Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders / Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician

by William A. Alcott

A young man came under my care in the early part of the year 1854, who, for the sake of convenience, I will call Thomas. He was about eighteen years of age, but as delicate, sensitive, and effeminate as a female directly from Broadway would have been, or as a plant reared in a hothouse. In truth, he had been reared very much like many females of the present day, in a manner entirely sedentary—the creature of over-tenderness and over-kindness.

His disease was scrofula; but, with his scrofulous tendencies were conjoined some other difficulties, more obscure and still more unmanageable. His joints were enlarged; and in particular portions of his body were various watery swellings or sacs.

As it was a scrofulous tendency that lay at the bottom or basis of his complaints, I proceeded to treat him accordingly. I was to have him under my care three months, during which time, it was believed, something might be done, if ever. At least, it was believed that a beginning might be made, if indeed the disease should prove to be at all curable.

He was subjected to the treatment, with few variations, which is mentioned in the preceding chapter. He was not permitted, however, to do much in the way of deep breathing till his general health and strength could be improved by other measures. Warm water, in his case, was preferred, also, to cold, and was used in the form of a tub-bath, at five o'clock in the afternoon.

Thomas had been with me about three weeks, without much variation of condition or prospects, when I received a long letter from his friends, the purport of which was that they had been favored with a communication from the "spirit world," which was attended with the appearance of so much truth and reality, that they were not at liberty wholly to disregard it. The communication purported to be made by the late Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia.

As these friends of Thomas well knew I was not a believer in this new-fangled spiritualism, they had taken much pains to satisfy me that I was to have for my venerable counsellor not a mere pretender, but the veritable Dr. Rush himself. As one evidence in the case, they had inquired through the "medium," who were the present associates of the good doctor in his new abode; who, nothing loath, had deigned to gratify their supposed curiosity, by giving them the names of five distinguished physicians, among whom were the elder and younger Dr. Ingalls, of Massachusetts, and Dr. Sanborn, of New Hampshire.

And then, with regard to Thomas, he only said, at first, that he was very much interested in him, and that he would examine him and report. Soon after this, at another communication, he said his case was a difficult one, but he thought not incurable. He added, that he was already in very good hands, the best, perhaps, that could be found in this mundane sphere, but rather cautiously insinuated that there were symptoms in the case which I had not yet got hold of, but which would, if rightly apprehended, modify, in some of its particulars, my treatment. What it was in the case which I had not discovered, he did not say directly, but subsequently intimated that the young man's disease was not scrofula, as I had pronounced it, but dropsy of the joints.

It was not long afterward that the mother paid us a visit, and brought, well written out, the substance, as she said it was, of quite a number of communications from Dr. Rush. Much was said in them about the necessity of exercise and a plain diet. And, in general, so far as the mere treatment was concerned, the statements of the spiritual doctor accorded so well with those of the earthly one, that had I been a believer in these modern mysteries, I should have been highly gratified, not only on Thomas's account, but my own.

But the spirit doctor urged a few variations in the treatment of the young man. Beside pressing a little harder than myself the use of green vegetables, and particularly of vegetable juices, he requested, with great apparent earnestness, that he might be permitted to occupy a room heated by a wood fire, rather than by coal. He also made a few other suggestions of less importance.

His mother was a very good woman, save her great credulity. And even here, perhaps, I do her injustice, for there were some curious facts and coincidences. The venerable spirit doctor appeared to have possessed himself of certain secrets which it was extremely puzzling to conjecture how an impostor could have obtained.