The father of a large family came to me one day, and, with unwonted politeness, inquired after my health. Of course, I did not at first understand him, but time and patience soon brought every thing to light. His family, he said, were all sick with measles, except his wife, and he wished to ask me a question or two.
The truth is, he wanted to consult me professionally, without paying a fee; and yet he felt a little delicacy about it. But I was accustomed to such things; for his was neither the first nor the hundredth application of the kind; so I was as polite as he was, in return.
Another individual stood near me just at that moment, who supposed he had a prior claim to my attention; and I was about to leave Mr. M. for a moment, when he said, in a low voice, and in a fawning manner: "I suppose, doctor, it is necessary to physic off well for the measles; is it not? The old women all say it is; but I thought that, as I saw you, it might be well to ask."
This species of robbery is so common, that few have any hesitancy about practising it. Mr. M., though passing for a pattern of honesty and good breeding, wherever he was known, was nevertheless trained to the same meanness with the rest of the neighborhood where I resided, and was quite willing—even though a faint consciousness of his meanness chanced to come over him now and then—to defraud me a little in the fashionable or usual manner.
Perhaps I may be thought fastidious on this point. But though I have been sponged,—I may as well again say robbed,—in this or a similar way, a hundred or a thousand times, Ibelieve I never complained so loudly before. Yet it is due to the profession of medicine, and to those who resort to it, that I should give my testimony against a custom which ought never to have obtained foothold.
But to return to our conversation;—for I was never mean enough to refuse to give such information as was required, to the best of my abilities, even though I never expected, directly or indirectly, to be benefited by it;—I told him, at once, that if costiveness prevailed at the beginning of convalescence, in this disease, some gentle laxative might be desirable; but that, in other circumstances, no medicine could be required, the common belief to the contrary notwithstanding.
Mr. M. seemed not a little surprised at this latter statement, and yet, on the whole, gratified. It was, to him, a new doctrine, and yet he thought it reasonable. He never could understand, he said, what need there was of taking "physic," when the body was already in a good condition.
This physicking off disease is about as foolish as taking physic to prevent it—of which I have said so much in Chapter XI. and elsewhere. I do not, indeed, mean to affirm that it is quite as fatal; though I know not but it may have been fatal in some instances. Death from measles is no very uncommon occurrence in these days. Now how do we know whether it is the disease that kills or the medicine?
And when we physic off, in the way above mentioned, how know we, that if, very fortunately, we do not kill, some other disease may not be excited or enkindled? You are aware, both from what has been said in these pages, and from your own observation, that measles are not unfrequently followed by dropsy, weak eyes, and other troubles. No individual, perhaps, is, by constitution, less inclined to dropsy than myself; yet he who has read carefully what I have noted in Chapter IV., will not be confident of his own safety in such circumstances. Yet if they are endangered who are least predisposed to this or any other disease, where is the safety of those who inherit such a predisposition?
Some fifty years ago, I saw in a Connecticut paper, a brief notice of the death of an individual in Wellingworth, in that State, from a disease which, as the paper proceeded to state,—and justly too,—not one in a million had then ever felt, and which not many at that time had ever heard of; viz.,tic douloureux.
This notice, though it may have excited much curiosity,—it certainly arrested my own attention,—did not give us much light as to the nature of the disease. "Whatistic douloureux?" I asked my friends; for at that time, of course, I knew nothing of the study of medicine. They could not tell me. "Why do medical men," I asked, "give us such strange names? Is it to keep up the idea of mystery, as connected with the profession, in order thus to maintain an influence which modest worth cannot secure?"
It was largely believed at that time, by myself and many others, that science, like wealth,—especially medical science,—was aristocratical; that the learned world, though they saw the republican tendencies of things, were predisposed to throw dust in the people's eyes as long as they could. The fact that almost all our medicines, whether in the condition in which we see them labelled at the apothecary's shop, or as prescribed by the family physician, have Latin names,—was often quoted in proof of this aristocratic feeling and tendency.
Now there was doubtless some foundation for this opinion. Medical men did then and still very generally do believe, that it is better, on the whole, for the mass of mankind to have nothing to do with these matters, except at the prescription of those who have given the best part of their lives to the study ofmedicine and disease. That they are weapons of so much power, that even physicians—men who only partially understand the human constitution and their influence on it—are almost as likely to do harm with them as good, and that it is quite enough for society to bear the evils which are connected with the regular study and practice of the profession, without enduring a much larger host, inflicted by those who have other professions and employments, and must consequently be still more ignorant than their physicians. And may not this be one reason why a foreign language has been so long retained in connection with the names of diseases and medicines?
But though physicians entertain the belief alluded to, and though it were founded in truth, it does not thence follow that mankind are to remain in ignorance of the whole subject of life and health, nor is it the intention of enlightened medical men that they shall. The latter are much more ready, as a general rule, to encourage among mankind the study of the most appropriate means of preventing disease, than they are willing to take the needful pains. In short, though physicians by their slowness to act, in this particular, are greatly faulty, the world as a mass are still more so.
I was speaking, at first, of tic douloureux. This is a painful affection of a nerve or a cluster of nerves. When it first began to be spoken of, it was confined chiefly to an expansion of nerve at the side of the face, called in anatomical workspes anserina. But, of late years, it has been found to attack various nerves and clusters of nerves in different parts of the body. In truth, under the general name of neuralgia, which means about the same thing, we now have tic douloureux of almost every part of the human system, and it has become so common that instead of one in a million, we have probably one or two if not more in every hundred, who have suffered from it in their own persons.
About the year 1840, I had a patient who was exceedingly afflicted with this painful disease. She was, at the same time, consumptive. The neuralgia was but a recent thing; the consumption had been of many years' standing, and was probablyinherited. The physicians of her native region had exhausted their skill on her to no purpose.
There was no hope of aid, in her case, from medicine. The only thing to be done was to invigorate her system, and thus palliate the neuralgia and postpone the consumption. She was accordingly placed under the most rigid restrictions which the code of physical law could demand. She was required to attend to exercise and bathing with great care; to avoid over anxiety and fretfulness; to drink water, and to eat the plainest food. It was not intended to interdictnutritiousfood; but only that which wasover-stimulating.
It required considerable time to show her and her friends the practical difference between nutrition and stimulation. They thought, as thousands have thought beside them, that without a stimulating diet she could not be properly nourished. But they learned at length that good bread of all sorts, rice, peas, beans, and fruits, especially the first two, while they were unstimulating, were even more nutritious than the more stimulating articles of flesh, fish, fowl, butter, and milk and its products.
The treatment to which she was directed was at length pretty carefully followed. The Friends—of which religious connection she was a member—are generally thorough, when we gain their full confidence. Her health was so far restored, that at one period I entertained strong hopes of her ultimate recovery; or, at least of a recovery which would permit of her continuance some twenty or twenty-five years longer. But after seven or eight years of comfortable though not very firm health, she again declined. She died at forty years of age.
My daughter, then about three years of age, was feverish; and as the lung fever was somewhat prevalent, the family became considerably alarmed.
On examination, I found a strong tendency to the head. The eye was heavy, the head hot and painful, and the tongue thickly coated. The digestive system was disordered, and the skin was collapsed, inactive, and cold. The extremities, especially the feet, were particularly cold and pale.
The days of hydropathy had now arrived; but I was not a full convert, as I have already told you, to the exclusive use of cold water in disease. However, a case was before me which obviously demanded it. So I proceeded to make frequent applications of Nature's drug to the top of her head, and to the temples, while I ordered warm and stimulating applications to the feet and ankles.
This treatment had the effect to render her condition somewhat more comfortable during the day, but at evening the fever returned, and during the night was violent. The tendency to the head was so great as to cause delirium. The anxiety of the family became very great. In the morning, however, she was rather better, so that hope again revived.
During the day the fever increased again, and towards evening and during the whole night was accompanied by restlessness and delirium. But we only persevered with the more earnestness in the use of what we believed to be the most rational treatment. She had, however, a very sick night. The next morning she was again better, though, as might have been expected, somewhat more feeble than she was twenty-four hours before.
Most parents, I know, and not a few wise medical men among us, would have resorted to powders and pills; but we only persevered with our cold applications to the head, and our stimulating draughts to the feet. The bowels were in a very tolerable condition, otherwise a very mild cathartic might possibly have been administered. We had very strong hopes,—at least I had,—that nature would be too strong for the disease, and that the fever would, ere long, begin to abate.
In the afternoon the fever increased again, in some degree, and there was a slight delirium during the succeeding night. She slept a little, however, towards morning, after which she was evidently much better. This third day was passed away very comfortably, and she slept well during the succeeding night. The fourth morning she seemed to be quite restored.
Now a case of fever treated with emetics, diaphoretics, etc., and followed up with the usual paraphernalia of customary medical practice, which should yield so promptly and so immediately, would be supposed to be cured by the medicine; and the cure would very probably be regarded as rather remarkable; and if there was any peculiarity in the treatment, if the diaphoretic powders, for example, had any new or strange name, the practice would, peradventure, be thought worth imitating in other apparently similar cases of disease.
For myself, however, I simply regard it as one of Nature's own cures, unobstructed and unembarrassed by medicine. As the child was young and tenacious of life, she might very probably have recovered under the more common routine of medical treatment. But would there have been any advantage in such a recovery, over one which was equally rapid and perfect without the aid of medicine? Would there, in the latter case, have been no hazard to the constitution?
In Chapter XXIII., I have given a full account of my partial recovery from consumption. I have even spoken of the postponement as if it were complete and final. More than twenty years had now passed away, and I had begun to indulge the hope that I should never have another relapse.
As one element of this hope, I had nearly broken up the habit—once very strong—of taking cold, especially on my lungs. In truth, I believed all danger from this source to be entirely removed, and my particular susceptibility to any thing like acute pulmonary attacks forever at an end. I was confident, moreover, that the art of avoiding cold was an art which not only an individual, here and there, like myself, could acquire, but one which was within the reach of every one who would take the needful pains.
On a certain occasion of this latter kind, I was under a conventional necessity of exposing myself, in an unusual degree, for several successive evenings, to circumstances which, at an earlier period of my life, would, almost inevitably, have been followed by a cold. Was it safe, in my present condition, to run the risk? I hesitated for some time, but finally decided to comply with the request which had been made, and take the responsibility. I believed my susceptibility to cold so entirely eradicated that there was little if any danger.
But, as the event proved, I was quite mistaken; a severe cold came on, and left me in a condition not merely alarming, but immediately so. My lungs were greatly oppressed and my cough exceedingly severe and harassing; and it was followed with great debility and rapid emaciation.
Ashamed of myself, especially as I had boasted, for so manyyears, of an entire freedom from all tendencies of this sort, I endeavored, for a few days, to screen myself entirely from the public eye and observation. But I soon found that inaction, especially confinement to the house, would not answer the purpose,—that I should certainly die if I persisted in my seclusion.
What now should I do? I was too feeble to work much, although the season had arrived when labor in the garden was beginning to be needed. Trees were to be pruned and washed, and other things promptly attended to. The open air was also the best remedy for my enfeebled and irritated bronchial cavities. Whether there was, at this time, any ulceration of tubercles in my lungs, is, to say the least, very doubtful. However, I greatly needed the whole influence of out-of-door employment, or of travelling abroad; and, as it seemed to me, could not long survive without it.
Accordingly I took my pruning knife in my hand, and walked to the garden. It was about a quarter of a mile distant, and quite unconnected with the house I occupied. At first, it was quite as much as I could do to walk to the garden and return without attempting any labor. Nor could I have done even this, had I not rested several times, both on the road and in the enclosure itself.
It was a week before I was able to do more than merely walk to the garden and back, and perhaps prune a small fruit tree or shrub, and then return. But I persevered. It seemed a last if not a desperate resort; yet hope sometimes whispered that my hour had not yet come, that I had more work to perform.
At length I began to perceive a slight increase of muscular strength. I could work moderately a quarter of an hour or more, and yet walk home very comfortably. In about two months, I had strength enough to continue my labors several hours, in the course of a whole day, though not in succession—perhaps two in the forenoon and two in the afternoon. In about three months, I was, so far as I could perceive, completely restored.
It is to be remarked and remembered that, during the wholethree months, I never took the smallest particle of medicine, either solid or fluid. My simple course was to obey, in the most rigid and implicit manner, all known laws, physical and moral. It was my full belief at that time,—it is still my belief,—that conformity to all the Creator's laws is indispensable to the best of health, in every condition of human life, but particularly so when we are already feeble and have a tendency to consumption.
When it became known to my neighbors, who saw me day after day, reeling to my garden or staggering home, that I refused to take any medicine, there was a very general burst of surprise, and, in some cases, of indignation. "Why," said they, "what does the man mean? He must be crazy. As he is going on he will certainly die of a galloping consumption. Any one that will act so foolishly almostdeservesto die."
As soon as I found myself fairly convalescent, I returned gradually to all those practices on which I had so long relied as a means of fortifying myself, but which, since myfall, had been partially omitted. Among these was bathing, especially cold bathing. To the last, however, I returned very cautiously. Not for fear I should not be able to secure a reaction, but rather for fear Nature would have to spend morevitalityduring the process than she could well afford to spare.
I have known cases of the latter kind. An aged minister in Cleveland, Ohio, who had long followed the practice of cold bathing every morning, came to me in Dec. 1851, when the cold weather was very intense, and told me that though he could, with considerable effort, get up a reaction in his system after the bath, he was afraid itcosttoo much. I advised him to suspend it a few weeks, which he did with evident advantage.
There are, however, many other things to be done besides giving due attention to cold bathing, if we would harden ourselves fully against taking cold, to which I should be glad to advert were it not foreign to the plan I had formed, and the limits which, in this work, I have prescribed to myself.
I am well acquainted with one man of Yankee origin, who formerly made it a practice to freeze out his colds, as he called it. It is certainly better to prevent them, as I have all along and always taught. But this man's story is somewhat amusing, and by way of relief from our more sober subject, I will very briefly relate it.
Whenever he fancied he had taken cold, he would go, at about nine o'clock in the evening, in such diminished clothing as would render him in a very little time, quite chilly, and remain out of doors, when the weather would possibly permit, till he was almost frozen, and then come in and go immediately to bed, and procure a reaction. This he called freezing out his colds. Whether it was the cold or the heat that restored him, may be a point not yet fully settled; but it was a well-known fact to his friends, though they insisted in protesting against the practice, that every vestige of his cold would frequently, if not always, immediately disappear.
But it was a method of treatment which, as the event proved, was not without its hazards. I met with him a few years since, and on inquiring whether he continued to be as successful as formerly in freezing out his colds, he replied that for some time past he had not tried the plan, for, on a former occasion, after many successful experiments, he had failed in one, and had concluded to relinquish it. He made no farther confessions for himself, but his friends have since told me that in the case he faintly alluded to, he came very near dying under the process. He was sick with a fever, as the consequence, for a long time.
A man in one of the Middle States, who is himself about half a physician, and who has in various ways done much forhis fellow-men as a philanthropist, is accustomed to pursue a course of treatment which, though slightly related to the former, is, nevertheless, founded on principle. He keeps the sick in a room whose temperature is very low,—little, if at all, above the freezing point,—in order that they may inhale a full supply of oxygen. For every one doubtless knows that the colder the air, the denser it is, and consequently, the greater the absolute quantity of oxygen inhaled at each breath. By compelling his patients, however weak and feeble, to breathe a cold atmosphere, he secured to them an increased and full supply of oxygen.
To prevent his patients from suffering, in consequence of the external atmospheric cold, he keeps them in warm beds, and only suffers them to be out of bed a very short time, at long intervals. And while out of bed even, they are rubbed rapidly, in order to prevent any collapse of the skin from the cold. I knew him to keep a very delicate female, who was scrofulous if not consumptive, for several weeks of the coldest part of the winter, in a room whose temperature seldom exceeded 30° to 40°, scarcely permitting her to go out of it night or day, and what is still more curious, she slowly recovered under the treatment, and is now—seven or eight years afterwards—in the enjoyment of excellent health.
The individual alluded to in the preceding chapter, once sent for me to come and aid him for a time. He was the proprietor of a somewhat dilapidated water-cure establishment, which he wished to convert into what he chose to denominate an air-cure. For though half a physician himself, he had usually employed men of education to assist him; but, not having been quite fortunate in his selection, in every instance, he was disposed to make trial of myself.
In expressing to me his desires, he said he understood, perfectly well, my position. He well knew, in the first place, that I was not a hydropathist, but a regular, old-school physician, with this modification: that I had, for the most part, lost my faith in medicine, and relied chiefly on the recuperative efforts of Nature. He thought, on some points, as he said, a little differently from me; still, he supposed that wherein we could not agree we could at least agree to differ.
The sum total of his wishes, in short, was, that I would aid him in such way and manner as might seem to me best. He believed air to be the most important and efficient remedial agent in the world. His ideas of the virtue of this ærial fluid were hardly exceeded by those of Mr. Thackrah, of Leeds, England, who believes that we subsist more on air than on food and drink.
I was with this good man about six months, when, finding it impossible to carry out his plan, I left him. But I left him with regret. His purposes were generous in the extreme—I might even say noble. He loved to cure for the pleasure of curing—not for the emolument. In short, he seemed to have noregard to the emolument—not the slightest, and to be as nearly disinterested as usually falls to the human lot.
But did he cure? you will perhaps inquire. Yes, ifanybodycures. Persons came under his care who had been discharged by other physicians—both allopathic and homœopathic—as incurable; and who yet, in a reasonable time, regained their health. They followed our directions, obeyed the laws of health, and recovered. You may call it what you please—either cure or spontaneous recovery. Miracle, I am quite sure, it was not.
What, then, were the agencies employed in the air-cure? My friend believed that the judicious application of pure air, in as concentrated, and, therefore, as cool a state as possible, particularly to the internal surface of the lungs, was more important than every other agency, and even more important than all others. But then he did not forget the skin. He had his air bath, as well as his deep breathings; it was as frequently used, and was, doubtless, as efficacious.
He also placed great reliance on good food and drink. Animal food he rejected, and condiments. I have neither known nor read of any vegetarian, of Britain or America, who carried his dietetic peculiarities to what would, by most, be regarded as an extreme, more than he. And yet his patients, with few exceptions, submitted to it with a much better grace than I had expected. Some of them, it is true, took advantage of his absence or their own, and made a little infringement upon the rigidity of his prescriptions, but these were exceptions to the general rule; and I believe the transgressors themselves regretted it in the end—fully satisfied that every indulgence was but a postponement of the hour of their discharge.
One thing was permanently regarded as ultra. He did not believe in breakfasting; and therefore kept every patient, who wished to come under his most thorough treatment, from the use of food till about the middle of the day. This permitted of but two meals a day, which, however, is one more than has sometimes been recommended by O. S. Fowler, the phrenologist, and even by a few others.
The main error, however, of this air-cure practice,—if error there was in it,—consisted in the idea of its applicability to everybody, in every circumstance. For though it may be true that as large a proportion of inveterate cases of disease would disappear under such treatment as under any other, yet there are probably not a few to whom it would be utterly unadapted.
An Ohio clergyman, just setting out in his ministerial career, consulted me, one day, about his health and future physical prospects. His nervous system and cerebral centre had been over-taxed and partially prostrated; and his digestive and muscular powers were suffering from sympathy. In short, he was a run-down student, who, in order to be resuscitated, needed rest.
It was not, however, the rest of mere inertia that he required, but rest from those studies to which his attention had been long and patiently confined. His bodily powers were, indeed, flagging with the rest; but then it was impossible for him to be restored withoutsomeexercise. In truth, it was not so much arestof body, mind, or heart that he needed, as achange.
I will tell you what a course he had been, for five or six years, pursuing. Though his father was reckoned among the wealthier farmers of Ohio, yet, having a large family to sustain and educate, he did not feel at full liberty to excuse his children from such co-operation with him as would not materially interfere with their studies. Hence they were required—and this son among the rest—not only to be as economical as possible, in all things, but also to earn as much as they could, especially during their vacations. They were not, of course, expected to do any thing which was likely to impair their health, but, on the contrary, to take every possible pains to preserve the latter, and to hold labor and study and every thing else in subserviency to it.
The son for whom I was requested to prescribe, not only attended to his father's wishes and expectations, and endeavoredto fulfil them, but went much farther than was intended, and did more than he ought. Besides keeping up with his class, he taught school a very considerable portion of the time, so that his mental apparatus, as I have already more than intimated, was continually over-taxed; and he had been a sufferer, more or less, for several years, when I met with him.
My advice was that he should leave his studies, entirely, for two years, and labor moderately, in the meantime, on his father's farm. His principal objection to doing so, was, that he was already at an age so much advanced, that it seemed to him like a wrong done to society, to delay entering upon the duties of the ministry two whole years. But I reasoned the case with him as well as I could, and, among other things, pointed out to him the course pursued by his Divine Master.
I have never met with him from that day to this; nor have I ever received from him—strange as it may seem—any communication on the subject. But I have been informed from other sources, that after laboring for a time with his father, he was settled as a minister in a neighboring village with greatly improved health and highly encouraging prospects. He is at the present time one of the main pillars, theologically, of the great State of New York, and, as I have reason for believing, is in the enjoyment of good health.
It is easy to see that the time he spent on his father's farm, instead of being a loss to him, was, in the end, among the most important parts of the work of his education. How much better it was for him to recruit his wasted energies before he took upon him the full responsibilities of preacher and pastor in a large country church and congregation, than to rush into the ministry prematurely, with the prospect, amounting almost to a certainty, of breaking down in a few years, and spending the remnant of his days in a crippled condition,—to have the full consciousness that had he been wise he might have had the felicity of a long life of usefulness, and of doing good to the souls and bodies of mankind.
Mr. S., a very aged neighbor of mine, fell into habits of such extreme inactivity of the alimentary canal, that instead of invoking the aid of Cloacinà, as Mr. Locke would say, every day, he was accustomed to weekly invocations only. There was, however, a single exception. In the month of June, of each year, he was accustomed to visit the seaside, some twenty miles or more distant, and remain there a few days, during which and for a short time afterward, his bowels would perform their wonted daily office.
And yet, despite of all this, he got along very well during summer and autumn, for a man who was over seventy years of age. It was not till winter—sometimes almost spring—that his health appeared to suffer as the consequence of his costiveness. Nor was it certain, even then, whether his inconveniences,—for they hardly deserved the name of sufferings,—arose from his costiveness, or from the croakings of friends and his own awakened fears and anxieties. Nearly every one who knew of the facts in his case was alarmed, and many did not hesitate to cry out, even in his hearing, "He must be physicked, or die!" And their fears and croakings, by leading him to turn his attention to his internal feelings, greatly added to his difficulties.
My principal aim, as his friend and physician, was to convince him that there was no necessity of anxiety on the subject, as long as none of the various functions of the system were impaired. As long as digestion, circulation, respiration, perspiration, etc., were tolerably well performed, and his general health was not on the decline, it was not very material, asI assured him, whether his alvine movements were once a day, once in two days, or once a week.
The various emunctories or outlets of the body should, undoubtedly, be kept open and free, so that every portion of worn-out or effete matter may be effectually got rid of. In order to have this done in the very best manner, it is indispensably necessary that we should eat, drink, breathe, sleep, and exercise the muscles and all the mental and moral powers daily. And yet we are to such an extent the creatures of habit, that we can, in all these respects, bring ourselves to almost any thing we choose, and yet pass on, for a time, very comfortably. Thus we may eat once, twice, thrice, or five times a day, and if possessed of a good share of constitutional vigor, we may even accustom ourselves to considerable variation from the general rule with regard to drinking, sleeping, exercise, temperature, etc. Healthy men have been able to maintain their health, in tolerable measure, for a long time, without drink, without exercise, and even without sleep. Of the truth of this last remark, I could give you, did time and space permit, many well-attested, not to say striking facts.
I was not wholly successful in my attempts at quieting the mind and feelings of my aged patient or his friends. And yet his erratic habit was never entirely broken up. He lived to the age of fourscore without suffering much more from what are usually called the infirmities of age, than most other old men. It must not, however, be concealed that he possessed what has been sometimes denominated an iron constitution.
Mr. Locke strongly insists that children should be trained, from the very first, to diurnal habits of the kind in question; and I cannot help thinking that such habits should be secured very early—certainly at eight or ten years of age. Some of the healthiest men and women I have ever known were those who had either been trained or had trained themselves in this way. And yet I would not be so anxious to bring nature back to this rule when there have been large digressions, as to be found administering cathartics on every trifling occasion.
An old man, who eats little and exercises still less, but hasa good pulse, a good appetite, and a free perspiration, with a cheerful mind, need not take "physic" merely because his bowels do not move more than once a week; nor need those who are feverish, and who eat and exercise but little. The disturbance which will ensue, if medicine be taken, may be productive of more mischief, on the whole, than the absorption into the system of small portions of the retained excretions, or the small amount of irritation they produce—and probably will be so.
It will be a solace to some to know that the alvine excretions of the system are not so much the remnants of our food, when that food is such as it should be, as asecretionfrom the internal or lining membrane of the bowels. Consequently, if this secretion is interrupted by disease, there will be a proportionally diminished necessity for alvine evacuations.
Prof. ——, of Ohio, had been sick of fever, for a long time, and, on the departure of the disease, his bowels were left in such a condition that cathartics, or at least laxatives, began to be thought of; but his physician interdicted their use: His costiveness continued to the twenty-first day, without any known evil as the consequence. On this day nature rallied. Then followed a period of quiescence of fourteen days, and then another of seven days, after which he fell into his former diurnal habits. There was much croaking among the neighbors, on account of the treatment of his physician; but the results put all to silence.
The case of Judge ——, in the interior of the same State (Ohio), was so much like that of Prof. ——, in all its essential particulars, that I need but to state the fact, without entering at all upon the details.
J. W. G., a lawyer of Massachusetts, was sick with a lingering complaint, attended with more or less of fever, for several months. During this time there was one interval, of more than thirty days, during which his bowels did not move. And yet there was no evidence of any permanent suffering as the consequence.
The principal use I would make of these facts, so far as themass of general readers is concerned, is the following: If, during feebleness and sickness, human nature will bear up, for a long time, under irregularities of this sort, is it needful that we should be alarmed and fly at once to medicine in caseslessalarming—above all, in these cases, when, except in regard to costiveness, the health and habits are excellent? May we not trust much more than we have heretofore believed, in the recuperative efforts of Nature?
Early in the year 1852, I received a letter, of which the following, with very slight needful alterations, is an extract. It was written from the interior of Massachusetts.
"About three months ago, I took a long journey by stage-coach, which brought on, as I think, an internal inflammation. Since that time I have taken very little medicine. Please tell me whether it is right for me to bathe daily in, and drink freely of, cold water; and whether it is safe to make cold applications to the parts affected.
"I take as much exercise as I can without producing irritation. I do not, by any means, indulge in the food which my appetite craves.
"I am twenty-six years of age; was married and left a widow, while young and very ignorant, under circumstances the most deeply painful. I have a strong desire to get well if I can; though if I must give up the thought I am willing to die.
"I should be very glad to see you, if you will take the trouble to come and see me. I should have made an effort to consult you, in person, before now, if I could have safely taken the journey."
At the time of receiving this letter I was travelling in a distant State, and, as an immediate visit was wellnigh impracticable, I wrote her, requesting such farther information as might enable me to give her a few general directions, promising to see her on my return in the spring. In reply to my inquiries, I received what follows:—
"I have been, from childhood, afflicted with bunches in the throat. There is no consumptive tendency on either my father's or my mother's side; but I come, by the maternal side, from aking's evil[I]family. I am an ardent, impulsive creature, possessing a nervous, sanguine temperament; naturally cheerful and agreeable, but rendered, by sickness, irritable, capricious, and melancholic. I fear consumption so much, that were I convinced it was fully fastened upon me, I might be tempted, unless restrained by a strong moral influence, to commit a crime which might not be forgiven.
"I have great weakness in the throat, and soreness in the chest, with a dull pain between the shoulders. My appetite is extraordinary;—I think it has increased since I have dieted. My flesh is stationary. I gain a few pounds, and then commit some wild freak and lose it. I am unaccountable to myself. I think, sir, that my mental disturbances impair my health.
"I anticipate much pleasure from seeing you; for I see, by your letter, you understand me. I have always been thought inexplicable. I feel a universal languor. I am, at times, unconscious. I feel dead to all things; there seems a loss of all vitality; and sometimes there is a sense of suffocation. All these feelings are extreme, because I am, by my nature, so sensitive. I met the other day with a slight from a friend, a young lady, which caused grief so excessive that I have ever since been suffering from influenza."
These lengthy extracts may not be very interesting to the general reader, except so far as they reveal to him some of the internal cogitations of a soul borne down with a load of suffering, which almost drove her to suicide. "Who hath woe,"—as Solomon says, with respect to a very different description of human character,—if not this poor widow?
And yet it required a personal visit, and the conversation of a couple of hours, to fathom the depths of her woe, to the utmost. For there are secrets of the human heart, with which, of course, no stranger—not even the family physician—should presume to intermeddle; though to these depths, in thecase of the half-insane sufferer of whom I am speaking, it was not necessary that I should go, in order to find out what I had all along suspected. Disease had been communicated several years before, of a kind which was much more communicablethen, than it was eradicable now.
Whenever, by the laws of hereditary descent, in their application to health and disease, our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren suffer, we may recognize in it the hand of the great Creator; nor do we doubt, often, the wisdom of such laws nor their ultimate tendency to work out final good. But when we find a widow suffering many long years, from a disease to which a husband's weakness and wickedness has subjected her, what shall we say, especially when we have reason to fear that the evils in question, some of them, at least, will be terminable only, in their effects, with life itself?
My patient ispatientlywearing out her ills; and what she cannot wear out, she is learning to endure. Her case cannot be reached with medicine, at least with safety, and is only to be affected, so far as affected at all, by yielding the most unflinching obedience to the laws of God, physical and moral. She will not die of consumption; she will live on; but how much progress she may be able to make towards the land of life and health, is by no means certain. Her case is, at best, a trying one, and must compel us, whenever we reflect on the subject, to say, "Who hath woe, if not persons situated like this widow?"[J]
FOOTNOTES:[I]She was not aware that king's evil, or scrofula, is oftentimes the parent of consumption.[J]Since this chapter was written, I have had the pleasure of learning from a reliable source that the young woman above referred to is now enjoying comparatively good health. She married a second time, a year or two afterwards; and by following out the course prescribed, and with the blessing of Heaven, she came at length to her present position of usefulness and happiness.
[I]She was not aware that king's evil, or scrofula, is oftentimes the parent of consumption.
[I]She was not aware that king's evil, or scrofula, is oftentimes the parent of consumption.
[J]Since this chapter was written, I have had the pleasure of learning from a reliable source that the young woman above referred to is now enjoying comparatively good health. She married a second time, a year or two afterwards; and by following out the course prescribed, and with the blessing of Heaven, she came at length to her present position of usefulness and happiness.
[J]Since this chapter was written, I have had the pleasure of learning from a reliable source that the young woman above referred to is now enjoying comparatively good health. She married a second time, a year or two afterwards; and by following out the course prescribed, and with the blessing of Heaven, she came at length to her present position of usefulness and happiness.
The thought that a minister of the gospel can be gluttonous is so painful that, after selecting as the caption to the present chapter, "A gluttonous minister," I concluded to modify it. Perhaps, after all, it might be as well in the end, to call things by their proper names. However, we will proceed, as we have set out, for this once.
A minister about forty years of age came to me one day, deeply involved in all the midnight horrors of dyspepsia.
On investigating his case, I found it one of the most trying I had ever met with. It was not only trying in itself, in the particular form and shape it assumed, but it had been rendered much more troublesome and unmanageable by injudicious medical treatment.
My course was a plain one, and I proceeded cautiously to prescribe for him—not medicine, for in my judgment he needed none, but simply a return to the physical laws he had so long and so palpably violated. These laws I endeavored briefly to recall to his attention. As he was an intelligent man, I dealt with him in the most plain and direct manner.
Some two or three weeks afterward he called on me again, saying that he was no better. I repeated my prescription, only more particularly. Still I was not, as I now think, sufficiently particular and definite, for want of time. Moreover, he still clung to the off-hand customs of empiricism,—that of looking at the tongue, feeling the pulse, and seeming "wondrous wise,"—and vainly hoped I would treat him in the same direct way, instead of requiring what he regarded as a more circuitous course.
He called on me the third time. We had now ampleleisure and opportunity for attempting to ferret out the causes which had operated to bring him into his present condition, some of which, it appeared, had been of long standing.
I inquired, in the first place, concerning his exercise. This, he said, was taken very irregularly, chiefly in walking abroad on business, seldom or never in company. His mind, in all probability, was not directed, to any considerable extent, from its accustomed mill-horse track. His gait, too, when he walked, was staid and measured. It was never buoyant, lively, or playful. And as for amusement, he had none at all.
His diet was still worse than his exercise. He had a large family, and resided in the midst of a dense population; and was so situated as to render his house, practically, a kind of ministerial thoroughfare. He probably entertained, at his hospitable table, more ministers, literary men, and students than any other three clergymen in the neighborhood.
"Now," said he to me, "we have a good deal of table preparation to make, and Mrs. Y., who dearly loves to have things in pretty good order, sets a full table, with, a large variety. Well, this food must be eaten. It will never do for a minister who has a large family and lives on a moderate salary, towasteany thing. And, besides, as I ought to tell you, we sometimes, if not always, have a very considerable amount of rich food on the table."
"Do you mean to intimate that the bountiful provision you make for others renders it necessary for you to overeat? Or have your remarks a reference to a supposed necessity of eating rich food?"
"We are not, of course, absolutely compelled toanything. My meaning is this: In order to meet the wants of those who are liable to call on us at almost any hour,we prepare largely. Then, to meet these varying and often very fastidious tastes, we must havea large varietyof food, and it must behighly seasoned. And then, if it happens that our company is not as large as is expected, we have an extra quantity remaining, and I am tempted to aid in eating it up, the highly seasoned food among the rest."
"And you think, do you, that this highly seasoned food is the cause of your dyspepsia?"
"Undoubtedly it is."
"And do you expect to be cured of a disease which is produced by certain definable causes, like this, and yet be permitted to go on in the same way you have long gone? Do you suppose I have any power to grant you an immunity from the evil effects of high living while that high living is persisted in? Can you get rid of an effect till you first remove the cause?"
"Why, no, sir, not exactly. Such an expectation would be very unreasonable. But is there no medicine I can take that willpartiallyrestore me? Perhaps, at my age, entire restoration from such a hydra disease as dyspepsia is hardly to be expected; but can you not patch me up in part?"
"What! and suffer you to go on sinning?"
"Why, yes, to some small extent. It is very hard, nay, it seems to me almost impossible, to break away from the routine of my family, at least as long as Mrs. Y. is fully determined to prepare for company according to the prevailing customs. I could submit to a different arrangement if she were ready for it."
"I wish I could encourage you to pursue this compromising course of conduct. But it is not so. You must change your habits entirely, or you must continue to suffer. For if it were possible to patch you up, for a short time, while your present habits are continued, it would not be as well for you in the end: It would only add another head and horn, perhaps several others, to the monster that annoys you. No, sir; you must change your habits or give up the contest. There is no use in attempting to do any thing, in such a case as yours, with medicine."
"Well, then, if it must be so, it must. I will try once more, and see what I can do."
He left me with a downcast look, and, I suspected, with a heavy heart. At all events, my own heart was heavy, and seemed almost ready to bleed. Here was a father in our ministerialIsrael,—one to whom multitudes looked up for the bread of spiritual life,—who was a perfect slave to his appetites; or, at least, to the conventionalisms of modern house-keeping. He groaned daily and hourly under bodily disease the most aggravated and severe. His eyes were red and swelled; the sides of his nose enlarged and inflamed, till he had the appearance of being about half a sot. He knew all about it, and yet refused to take the first step in the way of reformation.
I saw him, by accident, once more, and would have spoken with him freely; but he seemed to shun every thing beyond a merely passing compliment. I saw how it was with him; and the reflections which arose in my mind gave me the most intense pain.
Two or three weeks afterward, while in an intimate and confidential conversation with two of his very familiar friends, I ventured to predict his fall, with nearly as much particularity as if the events which were predicted had already taken place. I was asked how I dared to say such things, even in secret, of so good a man and such a father in the American Church. So I gave them, by way of reply, the principal facts in the case, as detailed above.
Not many years passed ere this very minister was tried for a crime much more high-handed than gluttony, though sometimes the sequel to it; and not only tried, but silenced. The results of the trial were as shocking to most people as they were unexpected. Every one said: "How can it be?"
Mr. Y. became a farmer, and is still so. But he is cured of his dyspepsia. Compelled, as I have reason to believe he is, to practise the most rigid economy, having very little temptation to unlawful indulgence, and having an abundance of healthful exercise in the open air, he has every appearance, externally, of a reformed man. His old friends would, I think, hardly know him. His skin is as clear, and his eyes and nose as physiologically correct in their appearance, as yours or mine. True, he is an old man, but he is not a gluttonous old man. He is a fallen man, but a healthy, and, I hope, a penitent one.He has experienced a species of first resurrection, and has, I trust, the hope of a better one still.
Now, had this man believed, in the first place, that the fault of his dyspepsia was not wholly chargeable on Mrs. Y., but also on himself,—had he clearly seen that he loved high living, and would not relinquish it,—he might have been reformed without a dreadful and scathing ordeal, and without disgracing the cause of his Divine Master, But alas! "the woman that thou gavest to be with me," as he said, was in fault; and so he did not reform himself.
That his wife was in fault, most deeply, I do not deny. She knew her husband's weakness, and yet continued to place before him those temptations which she well knew were too strong for him. How she could do this, and persist in doing it, is, to me, a mystery. But she had her reward; at least, in part. For in the fall and retirement of her husband from public life, and in the consciousness—which was the most terrible of all—of his guilt, must not her sufferings have been terrible?
It is indeed true that she may not have been wise enough—for this wisdom has not yet been made public property, in the fullest sense—to look at the subject in one point of view, which would be calculated to add to the poignancy of her anguish. So that we may be almost ready to say, in her case, "Ignorance is bliss." I refer, here, to the infliction of scrofula and nervousness, by high living, on the next generation.
For while Mrs. Y. was bowing down to public opinion, and preparing rich viands for her guests, and practically compelling her husband and children to eat up what they had nibbled at and left, she was not only fastening dyspepsia upon the former and nervousness upon herself, but imparting more or less of a tendency to nervousness and scrofula upon the rest of her family. Of the two thousand children born in a day, in the United States, from two hundred to three hundred—perhaps nearer four hundred—come into the world with a scrofulous tendency; and of these, it is highly probable, that at least one hundred per day are manufactured at just such tablesas those which were set by Mrs. Y. for the teachers of the religion of Jesus Christ.
I have quoted the old adage, that "Ignorance is bliss;" but alas! is it not to trifle with the most solemn considerations? Can that be regarded as blissful which leaves a mother, who, in general, means to love and honor the Saviour, to destroy her husband and one or two of his children? There is little doubt that, besides shutting her husband out of the sacred enclosure, after she had destroyed his health, Mrs. Y. was the means of destroying at least one or two of her children. One of them, who was scrofulous, ran at last—a very common occurrence—into consumption, and perished early, in the beginning of active usefulness.
I may be suspected of exaggeration, by some of my readers. Would to God, for humanity's sake and for Christ's sake, it were so! For though I cannot subscribe to the creed of those who profess to be willing to come into everlasting condemnation for the glory of God, yet, so long as opportunity for repentance shall last, I would willingly be convicted of untruth, if so that the falsehood might be made palpable to my mind, rather than believe what I am compelled to believe with regard to the murderous tendency on soul and body of our murderous modern cookery. Is it not true—the old adage, that while "God," in his mercy, "sends us meats, the Devil," in his malignity, "sends us cooks?"
This unnatural cookery,—this mingling medicine with viands naturally healthful, and torturing the compounds thus formed into sources of irritation, has more to do with that sensuality which has come upon us like a flood,—much of it in new forms,—than many are aware. And I am much mistaken if modern societies for moral reform, popularly so called, might not thank the over-refined cookery of a gross and highly stimulating diet, for that necessity which impels to their own field of labor.
One thing more might have been mentioned in its proper place—the tendency of high living to eruptions on the skin. These, in their various forms of pimple, carbuncle, boil, etc., are becomingquite the order of the day. Mr. Y.'s family had a full share of them, especially those of them who were scrofulous. I have already mentioned the appearance of Mr. Y.'s face, and have alluded to the change which took place after his fall. But I should have spoken of the eruptions on his face, which, at times, were such as almost made him ashamed to enter the pulpit.
You will see, from the tenor of these remarks, that I have laid the guilt, in this sad affair, just where I believe it ought to rest. I have not sought to exculpate one individual or party, at the expense of another equally guilty, but rather to do justice to all.
Only one thing remains, which is to confess myownguilt. Have I not great reason to fear that my advice was not sufficiently pointed and thorough? I might have gone to Mr. Y. and told him the truth, the whole truth. What if it had given offence? Would not the prospect of doing good, rather than of giving offence, have been worth something? In any event, I do regret most deeply my unfaithfulness, even though it arose from delicacy and diffidence, for that very delicacy and diffidence were far enough from being grounded on the love of God. They were grounded much more on the love of human approbation. No man was ever more free from it than our Saviour. Ought I not to have used the same plainness that he would have used? Had I rebuked Mrs. Y. as kindly and as faithfully as he rebuked Martha at Bethany, how much, for ought I can ever know, might have been saved, not only to the cause of health and conjugal happiness, but also to that of piety.
A telegraphic communication was made to me one day, nearly as follows: "B. J. W. is very sick, and is not expected to live through the day. Please come on immediately."
The distance was about one hundred and fifty miles, and the mode and means of conveyance neither very direct nor rapid for these latter times. It was more than probable that Mr. B. J. W. would be dead before I could reach the place. However, as he was a particular friend, and as there was some hope, I concluded to set out.
Late in the evening,—or rather, in the night,—I arrived at the place, and found the young man still alive. He was, however, as it was easy to perceive, in a very critical condition. Glad to find him alive, but inclined to fall in with the general opinion that his case was a hopeless one, and withal greatly fatigued, I yielded to the demands of exhausted Nature, and slept a short time, when his physician arrived.
Now I had been sent for, in part, as a special friend, and in part, as a medical counsellor. And yet there were difficulties. Dr. Bolus, the family physician, was just such a man—for reasons that might be given—as I dreaded to advise with, should my advice be needed. He was one who would be likely to think any important suggestion an impeachment of his own superior wisdom. Science, true science, is always modest, and does not fear any thing; because she loves, most of all things,to be right. But Dr. Bolus had not, as I think, enough of true science to make him feel or perceive the want of it. The ignorant are always self-confident in proportion to their ignorance.
We examined the patient, as soon as possible, and retired forconsultation. Dr. Bolus gave a full history of the progress of the case, with a particular account of the treatment. I saw at once, both from the existing symptoms and Dr. Bolus's statement, that the tendency to the brain—so great as to keep up an almost constant delirium—was quite as likely to be caused by the enormous quantities of morphine and quinine, and other active medicines which had been administered, as to belong properly to the disease. I therefore advised a gradual reduction and ultimate discontinuance of the extra stimulants.
Dr. Bolus was opposed to the reduction I proposed, but finally consented to it, at least in part, and the patient evidently derived almost immediate benefit from it. When I had pushed my views with regard to the stimuli as far as I could, we separated, and as the distance at which the doctor resided was considerable, and as I was on the spot to watch the patient, he proposed not to call again till early in the morning of the following day.
I was by no means satisfied with the compromise we had made. It had not accomplished its intended object. Dr. Bolus had, indeed, yielded a little, but not enough to satisfy me. I believed the amount of stimulus still given vastly too great, and was unwilling to continue it. In truth, I persuaded one of the attendants to omit the principal articles, whenever the hour came for administering them, assuring him that I would take all the responsibility.
Of the other attendant I would have made the same requisition, but he being exceedingly attached to Dr. Bolus, would never have tolerated the slightest concealment, or departure from the strictest letter of the law.
It was easy to see that the less stimulating treatment of each alternate two hours, during which it was entirely omitted, left behind it, on the patient's frame, a better influence than the more active treatment of the other two. And when the next medical consultation came, I pleaded for a still greater diminution of the stimulus. But, as I had unwillingly used a little duplicity,—a thing I now deeply regret,—in order to come at my conclusions against the stimulants, I was not willing to state, in full, the grounds of my opinion, and therefore could not prevailwith Dr. Bolus to consent to any farther advances in the unstimulating plan.
I was now, at length, compelled to leave for home; and the results, for the rest of the time, were reported to me through the kindness of the young man's friends. It is sufficient, perhaps, to say that he finally recovered; but it was not till the lapse of several months. In the mean time, a severe ulcer broke out on the lower part of his back, which caused much suffering, and appeared to retard very greatly the progress of his recovery.
My errors in this case were numerous and great. Believing, as I did, in the outset, that Dr. Bolus and myself could never agree, I did wrong in consenting to a consultation with him. I ought to have been nothing but a visitor, or else to have entered fully into the spirit and duty of a counsellor. In the former case I might, indeed, have outraged every feeling of benevolence; in the latter I ought to have proposed my objections in full, and not to have compromised so as to submit to what I really believed to be radically and essentially wrong.
For I did most fully believe all this; and in spite of every effort at concealment, my scepticism finally came out, and I was weak enough to speak of it, and openly to find fault with Dr. Bolus. A practical quarrel followed between Dr. Bolus and myself, in which the friends joined, or, at least, strongly sympathized.
My own belief, then, was, and it still remains the same, that the violence of the young man's disease, especially the tendency to the brain, was chiefly, if not wholly, owing to the medicine administered; and that, from the very first, no active medicine—nothing but an exceedingly mild and cooling treatment—was required. It was even my belief that the ulcer was caused by the medicine.
But, while I lost confidence in human nature, and especially in the human nature of some of my brethren of the medical profession, by this experiment, I became more thoroughly convinced than ever before of the great need of honest and benevolent as well as scientific men in this department, and of thegeneral impotency and worse than impotency of much that is dignified with the name of medical treatment. I became most fully convinced, that in acute diseases as well as chronic, Nature, unembarrassed, will generally accomplish her own work, when left to herself and to good and careful nursing and attendance.