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

by William A. Alcott

Much is said in these days about scrofula, and much indeed should be said about it; for it has become a most frequent, not to say fatal, disease. For, if few die of it, immediately, it leads to, or renders more severe, numerous other diseases, which are more directly fatal. In truth, a scrofulous constitution not only prepares us for many other diseases, but renders them, when they assail us, much more severe than they otherwise would have been. Colds, fevers, and consumption, in particular, are not only more frequent in scrofulous people than in others, but also more intense or severe, as well as less manageable by medical skill.

This disease itself, though often inherited, may, on the one hand, be greatly aggravated by improper treatment; or, by a proper course of living, may, on the other hand, be postponed many years, if not indefinitely. Living much in the open air, cheerfulness of mind, plain food and drink, and a proper regard to the skin, will do a vast deal towards arresting its progress, and in some instances will wholly prevent its doing us any harm. For though five millions of the inhabitants of the United States were probably born with a tendency to this formidable disease, and the same proportion—if not a greater—of each generation to come will be likely to have the same tendency, I do not believe it to be indispensably necessary that one-half of this number should die, as now they do, of consumption. I have not a doubt that two-thirds of them might, by proper management, be made to last many years, and some of them to what is usually called old age.

It has been my lot to have a very great number of scrofulous patients, daring the last twenty-five years, from almost every part of the United States. One of the worst cases I ever had was that of Mrs. ——, of New Hampshire. Her history, prior to the period when she came to me, is very briefly as follows.

She was born of parents, who, at the time of her birth, were very near their dotage; in consequence of which, as it was believed, she held her existence by a very feeble tenure. At two and a half years of age, she was nearly destroyed by dysentery, or by the medicine given to arrest her disease, or by both. In addition to this and almost before she recovered, she had an attack of scarlet fever, which was very severe, and which was also probably treated freely by medicine. By this time there is no doubt that scrofula, at first slightly inherited, had become pretty well riveted on a constitution already but poorly prepared to endure it.

In her seventeenth year, she was afflicted with a troublesome eruption, which was cured, or at least checked, by a wash of sugar of lead. (See Chapter XIII.) She was married at twenty-one; and though stinted in her growth, so as to be almost a dwarf, she seemed, at first, to be tolerably healthy. But in the course of a year she suffered from various complaints, to which scrofulous and otherwise debilitated females are subject in early conjugal life, for which she was treated—as I suppose very injudiciously—with active medicine, especially calomel.

And now, as if to render what was already bad enough a great deal worse, she made use of a certain patent medicine, which had been greatly lauded in the public papers. She was also persuaded to make use of a more stimulating diet than before; which was doubtless to her great disadvantage, in such a feeble condition. Her diet, though it should have been nourishing, should have been less stimulating than usual, and not more so.

Falling in with the famous Sylvester Graham, who was lecturing near her at the time, she was overpersuaded to change her habits very suddenly, especially her dietetic habits. From a highly seasoned diet, she was at once transferred to a very plain one, to which was added cold bathing and abundant exercise in the open air. This change, though it caused great emaciation, appeared to restore her health entirely. Her appetite and general strength were such that she thought it almost impossible she could ever be sick again.

But now a heavy domestic affliction befell her, which again very much reduced her; and, as she was wont to say afterward, "killed her." What it was, however, I was never informed. Being greatly depressed, she undoubtedly confined herself to the house too much, and in one instance when she ventured out, she unluckily exposed herself to a damp east wind, which appeared to give her cold. To remove this, and for other purposes, she fasted rigidly, for several days.

It was at this time that she came, in part, under my care. But she was already so much diseased in mind and body, and so ignorant of any just principles of hygiene, as to be greatly liable to be led about by the fancy or whim of this friend or that—sometimes by Mr. Graham and others, who only relied on Nature; and at others, by those who went to the opposite extreme. I could do little for her to any valuable purpose, and was glad to send her to the elder Dr. Jackson, of Boston. Not, however, till I had given her to understand, in general, that aside from her scrofulous tendencies, I did not know what ailed her; and that, so far as I could understand her case, her safest course was to avoid medicine and depend almost wholly on a careful obedience to God's laws, physical and moral, especially to his laws of hygiene. I had not then fully learned how much she had been abused, in early life, by unnecessary dosing and drugging.

Dr. Jackson told her it was evident there was something in her case very much out of the way; but he would be honest with her, and confess that he did not know what it was. He proposed to have Dr. Putnam see her, and another physician at Lowell. He insisted, however, on a more nutritious diet.