Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders

At first, I could not help wondering at the results of my supposed doses of medicine; and indeed it was a long time before I began to suspect the true cause. For, while I verily believed I was employing the only thing which could help her, – one which I then thought ought to help her, – I had the unspeakable mortification of finding her every day growing worse. What could be the possible cause, I often asked myself, of this downward tendency?

While thus perplexed and pained, I accidentally learned that the main ingredient in my plan of treatment – the main pillar in my fabric – had been habitually withdrawn by her anxious but injudicious attendants. I no longer wondered at the threatening symptoms. My only wonder was, that things had not gone wrong with her at a much more rapid rate.

The patient continued to sink from day to day, and to become more and more insensible. The daughters themselves saw her downward tendency, for it could not be concealed. I did not tell the young women of their error at first, although I did so afterwards. It was a most painful duty, but it was one from which I dared not shrink. I hoped and trusted it would be a means of saving some among the coming generations.

I have never met with either of these daughters since that day – for one of them, at least, is still living – without blushing for their sake. They, on their part, appear to be equally affected and agitated. They almost adored their mother, and yet they inadvertently destroyed her. She might have perished, it is true, without their aid; but I rather think she would have slowly recovered.

Let him that readeth understand: It is extremely hazardous for a second or third person to change the doses of a physician's medicine, either by the omission or addition of an ingredient. It would be safer – very much safer – to omit every thing, and leave the disease wholly to nature. The true course, however, in all cases, is to follow the prescription of the physician, to the best of our abilities, or else dismiss him.

I might pause here a moment to animadvert on the unreasonableness of the vulgar prejudice which almost everywhere prevails against calomel. That this drug does great harm, in many instances, is most certain; but that it does more mischief to the human constitution when in the hands of judicious practitioners, than some half a dozen articles of the materia medica I could name, about which complaint is seldom made, remains to be proved. Let us, if possible, prevent the necessity of using any of these two-edged weapons, by so living that disease cannot assail us, and then we shall not, of necessity, be exposed to the danger of medicinal agents, whether calomel or any thing else.

My own principal error in relation to this interesting case, consisted in not telling the attendants of the sick woman, in the plainest language, what my medicines were and how much, in my own estimation, depended on their careful and proper exhibition; that if they should take away or suffer to be taken away, one faggot from the bundle, they would not only spoil their effect, but might, very probably, turn the edge of the sword against the very citadel of life itself. But from the extreme of explaining every thing, in sick families where I was called, I had passed over to that of explaining nothing. Truth here, as elsewhere, usually lies midway between extremes.

CHAPTER XLVIII

POISONING WITH STRAMONIUM

One of my patients was subject to repeated attacks of rheumatism. He was by no means a man of good and temperate habits, and never had been so. And even his rheumatic attacks, though they were now frequently excited by taking cold, or by a sudden strain, as well as by many other causes of no considerable magnitude, often had both a foundation or predisposition in his former and later intemperance.

Let me here say, most distinctly and unequivocally, even at the risk of being charged with repetition, that a large proportion of even these casual or apparently accidental attacks of rheumatism, neuralgia, sick headache, etc., etc., with which our world – the fashionable part of it, at least – is half filled, instead of springing out of the ground, or coming upon us by the special appointment of high Heaven, have their origin in the intemperance, excess, or licentiousness of somebody. The cause may lie many years back, and may be almost forgotten; nay, it may be found in a preceding generation rather than the present. But it lies somewhere in the range of human agency. "Almighty man," as the poet has well said, "decrees it." Solomon never uttered a more palpable truth than when he said: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."

My rheumatic friend sent for me one day, to come and see him in great haste, for, as the messenger said, he could not long continue in such suffering. I found him in the greatest distress, and after making the usual temporary applications, I gave him what I had never given him before – a pretty full dose of tincture of stramonium. It had, in due time, its accustomed effect, and I left him, rather prematurely, to visit another patient in a somewhat distant part of the town, intending, however, to see him again in the evening.

But I had not been absent more than an hour, before I was sent for in post-haste. As soon as possible I hastened to the spot. I found my patient in a state somewhat peculiar and not easily described. He was evidently affected by the stramonium; but how, I said to myself, can this be? I certainly did not give him an overdose. Besides, as I well knew, the effects, so long as I remained with him, had been decidedly favorable.

The mystery was soon revealed. On finding himself much better, soon after my departure, he had resorted again to the stramonium bottle, which in my haste and contrary to my usual practice, I had left within his reach. The result was a degree of delirium that had alarmed his friends and induced them to send for me.

By means of careful and persevering management, a partial recovery soon took place, though a train of incidental evils followed which it is not necessary here to enumerate. The patient was one of those ignorant and selfish individuals on whom a permanent cure can rarely be effected.

This circumstance taught me one important lesson which ought to have been impressed on my mind long before. It was, not to leave medicine of any kind within reach of my patients or their friends. In many an instance, medicine thus left has been taken by others, under the belief that since it operated favorably in the case for which it had been prescribed by the physician, it would do so in another case which was vainly supposed to be just like it, when, in truth, it was not at all similar.

To the custom of keeping medicine in the house, of any sort, I am equally opposed, and for similar reasons. There will generally be time enough to send for it when its presence is really needed. Such at least is the fact, ninety-nine times in a hundred. And as a set-off against the fact of its being thus useful once in a hundred times, we have to acknowledge the multiplied dangers to which we are exposed, of using it without prescription, and to which we are otherwise exposed by having it constantly before us in our houses.

CHAPTER XLIX

CURING CANCER

Theodore, a laborious young man, came to me one day, saying, "I am afraid I have a cancer on one side of my nose, and I wish you would look at it." Accordingly I made a careful examination of the sore, taking care to give him a little pain, and, at the same time, as a most indispensable ingredient, to look "wondrous wise;" after which the following conversation, in its essentials, took place between us: —

"What makes you suspect this sore to be a cancer?"

"There are various reasons. Many of the neighbors think it to be so. Then, too, it has a very strong resemblance to the cancer on Mrs. Miller's lip. And then, again, it burns and itches and smarts, just as people say cancers always do."

"How long have you been troubled with it?"

"It is three months or more since I first observed it; but it has given me very little uneasiness or trouble till within a few weeks."

"What have you done for it?"

"It would take a long time to tell you of all I have done for it. Every thing I could hear of, far or near, has been applied; from plasters of clay and chalk, to plasters of vitriol and other poisonous things. But I have used most a plaster made of chalk and the white of an egg. I do not know that any thing I have done has benefited it."

"Perhaps you have not persevered in the use of any thing long enough. How long is it, pray, since you began to use the chalk and egg plaster?"

"Oh, it is three weeks, or more."

"And how long is it usual to wear it? do you know?"

"Mrs. Lovejoy, who advised it, only said, 'Use it as long as it appears to do good.'"

"Is it a favorite remedy with her?"

"Very much so."

"Has any one been really cured by it?"

"Oh, yes. Mr. Browning, the gardener, was entirely cured by it; so, at least, people say."

"Any one else?"

"Yes, half a hundred or more have tried it."

"But how many have been cured by it? That is my main inquiry."

"That I cannot tell you. I have heard of no positive cure but that of Mr. Browning."

"It is almost incredible, my dear sir, that any thing like fifty cases can have come within such a small range of population as the village or even the town in which Mrs. Lovejoy resides. Do you mean as you say?"

"Well, then, a great many. I know of a dozen, most certainly; and I have heard of a great many more. I venture, at least, to say twenty."

"And you have no positive knowledge of but one permanent cure among them all?"

"Only one, I meant to say, that I can call by name. There must be many more, I am sure, but I have not their names."

"Have you much confidence in a method of treatment that succeeds once in fifty times, or even once in twenty?"

"Not much, I confess; but if it now and then succeed, that is something. You know that they who run in a race all run, though but one receives the prize."

"Are you quite sure there is any gain or prize, after all?"

"Do you mean to ask if I believe Mr. Browning was really cured?"

"Yes."

"How could I doubt what I have seen and known?"

"I do not expect you will doubt the existence of what you have seen and known. But the question before us is, what you have seen and known. Mr. Browning had something on his face, and it got well; but do we know it was a cancer? Only a very small proportion of twenty sores suspected to be cancers ever prove to be such, and many of them get well after a little time, if they are let entirely alone; or, if not let entirely alone, they would probably still get well, in spite of the treatment. It is quite a marvel with me, not that one person, Mr. Browning, recovered in spite of the treatment, but that more did not."

"This is to me a new way of reasoning on this subject, and yet I do not know but you are correct. I confess, that on reflection, I do not find positive evidence that any good has been done to Mr. Browning. It may be so, or it may not. And yet the story of his cure is told all over the neighborhood and for many miles around, and Mrs. Lovejoy gets great credit by it."

"No doubt she does; and thousands obtain both credit and cash in a similar way. Much of the reputation of our wonderful cure-alls, advertised in the newspapers, comes in a similar way."

"Do you really think so?"

"It can be demonstrated."

"Why, then, is it not oftener done?"

"It has been done, again and again."

"Are the public, then, fully determined to act against their own interest? Do they choose to be humbugged?"

"It seems so."

"But can you do nothing with my face?"

"I can try. I will do what I can. But I must first tell you what I cannot do. I cannot pronounce your disease to be cancer. I cannot say positively that my method of treatment will cure it. I cannot say, moreover, that somebody else cannot cure you, even if I cannot. If, however, I prescribe for you, you must consent to follow me for the time most implicitly, and let everybody else alone."

"That I shall be both willing and glad to do."

"You need not begin till you are fully satisfied in regard to the efficacy of Mrs. Lovejoy's plaster."

"I am pretty well satisfied already. I see that science is modest but honest, and I prefer it to humbuggery."

My prescription was an application of the common blistering ointment of the apothecary's shop. The part to which it was to be applied was quite denuded and tender; but I told the patient to stick a small piece of the plaster over it and wear it, and keep it as sore as he could for a month or more. He was, however, to call on me once a week, – or, perhaps, at first, twice, – that I might watch the effects. There was some danger of an absorption of the cantharides into the system, which might do more of general harm than would justify an attempt at local good.

No man ever followed the prescription of his physician with more pertinacity and faithfulness than young Theodore. He adhered, without wavering, to plain and unstimulating food, and to water for drink. At the end of twenty-one days, all the fiery redness of the ulcer had passed away, and it had begun to wear a healthy appearance. "Now," said I, "you may take away your plasters, and let the sore get well, if it will."

In about ten, or at most fourteen days more, the young man's nose was as well as any other part of his system. Whether the Spanish flies contained in the plaster had any thing to do with it, or whether it recovered its healthful condition in spite of them, – having just then got ready to heal, – I cannot, of course, positively determine. In any event, the case was a strong one, though not stronger, I confess, than that of dosing largely with calomel, as detailed in Chapter XXXII. And yet, as I have already told you, I should not dare to repeat that heroic treatment. Success is not always competent proof that a given course is correct; – at least, this is true with regard to the success of a particular formulary of medicine. There are very many things on earth to be known and thought of, as well as in heaven.

CHAPTER L

SWELLED LIMBS

Not far from this period I was called to visit Mr. O. B., sixty-one years of age, a farmer by occupation. He had been for twenty or thirty years addicted to cider drinking very freely, according to the custom of the country; which habit, conjoined with full feeding, a diminished amount of exercise, and a lymphatic tendency by inheritance, had rendered him exceedingly corpulent. His legs had even fallen into a habit of swelling, especially at night, sometimes to a very alarming extent.

His story concerning himself was essentially as follows: In getting into a wagon, some time before, he had detached a small portion of skin from one of his legs. Although the wound was slight, and was duly attended to, according to the usual method of the family, with cabbage leaves, and with considerable care and neatness, yet, instead of healing kindly, it had put on a very unhealthy appearance, and had, at length, even become extensively ulcerated. He was also habitually a sufferer from chronic rheumatism in his back and hips, partly constitutional and partly as the result of overstraining the parts, especially in wrestling.

When I was called in to see him, it was about the last of June. His wounded leg was now evidently growing worse; and as the heat of the weather was increasing, and was for some time to come likely to increase, I could hardly help apprehending the most serious consequences. He had been in the habit of making greasy applications to it for a short time, but these at my special request were set aside immediately.

He was also encouraged to keep his leg cool; to exercise his whole system moderately; to avoid exciting, above all, stimulating, food and drink; and to keep his mind quiet. In regard to drinks, particularly, he was directed to use none but water. He was also required to abstain wholly from pork, and all long-salted meats. He had also been, for almost half a century, a chewer of tobacco – a circumstance rather unfavorable to a rapid return of healthy action; but I did not think it expedient to interdict its use entirely at the very first; for I feared the change, at his advanced age, would be more than his system could well endure.

In fact, I found it extremely difficult to persuade him to pursue the straight and narrow path which, letting alone his tobacco, I had deemed indispensably necessary. To encourage him to do so, I availed myself of a circumstance which, though in itself trifling, was nevertheless likely to have its influence. The thirteenth day of July was at hand, and would be the fortieth anniversary of his marriage. My proposal was that he should commence the change of habits that very day, and continue it precisely eighteen months.

Although the danger to which he would be exposed by neglecting my prescription was neither immediate nor imminent; yet it was so considerable in prospect that I pressed him very hard to comply with my requirements, notwithstanding their seeming rigidity. And as a further inducement, – for he was not above the influence of pecuniary considerations, – I offered him a certain sum of money.

I left him without much hope, after all, that he would follow out my suggestions and advice, so difficult is it, at the age of sixty, to make substantial and radical changes. But I was most happily disappointed. He began the work of reform on the very day appointed, and began it well; and though he did not adhere to the letter of my prescription entirely, he did quite as much as I had dared, even in my most sanguine moments, to expect. And though his leg did not at first improve much, it was something to find that during the very hottest weather of the season it did not grow worse.

For three months he did not use, as he said, so much as fifty cents worth of pork, nor much salted food of any kind. He abandoned entirely all drinks but water, and all condiments with his food except a little salt. He subsisted almost wholly on bread, fruits, and vegetables, with a very little flesh or fish.

At the end of three months he ventured abroad more than before; and as it was now near the middle of October, he consented to put on woollen stockings. But he made one change at this time which I had not intended. He returned to the use of one of his former greasy and worse than useless ointments. In the course of the month, however, in spite of the foul external application, his leg was entirely healed; and the swelling considerably abated. In short, at the close of the year he had entirely recovered.

The friends and neighbors attributed the cure to the ointment. How very unreasonable! The ointment had been used during the spring, up to the time when he came under my direction, without any apparent benefit. What evidence then was there that it had been useful now? Why should not the change for the better be attributed to his increased exercise, the change of air and food, and the stimulus and warmth of woollen stockings? Had water, moreover, as his only drink, nothing to do with the cure?

But while standing in the position I did, it was useless to decry the ointment or exalt my own treatment, since it would have been regarded as merely special pleading. Still, I did not shrink wholly from the statement of my honest convictions, whenever I was inquired of, even though I did not manifest a disposition to carry the war into Africa.

CHAPTER LI

SUDDEN CHANGES IN OLD AGE

Mrs. N. was about seventy years of age. In her early years she had possessed a sort of masculine constitution; and though embarrassed by poverty, had reared a large family of children, who were all well settled in the world. She resided with the youngest but one of them, where she did just as she pleased. In short, she had a good home, and, had she enjoyed health, might have been happy.

But a change had come over her in point of health, which it was not so easy to account for at its outset as in its progress. For her first derelictions, at least, I know of no cause. But she had, at length, become reconciled to the use of tea, and as her spirits began to flag, she added to it strong coffee. From these she proceeded to the pipe.

The more she increased her extra stimulants, the more she added to her troubles, and the greater was her necessity for additional stimulus. Laudanum was very soon on her list; at first, it is true, in very small quantities. Yet, as she grew older, she found a necessity, as she verily believed, for increasing the size of her dose from year to year, till, at the age of seventy, I found her in the full and free use of tea, coffee, tobacco, and laudanum, – the latter to the enormous extent of half an ounce a day, – and yet her complaints were more numerous than ever.

She was a reasonable woman, and therefore I attempted to set forth, in their true colors, the realities of her condition. However, as I was not acting as her physician, but only as a friend, I had little hope of making any very permanent impressions. She knew the whole story as well as I or any one else could know it. The great difficulty under which she labored was a want of resolution to change her habits. Her irresolution was sustained by the belief – a very general one – that old people cannot make sudden changes in their physical habits with safety.7 But she was unhappy in the condition she then was. She had no peace with conscience, nor, as I might almost venture to say, – for she was a religious woman by profession, – with God.

I assured her that the real danger of sudden changes, at her age, had been greatly overrated; though danger there certainly was, in greater or less degree. But I pointed out to her the means of obviating what danger there was, and urged her, as a Christian, to make up her mind to meet it. Of course, I did not presume to urge her to cast every thing aside, and return to Nature's path at once; but to drop first one thing and then another. I counselled her to be thorough and determined, as far as she went; and when she abandoned a thing to make no reserve, but to be sure of not going too fast and too far at once.

When I left her one day, after a somewhat protracted conversation, it was with many feelings of discouragement. I doubted very seriously whether, on the whole, she would move at all. The power of half an ounce of laudanum and a paper of tobacco daily, in paralyzing the human will, is very great. But she was one of those persons who cannot, or think they cannot, leave off a habit gradually, in the way I proposed. She must "go the whole figure," as it is said vulgarly, or do nothing at all.

Judge then, if you can, of my surprise, when about two months afterward I learned, from a source which was perfectly reliable, that the very next day after I saw her, she abandoned the whole herd of extra stimulants, both solid and liquid, and betook herself to water. Nor had it, so far as I could learn, at all injured her.

No sooner did I hear the news of her reformation, than I took my horse and made her a visit. There she was, nearly as well as ever she had been in her life, though perhaps a little paler and thinner. And oh, what rejoicing she had in her freedom! It would have done you good to see her. She had now no fears for the result. "True," she said, "I suffered for a few days, but the agony was soon over."

One thing should be mentioned, since it doubtless added to the dangers, real and imaginary, of her condition and trial. It took place during the middle of a very cold winter – one of the coldest which we of the North ever experienced; scarcely, if at all, behind those of 1855-6 and 1856-7.

But all persons have not Mrs. N.'s faith, nor her deep-abiding religious principles. These, it is presumed, greatly aided her in the terrible conflict. No one ought to attempt such changes, at least in life's decline, unless most fully convinced of their importance and necessity. Yet, with this conviction, and strong faith in addition, all becomes comparatively easy.

Mrs. N. died a few years after her reform; but she died a free woman, and not a slave to her appetite. Some few there were of her acquaintance who appeared to think that the sudden changes to which she had subjected herself several years before, hastened her dissolution. But I do not believe there was a particle of evidence to be found that such was the fact. Reader, remember Mrs. N., and if you are in the road of error, and not more than seventy years of age, go and do likewise. If you have not lived free, resolve at least to have the pleasure of dying so.