was almost
entirely unqualified for either profession. I was honest, sanguine,
philanthropic, but I was uneducated. I knew very little, indeed, of
human nature; still less did I know of the sublime art of becoming all
things to all men, in the nobler and more elevated sense of the great
apostle Paul. I would yield to no other compromise than such as he
encourages, of course. Let us be honest and truthful, though the heavens
fall.
CHAPTER XXIX.
STANDING PATIENTS.
Medical men well know--should any such condescend to look over this
volume--what is meant when I affirm that I was not long in securing to
myself a good share of _standing patients_. They are the dread, not to
say the curse, of the profession. And yet they abound. They are found
throughout the length and breadth of the land, and in great numbers.
They are a class of persons, not always of one sex, who hang
continually, like an incubus, on the physician, and yet are forever a
disadvantage to him. They are never well enough to let him alone, and
yet seldom ill enough to require much medical advice or treatment. And
yet, medicine they will have, of somebody, even if they go to the
apothecary for it, without so much as the semblance of a medical
prescription of any sort. But then, after all, they are seldom reduced
to any such necessity. They usually have on hand prescriptions enough of
some sort. A dearth of Yankee physicians--could such a thing possibly
occur--would still leave us a supply of Indian doctors, mesmeric
doctors, nutritive doctors, etc., etc., to say nothing of doctresses, in
liberal abundance, ever ready to prescribe.
When I succeeded Dr. ----, in the chair of medicine, surgery, etc., at
----, I received, as if by contract, if not by inheritance, his whole
stock of standing patients. They were not slow to _call on_, sometimes
to _call in_, the new doctor. Nor was I often long in the house before
comparisons began to be made between my predecessor and myself. They did
not, of course, directly traduce or slander Dr. ----, but they were very
careful to intimate that, having got his name up, he had grown careless
about his patients, especially such of them as did not belong to his
clique, political or sectarian; and that, on this account, they were
almost willing to part with him, and to receive and accept as his
substitute one who was not only younger and more active, but also less
tinctured with conservatism and aristocracy!
A very large amount of valuable time was spent during the first year of
my practice as a physician, in endeavors to do good to these very
devoted and loving and loyal patients; for if they did not always call
me when I had occasion to pass their doors, I knew full well they
expected me, and so I usually called. Besides, in many an instance I was
sent for in post haste, with entreaties that I would come and see them
immediately; and no atonement for neglect or even delay--if such neglect
or delay was ventured--would suffice. And yet, despite of their fears of
"monarchy and aristocracy," they were my most truly aristocratic
patients. They expected me to come and go at their request, whether
anybody else was attended to or not. And, to add to the vexation of the
case, though they boasted of having paid most enormous bills to my
predecessor, they never, if they could avoid it, paid any thing to me.
Now, I do not suppose that every medical man has as large a share of
these standing patients as fell to my unhappy lot; but from the
knowledge I have acquired of mankind, and from the acquaintance I have
necessarily formed with medical men, I do not think I err when I affirm
that they are everywhere numerous, and that they are everywhere not only
a pest to society at large, but particularly so to the physician.
But the worst feature of the case is, that after all our efforts, we can
seldom, if ever, cure them. They are always hanging upon us like an
incubus; and yet like Solomon's daughters of the horseleech, are never
satisfied. They take the medicine, and follow the advice, if they _like_
it; or they take such parts of it as they choose, and reject the rest.
Or they take the advice and follow us to-day, but get discouraged and
abandon us, at least practically, to-morrow; especially if some smart
young physician happens to come along, who has more than an average
share of empiricism and pretension, and more than he has of real merit.
I must here confess, among other confessions, that at first I was not a
little deceived by their open countenances and concealed thoughts, and
unintelligent and hence unconfiding professions. It was a long time
before I relinquished the hope of doing them good; or at least a portion
of them. But I was at length compelled. There was nothing on which to
build. If a foundation seemed to be laid one day, it would disappear the
next.
One fundamental difficulty lay in the way of these persons to health, as
it has to thousands of others. They were all the while talking or
thinking about themselves, their ailments and woes and abuses and
neglects. They were particularly inclined to turn their attention to
their own diseased feelings. Now it may be pretty safe to say that no
individual can fully recover from chronic disease,--nervous, stomachic,
or glandular--who is always turning his thoughts inward, and watching
his own feelings, and perhaps relating his woes to every one he meets
with. We must learn to forget ourselves, at least a part of the time,
and think of others, if we are in earnest to get rid of chronic disease.
I do not say, of course, that everybody would recover of disease, even
if they acted right in every particular; but this I _do_ say, that if
every person who is ill would act wisely, and if their physicians, in
every instance, were wise enough to take the best course, the number of
these standing patients would soon dwindle to a very small remnant.
Instead of thousands, or tens of thousands, it would soon be reduced to
hundreds.
CHAPTER XXX.
KILLING A PATIENT.
President Lindsley, late of one of our south western colleges,--a very
shrewd and observing, as well as learned and excellent individual--has
been often heard to say that no half-educated young physician ever
succeeded in obtaining a good run of professional business, and a fair
medical reputation, without despatching prematurely to the other world,
at least as many as half a dozen of his patients.
It is said that most rules have their exceptions; and it is even
affirmed by some, that the exceptions strengthen the rule. If this is
so, perhaps the rule of Pres. L. may stand; though to many it seems at
first exceedingly sweeping. One known exception to its universality may
be worth mentioning, on which the reader may make his own comments, and
from which he may draw his own inferences. I was so fortunate for one,
as to attain to the eminence he mentions, without killing any thing
_like_ half a dozen patients; at least, so far as I know.
And yet, as I verily fear and most honestly confess, I _did_ kill one or
two. Not, of course, with malice aforethought, for they were among my
very best friends; and one in particular was a near and highly valued
neighbor. Let me give you a few details concerning the latter. It may
serve as a lesson of instruction, as well as a confession.
He was about six feet high, with large vital organs; and though by no
means possessed of a strong constitution, yet in virtue of a most rigid
temperance, generally healthy. He was, however, subjected to the
habitual influences of a most miserable cookery. Indeed, I never knew
worse. Seldom, if ever, did he pass a single week--I might even say a
single day--without having his alimentary organs irritated to
subinflammation by more or fewer of what Dr. Dunglison, the
physiologist, would call "rebellious" mixtures. I do not wonder, in
truth, that he occasionally sickened. The wonder with me is, that he did
not sicken and die long before he did. And though the blow that finished
his perilous mortal career, was doubtless inflicted by my own hand, I do
not hesitate to say that his "housekeeper" had nearly half destroyed him
before I was called.
It was a midsummer night, when the messenger came across an intervening
field, and aroused me from my slumbers with the intelligence that Mr. M.
was very sick, and wanted to have me come and see him immediately.
Although it was fully twelve o'clock, and I had been so fully occupied
during the preceding evening, that I had but just crawled into bed and
begun my slumbers, I was instantly on my feet, and in about twelve
minutes at the bedside of the sick man.
He had been affected with a bowel complaint, as it appeared, for several
days, during which his wife, who was one of those conceited women who
know so much, in their own estimation, that nobody can teach them any
thing, had dosed him with various things, such as were supposed to be
good for the blood, or the stomach, among which was brandy and loaf
sugar. Now his bowels, though they were inflamed, might have borne the
sugar; but the brandy was a little too much for them. They had endured
it for a time, it is true, but had at length yielded, and were in a
worse condition than when she began her treatment. And what was worse,
her alcoholic doses, frequently "inflicted," had heated the circulatory
apparatus, and even the whole system, into a burning fever.
It needed no very active imagination, in such circumstances, to make
out, at least in prospect, a very "hard case." And as he who has a giant
foe to contend with, arms himself accordingly, I immediately invoked the
strongholds of the Materia Medica for the strongest doses which it could
furnish, and these in no measured or stinted quantity. In short, I
attacked the disease with the most powerful agents of which I could
avail myself.
I will not trouble the non-professional reader with the names of the
various and powerful drugs which were laid under contribution in this
trying and dangerous case, and which were most assiduously plied. It is
sufficient, perhaps, to say that on looking over my directions--fairly
written out as they were, and laid on a small stand near the
sick-bed--you might have discovered that hardly a half-hour, by night or
day, could pass, in which he was not required to swallow some very
active or in other words poisonous medicinal agent or other. For though
I was even then greatly opposed, in _theory_, to the exhibition of much
medicine in disease, yet in _practice_ I could not free myself wholly
from the idea that my prospects of affording aid, or rather of giving
nature a chance of saving a patient, was nearly in proportion to the
amount I could force into him of opium, calomel, nitrate of silver,
carbonate of ammonia, etc.
It was, in short, enough to kill a Samson or a Hercules; and I repeat
that I verily fear that it did kill in the present instance; not,
however, immediately. For several days and nights we watched over him,
heating his brain, in our over-kindness, to a violent delirium on
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