FORTY YEARS

IN THE WILDERNESS

OF

PILLS AND POWDERS;

OR, THE

COGITATIONS AND CONFESSIONS OF

AN AGED PHYSICIAN.

BOSTON:
JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY.
NEW YORK:
C. M. SAXTON AND COMPANY.
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK: E. DARROW AND BROTHER.
1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the district of
Massachusetts.
LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY,
17 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON.
Printed by Geo. C. Rand and Avery.

PREFACE.

The present volume was one of the last upon which its author was engaged, the facts having been gathered from the experience and observation of a long life. It was his design to publish them anonymously, but under the changed circumstances this is rendered impracticable.

A short time previous to his death, the writer spoke of this work, and said, in allusion to the termination of his own somewhat peculiar case,—"This last chapter must be added." In accordance with this desire, a brief sketch, having reference chiefly to his health and physical habits, with the closing chapter of his life, has been appended.

Boston, June, 1859.

TO THE READER.

In the sub-title to the following work, I have used the word "Confessions"—not to mislead the reader, but because to confess is one prominent idea of its author. It is a work in which confessions of the impotence of the healing art, as that art has been usually understood, greatly abound; and in which the public ignorance of the laws of health or hygiene, with the consequences of that ignorance, are presented with great plainness. The world will make a wiser use of its medical men than it has hitherto done, when it comes to see more clearly what is their legitimate and what their ultimate mission.

These remarks indicate the main intention of the writer. It is not so much to enlighten or aid, or in any way directly affect the medical man, as to open the eyes of the public to their truest interests; to a just knowledge of themselves; and to some faint conception of their bondage to credulity and quackery. The reader will find that I go for science and truth, let them affect whom they may. Let him, then, suspend his judgment till he has gone through this volume once, and I shall have no fears. He may, indeed, find fault with my style, and complain of my literary or philosophic unfitness for the task I assigned myself; but he will, nevertheless, be glad to know my facts.

Should any one feel aggrieved by the exposures I have made in the details which follow, let me assure him that no one is more exposed—nor, indeed, has more cause to be aggrieved—than myself. Let us all, then, as far as is practicable, keep our own secrets. Let us not shrink from such exposures as are likely, in a large measure, to benefit mankind, while the greatest possible inconvenience or loss to ourselves is but trifling.

Some may wish that instead of confining myself too rigidly to naked fact and sober reasoning, I had given a little more scope to the imagination. But is not plain, "unvarnished" truth sometimes not only "stranger," but, in a work like this, better also, than any attempts at "fiction"?

The Author.
Auburndale, March, 1859.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. Educational Tendencies [1]
II. My First Medical Lesson, [6]
III. The Electrical Machine, [9]
IV. The Measles, and pouring down Rum, [11]
V. Lee's Pills and Dropsy, [13]
VI. The Cold Shower Bath, [16]
VII. My First Sickness Abroad, [18]
VIII. Lesson from an Old Surgeon, [20]
IX. Lee's Windham Bilious Pills, [23]
X. Dr. Solomon and his Patient. [26]
XI. Physicking off Fever, [28]
XII. Manufacturing Chilblains, [31]
XIII. How to make Erysipelas, [34]
XIV. Studying Medicine, [38]
XV. Nature's own Eye Water, [41]
XVI. The Viper Story, [43]
XVII. Struck with Death, [46]
XVIII. Efficacy of Cold Spring Water, [51]
XIX. Cheating the Physician, [56]
XX. Medicinal Effects of Story Telling, [58]
XXI. Ossified Veins, [61]
XXII. He will Die in Thirty-Six Hours, [64]
XXIII. About to Die of Consumption, [72]
XXIV. My Journeymanship in Medicine, [81]
XXV. My Temperance Pledge, [85]
XXVI. Trials of a Young Physician, [87]
XXVII. A Dosing and Drugging Family, [90]
XXVIII. Poisoning with Lead, [96]
XXIX. Standing Patients, [102]
XXX. Killing a Patient, [105]
XXXI. A Sudden Cure, [109]
XXXII. Gigantic Doses of Medicine, [112]
XXXIII. The Lambskin Disease, [115]
XXXIV. Milk Punch Fever, [120]
XXXV. My First Case in Surgery, [124]
XXXVI. Emilia and the Love-Cure, [127]
XXXVII. Hezekiah Judkins and Delirium, [133]
XXXVIII. My First Amputation, [136]
XXXIX. Milk as a Remedy in Fevers, [138]
XL. Virtues of Pumpkin Seed Tea, [141]
XLI. Broken Limbs and Intemperance, [144]
XLII. Dying from Filthiness, [148]
XLIII. Taking the Fever, [153]
XLIV. Blessings of Cider and Cider Brandy, [156]
XLV. The Indian Doctor, [160]
XLVI. Dying of Old Age at Fifty-Eight, [163]
XLVII. Daughters Destroying their Mother, [169]
XLVIII. Poisoning with Stramonium, [172]
XLIX. Curing Cancer, [175]
L. Swelled Limbs, [179]
LI. Sudden Changes in Old Age, [182]
LII. An Opium Eater, [185]
LIII. Coffee and the Lame Knee, [188]
LIV. The Opium Pill Box, [193]
LV. Bleeding at the Lungs, [196]
LVI. Butter Eaters, [201]
LVII. Hot Houses and Consumption, [206]
LVIII. Poisoning by a Painted Pail, [216]
LIX. One Drop of Laudanum, [218]
LX. Mrs. Kidder's Cordial, [220]
LXI. Almost Raising the Dead, [225]
LXII. Female Health and Insane Hospitals, [231]
LXIII. A Giant Dyspeptic, [236]
LXIV. Getting into a Circle, [246]
LXV. Poisoning with Maple Sugar, [249]
LXVI. Physicking off Measles, [251]
LXVII. Tic Douloureux, [253]
LXVIII. Cold Water in Fever, [256]
LXIX. Cold-taking and Consumption, [258]
LXX. Freezing out Disease, [261]
LXXI. The Air Cure, [263]
LXXII. The Clergyman, [266]
LXXIII. He Must be Physicked or Die, [268]
LXXIV. Who hath Woe? or, the Sick Widow, [272]
LXXV. The Penalty of Self-Indulgence, [275]
LXXVI. Dr. Bolus and Morphine, [282]
LXXVII. Bleeding and Blistering Omitted, [286]
LXXVIII. Medical Virtues of Sleep, [288]
LXXIX. Cure by Deep Breathing, [291]
LXXX. Spirit Doctoring, [295]
LXXXI. Remarkable Cure of Epilepsy, [301]
LXXXII. Scarlatina Cured by letting alone, [312]
LXXXIII. Ignorance not always Bliss, [314]
LXXXIV. Measles without Snakeroot and Saffron, [317]
LXXXV. The Consumptive Pair, [320]
LXXXVI. How to Cure Cholera, [322]
LXXXVII. Obstinacy and Suicide, [324]
LXXXVIII. Health Hospitals, [327]
LXXXIX. Destruction by Scrofula, [329]
XC. Starving out Disease, [334]
XCI. Dieting on Mince Pie, [342]
XCII. Giants in the Earth, [346]
XCIII. The Green Mountain Patient, [349]
XCIV. Cure of Poison from Lead, [355]
XCV. Faith and Works, [358]
XCVI. Works without Faith, [360]
XCVII. Diseases of Licentiousness, [365]
XCVIII. Curious and Instructive Facts, [367]
XCIX. Anti-Medical Testimony, [371]
C. An Anti-Medical Premium, [375]
CI. Concluding Remarks, [378]
CII. A Last Chapter, [380]

FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS
OF
PILLS AND POWDERS.

CHAPTER I.

EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES.

I was born in a retired but pleasant part of New England, as New England was half a century ago, and as, in many places, despite of its canals, steamboats, railroads, and electromagnetic telegraphs, it still is. Hence I am entitled to the honor of being, in the most emphatic sense, a native of the land of "steady habits."

The people with whom I passed my early years, though comparatively rude and uncultivated, were yet, in their manners and character, quite simple. Most of them could spell and read, and write their names, and a few could "cipher" as far as simple subtraction. To obtain the last-mentioned accomplishment, however, was not easy, for arithmetic was not generally permitted in the public schools during the six hours of the day; and could only be obtained in the occasional evening school, or by self-exertion at home.

The majority of my townsmen also knew something of the dream-book and of palmistry, and of the influence of the moon (especially when first seen, after the change, over the right shoulder), not only on the weather and on vegetation, but on the world of humanity. They also understood full well, what troubles were betokened by the howling of a dog, the blossoming of a flower out of due season, or the beginning of a journey or of a job of work on Tuesday or Friday. Many of them knew how to tell fortunes in connection with a cup of tea. Nay, more, not a few of them were skilled in astrology, and by its aid could tell under what planet a person was born, and perchance, could predict thereby the future events of his life; at least after those events had actually taken place.

Under what particular planet I was born, my friends never told me; though it is quite possible some of my sage grandmothers or aunts could have furnished the needful information had I sought it. They used to look often at the lines in the palms of my hands, and talk much about my dreams, which were certainly a little aspiring, and in many respects remarkable. The frequent prediction of one of these aged and wise friends I remember very well. It was, that I would eat my bread in two kingdoms. This prediction was grounded on the fact, that the hair on the top of my head was so arranged by the plastic hand of Nature as to form what were called two crowns; and was so far fulfilled, that I have occasionally eaten bread within the realms of Queen Victoria!

According to the family register, kept in the cranium of my mother, I was born on Monday, which doubtless served to justify the frequent repetition of the old adage, and its application to my own case—"Born on Monday, fair of face." I was also born on the sixth day of the month, on account of which it was said that the sixth verse of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs was, prospectively, a key to my character. It is certainly true that I have dealt out not a little "strong drink to him that" was "ready to perish;" and that few of my professional brethren have furnished a larger proportion of it gratuitously; or as Solomom says, have given it.

Whether there was any clear or distinct prophecy ever uttered that I would one day be a knight of the lancet, clad in full armor, is not certain. If there was, I presume it was unwritten. That I was to be distinguished in some way, everybody appeared to understand and acknowledge. I was not only at the head of all my classes at school, in spelling, reading, and writing, but exalted above most of my competitors and compeers by a whole head and shoulders. In ciphering, in particular, I excelled. I understood the grand rules of arithmetic, and could even work a little in the Rule of Three.

That the thought of being a "doctor" did, in a sort of indefinable way, sometimes enter my head, even at that early period, I will not deny. One of my teachers, as I well remember, had medical books, into which bars and bolts could hardly prevent me from peeping. But there were a thousand lions in the way—or at least two or three. One was extreme indigence on the part of my parents. They came together nearly as poor as John Bunyan and his wife, or Sydney Smith and his companion. Or if, in addition to a knife, fork, and spoon, they had a looking-glass, an old iron kettle, an axe, and a hoe, I am sure the inventory of their property at first could not have extended much farther; and now that they had a family of four children, their wants had increased about as fast as their income.

Besides, there was a confused belief in the public mind—and of course in mine—that medical men were a species of conjurors; or if nothing more, that they had a sort of mysterious knowledge of human character, obtained by dealing with the stars, or by reliance on some supernatural source or other. And to such a height as this I could not at that time presume to aspire; though I certainly did aspire, even at a very early period, to become a learned man.

As a means to such an end, I early felt an ardent desire to become a printer. This desire originated, in part at least, from reading the autobiography of Dr. Franklin, of which I was exceedingly fond. It was a desire, moreover, which I was very slow to relinquish till compelled. My father, as we have seen, was a poor laborer, and thought himself unable either to give me any extra opportunities of education, or to spare me from the cultivation of a few paternal acres. Still, in secret, I I clung to the hope of one day traversing the lengths and breadths and depths and heights of the world of science.

But for what purpose, as a final end? for, practically, the great question was, cui bono? As for becoming a lawyer, that, with me, was quite out of the question; for lawyers, even thus early, were generally regarded as bad men. All over the region of my nativity the word lawyer was nearly synonymous with liar; and to liars and lawyers the Devil was supposed to have a peculiar liking, not to say affinity. I had never at that time heard of but one honest lawyer; and him I regarded as a sort of lusus naturæ much more than as an ordinary human being. My friends would have been shocked at the bare thought of my becoming a lawyer, had the road to that profession been open to my youthful aspirations.

The clerical profession was in some respects looked upon more favorably than the legal or the medical. I was scarcely "three feet high" when an aged and venerable grandmother said one day, in my hearing, and probably for my hearing, "I always did hope one of my grandsons would be a minister." This, however, neither interested me much nor encouraged me; for (reader will you believe it?), as the doctor was regarded in those days as more than half a sorcerer, and the lawyer three-fourths devil, so the minister was deemed by many as almost half an idiot, except for his learning.

I am not, by any means, trifling with you. It was the serious belief of many—I think I might say of most—that those boys who "took to learning" were by nature rather "weak in the attic," especially those who inclined to the ministry. It was a common joke concerning an idiot or half idiot, "send him to college."[A]

In short, so strongly was this unfounded impression concerning the native imbecility of ministers, and in general of literary men, fastened on my mind as well as on the minds of most people, that I grew up nearly to manhood with a sort of confused belief that as a general rule they were below par in point of good, common sense. One prominent reason, as I supposed, why they were sent to college and wrought into that particular shape, was to bring them up to an equality with their fellows. Hence, I not only repelled with a degree of indignation the thought of becoming a minister, but felt really demeaned by my natural fondness for books and school; and like the poet Cowper, hardly dared, all my early lifetime, to look higher than the shoe buckles of my associates. Still, I could not wholly suppress the strong desire to know which had penetrated and pervaded my soul, and which had been nurtured and fed not only by an intelligent mother but by a few books I had read. Perhaps the life of Franklin, already referred to, had as much influence with me as any thing of the kind. For along with the love of knowledge which was so much developed by this book, the love of doing good was introduced. The doctor says, somewhere, that he always set a high value on a doer of good; and it is possible, nay, I might even say probable, that this desire, which subsequently became a passion with me, had its origin in this very remark.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] To illustrate this point, and show clearly the state of the public opinion, I will relate an anecdote. A certain calf in the neighborhood, after long and patient trial, was pronounced too ignorant to be able to procure his own nourishment, or in other words, was said to be a fool. On raising the question, what should be done with him, a shrewd colored man who stood by, said, "Master, send him to college!"

CHAPTER II.

MY FIRST MEDICAL LESSON.

Straws, it is said, show which way the wind blows; and words, and things very small in themselves, sometimes show, much better than "two crowns," or the "stars," what is to be the future of a person's life. The choice of a profession or occupation, were we but trained to the habit of tracing effects up to their causes, will doubtless often be found to have had its origin, if not in straws, at least in very small matters.

When I was ten years of age, my little brother, of only two years, sat one day on the floor whittling an apple. The instrument in his hand was a Barlow knife, as it was then called. The blade was about two inches in length, but was worn very narrow. How his parents and other friends, several of whom were in the same room, came to let him use such a plaything, I cannot now conceive; but as the point was almost square, and the knife very dull, they do not seem hitherto to have had any fears.

Suddenly the usual quiet of the family was disturbed a little by the announcement, "Somebody is going by;" an event which, as you should know, was quite an era in that retired, mountainous region. All hastened to the window to get a view of the passing traveller. The little boy scampered among the rest; but in crossing the threshold of a door which intervened, he stumbled and fell. A sudden shriek called to him one of our friends, who immediately cried out, "Oh dear, he has put out his eye!" and made a hasty but unsuccessful effort to extract the knife, which had penetrated the full length of its blade. The mother hastened to the spot, and drew it forth, though, as she afterward said, not without the exertion of considerable force. Its back was towards the child, and by pressing the ball of the eye downward, the instrument had been able to penetrate to the bottom of the cavity, and perhaps a little way into the bone beyond. The elasticity of the eyeball had retained it so as to render its extraction seemingly difficult.

Most of those who were present, particularly myself and the rest of the children, were for a short time in a state of mental agony that bordered on insanity. Not knowing at first the nature of the wound, but only that there was an eye there, and brains very near it, we naturally expected nothing less than the loss of this precious organ of vision, if not of life. There was no practising physician or surgeon, just at that time, within five or six miles, and I do not remember that any was sent for. We probably concluded that he could do no good.

The child's eye swelled, and for a few days looked very badly; but after the lapse of about two weeks the little fellow seemed to be quite well; and so far as his eyes and brain are concerned, I believe he has been well to this time, a period of almost half a century.

Although we resided at a considerable distance from the village, and from any practising physician, there was near by a very aged and superannuated man, who had once been a medical practitioner. Our curiosity had been so much excited by the wonderful escape of the little boy from impending destruction, that we called on the venerable doctor and asked him whether it was possible for a knife to penetrate so far into the head without injuring the brain and producing some degree of inflammation. From Dr. C. we received a good deal of valuable information concerning the structure of the eye, the shape of the cavity in which it is placed, the structure and character of the brain, etc.

This was a great treat to me, I assure you. It added not a little to the interest which was imparted by his instructions when he showed us, from the relics of better days, some of the bones of the skull, especially those of the frontal region, in which the eye is situated. Of course the sight of a death's head, as we were inclined to call it, was at first frightful to us; but it was a feeling which in part soon passed away. It was a feeling, most certainly, which in me was not abiding at all. Indeed, as the title to the chapter would seem to imply, I received in this dispensation of Providence and its accompaniments my first medical lesson; though without the remotest thought, at the time, of any such thing. I was only indulging in a curiosity which was instinctive and intense, without dreaming of future consequences.

CHAPTER III.

THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE.

Two years after this, an aged man, a distant relation, came to reside in my father's family for a short time, and brought with him a small electrical machine. He was a person of some intelligence, had travelled much, and had been an officer in the army of the American Revolution. On the whole, he was just such a man as would be likely to become a favorite with children. He was, moreover, fully imbued with the expectation of being able to cure diseases by means of electricity; which in our neighborhood, at the least, was quite a novel, not to say a heterodox idea.

Curiosity alone had no small share of influence in bringing my mind to the study of electricity; but a general desire to understand the subject was greatly strengthened by the hope of being able to apply this wonderful agent in the cure of disease. One of the most interesting phases of Christianity is that the love and practice of healing the bodily maladies of mankind are almost always seen in the foreground of the New Testament representations of our Saviour's doings; and it is no wonder that a youth who reverences his Bible, and has a little benevolence, should entertain feelings like those above mentioned.

The owner of the machine had brought with him a book on the subject of curing by electricity. It was a volume of several hundred pages, and was written by T. Gale, of Northern New York. It had in it much that was mere theory, in a highly bombastic style; but it also professed to give with accuracy the details of many remarkable cures, in various forms and stages, of several difficult diseases; and some of these details I knew to be realities. One or two cases at or near Ballston Springs were those of persons of whom I had some knowledge; and one of them was a relative. This last circumstance, no doubt, had great influence on my mind.

As I had in those days some leisure for reading, and possessed very few books, I read—and not only read but studied—Dr. Gale's work from beginning to end. It is scarcely too much to say, that I read it till I knew it almost "by heart;" and my heart assented to it. I believed a new dispensation was at hand to bless the world of mankind; and what benevolence I had, began to be directed in this particular channel. I do not mean to say, that at twelve years of age I began to be a physician, for I do not now recollect that either our aged friend or myself ever had a patient during the whole year he remained with us.

Eight or ten subsequent years at the plough and hoe, and the absence of book, electrical machine, and owner, did much towards obliterating the impressions on this subject I had received. Still, I have no doubt that the affair as a whole had a tendency to lead my thoughts towards the study and practice of medicine, and even to inspire confidence in electricity as a curative agent. In other and fewer words, it was, as I believe, a part of my medical education.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MEASLES AND POURING DOWN RUM.

When I was about fourteen years of age, an event occurred which left a stronger impression on my mind than any of the foregoing; and hence in all probability did more to give my mind a medical bias and tendency.

It was in the month of August. My father, assisted by two or three of his neighbors, was mowing a swamp meadow. It was an unusually wet season, and the water in many places was several inches deep,—in some few instances so deep that we were obliged to go continually with wet feet. To meet, and as it was by most people supposed to remove the danger of contracting disease, a bottle of rum was occasionally resorted to by the mowers, and offered to me; but at first I steadfastly refused it.

At length, however, I began to droop. A feverish feeling and great languor came over me, and I was hardly able to walk. I was not then aware, nor were my friends, that I had been exposed to the contagion of measles, and therefore was not expecting it. I spoke of my ill health, but was consoled with the answer that I should soon get over it. But no; I grew worse, very fast. "Turn down the rum," said one of the mowers, "if you mean to work." But I hesitated. I was not fond of rum at any time, and just now I felt a stronger disinclination to it than ever before. "Turn down the rum," was repeated by the mowers, from time to time, with increased emphasis.

At length wearied with their importunity; and, not over-willing to be the butt of their mirth and ridicule, I went to the spring, where the bottle of rum was kept, and, unperceived by any one, emptied a large portion of its contents on the ground. The mental agitation of temporary excitement dispelled in part my sufferings, and I proceeded once more to my work.

In a very short time my noisy alcoholic prescribers went to the spring to pour rum down their own throats. "What," said they, with much surprise, "has become of the rum?" "Have you drank it?" said they, turning to me. "Not a drop of it," I said. "But it is almost all gone," they said; "and it is a great mystery what has become of it." "The mystery is easily cleared up," I said; "you told me to turn it down, and I have done so."—"Told you to turn it down!" said one of them, the most noisy one; "I told you to drink it."—"No," said I, "you told me to turn it down; and I have poured it down—my part of it—at the foot of the stump. If you have forgotten your direction to turn it down, I appeal to two competent witnesses."

The joke passed off much better than I expected. For myself, however, I grew worse rapidly, and was soon sent home. My mother put me into bed, applied a bottle of hot water to my feet, and gave me hot drinks most liberally, and among the rest some "hot toddy." Her object was to sweat away a supposed attack of fever. Had she known it was measles that assailed me, or had she even suspected it, she would almost as soon have cut off her right hand as apply the sweating process. She would, on the contrary, have given me cooling drinks and pure air. She was not wholly divested of good sense on this point, neither was the prevailing public opinion.

I suffered much, very much, and was for a part of the time delirious. At length an eruption began to be visible, and to assume the appearance which is usual in measles, both to my own relief and that of my parents and other friends. But the mistaken treatment, or the disease, or both, gave a shock to my already somewhat delicate constitution, from which I doubt whether I ever fully recovered. The sequel, however, will appear more fully in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

LEE'S PILLS, AND THE DROPSY.

In consequence either of the disease or its mismanagement, I was left, on recovering from the measles, with a general dropsy. I might also say here, that at the recurrence of the same season, for many years afterwards, I was attacked with a complaint so nearly resembling measles that some who were strangers to me could hardly be diverted from the belief that it was the veritable disease itself.

But to the dropsy. This disease, so unusual in young people, especially those of my sanguine and nervous temperament, alarmed both my parents and myself, and medical advice was forthwith invoked. Our family physician was an old man, bred in the full belief of the necessity in such cases of what are called "alteratives," which, in plain English, means substances so active as to produce, when applied to the body either externally or internally, certain sudden changes. Alteratives, in short, are either irritants or poisons.

Our aged doctor was called in to see me; and after the usual compliments, and perhaps a passing joke or two,—for both of which he was quite famous,—he asked me to let him see my tongue. Next, he felt my pulse. All the while—a matter exceedingly important to success—he looked "wondrous wise." He also asked me sundry wondrous wise questions. They were at least couched in wondrous words of monstrous length.

The examination fairly over, there followed a pause; not, indeed, an "awful pause," but one of a few seconds, or perhaps in all of half a minute. "Now," said he, "you must take one of Lee's pills every day, in roasted apple." There were other directions, but this was the principal, except to avoid taking cold. The pills, of course, contained a proportion of mercury or calomel, on the alterative effects of which, as I plainly perceived, he placed his chief dependence.

I took the pills, daily, for about six weeks; but they produced very little apparent effect, except to spoil my appetite. What their remoter effects were on my constitution generally, is quite another question. Suffice it to say, for the present, that for his occasional calls and wondrous wise looks, and his Lee's pills, he made quite a considerable bill. We were, it is true, always glad to see him, for he was pretty sure to crack a joke or two during his stay, and he sometimes told a good story. Nor, after all, were his charges remarkably high. For coming two or three miles to see me, he only made a charge of fifty cents a visit.

It was near the beginning of October, and I was "getting no better very fast." A young physician had in the mean time come into the place, and my friends were anxious to call him in as "counsel." He proposed digitalis, and the family physician consented to it. But it was all to no purpose; I was still a bloated mass, and extremely enfeebled.

At length, after some two or three months of ill health and loss of time, and the expenditure of considerable money on physicians and medicine, our good family doctor proposed a tea made from certain sweet roots, such as fennel, parsley, etc. Of this I was to drink very freely. I followed his advice, and in a few days the dropsy disappeared. Whether it was ready to depart just at this precise time, or whether the tea hastened its departure, I never knew. In any event, one thing is certain; that, either with its aid or in spite of it, I got rid of the dropsy; and it nevermore returned.

But it is one thing to get rid of an inveterate disease, and quite another to be restored to our wonted measure of health and strength. The disease or the medicine or both had greatly debilitated me. I tried to attend school, but was unable till January or February; nor even then was I at all vigorous. I was able in the spring to work moderately; but it was almost a whole year before I occupied the same ground, physically, as before. Indeed, I have very many doubts whether I ever attained to the measure of strength to which I might have attained had it not been for the expenditure of vital power in a long contest with Lee's pills and disease.

One lesson I learned, during my long sickness, in moral philosophy. I allude to the power of associated habits. Thus I was accustomed to take my pills daily for a long time, in combination with the pulp of a certain favorite apple. By degrees this apple, before so congenial to my taste, became so exceedingly disgusting to me that I could hardly come in sight of it, or even of the tree on which it grew, without nausea; and this dislike continued for years. By the aid of a strong will, however, I at length overcame it, and the apple is now as agreeable to my taste, for any thing I know, as it ever was.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COLD SHOWER-BATH.

My long experience of ill health, and of dosing and drugging, had led me to reflect not a little on the causes of disease, as well as on the nature of medicinal agents; and I had really made considerable progress, unawares, in what I now regard as the most important part of a medical education. In short, I had gained something, even by the loss of so precious commodity as health. So just is the oft-repeated saying, "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good."

It was about this time that I began to reflect on bathing. What gave me the first particular impulses in this direction I do not now recollect, unless it was the perusal of the writings of Dr. Benjamin Rush and Dr. John G. Coffin. My attention had been particularly turned to cold shower bathing. I had become more than half convinced of its happy adaptation to my own constitution and to my diseased tendencies, both hereditary and acquired.

But what could I do? There were in those times no fleeting shower-baths to be had; nor indeed, so far as I knew, any other apparatus for the purpose; and had there been, I was not worth a dollar in the world to buy it with; and I was hardly willing to ask for money, for such purposes of my father.

I will tell you, very briefly, what I did. My father had several clean and at that time unoccupied stables, one of which was as retired as the most fastidious person could have wished. In one of these stables, directly overhead, I contrived to suspend by its two handles a corn basket, in such a way that I could turn it over upon its side and retain it in this position as long as I pleased. Into this basket, when suspended sideways, and slightly fastened, I was accustomed to set a basin or pail of water; and when I was ready for its reception, I had but to pull a string and overturn the basket in order to obtain all the benefits of a cold and plentiful shower.

Here, daily, for almost a whole summer, I used my cold shower-bath, and, as I then thought and still believe, with great advantage. My consumptive tendencies were held at bay during the time very effectually. I was fortunate, indeed, in being able always, with the aid of a coarse towel and a little friction, to secure a pretty full reaction.

This season of cold bathing was when I was about sixteen years of age. I shall ever look back to it as one of the most important, not to say most interesting, of my experiences. Indeed, I do not know that in any six months of my life I ever gained so much physical capital—thus to call it; by which I mean bodily vigor—as during these six months of the year 1814.

I may also add here, that it has been my lot all my life long to learn quite as much from experiment and observation as in any other way. The foregoing experience gave me much knowledge of the laws of hygiene. Sometimes, while reflecting on this subject, I have thought of the assurance of the Apostle John, that he who "doeth truth cometh to the light," and have wondered whether the good apostle, along with this highly important truth, did not mean to intimate that the natural tendency of holy living was to an increase of light and love and holiness. And then I have gone a step further, and asked myself whether it was not possible that the doing of physical truth as well as moral, had the same tendency.

I have alluded to experience, or experiment. It is sometimes said that medical men are very much inclined to make experiments on their patients. Now, although I have a few sad confessions of this sort to make hereafter, yet I can truly say, in advance, that while I have made comparatively few experiments on other people, I have probably, during the progress of a long life, made more experiments on myself, both in sickness and in health, than any other existing individual. Whether I have learned as much in this way as I ought, in such favored circumstances, is quite another question.

CHAPTER VII.

MY FIRST SICKNESS ABROAD.

When I was about half-way through my nineteenth year, a desire to see the world became so strong that I made up my mind to a little travelling. Accordingly, having provided myself with an employment which would, without a great deal of hindrance, enable me to earn my passing expenses, I set out on my journey.

It was in the month of March, and near its close. The weather was mild, and the snow was fast disappearing—but not as yet the mud. In walking all day, my boots became soaked and my feet wet. The era of India rubbers had not then arrived. In truth, I went with my feet wet in the afternoon two or three days.

On the evening of the third day I came to the house of the friends with whom I was desirous of stopping not only for the Sabbath's sake, which was now at hand, but to rest and recruit. The next morning I was quite sick, and my friends were alarmed. It was proposed to send for a physician; but against this I uttered my protest, and the plan was accordingly abandoned.

The next purpose of my kind friends was to bring on a perspiration. They were accustomed in these cases to aim at sweating. This is indeed a violence to nature; but they knew no better. The mistress of the house was one of those self-assured women who cannot brook any interference or submit willingly to any modification of their favorite plans. Otherwise I should even then have preferred a gentle perspiration, longer continued. Yet on the whole, for the sake of peace, I submitted to my fate, and went through the fiery furnace which was prepared for me. More than even this I might say. I was cooler, much cooler, when I got through the fire than when I was in the midst of it!

In three days I was, in a good measure, restored. I was, it is true, left very weak, but was free from fever. My strength rapidly returned; and on the fifth day I was able to set out for home, where in due time I safely arrived.

During this excursion I learned one good lesson, if no more. This was, the danger of going day after day with wet feet. A vigorous person may go with wet or damp feet a little while, in the early part of the day, when in full strength, with comparative safety; but towards evening, when the vital forces are at ebb tide, or at least are ebbing, it is unsafe. The feeble especially should guard themselves in this direction; nor should those who may perchance at some future time be feeble, despise the suggestion.

One important resolution was also made. This was never to use violent efforts to induce perspiration. Such a course of treatment I saw clearly, as I thought, must be contrary to the intentions of nature; and time and further observation and experiment have confirmed me in this opinion. There may of course be exceptions to the truth of such a general inference; but I am sure they cannot be very numerous. What though the forcing plan seems to have succeeded quite happily in my own case? So it has in thousands of others. So might a treatment still more irrational. Mankind are tough, and will frequently live on for a considerable time in spite of treatment which is manifestly wrong, and even without any treatment at all.

CHAPTER VIII.

LESSON FROM AN OLD SURGEON.

Five or six miles from the place of my nativity a family resided whom I shall call by the name of Port. Among the ancestry of this family, time out of mind, there had been more, or fewer of what are usually called natural bone setters. They were known far and near; and no effort short of miraculous would have been sufficient to shake the confidence which ignorance and credulity had reposed in them.

One or two of these natural bone setters were now in the middle stage of life, and in the full zenith of their glory. The name of the most prominent was Joseph. He was a man of some acquired as well as inherited knowledge; but he was indolent, coarse, vulgar, and at times profane. Had it not been for his family rank and his own skill as a surgeon, of which he really had a tolerable share, he would have been no more than at best a common man, and occasionally would have passed for little more than a common blackguard.

I was in a shop one day conversing with Capt. R., when Dr. Port came in. "Capt. R., how are you?" was the first compliment. "Very well," said the captain, "except a lame foot." "I see you have one foot wrapped up," said Dr. Port; "what is the matter with it?"—"I cut it with an axe, the other day," said he, "very badly."—"On the upper part of the foot?" said the doctor. "Yes, directly on the instep," said Capt. R. "Is it doing well?"—"Not very well," he replied; "and I came into town to-day partly to see and converse with you about it."—"Well, then, undo it and let me have a look at it."

Wrapper after wrapper was now taken from the lame foot, till Dr. Port began to scowl. "You keep it too warm," said he. "A wound of this sort should be kept cool, if you don't wish to have it inflame. A slight wrapping is all that is needful." They came at length to the wound. "It does not look very badly," said Dr. Port; "but you must keep it cool. And then," added he with an oath, the very thought of which to this day almost makes me shudder, "You must keep your nasty, abominable ointments away from it. Remember one thing, Capt. R., whenever you have a new flesh wound, all you can possibly do with any hope of advantage is to bring the divided edges of the parts together and keep them there, and nature will take care of the rest."

"Would you, then, do nothing at all but bind it up and keep it still?" said Capt. R. "Nothing at all," said he, "unless it should inflame; and then a little water applied to it is as good as any thing."—"But is there nothing of a healing nature I can use?" said the captain. "I have told you already," said he, with another strange oath, "that you don't want any thing healing on the outside, if you had a cart-load of medicaments. All wounds, when they heal at all, heal from the bottom; and of course all your external applications are useless, except so far as is necessary to protect the parts from fresh injury and keep them from the air."

The crowd around looked as if they were amazed; but it was Dr. Port who said it, and therefore it must be swallowed. I was somewhat surprised with the rest. And I have not a doubt that what he said was to most of them an invaluable lecture. For myself, as a student of man, it was just what I needed. It set me to thinking. It was a lesson which I could never forget if I were to live a thousand years.

It was a lesson, moreover, which I have repeated almost a thousand times, in circumstances not dissimilar. Indeed, I believe this very occurrence did much to turn my attention to the medical profession. I saw at once it was a rational thing; a matter of plain common sense; a thing of principle; and not on the one hand a bundle of mysteries, nor on the other a mere humbug.

Dr. Port long ago paid the debt of nature; but not till he had made his mark on the age he lived in. If, indeed, he died as the fool dieth,—and thus it was said he did die,—he was at least a means of teaching others to live right. He did great good by his frequent wise precepts, as well as not a little harm by his sometimes immoral example. For myself, I honor him because he was my teacher on a point of great practical importance, and because he was to thousands of over-credulous people a light and a benefactor.

Although I had not at this time any very serious thoughts of becoming a physician and surgeon, yet I certainly inclined in that direction. My great poverty was the chief difficulty that lay in my way; but this difficulty at that time seemed insurmountable. Besides, I was wedded to my father's farm, and I did not see how the banns could very well be sundered.

CHAPTER IX.

LEE'S WINDHAM BILIOUS PILLS.

I was, at length, twenty-two years of age. I had about fifty dollars in my pocket, besides a few books. But what would this do towards giving me a liberal education? And yet, to an education in the schools, of some sort, either as a means to a profession, or as affording facilities for obtaining knowledge or communicating it to others, I certainly did aspire. But I seemed compelled for the present to plod on in the old way.

There had been, but recently, a gold fever—not, it is true, of California, but of Carolina. The young men of the North, shrewd, intelligent, active, and ambitious Yankees, had flocked by hundreds, if not by thousands, from New England to the Southern States, to sell tin ware and clocks, especially the former. The trade at first had been very lucrative. Though many had been made poor by it, yet many more had been made rich. I do not say how honorably the trade had been conducted. To sell tin lanterns, worth fifty cents each, for silver, at fifty dollars, and tin toddy sticks, worth a New York shilling, for twelve dollars, did not in the final result redound much to our New England credit. Though it brought us gold, it did not permanently enrich us.

A much better trade had now, in 1820, sprung up with the South. The North—the great nursery of America—had still a surplus of young men who wanted to go somewhere. A part of them found their way to Carolina and Georgia, and engaged during the winter, and occasionally through the year, in teaching; while another part labored on their canals and railroads and in their shops. This was to furnish the South with a commodity of real value, for which we received in return a fair compensation. Besides, it had a better effect than clock and tin peddling, both on the seller and buyer.

To improve my pecuniary condition, and to acquaint myself with the world, I prepared to embark for the South. My purpose was to teach. It was the beginning of October, and yellow fever was said to be raging in Charleston, where I purposed to disembark. Was it, then, safe for me to go? Should the prospect of doing good, improving my mind, and bettering my condition in many other respects, weigh against the danger of disease; or was it preferable that I should wait?

My numerous friends counselled me according to their various temperaments and prepossessions. The strong and vigorous in body and mind said, Go on; the feeble and timorous and trembling interposed their caution. But the vessel was ready and would soon sail; and I saw on board many of my acquaintances. The temptation was before me, and was great; the dangers, though many, were remote—the dangers of the sea excepted. For these, it is true, I was, like everybody else, entirely unprepared, having never before in my life crossed more than a single river. I was moreover exceedingly timid.

One kind friend—kind, I mean, in general intention—who had been many years at the South, amid the ravages of the gold fever, as well as other fevers more or less yellow, whispered me just at this critical moment, "Take with you a box of Lee's Windham Bilious Pills; and as soon as you arrive at Charleston, make it your rule to swallow, every other day, one of these pills. That will prevent your getting the fever. I have often tried it, and always with success."

My friend's words gave me more courage than his pills. I saw that he had been in the midst of sickness and had lived through it. Why might not I? My mind was soon made up to proceed on the journey.

We sailed from New Haven in Connecticut, and were seventeen days on our passage. When we reached Charleston, either the yellow fever had spent itself or it had not recently been there, except in a few rare instances. I found no use for pills of any kind, except such as grew on fruit-trees—the apple, peach, orange, persimmon, etc., or such as were the products of the corn, potato, and rice fields; nor did I ever take any other while I remained in the South. A queer idea, I often said to myself, that of taking poison while a person is well, in order to prevent becoming sick! In any event, I did not do it.

There was sickness in the country, however, if not in the city; and I was much and often exposed to it. But what then? How would one of Lee's pills defend me from it, even for two days? I preferred to eat and drink and sleep correctly, and then trust to my good fortune and to Him who controlled it, rather than to nauseous and poisonous medicine. And I had my choice, and with it a blessed reward. I was in the low country of North and South Carolina and Virginia six months or more, and often and again much exposed to disease, and yet I never had a sick day while I remained there. And yet, as I have before intimated, I never took a particle of medicine during the whole time.

Once, indeed, I was beguiled into the foolish habit of using French brandy with my dinner, under the idea that it would promote digestion. But I did not continue it long; and I verily believe that it did me more harm than good while I used it; for I have at no other period of my life suffered so much from dyspeptic tendencies as during the summer which followed this temporary indulgence of brandy with my dinner.

During my wanderings in the South, I had, much of the time, a fellow traveller, who, though he took no medicine, was less cautious than myself, and less fortunate. Perhaps his very recklessness served as a warning to me. In truth, without being much of a theologian, I have sometimes thought that the errors of mankind were intended in the divine plan—at least in part—for this very end. Happy, then, if this is so, are they who make a wise use of them!

CHAPTER X.

DR. SOLOMON AND HIS PATIENT.

I have said that my fellow traveller was less cautious than myself, and have intimated much more. He was in some respects cautious, and yet in others absolutely reckless. When hot and thirsty, for example, instead of just rinsing out his mouth and swallowing a very little water, he would half-fill his stomach with some of that semi-putrid stuff, ycleped water, which you often find in Virginia and the Carolinas; and when hungry, he would eat almost any thing he could lay hold of, and in almost any quantity, as well as at almost any hours, whether seasonable or unseasonable.

This course of conduct seemed to answer very well for a few months; but a day of retribution at last came. He was then in Norfolk, in Virginia. I had been absent from the place a few weeks, and on my return found him sick with a fever, and without such assistance as was absolutely and indispensably necessary. There were Yankees in the place in great numbers, and some of them were his personal acquaintances and friends; but they had hitherto refused to come near him, lest they should take the fever.

I proceeded to take care of him by night and by day. At the suggestion of an old citizen, in whom I placed great confidence, Dr. Solomon was called in as his physician. There was some bleeding and drugging, and a pretty constant attendance for many weeks; but the young man finally recovered.

If you ask what this chapter has to do with my medical confessions, I will tell you. Dr. Solomon was an old school physician, and made certain blunders, which I am about to confess for him. He prescribed—as very many of us his medical brethren formerly did, for the name of a disease rather than for the disease itself, just as it now appeared.

Thus, suppose the disease was typhus fever; in that case he seemed to give just about so many pills and powders every day, without much regard to the circumstances; believing that somehow or other, and at some time or other, good would come out of it. If his patient had sufficient force of constitution to enable him to withstand both the disease and the medicine, and ultimately to recover, Dr. S. had the credit of a cure; not, perhaps that he claimed it,—his friends awarded the honor. If the patient died, it was on account of the severity of the disease. Neither the doctor nor his medicine was supposed to be at fault. Some, indeed, regarded it as the mysterious work of Divine Providence.

Dr. S. attended my young companion in pedestrianism a long time, and sometimes brought a student into the bargain. He probably kept his patient insane with his medicine about half the time, and greatly prolonged his disease and his sufferings. But he knew no better way. He was trained to all this. The idea that half a dozen careful visits, instead of fifty formal ones, and a few shillings' worth of medicine instead of some twenty or thirty dollars' worth, would give the young man a better prospect of recovery than his own routine of fashionable book-dosing and drugging, never for once, I dare say, entered his head. And yet his head was large enough to hold such a simple idea, had it been put there very early; and the deposit would have done much to make him—what physicians will one day become—a rich blessing to the world.

Reader, are here no confessions of medical importance? If not, bear with me awhile, and you will probably find them. We have yet a long road to travel, and there are many confessions to be made in which I have a personal concern and responsibility, and, as you may perhaps conclude, no small share of downright culpability.

CHAPTER XI.

PHYSICKING OFF FEVER.

The eyes of my mind having just begun to be opened to the impotence of a mere routine of medication as a substitute for nature, rather than as an aid to her enfeebled efforts, I was prepared to make a wise use of other facts that came before me, especially those in which I had a personal concern and interest. Here is one of this description.

On the morning of March 12, 1821, during the very period when I was watching over my sick friend, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, I took from the post-office a letter with a black seal. It contained the distressing intelligence of the death of a much-valued sister and her husband, both of whom, but a few months before, I had left in apparently perfect health.

On a careful inquiry into the particulars, both by letter and, after my return, in other ways, I learned that the Connecticut River fever, as it was then and there called, having carried off several persons who were residing in the same house with my brother, the survivors were advised to do something to prevent the germination and development of such seeds of the disease as were supposed to be in their bodies and ready to burst forth into action. I do not know that any medical man encouraged this notion, the offspring of ignorance and superstition; but my brother and his wife had somehow or other imbibed it, and they governed themselves accordingly.

Both of them took medicine—moderate cathartics—till they thought they had physicked off the disease; and all seemed, for a time, to be well, except that they complained still of great weakness and debility. It was not long, however, before they were both taken with the disease and perished; my brother in a very short time, and my sister more slowly.

My sister, on being taken ill, had been removed to the house of her mother, in the hope that a change of air might do something for her; but all in vain. My mother and a few other friends who were with them as assistants sickened, but they all ultimately recovered. They, however, took no medicine by way of prevention.

Now I do not presume to say, that my young friends were destroyed solely by medicine, for the assertion would be unwarranted. I only state the facts, and tell you what my convictions then were, and what they are still. My belief is, that though they might have sickened had they taken no medicine or preventive, yet their chance of recovery after they sickened was very much diminished by the unnecessary and uncalled-for dosing and drugging.

The notion that we can physick off the seeds of disease, or by our dosing prevent their germination, is as erroneous as can possibly be, and is a prolific source of much suffering and frequent death. The best preventive of disease is good health. Now, physicking off generally weakens us, instead of giving strength. It takes away from our good health instead of adding to or increasing it. As a general rule, to which there are very few exceptions, all medicine, when disease is unusually common or fatal, is hazardous without sound medical advice, and not generally safe even then. It is fit only for extreme cases.

You may be at a loss to understand how such facts and reflections as these could allure me to the study and practice of medicine as a profession. Yet they most certainly had influence. Not that I felt a very strong desire to deal out medicine, for to this I felt a repugnance which strengthened with increase of years and experience. What I most ardently desired was to know the causes of disease, and how far they were or were not within human control. Such a science as that of hygiene—nay, even the word itself, and the phrase laws of health—was at that time wholly unknown in the world in which I moved. There was, in truth, no way then to this species of knowledge, except through the avenues opened by a course of medical study. Hence it was that I blundered on, in partial though not entire ignorance, for some time longer, groping and searching for that light which I hardly knew how or whence to seek, except in pills and powders and blisters and tinctures.

CHAPTER XII.

MANUFACTURING CHILBLAINS.

At the period of my life to which we have at length arrived, I was for four or five months of every year a school teacher. This was, in no trifling degree, an educational process; for is it not well known that,

"Teaching we learn, and giving we retain?"

It was at least an education in the great school of human nature.

Every morning of one of these winter sessions of school keeping, Lydia Maynard, eight years of age, after walking about a mile, frequently in deep snow, and combating the cold northwest winds of one of the southern Green Mountain ranges, would come into the schoolroom with her feet almost frozen, and take her seat close to the stove, so as to warm them and be ready for school as quickly as possible. Here she would sit, if permitted to do so, till the bell rang for school.

It was not long before I learned that she was a great sufferer from chilblains. Whether she inherited a tendency to this troublesome and painful disease, which was awakened and aggravated by sudden changes of temperature, or whether the latter were the original cause of the disease, I never knew with certainty. But I was struck with the fact that sudden warming was followed by such lasting and terrible consequences.

And herein is one reason why I have opposed, from that day to this, the custom or habit, so exceedingly prevalent, of rushing to the fire when we are very cold, and warming ourselves as quickly as possible. I have reasoned; I have commanded; and in some few instances I have ridiculed. Every one knows it is hazardous to bring the ears or fingers or toes, or any other parts of the body, suddenly to the fire when really frozen,—that is, when the temperature is lowered down in the part to 32°; and yet, if it is only down to 33°, and the part not quite frozen, almost every one, young and old, will venture to the fire. Can there be such a difference in the effects when there is only a difference of one degree in temperature? No reflecting person will for one moment believe it. The trouble is we do not think about it.

Sudden changes from heat to cold are little more favorable than when the change is in the other direction. Indeed, it often happens that children at school are subjected to both these causes. Thus, in the case of Lydia, suppose that after roasting herself a long time at the stove, she had gone to her seat and placed her feet directly over crevices in the floor, through which the cold wind found its way at almost freezing temperature. Would not this have greatly added to the severity of the disease?

There are, it is true, other reasons against sudden changes of temperature, particularly the change from cold to heat, besides the fact that they tend to produce chilblains; but I cannot do more just now than barely advert to them. The eyes are apt to be injured; it renders us more liable than otherwise we should be to take cold. Occasionally it brings on faintness and convulsions, and still more rarely, sudden death. I will only add now, that sudden warming after suffering from extreme cold, whether we perceive it or not at the time, is very apt to produce deep and lasting injury to the brain and nervous system.

But my main object in relating the story is answered if I have succeeded in clearly pointing out to the reader one of the avenues through which light found its way to my benighted intellect, and led me to reflection on the whole subject of health and disease. Here was obviously one cause of a frequent but most painful complaint. It was natural, perfectly natural, that by this time I should begin to inquire. Have all diseases, then, their exciting causes? Many certainly have; and if many, perhaps all. At least, how do we know but it may be so? And then again, if the causes of chilblains are within our control, and this troublesome disease might be prevented, or its severity mitigated if no more, why may it not be so with all other diseases?

To revert for a moment to the case of Lydia Maynard. Though I was the cause, in a certain sense, of her suffering, yet it was a sin of ignorance. But it taught me much wisdom. It made me cautious ever afterward. I do not doubt but I have been a means of preventing a very considerable amount of suffering in this form, since that time, by pointing out the road that leads to it.

Prevention is better than cure, was early my motto, and is so still. And from the day in which I began to open my eyes on the world around me, and to reason from effects up to their causes, I have been more and more confirmed in the belief that mankind as a race are to be the artificers of their own happiness or misery. All facts point in this direction, some of them with great certainty. And facts, everywhere and always, are stubborn things.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW TO MAKE ERYSIPELAS.

My periodical tendency to a species of eruptive disease closely resembling measles, was mentioned in Chapter IV. During the summer of 1823 this affection became unusually severe, and seemed almost beyond endurance. The circumstances were as follows:—

I had in charge a large and difficult school. The weather was very hot, and I was not accustomed to labor in summer within doors. Besides, my task was so difficult as to call forth all the energies of body and mind both; and the "wear and tear" of my system was unusually great. It was in the very midst of these severe labors, in hot and not well-ventilated air, that the eruption appeared. Perhaps it was aggravated by my diet, which, in "boarding around," was of course not the best.

The eruption not only affected my body and reached to the extremities, but was accompanied by an itching so severe that I was occasionally compelled to lie awake all night. My general strength at last began to give way under it, and I sought the advice of our family physician.

He advised me to use, as a wash to the irritated and irritable surface, a weak solution of corrosive sublimate. I hesitated; especially as I believed it to be, with him, an experiment. But on his repeated assurance, that if I would take special care of myself and avoid taking cold, there was no danger, I waived my objections, and proceeded to carry out his plan.

The solution was applied, accordingly, to the letter of the doctor's directions. For many days no change appeared, either favorable or adverse. At length a most distressing headache came on and remained. My sufferings became so severe that I was obliged to postpone my school and return to my father's house.

On the road, I observed that an eruption of a peculiar kind had appeared, particularly about the forehead, accompanied with small blisters. It was not here that I had applied the solution, but on the arms, chest, and lower limbs. Of course the corrosive sublimate, if at all operative, had affected me through the medium of the circulation and not by direct contact.

Our physician came, pronounced the disease erysipelas, and without saying a word about the cause, prescribed; and I followed out carefully his prescription. But the disease had its course in spite of us both, and was very severe. It took away my sleep entirely for a day or two. It proved a means of removing the hair from one side of my head, and of so injuring the skin that it never grew again. Indeed, gangrene or mortification had actually commenced at several points. Suddenly, however, the pain and inflammation subsided, and I recovered.

Now my physician never said that I was poisoned by the corrosive sublimate, probably for the two following reasons: 1, I never made the inquiry. 2, He would probably have ascribed the disease to taking cold rather than to the mercury, had I inquired. I do not believe I took cold, however. How it came to affect me so unfavorably I never knew with certainty; but that it was the medicine that did the mischief I never for one moment doubted. I suppose it was absorbed; but of the manner of its introduction to the system I am less certain than of the fact itself.

But besides the absorption of the corrosive sublimate into the system, and its consequences—a terrible caution to those who are wont to apply salves, ointments, washes, etc., to the surface of the body unauthorized—I learned another highly important lesson from this circumstance. Active medicines, as I saw more plainly than ever before, are as a sword with two edges. If they do not cut in the right direction, they are almost sure to cut in the wrong.

I must not close, however, without telling you a little more about the treatment of my disease. After I had left my school and had arrived at home, a solution of sugar of lead was ordered in the very coldest water. With this, through the intervention of layers of linen cloth, I was directed to keep my head constantly moistened. Its object, doubtless, was to check the inflammation, which had become exceedingly violent. Why the sugar of lead itself was not absorbed, thus adding poison to poison, is to me inconceivable. Perhaps it was so; and yet, such was the force of my constitution, feeble though it was, that I recovered in spite of both poisons. Or, what is more probable, perhaps the lead, if absorbed at all, did not produce its effects till the effects of the corrosive sublimate were on the wane; so that the living system was only necessitated to war with one poison at a time. Mankind are made to live, at least till they are worn out; and it is not always easy to poison a person to death, if we would. In other words, human nature is tough.

Now I do not know, by the way, that any one but myself ever suspected, even for one moment, that this attack of erysipelas was caused by the corrosive sublimate. But could I avoid such a conclusion? Was it a hasty or forced one? Judge, then, whether it was not perfectly natural that I should be led by such an unfortunate adventure to turn my attention more than ever to the subject of preserving and promoting health.

For if our family physician—cautious and judicious as in general he was—had been the unintentional cause of a severe attack from a violent and dangerous disease, which had come very near destroying my life, what blunders might not be expected from the less careful and cautious man, especially the beginner in medicine? And if medical men, old and young, scientific as well as unscientific, make occasional blunders, how much more frequently the mass of mankind, who, in their supposed knowledge of their own constitutions and those of their families, are frequently found dosing and drugging themselves and others?

I do not mean to say that in the incipiency of my observations and inquiries my mind was mature enough—well educated enough, I mean—to pursue exactly the foregoing train of thought; but there was certainly a tendency that way, as will be seen more fully in the next chapter. The spell at least was broken, and I saw plainly that if "died by the visitation of God" never means any thing, it generally does not. And as it turned out that the further I pushed my inquiries the more I found that diseases were caused by transgression of physical and moral law, and hence not uncontrollable, why should it not be so, still farther on, in the great world of facts which I had not yet penetrated?

CHAPTER XIV.

STUDYING MEDICINE.

My thoughts were now directed with considerable earnestness and seriousness, to the study of medicine. It is true that I was already in the twenty-fourth year of my age, and that the statute law of the State in which I was a resident required three years of study before receiving a license to practise medicine and surgery, and I should hence be in my twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year before I could enter actively and responsibly upon the duties of my profession, which would be rather late in life. Besides, I had become quite enamored of another profession, much better adapted to my slender pecuniary means than the study of a new one.

However, I revolved the subject in my mind, till at length, as I thought, I saw my path clearly. It was my undoubted duty to pursue the study of medicine. Still, there were difficulties which to any but men of decision of character were not easily got removed. Shall I tell you how they were gradually and successfully overcome?

Our family physician had an old skeleton, and a small volume of anatomy by Cheselden, as well as a somewhat more extended British work on anatomy and physiology; all these he kindly offered to lend me. Then he would permit me to study with him, or at least occasionally recite to him, which would answer the letter of the law. Then, again, I could, during the winter of each year of study except the last, teach school, and thus add to my pecuniary means of support. And lastly, my father would board me whenever I was not teaching, and on as long a credit as I desired. Were not, then, all my difficulties practically overcome, at least prospectively?

It was early in the spring of the year 1822 that I carried to my father's house an old dirty skeleton and some musty books, and commenced the study of medicine and surgery, or at least of those studies which are deemed a necessary preparation. It was rather dry business at first, but I soon became very much interested in the study of physiology, and made considerable progress. My connection with our physician proved to be merely nominal, as I seldom found him ready to hear a recitation. Besides, my course of study was rather desultory, not to say irregular.

In the autumn of 1824, having occasion to teach school at such a distance as rendered it almost impracticable for me to continue my former connection as a student, I made arrangements for studying with another physician on terms not unlike those in the former case. My new teacher, however, occasionally heard me recite, especially in what is properly called the practice of medicine and in surgery. His instructions, though very infrequent, were of service to me.

In 1825 I became a boarder in his family, where I remained about a year. Here I had an opportunity to consult and even study the various standard authors in the several departments which are usually regarded as belonging to a course of medical study. So that if I was not in due time properly qualified to "practise medicine and surgery in this or any other country," the fault was chiefly my own.

However, in the spring of 1825, after I had attended a five months' course of lectures in one of the most famous medical colleges of the Northern States, I was regularly examined and duly licensed. How well qualified I was supposed to be, did not exactly appear. It was marvellous that I succeeded at all, for I had labored much on the farm during the three years, taught school every winter and two summers, had two or three seasons of sickness, besides a severe attack of influenza (this, you know, is not regarded as a disease by many) while attending lectures, which confined me a week or more. And yet one of my fellow students, who was present at the examination, laughed at my studied accuracy!

One word about my thesis, or dissertation. It was customary at the college where I heard lectures—as it probably is at all others of the kind—to require each candidate for medical license to read before the board, prior to his examination, an original dissertation on some topic connected with his professional studies. The topic I selected was pulmonary consumption; especially, the means of preventing it. It was, as may be conjectured, a slight departure from the ordinary routine, but was characteristic of the writer's mind, prevention being then, as it still is, and probably always will be, with him a favorite idea. I go so far, even, as to insist that it should be the favorite idea of every medical man, from the beginning to the end of his career. "The best part of the medical art is the art of avoiding pain," was the motto for many years of the Boston Medical Intelligencer; and it embraced a most important truth. When will it be fully and practically received?

But I must recapitulate a little; or rather, I must go back and give the reader a few chapters of incidents which occurred while I was a student under Dr. W., my second and principal teacher. I will however study brevity as much as possible.

CHAPTER XV.

NATURE'S OWN EYE WATER.

When I began the study of medicine, my eyes were so exceedingly weak, and had been for about ten years, or indeed always after the attack of measles, that I was in the habit of shading them, much of the time, with green or blue glasses. My friends, many of them, strongly objected to any attempt to pursue the study of medicine on this very account. And the attempt was, I confess, rather hazardous.

What seemed most discouraging in the premises was the consideration that I had gone, to no manner of purpose, the whole round of eye waters, elixir vitriol itself not excepted. Was there room, then, for a single gleam of hope? Yet I was resolutely, perhaps obstinately, determined on making an effort. I could but fail.

Soon after I made a beginning, the thought struck me, "Why not make the experiment of frequently bathing the eyes in cold water?" At that very moment they were hot and somewhat painful; and suiting the action to the thought, I held my face for some seconds in very cold water. The sensation was indescribably agreeable; and I believe that for once in my life, at the least, I felt a degree of gratitude to God, my Creator, for cold water.

The practice was closely and habitually followed. Whenever my eyes became hot and painful, I put my face for a short time in water, even if it were twenty times a day. The more I bathed them, the greater the pleasure, nor was it many days before they were evidently less inflamed and less troublesome. Why, then, should I not persevere?

I carried the practice somewhat further still. I found from experiment, that I could open my eyes in the water. At first, it is true, the operation was a little painful, and I raised, slightly, its temperature. Gradually, however, I became so much accustomed to it that the sensation was not only less painful, but even somewhat agreeable. In a few weeks I could bear to open my eyes in the water, and keep them open as long as I was able to hold my breath, even at a very low temperature.

Perseverance in this practice not only enabled me to proceed with my studies, contrary to the expectation of my friends, and in spite, too, of my own apprehensions, but gave me in addition the unspeakable pleasure of finding my eyes gaining every year in point of strength, as well as clearness of sight. My glasses were laid aside, and I have never used any for that specific purpose since that time. Of course I do not mean by this to say that my eyes remain as convex as they were at twenty-five or thirty years of age, for that would not be true. They have most certainly flattened a little since I came to be fifty years of age, for I am compelled to wear glasses when I would read or write. I mean, simply, that they have never suffered any more from inflammation or debility, since I formed the habit of bathing them, even up to the present hour.

The more I observe on this subject, the more I am persuaded—apart from my own experience—that pure water, at the lowest temperature which can be used without giving pain, is the best known eye medicine in the world, not merely for one, two, or ten in a hundred persons, but for all. I recommend it, therefore, at every opportunity, not only to my patients but to others. It may doubtless be abused, like every other good gift; but in wise and careful hands it will often accomplish almost every thing but downright miracles. We may begin with water a little tepid, and lower the temperature as gradually as we please, till we come to use it ice cold.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE VIPER STORY.

I was, early in life, greatly perplexed in mind by the oft-recurring question, why it was that in the hands of common sense men, every known system of medicine—even one which was diametrically opposed to the prevailing custom or belief, like that of Hahnemann, seemed to be successful. Not only the botanic practitioner with his herbs, and the homœopathist with his billionth dilutions, but even the no-medicine man[B] could boast of his cures, and, for aught I could see, of about an equal number—good sense and perseverance and other things being equal. And then, again, he that bled everybody, or almost everybody, if abounding in good sense, like the late Dr. Hubbard, of Pomfret, in Connecticut, was about as successful as those who, like Dr. Danforth, once an eminent practitioner of Boston, would bleed nobody, nor, if in his power to prevent it, suffer the lancet to be used by anybody else.

While cogitating on this subject one day, the following anecdote from a surgical work—I think a French work—came under my eye, and at once solved the problem, and relieved me of my difficulty. It may probably be relied on.

When the Abbé Fontana, a distinguished medical man and naturalist, was travelling, once, in some of the more northern countries of Europe, he was greatly surprised to find such a wonderful variety of applications to the bite of the viper, and still more to find them all successful, or at least about equally so. Even those that were in character diametrically opposed to each other, all cured. His astonishment continued and increased when he found at length that those who applied nothing at all recovered about as readily as any of the rest.

In the sequel, as the result of diligent and scientific research, it turned out that the bite of this animal, however dangerous and fatal in hot climates, is scarcely dangerous at all in cold ones. Hence it was that all sorts of treatment appeared to cure. In other words, the persons who were bitten all recovered in spite of the applications made to their wounds, and generally in about the same period of time.

Thus, as I began to suspect,—and the reader must pardon the suspicion, if he can,—it may be with our diversified and diverse modes of medical treatment. A proportion of our patients,—perhaps I should say a large proportion,—if well nursed and cared for and encouraged, would recover if let alone so far as regards medicine. And it is in proof of this view, that nearly as many recover under one mode of practice, provided that practice is guided by a large share of plain, unsophisticated sense, as another. And does not this fully account for a most remarkable fact?

Hence it is, too,—and perhaps hence alone,—that we can account for the strange development in Boston, not many years since, during a public medical discussion; viz., that he who had given his tens of pounds of calomel to his patients, and taken from their arms his hogsheads of blood, had been on the whole about as successful a practitioner as he who had revolted from the very thought of both, and had adopted some of the various forms of the stimulating rather than the depleting system.

"Is there, then, no choice between medication and no-medication? For if so, what necessity is there of the medical profession? Why not annihilate it at once?"

My reply is,—and it would have been about the same when these discoveries began to be made,—that there is no occasion to give up the whole thing because it has been so sadly abused. Every mode of medical practice, not to say every medical practitioner from the very beginning, has been, of necessity, more or less empirical. The whole subject has been involved in so much ignorance and uncertainty, that even our wisest practitioners have been liable to err. They have been led, unawares, to prescribe quite too much for names rather than for symptoms; and their patients were often glad to have it so. And were the whole matter to come to an end this day, it might well be questioned whether the profession, as a whole, has been productive of more good than evil to mankind. But then, every thing must have its infancy before it can come to manhood. And it is a consolation to believe that the duration of that manhood always bears some degree of proportion to the time required in advancing from infancy to maturity.

Medicine, then, as a science, is valuable in prospect. And then, too, it is worth something to have a set of men among us on whom we may fasten our faith; for, credulous as everybody is and will be in this matter of health and disease, till they can duly be taught the laws of hygiene, they will lean upon somebody; it is certainly desirable that they should rely on those whom they know, rather than upon strangers, charlatans, and conjurors, of whom they know almost nothing.

But I shall have frequent occasion to revert to this subject in other chapters, and must therefore dismiss it for the present, in order to make room for other facts, anecdotes, and reflections.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] Of the hydropathist at that time I had not heard.

CHAPTER XVII.

STRUCK WITH DEATH.

Throughout the region where I was brought up, and perhaps throughout the civilized world, the notion has long prevailed that in some of the last moments of a person's life, he is or may be "struck with death;" by which, I suppose the more intelligent simply mean that such a change comes over him as renders his speedy departure to the spirit-world inevitable.

Now that we are really justified in saying of many persons who are in their last moments, that they are beyond the reach of hope, is doubtless true. When decomposition, for instance, has actually commenced, and the vital organs have already begun to falter, it would be idle to conceal the fact, were we able to do so, that life is about to be extinguished beyond the possibility of doubt.

In general, however, it is never quite impossible for the sick to recover even after recovery seems to be impossible. So many instances of this kind have been known, that we ought at least, to be exceedingly cautious about pronouncing with certainty, and to encourage rather than repel the application of the old saying, "as long as there is life, there is hope."[C]

I had a lesson on this subject while a medical student, which was exceedingly instructive, and which, if I were to live a thousand years, I could never forget. It was worth more to me in practical life afterward, than all my books and recitations would have been without it. The facts were these:—

My teacher of medicine used occasionally to take his students with him when he rode abroad on his professional visits. One day, it fell to my lot to bear him company. His patient was an aged farmer, a teamster rather, who had been for some time ill of a fever, and had not been expected to recover. Yet his case was not so desperate but that the physician was expected to continue his daily visits.

On our arrival at the house of the sick man, we were met by a member of the family, who said, "Come in, doctor, but you are too late to do us any good. Mr. H. is struck with death; all the world could not save him now."

We entered the room. There lay the patient almost gone, surely. So at least, at the first view, it appeared. It was a hot summer day, and hardly a breath of air was stirring. The friends were gathered around the bed, and there was less freedom of circulation in the air of the sick-room than elsewhere. It was almost enough to kill a healthy man to be shut up in such a stagnant atmosphere; what, then, must have been the effect on one so sick and feeble?

The doctor beckoned them away from the bed, and requested them to open another window. They did it rather reluctantly; but then, they did it. The sufferer lay panting, as if the struggle was almost over. "Don't you think he is struck with death, doctor?" whispered one and another and another. Almost out of patience, the doctor at length replied: "Struck with death? What do you mean? No; he is no more struck with death than I am. He is struck much more with the heat and bad air. Raise another window."

The window was raised. "Now," said he, "set that door wide open." It was quickly done. "Now bring me a bowl of water, and a teaspoon." The bowl of water was quickly brought. "Put a little water into his mouth with the teaspoon," said he. "O doctor," they replied, "it will only distress him; he is already struck with death."—"Try it then, and see."

Tremblingly they now moistened his parched lips. "Put a little of it in his mouth, with the teaspoon," he said. They shuddered; the doctor persisted. "Why," said the attendant, "he has not been able to swallow any thing these two hours." "How do you know?" said he. "Why, he has been all the while struck with death."—"Nonsense! have you tried it?" "Tried it? oh, no; by no means."—"Why not?"—"Because we knew it would only distress him. He is too far gone to swallow, doctor; you may rely on it."

The physician's patience was now well nigh exhausted, as well it might have been, and seizing the bowl and teaspoon with his own sacrilegious hands, "I will see," said he, "whether he is struck with death or not."

He not only wetted his lips and tongue, as they had partially done before, but gradually insinuated a few drops of Nature's best and only drink, into the top of his throat. At last he swallowed! The doctor's hopes revived; while the family stood as if themselves struck, not with death, but with horror. At length, he swallowed again and again. In half an hour, he opened his eyes; before we left him, he had become quite sensible, and, had we encouraged it, might have spoken.

To make my story as short as possible, the next day he could swallow a little gruel. The third day, he could be raised upon the bed. The fourth, though still weak, he was dressed and sat up an hour. In a fortnight, he was once more driving his team; and for ought I know to the contrary, unless debarred by reason of age, he may be driving it at this very moment!

Going home together from our visit, already so fully described, the conversation turned on the silly notion which so extensively prevails about being struck with death. We talked of its origin, its influence, and its consequences. It had done no good in the world, while it had been the means, we could not doubt, of indirectly destroying thousands of valuable lives.

Of its Origin.—How came the notion abroad that a person can be struck with death, so affected that there is no possible return for him, to life and health? Struck! By whom? Is there a personage, spiritual but real, that strikes? Is it the Divine Being? Surely not. Is it an arch enemy? is it Satan himself?

"No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot."

The doctor and I had, however, one conjecture concerning it, which, if it should not instruct the reader, may at least, afford him a little amusement. It certainly amused us.

You have seen the old-fashioned New England Primer. It has been in vogue, I believe, a full century; perhaps nearer two centuries. It has done not a little to give shape to New England character. In its preliminary pages is a sort of alphabet of couplets, with cuts prefixed or annexed. One of the couplets reads thus:—

"Youth forward slips,
Death soonest nips."

While at its left, is the representation of a skeleton, armed with a dagger, and pursuing a youth—a child rather—with the apparent intention of striking him through. Now I cannot say how this picture may have affected others, but to my medical teacher and myself, as we mutually agreed, it always brings up the idea of striking down a youth or child prematurely, and sending him away to the great congregation of the dead.

Nor am I quite sure that this representation, innocent as may have been its intention, has not been the origin of a relentless and cruel superstition. I know certainly, that my own early notions about being struck with death, had, somehow or other, a connection with this picture; and why may it not be so with others?

But the influence and consequences of this superstition must be adverted to for a moment. I said they affect and have affected thousands; perhaps I ought to have said millions. Under the confused and preposterously silly idea that Death, the personification of Satan or some other demon, has laid hold of the sick or distressed, and that it would be a sort of useless, not to say sacrilegious, work to oppose, or attempt to oppose, the grim messenger, we sometimes leave our sick friends in the greatest extremity, to suffer and perhaps die, when the gentle touch of a kind hand, a mere drop of water, or a breath of fresh air, might often bring them back again to life and health and happiness and usefulness.

If this chapter should not be deemed a confession of medical impotence, it is at least a practical confession of medical selfishness or ignorance. If duly enlightened themselves, medical men ought long ago, to have rid society of this abominable superstition; and if not sufficiently enlightened to perceive its existence and evil tendency, they ought to have abandoned their profession.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Dr. Livingstone, in his work of Travels and Researches in Africa, tells us that during his residence among the Backwains, a tribe in the African interior, two persons who had been hastily buried, perhaps "struck with death" in the first place, returned home "to their affrighted relatives." p. 143.

CHAPTER XVIII.

EFFICACY OF COLD SPRING WATER.

An aged man not far from where I was studying, had an attack of dysentery which was long and severe. Whether the fault of its long continuance lay in his own bad habits, or the injudicious use of medicine, or in both, we can inquire to better advantage by and by. I was not, however, very much acquainted with his physician, so as to be able in the premises to form a very correct opinion concerning him.

The greatest puzzle with me, at that time, was why he should live so long after the disease appeared to have spent itself, without making any advances. The physician used to call on him day after day, and order tonic medicine of various kinds, all of which was given with great care and exactness. Every thing in fact, seemed to be put in requisition, except what were most needful of all, pure air and water. The former of these was, as is usual in such cases, neglected; the latter was absolutely interdicted.

For this last, as not unfrequently happens at this stage of acute diseases, the poor man sighed from day to day as though his heart would break. But, no; he must not have it. The effect on his bowels, he was told, would be unfavorable. And such at that day was the general theory. It was not considered that a very small quantity at first, a few drops merely, would be a great relief, and might be borne, till by degrees a larger quantity would be admissible.

After repeated efforts, and much begging and crying for a little water to cool his parched tongue, the old gentleman, one night dreamed that he drank from a certain cold spring, which really flowed at a remote corner of his farm and was a great favorite both with him and his whole family, and that it almost immediately restored him. Delighted with his dream, he no sooner fairly awaked than he called up his eldest son and sent him with a bottle, to the spring. He did not now plead, he commanded. The son returned in due time, with a bottle of water. He returned, it is true, with great fear and trembling, but he could do no less than obey. The demands and commands were peremptory, and the father was almost impatient.

"Now, my son," said the father, "bring me a tumbler." It was brought, and the father took it. "Now," said he, "pour some of that water into it." Samuel could do no other way than submit to the lawfully constituted authority, though it was not without the most painful apprehensions with regard to the consequences, and he kindly warned his father of the danger. Nor were his sufferings at all diminished when the father, in a decided tone of voice, ordered him to fill the tumbler about half full.

Whether he had at first intended to drink so large a draught and afterwards repented, is not known; but instead of swallowing it all at a draught, the son's distress was greatly mitigated when he saw that he only just tasted it, and then set down the tumbler. In a few minutes he drank a little more, and then after a short time a little more still. He was about half an hour drinking a gill of water. When that was gone, he ordered more; and persisted in this moderate way till morning. By ten o'clock, when his physician arrived, he had drunk nearly a quart of it, and was evidently better. There was a soft, breathy perspiration, as well as more strength.

The physician no sooner saw him than he pronounced him better. "What have you been doing?" he said, rather jocosely. The sick man told him the simple story of his rebellion from beginning to end. The doctor at first shook his head, but when he came to reflect on the apparent good consequences which had followed, he only said: "Well, I suppose we must remember the old adage, 'Speak well of a bridge that carries you safe over,'" and then joined in the general cheerfulness.

The patient continued to drink his spring water from day to day, and with increasing good effects. It acted almost like a charm; it was not only food and drink to him, but also medicine. Doubtless his great faith in it was not without its efficacy; still it was not to be denied that the water did him great and positive good.

He soon found his newly discovered medicine not only more agreeable to his taste, but cheaper also than Huxham's tincture and quassia. He also found that his son's daily visits to the spring cost him less than Dr. Physic's daily rides of three or four miles. So that though he was greatly delighted to see the smiling face, and hear the stories and jolly laugh of the latter, he was glad when he proposed to call less frequently than he had done and to lay aside all medicine.

He recovered in a reasonable time, and lived to a very advanced age. A friend of his and mine, found him in his eighty-sixth year, mowing thistles barefooted. Two or three years still later, I found him—it was during the cold month of January, 1852—in the woods with his hired man far from his house, assisting in cutting and loading wood; in which employment he seemed to act with much of the energy and not a little of the activity of his earlier years.

I do not of course undertake to say that he owed his recovery from his long sickness, above described solely to drinking cold water, there are so many other circumstances to be taken into the account, in settling all questions like this, that such an assertion would be hazardous, not to say foolish. His fever at the time of making his experiment, had already passed away; and having great tenacity of life, it was but reasonable to expect nature would ere long, rally, if she could rally at all. It is also worthy of remark, that though his physician was one of those men who place their chief reliance on the medicine they give, rather than on the recuperative powers of the system, yet to his credit be it said, he had in this instance departed from his usual routine, and given comparatively little.

Perhaps we may explain the phenomenon of his recovery, as follows: nature long oppressed, yet by rest partially restored to her wonted energy, was now ready to rally as soon as she could get the opportunity; this the moderate draughts of water by their effects on the circulation enabled her to do; then, too, one consideration which I forgot to mention in its place, deserves to be noticed. When the sick man began the use of water, he laid aside (without the knowledge of his physician) most of what pills and powders and tinctures were prescribed him. And finally he had great faith in the water, as you have already seen; whereas he had lost all faith in drugging and dosing. And the efficacy of faith is almost sufficient in such cases, to work a cure, were this our only reliance. Of this we shall have an illustration in Chapter LXXVI.

But though the water, as I now fully believe—and as I more than half believed when I heard of the facts at the time,—was fairly indicated, there is great hazard, in such circumstances in its use. Had this gentleman taken a large draught at first, or had he swallowed more moderate draughts with great eagerness, and a quick succession, it might have produced an ill effect; it might, even, have provoked a relapse of his dysentery and fever. Many a sick patient in the same circumstances, would have poured the cooling liquid into an enfeebled throat and stomach without the least restraint. And why did not he?

I will give you one reason. He was early taught to govern himself. He told me, when eighty-eight years of age, he had made it a rule, all his life long, never to eat enough, but always to leave off his meals with a good appetite. He did not indeed, follow out with exactness the rule of the late Amos Lawrence: "Begin hungry and leave off hungrier," but he came very near it. He managed so as always to have a good appetite, and never in the progress of more than fourscore years, whether by night or day, to lose it. Such a man, if his mind is not too much reduced by long disease, can be safely trusted with cold spring water, even during the more painful and trying circumstances of convalescence from acute disease.

Another thing deserves to be mentioned in this connection. He had not kept his bowels and nervous system, all his life long, under the influence of rum, tobacco, opium, coffee, tea, or highly seasoned food. He did not it is true, wholly deny himself any one of these, except opium and tobacco; but he only used them occasionally, and even then in great moderation. Nor was it from mere indigence, or culpable stinginess that he ate and drank, for the most part in a healthful manner. It seemed to be from a conviction of the necessity of being "temperate in all things;" and that such a course as he pursued tended to hardihood. As one evidence of a conviction of this kind, I have known his children and their school teacher to carry to the schoolroom for their dinner, a quantity of cold Indian cake—ycleped Johnny cake—and nothing else; nor was there an attempt at the slightest apology. Such a man would not be very likely to have an ulcerated alimentary canal, or bad blood; or to be injured by swallowing every five minutes a table-spoonful of cold water; no, nor to sink as quickly as other people under the depressing tendency of irritating or poisonous medicine.

This last-mentioned fact concerning the use of water,—for it is a fact on which we can rely, and not one of those statements which Dr. Cullen was accustomed to call "false facts,"—was to me exceedingly instructive. It taught me more concerning the human constitution and the laws of health and disease than I had ever before learned from a single case of mere disease, in my whole life; and I endeavored to make a wise use of it—of which as I trust, I shall give some evidence in the very next chapter.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHEATING THE PHYSICIAN.

It was by no means an uncommon thing with me, while studying medicine, to take long walks. One day, in the progress of one of these rambles, I came so near the family mansion of a young man with whom I had formerly been acquainted, that I thought I would, for once, go a little out of my way and make a call on him. And judge, reader, if you can, of my surprise, when I found him exceedingly sick. For residing, as we did, only a few miles apart, why had I not heard of it? Most people, in truth, would have called on some of the young doctors—for there were three or four of us together,—to take care of the sick man, especially by night. Young doctors, I grant—and this for various reasons which might be named, were it needful—are usually the very worst of watchers and nurses of the sick; but the public often appear to think otherwise, and even to prefer them.

I found him under the care of an old school physician;—one who, though he otherwise prescribed very well, gave quite too much medicine; and like the old physician mentioned in the preceding chapter, mortally detested cold water; at least he detested its use in bowel complaints. The young man's case, however, was as yet wholly unlike that of the elderly gentleman of the foregoing chapter; and cold water at first, was not particularly needed; nor perhaps quite safe.

Some few days afterward, I called again. Found my young friend rather less feverish, but no better; in fact, he was much worse, and was most obviously running down. I continued after this to call on him daily, till he too, like the old man before mentioned, began to beg for cold water. But his physician said, "No, not a drop," and with a good deal of emphasis.

One day, while I was at his bedside, he turned to me, and with a most imploring look begged to know whether I believed a very little cold water would really hurt him. I told him no; but that a good deal doubtless would, and might even prove the means of his destruction. "Simple a thing as water is," I said, "it is to you, in circumstances like yours, a sword with two edges. If it should not cut away the disease, it would probably cut in the other direction, to the destruction of your health, if not of your life."

My remarks had both awakened his curiosity and increased his desires for the interdicted beverage. I found I had gone too far, and I frankly told him so. I told him it was not in accordance with medical etiquette, nor even with the rules of good breeding, for one medical man to prescribe for another's patient without his knowledge. But this explanation did not satisfy him. Water was what he wanted; and as I had opened the budget and removed some of his fears, water he must have. He was willing, he said, to bear the responsibility.

Water, then, in exceedingly small quantity at a time, was permitted; but it was to be given by stealth. The physician was not allowed to know it, or, at all events, he was not to know under whose encouragement he acted. His friends were very careful in regard to the quantity, and I had the happiness of finding him, in a few days, very much better. But, as I said in reflecting on the recovery of my aged friend before mentioned, it is not quite certain, after all, how much was effected by the water, and how much by the recuperative efforts of Nature herself. She might have been long waiting for that opportunity to rally, which the judicious introduction of the water, and the partial or entire discontinuance of other medicine, greatly facilitated.