CHAPTER LXIX.
COLD-TAKING AND CONSUMPTION.
In Chapter XXIII., I have given a full account of my partial recovery from consumption. I have even spoken of the postponement as if it were complete and final. More than twenty years had now passed away, and I had begun to indulge the hope that I should never have another relapse.
As one element of this hope, I had nearly broken up the habit—once very strong—of taking cold, especially on my lungs. In truth, I believed all danger from this source to be entirely removed, and my particular susceptibility to any thing like acute pulmonary attacks forever at an end. I was confident, moreover, that the art of avoiding cold was an art which not only an individual, here and there, like myself, could acquire, but one which was within the reach of every one who would take the needful pains.
On a certain occasion of this latter kind, I was under a conventional necessity of exposing myself, in an unusual degree, for several successive evenings, to circumstances which, at an earlier period of my life, would, almost inevitably, have been followed by a cold. Was it safe, in my present condition, to run the risk? I hesitated for some time, but finally decided to comply with the request which had been made, and take the responsibility. I believed my susceptibility to cold so entirely eradicated that there was little if any danger.
But, as the event proved, I was quite mistaken; a severe cold came on, and left me in a condition not merely alarming, but immediately so. My lungs were greatly oppressed and my cough exceedingly severe and harassing; and it was followed with great debility and rapid emaciation.
Ashamed of myself, especially as I had boasted, for so many years, of an entire freedom from all tendencies of this sort, I endeavored, for a few days, to screen myself entirely from the public eye and observation. But I soon found that inaction, especially confinement to the house, would not answer the purpose,—that I should certainly die if I persisted in my seclusion.
What now should I do? I was too feeble to work much, although the season had arrived when labor in the garden was beginning to be needed. Trees were to be pruned and washed, and other things promptly attended to. The open air was also the best remedy for my enfeebled and irritated bronchial cavities. Whether there was, at this time, any ulceration of tubercles in my lungs, is, to say the least, very doubtful. However, I greatly needed the whole influence of out-of-door employment, or of travelling abroad; and, as it seemed to me, could not long survive without it.
Accordingly I took my pruning knife in my hand, and walked to the garden. It was about a quarter of a mile distant, and quite unconnected with the house I occupied. At first, it was quite as much as I could do to walk to the garden and return without attempting any labor. Nor could I have done even this, had I not rested several times, both on the road and in the enclosure itself.