The best illustration of the natural means of preventing, or curing, consumption—in fact, of promoting and maintaining health, under any circumstances—I have ever seen, is given in the following true story of
HOW A YOUNG GIRL CURED HERSELF.
“Then you are surprised to learn that I came within six weeks of dying of consumption, thirty years ago, are you, doctor?” The questioner was a bright, healthy little woman of fifty who, in the course of a consultation about a consumptive niece, had expressed herself as having little hope of her recovery, “because she wouldn’t do as I did when I had the disease—and she isn’t nearly as sick as I was.” Straight as an arrow, active and merry, looking more like forty than fifty, Mrs. E. was the last person that any one would select as belonging to a “consumptive family,” or of having suffered with the disease, in her own person, and yet her mother died of it when this daughter was about 19, and the latter’s decline was
attributed to inherited tendency and long confinement in the sick-room, during the last year of her mother’s life. “Yes, I have told Lettie how I cured myself after the doctors gave me up, but she will not undertake it—not now, at least—perhaps she may when she gets where I was. Do you want me to give you my recipe for the cure of consumption, Doctor? Tell you the whole story? Well, the way is simple, and the story a short one, and if it will help any one I shall be very glad. I needn’t tell you all about mother’s case—hers was the old-fashioned consumption; she was sick a good many years, but the last year she was almost helpless and would have no one but me to take care of her. Well, I bore up until she died, and then I gave out; I could not go to the grave—I was in bed during the funeral. I had not realized—none of the family had—how poorly I had become; but now it was plain enough. I kept my bed most of the time—could not get rested. I had been sick several weeks when my brother was brought home ill, was taken with typhoid fever, and there was no one to nurse him. I roused myself up and declared that I was able to do it; and I carried the point, in spite of all father could say. Well, he was sick nine weeks, but I gave up before he recovered. I carried him through the worst of it, however, before I took my bed; and then I was very sick indeed. For a while they thought I could live but a few weeks, but I rallied and got more comfortable. I raised a great deal, and for several months remained about the same, apparently; but the autumn came, and when we began
to shut the house up I seemed to grow worse; my cough was still very bad, but I couldn’t ‘raise’ much, and I suffered terribly for breath. The doctor who had been attending me—the one who had tended mother—at last said he could do no more for me, and for some months we had no physician, and then father called a new one—a young doctor who was fitting himself for practice in our village. He came to see me, examined my lungs, and I fainted away in the effort. He went out—leaving no medicine—and had a talk with father. He said that he did not care to take the case; that there was no hope for me; my lungs were badly ulcerated, and I had but few weeks to live. ‘She can’t live over six weeks,[31] Mr. B., and she may die any day. I am young, just commencing practice, and it will injure me to have her die on my hands; and I can not help her.’ ‘At least,’ said father, ‘give her something to relieve her suffering.’ They did not know that I could hear them; but spring-time had come again, the day was quite warm, and I had asked to have the window raised at the head of my
bed, and so it happened that I could hear all they said. I heard the doctor returning, and I resolved not to take any of his soothing drops; I had taken all I meant to. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘what have you come back for, doctor?’ ‘Your father wished me to prescribe for you,’ said he. ‘Never mind,’ I said, firmly, ‘I shall take nothing more. You say I have six weeks to live: I will spend them in getting rid of the medicines I have taken the past year,’ and he went away. Soon father came in, seeming much disappointed and grieved, and in answer to his questioning, I told him why I had determined to take no more medicine, and what I had resolved to do; and now I will tell you what I did, and how I came to do it. I had read in an old English almanac—not a medical one, like the ones strewn about everywhere now, but there was a good deal of useful information in it—a ‘Sure Cure for Consumption,’ and it was so different from what I had been doing, and appealed so strongly to my judgment, that I had been thinking that if I could only make a start there might be a chance for me; but the effort required was so great that I doubt if I should have had courage enough to undertake it but for my resentment, upon overhearing that conversation—to think that the doctors had given me nothing but medicine, and that I had been eating in such a way—without any appetite, except for some of the ‘rich’ things they were always making because I couldn’t relish anything else. The recipe explained that the disease was caused by lack of fresh air, outdoor exercise, and appropriate food; but I will only
tell you what I did, and you will understand all about the reasons for it. First, I told father and the rest of the family that as I had but six weeks to live, they must let me have my own way in everything, and must do as I said. I could not move from the bed alone, but I had them carry me on a comforter out on the lawn and lay me down there. ‘How was I to take exercise—when I could scarcely turn myself in bed?’ was the question. Well, I did turn myself on one side, and, with a stick, begun to dig a little in the ground. It looked then as though I should not do much damage to the nice sod father had taken so much pains to make; but I dug a little hole as large as my fist, and then rested. After a while I turned over on the other side and dug another little hole, filled it up, and rested again. It seemed good to rest and I felt a little better; for the outdoor air, and the exertion I had put forth, ‘loosened’ my cough a little, and I begun to ‘raise.’ At night they carried me back to bed. My bed-room windows had been wide open all day, and I wouldn’t have them shut now; but in answer to their fears about the night air and catching cold, I said, ‘Give me clothes enough, and I will risk the night air—I’m going to breathe pure air the next six weeks—if I live so long.’ They all felt terribly—they thought I was shortening my life, even then—but they yielded, finally, in everything, even to not asking me ‘if I couldn’t eat a little of this, or that, if they would make it for me?’ I had replied: ‘No, when I feel like eating a piece of Graham bread or a potato, without butter or
salt, I will eat something—not before.’ This had occurred in the morning, and that very night I asked for a slice of bread and ate a little bit—as big as my two fingers, perhaps. I had them put a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper[32] in a dish and turn warm water on it—a quart—and let it stand overnight, and in the morning was sponged all over in that water—the dregs turned off. I had them bathe an arm and then dry it with a coarse towel, and rub me with it as hard as I could bear (not very hard, to be sure), then a leg, and so on.[33] It seemed to give the dead skin a little life; then they carried me out to my ‘work’ again! I felt like resting after the bath, but after a while I turned over and dug a larger hole than on the day before, filled it—partly with what I raised from my lungs, and such stuff as it was! I could take longer breaths, too; and after digging a minute or so I would have to stop and take a long breath, and then go on again.[34] I was thirsty a good deal, and would drink
water—all I wanted. I ate a piece of stale coarse bread and some fruit that morning after I was rested from my first digging, and then I kept on resting for some hours, after which I dug a little more. In the middle of the day, when the sun came down too hot, I had an old umbrella put over me and fastened. At night a little bit of bread and a small potato: I ate as much as I could relish, but not a mouthful more. In this way I kept on, day after day, and they began to see that I was gaining. Father, who could not believe the gain was real, but rather the temporary effect of my will, yet joked me about ruining the lawn: ‘I shall have to turf it all over again, Lucia,’ said he, even before I could dig a hole large enough in a day to bury a cat in, and he tried to laugh at his little joke. I remember that I did laugh, and came near strangling in a coughing fit in consequence, but that was a help; what I needed was to cough and raise the stuff up—those old ulcers that the doctor said my lungs were covered with—and I found fresh air, flavored with a little exercise, a better ‘expectorant,’ as you doctors say, than those I had been taking. I began to feel hopeful—the novelty of the idea—digging for my life! I took a desperate view of it—six weeks to live—‘I’ll die fighting,’ I said to myself. It seemed almost droll—droll enough, at any rate, to interest my mind, and I would say funny things to the others to make them laugh, and this seemed to make them try to be cheerful and to cheer me on. The third day, I remember that I ate the same kind of a breakfast—just a little—and
at night asked them to boil a beet! I would have only one vegetable at a time, lest I might be tempted to overeat and lose my appetite, and so spoil everything.[35] I was impressed with the idea of ‘earning my living’ at outdoor work—‘by the sweat of my brow’—and not to eat more than I earned by the exercise. I had renounced my coffee and tea; I ate no grease of any kind, nor meat—bread, fruit, and vegetables only—no salt or spices, pastry, pie, puddings, nor cake, nor ‘sweets’ of any sort, except the natural, whole sweet furnished by nature, in the form of vegetables and sweet fruits. The prescription said that some people ate too much soft food,—bread and milk, puddings, and the like,—and that while such dishes were better than many others in common use, still they were not the best, especially for sick people with weak stomachs, but that dry (farinaceous) food was every way better; and so I ate bread, or unleavened biscuit, which, after a little practice, the girl could make very nice,—just the meal and water well mixed and moulded stiff and baked in a hot oven,—and I ate them very slowly, chewing each mouthful thoroughly. You can tell, perhaps, doctor, just why this should make a difference:[36] I only know that it seemed to agree with my stomach better. They