A New Guide for Emigrants to the West

by John Mason Peck

"Persons unaccustomed to the climate of the lower Mississippi country, are necessarily exposed, whilst there in the summer season, to many causes of disease. It will be advisable for such to have a prudent care of their health, and yet, a care distinct from that finical timidity which renders them liable to early attacks of sickness.

"There is one important consideration, which perhaps has been somewhat overlooked by medical men, who have written on this subject. Natives of colder and healthier regions, when exposed in southern and sickly climates, experience, if they remain any length of time without evident and violent disease, an alteration in the condition of the liver, and of the secreted bile itself; when it passes through the bowels, its color being much darker than usual. Sometimes, indeed, it appears to be "locked up in the liver," the stools having an ashen appearance. This state of the biliary secretion is frequently accompanied, although the patient is otherwise apparently in tolerable health, by a pain over the eye-balls, particularly when the eyes are rolled upward.

"The proper mode of treatment for such symptoms is, to take without delay, not less than twenty grains of calomel, and in eight hours a wine glass full of castor oil. The tone of the stomach should not be suffered to sink too much after the operation of the medicine, which, if necessary, may be repeated in twenty-four hours. Sulphate of quinine, or other tonics, with nutritive food, which is easy of digestion, should also be taken in moderate portions at a time.

"Where diseases are rapid in their progress, and dangerous, no time is to be lost. The practice of taking salts and other aperients, when in exposed situations, and for the purpose of preventing disease, is injurious. It is sufficient, that the bowels be kept in a natural and healthy state; for all cathartics, even the mildest, have a tendency to nauseate the stomach, create debility, and weaken the digestive faculty. A reduction of tone in the system, which is always advantageous, will be more safely effected by using somewhat less than usual of animal food, and of spirituous, strong vinous, or fermented liquors. The robust will derive benefit from losing a little blood.

"It ought to be well understood, that as we approximate tropical climates, the doses of medicine, when taken, should be increased in quantity, and repeated with less delay than is admissible in colder countries. Exposure to the night air is certainly prejudicial; so also is the intense heat of the sun, in the middle of the day. Violent exercise should also be avoided. Bathing daily in water of a comfortable temperature, is a very commendable practice; and cotton worn next the skin is preferable to linen.

"It is impossible to prevent the influence of an atmosphere pregnant with the causes of disease; but the operation of those causes may generally be counteracted by attention to the rules laid down; and it is no small consolation to be aware, that on recovery from the first attack, the system is better adapted to meet and sustain a second of a similar nature. The reader will understand that we do not allude to relapses, occurring while the system is enfeebled by the consequences of disease."

To the foregoing remarks, I add the following, from an address of Judge Hall to the "Antiquarian and Historical Society of Illinois," December 10, 1827.

"The climate, particularly in reference to its influence on the human system, presents another subject of investigation. The western country has been considered unhealthy; and there have been writers, whose disturbed imaginations have misled them into a belief that the whole land was continually exposed to the most awful visitations of Providence, among which have been numbered the hurricane, the pestilence, and the earthquake. If we have been content to smile at such exaggerations, while few had leisure to attempt a serious refutation, and while the facts upon which any deliberate opinion must have been based, had not been sufficiently tested by experience, the time has now arrived when it is no longer excusable to submit in silence to the reproaches of ignorance or malice. It is proper, however, to remark, as well in extenuation of those who have assailed our country, as in the support of the confidential denial, which I feel authorized to make to their assertions, that a vast improvement in the article of health has taken place within a few years. Diseases are now mild which were once malignant, and their occurrence is annually becoming less frequent. This happy change affords strong authority for the belief, that although the maladies which have heretofore afflicted us, were partly imputable to the climate, other, and more powerful causes of disease must have existed, which have vanished. We who came to the frontier, while the axe was still busy in the forest, and when thousands of the acres which now yield abundance to the farmer, were unreclaimed and tenantless, have seen the existence of our fellow citizens assailed by other than the ordinary ministers of death. Toil, privation and exposure, have hurried many to the grave; imprudence and carelessness of life, have sent crowds of victims prematurely to the tomb. It is not to be denied that the margins of our great streams in general, and many spots in the vicinity of extensive marshes, are subject to bilious diseases; but it may be as confidently asserted, that the interior country is healthy. Yet the first settlers invariably selected the rich alluvion lands upon the navigable rivers, in preference to the scarcely less fertile soil of the prairies, lying in situations less accessible, and more remote from market. They came to a wilderness in which houses were not prepared for their reception, nor food, other than that supplied by nature, provided for their sustenance. They often encamped on the margin of the river exposed to its chilly atmosphere, without a tent to shelter, with scarcely a blanket to protect them. Their first habitations were rude cabins, affording scarcely a shelter from the rain, and too frail to afford protection from the burning heat of the noonday sun, or the chilling effects of the midnight blast. As their families increased, another and another cabin was added, as crazy and as cheerless as the first, until, admonished of the increase of their own substance, the influx of wealthier neighbors, and the general improvement of the country around them, they were allured by pride to do that to which they never would have been impelled by suffering. The gratuitous exposure to the climate, which the backwoodsman seems rather to court than avoid, is a subject of common remark. No extremity of weather confines him to the shelter of his own roof. Whether the object be business or pleasure, it is pursued with the same composure amid the shadows of the night, or the howling of the tempest, as in the most genial season. Nor is this trait of character confined to woodsmen or to farmers; examples of hardihood are contagious, and in this country all ranks of people neglect, or despise the ordinary precautions with respect to health. Judges and lawyers, merchants, physicians and ministers of the gospel, set the seasons at defiance in the pursuit of their respective callings. They prosecute their journeys regardless of weather; and learn at last to feel little inconvenience from the exposure, which is silently undermining their constitutions. Is it extraordinary that people thus exposed should be attacked by violent maladies? Would it not be more wonderful that such a careless prodigality of life could pass with impunity? These remarks might be extended; the food of the first settler, consisting chiefly of fresh meat without vegetables and often without salt; the common use of ardent spirits, the want of medical aid, by which diseases, at first simple, being neglected become dangerous; and other evils peculiar to a new country, might be noticed as fruitful sources of disease; but I have already dwelt sufficiently on this subject. That this country is decidedly healthy, I feel no hesitation in declaring; but neither argument nor naked assertions will convince the world. Let us collect such facts as amount to evidence, and establish the truth by undeniable demonstration."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Uniform exposure to the weather is favorable to health. I can affirm this from long experience and observation. Our hunters, and surveyors, who uniformly spend their time for weeks in the woods and prairies, who wade in the water, swim creeks, are drenched in the rains and dews, and sleep in the open air or a camp at night, very rarely are attacked with fevers. I have known repeated instances of young men, brought up delicately in the eastern cities, accustomed, as clerks, to a sedentary life, with feeble constitutions,—I have known such repeatedly to enter upon the business of surveying the public lands, or in the hunting and trapping business, be absent for months, and return with robust health. It is a common thing for a frontier man, whose health is on the decline, and especially when indications of pulmonary affection appear, to engage in a hunting expedition to renovate his health. I state these facts, and leave it to the medical faculty to explain the why and wherefore. One circumstance may deserve attention. All these men, as do the Indians, sleep with their feet towards the fire at night. And it is a common notion with this class, that if the feet are kept hot through the night, however cold the atmosphere, or however much exposed the rest of the body, no evil consequences will ensue. I have passed many a night in this position, after fatiguing rides of thirty or forty miles in the day on our extreme frontiers, and through rains, and never experienced any inconvenience to health, if I could get a pallet on the cabin floor, and my feet to the fire.