The warning was fulfilled to the letter. After the infliction of the terrible wound which caused her death; she had crawled out of her room, and fell in the hall from the loss of blood. How many similar warnings pass unheeded, and yet how greatly might the recipients be benefited by heeding them!
Effects of Physical Influences on the
Sensitive.
Individuals who are influenced to an unusual extent by their surroundings, are regarded as nervous,—a name covering a multitude of ills for which no other term is at command. A cat entering the room, however stealthily, in some awakes the most disagreeable feelings. Another is so sensitive to the electric state of the weather as to presage the coming storm several hours or days in advance. Sunday is so called because of its supposed connection with the phases of the moon. The superstitious observation of the Signs arises from the dull understanding or ignorance of this influence. That man is a magnet, and has polarity corresponding to that of the earth, is a plausible conjecture, which receives confirmation by the influence of the earth currents on many forms of disease. Some patients are so exceedingly sensitive that they can lie at ease in no other position than with their heads to the north; and it has been argued that if such position is best for the sensitive it is for all.
More especially is the influence of physical forces seen when death occurs after a lingering disease, which, by reducing the bodily strength, makes that of the spirit more susceptible.
“He’s going out with the tide,” is the common expression of all the rough coastwise people. It may be called a superstition of sea-faring races; but it is a fact that for some inscrutable reason the old, sick and infirm more often die at the ebb-tide than when the tide is rising. A poet beautifully expresses this belief:
“When the tide goes out he will pass away,
Pray for a soul’s serene release!
That the weary spirit may rest in peace,
When the tide goes out.”
A physician on the Connecticut coast, who had made special observations, said: “for more than thirty years I have lived and observed among the rough, hardy souls hereabout; and for more than fifty my father before me gathered facts and wisdom from practice. I have stood by hundreds of death-beds of fishermen and farmers, old and young, during the last quarter of a century; but I can hardly recall a single instance of a person dying of disease, who did not pass away while the tide was ebbing. It is a fact that in critical cases I never feel concerned to leave a patient for an hour or two when the tide is coming in; but when it is receding, and particularly in the latter stages of the ebb, I stay by, if I can, till the turn comes. You’ll scarcely credit it, but the daily record of the tides is the most important part of the almanac in my practice. If a patient who is very low lives to see the current turn from ebb to flow, I know the case is safe till the ebb sets in again.”
“When the tide comes in death waits for dole,
When the tide ebbs it takes a soul.”
Francis Gerry Fairchild says that during five years he noted the hour and minute of ninety-three demises, and of these all but four (who died of accidents) went out with the ebb of the tide. In his own words: “I who have sat with my fingers on the wrist of many a feeble patient, and noticed the pulse rise and strengthen, or sink and vanish, with the turning of the tide, know that it is fact.”