"From time to time this distemper takes a great toll of lives in New Orleans," said he. "And there's little done to fight it back, except bitter drafts and things that are a deal like witchcraft."
Dr. King looked serious.
"We practise equal follies here," said he. "Blood has always run to propitiate the demons in time of pestilence; and we are still calling for it. Only to-day I heard of a man who had been bled five times between dawn and sundown, to drain the venom of the complaint from his system. But, I suppose, if the disease mounts, these things must go their course; after they've failed we can have the filth of the town buried or burned, and bring some degree of sanity into practise."
So each day the city's surgeons proudly flashed their lancets; blood ran into basins in every household; the sick were given slimy, bitter drinks; not a stir of air was permitted in their chambers. Outdoors the heat poured down on the rotting masses in docks and byways; street by street the beleaguering pestilence took the town. The church-bells began to toll early of a morning; at first there were little spaces between their ringing; then the spaces closed up—filled in; the tolling grew constant—never ceasing. It was death sounding in the citizen's ear; and death met his eye in the funeral cortèges that darkened the streets.
The roads leading from the town were filled with vehicles and people on foot, carrying bundles of belongings, all in flight before the pestilence. Those who kept in the city lighted fires in the streets, as the smoke and flame were said to have a killing effect on the plague. The burning of gunpowder was universally recommended; fowling-pieces, muskets, small ordnance, holster pistols, barked and roared and stuttered through the storm of bells, and the smoke of the fires. Tobacco was cherished as a foe to the disease by many, and was smoked and snuffed in quantities; garlic was considered unfriendly to the thing and was chewed and kept in the pockets and placed in the shoes; pitch was set alight in fire-shovels and carried smoking through dwellings to drive out the possible presence.
"THE ROADS LEADING FROM THE TOWN WERE FILLED WITH VEHICLES AND PEOPLE ON FOOT."
"I cling to it," said Christopher Dent, as he labored in his laboratory, distilling and compounding the cures and preventatives most in demand, "that camphor is the most efficient and harmless agent in treatment of this disorder; unctuous, pellucid, bitterly aromatic, if inhaled it overcomes the poisons of the fever, and has a cooling effect upon the brain and blood."