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