Perhaps next to the wonderful Snail-Water for rickets, given on page 497 of this chapter, the Water of Life was the great remedy, used for fevers and also as a tonic in health:
"Take Balm leaves and stalks, Betony leaves and flowers, Rosemary, red sage, Taragon, Tormentil leaves, Rossolis and Roses, Carnation, Hyssop, Thyme, red strings that grow upon Savory, red Fennel leaves and root, red Mints, of each a handful; bruise these hearbs and put them in a great earthen pot, & pour on them enough White Wine as will cover them, stop them close, and let them steep for eight or nine days; then put to it Cinnamon, Ginger, Angelica-seeds, Cloves, and Nuttmegs, of each an ounce, a little Saffron, Sugar one pound, Raysins solis stoned one pound, the loyns and legs of an old Coney, a fleshy running Capon, the red flesh of the sinews of a leg of Mutton, four young Chickens, twelve larks, the yolks of twelve Eggs, a loaf of White-bread cut in sops, and two or three ounces of Mithradate or Treacle, & as much Muscadine as will cover them all. Distil al with a moderate fire, and keep the first and second waters by themselves; and when there comes no more by distilling put more Wine into the pot upon the same stuffe and distil it again, and you shal have another good water. This water strengtheneth the Spirit, Brain, Heart, Liver, and Stomack. Take when need is by itself, or with Ale, Beer, or Wine mingled with Sugar."[320]
Small-pox was such a dreadful scourge to the colonists, causing death, disfigurement, and misfortune, that after inoculation was introduced and accepted as reliable, small-pox hospitals arose and it became quite the fashion for entire families and even parties made up of friends and acquaintances to resort to them together and be inoculated all at the same time, these parties being called classes. Sometimes these gatherings were held at private homes and special invitations were sent out to friends. "These brave classes took their various purifying and sudorific medicines in cheerful concert, were 'grafted' together, 'broke out' together, were feverish together, sweat together, scaled off together, and convalesced together. Not a very prepossessing conjoining medium would inoculation appear to have been, but many a pretty and sentimental love affair sprang up between mutually 'pock-fretten' New Englanders."[321]
The small-pox hospitals were of various kinds and prices, ranging as low as three dollars per week for lodging, food, medicine, care, and inoculation. The following advertisement of one such hospital appeared in the Connecticut Courant of November 30, 1767:
"Dr. Uriah Rogers, Jr., of Norwalk County of Fairfield takes this method to acquaint the Publick & particularly such as are desirous of taking the Small Pox by way of Inoculation, that having had Considerable Experience in that Branch of Practice and carried on the same the last season with great Success; has lately erected a convenient Hospital for that purpose just within the Jurisdiction Line of the Province of New York about nine miles distant from N. Y. Harbour, where he intends to carry said Branch of Practice from the first of October next to the first of May next. And that all such as are disposed to favour him with their Custom may depend upon being well provided with all necessary accommodations, Provisions & the best Attendance at the moderate Expense of Four Pounds Lawful Money to Each Patient. That after the first Sett or Class he purposes to give no Occasion for waiting to go in Particular setts but to admit Parties singly, just as it suits them. As he has another Good House provided near Said Hospital where his family are to live, and where all that come after the first Sett that go into the Hospital are to remain with his Family until they are sufficiently Prepared & Inoculated & Until it is apparent that they have taken the infection."[322]
Upon a death in a town in New York state in colonial times, notice was given by the ringing or tolling of the church-bell and the funeral inviter was sent out, a man paid for his services, who was dressed in gloomy black with long streamers of crape hanging from his hat. The ones to be invited were visited by him and notified of the day and hour of the funeral. The funeral-inviter usually combined in himself along with this office those of schoolmaster, bell-ringer, chorister, and grave-digger. Later the funeral-inviter was made a public officer and the fees were regulated by law. The corpse while lying at the home was watched over through the night by intimate friends of the family and these watchers were well supplied with drinks and cakes and tobacco and pipes. The body lay in state in a large room which was rarely used for other occasions than this.
There were rare occurrences of night-burials in the colonies, confined to people belonging to the English Church, the funeral procession and burial taking place by torch-light. In the earlier times in New England there were no religious services of any kind at a funeral, neither at the house nor at the grave, but later there were prayers at the house and a short speech at the grave, and then funeral sermons began to be preached but not at the time of the burial. In New York there were funeral services but always held at the home. The coffin was made of well-seasoned boards and covered with a pall of fringed black cloth, which was replaced with a white sheet where the death took place in childbirth. As a mark of mourning, in some places all ornaments and mirrors and pictures were covered with cloths from the time of death till after the funeral and even sometimes the window-shutters at the front of the house were tied together with black cloth and kept closed for a year. There were usually two sets of pall-bearers, one set of strong young men who bore the coffin on a bier and another set of older men of dignity, who walked alongside the bearers and held the corners of the pall. Much etiquette was displayed in arranging the order of the procession to the grave, each mourner being carefully assigned to his place, the widow usually being placed with a magistrate or some other person of dignity.
Funerals became to be very expensive affairs and this brought about legislative enactments trying to regulate and curtail the expenses. When the cities began to grow and wealth to increase much pomp and dignity were used in the burial of men and women of high station, trumpets and drums being used and volleys fired over the grave—even of a woman. In properly putting away Governor Winthrop, the chief founder of Massachusetts, a barrel and a half of powder was consumed. In the middle and southern colonies, the funeral became to be a time of feasting and drinking. At a single funeral there might have been several barrels of wine and several hogsheads of beer consumed, beside great quantities of food eaten and tobacco used. Sometimes in Pennsylvania as many as five hundred guests at a funeral were served with punch and cake. At a funeral in Virginia the cost of the wine used amounted to more than four thousand pounds of tobacco. New England was not so far behind, as bills are found for much baked meats, rum, cider, whiskey, lemons, sugar, spices, and cakes used at funerals.
It was a custom in colonial times for the family of the deceased to give certain kinds of gifts to those who were invited to the funeral. Books were among the gifts, being serious books suitable as a memorial of the occasion, but probably book gifts occurred only in New England. Scarfs, often of silk, were among the presents and also handkerchief, the scarfs sometimes being worn quite awhile after the funeral as a token of mourning, thereby showing respect for the dead. Sometimes black ribbons were given, to be worn on the hat as long streamers. Spoons also were given in New York, called monkey-spoons, being made of silver with the figure or head of an ape on the handle. The two most common and most important gifts were gloves and rings. The gloves were white or black or purple and were of different quality, given according to rank or closeness of blood to the deceased. Hundreds of these gloves were often given out at a single funeral, at one funeral over a thousand were given and still at another three thousand pairs. A Boston clergyman kept account of the number he had received and in thirty-two years he had been given two thousand, nine hundred, and forty pairs of mourning gloves. In 1738 at a funeral in Boston over two hundred rings were given away. A judge received 57 mourning rings between 1687-1725, a minister had a mugful, and a physician who died in 1758 at the age of eighty-one left a quart tankard full of the rings. "These mourning rings were of gold, usually enameled in black, or black and white. They were frequently decorated with a death's-head, or with a coffin with a full-length skeleton lying in it, or with a winged skull. Sometimes they held a framed lock of hair of the deceased friend. Sometimes the ring was shaped like a serpent with his tail in his mouth. Many bore a posy."[323] These gloves and rings usually were sold. The Boston minister noted above received between six and seven hundred dollars through the sale of the gloves he had received at funerals and likewise quite a good sum from the sale of the funeral rings he had received.
There finally came a reaction against such great expense at funerals and the giving of gifts so that by the middle of the eighteenth century funerals were being held at which there was little or no feasting and drinking and but little mourning worn, and even some funerals were held at which no mourning at all had been worn. In the latter part of the century laws arose wherein fines were to be imposed on any person who gave scarfs, gloves, rings, wine, or rum at a funeral, or who bought any new mourning apparel except crape for an armband if a man or a black bonnet, fan, gloves, and ribbon if a woman. But such laws were difficult of being rigidly enforced and so, perhaps, had but little effect, public opinion and custom after all causing whatever changes that may have come about.