HOW TO CURE CHOLERA.
While cholera was prevailing in our large towns and cities, and a few cases were occurring and proving fatal in my own neighborhood, a friend of mine, who had till recently been a sea captain, complained, one day, of cholera symptoms, and begged to know what he could do to ward off the threatened disease.
On inquiry I found he was more than half right, that cholera, surely enough, was already marking him for its victim. The rice-water discharges, so called, had actually commenced. Had he been any thing but a resolute tar, he would have gone on, most evidently, into severe if not fatal disease.
I gave him the best advice I was able, with regard to diet, exercise, etc.,—probably the same, or about the same, that any thoughtful medical man, in the same circumstances, would have given. He was to be cheerful, quiet, and abstinent. For food, he was to use nothing but a little boiled rice,—at least, till the symptoms of cholera began to abate. He was especially directed to avoid all medicine.
Several weeks passed away, during which I heard nothing from him. As I did not hear of his death, however, I concluded he must have recovered. One day, rather unexpectedly, I met him again, and inquired familiarly how he got along with his cholera? He laughed outright, but immediately added,—"Sit down, sir, and I will tell you the whole story."
"After I left you," said he, "the thought struck me,—Why cannot I control the muscles of my system as well as my appetites and passions? Indeed, on occasions, I have done it, at least for a short time. These little rice-water evacuations cannot, in the nature of things, do much harm by being retained. I can do what any man can. These frequent demands of nature seem to me very unreasonable. I will not yield to them. And, like a good sailor, I kept my word. For nearly a whole day I never permitted a single evacuation. Then, after yielding obedience, for once, to nature's clamorous demands, I again enforced my prohibitory law. My task, the second day, was less severe than it was the first, and on the third day I got along very comfortably. The fourth day I was well; and to-day you see me here."
Whether he told me the truth, I do not know, of course; but I give the statement, as nearly as I can recollect, just as it was given to me. I have reason, however, for believing it to be true. The man is still alive, and is as likely to live for twenty or twenty-five years to come, as you or I, or any other individual.
Mrs. Willard, of Troy, New York, under the full impression that the seat of human life is in the lungs, and not in the heart, and that even the blue color of the skin during the collapse of Asiatic cholera, is owing to an accumulation of unburnt carbon in the air cells of the lungs, made the experiment of trusting a few patients, in this disease, to the full influence of pure air, and nothing else. According to her account the experiments were most admirably successful. She cured every individual she experimented on (and it was a considerable number), and in a comparatively short period.
It was my good fortune to escape cholera patients, with the single exception mentioned above. However, I am quite confident that, but for the alarm, which more than half paralyzes our efforts, we might much more frequently recover, under its deadly influences, especially if we begin the work of preparation in good season, and duly and faithfully persevere. There is much in enduring to the end.