Remarks like these had their intended effect on a few individuals, especially such of them as were couched in language with which they were already familiar. On most, however, they fell lifeless and hopeless. What knew they about precocity and its effects on the after life? In short, it was quite doubtful then, and is still more doubtful with me now, whether, on the whole, any thing was gained by attempts at explanation. For example, when I spoke of my patient being worn out, prematurely, by overworking, it was asked by one man, "But how is this? Other men as well as Mr. —— have worked too hard, and brought up large families, and perhaps taken a great deal of medicine, and smoked a vast amount of tobacco? Why are they not affected in this way as well as Mr. ——?"
It was not easy to make current the idea that Mr. —— was about to die of old age; although partly from conviction, but partly, also, to conceal my ignorance, I still endeavored to promulgate it. It was the only apology I could make for suffering a man to run down and die, without appearing to those around him to be very sick.
But he died, after some time, to my infinite mortification and great regret. I was invited to his funeral, as I was usually to the funerals of my patients. In this case, however, I contrived to be absent. So great was my consciousness of ignorance and so much ashamed was I of my ill success, that I felt as if the veriest ignoramus would be disposed to point at me, and to charge me with having been, practically, the murderer of the much-beloved head of a family, and a worthy and highly respected member of society. But, whether others would deem me culpable for my ignorance or not, I could not avoid the pangs of habitual condemnation.
There were, I grant, a few extenuating circumstances in the case. One or two causes existed, of premature decline, on which, in a work like this, I cannot stop to expatiate. It was also very unfortunate for him that he was accustomed to look on the dark side of things, and to forebode ills, where, oftentimes, none existed.
Notwithstanding my former ignorance and doubt, and numerous misgivings, in cases like the foregoing, I have of late years, on a maturer review, been obliged very frequently to confirm my earlier decisions. In the case which has been detailed in this chapter, I have, on the whole, come to a belief that my first judgment was nearly correct; and that the patient actually perished, as much as men ever do, of premature old age. It is, indeed, very possible that had I pursued a different course in several important particulars, his life might have been prolonged for a year or two. Men have a tendency to become what they are taken to be; and many a person has died much sooner for being taken to be near his end, and treated accordingly. If we would have our patients recover, we must take for granted that recovery is at least possible.
In the case above, I believe I lost reputation, in large measure. Several shrewd people insisted, at the time and long afterward, that I ought to have had medical counsel. Mr. ——, they said, was too good a man to lose without a more persevering effort to raise him. They charged me with having got my name up, and having at the same time grown careless. Had he been properly doctored, they said, from the very first, they believed he might still have been alive to ornament and bless society.