A young man, recently married, called on me one day, and requested me to visit his family as soon as I could conveniently, for the purpose of having what he was pleased to call a general consultation.
I called in due time, and found the case as follows: Both the husband and wife were descended from consumptive families, and though they had got along tolerably well till very recently, there were now, in them both, many evidences of approaching disease; and though consumptive people are said to be slow in admitting they have consumption, yet this young couple formed an exception to the general rule.
In the bosom of the family, and possessed of their entire confidence, I had an ample opportunity for examining the case of this interesting couple. I found the tendency downward much more marked and rapid than I had expected, and I frankly told them so. Some of the circumstances were, indeed, rather peculiar. Consumptive people are generally sensual, while indulgence is peculiarly fatal to them. But here was a case more glaring than I had before seen. They had been married but about three months; nor were the indulgences of the table believed to be remarkable, as they were forbidden by a due regard to economy. They suffered much by excessive heat in their rooms, both by day and by night, and in several other ways, much more than by high living.
But I endeavored to put all things right, and to convince them of the necessity of keeping them so. In a long, but very familiar series of conversations,—for the most part separately,—I endeavored to show them that conjugal life was a life of duty, as well as of enjoyment; and that consumptive people, in orderto live out more than half their days, must forego a great many gratifications to which they might very naturally lay claim.
The results of this conversation were probably worth a hundred-fold the expense they involved. This young couple are, to this hour, for aught I know, enjoying tolerable health; and their health is improving. Their children, though not strong, reap the full benefit of thorough parental reform; and their scrofulous tendencies seem every day more and more receding.
While cholera was prevailing in our large towns and cities, and a few cases were occurring and proving fatal in my own neighborhood, a friend of mine, who had till recently been a sea captain, complained, one day, of cholera symptoms, and begged to know what he could do to ward off the threatened disease.
On inquiry I found he was more than half right, that cholera, surely enough, was already marking him for its victim. The rice-water discharges, so called, had actually commenced. Had he been any thing but a resolute tar, he would have gone on, most evidently, into severe if not fatal disease.
I gave him the best advice I was able, with regard to diet, exercise, etc.,—probably the same, or about the same, that any thoughtful medical man, in the same circumstances, would have given. He was to be cheerful, quiet, and abstinent. For food, he was to use nothing but a little boiled rice,—at least, till the symptoms of cholera began to abate. He was especially directed to avoid all medicine.
Several weeks passed away, during which I heard nothing from him. As I did not hear of his death, however, I concluded he must have recovered. One day, rather unexpectedly, I met him again, and inquired familiarly how he got along with his cholera? He laughed outright, but immediately added,—"Sit down, sir, and I will tell you the whole story."
"After I left you," said he, "the thought struck me,—Why cannot I control the muscles of my system as well as my appetites and passions? Indeed, on occasions, I have done it, at least for a short time. These little rice-water evacuations cannot, in the nature of things, do much harm by being retained.I can do what any man can. These frequent demands of nature seem to me very unreasonable. I will not yield to them. And, like a good sailor, I kept my word. For nearly a whole day I never permitted a single evacuation. Then, after yielding obedience, for once, to nature's clamorous demands, I again enforced my prohibitory law. My task, the second day, was less severe than it was the first, and on the third day I got along very comfortably. The fourth day I was well; and to-day you see me here."
Whether he told me the truth, I do not know, of course; but I give the statement, as nearly as I can recollect, just as it was given to me. I have reason, however, for believing it to be true. The man is still alive, and is as likely to live for twenty or twenty-five years to come, as you or I, or any other individual.
Mrs. Willard, of Troy, New York, under the full impression that the seat of human life is in the lungs, and not in the heart, and that even the blue color of the skin during the collapse of Asiatic cholera, is owing to an accumulation of unburnt carbon in the air cells of the lungs, made the experiment of trusting a few patients, in this disease, to the full influence of pure air, and nothing else. According to her account the experiments were most admirably successful. She cured every individual she experimented on (and it was a considerable number), and in a comparatively short period.
It was my good fortune to escape cholera patients, with the single exception mentioned above. However, I am quite confident that, but for the alarm, which more than half paralyzes our efforts, we might much more frequently recover, under its deadly influences, especially if we begin the work of preparation in good season, and duly and faithfully persevere. There is much in enduring to the end.
Without examining the term suicide, in regard to its various shades of meaning, I have placed it at the head of this chapter; for I think it properly belongs there. Of this, however, I leave the reader to judge when he has heard a statement of the facts in the case to which I have applied it.
A young woman was admitted to the family where I was, to be treated for a nervous complaint so obstinate as to remind one who was not wholly insane nor strikingly imaginative, of the demoniacal possessions of eighteen hundred years ago. She would not eat; she would not drink; she would not orcouldnot sleep. In short, she would not, if she could help it, do any thing which did not have an immediate bearing on her own well-being, for the moment. She was, in truth, one of the most selfish creatures in human shape I ever yet saw. If Dr. Johnson, who is said to have held that every sick person is a rascal, had seen her, I wonder what he would have said of the case.
She was one of those young women who have never been governed, and hence cannot govern themselves. If she took it into her head to do or not to do a thing, she would be sure to carry her point, if not in one way, at least in another.
How she came to consent to be placed under my care, I never knew; for all the neighbors and friends of the poor girl well understood that if she came there she would have to obey me; and yet that, if shedidobey me, it would be the first instance in which she ever yielded to any mind or will but her own, either earthly or heavenly. Perhaps it was a last resort—a sort of desperation.
I began my directions, however, as if I expected to beobeyed, and had no fears of any disinclination on her part. Some things which pleased her, she consented to attempt; others she would tell me shecouldnot do. When I was quite confident nothing was wanting but a will, I sometimes asked for a reason; but it could, in no instance, be obtained. If I pressed her for an answer, or for a reason, she would either be silent or groan most dreadfully with pain!
At length I saw that nothing could be obtained in this way, and that she must either attend to my directions, as far as was really in her power, or I could have nothing to do with her; and I told her so. She did not appear to care. Her alienation of feeling was so rapid that in a very few days she seemed almost to hate the very sight of me. Indeed, I believe she made statements to this effect to several of her friends.
Her report, so unfavorable and so very strange, soon reached the ears of several very respectable people, who in wonder and surprise came to me, to learn what it meant, and among the rest came her minister. They made diligent though respectful inquiry whether the facts were as she represented them to be. I believe that, for the most part, they were satisfied with the treatment.
But the girl herself was not satisfied. She could not leave the house without help; and yet it was easy to see that she was determined not to remain. She preferred, as she said, to die. Everybody seemed to pity her, despite of her unreasonableness, and the more for her unreasonableness. Her friends assured her that this treatment of mine afforded her the last chance of recovery, and begged her not to decide to leave us too hastily. It was all to no purpose, however; she said she preferred death in the street to a cure at my hands.
There had been serious difficulty about her diet. I had strenuously forbidden the use of certain condiments which I thought injurious to her, but which she was resolutely determined to have. At first, a few things prepared to her taste had been smuggled in by certain psuedo friends; but this, when discovered, was absolutely prohibited.
One evening, just at dark, some of her friends called to seeher and me. They found me in the sitting-room. We had a short conversation concerning the patient, in which they were made most distinctly to understand that they must either leave her to be treated wholly according to my discretion or remove her. They were left at a loss what course was best; but at length, in compliance with her clamors, they placed her in their carriage and carried her away.
This was both the first and last patient that ever ran away from me, or that ever appeared to be desirous of doing so. On the whole, though no one pitied her more than myself, I was glad when she was gone. She was hardly worth curing. I never heard from her more, except vaguely, some time afterward, that she was dead, which was probably correct. Most certainly I could not have lived long, in her circumstances.
I was very unwise in taking the charge of her, or, at least, in retaining her a moment after she refused to obey me. However, I had my reward. The public not being possessed of all the facts in the case, probably lost confidence in me. It was proper that they should. He who takes a viper to his bosom, must not be surprised if he suffers the natural consequences of his presumption.
Some of my friends, fully aware of my strong reliance on the recuperative powers of nature, and of my growing scepticism in regard to medicine, entered into combination and proposed to place me at the head of a hospital, in which I should have an opportunity, as they supposed, to test the superiority of my favorite practice.
The buildings needful for the purpose, were to be furnished by one of the company, gratuitously. For the rest, a subscription was to have been started. The salary was to have been $1,000 a year. Matters were, in fine, carried so far that nothing remained but my own acceptance or non-acceptance, of the proposal, as there was no doubt that the subscription would readily succeed.
But I saw, at the moment, so many difficulties, that after a careful consideration of the subject I was compelled to decline. Situated as I then was, and with very little self-confidence, perhaps the decision was right. And yet I have at times, ever since, regretted it. I was not then so fully aware as I now am, of the stern necessity of such institutions.
Still later than this, I made an effort to establish a Hospital, on my own responsibility, and on my own plan. This was, simply, to receive patients at my house, and teach them, both by precept and example,how to live.In other words, I was to teach the art of preventing disease by obeying the physical and moral laws. Even disease itself was to be cured by obedience to these laws,—those of hygiene.
At this time, I was residing in the country. Had I been in the crowded city, I might, perhaps, have succeeded. As it was, I found many difficulties. Just now, too, among other difficulties,my pecuniary condition became embarrassed, and I was anxious to be freed from debt before I begun a work which, at best, required a good deal of capital. Not to be able to labor wholly gratuitously would, as I thought, defeat my whole plan.
In these circumstances, and after considerable delay, the whole thing was indefinitely postponed; and soon after, I removed to a region still less promising. I shall not, at present, if ever, repeat my attempts, at least on the plan of doing my work gratuitously. What costs little is, usually, little valued.
And yet, such institutions are needed; and the time must come when they will succeed. Some eminent medical man who already possesses wealth, will perhaps make the trial. For myself, I prefer a more radical work. I prefer to throw my own make-weight, while I live, into the scale of early and correct physical education.
Much is said in these days about scrofula, and much indeed should be said about it; for it has become a most frequent, not to say fatal, disease. For, if few die of it, immediately, it leads to, or renders more severe, numerous other diseases, which are more directly fatal. In truth, a scrofulous constitution not only prepares us for many other diseases, but renders them, when they assail us, much more severe than they otherwise would have been. Colds, fevers, and consumption, in particular, are not only more frequent in scrofulous people than in others, but also more intense or severe, as well as less manageable by medical skill.
This disease itself, though often inherited, may, on the one hand, be greatly aggravated by improper treatment; or, by a proper course of living, may, on the other hand, be postponed many years, if not indefinitely. Living much in the open air, cheerfulness of mind, plain food and drink, and a proper regard to the skin, will do a vast deal towards arresting its progress, and in some instances will wholly prevent its doing us any harm. For though five millions of the inhabitants of the United States were probably born with a tendency to this formidable disease, and the same proportion—if not a greater—of each generation to come will be likely to have the same tendency, I do not believe it to be indispensably necessary that one-half of this number should die, as now they do, of consumption. I have not a doubt that two-thirds of them might, by proper management, be made to last many years, and some of them to what is usually called old age.
It has been my lot to have a very great number of scrofulous patients, daring the last twenty-five years, from almostevery part of the United States. One of the worst cases I ever had was that of Mrs. ——, of New Hampshire. Her history, prior to the period when she came to me, is very briefly as follows.
She was born of parents, who, at the time of her birth, were very near their dotage; in consequence of which, as it was believed, she held her existence by a very feeble tenure. At two and a half years of age, she was nearly destroyed by dysentery, or by the medicine given to arrest her disease, or by both. In addition to this and almost before she recovered, she had an attack of scarlet fever, which was very severe, and which was also probably treated freely by medicine. By this time there is no doubt that scrofula, at first slightly inherited, had become pretty well riveted on a constitution already but poorly prepared to endure it.
In her seventeenth year, she was afflicted with a troublesome eruption, which was cured, or at least checked, by a wash of sugar of lead. (See Chapter XIII.) She was married at twenty-one; and though stinted in her growth, so as to be almost a dwarf, she seemed, at first, to be tolerably healthy. But in the course of a year she suffered from various complaints, to which scrofulous and otherwise debilitated females are subject in early conjugal life, for which she was treated—as I suppose very injudiciously—with active medicine, especially calomel.
And now, as if to render what was already bad enough a great deal worse, she made use of a certain patent medicine, which had been greatly lauded in the public papers. She was also persuaded to make use of a more stimulating diet than before; which was doubtless to her great disadvantage, in such a feeble condition. Her diet, though it should have beennourishing,should have beenless stimulatingthan usual, and not more so.
Falling in with the famous Sylvester Graham, who was lecturing near her at the time, she was overpersuaded to change her habits very suddenly, especially her dietetic habits. From a highly seasoned diet, she was at once transferred to a very plain one, to which was added cold bathing and abundant exercisein the open air. This change, though it caused great emaciation, appeared to restore her health entirely. Her appetite and general strength were such that she thought it almost impossible she could ever be sick again.
But now a heavy domestic affliction befell her, which again very much reduced her; and, as she was wont to say afterward, "killed her." What it was, however, I was never informed. Being greatly depressed, she undoubtedly confined herself to the house too much, and in one instance when she ventured out, she unluckily exposed herself to a damp east wind, which appeared to give her cold. To remove this, and for other purposes, she fasted rigidly, for several days.
It was at this time that she came, in part, under my care. But she was already so much diseased in mind and body, and so ignorant of any just principles of hygiene, as to be greatly liable to be led about by the fancy or whim of this friend or that—sometimes by Mr. Graham and others, who only relied on Nature; and at others, by those who went to the opposite extreme. I could do little for her to any valuable purpose, and was glad to send her to the elder Dr. Jackson, of Boston. Not, however, till I had given her to understand, in general, that aside from her scrofulous tendencies, I did not know what ailed her; and that, so far as I could understand her case, her safest course was to avoid medicine and depend almost wholly on a careful obedience to God's laws, physical and moral, especially to his laws of hygiene. I had not then fully learned how much she had been abused, in early life, by unnecessary dosing and drugging.
Dr. Jackson told her it was evident there was something in her case very much out of the way; but he would be honest with her, and confess that he did not know what it was. He proposed to have Dr. Putnam see her, and another physician at Lowell. He insisted, however, on a more nutritious diet.
The last suggestion was heeded for awhile, but evidently to her disadvantage. Under the impression that in order to obtain more nutriment she must do so, she suddenly returned to the free use of flesh, butter, eggs, milk, etc., which, for a longtime, till now, she had refused. This course brought upon her much acidity of the stomach. She returned once more to the plain diet, and by avoiding extremes and letting alone medicine, according to the general tenor of my directions, she partly recovered, and seemed destined to still higher advance towards the land of health and life.
But here, again, domestic trials, like a flood, came upon her, and brought her into great mental anxiety and embarrassment, as well as into that weak and vacillating condition which had once before existed, and which I have already described. To-day she would use her well-balanced, plain diet; to-morrow, perhaps, resort to the starvation system, for a few days. Then, in the fear of suffering from that, she would resort again, for a few days, to luxurious living.
Now, too, she would adhere to and follow this physician, now that, and next, none at all; or, perchance, follow some quack. I was not in a situation to exert much influence over her, or it is possible she might still have been saved. She would, indeed, adhere to my general plan, when all else that promised more seemed to fail, and perhaps would have been more persevering, but for her friends. They wanted to have the "prophet" do "some great thing," and cure her as by magic or miracle.
In saying these things, it is far enough from being my intention to be reproachful. She was not educated to a knowledge of herself; and she was by no means, at the present time, what she had been in her best days. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she acted like a wayward child; though it is greatly to be regretted, since, in her circumstances, it probably cut off every chance of her recovery.
In the spring, two or three years after her first change of diet, a cough with which she had occasionally been troubled before, came on with renewed violence, and never after wholly left her. She remained in this condition till the opening of the next year, when her cough made still farther advances, and was attended with hectic fever. She died in the month of May following.
A post mortem examination was made, which determined the case to have been what Dr. Jackson and myself and many others supposed, a case of scrofula or struma; though it was certainly attended with many curious and rather anomalous symptoms. Though there were no ulcers in the lungs, they were found full of tubercles; and so were the mesenteric glands, and the lining membrane of the alimentary canal. It was even said by the principal individual concerned in the examination, that her whole body was but a mass of disease. For myself, I was necessarily absent at the time, and therefore have no facts of my own to present.
I never had a case, either before or since, in which my hands were so completely tied as in this. The patient probably had as much confidence in me as in anybody; and yet she would not long follow me implicitly and strictly, without yielding to the whims of her friends or her enemies, and halving the practice with some physician or quack, either known or unknown. Under the care of some good, common-sense physician, and with full faith in him on the part of all concerned, I am still of opinion, as I always have been, that she might have recovered and lived many years, and, perhaps, been able to do a vast amount of good.
Dr. Johnson, one of the best British writers on dyspepsia, advises his medical brethren to starve out the disease, as the surest way of getting rid of it. He says he has by far the best success with those patients who submit to this course. It is not starvation, exactly, though it savors of it. He says, keep them on just two pints of Indian-meal gruel—by which he appears to mean thin hasty pudding—a day, and no more. If they are really afraid of starving, after the trial of a few weeks, let them eat a few times of something else; but they must soon return to the starvation plan.
I have usually preferred cakes of Indian meal, or wheat meal unbolted and baked very hard, to gruel or pudding. The reason is, that I consider mastication very essential to good digestion, especially in the case of dyspeptics. I believe the small quantity of Indian meal that goes into two pints of gruel, or even of pudding, were it firmly baked, would hold out and sustain the health and strength of an individual much longer than gruel; and it will, by most persons, be preferred.
One of my dyspeptic patients, a young man of great resolution, was put upon ten ounces a day of thin Indian-meal cake, or johnny cake; and it wrought wonders. The prescription was made about twenty years ago, and no young man under forty years of age, in Massachusetts, is more efficient, at the present time, than he.
To another young man, similarly afflicted, I recommended eight ounces of the same kind of food. He was from a family that had long known me, and that appeared to confide in me. I have never heard from him since. My conjecture is that he refused to follow the directions, and hence did not wish to communicatewith me any farther. He may be still a dyspeptic, as the consequence, though it is certainly possible he may have obeyed the prescription, to the saving of his health.
Some have supposed that a quantity of food so small, is not sufficient to keep alive an ordinary adult; but they are mistaken. Much smaller quantities than eight ounces have proved sufficient for this purpose, in a great many instances. Three or four ounces have been found adequate to every want, in these circumstances.
As I regard this as a highly important point, I will endeavor to establish it by two or three facts, which have come, in part, under my own observation. The first appeared in theBoston Medical and Surgical Journal, for 1851, and in several other papers. The other is from a Philadelphia paper, and is as reliable as the former. It is, however, of much later date; viz., December, 1853.
Jervis Robinson,[K]of Nantucket, was a ship-master, born in 1800. In 1832, he became a most miserable dyspeptic. For three or four years he relied on the popular remedy of beef-steak three times a day, and with the usual consequences. It made him worse rather than better.
In the year 1836, a friend of his who had heard lectures on dyspepsia, or had read on the subject, suggested a new remedy. It was three Graham crackers daily, one at each meal, without any drink at the time of eating. This, it was said, if persevered in long enough, would certainly effect a radical cure.
But I prefer to let Mr. Robinson tell his own story, which he does in the following manner:—
"The novelty as well as simplicity of this prescription, greatly interested my mind, and I laid the case before my friends. But they, as with one voice, endeavored to dissuade me from a course which they said would certainly destroy me. They were particularly afraid of the sudden change from a full flesh diet to one entirely vegetable.[L]But I told them I mightas well die in one way as another, and that I was resolved on the experiment.
"At first I had no Graham crackers; I therefore used the common soft Graham bread cut in thin slices and thoroughly dried. Twenty-one ounces a week was my allowance. Of these I made three meals a day, at the hours of six, twelve, and six. Small as the allowance was, I spent half an hour in consuming it. Occasionally at evening, I omitted one-half of even these scanty rations.
"My drink, for twenty-four hours, was one gill of water, divided into three equal parts, and one of them to be taken just two hours after each meal. I also used a cold shower-bath at rising in the morning, and walked a mile before breakfast, having retired at ten the previous evening.
"Under this course, my flesh and strength wasted fast. I was weighed every week, and for the first three or four weeks, I lost half a pound a day. The daily loss then diminished somewhat, but was not entirely discontinued till the lapse of two months. At this time I had lost, in all, twenty pounds weight.
"All this time the cry of starvation was heard from every quarter, and I must frankly own that, for a week or so, I was not myself wholly without fears. However, my head felt so much better, and my spirits so much revived, that I began to take courage. My bowels, moreover, which up to this time had rarely moved, and never to much purpose, now began to move more regularly, and in about three weeks they resumed their functions entirely, both as regarded time and quantity.
"At the end of two months, I ceased to lose flesh, and remained, in this respect, about stationary for four weeks; but after this I began to gain. At first, the increase of weight was very slow indeed, but soon it became much more rapid, so that in two months more I gained nearly what I had lost, or at the average rate of five or six ounces a day. For a part of this time, however, the gain was half a pound a day, or nearly three times as much as the whole weight of my food, and more than the whole weight of my food and drink together.
"I have said that I ate three ounces, by weight, of Grahambread, daily,—an ounce at each meal. But I afterwards procured the Graham crackers in Boston, and used them a part of the time. Of these, too, I continued frequently to omit half a cracker at evening. The water, also,—one-third of a gill,—was generally omitted at evening.
"As to my appetite, during the experiment, I can truly say that, though I never in my life came to the table with a better appetite, I was never better satisfied with my meals when they were finished. After the first three weeks, I had little or no thirst. Nor had I, so far as I now recollect, any desire to eat between meals. In truth, food, except at my meals, was seldom thought of. But, on this subject, my mind had been made up at the outset. I will only add, on this point, that my bread, during the whole time, tasted better, far better, to me than the nicest cake formerly had.
"As regards perspiration, my skin, after the first three or four weeks (during which it was dry and hard), became soft and moist. When I used much exercise, I perspired very freely. My sleep was sound and satisfying. Indeed, the whole "machinery," so far as I could judge, worked admirably during the latter part of the experiment, and at its close I could perform a good day's work at my trade.
"I was about thirty years of age when I made the experiment. I am now above fifty. I have not always, nor indeed generally, been as rigid in my habits since that time. In one instance, however, I worked two weeks on a ship, at "sheathing," on but five ounces of food a day, and was never better in my life, and never felt less fatigue at night. In fact, I felt much better at night than I did in those instances in which I indulged myself in eating two pounds of food a day.
"During a part of the time of my principal experiment, I kept a grocery. On leaving this, I established a Graham boarding-house, in which I continued for one year.
"About a year after the termination of my experiment, I had occasion, for about three weeks, to work in a bake-house, where the mercury in the thermometer was at 90°. While here, I ate twelve ounces of dry bread and two apples a day, and dranknothing. Yet I perspired as freely as ever, nor did I perceive any difference in the quality or the quantity of any other secretions or excretions."
The reader will take notice that Mr. Robinson's principal or starvation experiment, lasted five months, or one hundred and fifty days. He will also observe that he left off the experiment with nearly or quite as much flesh as he had when he commenced, and with a very great increase of muscular strength.
The above statement was so remarkable, that not a few medical men and others regarded it as a hoax. "To live on three ounces of bread, and yet be in daily employment," they said, "even though such employment were of a kind likely to call for very little muscular effort, is altogether incredible. And what renders the whole so much more unlikely, is, the yet more extraordinary assertion, that, part of the time, he gained more in weight than the whole amount eaten and drank."
It was no wonder that medical and all scientific men were staggered at the account. I was in doubt myself, in regard to the functions of waste, and made a very rigid examination, in order to be certain of the facts, before I ventured to publish any thing. On one or two points, I afterward obtained Mr. Robinson's particular statement, as follows:—
"In regard to the question you propose, I shall have to guess a little. So far as the fluids are concerned, however, I think it was about half a pint a day. The solids—for I weighed them this morning, and they appear to me about equal to those voided during the experiment—are fully half a pound."
I also recently ascertained another curious fact. Mr. Robinson's eyesight, prior to the experiment, had, for many years, been very poor, but was perfectly restored during its progress. It appeared, also, that he had again resorted to the exclusive use of bread and water for food; but not in such small quantities as before. Mr. Robinson, of course, is now above sixty years old.
One medical correspondent of theBoston Medical and Surgical Journal, pressed Mr. Robinson, very hard, for corroborativetestimony concerning the facts just stated, to which Mr. Robinson very kindly replied, by sending him the certificate of his wife, Mrs. E. D. Robinson, whose veracity is undoubted. The certificate was as follows:—
"The most of the facts which my husband has written, I well recollect, and will give my name as a voucher for the truth of them."
A brother of Mr. Robinson, at Holmes' Hole, whom I called on, appeared to give full credence to the statements of the latter, although he was much opposed to the experiment, at the time it was made, and mortally detested all his bread and water tendencies.
I will only add, that a medical man who was sceptical in regard to the whole matter, became finally convinced that the story bore the marks of truth, and made public his conviction, in the subjoined statements and reasonings.
"It is no true philosophy to refuse credence to a statement of fact supported by competent evidence, simply on the ground that we cannot understand how it can be. That his system (Robinson's) absorbed a very considerable amount of weight from the moisture at all times existing in the atmosphere, I have no doubt—partly through the skin, but chiefly, as I apprehend, through the mucous membrane of the lungs. The fact that they are capable of transmitting such an amount of water in a very short time, as may be rendered evident by breathing on a cold, polished surface, is a pretty conclusive proof that they may, under favorable circumstances, be as active in absorption.
"That the alvine evacuations are purely and entirely a secretion, to become an excretion, I have been satisfied for a number of years; and I am glad of this new and striking—I might say incontrovertible—proof that it is so. To be sure, all matters incapable of solution and digestion, pass off through the alimentary canal, but they are purely accidental. One of the most satisfactory proofs, to my mind, of the fact, has been the discharges from the bowels of a healthy infant. The whole of the milk is so digested that there is no residuarymatter to pass through the canal, and yet the discharges are abundant."
The case of Mary B. Adams, of Oakham, Mass., though differing considerably from that of Mr. Robinson, is, nevertheless, remarkable. I have dwelt so long on the preceding case, however, that I must study brevity. What I shall say, was published in the papers of some years since, and is from her own pen.
"In June, 1840, I had an abscess in my throat, accompanied by slow fever, and in the fall, dysentery. In the autumn of the same year, I discontinued the use of animal food.
"In 1842, I had an attack of spinal complaint, which lasted me three months. In the spring of 1843, I had lung fever, followed, for nearly two years, by a cough, and accompanied by a very indifferent appetite. A piece of bread three inches square and one inch thick would serve me for a meal. A hard fit of coughing, however, was sure to follow every meal. I also became very much emaciated. In the fall of 1844, I took some medicine which removed my cough.
"Through the winter and spring of 1845, I had diarrhœa; and in the last of May, I was suddenly and completely prostrated. I had risen in the morning more unwell than usual, but before flight I was suffering intolerable pain through the kidneys and back; and it was not till the lapse of two weeks that I was able to walk about the house. All this while I was entirely destitute of an appetite, though my stomach continually craved acids. For six months, I lived almost wholly on fruit. Four good-sized apples a day,[M]was all that I required. My drink was, for the most part, catnip tea. Sometimes I could take sugar and milk in my tea; at others, milk could not be borne. I drank four teacupfuls of it a day.
"While I was at one period expectorating largely, I had custards made from the white of eggs, sweetened with loafsugar, of which I took three table-spoonfuls, every twenty-four hours. I slept but little—not more than two hours in twenty-four.... My bowels were very costive; I do not suppose there were more than two or three natural evacuations during the whole of the six months I am describing."
A more particular account of her diet, in 1846, is elsewhere given. It is in the following words: "During this year I took but little food, and that of the simplest. I lived chiefly on fruit, such as apples, currants, strawberries, gooseberries, and blueberries, and other acid fruits."
Some years later than this, Miss Adams was still living very simply. "My food," she says, "is raised bread, and butter, apple or pumpkin pie, and fruit in small quantity. I do not require more than a third as much food as most females. In fact, I can eat but little of any thing. My food, even now, distresses me very much, unless I vomit it. I eat no animal food, and roots of every kind distress me. I drink tea; I cannot drink water; it seems, in swallowing it, more like a solid than a liquid."
There would be no difficulty in adding largely to the list of cases of dyspepsia which have been cured on the starvation plan; but these must suffice for the present chapter.
FOOTNOTES:[K]For obvious reasons, I give real names and dates in this chapter.[L]Even Mr. Graham himself, whom he accidentally met, repeated to him the same caution![M]Or other fruits equal to them. The reader must not forget that she had already subsisted five years without animal food, and that what she took of vegetable food was a very small quantity—little more than was taken by Mr. Robinson.
[K]For obvious reasons, I give real names and dates in this chapter.
[K]For obvious reasons, I give real names and dates in this chapter.
[L]Even Mr. Graham himself, whom he accidentally met, repeated to him the same caution!
[L]Even Mr. Graham himself, whom he accidentally met, repeated to him the same caution!
[M]Or other fruits equal to them. The reader must not forget that she had already subsisted five years without animal food, and that what she took of vegetable food was a very small quantity—little more than was taken by Mr. Robinson.
[M]Or other fruits equal to them. The reader must not forget that she had already subsisted five years without animal food, and that what she took of vegetable food was a very small quantity—little more than was taken by Mr. Robinson.
A recent letter from a patient of mine, contains the following statement: "I met, yesterday, with a poor dyspeptic. He said he felt very bad indeed, and that he had beendietingfor a long time. I asked him what his diet had been. He said 'Bread and butter, for the morning meal; beef, etc., for dinner; and nothing at all, for supper, but a piece of mince pie and one or two glasses of cider.'"
Admitting this to be dieting, it is, at least, such a kind of dieting as will not be likely, very soon, to cure dyspepsia. And yet to hundreds, if not thousands,dietingis little more than an increased attention to what they eat—I mean, from meal to meal. Yet no changes of food, even for the better, will compensate for this increased watchfulness over—I might perhaps say devotionto—the stomach. The Philippians, to whom Paul wrote so touchingly, are not the only people in the world whose god is their abdominal region. Such an anxious attention to the demands of an abnormal appetite, only tends to increase that determination of blood to the stomach, to prevent which all judicious or effective dieting is intended.
Dyspepsia only renders her devotees—her very slaves—the more enslaved. With such, every attempt to cure the disease by dieting is still stomach worship. They must have their very medicine taste agreeably andsitwell. At all events, they must and will have their minds continually upon it, and must and will be continually inquiring whether they may safely eat this article or that or the other.
It would be almost true to affirm that the fall of man from primeval integrity, consists essentially in dyspepsia, and that every descendant of Adam and Eve is a dyspeptic. The attentionof mankind generally, is directed too exclusively as well as too anxiously, to the inquiry, what they shall eat, and what they shall drink. That we must eat, and drink too, is quite obvious—nothing more so. That the Author of nature intended, also, that we should take pleasure in our eating and drinking, is scarcely less so. But does he secure to himself the most pleasure who thinks most about it? Most certainly there is pleasure—muchpleasure in the anticipation of good. We may, by aid of imagination, then, feast upon the same dish half a dozen times. Yet, does not this—I repeat the idea—tend to determine an increased amount of blood and of nervous energy to the stomach, and to aggravate the disease? Let the reader ponder this question.
My own most deliberate conviction is, that the stomach, in general, is best managed, and the greatest amount of gustatory enjoyment secured, when it is subjected most fully to good habits; that this organ, being blind and deaf, is best served when directed by the wiser head; or, to express the same truth in a better way, instead of asking the stomach at any time what it will have,we should ask the head what is right, and follow its directions. If the stomach is pleased, why, very well; if not, let it go without being pleased. Give it what you think is right, all things considered, and think no more about it. If it rebels, give it a smaller quantity. If it still complains, lessen still more the quantity, and perhaps diminish the frequency of your meals. There is no danger of starving to death, as every one must be convinced who has read carefully the two preceding chapters. When the system is really in a suffering condition for want of nutriment, then the stomach will be able to receive more, and dispose of it. If you give it what is right for it, there will be no want of appetite—at least, very long. Nay, more; the mere animal or gustatory enjoyment of that food which the head tells us is right, and to which we conscientiously adhere, will, in the end, be far greater than in the case of continual inquiry and anxiety and anticipation and agitation about it.
Dyspepsia, I know, has a great variety of causes—as many, almost, as it has forms. And yet I do not believe it can often be induced by other causes alone, as long as the stomach is treated correctly. Give to that organ, habitually, what is exactly right for it, both as regards quality and quantity, and I do not believe we shall hear any more, in this world, about dyspepsia.
But he who would confine his stomach to food which his head tells him is right, will not surely put mince pie into it. He must know that such a strange compound, however agreeable, will in the end be destructive, not only of health, but of gustatory enjoyment.
The mince pie dyspeptic is just the man for quackery to feed upon. He will keep his nerves in such a state as to render him liable to read about and swallow all the wonderful cures of the day—whether hunger cures, nutrition cures, clairvoyant cures, "spiritual" cures, or any other cures. Now it is great gain, when we have got beyond all these, when we simply put into our stomachs what is right, and think no more about it, leaving ourselves to the event; and this in sickness and health both.
A man in the eastern part of Massachusetts,—an asthmatic,—told me he had spent six hundred dollars in fourteen years, on quack medicines, and that he was nothing bettered by them. That man, you may depend, is the slave of his feelings. No man who has been accustomed to dictate to his stomach what it shall have, and make it submit, would ever do this. A very poor woman, on the Green Mountains, assured me she had spent, or rather wasted, four hundred dollars in the same way. We must drop all this. I do not now say we must drop or lay aside all medicine, in all cases; that is quite another question. But I do say, we must rely on obedience to the laws of God, or on doing right, not on medicine. It will be time enough to rely on medicine when our family physician urges it upon us as indispensable.
If I have a single regret with regard to the instruction Ihave given my patients, from time to time, it is that I have not pressed upon them more forcibly and perseveringly, such views as are comprised in the foregoing reasonings and reflections. They are all-important to the dyspeptic, and by no means less important to the healthy than to the diseased.
It is said of Job, and his friends who visited him to condole with him in his sufferings, that they sat down together and said nothing, for seven days and seven nights.
Nearly twenty years ago, a man of gigantic frame, but haggard appearance, came to me, and after the usual compliments,—which were indeed very dry ones,—sat down by my side, and said nothing; and this for the very same reason which is assigned as the cause of the long silence of Job and his friends—his grief and his sufferings were very great.
His disease, however, was very different in its nature from that of Job. It was more like insanity than small pox, or eruptive disease of any kind. But hear him tell his own story, which I solicited at his hands for the express purpose of publication:
"My business, until I was twenty years of age, was farming. Since that time, it has been mechanical, and for the most part sedentary. From my youth, I ate animal food of all kinds, prepared in the usual manner. Twice a day I partook, more or less freely, of such vegetables as are in general use. Fruits, as they came in their season, I ate whenever and wherever I could lay hands on them, more especially apples; these last at almost all hours of the day, and almost without number. I was also in the habit of eating a luncheon at nine or ten o'clock in the morning, and just before going to bed.
"My drinks, till 1830, were principally tea, coffee, cider, and beer; but sometimes I used rum, brandy, molasses and water, milk and water, etc. For twelve years previous to 1837, I used tobacco. From my youth, I have had a fondness for reading and study—have spent many hours in reading after the whole village were asleep.
"My health I considered good, compared with that of my acquaintances, and I was able to labor hard, although I was subject to dizziness and vomiting with such intensity that I could not walk or stand without assistance; and for a number of days, the complaint seemed to bid defiance to all medical aid. Here began the day of retribution, and bitterly have I suffered for my intemperance, both in eating and drinking. At length, my dizziness in some measure wore away, so that I returned to my work; but my system had received a shock that was not to be got rid of at once. And although my dizziness and inclination to vomit were in some measure removed, yet I grew weaker by degrees, so that by spring I was unable to perform my daily labor.
"I continued to decline until summer, when I was attacked with a violent cough—from what cause I did not know. Some said it was the hooping-cough, some said it wasla grippe. Suffice it to say, I took all the medicines prescribed by our family physician, followed all his good advice, and took all to no purpose. I was also persuaded to try the prescription of a celebrated physician in a neighboring town; but, alas! his prescription was tried in vain.
"My cough and dizziness not having left me, I tried a respectable physician of Boston, who, with an honesty of heart that does credit to his profession, bid me buy a ninepence worth of liquorice, keep my mouth and throat moist by chewing a little of that, and let my cough have its course; 'For,' said he, 'though I should like to sell you medicine and give you medical advice, for the sake of the emolument, it will do you no good. Your disease will have its course, and you cannot help it.' I now thought my days were few; but, as a last resort, I repaired to you."
He here enters into particulars which are not needful to my present purpose; and the detail, by one so intimately concerned, and withal so complimentary to me as his physician, would be fulsome. It is sufficient, perhaps, to add the following paragraphs.
"Agreeably to your advice, I now began to reform, in goodearnest. With a constitution broken down, and almost rotten with disease, it was no easy matter for me to cure myself; but to it I went, determined to overcome or die in the attempt.
"I now began to think of eating what God created for man to eat. And now it was that my health began to return; and by the time I had practised the rules and prescriptions you laid down for me, about three months, my cough ceased, my dizziness left me, and my health and strength partly returned.
"Since that time I have lived on bread made of wheat meal, rye and Indian bread, rice boiled or stewed, rice puddings, corn puddings, apples, potatoes, etc. I sleep soundly and sweetly, on a straw bed; rise at four in summer and five in winter, refreshed both in body and mind; do as much work as it is necessary for any man to do; am cheerful, happy, contented, and thankful to God for all his mercies; go to bed at nine and go to sleep without having the night mare or any thing else to disturb my rest. I ought to add that I eat no luncheon; and but about as much in a whole day, as I used to eat at one meal."
As I have already intimated, it is about twenty years since I prescribed for this individual, at which time he had a wife and two or three children. The latter seemed to require not a little watching and dosing. Now, in 1858, he has a very large family, many of whom have either arrived at maturity or nearly so; and the whole family have, for many years, been strangers to dosing and drugging. Except the mother, they seem like a family of giants, so large are their frames, and so marked and strong are their muscles. They are pictures of health, so to speak; and if Mr. Barnum would exhibit them at his museum, or elsewhere, he might, for aught I know, retrieve his shattered fortunes.
I know another great family, in New England, whose history, so far as physical inheritance is concerned, is not unlike that of the family just described. "There were giants in the earth in those days," hence appears to be applicable to the world since the flood, as well as to that which was before it.
Not many years since, I received a letter from a family in a retired village of the Green Mountains, begging me to visit one of their number, a young woman about twenty-seven years of age. She was a farmer's daughter, and had been, in early life, employed as is customary in such families in that region; but, for a few years past had been employed, a considerable portion of the time, in teaching in the district or public schools. It is probable she exchanged the employments of home for the labors of the pedagogue, on account of increasing ill health (though of this I am not quite certain), since nothing is more common or more hazardous. The daughters of our agriculturalists, who inherit, as she did, a scrofulous constitution, and who appear to be tolerably healthy while they remain at home, almost always break down within a few years after leaving the broom and duster.
But whatever may have been the first cause or causes of her diseased condition, it is probable there had been both action and reaction. She was now, at the time I received her most piteous petition, quite ill, and had been so for a considerable time. However, in order to come at the case and the results, it may be as well to make a few extracts from the letters of her friends and herself. For, though they were not accustomed to such descriptions of a case as a medical man would be apt to give, yet, for popular perusal, they are, after all, the more useful.
My first extract will be made from a long letter written by her brother.
"The first attack of what we suppose to be her present disease, was a year ago last spring, and was believed to be theresult of taking severe colds repeatedly, while teaching school among the mountains of New Hampshire, and which ended in what Dr. K. (their family physician) called inflammation of the lungs, and was treated accordingly. There was much cough and expectoration of mucus. Though she partially recovered, so as to be able to teach again the ensuing summer, yet her cough was somewhat troublesome till autumn, when health seemed again to smile upon her.
"Late in the fall, however, she had a very severe attack of diarrhœa,—caused, perhaps, by imprudence in diet, and sundry other deviations from a straight line,—which has been her constant companion ever since. (This was a period of eight months.) During all this time her food has passed almost without being dissolved. There is much pain in the stomach and bowels, unless mitigated by opiates, morphine or something analogous. But very little cough has attended her since the last attack of diarrhœa. There has been some pain and soreness in the right side; an eruption over the region of her stomach, swelling of the feet and ankles, whenever fatigued by walking, with pain and soreness in the left ankle.
"I will now give you, briefly, her physician's views. He was called soon after the disease had taken hold of her, and made an examination of her case, which he then called dyspepsia, attended with a little inflammation of the right lung, or perhaps, said he, a slight filling up of the air passages, and he thought the lower part of her right lung might be somewhat indurated. 'Still,' said he, 'the case is not a serious one.' These were his very words. He said he could cure her; and, till very lately, he has always held out to her the language of hope. But now he speaks very differently; he says the case is a hopeless one—that of tubercular consumption; and he says he has always known it to be such!—and adds that there is, even now, a small cavity in her right lung, and that her lungs are passing off in her diarrhœa, without any inconvenience in breathing, or any disagreeable sensation in filling the lungs to fulness."
It is difficult to believe that a medical man who has any regard for his own reputation, would tell such a downright falsehood,as that above represented; and still more difficult to believe he would make the strange mistake of representing her lungs as passing off through the bowels! Why, they might almost as well pass though the moon! Probably my correspondent did not exactly and truly apprehend his meaning; at least, I would charitably hope so.
The appeal for relief was so very urgent, and withal so humble, I visited and examined her, the family physician being present. I found the latter to be a timid invalid, for whom, before I left, I was requested to prescribe; which may account, in part, for his very inefficient practice. I also found him ignorant, in many particulars, of the first principles of his profession; and it was with extreme difficulty—like that of mingling oil with water—that we could unite on any thing reasonable or desirable. He still clung to medicine, as his sheet-anchor in the case, while I was for depending, mainly, on a strict conformity to the laws of health, and the restorative efforts of Nature.
There were other difficulties. A part of the family still inclined to a reliance on him and his old system, while the rest were in favor of my general views, as far as they understood them. The patient herself sometimes inclined to one, and sometimes to the other. While in health, she had been a woman of much decision of character; but, in her present condition, she was weak and vacillating.
But there was, at length, a partial blending of the inharmonious elements, and a prescription made out. It did not satisfy, however. There was so strong a leaning to nature, that, after my departure, Dr. K. gradually worked his way back to his old system of full medication, as a letter received a few weeks afterwards plainly indicated. For, as the great change in her treatment which we made, left her no mystical props to lean upon, and as Dr. K. was a little disposed to speak to her in a way which was calculated to increase her fears, it preyed upon her mind so much that, though her diseased tendencies gradually diminished, yet the continual croakings of her would-be friends, and the faithlessness of a half-sick and wholly sombre physician, more than counteracted every favorable tendency.
In about two weeks after I saw her, she began to have more heat and pain in the stomach, with some other threatening symptoms,—probably induced by an attempt to use food prescribed for her, but which was too stimulating. Her physician now, to gratify both his own morbid feelings, and the clamor of her friends, ordered brandy and other stimulating drinks; also morphine and camphor powders, and a new relay of stimulating food.
The sequel of the story, as related by a sister of the patient, is as follows:—
"Soon after I wrote you last (which was the letter containing an account of the strange resort to beef, brandy, morphine and camphor), she began to fail very fast, and Dr. K. informed her that she could live but a very short time. But she clung to life, and it was distressing to see her going down to the grave, while we were doing nothing to help her. We spoke to her about sending for you again; but she said you were a great way off, and if you could come at all, which was doubtful, it would be a long time before you could arrive; whereas, if she could not have help soon, she must be compelled to leave us. We asked her if she could think of any other physician that she would like to see? She replied, that she should like to see Dr. Q.,—an old physician about twenty miles distant. We sent for him immediately. He came, and with him her old physician, Dr. K.
"I wish to say that she had taken but very little medicine before Dr. Q. came, except the morphine, camphor, and brandy. But the counselling physician said that would not do, and he could not help her unless she took three opium pills, eighteen drops of laudanum, and from six to nine drops of the chloride of iron, a day; and when she hesitated about being able to bear it, he told her to drink down the white part of two eggs in cold water, which would keep the medicine from hurting her.
"We inquired if he would come again and see her: to which he replied in the affirmative. She proceeded to take his medicine for one day, but it quickly increased her diarrhœa. Insteadof six movements a day, they were increased to thirty-five. Under these circumstances, her weakness increased so fast that she could help herself very little; and her feet, hands, and limbs were very much bloated. As Dr. Q. did not come, according to his agreement, we sent for her old physician. When he saw her, he said it was a wonder she had lived so long after taking Dr. Q.'s medicine."
We are not told, in the letter from which the above is extracted, why her old physician, Dr. K., consented, in the first place, that she should take the medicine, if he regarded it as so very bad for her. But, then, he was a timid as well as a Janus-faced man, and probably said as he did because he did not know what else to say. But I will go on with the extracts, since they reveal another most astounding fact in regard to medical dishonesty.
"He also (the family physician) told us that we must not expect Dr. Q. any more, for he told him expressly that he should not come again, as he could do nothing for her, and that if he had known how she was before he came, he never would have come so far in a case so hopeless. And, true to his engagement with Dr. K., but contrary to his promise, both to my sister and my father, separately, he never came again.
"But the other doctor came again, and attended her as formerly. He gave her a powder of morphine, and some gum myrrh, and a little anise, which reduced the evacuations from thirty-three to three a day. But her distress was still very great, and her feet soon began to turn purple, and she began to bloat in her stomach and bowels. This continued till she was as full as she could be; and you could have heard her scream and groan as far as the road (a distance of three or four rods). The physician then applied ether, to relieve her distress, and gave twenty-five drops of laudanum, and a morphine powder, upon which her distress left her for a very short time, but soon returned, not to leave her again while she lived. Almost her last breath was a scream. She died in just eight days after Dr. Q. came to see her.
"But I must close by saying that we think if our sister couldhave been a patient of yours, she would have been restored to health. But it is past, and we cannot recall it; and all I can now do, is to tender our thanks to you for your kindness and attention during our sister's sickness. I trust you will have life and health, long to pursue your noble vocation."
I am afraid the patient reader of this long chapter, will be led to one conclusion which the writer would exceedingly regret; viz., that all medical counsel, in chronic disease, is of more than doubtful utility; and that it would be safer to leave it wholly to nature and to good nursing. There are medical men in the world who are honest as well as skilful, and who, because a case is difficult to manage, will not, chameleon-like, tell two or three different stories, and thus half ruin a profession that embraces so many noble and honorable-minded men; nor will they persist in a course of treatment which is evidently murdering their patients.
It is hardly needful to say that the patient above described was murdered; but I am obliged to say, without doubt, that there was no necessity of her coming to such an untimely end. Her sister, it seems, thought that, had she fallen into my hands from the first, she might have been saved. I think so too. And yet, it might have been otherwise. In any event, she ought not, at the first, to have been treated for consumption, but for dyspepsia. Starvation, and a little mental quietude, with daily exercise, such as she could bear, in the open air, would have greatly changed her condition, when her diarrhœa first commenced.
I never knew a case which was worse managed in my whole life. It is a wonder to me, when I think of it, that she so long survived under it. But it is a wonder, greater still, that medical men who are so unqualified for the duties of their profession as the physicians who were most concerned in the treatment of the above case appear to me to have been, do not feel compelled, by the remonstrances of their own consciences, to quit their profession, and do something for a living for which they are better prepared.