In the account of my distresses, I have passed over the slanders which were propagated against me by some of my brethren. I have mentioned them only for the sake of declaring, in this public manner, that I most heartily forgive them; and that if I discovered, at any time, an undue sense of the unkindness and cruelty of those slanders, it was not because I felt myself injured by them, but because I was sure they would irreparably injure my fellow-citizens, by lessening their confidence in the only remedies that I believed to be effectual in the reigning epidemic. One thing in my conduct towards these gentlemen may require justification; and that is, my refusing to consult with them. A Mahometan and a Jew might as well attempt to worship the Supreme Being in the same temple, and through the medium of the same ceremonies, as two physicians of opposite principles and practice attempt to confer about the life of the same patient. What is done in consequence of such negotiations (for they are not consultations) is the ineffectual result of neutralized opinions; and wherever they take place, should be considered as the effect of a criminal compact between physicians, to assess the property of their patients, by a shameful prostitution of the dictates of their consciences. Besides, I early discovered that it was impossible for me, by any reasonings, to change the practice of some of my brethren. Humanity was, therefore, on the side of leaving them to themselves; for the extremity of wrong in medicine, as in morals and government, is often a less mischief than that mixture of right and wrong which serves, by palliating, to perpetuate evil.
After the loss of my health I received letters from my friends in the country, pressing me, in the strongest terms, to leave the city. Such a step had become impracticable. My aged mother was too infirm to be removed, and I could not leave her. I was, moreover, part of a little circle of physicians, who had associated themselves in support of the new remedies. This circle would have been broken by my quitting the city. The weather varied the disease, and, in the weakest state of my body, I expected to be able, from the reports of my pupils, to assist my associates in detecting its changes, and in accommodating our remedies to them. Under these circumstances it pleased God to enable me to reply to one of the letters that urged my retreat from the city, that “I had resolved to stick to my principles, my practice, and my patients, to the last extremity.”
On the 9th of October, I visited a considerable number of patients, and, as the day was warm, I lessened the quantity of my clothing. Towards evening I was seized with a pain in the back, which obliged me to go to bed at eight o'clock. About twelve I awoke with a chilly fit. A violent fever, with acute pains in different parts of my body, followed it. At one o'clock I called for Mr. Fisher, who slept in the next room. He came instantly, with my affectionate black man, to my relief. I saw my danger painted in Mr. Fisher's countenance. He bled me plentifully, and gave me a dose of the mercurial medicine. This was immediately rejected. He gave me a second dose, which likewise acted as an emetic, and discharged a large quantity of bile from my stomach. The remaining part of the night was passed under an apprehension that my labours were near an end. I could hardly expect to survive so violent an attack of the fever, broken down, as I was, by labour, sickness, and grief. My wife and seven children, whom the great and distressing events that were passing in our city had jostled out of my mind for six or seven weeks, now resumed their former place in my affections. My wife had stipulated, in consenting to remain in the country, to come to my assistance in case of my sickness; but I took measures which, without alarming her, proved effectual in preventing it. My house was enveloped in foul air, and the probability of my death made her life doubly necessary to my family. In the morning the medicine operated kindly, and my fever abated. In the afternoon it returned, attended with a great inclination to sleep. Mr. Fisher bled me again, which removed the sleepiness. The next day the fever left me, but in so weak a state, that I awoke two successive nights with a faintness which threatened the extinction of my life. It was removed each time by taking a little aliment. My convalescence was extremely slow. I returned, in a very gradual manner, to my former habits of diet. The smell of animal food, the first time I saw it at my table, forced me to leave the room. During the month of November, and all the winter months, I was harassed with a cough, and a fever somewhat of the hectic kind. The early warmth of the spring removed those complaints, and restored me, through Divine goodness, to my usual state of health.
I should be deficient in gratitude, were I to conclude this narrative without acknowledging my obligations to my surviving pupils, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Coxe, for the great support and sympathy I derived from them in my labours and distresses.
I take great pleasure likewise in acknowledging my obligations to my former pupil, Dr. Woodhouse, who assisted me in the care of my patients, after I became so weak as not to be able to attend them with the punctuality their cases required. The disinterested exploits of these young gentlemen in the cause of humanity, and their success in the treatment of the disease, have endeared their names to hundreds, and, at the same time, afforded a prelude of their future eminence and usefulness in their profession.
But wherewith shall I come before the great FATHER and REDEEMER of men, and what shall I render unto him for the issue of my life from the grave?
———Here all language fails:———
Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.
Footnotes:
[14] Outlines of a Theory of Fever.