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CHAPTER LXIX
COLD-TAKING AND CONSUMPTION

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 many years, 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 whole three 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 almost deserves to 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 my fall, 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 more vitality during 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 it cost too 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.

CHAPTER LXX
FREEZING OUT DISEASE

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 for his 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.

CHAPTER LXXI
THE AIR-CURE

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 no regard 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, if anybody cures. 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.

CHAPTER LXXII
THE CLERGYMAN

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 without some exercise. In truth, it was not so much a rest of body, mind, or heart that he needed, as a change.

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 endeavored to 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.

CHAPTER LXXIII
HE MUST BE PHYSICKED, OR DIE

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, as I 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 has a 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 a secretion from 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 the mass 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 cases less alarming – 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?