Forty Years In The Wilderness Of Pills And Powders Part 38

First, he took a long walk, regularly,--sufficiently long to induce a good deal of muscular fatigue,--as the last thing before he went to bed which was at an early hour. Secondly, he used a cold hand-bath, followed by much friction, daily. Thirdly, he abandoned tea and coffee (tobacco and rum he had never used), and drank only water. Fourthly, he abandoned all animal food and all concentrated substances and condiments, and lived simply on bread (unfermented), fruits, and a few choice vegetables.

It was faith that served this young man,--not faith without works, but faith which is manifested by works. "According to your faith be it unto you," might be enjoined on every patient, under all circ.u.mstances. But the most remarkable thing connected with this case, is the fact that this young man had been brought up _in the lap of ease and indulgence_--an education which is as unfavorable to faith as it is to works.

CHAPTER XCVI.

WORKS WITHOUT FAITH.

A female, in Worcester County, Ma.s.sachusetts, nearly sixty years of age, having for many years been a sufferer from domestic afflictions, till, along with certain abuses of the digestive function, it had brought upon her a full load of dyspepsia, was at length subjected to a trio of evils, which capped the climax of her sufferings, reduced her to a very low condition, and laid her on her bed.

While lying in this condition, a young woman who was her constant attendant, and who was acquainted with my no-medicine practice, recommended to her to send for me. She hesitated, for a time, on account of the expense; for, though by no means poor, she felt all the pangs of poverty in consequence of the hard and unworthy treatment of the individual who was to have justly executed the last will and testament of her husband.

But I was at length sent for. I found her under the general care and oversight of a h.o.m.oeopathic physician; but as he was ten or twelve miles distant and had not been informed of my visit, I did not see him. His practice, however, in the case, was similar to what I had usually met with in cases which had come under the care of physicians of the same school, and was, at most, as it appeared to me, negative. She had indeed been drugged by some one most fearfully, and her whole system was suffering as the consequence; but it was a physician who had preceded Dr. A., and who was of an entirely different school.

I found no great difficulty in persuading her to ask Dr. A., when he should next call, to suspend his medicine a week or two; and, after ordering a warm bath two or three times a week, and certain changes in diet, with particular care about ventilation and temperature, left her, to call again the next week.

On calling, at the time appointed, I was greatly disappointed in finding her with many better symptoms. There was indeed cough, which busy rumor had converted into an indication of galloping consumption; but I found no other symptom which belonged to that disease. The h.o.m.oeopathic medicine had been suspended, and the warm bath had been applied with apparent success.

I left, with the promise of calling again in ten days--but not sooner, unless they sent for me. At the end of the ten days, I called and found all things ajar again. Her female attendant had left her about a week before; and the new attendants--two of them--being dest.i.tute of faith in me, had found no great difficulty in persuading her that she had a fever of the lungs, and that she would die if she did not take a _little_ medicine, and that she would do well to recall Dr. A., and take his medicine.

When I arrived, at this third visit, I found her taking a small amount of h.o.m.oeopathic medicine, but without appet.i.te or strength, and evidently tending downward. It was too late to do any thing, especially when there was no faith in anything but pills and powders; and I left her to her native strength of const.i.tution, her h.o.m.oeopathic physician, her croaking nurses, and G.o.d, vainly mourning, all my way home, about the inefficiency of works without faith, especially in the case of the sick. This woman's case is recent, and it is possible that she may recover, in spite of pills, powders, croakings, and faithlessness. I have witnessed such things. Nature is tough.

But while I lament the inefficiency of works, where faith is wanting, I have had one case which seems an exception to the general rule, "according to your faith," etc., which I take great pleasure in recording.

In June, 18--, a young man from the interior of New England called on me while abroad on business, and desired to receive my advice concerning certain complaints, attended with great debility, and accompanied by hernia and varicocele, and, in general, by dyspepsia. On examination, I found the case a very obstinate one, of long standing. The patient was a young man of twenty-two, a clerk in a country store, a man of some principle, and yet trained to find his chief happiness in the indulgence of his appet.i.te, especially in what is called good eating.

I gave him some general directions, promising him something still more specific as soon as I got home. In July, I gave him written directions, in full, and urged him to push the treatment as fast as possible, in order to get into a beginning state of convalescence, soon enough to take advantage of the naturally recuperative effects of autumn. If he could find himself recruiting in September, the month of October, I told him, would produce on him a very decided change.

He went to work accordingly, but it was because it was a last resort, and he must do so. It was not because he had much faith in me. Some of his friends, it seems, had directed his attention this way; but when I came to talk of the starvation plan of cure, to which I so much inclined, both they and he revolted. However, he made a faint beginning.

I had foreseen most of the difficulties I had to contend with, and was prepared to meet them. Thus, knowing full well that if I laid down the laws of diet in great strictness, either as regards, quality or quant.i.ty, he would be discouraged and do nothing at all, I permitted him to use almost all kinds of food, and only insisted on a rigid adherence to the great law, and avoiding medicine. These two points I made much of, and explained them fully.

For example: I told him that all kinds of cookery or preparations which prevented the necessity of teeth labor, such as soaking in milk, forming into toast, mashing, or in any way softening, were wrong, and must be avoided. Also, that all additions to our food, whether of foreign bodies, such as pepper, mustard, vinegar, salt, etc., or of more concentrated substances, such as mola.s.ses, sugar, honey, b.u.t.ter, gravy, etc., should, for the same reason as well as others, be shunned as much as possible.

When, therefore, said I, the question comes before your mind, whether you may or may not eat a particular thing, consider first, whether its use would be a violation of the general laws I have laid down for you. I gave him many specific directions, at first, and yet continued to urge it upon him to reason for himself.

But it seemed, for a long time, a hopeless case. He kept writing to me, to know if he might eat toast, bread and b.u.t.ter, soup, milk, etc., or to know why it was that he ought not to make additions of foreign or concentrated substances, as of pepper, mustard, mola.s.ses, syrup, etc. I have before me sixteen letters from him, in most of which his pleadings abound, up to the very last but one. This fifteenth letter, dated December 27, more than six months after my interview with him and first prescription, has the following inquiries:--

"Will a diet do for me that admits of any pastry?--of pies, of any kind?

What _kind_ of puddings, pies, and cake will answer? What kind of meats?

What food shall I be obliged to avoid to keep my pa.s.sions in check? What am I to eat this winter--next spring--next summer? How much at a time?

Can I eat tripe--corned beef--oysters--lean pork steak? What kinds of meat and fish will do for me to eat? Any salt fish? Is milk bad in case of liver disease? Is there any objection to baked sour apples and milk, or to sour apples after using a little milk or bread? Will you allow me to eat any simple thing between meals?"

And in this same letter, after six months' instruction, as aforesaid, he undertakes to tell me what his habits of living are, which, despite of all said and done, in the way of personal counsel and nearly twenty letters, strangely reads thus:--

"I use some milk three times a day, and almost always soak my toasted bread in milk. Since I have been out in the open air, I have usually had some wild game, or a piece of beef steak, or raw eggs, twice a day. My suppers, lately, have been toasted bread, of any convenient kind (usually Graham), with milk, about a tumbler full, at a time, or three-fourths full. I usually eat two apples, with or after each breakfast and dinner. I use considerable cream soaked into my bread, when I can obtain it, and some mola.s.ses. Now, which is the best for me to use on my bread, at supper time--cream, milk, mola.s.ses, or a little b.u.t.ter?--or with my other meals? Is there any objection to my using all these now, in proper quant.i.ties? Will a little plain sauce do with my supper? Why do you so strongly object to cream toasts, or cream on bread? Is chewing gum from spruce trees injurious?--or birch bark? Any objections to eating two sour apples after breakfast and dinner?"

Now the great difficulty with this young man was, that he had but little faith, either in me or in principles--though if I would direct him, from step to step, like a child, he would obey me, for the moment: though, like a child, too, he would forget my directions at almost the next moment, and ask for information on the very same point.

Was not such a trial almost too great? However, he was destined to survive it, to live on in spite of it, notwithstanding my after fears.

In March, 18--, he wrote me as follows:--

"As I have been getting better all the while, and have troubled you with so many little queries from time to time, I thought I would delay this letter a while. My health has been constantly improving all winter, and I think I have not enjoyed as good health before for many years. People now say, 'How well you are looking!' and 'How fleshy you are!' I mean to live according to the '_laws_.'"

In short, this young sufferer from dyspepsia in one of its worst forms, after more than half a year of works without faith, and of whining and complaining a part of the time, without either works or faith, is at last shouting victory! And a glorious victory it is! Would that the rest of our dyspeptics, with land by millions, might stand on as good a footing, with as good prospects before them, as this young man! And yet he might have come up to the same point long ago, had he used more common sense, and exercised but a little more faith and trust in just hygienic principles.

CHAPTER XCVII

DISEASES OF LICENTIOUSNESS.

Not far from the end of July, 1857, I received the following, in a letter through the post office, as usual, and dated at Boston, but signed by a name probably fict.i.tious.

"It was with no small degree of interest that I noticed, in a book written by yourself,--I cannot recollect its name,--some remarks upon certain diseases which you called nameless; yet, through a dread to introduce so delicate a subject, I have neglected so to do, till it has become an imperative task. And now, laying aside all feelings of modesty, allow me to be familiar with you, as with a father, and to lay my case before you, a.s.suring you that, however unfortunate I have been, it is not my fault, but has come upon me while living with my husband, having never betrayed _his_ confidence."

She then proceeded at once to describe her disease and sufferings, which were terrible. It appeared that she had not been of the number of those who, in circ.u.mstances akin to hers, so often fall into shark's mouths.

She had taken but little medicine of any kind, except balsam copaiba.

After the details of her symptoms and sufferings were finished, she added:

"Now, if you are able to understand me, I wish to ask you whether, from the description I have given, you cannot prescribe something that will relieve me. If so, you can be a.s.sured that you will put your humble correspondent and her erring but repentant companion under great obligation to yourself, and that you will be rewarded for all your trouble and advice."

As the result of this request, a correspondence followed, which continued several months. At first, the patient clung to the idea that she could not possibly be restored without minerals, or at least without active medicine of some sort or other, she scarcely knew what.

But she at length understood me, and followed, quite implicitly, my directions. There was indeed a little shrinking, at first, from the rigidity, or, as she would call it, the nakedness, of a diet which it was indispensable to use in order to purify her blood effectually; but she finally came bravely up to the mark, and probably reaped her reward in it.

It is true, I did not hear from her till she came to the end of a very long road; but up to the last of our correspondence, she was slowly improving. My belief is that, before this time, she has fairly recovered, and with far less injury to the vital powers than if mercurial or other strong medicines had been used.

And herein we are reminded of a crime that not only has no name, but deserves none. I allude to the act of communicating a disease so distressing to an innocent and unoffending female. We had an instance of this same crime in Chapter LXXIV. If there be such a thing as punishing too severely, I am sure it is not in cases like these. The individual in human shape, who, with eyes open, will run the risk of injuring those whom he professes to love better, if possible, than himself, deserves a punishment more condign and terrible than he to whom is so often awarded a halter or a guillotine.

CHAPTER XCVIII.

CURIOUS AND INSTRUCTIVE FACTS.

It is morally impossible for any medical man who has kept his eyes open for forty years, not to have been struck with certain obvious and incontrovertible facts, of which I present a few specimens.

The _Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, a few years since, in an obituary notice of Dr. Danforth, who had long been an eminent pract.i.tioner in Boston, makes the following remarks:--

"Though considered one of the most successful pract.i.tioners, he rarely caused a patient to be bled. Probably, for the last twenty years of his practice, he did not propose the use of this remedy in a single instance. And he maintained that the abstraction of the vital fluid diminished the power of overcoming the disease. On one occasion, he was called to visit a number of persons who had been injured by the fall of a house frame, and, on arrival, found another pract.i.tioner engaged in bleeding the men. 'Doctor,' said the latter, 'I am doing your work for you.' 'Then,' said Dr. Danforth, 'pour the blood back into the veins of those men.'"

Dr. Thomas Hubbard, of Pomfret, Conn., long a President of the Medical Society in that State, was, on the contrary, accustomed to bleed almost all his patients. Yet both of these men were considered as eminently successful in their profession. How is it that treatment so exactly opposite should be almost, if not quite, equally successful?