1 ' ! S \ '; '.'■('i I ' 3Noia3w jo Aavaan ivnoiivn 3NOI03W JO Aava8l1 "IVNOUVN 3NIDia3W jo Aava -6 3NOIQ3W jo Aavaan ivnoiivn NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE s. 3NIDI03W jo Aavaan ivnoiivn 3NOia3w jo Aava a a. I ■D 0 ' NATIONAL LIBRARY ' =" > hoioiizzs | < 0681 st29Q S0€ ZM ? NLM053011578 )i03vv jo Aavaan tvnouvn 3NOIQ3W jo Aavaan ivnoiivn 3ni3icj3w jo Aavaan i IONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF N f UNVEILED; OR, SCENES IN THE PRAGTIGE OF A NEW YORK SURGEON. BY EDWARD H. DIXON, M.D., Editor cf " The Scalpel." NEW YORK: POLLAKD & MOSS, Publishers, ISSUED t^[L<; WEEKLY. 37 Barclay St. and 42 Park Place. 1890. N WZ- 3 ••' S «• MT MORNING AND EVENING STABS, © T K jL. L, .A. -A.JNT) JXJIjIA.,' WITHOUT WHOSE LIGHT -• T 8BA OP LIPS HAD BEEN PATHLIBI "THESE PAOE8 ABE DEDICATED BT THE AUTHOR. btnn According to Act of Consrrf m. in the year 1S moral world, nothing is lost; the spark arises and '♦scintillates for a moment, by the lightness of the ele- ments that produced it, and then falls, a little ashes, into the mass of its predecessors—the bubble seeks the surface of the stream in obedience to the same law, reflects for an instant the sunlight, and its ele- ments are added to the great store-house of nature —even the tear, as its sources in the o'ercharged heart are unlocked, and it falls to the earth, is not lost, but its salts are treasured there till given back, perhaps, in some form of beauty and gladness. Let me then hope that whatever truths, useful to humanity, may be found in these pages, will not perish, but live for a little while after the hand that sketched them has been resolved into its elements. Edward H. Dixon. CONSENTS. BOENEB W OITT PRACTICE. rEE CHOLERA OF '82—THE BROADWAY WORKWOMEN—THE YOCHO MOTHBI—TEE LAST DAY'S WORK—TERRY'S COURTSHIP....... . 9 LEAVES FROM A MEDICAL LOG-BOOK. II4HING IN A FASHIONABLE NEIGHBORHOOD FOR PRACTICE—CLERICAL PATRONAGB —FIRST VISIT TO MRS. MACKEREL—DESCRIPTION OF MRS. MACKEREL— A MIDNIGHT SCENE—AN IMPRESSIVE INTERVIEW.........87 THE NERVE POWER WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE NERVE POWER? ITS ACTION ON OUR BODIES UNDKB THE VARIOUS STIMULI—ITS POWER OVER THE CONTRACTION OF THE MUSCLES— TUB INFLUENCE OF PROLONGED INSPIRATION IS CURING DISEASES AND GIVING STRENGTH TO THK BODY—HOW DOES IT COMPARE WITH OTHER 8Y8TEM9 OF CUBE?...............42 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OP FASHION. DOING NOTHING—EMPLOTMKNT OF THE INTKLLEOT—MENTAL PURSUITS—ERRORS OF DRESS—FASHION VIOLATES THE LAWS OF HEALTH ...... 69 SCENES IN THE CABIN AND CHURCHYARD. THE OLD MAN AND HIS DARLINGS....... e . M NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. EXERCISE IS LIFB—INDOLENCE IS DEATH........& SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRAOTICH. K!NG DEATH IN HIS TBLLOW ROBE—THE PROUD MERCHANT—THE LOVKLT CREOLE WIFE...............« xiv CONTENTS. FUNCTIONS OP THB SKIN. OOLD FATAL TO INFANTS...........99 WATERING PLACE SNOBS. HOTEL CONVENTIONALITY, WITH SPECIMENS OF BACH OENUS AND SPECTEB . 90 WOMAN. WHAT ARE THB CAUSES OF EARLY DECAY IN AMERICAN WOMEN? . . . 107 SKETCHES OP A WESTERN STUDENT'S LIFE. THE CAMP-MEETING—A GRAPHIC SCENE—A REVIVAL—A SERMON—LUDICROUS EVENT—ZACCHEUS—CAMP-MEETINO WOLVES—A MIDNIGHT ATTACK—PECULIAR GENIUS OF THE TRUE METHODIST PRKAOHBR, BY A BACKSLIDER ... 126 THE SENSE OF FEELING. INFLUENCES OF TEMPERATURE OR HEALTH, AND EFFECT CP ATMOSPHERIC ELEC- TRICITY..............188 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. THE BOTANIC MEDICAL BATTERY—ENVIABLE POSITION OF DOCTORS—THE PESTI- LENCE WALKS IN DARKNESS—INSIDIOUS NATURE OF FEVERS—A WESTERN DOCTOR'S MENAGE............ 147 WILL MEDICINE CURE CONSUMPTION? ORIGIN OF CONSUMPTION—THB STETHOSCOPE—FORMATION OF TUBERCLES—COUGH AN EARLY SYMPTOM—BRONCHITIS ........ . 163 TOILETTE OF NEW YORK LADIES. WHAT ARE THE ACTUAL CONSEQUENCES OF COLD FEET? . . . . . 107 SCENES IN COUNTRY PRACTICE. THB BAPTISM OF LOVE AND TRUST—LOST FROM EARTH, FOUND IN HEAVEN—THK IDIOT BOY—AN IMPRESSIVE LESSON......... 177 CAUSES AND EVILS OF CELIBACY. WIFE AND HUSBAND-HUNTERS, DIFFERENT CLASSES OF—FORCED MARRIAGES . 184 SCENES IN NORTHERN PRACTICE. SECRET CRIME—BEGGARED YOUTH AND AGE—LIFE A GOD-LESSOR—A MIND DISEASED —HEART-CORRODING MEMORIES—A SACRIFICE TO MEDICAL PEDANTRY—BLEEP ENDS WHERE DEATH BEGINS—A DEATH BY FROST......199 HOTEL AND CLUB-HOUSE LIFE IN NEW YORK. PRRNICIOUS INFLUENCE ON THE MANNERS AND MORALS OF THB YOUNG—THB ART OF FURNISHING A HOUSB WITH ECONOMY AND SIMPLE ELEGANCE . . . 800 CONTENTS. XV SKETCHES OF A WESTERN STUDENT'S LIFE. MY FIRST CASK—THB POISONER—A DEMON ........216 IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH IN EDUCATION. THE RIGHT OF DISCOVERY—FAIRY STORIES—CHILDREN SHOULD BEHOLD TRUTH IN THEIR PARENTS.............222 SCENES IN A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. WHAT IS MEMORY ?—COLLEGE LIFE IN THE COUNTRY—THE PIOUS STUDENT— THB ORPHAN BETRAYED—THB ROBIN'S NEST—MATERNAL REFLECTIONS—WHAT IS LOVE?—THB FUNERAL PILE: WHAT IS ITS PHILOSOPHY? .... 223 SCENES IN CITY PRACTICE. I.—DEATH'S QUARTETTE IN A GARRET—DELIRIUM TREMENS .... 242 II.—PRB0ARI0USNB93 OF MEDICAL LIFE IN NEW YORK—A PROFESSIONAL MARTYR —THB CURSE OF AN IRISH PRACTICE—DEATH OF THE PHYSICIAN, AND HIS WIDOW AND CHILD—PARENTAL LOVE—MERCANTILE AFFECTION—THE LOVE OF MONEY..............251 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. THE SUMMONS—THB LITTLE LANDLORD—THB QUEER PATIENT—SELF-DELUSION—THB RECITAL—JULIETTE—THE RECONCILIATION AND DEATH.....269 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. STEPHEN BOURDETTB—BEAR MARKET—GEN. WASHINGTON—THB " FORT FIELD" ATTACK ON FORT WASHINGTON—PUNCU IMPROVISED—THB REBEL TOAST AND ITS CONSEQUENCES—THE MIDNIGHT SUMMONS—ANECDOTE OF KNIPHACSEN . 287 SCENES IN PRACTICE. THE FOUR IMPELLING POWERS TO EVIL—INTEMPERANCE, AMBITION, ANIMAL PASSION, AND THE LOVE OF MONEY—ILLUSTRATION OF THE LATTER BY AN AWFUL TRAGEDY. 806 ON CROUP. WHAT IS CROUP?—ITS SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT ...... 816 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. THE MOTHER—HER CHARACTER—THB PESTILENCE—A COUNTRY CONSULTATION—A TALE OF SORROW—THE SINS OF PARENTS VISITED UPON THB CHILDREN—THB DESERTED ONE—THB ATONEMENT—CHARACTER OF THB TRCB MOTHER—MEDICAL HEROICS—A PERFIDIOUS LETTER—VALU1 OF A POOR MAN'S CHILD — THB MOTHER'S DESTROYING ANGEL—THE DRUNKARD'S HOME AND FAMILY—RETRIBU- TION XVI CONTENTS. ON HOOPING COUGH. »AMr. Mackerel. The curious questions, touching my medical sagacity as to his wife's condition, received about as satisfactory a solution as most of the questions that are put to me on the causes and treatment of disease, and when the gentleman was toler- ably befogged with opinions he could not quite as well under- stand as the respective qualities of his merchandise, I was pleased to receive the anticipated summons ; requesting him to remain, as I should probably need his personal services to procure medicine, I again sought my patient. What an effort I made to preserve a calm professional exterior, as I ascended that stairway and opened that door' The united influence of the counteuance and surroundings of MR. MACKEREL IS SOOTHED. 39 my patient, had given me a tumultuous agitation, even in the presence of Mr. Mackerel, when the eyes of my patient were closed ; but when she raised the drooping lids, and the full soul came welling up from the depths of those blue orbs, and with a sweet smile she regretted the consequence "of Mr. Mackerel's anxiety," and assured me she had only been over- come with the fatigue of the party, and would cheerfully take any domestic restorative I would direct, as she did not wish to cause auy further trouble, I felt intuitively that the poor child had made up her miud to endure her fate, and feared that she had required my services for the first and last time. I remained a few minutes and took my leave, feeling that the most acceptable service I could render a well-bred woman whose infernal position had allowed her woman's nature to overcome her, would be to leave her alone with lier own feelings. My impressions, however, were incorrect with regard to a future summons, as I had been fortunate enough to appease Mr. Mackerel's fears by my learned description of the action of the probable causes of his wife's attack. His own professional sagacity being constantly exercised on the product of " bait," he lulled his suspicions to rest by the apparent innocence with which I answered his leading ques- tions, and arrived, like many others, at the conclusion most desirable to him, viz. that I was a fool; a conviction quite as necessary, in some nervous cases, as its opposite, to the husband, if the physician wishes to retaiu possession of the patieut. So pleased was Mr. Mackerel with the soothing influence of my short visit, that he very courteously waited on me to the outside of the door, and desired I would call in the morning, leaving me in no doubt of his friendly intentions, though not equally certain that their manifestation did not extend to the deposit of his surplus luxuries on my new coat. 40 LEAVES FROM THE MEDICAL LOG. In the morning, after my usual office diversions of investi- gating " a pain and flutterin' about me heart," and " I'm kilt intirely," &c, &c, I called on Mrs. Mackerel, and had the pleasure of finding her quite composed and in conversation with her friend, Mrs. Tip Tape. Fortunately for me, I passed the critical examination of that lady unscathed by her sharp black eyes, and was pronounced quite an agreeable " person," as an acute Quaker lady subsequently informed me the lady always called me. Mrs. Tip Tape was the daughter of a retired milliner, and had formed an appropri- ate union with Mr. Tip Tape, the eminent dry-goods mer- chant. They will require a separate notice, as I subsequently received some "patronage" from them, and they were peo- ple of consideration in the neighborhood. Poor Mrs. Mackerel, notwithstanding her efforts to con- ceal it, had evidently received some cruel and stunning communication from her husband on the night of my sum- mons ; her agitated circulation during the fortnight of my attendance showed to my entire conviction, some persistent and hidden cause for her nervousness ; but her conduct was most unexceptionably that of a dignified woman, determined to bear to the utmost every discharge from the quiver of her relentless fate. Once, and once only, on my apologizing for the lateness of my evening visit, as I had been for the first time to take my little queen aud our new gift an airing, she observed with a slight smile, " Your wife is, I hear, a great pet with you, Doctor." A slight tremor and a convulsive cough told me a story I had long suspected. I replied in a manner calculated to produce a comparison as little painful as possible, and directed the conversation in as cheerful a channel as occurred to me. That evening she assured me that she felt she should now rapidly recover, as Mr. Mackerel had concluded to take her to Saratoga for change of scene. I gladly assented, though I had not been asked for my opinion. I took my leave, and in a few days, MRS. MACKEREL RECOVERS. 4. a final one, of the lovely Mrs. Mackerel; the poor child departed for Saratoga. The ensuing week there was a sheriff's sale, and my diagnosis of the cause of her disease received confirmation not to be misunderstood. After the departure of the Mackerels, Mr. Tip Tape hon- ored me by requesting my professional advice. Either from the fact of my being under a temporary cloud, because Mrs. M. did not instantly recover, owing to my inability to pro- cure a carriage and horses, or because Mr. Mackerel was anticipating my bill, and wished to cheapen my services,— or because they did not wish to have their own condescen- sion lessened by example, the Tip Tapes had held themselves magnificently aloof. Now, however, I seemed about to enjoy the full warmth of their patronage. The very next day after the Mackerels' departure, Mr. Tip Tape did me the honor to inquire after the health of my family ; and the following week, Master Tip Tape having fallen and bumped his nose on the floor, I had the felicity of soothing the anguish of his mamma in her magnificent boudoir, and holding to her lovely nose the smelling salts, and offering such consola tion as her trying position required ;—but of them anon. 43 THE NERVE POWEE. THE NERVE POWER. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THB NERVK POWER ?—ITS ACTION ON OCR BODIES UNDER TK1 VARIOUS STIMULI—ITS POWER OVER THE CONTRACTION OF THE MUSCLES—THE INFLU- ENCE OF PROLONGED INSPIRATION IN CCRINO DISEASES AND GIVING STRENGTH TO THB BODY—HOW DOES IT COMPARE WITH OTHER 8TSTEMS OF CURB? The brain is the electric battery: the nerves the telegraph: the face the dial plate of the soul. What, then, is the nature of this power that holds us in just relation with the universe? What is the origin of that force that marshals into life the plastic atoms of the insect, and sends it forth murmuring on its perfumed way into the glancing sunbeam ? What causes the forest to reecho with the voice of the feathered songster ? What is it that sends up from the depths of the troubled and frigid ocean the mighty breathings of the great leviathan, with his heat-pro- ducing heart ? What animates the ponderous elephant as he moves majestic over the plains ; or the lithe tiger and lordly lion, as they leap tremendous, and make the heart fal- ter in its beat by their unearthly roar ? We have watched with microscopic eye, the earliest indication of life in the egg or the womb, before the formation of a visible nerve ; we have seen the willing atoms obey the unchangeable law of creative power, with the same precision that the living aud independent creature, under the influence of its nerves, per- forms its voluntary and appropriate actions. We feel that all onr reliable investigations into the nature of the nerve THE NERVE POWER. 43 power, can only commence in the second stage of animal existence. We receive the palpitating creature perfect from the hand of nature. We interrogate and catechise its nervous con- vulsions, as we expose and subject its muscles and their ani- mating threads to our knife ; but we only approximate the truth in our experiments on animals. We must verify our observations by the appreciative and intelligent utterance of our own species, as sickness or casualty gives us the oppor- tunity to strengthen our theories by analogy, or prove them by facts. Tt is this necessity that gives the medical philoso- pher the character of impassive want of feeling, when he is entitled to esteem and respect for his quiet investiga- tion ; for he well knows, and by virtue of his daily pursuits has ever present to his remembrance, the conviction that he, too, is but another atom on the shore of time, to be swept into that great ocean of death beyond. Let us calmly, then, read with him from the page of nature, even her cry of agony, and endeavor to gather truths that may serve us in attaining the legitimate period of our limited existence, when we can calmly take our appointed chamber in the silent halls of fate. Although electricity will produce most of the phenomena of muscular life, even in the body recently dead, and upon muscles governed by a nerve detached from its natural con- nections with the still living animal, still there is one experi- ment that would seem conclusively to prove that electricity is not the sole power that governs our bodies. When a liga- ture is tightly drawn around a nerve, its functions, as a conductor of nerve power, are paralyzed ; it can no longer animate the muscle to motion, whilst it is still capable of conveying electricity ! This would seem to be conclusive, that some other property was possessed by the nerves ; moreover, mechanical and chemical irritants will cause con- tractions of those muscles governed by the nerve to which 44 THE NERVE POWER. the irritation is applied. This is the way that anatomists have discovered the functions of the various nerves. Even the criminal, when recently executed, and still possessing warmth and pliancy, can be made to exercise the muscles of respiration, and of the face and limbs ; and that, too, in a most emphatic and expressive manner, when the various nerves governing the muscles appropriated to perform those movements, are subjected to galvanic action. Our present object will be chiefly to show the influence of the natural stimuli on the nerves and contractility of the muscles and their power of preserving and restoring health, but in a special manner the influence of prolonged respira- tion, for several minutes at a time each day. We have observed enough, and are prepared to show from data, suffi- cient to prove to any intelligent observer, that it will prove more effective in restoring lost or failing health, than any other means whatever, even in the hands of the most consci- entious and intellectual man ;'and ihat when compared to the various other suggestions that have been dignified with the names of systems or pathies, they shrink into immeasur- able littleness behind the hungry and heartless faces of the impostors who have palmed them upon a thoughtless world. If the person who reads this be easily smitten with a name, let him call it Ventupathy ; but think not that it is a new pathy. No, no ; it is as old as the moment when God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of our great progenitor. Nor is it necessary that it should be prescribed by a solemn-looking gentleman in black, in cabalistic charac- ters and bad Latin, and purchased of an ignorant apothecary, or dispensed from a little bottle of attenuated falsehood, or soaked and drenched into your feeble carcass with a dirty wet sheet. It costs none of these humiliating sacrifices to ignorance and rascality. You take it from the same glori- ous source whence the eagle gets it, as he sails under its life-inspiring influence, on unwearied wing across the rolling THE NERVE POWER. 45 deep, and screams wildly his cry of delight to the great source of his power. From the moment when the first impression of the air on the infant's skin causes the first effort of the muscles that raise its ribs and let into its lungs the life-continuing and nerve-restoring fluid, to the last sigh that escapes us in death, there is not a moment in which we are not reminded of the power of this great renovator of life. Let us but enter a close and unventilated room—let us be for even a few moments engaged in animated conversation—let any depressing emotion overtake us, and we are reminded by the involuntary sigh, that nature required more of her renova- tor. The sigh is but a long and convulsive inspiration, to make up for the partial inflation of the lungs, or the recep- tion into them of air too highly charged with the carbon exhaled from the lungs of the occupant of a close room or a large assemblage in a public congregation. The lassitude and exhaustion so invariably consequent on these occasions, is generally ascribed to weariness of the sub- ject or simple fatigue, which, with almost every one, signi- fies nothing beyond the simple word which expresses the feeling. Now, let us for one moment examine the steps nature takes to restore us after one of these periods of exhaustion. We do not desire quiet ; on the contrary relief is felt by walking. We cannot walk or use any of the muscles of the body, without an increased supply of air. " Let me have a good sniff of the air," says one. " How delightful is the glorious air," says another, &c, &c. Soon the sense of muscular exhaustion vanishes, the headache departs, the ideas become quicker, and the person, if he pos- sessed an inventive or inquiring mind, would have made a discovery of priceless value. He has only to reduce this lit- tle hint to a system, ajid he would be saved many a head- ache and fit of indigestion ; for the want of air, though it first shows itself in the debility of the muscles, will soon 46 THE NERVE POWER. reach the stomach, bowels and liver, and thus cut off the other great source of strength, viz. a wholesome digestion. The person will become a dyspeptic. Hear Dr. Carpenter, the physiologist: " There can be no question that in the liviug body, the energy of muscular contractiou is determined by the supply of arterial blood which the muscle receives. It is well known that when a ligature is applied to a large artery in the human subject, there is not only the deficiency of sensibility in the surface, but also a partial or complete suspension of muscular power, until the collateral circulation is established"—i.e. till other small vessels coming off from the trunk that is tied beyond, or on the heart side of the ligature, are forced to enlarge by the wants of the limb from which the blood has been cut off, and by the action of the heart. The influence of this supply of arterial blood is twofold. It supplies material for the nutrition of the tissues of the limb, to which the artery is distributed ; and it furnishes (what is, perhaps, more immediately necessary) the supply of oxygen, required for that change in the tissue, which, doubtless, accompanies every action of the body, and which is essential to the production of its contractile force. "A? all this oxygen is taken through the lungs, we should expect to find a very close correspondence between the amount o* muscular power developed in an animal, and the quantity of oxygen consumed in its respiration." All experience proves this. Look, for instance, at the inconceivable velocity oi movement in the wings of insects and birds ; the bee aud the mosquito—the humming-bird and the sea-bird—wind remain, with few intervals, for an entire day on the wing : We know that they are rapid breathers, and we know tha* the muscles could not move without a constant renovation by oxygen. Of course the supply "must be proportionate tc the demand of their constant exertion. The heart itself, and all the chief muscles of organic life, as well as the great THE NERVE POWER. 41 eircular muscles which close the bowel and bladder, furnish two other examples of muscles in constant action ; and both equally dependent on a constant supply of blood ; the former will continue to move, and the latter to close the bowel, long after the muscles are powerless from diffi- cult breathing. This is a wise provision of nature, origi- nating in their greater irritability and capacity for stimula- tion, by blood containing less oxygen ; were they not so susceptible, often in cases of fainting, the person would die, because the heart's action cannot'be entirely intermitted but a very few seconds, without imminent fear of death. Even in cases of apparently profound fainting, there is yet a little motion, and nature, by incapacitating the person from standing, gives the greatest facility for the blood to resume its flow, and the heart its action, because blood can flow along a horizontal tube, when, of course, it could not rise against its own gravity when the person has fainted. We have only to study the results of the moral emotion, familiarly called " low spirits," to see the influence of full inhalations on the heart's action. That organ is immedi- ately dependent on the blood for its stimulus to action, just in proportion as the blood demands a rapid transmission through its four chambers, as it passes through the lungs, precisely in proportion to the vigor of the heart's contrac- tion. It matters not whether the heart be deprived of blood from fainting, or poisoned with carbon; in either case, it immediately responds to the unwonted condition. Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans, has lately been making some very remarkable experiments on the alligator, to prove the lungs to be the true motor power of the blood. They are of a most impressive character as detailed by him ; but it seems to us quite unnecessary to prove what no one, since the time Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, has denied—the lungs, of course, furnish the power of the heart's action, by oxygenating its blood. By the power, inherent in 48 THE NERVE POWEK. the heart, it will still continue to contract, though mere and more feebly for some time, even after the windpipe has been tied ; but, like a person deprived of food, it becomes weaker and weaker in its pulsations, till death occurs from starvation. A good deal of speculation has been spent upon the com- parative value, as a stimulant to the action of the heart, of the nerve power, when compared to the oxygen imparted by the lungs. Benjamin Brodie tried the experiment of tying all the great blood-vessels of the neck in a dog, and then cutting off the head, so that there could be no influence of the nerves of the brain, nor even of the nerves of respiration. exerted on the lungs ; nevertheless, this animal continued to breathe for two hours and a half, under the process of arti- ficial inflation of the lungs with a bellows ; so that it would seem that respiration was more immediately important to life than the nerves themselves. Of course, the organic nerves remained in this experiment, and the reader must remember that the heart has inherent life, derived from the Great First Cause, whilst in the womb and long before respiration can take place. It will, therefore, be remem- bered by the unprofessional reader, that the blood itself must contain the only stimulus for the heart's muscular action, before it becomes necessary for the movements of independent life. The heart can receive no direct stimulus from the oxygen of the air before birth, as the child when inclosed in the womb does not breathe at all; it receives its oxygen and blood from the mother. It is only when increased motion requires extra stimulation, that we are obliged to breathe rapidly, as can soon be proved wher we are compelled to flee from danger or pursuit. Here might come in legitimately the subject of alcoholic gtimulation. Every physiologist knows that fat and spirit- ous drinks afford hydrogen for the lungs, and that gas, when associated Aviife-eocygen, forms the elements of the watery part/$£«utte* bioo<^*"w?{hQirt. which none of the c^jre solid THE NERVE POWER. 49 constituents could circulate throughout the body. We do not intend yet, however, to discuss the subject of spirituous drinks. Enough has been thoughtlessly written on that Bubject, to astonish the physiologist at the ignorance and boldness of the writers. Whoever ascends a hill without paying attention to his respiration, will find that he will be fatigued in a precise ratio with the deficiency of air he allows himself. In all the movements of mechanical life, and in running and swimming, the same will be found to be the case. Partial respiration only admits the inflation of the upper half, and perhaps a little more of each lung; while the whole of each lobe was intended by nature to perform full duty, if the air-cells are not compressed with tubercular matter deposited between them, or solidified by other deposits from the blood, the result of neglected inflammation. It will, therefore, most assuredly be found, that sedentary people, such as sewing men and women, book-keepers, schoolmasters, and students, who are almost habitually poor breathers, measure less around the lungs, and are far more easily fatigued, than those whose avocations demand free exertions, more espe- cially in the open air. This is. the secret of the benefit derived from riding on horseback and driving out in the morning air when the person has breakfasted, and the surface of the body is well protected, so as to diffuse the blood over the surface of the skin, and thus avoid loading the internal organs with it. Our cunning friends of the water-cure establishments well know this ; some of them are wise enough to compel their patients to run and go up hills ; and some patients who have been advised by honest physicians have had manly resolution enough to drive a cart or a stage-coach, and thus have whipped up the waning life-powers, exhausted by confinement or dissipation. Dr. James Stewart, the anthofr^foj^^fljB&ie tract on Consumption, informed me^hltafter his forTwVear, 50 THE NERVE POWER. when the bony framework of the body is usually supposed to be permanently set for life, he increased the capacity of his chest over three inches, by forcing himself to show to those patients whose lungs he was obliged to examine for life insurance, what he meant by a full inspiration. The reader will observe that those whose lives are to be insured, must have sound lungs as well as other organs ; and if they can- not inflate them fully, they are supposed to have disease, such as tubercles, or else condensation of the substance of the luugs, called hepatization (from Hepar, the liver), because the lungs assume the solidity and appearance of liver. Some fifteen years since, when attending a Dr. Sutherland of this city, then often called " the breathing doctor," for a lingering consumptive affection, I witnessed the surprising results of prolonged respiration, in a number of patients afflicted with dyspepsia and numerous other complaints. Their sole treatment consisted in passing a handkerchief about the lower portion of the chest, for no other earthly reason than to convince them there was some peculiar art in, the process ; and then slowly and fully inspiring air into the lungs, and as slowly expiring it. This process was contin- ued for several days, and the patient amused with the Doc- tor's earnest conversation, and then dismissed, with instruc- tions to continue the process for several weeks, and to resume it whenever the unpleasant symptoms returned. Hundreds have felt the benefit of this simple, yet most efficient passive exercise. It is the sole explanation of Ram- mage's breathing tube, and every other device of the kind ; they are all money traps. And what does prolonged respiration do, but send an increased supply of the life-force to every muscle in the body? What sustains the glorious eagle, as he sails on unwearied wing,, bathed with that ocean of life-giving force, day after day, even to a hundred years of existence ? THE NERVE POWER. 6i I stand upon the mountain top and shout for freedom, 'mid the grand wild wind that wanders where it will. The air inspires me ; my muscles have gathered their life-force by the exertion ; my perception of God's goodness is quickened ; and as I feel the warm current of life run through my frame, my thoughts enlarge their sphere, my benevolence expands, and I scorn the contemptible trickery of my profession, and wonder that one can be found so base or. so thoughtless as to oppose the instruction of the people in the laws that gov- ern their existence. Be strong, then, in mind and body ; be strong ; your muscular contraction governed by air and the nerve-power, is the great index of the human tempera- ment. It is printed by the finger of God upon the face of man, as the expression of his power over animate and inani- mate nature. It plows the ground ; it builds the ship ; it hurls back the oppressor. It yields up to the physiognomist the covert purpose of the villain, as its tell-tale lines lurk about the eye. It impresses the countenance of the upright man with his letter of credit and bond of sympathy with his fellows. Its absence, also, is expressive. It speaks to the lover the impression on the heart of his mistress. It tells the mother's new-found life, when she hears the first cry of her infant. It assures us of the Christian's hope when the lines of agony relax into peaceful radiance—as the life-spark is restored to the great undiminished source whence it derived its being. 69 PATHOLOGY OK A LADY OP FASHIOM THE PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHUJN. " But aching head, though on a sofa, may I never feel." By pathology, we mean the systematized knowledge or science of disease. By a fashionable lady, we mean a woman who has been brought up, and lives in, the habits, practices, and pursuits of that portion of society, whose aim and end is to please and be pleased. If a man and woman were in their right moral and mental condition, to please and be pleased would be the true end of their existence ; but as mankind are not in their proper coudition, their pleasures may be very injurious. Health, whether of mind or body, consists in the complete soundness of the organization, aud the appropriate perform- ance of the functions. A flaw or defect in the one, or a failure in the other, is disease. As there are laws which, when obeyed, produce health, so there are laws which, when complied with, produce disease. Fashion, which of all things may seem to be capricious and lawless, is subject to, and educes laws, as certainly as any other phase of society Every human being is possessed of a triple nature, and each part requires its own culture and employment. The highest part is the spiritual, which gives the feelings or intentions. The next part is the mental, which gives the ideas or knowledge. The third part is the physical, the act- ing portion of our being. When each of these parts is in order, health and happiness are the result. When one of PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. 53 them is out of order, and still more, when all of them are, disease and misery are the inevitable results. The first element of fashionable life is the negative one of abjuring all labor—the abstinence from doing anything for subsistence or use. Thus a fashionable lady would be ashamed to do anything in her kitchen-garden for the pur- pose of producing food, as planting corn, sowing turnips. hoeing or weeding a vegetable bed, or fruit-trees. She will attend to her flower-beds and blossom-trees, and do as much work as if she were in her kitchen-garden ; but it is not accounted labor. There is no necessity to do it. It is optional—fashionable. She would not for the world be known to do anything in her kitchen, because that would be accounted labor—neces- sary work ; but she would perform twice the quantity of actual work, in the arrangement of her drawing-room or boudoir, because that is entirely optional and conventional. To spend a day in the useful offices of washing and ironing, would be death to her reputation ; but to spend one-third of every day in the fatigues of the toilette, would be a mat of course and consequence. To be seen for a few hours in the occupation of shirt-mak- ing, or mending stockings, would be an unspeakable disgrace ; while to be engaged for weeks in curious netting, working lace, or embroidering, would be matter of proud satisfaction, and a laudable object of ambition. To paint, to color, or to whitewash any part of her house, would be a degradation never to be recovered ; but to paint flowers or scenes, per- sons or places, would be an art sought after, with the avidity and cupidity of a search for an El Dorado. Now, in all those employments which they disdain, there is a satisfaction in their performance, which is a source of mental, moral, and physical health to millions ; while in the occupations which they adopt, there is an emptiness in their course and a weariness and dissatisfaction at their end. 54 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. which are a fruitful source of misery aud disease to thousands. We were consulted some time ago by an elegant lady of fashionable life, on account of two of her beautiful daugh- ters, who were as sylph-like and symmetric as fashion could make them, but who showed too plainly that their forms and constitutions were as frail as debility could mar them, with- out actually manifesting some specific form of disease. " Oh, what shall I do for my beautiful girls !" exclaimed the mother. " Give them strength," I replied. " And how shall that be done ?" said she. " Let them make their own beds, carry their water up stairs and down, and sweep their own rooms, and perchance the parlor and drawing-room, go to market and bring baskets of provisions home, garden, wash, and iron !" Looking at me with surprise, she said, " What sort of minds would they have, what sort of bodies ?" I answered, " They would have as healthy and happy ones as your servants. You now give all the health and happi- ness to your domestics. Be merciful to your daughters, and let them have a share." Work, without useful aim or end, is not occupation, nor employment. When the tread-mill was introduced as a mode of punishment, the wretched prisoners felt themselves more degraded by " doing nothing," as they called it, than by their crimes. How many ladies in fashionable life are doomed for years to feel the bitterness of " doing nothing !" What wonder if they are nervous, irritable and diseased. Useful work, or satisfactory employment, is as essential to the health of the mind, as to that of the body. The first and strongest principle of our nature, is that of rectitude, or what ought to be. Every human being is pos- sessed of this lofty, but awful feeling—the deep sense of rectitude or propriety. A feeling which is never satisfied, is a perpetual source of misery, like hunger unappeased, or appetite uncatered for. Can any woman, surveying her PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. 65 body, or considering her mind, seriously and conscientiously conclude, that she is not called upon for any useful work, or necessary contribution to society ; and that to be adorned and admired is all her duty and her destiny ? This would exclude her from the republic of mind and morals, and class her with pet animals and flowers. The same error which leads her to avoid all the useful occupations, induces her to escape all the useful pursuits. That sort of knowledge, which can be usefully applied, and only usefully displayed, is an undesirable attainment in her estimation ; and therefore entirely neglected, or only so far sought as it may subserve the end of her being—display. Science, therefore, or systematized knowledge, is not any part of her desire. The employment of the intellect, without a satisfactory direction, is one of the most common errors of the day. To obtain some knowledge of languages, without making them available, as means of instruction and improvement; to acquire some skill in music, without intending to employ it as an instrument of emotional purity and elevation ; to attain to excellence in the arts of drawing and painting, without aiming to enrich our ideas and thoughts; to mlti- vate the powers of speech and writing, without using 'hem benevolently and didactically ; and to move elegantly and gracefully, without any other end or aim, than that of p leas- ing and being pleased, are as unsatisfactory mental attain- ments and professions, as those of conjuring and fortune telling. None of them affords the mind the slightest satis- faction on reflection. The mental pursuits, therefore, of a fashionable lady, however pleasant they may be for the passing moments, have no satisfaction at their termination ; and although they may delude with the promise of hope, they conclude with the payment of disappointment. Perhaps no pursuit is more vexatious than mere novel-reading. There is rarelj 56 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. anything to comprehend, but little to learn, and that often not worth the learning ; plenty to enjoy while reading, and an abundance to suffer when read. The minds and feelings of writers and readers of novels, are constantly upon the rack. Silken, silver, or golden, it may be, but it is the rack, and minds that are frequently racked, like bodies, are not capable of being in health. We never yet knew or heard of a novelist, whether writer or reader, who was of healthy mind or body. Nothing dis- qualifies any one so thoroughly for the enjoyments and duties of the world in which we live, as the living in imagi- nation in a world of an entirely different sort. The world of fiction is as far off the world of fact as Jupiter is from our planet. Now, those who thus artificially stimulate their minds and feelings, preternaturally wear and weaken their brains and nerves, the organs of sensibility, and become excitable, ner- vous and hysterical. They have been moved until mobility, not stability, is the law of their being. An ordinary im- pression, such as persons in good health and sense can easily employ, modify, or resist, overpowers them, and throws them into fits, or paroxysms of extravagant and uncontrollable emotion. Such persons are constantly disordered. Every change of temperature is to them an endurance, equal to that of persons in health, passing from one zone or region to another. The light of a bright sunny day blinds them ; darkness of a lowering cloudy day, buries them. The misfit of a dress is "horrid," the inconvenience of it is "dreadful." Plain, wholesome food is tasteless or distasteful. Everything, excep* the most exciting food, is either insipid or nauseous. The ordinary enjoyments of life are the dullest of all stu- pidities, and the ordinary inconveniences and accidents of jfe are the most unendurable of miseries. The blood which flows to the brain, gives out the caloric PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. 57 of its composition in the mode of galvanism, and it is either employed in the pursuits and occupations of life, or it accu- mulates and causes disease. If a lady living on tolerably substantial food, do little or nothing with her brain, except receive a succession of pleasing sensations, which require a very slight expenditure of the caloric of the blood, com- monly called " nervous fluid," she will undoubtedly suffer from what are vulgarly designated " nervous headaches"— vapors and hysterics. The other organs of her body will suffer in like manner, if not properly employed. There being little expenditure of the blood by the muscles and brain, the fresh supplies from the stomach will be but slowly taken up, and the pro- cess of digestion will be very tardily carried on; for, as in political economy, so also in physiological economy, the sup- ply will be regulated by the demand. Indigestion, therefore, or dyspepsia, is an almost neces- sary concomitant of fashionable life, which is inevitably exposed to the evils of repletion and inaction. Perhaps nothing is more distressing than dyspepsia. To have no appetite, is almost equal in misery to having no desire ; but, in addition to the privation of appetite, there is the positive infliction of ill-assimilated chyle for the renewal of the blood, and by consequence a defectively organized condition of the blood, and degenerated sensation. For the same cause that the stomach is incapable of per- forming its functions rightly, the liver, spleen and pancreas, and the whole length of the intestines, are very liable to disease, yea, even the blood itself. Thus, every part of the body may have the sensations deranged. In health, there is a general pleasantness of feeling, or rather absence of feel- ing in the body, it being only an instrument of feeling for the mind. In disease, there is a constant sense of uneasi- ness, which makes us conscious of our organization—a feel- ing which often amounts to intense agony. 3* t 58 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. Some years ago, during an attack of epidemic influenza, we endured a species of torment which was so entirely new to us, and so incomprehensible, as well as inexplicable, that we could not solve the mystery of it, except by resorting to a greater mystery—the malignant operation of evil spirits. The torment consisted in the consciousness of motion and sensation in every portion of the brain. We felt the circu- lation of the blood through the brain, as distinctly as we could feel the twisting of a worm in our hand, or the crawl- ing of an insect over our skin. An amiable and philosophic Methodist minister of our acquaintance was for some time afflicted with this disorder, but in a more aggravated form ; every part of his body being, in his own vivid and graphic words, " crawling and creeping alive." He said, " I felt myself alive all over, and I often used to think that, let damnation be what it might, nothing could exceed the horror of being conscious of our own physical organization and functions, and the only proof to my own mind that I was not damned, was, that I could pray." Now this is a feeling, or disorder, very commonly expe- rienced by fashionable ladies. Their blood is ill-assimilated and composed ; their brain and nerves ar« overcharged with their unspent caloric, in the form of galvanism, rendering them susceptible of the most complicated and acute sensa- tions ; and their disordered minds, distractedly directing, not controlling, their disordered brains, they are fearfully conscious of the ill-working of their organic machinery— miserably sensitive in every part. In the most active, vivid, and creative state of the mind, we do not feel that we have a mind. We feel power and energy, but not substance. When the brain is in a good. healthy condition, the fit minister of the mind, there is no sensation of it as an instrument or machine We may feel a glow, a thrill, an elevation, a grasping, or a soaring, but we do not feel a brain. The moment that we feel we have PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. 59 a brain, we are conscious of weakness, disorder and disa- bility. There are few fashionable ladies who are not miserably conscious of possessing not only a brain, but various parts of it, as well as many organs of the body. How constantly are they made sensible of the possession of a stomach, a liver, aud bowels, a heart, and lungs, of kidneys, a bladder, and a womb. How common is it that they lead a life of miserable consciousness of being machines out of order, and often incapable of rectification aud adjustment. From these general conditions we may descend to par- ticular ones, pointing out and applying the principles and practices of fashion, and tracing the necessary results. Thus the load of hair which is often worn, and the tight- ness with which it is arranged, becomes a frequent source of most distressing pains in the head, which are usually set down to rheumatism. The most ridiculous freak with regard to the hair, was that of shaving it off, to make an artificially high forehead. Some of the weaker of the sex found, to their dismay, in place of a pale intellectual fore- head, a dark unfeminine beard—one of the last objects on a woman to attract the admiration of man, which most undoubtedly was the intention. The exposure of the neck and chest, so common in the ranks of fashion, is as injurious to the health of the body as to the purity of the soul. Diseases of the throat, the lungs, and the heart, are the necessary consequences, and thousands of the fairest of the fair are annually the victims of consumption from this cause alone. The joints and muscies of the spine are carefully preserved from every kind of laborious exercise, and thus, the circulation in them is very weak and scanty. This leads to diseases and dis- tortions of the spine, crooked shoulders, and unequal hips. The practice of tight-lacing, or dressing, obstructs the circulatiou in the muscles, and thus hinders their growth and 60 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OK FASHION. development. The consequence of this is, that the whole of the trunk is weak, requiring support, and liable to give way upon being exposed to the ordinary endurances of domestic life. The occasional exhausting activity of a ball night, whatever it may do for the muscles of the legs, is of no service to those of the body. If they .had their liberty, an occasional dance might do them good, but to exercise them in whalebone fetters is as absurd and cruel as to set priso- ners to dance in their manacles of iron. To diminish the space for the movement of the lungs, is to deprive them of a part of their function. Their office is to convert the blood returned from the veins, and the newly assimilated food from the stomach, into arterial blood. This is done by exposing small portions of blood at a time in very minute and exceedingly attenuated vessels, spread over large surfaces in the lungs, to the action of the atmosphere. A portion of the combustible materials of the blood chemically combines with the combusting portion of the atmosphere, aud sets free a large amount of caloric, which combines with the blood, and gives it the property which is called vitality. ^ If the lungs are prevented from spreading out their sur faces to the action of the air, less of good blood is made than is required for the purposes of life, and the whole of the organization becomes feeble, and the functions defective. Those portions of the lungs which are obstructed in their functions, become debilitated and absorbed. There is there- fore less lung than is natural, and that is diseased. Hence there is a sufficient foundation laid for the supervention of consumption, dropsy, aud diseases of the heart and lungs. If the lungs have not room enough to play, they will force other organs out of their place in their efforts to obtain it. The heart, deprived of comfortable space foi its movements, will palpitate, and be irregular in its action, and diseased in its substance. The stomach will be pressed down out ef itf PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION, 61 place by the force of the superincumbent diaphragm, and the substance of the organ diseased, while its function of digestion will be disturbed. Indeed the whole of the viscera of the abdomen will be pressed out of place, and disturbed more or less. There are, however, two parts toward which the pressure is usually most injuriously directed—the womb, and the last portion of the bowel. The cavity in which these organs are placed, is covered in with muscles, which are capable of, and intended for, contracting and dilating. They resist pressure to a certain extent, but after that they give way and stretch, losing their elasticity. Is it extraordinary that so many cases of prolapsus of the uterus and rectum should occur ? A fashionable pair of corsets will add to the weight of resis- tance in the abdomen from ten to thirty pounds : what wonder if something give way ? It would be a wonder if something do not. We cannot now consider the point of beauty involved in this matter ; but we merely remark, in passing, that the laws of beauty are laws of nature—that is, of the God of nature—and not of man ; and that these laws are, and must be in harmony with all other laws of nature. The very foun- dation of all science and philosophy most rigorously insists upon this harmony. It is the principle which guides us in our search for facts and truths. There is therefore no room for the argument, that the beauty of woman requires this pressure ; for this is to pass by unheeded the great prin- ciple, that we are to learn from nature, not to teach her. We may now point out some of the many reasons why a fashionable womau suffers so much more than a woman in the state of nature, in her conditions of wife and mother. A fashionable woman cannot have her maternal organs in a state of health, and therefore all the functions appertaining to those modes of her existence, will necessarily be accom- panied with inconvenience and pain. The functions of 62 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. gestation, parturition, and lactation, are performed with debilitated and diseased organs ; and, from the necessity of the case, must be disordered and disturbed. From our remarks in the previous part of this article, it will be perceived, that in those ladies who lead a fashionable life, the sensibility and excitability of every part is increased while the control over it is diminished. Thus, every func- tion which is not necessary to life, may depart from its normal condition to an unknown extent, multiplying and complicating the derangements of the whole, by the derange- ments of each, until reduction and restoration to order arc improbable, if not impossible. The remedies of medicine in such a case, like the ordinances of a municipality in the case of a country in a state of revolution, are too local and ineffi- cient for the occasion. The whole condition asd constitution need revision and renewal. The slightest acquaintance with the condition of persons in fashionable life, brings to our knowledge one of the great- est sources of misery with which they are afflicted, that of constipation of the bowels. As a cause and a consequence of disease, it is dreaded as much as it is endured. It is the ruin of many constitutions, families, and incomes, while it is the source of fortune to the pill-venders and medicine-men. This stream of misery turns the wheels of Fortune's golden manufactory for quacks and routinists, furnishing continual occasion for meddling with the doings of nature by those who think themselves entitled to be her directors and dicta- tors. The function of the bowels, like that of every other organ, depends upon the circulation ; and as this is a function of the blood-vessels, entirely involuntary, it might be supposed that we have no voluntary control over the function of the bowels. But we find that our voluntary actions have almost as much effect upon our involuntary functions, as though they were under our immediate control. Those per PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. 63 sons who work and walk much in the open air, are rarely, if ever, constipated ; while those who lead formal and seden tary lives are rarely, if ever, free from constipation. The function of th^e bowels is two-fold—chemical and mechanical—yet both depend upon the same agent for their performance—caloric ; and both depend upon the same source of caloric—the blood ; and the same mode of obtain- ing it from that source—the circulation. Whatever there- fore increases the circulation of the blood in the bowels, assists their function ; whatever diminishes the circulation, obstructs it. Every time that a muscle is contracted, the circulation of the blood is quickened, and the number and size of the blood-vessels increased. The performance of the ordinary work of a house, requir- ing the frequent, if not almost the constant contraction of some of the muscles of the trunk, pressing upon the bowels, is one of the most certain means of procuring a good circu- lation in the bowels, and therefore of securing a proper performance of their function. Brisk walking and running, which require great action of the abdominal muscles, are serviceable from this cause, as well as from the increased action of the lungs, causing a greater general circulation. A fashionable lady is obliged to sit stiffly, and as still as possible, for elegance and effect. She may not walk fast, much less run—that would be vulgar. She may not work —that would be degrading. Her bowels must be externally compressed, and kept as much as possible at rest for appear- ance. They are generally kept warm enough to preserve their heat, and often much too warm for their health ; for, to keep any part so warm that it cannot give off caloric, is to prevent circulation and life. This is the cause of disease and death, in hot climates and seasons. A fashionable lady must necessarily be constipated, and of course have a poor and fickle appetite. She takes a great deal of nauseous medicine, and has a disagreeable 64 PATHOLOGY OF A LADY OF FASHION. odor emitted from her stomach, lungs, and skin ; for if hei intestines do not perform their function property, tht stomach, lungs, skin, and bladder have to perform a part of it, in order to maintain life, an 6^ preserve as much of health as possible. The kitchen-maid and cook may have fine forms, agreeable skins and breath, and good health, while their mistress and her daughters are deprived of them all. Fashion is a deviation from the laws of health ; and those who will be votaries of fashion, must endure' the penalties of her offences. The highest refinement of culti- vation does not necessarily require the omission of one of the laws of health, nor the commission of one of the sins cf disease. The most cultivated intellect, the most refined manners, and the most thoroughly elegant person, may bt compatible, and are, frequently, with excellent health. Sad indeed would be our condition if the progress of civi- lization, the improvement of manners, and the elevation of character, were to be obtained only at the enormous cost of our health. The laws of our bodies are a part of the great system, which secures the good of the whole by the good of each part. If we cannot act in harmony with uni- versal nature, we shall inevitably be entangled in some of her omnipotent machinery, and be injured, if not destroyed. A penalty implies an offense. Suffering is the prooff the demonstration of the commission of sin. If fashion inevit- ably eutails suffering, then does it prove itself to be an offense. Were it not for the diseases produced by the prac- tices and customs of fashion, the great proportion of medical men would have nothing to live on, and perhaps nothing to do. A nervous and irritable lady, who can and does pay for medical attendance, may be worth from one to five hun- dred dollars a year to the profession. She is always ailing, incapable of being cured, susceptible of relief in various ways, and most unfortunately desirous of it. A skillful r*TBOLOGT OF A LAujT OF FASHION. r"i> quack, regular or irregular, is the most suitable person tc attend her, for science and philosophy do not suit her, aud suited she must be. Happily for her, there are fashionable doctors as well as fashionable ladies. 0». SCENES IN THE CABIN AND THE CHURCHYARD. THE OLD MAN AND HIS DARLINGS. Solemnly, very solemnly did the tolling bell warn us of our approach to the old churchyard of-------, long before we emerged in the poor little rustic wagon from the forest road that led to it, from the humble cottage whence we had brought all that remained of the innocent and lovely M----. The poor old childless and widowed grandfather rested his aged head on my shoulcrer, and never since God gave me breath have I felt the awful solemnity of my profession as I did that day. I had been summoned from the city to visit the poor young girl by a medical friend whose confidence I enjoyed from having performed several operations on his patients, and as my practice was then limited, I willingly yielded to my feelings and remained with her till the last sigh escaped her guileless bosom, and with the hand of her only protector on her forehead, she breathed her last at midnight, iu the lovely month of June, 1839. Wretchedly poor, she had sustained her poor old grandfather by her labor in a neighboring mill. The terrific force sometimes attained by the over-wrought machinery, caused a gre^at stone to fly asunder by its centrifugal action, and a frag- ment striking her on the breast, injured the internal organs so fatally, that she died in spite of the earnest efforts of her excellent physician and his friends. I found him affected even to tears at her bedside as he related to me the case, Burrounded with three of his intimate friends, one of them THE OLD MAN AND HIS DARLINGS. 67 from a distance of twenty miles, and that, too, his third visit to the house of a pauper ! Such acts make us proud of our profession. I made up my mind to remain till all danger was over, or death had rendered our efforts of no further use. Our poor patient, but sixteen years of age, was a beauti- ful girl, the child of sorrow and shame. Her mother, a' simple country creature, the old man's only daughter, fell a victim to the arts of a village monster, who had been in consequence obliged to leave the town, and was at the time of her death an attendant on a gambling hell in our city. We were now about to place the body of her child by the side of his victim, who sank some years before under the finger of unchristian scorn continually pointed at her by the village righteous, with the precept of Christ before them, ' Let him who is without siu cast the first stone." It was supposed by the medical gentleman who called me, that the extraordinary operation of elevating the breast-bone by means of the trephine, would relieve the terrible oppression of respiration, and afford room for the laboring heart and lungs to resume their natural movements. Her condition, however, was so low, that she expired before we could sufficiently elevate the circulation by wine to continue our efforts. Some spicula? of bone were immediately removed on my arrival, but she bore it so ill, that further explora- tions were omitted till next day : that night she died ; but I have no reason whatever to suppose an operation could have relieved her ; the blow was too violent, and had doubt- less produced injuries internally too serious for nature and art united to overcome. We are often charged as a body with too light an estimate of religious devotion. I know not, however, where the man can be found in our profession, who could have listened to the prayer of that poor old white-headed man of nearly eighty years, as he knelt in the only room of their little 68 SCENES IN CABIN AND CHURCHYARD. cabin, and implored of Heaven to save him his darling, the only tie that bound him to earth : " O thou who didst raise the widow's son—thou who didst anoint the eyes of the blind man and give him sight, look down from thy throne upon the wretched creature who veutures to implore thee, and upon thy servants, who would not, 0 Heavenly Father, oppose thy righteous purpose ;yet, 0 God, most holy, most merciful, if it be consistent with thy blessed will, save me that poor child of sorrow, even her at whom, like Mary Magdalen, the finger of scorn was pointed, for the sins of one who is, I trust, in heaven;—for she was kind to us all, and injured no one but herself." Here a burst of tears choked his voice, which was unusually clear for his age. We were all of us unmanned, and that night we prayed in spirit if not in words; but our efforts availed not, and it was destined by Heaven that the poor old man should finish his journey alone. It was touching, after the simple prayer had been pro- nounced, to see the old man, as his thin and suowy'locks swayed gently in the evening breeze, quietly measure with his staff the distance between the newly-made grave and the next one, whose verdure alone—for it was marked by no stone—told that it long since received its occupant. Alas 1 her only memorial was her shame and the love of an old father. He looked expressively at the old sexton as he took him by the hand and thauked him ; 't was all he had to give, even had not his old friend's tears assured him no other gift would have been acceptable. " You will put me there, Joe, will you ?" said he. •' God knows whether I will live to do it, but our friend will see to it," he replied, putting his hand on the shoulder of the good young clergy- man, whose face attested the excellence of his heart. The old sexton, however, performed the same service for his schoolmate that he had for his children; and now, if he could stretch out his arms, he might embrace both nis darlings. Rl I »« r*V CONSUMPTION. . «• NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. EXERCISE IS LIFE—INDOLENCE IS DEATH. From what point shall we start in this attempt to convey the idea of Consumption, where all is darkness to the general reader ? How shall we attempt to enlighten him ? Almost every one is quite satisfied, that pulmonary or lung con- sumption is the result of a common catarrh or cold ; and that to neglect that affection when of an obstinate character, is to run the imminent hazard of consumption ; and yet, that is very rarely, though sometimes, its exciting cause,— we had almost said, never its originating one. Reader, we will assure you, even at the hazard of incurring your displeasure for seeming rudeness, that your own views of these matters, unless derived from patient thought, and the most comprehensive and philosophical observation of the other living animals that surround you, are worse than useless ; they originate in self-esteem and pride of opinion, and prevent your acquiring that knowledge that can prolong your existence, by attending to the de- mands of nature. Your natural and unperverted instincts are constantly endeavoring to convince you of the nature of your affliction, and the only means of combating it. Conceit and physic, from the hands of some ignorant doctor, or designing empiric, will destroy you—air, warmth, nutritious food; water, and exercise, may save you. Suppose we succeed in showing you that there is a TO NATURE OF CONSDliP fA particular constitution of body, where a tendency to con- sumption is born with the child, and is almost absolutely certain to be developed and destroy him, under a proper combination of circumstances ? Suppose, moreover, we show from extensive observation and evidence, that if we can change these circumstances we may actually control the disease, and keep it at bay, till not unfrequently the person dies at an advanced life—will not this be a point worth striving for ? Come with us then, reader—read slowly and thoughtfully, and we hope to convince you of the utility of attending to the philosophy of your daily life, more espe- cially if you are threatened with this dreadful disease, so hopelessly incurable with medicine. What is the first want we experience in our entrance into this world ? Is it not air ? What the last ? Is it not the same ? What is the second want of our independent existence ? It is not food ? For surely a vigorous infant would survive many hours without it—but leave it exposed to the cold air without sufficient protection, and it would soon die. It is air then first, warmth next, and food and sleep last ; water it imbibes with its mother's milk. It is a deficiency of air, warmth, and food, that causes the development of scrofula, which is the other term for pulmonary or tubercular consumption. This we shall proceed to prove from a few of the best authorities, and what is much better, from the reader's own observation. Before we go further, we would remark, that your child, or yourself, may seem to your own judgment, to possess in abundance all these requisites, and yet be afflicted with scrofula in some part of the system, or perhaps with tuber- cular consumption. Alas ! that we should have occasion to remind you of that subduing and sad thought, " the sins of the parents descend to the third and fourth generation." Hereditary disease is acknowledged by all as the great curse NATURE O? CONSUMPTION. 11 of the hnnan family. Though surrounded with pure air atd wholesome food, your lungs, from some organic defect, or from some vice of early education or dress, may have been so long crippled, that they cannot receive enough of air to build up the body with its intended power. The stomach, likewise, may have suffered from the incapacity of the lungs to keep it in health, and from improper indulgence —and so it also becomes a disabled organ. Thus the very material of which the body is made, cannot be digested in quantity and variety sufficient for repairing its daily waste or its diseases, or for transmitting health to your posterity. If breath and food, the actual fuel of the system, be thus deficient, the energy of your nervous system will be im- paired, the heart will refuse to contract with sufficient power to drive on your impoverished blood, and deposits of tubercular or scrofulous matter may form in the bones, lungs, or some other parts of the b©dy ; in short, bring you into the first stage of consumption. We have said that our first and last want is air : which of us acts as though he realized it ? No sooner does an infant make its appearance in the world, than the very first act of an ignorant nurse lays the foundation of an evil of the greatest consequence. If not bandaged to its very throat, its viscera are at all events so compressed as to cripple its lungs, by preventing the descent of its diaphragm. Its very first act—to cry—shows its great first and last want; its persecutor does her utmost to deprive it of the very pabulum of its existence ! What is more common than to caver the head of an infant? Of course it must breathe over and over again the poisonous carbonic acid it has just thrown out of its lungs ! Within a few days we have been assured by a stupid nurse, that crackers boiled in milk were the proper nourishment for every child 1 She was strongly supported by a nean 12 NATURE OF C J N .'. U y l» T 3 0 K relative, and we believe nothing is more common out of the very highest circle of intelligence. What must follow, but a struggle for life against the most barbarous ignorance ? When we pass in review all the lower tribes of animals, from the oyster and snail, whose temperature is only 55 degrees, and are nourished with white blood or albumen, upward to those which circulate red blood, it is shown con- clusively that the temperature, red globules of the blood, and muscular fibre, all increase iu proportion to the powers of respiration and motion. Birds that fly rapidly have great heat, and respire freely. Ducks aud geese have a temperature of 100 degrees to 107 degrees. The gull and swallow 111£ degrees. In propor- tion, the lungs of these animals are much larger than those of man ; consequently his respiration and temperature are proportionally less. The heat of man is 91 degrees, while that of nearly all other red-blooded animals is four or five degrees higher. To show that exercise increases our temperature, it is observed that a man when asleep respires less frequently tbau when awake. The thermometer proves his temperature to be 95 degrees, or two degrees lower ; hence it is dan- gerous for invalids to sleep too lightly clothed, and this is the reason why cholera aud pleurisies and inflammation of the lungs often attack people while asleep ; at four o'clock in the morning the temperature of the body falls from 3° to 4°. All animals that breathe strongly are more highly organ- ized—that is to say, they have more blood-vessels ; their flesh also is more nutritious as food. Albumen is the most simple of all animal material, and all our food is reduced, by the wonderful power of the stomach, to that substance, whether we eat vegetable or animal food. The young animal of every species, however highly organized after birth, consists while within the NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. 13 womb, mostly of albumen. The egg of which the chick ii formed, contains little else, both the white and yoik being of that substance. All the larva of insects, and all crawling auimals, such as turtles, lizards, frogs, that use little motion, consist almost entirely of albumen—showing conclusively a simpler form of organization. Let us explain all this. The serum or watery-looking part of the blood that rises in the bowl when a person is bled, is composed almost entirely of albumen : in consequence of its greater thinness, it can circulate in smaller vessels, and nourish parts where red blood, which consists of fibrin and red globules, cannot go. For instance, the latter could not go over the front of the eye or cornea, or in the white mem- branes or tendons : if it did it would obscure the sight, and probably not suit the free motion of the tendons, or too rea- dily admit of inflammation, and thus make them immovable, by causing them to adhere to the surrounding parts. Now the reader will please remember that albumen is the sole product of digestion ; that it goes into the blood as albu- men, aud can only be changed from that state, by passing through the luugs—this it begins to do immediately. A great vessel appropriated solely to it, gathers it up from the intestine just below the stomach, and conveys it into a vein on the left side of the neck : it is not yet red like blood, but creamy and white ; it passes at once into the vein, aud mingles with the red blood which has been circulating through the luugs and body. In a few minutes it has passed through the lungs, and been subjected to the action of the air, and is then rapidly becoming fibrin, or the material of which muscle or red flesh is composed. When the young animal is born, its muscles are pale ; as it gains strength and breathes more freely, its motions increase, and they become red. Muscles are the red flesh of animals ; they are formed of 4 - 14 NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. this more highly vitalized albumen, aud it is now called fibrin. The muscles are attached to the bones, and hav- ing powers of contraction precisely in proportion to the breathing and exercise used, cause a man to be considered strong or weak. The heart is a muscle as well as the calf of the leg ; one moves without the will, the other is obedient to it. We have said that muscles move the bones in all the motions we perform ; they do, and they likewise raise up the ribs, being subject to act both with and without our will ; thus they cause the air to rush in the lungs ; free motion demands free respiration, which demands nourishiug food ; the breath and the.food are the fuel, and cause animal heat; HEAT AND MOTION ARE LIFE ; QUIET AND COLD ARE DEATH ; EXERCISE PRODUCES FIBRINE ; INDOLENCE ALBUMEN. All animals that breathe largely, have a more complex set of ribs than the inferior tribes. Most of these have uo ribs. Man has twelve pairs, the ox thirteen, the horse eighteen, the elephant twenty ; their food being vegetable, they require complex organs, both of digestion and respira- tion, to sustain them in their labor, and increase their fibriue. Let us now return to oysters and snails, that are nour- ished with albumen. But what has all this to do with the formation of tubercular consumption, or scrofula ? Simply this : tubercles are composed entirely of albumen, and so are scrofular swellings and tumors of the neck, sometimes called king's evil ; caries of^the vertebrae or back bone in children, called spine disease, and white swellings of the knee, as well as tubercular consumption, all are caused by deposits of albumen from the blood, in consequence of deficient exercise and breathing. They are all one and the same disease. Remember, reader, it is the nature of an oyster or snail to circulate albumen ; it is its proper blood ; but the more NATURE OF CONSUiPTION. 15 highly organized animals must have a large portion of fibrin to form their muscle or red flesh, as well as their proper amount of albumen to nourish the white tissues. It is health in one, disease in the other. Why it should so often select the lungs, bowels, bones, and the surface of the inner lining of the abdomen, to be deposited in the form of tubercles, we do not know ; but we trust you will now see the necessity of extended observation throughout the various tribes of nature's kingdom, before venturing to form an opinion, and the immensely important consequence of attend- ing to your natural instincts. Indolence is a perversion of a natural instinct. Man should not imitate an oyster or a snail. We have said that consumption often descends to the children from the parents. Many parents marry when actu- ally in the first stage of consumption. We have often every reason to believe, that a single year after marriage will circumscribe the existence of one of the parties ; yet this is no hindrance to the production of offspring ; of course, that offspring must actually have tubercular formations in some part of the body, or be so thoroughly predisposed to them, that it is sure to die, either of consumptive disease of the spine, bowels, or brain. Infants rarely die of actual lung consumption ; the taint derived from the parents shows itself in them mostly in spinal disease, or what is far more frequent, disease of the brain or bowels. The two latter are fortunately a great outlet of life for these diseased little creatures. We hope to be understood in thus expressing ourselves. If the lamentable ignorance of physiology per- mits the parents to marry, surely nature is merciful in cutting short the lives of as many of these diseased children as possible. Tubercles are small masses of an irregular shape and size, varying from a millet seed to a buck shot, and even 76 NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. larger ; they are very like cheese in appearance, and arc mostly produced in consumption of the lungs, in the upper parts of these bodies, directly under the collar-bone. They are not organized—that is to say, no blood-vessels can be traced into them. They are scattered about single and in groups, and are as foreign to all the uses of the lungs as so many gravel-stones. When nature will endure them no longer, the parts around and about them inflame, matter ii formed, and then the tubercles being loosened, they are coughed up through the windpipe ; a person thus situated is in the second or suppurating stage of consumption. The common belief is that he is rarely cured ; but we believe if attentive to his natural instincts, he would often recover. Medicine and the lancet will destroy the only means he pos- sesses of healing the cavities left when the tubercles are coughed up. Exercise, warmth, and food will often cure them, as we know by observation. It is a remarkable fact, that many of the wild animals, when reduced to confinement, die of consumption ; thus illus- trating and proving that great point we wish to impress upon the reader. The keepers of menageries inform us that lions, monkeys, and parrots often die of consumption, and when examined show tubercles in their lungs. Mr. Youatt, in his work on cattle, gives the following account of the cause of this disease : "There is one striking tact, showing the injurious effect of heated and poisoned air on the pulmonary system. There are cow-houses in which the heat is intense, and the inmates are often in a state of profuse perspiration. The doors and windows must be sometimes opened, and the wind blows in cold enough upon those that are close to them, and one would naturally think could not fail to be injurious. No such thing. Those are the animals that escape ; but the others at the further end, NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. 11 uml on whom no wind blows, and where no perspiratioE is checked, are the first to have inflammation and con- sumption." Mr. Youatt might have added, that we often have those tubercles served up on our tables. The flesh of these animals is frequently exposed in our markets as prime beef. Tubercles, when not suppurating, seem to have little effect in preventing the fattening of cattle. We likewise eat them in solution in our puddings, and feed them to our children in the swill milk with which our city is so well supplied. The ourang outang died a few years since iu this city, of consumption. Horses have it; it is called farcy—with fowls, the pip. We had occasion to observe some years since, the great frequency of scrofula, and particularly its obstinate attacks on the eyelids, in the children of the House of Refuge in this city ; the sleeping apartments of that institution were not properly ventilated, and nothing could be done with % those afflicted until the patients were removed into an airy hospital, and allowed a generous diet. Enlarged tonsils are often of scrofulous origin ; we have often been obliged to remove them in patients with diseased lungs, because of the great difficulty they caused in breathing. A low, humid situation, bad aud watery diet, with little beef or mutton, weary and monotonous employment, such as sewing, which deprives the poor girl of fresh air, and keeps the body in a bent position, thus also checking the free circu- ation, all produce scrofula and consumption. Who that has a heart to feel and a head to judge, but must be convinced, when considering the condition of these poor girls, as well as those employed in factories, and quite satisfied of the shocking results of weary and monotonous labor—in the stifling atmosphere ot a Lowell factory, foi instance ? It may be desirable, as the political economist* 18 NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. tell us, for reasons possibly very convincing to themselves, but God knows it is very opposite to the natural desires ; we can hardly think that a woman's qualities as wife or mother could be improved by such exercise. Some years since, on a visit to Lowell, we were struck with the unmistakable evidence of scrofular and uterine dis- ease in the faces of the factory inmates. There was scarcely a healthy face there. It is quite sickening to read the false- hoods we often see in print, respecting their ruddy complex- ions. There is still a relic of barbarism in use by American women—although we are happy to see some of the more highly educated repudiate it—we mean the corset, which has done much, we believe, to increase consumption. In a lecture delivered some eighteen years since on this subject, we find an expression of onr feelings, which we have had no occasion to alter, from the observation of later years. " The lungs are the very citadel of life, and on their free- dom of action and integrity depends the full development of the functions of the future woman. How absurd, then, -to begin in the very dawn of existence to incapacitate them for the fulfillment of their functions, to prevent their expansion, to shut out the very breath of life, that gives development and symmetry to the whole figure ! Monstrous, barbarons ignorance !" Look at nature as spread out before your view over tho whole universe ; look at her thousand tribes of ever-moving, changing life ; behold them in their varied states of action and repose; the birds of the air, the lambs that skip over the verdant meadow. Has she ever been known to oppose an obstacle to the fulfillment of her ends ? Could the eagle soar to the clouds, or the lark sing his matin lay, if the great process of life's renovation was checked within them? NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. IS We know that their muscular energy, their power of risiug in air, depends upon their perfect freedom of respira tion. The means of escaping pursuit, of obtaining food, is never denied them. We alone, with our high powers of reason, reserve to ourselves • the skill of improving the forms of nature. More by far than personal consequences follow this mighty evil ; posterity has suffered ; the mind of the rising genera- tion, depending on its physical strength, must continue to suffer ; the children of weak and unhealthy parents, if they survive childhood, have the seeds of tubercular disease within them. If their early years should be spent under very questionable subjection to medical regimen, should they chance to survive adolescence, where is their experience of life ? That predominance of the nervous system always visi- ble in those whose early years have been spent entirely within doors, fostered by an education derived mostly from that mass of contemptible, filthy, and licentious trash, called the light literature of the day, has totally cut off all expe- rience of true life, all knowledge of useful facts ? The aching head, the prostrated body, are not capable of acquir- ing judgment or expansion. Do we talk of beauty ? I appeal to sculpture. The forms of classic art are the reverse of modern deformity. Not a modern shape is to be seen in all the sculpture of Italy. Graceful carriage ? It is a union of delicacy and strength ; the limbs are planted firmly in the successive steps, the chest expauds freely, the head is erect, the eyes on a level with the horizon, and often elevated to the heavens. Is this a picture of life in the Broadway ? The tottering step, the panting or suppressed respiration, the immovable chest, the downcast lids—are they not visible wherever we turn our eyes ? God forbid that the future generation of our country should inherit the taste of the present age ; we should fear the event of another 80 NA1URE OF CONSUMPTION. revolution. We had intended to refer in this article to the proper method of inhaling those remedies that are known to alleviate the symptoms of consumption Some very extraordinary results have certainly been attained by that process, and we doubt not that those who are capable of receiving any benefit from medicine, would find it with far greater certainty by that method, than by poisoning the stomach and injuring the digestion, thus destroying ib.6 powers of that great conservative organ which is, next ;c the lungs, the great source of life. KIXQ D1HT5 TN Fl.« V B I L 0 W ROBE. 81 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. tOQ DEATH IN HI3 YELLOW ROBE—THE PROUD MERCHANT—THE LOVB.V CREOLE WIFE. The days were very beautiful, though intensely hot, and the sun-dried air brought but little refreshment as it came sweeping off broad gulf and bay. It had not rained foi forty days ! God help the fever-sick ! Green leaf of plant and tree was scathed—the ground cracked open, and became an ashy dust, that rose whirlwind high in the parched air— and the little birds no longer sang, for there was no early morning dew to sparkle, and bid welcome to the great red sun. Vegetable and animal life were oppressed ; plant-sap and blood were dried up by that fevered atmosphere. Is there any one who passed through this dreadful season of '39, that will cease to remember it ? Will he forget the weakening nights, the scorching days, and hub-high dust to graveyard, where coffins of unburied dead lay in offensive heaps, awaiting the time when officials and friends could find strength and heart to hide them in the yet undug earth ? To the piny woods ran some—to the gulf and bay shore, to the north, to the highland plantations, fled others, in hopes of escaping the dread fever-pestilence that mowed them down like cannon. When the frost came, some returned to toll how others bad died when not far on their flight; and how others, 4* 82 SCENES 1J1 SOCTHERN PRAOtlOI. whose safety seemed secured, had hid within them the seeds of the plague, and died most miserably, untenied and unhoused. Some, when the fever first broke out, shut up their houses, and departed immediately, whilst others remained, hoping it would not rage high, and that they would escape. But in a few days such hopes were blighted, for all were fast losing relatives and friends. Young and old, new comer and the native, alike fell before the increasing pestilence. Some scarce lived six hours from the invasion ! In the night before, perhaps, they had made merry with their friends—had carelessly passed the jest, that whoever died the others would bury ; and before the second night had come, their sportive speech was verified 1 In one instance, five had so merrily jested ; on the fifth day but one remained to tell the tale. Where some two lived together, their friends, alarmed at seeing the windows remaining closed, would enter, and find f the work of death was doing, or had been done. Life seemed a sport 1 The wine-cup or card-table was sought to drown harrowing care ; and many died in rooms in which the grossest dissipation was entered into, to drive away the horrors of the scene. With many others I had fled to P----, near the gulf, where a beautiful bay, on the shores of which the hotel was situated, offered both amusement and security. The rainless days and dewless nights were rapidly drying up all signs of vegetation ; here and there the wide-spreading bay tree remained triumphant in dark green leaf, whilst the tall pine and lowlier cedar, day by day were losing their color, and parching by the heat of the unrelenting sun. When forest and wood, streamlet and spring, withered and wasted, is it a wonder that man's blood should grow thick and fever-charged ? Yet, free from the infected cities, the traveller, when he arrived, would thank God for his ssc-jpe, and bear bravely with the heat, for the bay waters X IN« DEATH IN HIS YELLOW ROBE. 83 were sparkHng in the right merry sun, and the air did no1 bear the wing of the angel of death. But, alas ! with some their rejoicings were too-early born, for the fatal seeds of the fever were ripening within them. Some drooped and died shortly after arrival ; others remained apparently secure, when of a sudden, a pain, covering a spot not larger than a marble, would seize them in the back, head, or neck, or a singular death-like chill would crawl down their spines, takiug away strength from marrow and muscle, whilst brain and bowel burnt as though in a kiln. Sometimes the unfortunate man would tell you he felt quite well, save for that paiu in the back of his head ; indeed, his spirits were rather high, and he only thought he might be sick because his pulse "ran so fast." Then the pain would increase, the skin become fire-hot, unlike any other fever heat when touched. Yellow, and deeper yellow, would grow the skin, the lip-uncovered teeth become sordes dark, and the whole countenance in quickening changes tell how busily death worked within. Some would become offensive before they died, and retain their senses to* the last ; whilst others would walk wildly about, raving like maniacs, and die with curse, incoherent prayer and speech, or ribald song, upon their blackened lips. When the vomit attacks, it is not thrown off as in bilious fevers, with sickness and convulsive effort—it boils up, as some hot spring, from the stomach, running like coffee- grounds over the lips and chin, or is forcibly jetted out to the distance of several feet, plashing against wall or floor on its hearse-like course. The self-devotion, the true-hearted charity, the Christ acting feeling of many whom the fever had not attacked, cannot be appreciated unless witnessed ; and although some deserted their kindred and their friends when struck by the dread fever, and left them, in their flight for self-preser 84 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. vation, to die with.raving brain aud parching throat, uncared for and uncojjhned—yet, thank God, there were others who, fearless and firm, and but too often victims, came alike to friend, to stranger, and to foe, administering to theii fevered wants, and registering their latest wishes. Bands of gentlemen left their homes and their occupations, and joined in this brotherhood charity, while the Sisters of Mercy, high in their catholic duly, came like angels to all classes who needed their service, and at the expense of health, and by forfeit of life, performed those duties which can never be for- gotten by the living, and were blessed by the dying. The day had been unusually hot, the sea breeze had failed, and the huge red disk of the sun, as it went down, gave still the promise of a morrow alike suffocating. We were sitting lazily enough at our doors—for who had energy ?—wondering if the next coming day would be alike stifling, and pitying the poor fever-sick of our distant city. Coming slowly along the bridge, that extended half a mile into the water of the fronting bay, we perceived Mr. D----, with fishing-rod and basket in hand. He had been trailing in that hot sun since noon. His swar- thy countenance seemed a little flushed, and his eye was more restless than usual. He passed quietly to his rooms, followed by his servant, bowing austerely to those he knew. The world had prospered well with him—a large fortune had been amassed, but not enjoyed, for the everlas- ting love of greater gain haunted him. He was an atheist —gold his only god ! Life to him was all—hereafter % starless blank. Yet, the man so grasping, so austere, aud so hopeless, loved and was married to a most beautiful Creole, whose very soul he seemed to hold. She was a zealous Catholic, and by her ardent charity and womanly humanity had ren- dered softer the rough angles or her husband. In figure she was fuJI but graceful, with luxuriant hair, which, when KING DEATH IN HIS YELLOW ROBE. 85 loosened, covered her completely in its dark waving tresses, and eyes whose liquid light would cause one to cease in con- versation, and wonder alike at their beauty, and how her atheist husband could look into their soul-moving depths and not see the evidence of God within. Yet, so it was— he loved her truly in his way, without sentiment, but with passion and pride of possession. She and his gold were his all. The next rooms to those of Mr. D----were occupied by the celebrated Professor----, of P----, whose infirmity of health had caused him to seek a southern climate. We were still conversing together, when the servant of Mr. D---- interrupted us, by desiring that the Doctor would imme- diately visit his master. Scarce an half hour had gone by since he had passed with fishing-rod in hand. After an absence of twenty minutes the Doctor returned. His coun- tenance was grave and thoughtful. " Mr. D." said he, " is ill ; he has the pain in the head, his pulse is 108, aud yet he says he thinks it will pass away, as iu other respects he feels well. But it will not pass away, save when he dies 1 The first stage of the fever is upon him—to-morrow the vomit will likely seize him, and in twenty-four hours after he will have died. Here, within a few feet, with his doom sealed, lay the rich man who just now with haughty mien had passed by. Thirty-nine days he had been absent from the infected city 1 " My experience in this disorder," continued the doctor, slowly, " leads me to have no hope for the poor man, and yet I cannot say so to that loving wife ; poor thing, she will too soon know it." My room was upon the other side of D----'s chamber, separated by a mere lath partition. Every deep breath he drew I could hear during the night—the very steps of his Creole wife fell upon my ear. The next day broke—the sun rose in his fire-chariot—the fever-sick gasped, and prayed foi B6 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. a change in vain ; the air was oven-hot. Ice smoked and melted over the sick man's head and bowels ; still the fever- fire remained. Cool drinks gave no refreshing respite to nis parched throat—the brain hammered on ; Death was at his forge burning up flesh and blood. The night at length came on, and the breeze that had failed during the long day, streamed gently into window and wide-open door. For a time the sick man roused up ; he seemed refreshed, and his breath, though rapid and oppressed, grew deep and deeper. Hope again sat radiaut upon his poor wife's brow 1 Alas 1 how many have thus hoped, and hoped in vain 1 The night wore on, and ten o'clock came. I was passing the door, when out rushed Mrs. D----, and seizing hold of my arm, she cried, " Oh, God 1 he is worse ; do something to save my husband 1" Gently unloosing her grasp, and'begging her to quiet her fears, I approached the bed. My God ! what a change a day had wrought. The features were sharp and haggard— the skin tight-drawn and glazed over his forehead and cheek bones—the natural swarthy complexion had become an orange yellow—the eyes, with pupils contracted to their utmost, were widely open—his fine teeth, covered with dark sordes, were exposed by the withdrawn lips, whilst up and down with every breath moved the dry black tongue. Two or three wax candles were casting long dismal shadows on the walls, and just above the sick man's head, upon the ceiling, waving to and fro, was the outline of funeral plume and streamer, foretelling the nigh coming of death. I took the scorching hand within my own, as D----■ fixed his wild-staring eyes upon me. " I hope, Mr. D----, you are better." " Hope, sir, hope 1" he cried, whilst every word hissed from his dry mouth. " You do not hope—you know that I am worse I burn—I am parching up." I felt his pulse—it was quite natural! perhaps a little KING DEATH IN HIS YELLOW ROBE. 81 more rapid, but soft like a young child's. In a few minutes I left him, and went to the doctor's chamber. I said to him I thought his patient was better. " How is his pulse?" he simply replied. I answered him. "Then he dies. The forge will soon stop, and by ten o'clock to-morrow all will be over." • Putting his arm through mine, the doctor walked with me to my chamber. " You think," continued he, taking a seat by the table, " that Death works fast in his yellow raiments ; well, in this case he has not worked so rapidly as in some others that have fallen under my notice. In P----, the fever, in the year '93, raged furiously ; all night the dead carts would roll heavily along, with men crying out, ' pass out your dead ;' and coffins would sometimes be lowered from upper stories of lodging-houses, so fearful of infection were the occupants of the lower rooms. One day, about noon, I was hastily sent for to visit one of my patients. I found him walking up and down the parlor floor, a good deal agitated. " ' Ah, doctor,' he cried, ' my wife would send for you— she is alarmed—I am not sick, except an excruciating spot of pain in the back of my head.' I felt his pulse, it was over 100, and his countenance seemed changing while we were talking. In vain I persuaded him to go to bed. He had gone about two hours before into the centre of the infected district to obtain some money—had not remained fifteen minutes, and returned home to dine with his little family. His speech became less coherent, and a most decided alteration of countenance had now taken place. Dinner was served, and taking a seat at the table he said he would eat a little rice. He raised the spoon to his mouth, when suddenly his teeth closed spasmodically on it, and with an out-stretching convulsive movement of his arms and hands, he fell sideways upon the floor. We quickly raised him, and laid him upon a sofa, but he was quite dead I" 38 SCENES IV SOUTHERN PRACTICE. At this moment the figure of the Creole wife glided in, her features pale as ashes, and her deep dark eyes wide open with terror ; upon the palm of her hand, she held a nap- kin, in the midst of whose dark folds lay a dark brown spot. " What is this, doctor ?" she cried, holding the cloth before his eyes. " My daughter," he answered, " it looks like coagulated blood." With a convulsive sob, she left the room. Presently she rushed in again, but the napkin was no longer white, it was completely covered and ran down with a dark coffee-ground fluid. " What is that ?" she. almost shrieked. The old man took the stained towel from her hand, and in a low voice said, " It is the black vomit, my poor child." Oh, what a sob of unutterable despair broke from that loving wife's pallid lips 1 All night the work of death was going on ; splash, splash against wainscoat and wall, basin and floor, sounded the fatal vomit, as it was pumped from the sick man's stomach. Towards morning sleep came over me. and I dreamed of the plague—of women weeping, men and little children dying like sheep ; when I awoke the sun was some hours high, and the air again oven-hot. At breakfast, none in that great crowd seemed merry, not even the very young, for all had heard of some dear one, dead or dying. It was now nine in the morning ; the sun was climbing into window and door, heating the room like a kiln. I entered D.'s room—around the bed stood several of his friends, with two or three ladies. With her long dark hair, like a mourning veil, covering her figure as she lay with her head on the seat of a chair, knelt the stricken wife The sun was now bright on the head of the bed, where lay the dying man, propped by his pillows, with the dark stained KING DEATH IN HIS YELLOW ROBE. 89 iheets in disordered rolls, over him. There lay the man, who, scarcely six-and-thirty hours before, had passed along, with head erect and proud step, a miserable wreck, unrecog- nizable, and already offensive! How fast was death claiming his victim ! The bright sunlight now touched his hair, and soon fell full upon his changing face, which grew darker and more terrible to look upon ; the lips, drawn back, exposed every tooth, whilst the bright gleam glanced upon their white crowns, as with wide-open mouth he labored on, and on, for breath, straining muscle of face and neck, in this great last battle for life. No longer the pulse beat at the wrist ; and as I laid my ear upon his chest, his tired heart slowly throbbed—cluck—cl uck. At this moment, wrapped in his morning gown, and with crossed arm, walked gently in the doctor. In an instant the dying man's wife heard the step, and springing up, with her lon°" hair trailing over her feet, she clasped his knees, and sobbed : " Oh ! doctor, why can you not, with your skill, save me my husband ?" The doctor quietly raising his finger on high, pushed back the hair from her broad forehead, saying, " The Lord alone can save !" Quietly putting my arm around her waist, I raised her ; " Come, dear madam," I whispered in her ear, " and be near him, for in after years it will comfort you much to kuow that you held his hand, and received his latest breath." With a shudder, and shrinking from me, she exclaimed, " Oh, God, I cannot look upon him, he is too awful 1" A low wailing sound, like some one in deepest grief, came from the dying mau's mouth. " Do not distress him more," I said to her ; "he hears >ou, and it grieves him ; his brain is still alive. Ask for Borne sign." 90 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. She seized his hand, aud clasping it tight to her panting bosom, she cried in a voice that pierced our very souls,— " Husband, dear husband, give me one little, little sign that you know I am by you, and that you heard me pray the live-long night by your side ?" And his black tongue uttered lol—lol—lol—lol— " Oh, he hears me," she again with agony cried : " one more sign, dearest, that you now think of your long-denied God, and that you have some little hope ?" Again the black and stiffening tongue moved to and fro, and lol, lol, hoarsely struck the ear. He had heard her ! Then with one short struggle all was over. We carried the widowed wife to an unoccupied room at the end of the gallery. Not a tear dropped from her eye ; she had grieved too much, and the heart-springs were dried. With a voice thrillingly calm, she said to me,— " Tell me, do your Northern women shed tears when their husbands die ? for I cannot ; I cannot think enough ; yet he was very kind to me, and loved me well. Tis very strange I am so calm, when he is dead 1" Fearing lest her brain might suffer, I told her I would tell her how, at the North, little children died in our sum- mers ; that one day full of health and promise, the next day they ailed and drooped ; aud before long the dysentery would set in, and they gradually wasted away, with their sweet faces so wan and pale, and their little dry hands so hot in the palms, as they weakened on—how their heart- stricken mothers watched their fading forms, and clung closer and closer to them, till robbed of blood and of every vital fluid, naught remained to clasp but the cold image of their loved one marbled in death. As I related these stories, a deep heavy sigh escaped from the desolate wife, and tears that refused to flow for her own misfortunes, flowed like rain for those of another. She was saved KINO DEATH IN HIS YELLOW ROBE. 91 When the sun went down, we took the corpse and placed it in a plain pine coffin, covered with black muslin, and bore it through the wood, where a grave had been hastily dug. His head clerk read the service for the dead, but the night closing rapidly in, the print became obscure, and thus, with funeral service half read, was buried the once proud mer- chant. »2 FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. COLD FATAL TO INFANTS. On taking up our pen, in order to do something in tne way of instructing the people, by the examination of the human body, we were a little in doubt where to begin the dissection. It is the most natural, we think, to commence with the skin, for there in dissection the scalpel first performs its office, and it is the part through which, as an organ of sense, we hold the greatest amount of communication with sur- rounding objects. It is also the watchful sentinel that warns us of the contact of hurtful things, and like the military guard on duty, is the first to be encountered on the way to the citadel within. The skin is regarded as the peculiar seat of feeling, and we would treat of it as an organ of feeling only at the present time, reserving for future consideration the study of its other functions. While reflecting on this subject, a very natural desire arose to group with it the other organs of sense, and to present to our readers as plain an account as we could, of the nature of the five external senses, of the organs in which they are seated, the means whereby they may become deranged, and the natural methods of .preventing and remedying those derangements. External Senses.—The external senses are five in number : feeling, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. They are intended FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. 0.1 to apprise man of the objects he should seek or shun They receive and transmit to the brain, those impressions which will enable him to judge of the qualities of bodies in the material world. The acuteness of the senses should be carefully cultivated, for the purpose of assisting the intellect in its power of active and precise discrimination of these objects, and also to supply it with materials wherewith to act. The simple employment of the senses does not increase directly the amount of intelligence, any more than the employment of the muscles of the body ; both are put in operation by the action of the brain. They must be regarded, therefore, as mere instruments of the brain, adding nothing directly to its perfection. The idiot and man of genius, the savage and the civilized, have the senses equally developed, while the intellectual development is far from being equal; indeed, in the savage, the majority of the senses are far more acute, than they are among those who have the benefits of the instruction of civilized life. Feeling and Touch.—The organ of feeling is the skin ; that of touch is the hand. There are different degrees of delicacy in the touch ; the ends of the fingers possess it to the most perfect extent, while it is less in the palm. In both, motion is needed to perfect the sense of touch; but from the imperfect development of it in the palm of the hand, a movement, such as grasping, is absolutely needed to convey the impression of the form of a body to the brain. Tt is by the transmission of a certain species of knowledge to the brain; that feeling, in common with the other senses, guards the safety of the individual. There are a number of curious facts recorded in different scientific works, which prove the truth of this assertion. In the " Medico-Chirurgical Transactions," there is an ac- count of a man whose hands up to the wrists, and whose feet and legs half way to the knees, were perfectly insensible to any species of injury ; such as cutting, pinching, scratching, 94 FUNCTIONS OF THK SKIN or burning. This man accidently put one of his feet into boiling water, but was not otherwise aware of the high temperature, than by finding the whole surface completely blistered on removing it. A French surgeon, M. Rullier, gives also an instance of a patient who was similarly affected in his lower limbs, who twice burned himself in his knees, which were placed in contact with a hot stove, with such severity, that large scars were formed, without his having been warned of his danger or his exposure, such was the destitution of sensibility in the parts exposed. In another case, a patient was insensible to the progress of a severe inflammation in the arm, which took place from an injury ; indeed, such was the insensibility of the limb, that he actually broke his arm, and thought from the crush, that he had broken the spade with which he was at work 1 In order to maintain the faculty of feeling and the delicacy of touch, cleanliness, the usual appliances of the toilet, fine clothing of a supple texture, and the avoidance of those occupations which tend to thicken the epidermis,—as the fine outer covering of the skin is called,—are ah abso- lutely necessary. This is evident from the effect which an exposure to those circumstances which destroy the suscep- tibility of the skin produces. The hardy and rough occupation of a laborer, blacksmith, and of such as are necessarily exposed constantly to the violence of a severe atmosphere, with insufficient clothing, and yet retain their ordinary health—all such persons are destitute of the delicacy of physical feeling which characterizes others differ- ently situated. Iu anticipation it is necessary to remark, that great care should be used not to place the sense of feeling too far removed from the source of its natural impressions, for by such a course, an excessive amount of sensibility would be developed, often to a very serious extent. These remarks do not apply to the sense of touch, as this FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. 95 never can be made too acutely sensitive, and it is only by the constant exercise of this sense that its delicacy can be perfected. Blind persons, who are forced to exercise it constantly, and who direct their attention almost exclusively to it, acquire the greatest delicacy of touch, and are able to read with facility in a mode which imparts no impression of a distinct character to others, who have not cultivated the sense of touch. As to directions for the cultivation of the sense of touch, they are almost unnecessary, for every one knows that the hand and fingers should be properly preserved in their delicacy to maintain it in its perfection ; bruises and injuries of every kind impair this sense very essentially, but it is rarely altogether destroyed. Feeling appears to be most useful in giving us a know- ledge of temperature. It indicates with accuracy the degree of heat which is proper for the maintenance of health, with reference to the atmosphere with which we are surrounded, and to the condition of our own bodies. The nerves distributed over the skin, are for this purpose a much better thermometer than the ordinary philosophical instrument, and whenever there is a want of correspondence between the latter and the sense of feeling, it should always be from our own sensations that we should derive the information we need. The temperature of stone, wood, linen, or wool, may be found precisely the same when measured by a thermometer ; yet these various substances, when in contact with the skin, produce a very different impression in the sensation they produce, each possessing different powers of carrying off heat. It is on this account that a linen garment next the skin, is so much more cold to the sensation than one of wool. Another illustration may be found in an ordinary cellar, where the temperature differs but little throughout the year ; yet we will experience a feeling of cold or heat as we enter it, in the summer or 96 FUNCTIONS OF THE SEII. winter, arising from the transition from the external tem- perature to which the skin has become accustomed. The sensation of cold thus produced is not less injurious than actual cold applied to the body, which is applicable by the thermometer. The practical inference to be drawn from what we have said, is, that the sensations of feeling relative to tempera- ture at all ages, should be strictly heeded as a rule of health, with reference to the employment of clothing. This fact is of the greatest importance to persons of a delicate constitu- tion, and liable to be easily chilled. Such persons should never wear linen next to the surface of the body, nor sleep between linen sheets. Indeed, we regard the introduction of fine cotton sheets as a very great improvement in domes- tic economy, more especially as regards health. When an individual wishes to harden himself, as it is termed, against the natural changes of temperature, he should always keep in mind that he is not to accomplish this object by undergoing pain, or any disagreeable sensation, but only by cautiously inuring himself to the causes which produce these disagreeable sensations. The effort should be gradually made, and stopped whenever any decidedly unpleasant effects are produced ; in this manner, much greater progress will be made than by enduring pain—for that can never be done, even for a moderate period, with impunity. New-born children should always be kept warm ; besides other ill effects, the impressions of cold are extremely pain- ful to the skin, scarcely covered with the epidermis, and the sudden change experienced by the child, which has just passed from a temperature of 91 degrees. Instinct, expe- rience, and statistical records all agree in the importance of warmth to the young child. One of the manifestations of the love of all animals to their young, is to protect them from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere, and to impart to FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. 97 their offspring warmth from their own bodies. Nature also appears to shun the production in winter of such as suffer the most from cold. There have been a number of experiments made within a few years, upon the heat of the human body, and the fol- lowing interesting facts have been established : 1st. That power of producing heat is at its minimum in a new-born child—the temperature at the arm-pits being 80 degrees, while in the adult it is 96 degrees. It is obvious that the demand for heat must be the greatest at this early period of life, when the supply from the body itself is so limited. 2d. That the youngest children are those that chill the most easily, and that their mortality often depends upon this natural condition of the system. Varied and extensive experiments have been made upon the lower animals, which it is unnecessary here to detail; but they all go to show how injurious cold is to the young of all animals. Every farmer knows the disastrous effects of a backward spring iu the poultry yard. These positions are fully maintained by statistical re- searches on the relation existing between the mortality of infants, and the true state of the thermometer, which prove that the mortality of new-born children is greatly increased by cold. In order to protect infants from the effects of cold, nurses should not judge of the effect produced by a slight degree of low temperature on their own sensations, for this is not the proper criterion ; a pale and shrunken aspect, cold hands aud arms, will often appear in infants, arising from cold, when no sensation is experienced by an adult. Iu this country, where parents are mostly over-careful in keeping their children too warm, the summer is much more to be dreaded than winter ; for the deaths among children it that period of life are much more numerous at that leason. 5 98 FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. The attempts to render the child accustomed to the air and to cold, must never be neglected, for it will probably happen, as he grows older, that from the impossibility of carefully watching him on all occasions, he will at times be accidentally exposed to the influence of atmospheric vicissi- tudes. FASHIONABLE FROG-POOLl. 99 WATERING-PLACE SNOBS. ■OTKL CONVENTIONALITY, WITH 8PECIMBN8 OF EACH OBNUS AND 8PBCIB5. If there be one place this side of a beggar's opera and dinner-party, as described in the graphic page of some Euro- pean traveller, that presents to the observer a complete microcosm of humanity, it is an American watering-place. A season at Saratoga, Newport, or Cape May, opens as large a page of nature as the moderate intellect of an ordinary observer can well digest during the next year's existence ; and if its owner do not lose his individuality, and find his skull and its contents gradually turned into a porridge-pot, and give occasion to some of our pathological brethren for a post-mortem and certificate of " Ramollise- raent Cerebri"* he may thank Heaven for blunting his perceptive faculties, and saving his carcass from so high a preferment before the kind offices of an undertaker, or the keeper of a lunatic asylum, at the least. A periodical mania seizes most of our citizens at the approach of the dog-days, and as soon as the corporation let loose the dread ministers of the law on the unfortunate canine family, two legged Puppydom takes the alarm, and rushes from the city, like one of their four-legged brethren, alarmed at the novel appendage of a tin-kettle to his caudal extremity, and a free course up Broadway. We have made this extraordinary moral affection the sub- Softening of the braip. 10* WATERING-PLACE SNOBS. ject of considerable observation, during the last twenty years of our practice, and have studied the epidemic, as it has appeared in various parts of our country ; and as the disease has become exceedingly common and of unvaried periodical return, the observations made on some of the vic- tims may not be without interest to our readers. It is true, our experience has not been very extensive at those more notorious places, where the infection has been attended with most alarming symptoms, because we have found it both necessary and agreeable, during the latter portion of our professional life, to share our duties and observations with two associates, for whose safety we have a little more consi- deration than our more enthusiastic brethren usually have for themselves. The disease is not generally fatal to them, not only because they are mostly free from the complicatiou of pecuniary congestion, but because their morals and niau- ners, in their latter days, generally lend peculiar force to that elegantly illustrative apothegm—" I'ts hard to spoil" a—a—ah—the albuminous contents of a calciferous and ovicular receptacle of gallinaceous vitality usually called by the vulgar—an egg, Excuse us, sweet reader, for the coarse allusion, and give us credit in the very introduction of the proverb to such refined notice, for perfect liberality in including ourselves in the category ; for, with a French- man's fondness for fresh eggs (not old doctors), truth and our glass compels the assurance, we are no chicken ; indeed, we think, dear child, when you have allowed the fringes of those heavenly eyes to droop from their marble sills over the windows of the soul, till you come to the end of this miserable article, you will be convinced you are listening to the crowing of an old cock. Pray heaven, dearest, you do not in that malicious little head, mentally invest us with one of the more envied attributes of that strutting country representative of the true watering-place gentleman: we are not omnivorous in our admiration of the gentler sex j FASHIONABLE FROG-POOLS. 101 although we confess a strong penchant for Turkey, we usually take it cooked ; for we swear to you, dear children however disagreeably the confession may revive former delightful aud youthful memories, we have not of late years had our vanity flattered by much attention from your sex. Indeed, upon occasion of the last favor that gladdened our eyes, when we fondly hoped to regale our nose with the delightful odor of an enticing bouquet, delivered in the very presence of one who well knows our amiability, we were greeted with the flavor of rue and wormwood, cunningly dis- posed by some naughty little fingers, around—a dead hornet 1 True it is, however, dearest, we always suspected it came in return for one we confess at least to have seen, before it was sent to our young friend, containing—a mouse ; —but the little creature was only designed to typify gentle innocence, and was sent in a freak of invincible jocularity ; two or three having reached the hands of the same lovely creature, done up as wedding-cake, and if truth be all told, a couple as oyster patties. Besides, Shakspere says in his Twelfth Night, " true, my mouse of virtue," and in Hamlet it is bestowed by the king as a term of endearment on the newly-widowed queen—though not too well deserved, it would seem, by that devoted lady—as illustrative of her virtue. Well, then, our amiability and experience being taken for granted, we will enter upon our investigation of the tempo- rary diseases of the different classes, occupants of-------, with now and then the more interesting points of an indi- vidual. But first, en passant: as we are known to be so thoroughly pachydermatous, and utterly unsusceptible of all the gentler emotions, we never had the slightest reason to expect attention from any of the individual specimens we describe. We merely view them as a class of humanity, worthy the study of the reader of such a unique volume as is here presented—and with no desire to cultivaU *p 102 WATERING-PLACE SNOBS. unamiable dissatisfaction with any of the works of nature— particularly that puffing genus, the batrachia, or its human synonym, the snob. The first point that strikes the observation of the practi- cal surgeon, as he dismounts from his vehicle, covered and begrimed with dust, is the extraordinary prevalence of the spinal affections, and near-sightedness ; the next, the con- templative and resigned expression of a number of gentlemen, usually iu black, walking solitary and alone up and down the piazza, with their hands behind their backs. The first of these affections is an awful and hopeless dis- ease, very afflictive to the genus snob, wherever found—and familiarly known to surgeons as the backward curvature of the spine. It is usually the consequence of pecuniary reple- tion, and is rarely observed before the patient's fortieth year, unless in times of speculation, when it has been known to occur at the twenty-fifth. Occasionally it is hereditary, when the abdominal projection that seems to have been intended by nature as a counterpoise to the backward cur- vature of the spine, is accompanied with the unfortunate condition of cerebral atrophy ; do not suppose, however, that the patient is destitute of brains ; a little conversation with the unfortunate individual will soon convince you of that extraordinary yet common phenomenon of the transpo- sition of the cerebral and abdominal contents, so well known to the immortal physiologist of Avon, when he makes one of his heroes say : " You carry your brains in your belly, and your g—8 in your head." The seniors amongst these afflicted individuals, or as they are sometimes affectionately called by their dutiful progeny, " the governors," are remarkably tenacious of their position, as they fondly term their acknowledged height upon the ladder of snobdom ; this is graduated entirely by the amount of their fortune : nothing under $100,000 and a carriage, FASHIONABLE FROG-POOLS. 103 will entitle them to the disease ; and they are sure to escape till that amount is obtained ; the affliction is progressively increased, and reaches its maximum at $1,000,000. A remarkable physiological peculiarity in the afflicted offspring of this species of the snob, is the extraordinary smallness and insecurity of their legs, together with the approximation of the knee joints ; near-sightedness also prevails amongst these tender goslings to a remarkable extent ; you may know thein by their eye-glasses, and the enormous bars of their checkered trowsers, not forgetting the angle at which their hats are adjusted. It has been suggested by unlettered observers, that the exceeding feebleness of their pins and eyes, is due to their own vices ; but this is a slander origi- nating iu the minds of the vulgar. A gentleman should never do anything which another can possibly accomplish for him ; and although he may be obliged to sustain himself on his own legs, it is but proper that there should be a marked difference in the manner, between himself and those ordinary individuals who may require them for the more vulgar pur- poses of active locomotion. No doubt, the distinctive smallness of the legs, is due to the refined quality of their material, and is a merciful provision of nature to match the slender cerebral and abdominal superstructure. Still it is somewhat remarkable, when we consider the brawny devel- opment of their progenitors, particularly if they have beer accustomed to menial employment, or the more active duties of the loom, the spade, or the pick. The latter is produc- tive of an unsightly disease, the forward curvature of the back-bone or spine. This is very afflictive to the snob, more especially if his known employment has been calculated to produce such an anatomical peculiarity ; it revives unplea- sant memories of the lap-stone and jack-plane, and is priroa- facie evidence of that horribly vulgar disease called industry : if known to have thus originated, the unfortunate possessoi of the deformity may quite as well have the plague or tin 104 WATERING-PL ACE SNOBS. leprosy, for he is at once ostracized—tabooed—and pro- nouuced unclean. Should he venture, in a thoughtless moment, to salute one of the victims afflicted with the oppo- site condition of the spinal column, the latter is generally seized with a spasmodic attack of coughing, or his immediate attention is suddenly arrested by a lady or gentleman on the other end of the piazza, to whose presence he immediately rushes as a refuge. If the offensive and plebeian salutation be made to a junior, he avails himself of his eye-glass ; this he levels with amazement against shoes or jack-plane, with the effect of setting him off at an angle, and producing a considerable increase in the curvature of his shoulders ; bringing his hand behind his back, and inducing a contem- plative abasement of his eyes. We have occasionally seen Shoes, worth $50,000, salute Sugar, $250,000, when the effect was peculiarly rapid, inducing the belief that poor Wax- end had been electrified ; on more than one such occasion, wo addressed our utmost benevolence to his relief, but with very little success for some time ; the poor fellow, like Crusoe's man Friday, evidently mistrusting that we also were a cannibal, and would eat him up ; finally, however, on finding a supporter of $100,000 in Rags, he regained his self-possession, his curvature decreasing considerably. There is a complaint, observed amongst a large class of the frequenters of watering-places, that is productive of an inconvenient result in promenading on a narrow piazza. It is a disease peculiar to the dry good3 snob, and consists in a constant tendency of the thumbs to contend for the posi- tion usually occupied by the palm ; this brings the hand at an inconvenient angle with the body ; and if the gentleman be very impressive in his religious or political disquisitions —(the afflicted individuals are always addicted to the vice of denunciation on one or the other subject)—he constantly invades your ribs with his knuckles, and you will do well to have a care of your eyes, When seated, and especially if FASHIONABLE FROG-POOLS. 105 in front of a circle of ladies, the same remarkable ten- dency is apparent: the individual grasping either thigh with that useful and economical measuring member the thumb, on the outer side ; this is peculiarly elegant and graceful. Several other less distinctly marked peculiarities, such as the rapid approximation of the hands, in the auctioneer, knocking off, as it were ; the latitudinarian flourishes of the entire arm in the shoemaker, as though drawing the wax- end ; a frequent graceful pronation of the hand, throwing jauntily outward the massive seal ring of the barkeeper (and sometimes of the bishop), indicate the pursuits that have led to these different afflictions in the gentlemen. The ladies, God bless them, with their refined perception, and intuitive tact, avoid all such illustrative demonstrations, by profound quiet ; the code of watering-place manners, recognizing nothing as so absolutely indicative of in-born aristocracy, as that elegant indifference to all surrouuding things, evinced by the sleepy, voluptuous, half-closed eye, and the beautifully jewelled fingers of a hand elegantly dis- posed across the person in a loving embrace, with the charming little foot peeping from under the dress like a mouse. It has been suspected that such a disposition of things might indicate a degree of lightness of the brain, that . would not admit of much mental effort. Be this as it may, there is no doubt of its peculiar acceptability to most Ame- rican gentlemen. A box of bon bons, an assortment of ribbons, laces, and jewelry, have been knowL tc produce signs of vitality. An affection of the arms, of a very singular character, had a very short run in Broadway, and was occasionally noticed amongst a certain class at the watering-places, but it has now passed into the Bowery and Chatham street. It con- sisted of an angular contraction of the arm of the gentleman nearest the lady, the hand being disposed behind the back, 6* 106 WATERING-PLACE SNOBS. like the wing of a trussed green goose ; the lady entered delightfully into the arrangement, and consented to be pushed along iu a very loviug manner, iu a sort of let-me-gc hold-me-fast way, quite enchanting. We must defer our observations on the watering-place literati, and wife and husband hunters, to another article : they constitute extremely interesting varieties to the medi- cal psychologist. CAUSES OF EARLY DECAY IV WOMAN. 101 WOMAN. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OP EARLY DECAY VS AMERICAN WOMEN? " Truth is the body of God; and Light is his shadow." Whether the proposition assumed to be true iu this query be admitted or denied, it is probable the writer will receive credit for sincerity, in venturing to assert the existence of very extensive physical inferiority in that sex, who are the unquestioned arbiters of the success of every medical candi- date for popular favor. Her power to please, and the dread of her disapproba- tion, hold our sex in such absolute subjection, that the men- tor is too often merged into the lover, and even while fascinated by her presence, and trying to silence our hearts for our dereliction, her fragile form is bending under those unchangeable and inexorable laws to whose teachings we have failed to direct her, and the grave receives at once the object of our love, aud the evidence of our neglect of a duty, more sacred than any other enjoined upou us by the Crea- tor. Yes :—Man should be the teacher of woman ; he enjoys the privilege to guide her steps aright; his is the strong arm and the judging head ; hers it is to illumine the path with the sunlight of her smile, to gladden his ear with the music of her voice, and to cheer him with the blest and refining influence of h*-,r presence. We do not believe it was the design of the Creator to inv.d nothing but the tea-bell and bed-time—a capital illustration of the advantage of the truth in imparting knowledge. The tea- bell and bed-time were invariably attended with a certain result, and I always believed them. My next event was one that betrayed a weakness that had not left me at the more mature age of twenty-three. I fell in love with a pretty woman ; she used to play with me, and give me sugar-plums, and being much in her company, I grew fond of the gentle expression of her face, and became quite unhappy when she was absent ; it was not the absence of the sugar-plums, nor the expectation of " favors to come," for it was all the same in a little while, whether she brought them or not; if I could only gaze in her pretty face I was happy ; but this is no marvel, indeed, for all children love to look at a beautiful and happy face, and by a natural con- sequence their own features assume a gentle expression, if sur- rounded by such ; the face is but the index to the soul, and if the thoughts are not at war with nature, will always be pleasant to look upon. And here let me anticipate, by a little anecdote of this same lady. At five, I was in love with her ; at thirty-one, I called to pay her a new-year's visit; finding her surrounded with some eight or ten fine children, I naturally recurred to the past, and communicated the fact—new, and I really thought it must needs be grati- fying to her—that she was the first person of whom I had any distinct recollection. It was my intention to have com- municated my childish flame, but I could not take it into my heart to gratify her by relating it, when I observed the frown that visited her still agreeable face, on my recurring to an event that made her older than myself; there were ON THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 225 the eight or ten palpable contradictions to her youthfulness, all talking away to their " mother," yet, alas ! poor woman, she was angry at my presumption in supposing she could get older. In my folly, I really thought I was paying her a delicate compliment, and designed to make it much more so ; but alas ! I uever was a lady's man. Aud this was not my first error by many a one. Time passed, aud my recollections of my earlier years are principally identified with an intense love of nature, and a constant habit of musing, and wondering what I was and what I was made for ; whether my mother—for I always placed her first in my estimate of happiness—or my father cou'd die ; and why the Almighty was so cruel as to kill peo- ple—for so I find all children think ; nay, most of them speak their thoughts iu language equally plain. Alas ! I had not then discovered that the philosopher knew as little of the great Why as the child. Amongst other subjects of wonder, I well remember my constant amazement that people tried so hard to explain their destiny hereafter ; when my infaut mind, absorbed with the present, could not conceive the purpose of my being in the world at all. Of the philosophy of admiring beautiful faces and flowers, aud of eating sugar, I felt perfectly assured ; but the endless sermou, every Sunday, to prove that we should not be roasted hereafter (for my parents attended the church of a very eloquent Universalist), I could by no meai understand ; though 1 see now but too plainly my deficiency of wonder as the phrenologists say ; there is so much Indian n my nature, and that villanous doctrine of utilitarianism has gripped me so fast, that I am, perhaps, a poor judge of such matters. One of my everlasting annoyances about this period, was the constant pouring into ray ears of bugaboo stories and Santaclaus nonsense by the family servants. In my very heart of hearts I believed them all lies, for my early aabit j1: doubting stood me in good stead here ; yet the 10* 226 ON THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. withering contempt I used to throw in my ascetic little face as I pronounced my anathemas upon liars, I well remembei to this day ; and it is even now a source of unhappiness to me to know how I hated all who tried to deceive me, how- ever kind at other times. Their efforts were constant, and made me indeed a good hater. And here I cannot with- hold my earnest appeal to all who have the care of chil- dren, never, on any account, to deceive them. A fudge for all the so-called poetry of the namby-pamby toy books, the Santaclaus nonsense, the Little Red Riding-hood story, and all the rest of it : why, what absurdity ! is it true ? or is it false ? Is the child to whom it is repeated a learner or not ? How is the infant mind to discriminate between the beauty of truth and falsehood, if its earliest efforts are to be foiled by those it should revere as the soul of truth ? whose earnest meditative expression of counten- ance should be forever associated with beautiful truth, truth in all things ; and who should ever set forth to the youthful learner the meanness of a lie, a cowardly lie, that implies that the teller is afraid of some one. Children all believe theii parents heroes, and associate them in every possible waj with the idea of protection ; if they detect them in a decep- tion, there are a thousand ways in which it is associated in their minds with cowardice. Never tell your children that if they will be good and stay at home, they shall have such and such things, enjoy some favorite amusement, and so on. It implies ability to extort the reward for obedience which belongs to parents as a right. If the reward be net paid to the letter—and such is not always possible—they set it down as a falsehood, and whenever a new promise is made to induce obedience, they conclude it to originate in the cowardice of parents who are afraid to command the obedi- ence the child should know belongs to them. During ray sixth year, the great object that occupied ray thoughts was an almost insane love of nature, but more ON THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 227 especially flowers and foliage, and well do I remember con- necting this love of my earlier years, with my destiny here- after, and deducing from it the absurdity of punishment; I reasoned thus : God is good, and lives in a beautiful coun- try called heaven ; the devil is bad, and lives in a very ugly country called hell. There can be no heaven without beautiful ladies and flowers, and no hell without plenty of fire, which burns people ; but the ladies and flowers every- body likes, and the devil nobody can like; so nobody will go to the devil, and God would be very wicked to send them there ; therefore, as everybody will go to heaven, aud no one can love flowers and foliage as well as I do, I shall be head gardener there, for God will want me to take care of the flowers. Often have I made a miniature garden with a little hill by way of a throne for God to sit upon, and overlook the garden, whilst I and my beautiful wife should work in it. This powerful youthful passion for the visible representation of psychological truth, has influenced me strongly in the plan I have adopted, and the advice I have always given for the education of children. 228 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIF«. SKETCHES OF A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. What is Mkmory?—College Lira in thb Country—The Pious Studbnt—Til Orphan Betrayed—Thb Robin's Nest—Maternal Reflections—What is Lovi Thb Funeral Pile: What is its Philosophy? u Heaven guide thy pen to write thy sorrows plain, That we may know the traitors and the truth." A true definition of Memory cannot be given, and yet retain in that defining any of the popular notions of that faculty of the mind. An idea is everywhere prevalent, that most of the acts of our lives may be forgotton and covered up from our mental recognition ; that an act, when once forgiven or repented of, is rejwidiated by our moral 6ense, and done with for ever ; but a greater error does not exist in mental philosophy, and it leads to the most immoral and paralyzing results, so far as keeping our consciences void of offence is concerned. The wretch who believes that he may forget an act of infamy, an outrage on the weak and defence- less, is not careful about committing another. The crime of to-day, if submitted to eternal forgetfulness, is as though it had never been ; but the stain is impressed upon the soul, it cannot be effaced, but will return at some future period when the equilibrium of selfishness is disturbed by the memory of injustice or crime. In that mysterious world of mental lights and shadows, some strange events occur, which startle the thinker when ne looks into the future. Many instances have occurred to most physicians who have seen much practice, In which the WHAT IS MEMORY? 229 affected individual was lost to himself, and, up to a certain point, life and all its acts were cut off and forgotten ; but as we trace out the thread of the future, we find in the end, that when remarkable physical changes occur in such systems, the lost impressions of memory revive and pass with palpa- ble distinctness before the mind's eye, not as shadows, but »s occurrences real and lasting. Persons whose brains are deeply disturbed by fevers, often lose their life's doings, up to a certain point, till the change goes further, when they regain suddenly all that was lost. The near approach of death often discloses the same fact; as described in the sen- sations of drowning persons, who declare that the entire occurrences of their lives are flashed out before them as in a mrror or on a burning canvas, where each figure teemed with a living fullness. Long study of Memory has led to the conclusion in my own mind, that nothing pertaining to our mortal life is ever forgotten ; no thought, sensation, joy, grief, or act of evil, can ever be effaced from memory ; but all the acts and sen- sations of life become part of our being, and have much to do with our future state of progress in a spiritual existence. Memory is to rae the Daguerreotype-plate of the soul, whose images are set in eternal colors ; each thought, each shad- ing, as in life ; the time we sat for the impression, its linea- ments in joyous or horrid fullness, will stand out in true relief, as the subtle chemicals of a future life will light up the sleeping shadows, and what to us was lost, will again gleam out as a living and real thing. Assert this to one of those Pharisees that disturb society with their flaunting equipages in livery, driven to the doors of the very house of God, and watch the working of the muscles of his face ; the averted eye, the wild expression of a troubled soul, which was flattered by a time-serving conscience, or the fa'se shepherd himself, into the belief that what he wished, couM be forgotten. De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium- 230 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. Eater are full of testimony on this point. He describes memory, or brain impressions, as resembling a parchment from which the writing had been discharged by chemical action ; when by the touch of some unseen element, the minutest lines, that had been effaced for years, are brought again into full light, and read with as much ease as the last impression made upon the parchment. It is known to every observiug physician, that patients under the impression of certain medicines, whose action is direct and powerful on the nervous system, seem to be reenacting the scenes of former life ; all past occurrences seem to be revived aud reflected before the mind of the sufferer, as though real and present. De Quincey affirms that in his deepest state of stupefac- tion by opium, the minutest acts of his life were reproduced, not as memories, but as real things ; and, like him, I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as forget- ting. In the future, every man must face his earth-life ; the lawyer carries with him his legal tricks, and will hear again the sad wail of the widow and the orphan he has robbed ; the doctor, whose quackeries have filled his purse and the graveyard, will meet his victims again ; the priest, whose bloody hands had tied his victim to the stake and the fag- got, as the dim shadow on the dial-plate of his soul is revived by the mysterious power, will see reflected the purple and flame-colored hue of his murderous deed, and the vic- tims of his hate will rise before him to act the grand inqui- sitor to his hell-tortured soul. In making these remarks, I am passing over the field of forgotten memories, and a thousand scenes are renewed that appeared lost in the void of the past. And as I shall have occasion to illustrate this law of Memory in the trials of life which follow, you will not, I presume, deem them misplaced. After parting with my friends at the meeting, a few days' travel found me on foot wending my way into a back-country THE POOR STUDENT. 231 place, to a medical college ; the professors had chosen that spot because board was cheap—and it removed the student from the temptations of city life, which often prove too much for the moral natures of the young men who seek their life's zenith through our noble but degraded art. The college had for years convened its hundreds of students, aud several large hotels rose in the wilderness place for their accommo- dation. Several professors, with their families, resided here ; and much ado existed among the various churches of the village, as to who should be honored by the presence of the largest class of medical students. A large stone building had been erected by the side of the college, for the accom- modation of those students who wish to practice close economy in their expenses. My room-mate was a young man who came from the val- ley of the Wyoming, and seemed the very ideal of puritanic integrity. His library was large and well-assorted ; and he lived among his books. His face was pale, and his health feeble ; his head large and square in front, and his expres- sionless features were relieved of their melancholy cast by a large and brilliant black eye. His threadbare garb bespoke his poverty. After the custom of those days, he gave his note for his lecture-fees, and in six months after his return home the Dean received notice of his intention to avail himself of the bankrupt-law, and his note for medical lectures was needed for adjudication with the rest. The disciple of Gall had been in mercantile business and failed iu his hopes of wealth and ease, and turned his attention to medicine. Tue career of the young man was instructive. I will give you a page or two in his history. He acted evidently under a well-digested principle. Two years after he left our college, he obtained a license to practise in a distant State, and his career is now brought graphically before me by the magic glass of memory, as my eye wanders over the actual scene where he enacted the occurrences I relate. One of his first 232 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. Bteps was to marry in a religious family, in the viciuity of the college ; for, with a degree of effrontery common with such people, he had returned to carry out his plans, iu the very neighborhood where he gave the first proof of his char- acter. His wife and relatives were all saints, and he took rank among the leaders in Israel. A lovely and estimable youug mother fell sick, and our hero was called to attend her, which he did by combining the double balm of medicine and prayer ; but the hairs of her head were numbered and her hours assigned her ; all his skill and sympathy failed of their effect, and she sank with her child into an early grave. His attentions were unremitting, he visited and prayed with the family often ; not a breath of censure visited him. During one of these nocturnal visits for prayer and praise, a man employed for the purpose exhumed the body, boxed it up, and the devout and scientific ^Esculapian loaned his wagon for the purpose, and it was deposited iu a warehouse on the lake shore, directed to a neighboring city in the care of a friend, who had helped to advance both his skill in the art and his zeal for the Lord. The wind and the waves were against him ; the body was detected and re-interred, and our disciple arrested and thrown into prison within a few rods of the place where I write. The wrath of the enraged people burst on him like a whirlwind, and the pulpit now thundered at his sins only because it was impossible to shield him ; they could now gain more eclat by condemn- ing him, than by affording him their protection. The ter uors of the insulted law fell on his head, and he atoned for his theft and his prayers by a long and tedious imprison- ment. I am far from advocating the cause of so cold- blooded a villain, but I feel impelled, on a subject of moment- ous import, to give my testimony against legislative folly. Civilization seems not to have removed the prejudice of the popular mind against the dissection of the human body • THE ORPHAN BETRAYED. 233 the authority of the King of Egypt over his barbarous sub- jects could not eradicate their aversion to the dissection of the body, and the power of his throne was shaken by his resistance, till he was obliged to abolish the custom granted to the college of physicians in Alexandria. The aversion, undoubtedly, originated from religious belief, and partly from a superstitious fancy among the Egyptians, that the soul returned to take possession of its body after a lapse of time ; an idea that differs only in form, from the notion of the resurrection of the body entertained at the present day. We also attach to the dead body, the love that we felt dur- ing life to the living spirit that animated that body. The law controlling dissections is wholly inconsistent, for, while it strips the surgeon of his life-long earnings for the most trivial blunder—or defect which skill could not remedy—it rigidly restrains his body aud empties his purse for the act of exhumation, and makes no adequate provision to prevent it. But let us return to our pious student. Stung to the quick with chagrin at her delusion, long ere the yeriod of his imprisonment expired, his proud wife fell into the grave, a victim to the insane folly of parents, who were deluded by his canting hypocrisy, and sacrificed the true love their child bore to an industrious and excellent young man, a farmer, for the wretched privilege 0** calling theii child the wife of a "pious" physician. The hypocrite served out the term of his imprisonment, and left the place to practise his villany where he was unknown. Jn the same town, lived a young lady whose fate may prove a warning to those who feel themselves cursed with ad impulsive disposition ; I say cursed, for the most noble and beautiful impulses may become a curse, if not balanced by judgment. Miss-----was no ordinary character ; and into the brief passage of her life, had been mingled lights and shadows of uncommon and fascinating interest to the °tudent of woman's character. She was left an orphan in 234 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. her childhood, and the heart of charity had taken her to a friendly shelter, and watered the tender plant with all the kindness and assiduity that the love of one who had never been a mother could bestow. She soon grew interested in her young treasure, as her quick and sparkling intellect threw off its brilliant light to cheer her desolate dwelling. The lady who had taken her as her own, had no living thing to love or cherish, and though surrounded by wealth and a pleasant home, its shades were the shades of the cypress, and its lights were the dim shadows of twilight, reflected from fashionable friends, and more or less distant relatives. The voice of young M---- sounded like heavenly music in the ears of her protector, and she lavished on her all the bles- sings that wealth, refinement, and good society could bestow Her rare talent for music was early discovered, and she played and sang with the most brilliant execution and pathos, that often drew tears from the most thoughtless. I had often met her in the streets, and admired her com- manding person and queeuly bearing. I observed that she always dressed in black, and when I inquired the reason of this, 1 was told that about a year since, the malignant scarlatina appeared in the village, and some twelve or fifteen children had died with it ; among the rest, Miss----had lost a dar- ling little member of her Sunday class, a boy three or fou- years old, who also was an orphan. The students often spoke of this lad as one of uucommon promise and beauty ; and having no father to love him aud caress him, he became a great favorite with them : he had learned to visit the col- lege, where his full and glowing charms, radiant even now in his early childhood, had won him the love of the entire class. This little fellow seemed to wonder why he had no father, and was seekiug amoug those faces something he could not find—that holy thing, parental love. Our young lady had become the soul of the entire social circle of the place ; her grace, her beauty, her wit, hei THE ORPHAN BETRAYED. 235 music, her power of fascination, had all combined to render her an object of admiration, and the belle of the place ; aud called into the large circle of her worshippers a number of young meu. Among these was a young man of fine address and agreeable manners ; he was an object of general favor among the ladies. Young M----received her full share of his attentions, and in a short time all supposed he was her chosen lover. After a few months' devoted attention to her, he was taken suddenly ill, and left for home ; his residence being in a neighboring State. Soon it was observed, that the health of the young lady began to fail, and the opinion became prevalent that she was going into a slow decline. Gossips were busy as usual, and the conclusion was very general that there had been a lovers' quarrel, and she was suffering the consequences of unreturned attachment. After a few weeks, she was entirely confined to her room ; and, as she refused to see her most intimate young friends, it was supposed that she was allowing her grief and morti- fication to drive her iuto a decline. Several months elapsed, and as she did not make her appearance, her friends gradu- ally ceased inquiring for her ; aud I, amongst the rest, had allowed the cares of business almost to efface her from my memory, wheu I was one evening confidentially requested by the family physician to visit her in cousultatiou. On our arrival at the house, he informed me that know- ing my friendship for the family, he had taken the liberty of a slight and pardonable deception, with the view of shield- ing the unfortunate young girl's character, and that it was her child for which I was expected to consult. She had become a mother nearly a mouth before. I was inexpressibly shocked, and grieved for the dear girl, but commanded my feelings as well as I could, and soon beheld the pledge of her unfortunate attachment, a lovely boy ; but the moment my eye alighted on him, I was that the feeble thread of life was nearly severed. 236 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. He lay at the point of death with croup ; we did all that we could—perhaps too much. God knows I did my best ; but Boon we followed her little darling to the grave. Death's chill wind blasted her flower ; the fruit of her suffering was early gathered. She went with us and the sexton of the village church, alone to the grave ; parent, sister, brother, lover, none were there. We placed it where she desired us, under a rose-tree, near her chamber window, where she could always see the grave, and put a grassy mound over it, and left it to its last sleep. I continued my visits from sympathy for her sorrow, and a strong desire to obtain fur- ther knowledge of her extraordinary character. Since her affliction, no other face except her kind foster- mother's and her two physicians, had beamed upon her with a smile ; her heart had almost withered for want of the dews of affection. The public had applied to her the cup of consolation usual in such cases—first, its curses and forsakirigs, and then their sympathy 1 But she heeded neither ; she told me, that the voice of her babe still came to her in sleep, and shed around her couch a holy com- fort ; his little grave was covered with roses, which she literally watered with tears ; she had learned to speak with a calmness, that the sting of a world's scorn could not deprive her of. My visits she often told me seemed at first a puzzle ; indeed, she asked me again and again, how I dared to be the friend of one whom the world had branded. As time went on, her confidence in me increased, and once upon an occasion I had long sought for, and tried to bring about, she tore the veil aside, and showed me the deep fountain in a woman's soul : she is long since gone from earth, and my heart tells me I may communicate her story. The first effort of the young gentleman, when he found himself likely to be called on to fulfill his promise, was to induce her to swallow some deadly drug, that would make THE ROBIN'S NEST. 231 Bure work of the child, or of both ; failing in this, his health declined, and he disappeared from the place. The white mantle of chill winter had fallen before the warm spring sun, and joy seemed to return to the heart of all things but the heart of the trusting betrayed one. Cut off from all sympathy, she resolved on one long season of communion with her own heart ; she retired to her chamber, and there feasted over her silent joy; in spite of the scorn of the world, aud loss of caste aud friends, she felt a deep per- vading silent sea of joy welling up in her heart ; a new music was sounding in her spirit, new voices spoke to her ears, and a thrill of celestial happiuess pervaded her soul, when she felt by signs that could not by herself be mistaken, that she was to be a mother ; that her own spirit was mingled with another spirit in eternal union, aud bound to an everlasting life. She said : " I knew all I was to suffer, the loss of all things earthly was to be counted on ; but noue of it awed me—that living ecstasy still governed my spirit, and it was sweeter than the voice of friends, or of her I had learned to love as a mother, or the celestial symphonies of angels, could have been. It seemed so to me then, and it seems so still. When the rains descended, and the flowers came forth to laugh and smile in the sunshine, and die with happiness in the dewy evening, my heart overflowed with a new sympathy with uature, and I loved everything that looked beautiful—that had life or seemed happy. " A pair of gentle and confiding robins came and built their nest in a large rose bush near my window, and now, for the first time in my life, I felt an interest iu the bird; all day she and her mate gathered wool, and sticks, and moss to decorate their nest, to adorn and make com- fortable the little home, where their young birds were to see light, and lisp out on the living air their first accents of joy. All the day long I watched the faithful pair at their 238 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'S LIFE. work ; they never seemed weary nor sorrowful, but labored till the mellow twilight came, and then he would watch and sing to her, and she would answer him with a little joyous note of fond affection. One day, I heard a new song under my window ; its notes seemed celestial, and I don't kuow why, but it seemed to have in it a tone that went to ray inner spirits and spoke a language there that I could not wholly uuravel. Now I know what the notes were ; I hear them still—they are sweeter now, but oh, how saddeued ! I repeat them often ; I learned their meaning from the voice of my child ; the holy memory comes to my heart from that grassy mound where they laid him. It was the song of coming maternity—that new sensation of the spirit that a mother only feels, that a mother only can understand. Oh, I know now what it was that made her siug ; she could not help it—she was happy ; the poor bird knew that her young ones would fly in the field with her, and carol in the green forest in chorus to the song that they would learn from the outburst of a mother's love." She was silent; the memory of her joy and the full cup of her happiness—now for ever dashed from her lips—made her silent, and we walked on in darkness for some minutes, by the lake side. Science cannot read the mystery of a woman's heart; nothing but the light that flashes from the furnace of her perfect love can tell its secrets. Wheu she had regained her calmness, she coutinued : " Through the long spring days I watched these happy birds ; their joy seemed full ; watching seemed not to weary them, but their instinctive faith had guided them to their highest hopes, their new-born desires. By day and by night, through sun- shine and storm, these frail birds had watched over their treasure till their young appeared, and then wandered over the fields and through the forests to find them food ; and when I volunteered to aid them in the task of feeding their MATERNAL REFLECTIONS. 239 young birds, I felt for the first time the joy of feeding the helpless and the young. This was a new light in my spirit, a new love that I had never known. " I had no sympathy with the world : I needed none ; from the moment I discovered myself deserted by him I would gladly have died for, I lived in the joy of my own hopes ; I was instructed by the toils of these winged spirits, these teaching messengers of parental love ; they never seemed to forsake each other, nor repudiate the fruits of their love ; it is, it seems, the privilege of a man and a Christian, a gentleman and a scholar, to do that; a man must be bred in polite society, and be the heir of wealth, to impress such a blot on the fair face of a generous and confiding love, without making a stain on a manly escutcheon. " One night, a rude storm came over my rose tree, and scattered the young birds in the grass, and a remorseless cat destroyed them. All the next day the poor things mourned and chirped out their sad notes of grief over the little vacant nest. They stopped not to eat or to rest, but mourned all the day, and made even the night sad with their laments. This was the first real sorrow I had ever known ; the world had brought many clouds over my sun, but none seemed so dark as this ; none so full of grief. Day after day the poor birds came to mourn for their little ones, till weary of lamenting, they forsook the spot. " When the cruel disease slew my darling boy, you remem- ber we laid him close under the window by the tree where they had reared their young. I know not why, unless the birds of the air have sympathy with human sorrow, that man cannot feel, yet the robbins came again at the coming October, and seemed again, to my doomed spirit, to sing the dirge for my darling boy. His sweet little hands were laid upon his breast, and I spread the white muslin over his face ; I kissed his cold lips the last time, and I was alone. The sorrow of the poor birds was now plain to me ; my heart 240 A WESTERN PHYSICIAN'SLIFE. could read their song; their notes were now home music; the strings of my own heart were jarred by the same anguish. Angels cannot know the joy of being a mother, and much less can they comprehend the sad notes that are mingled in a mother's grief." She ceased, and I took my leave. She is gone now from earth, and some future day I will tell you her further histo- ry. If " the motive force of the human heart originates in maternal love,"then man and all life, originates in the love of the maternal heart; and man being the creation of woman's love, he is ever the object oi her divinest care and solicitude ; she cheerfully braves death to give him his being ; she foregoes society to rear and nurture his tender life, aud all the return her generous nature asks, is, that man should love her, and honor that love with an enduring faith, a deep sincerity. The mother's heart is a mine of sparkling diamonds, a casket of gems glittering with the topaz, the jasper and the onyx ; and I repeat, I would guard the rights of her holiest affections, her maternity, from the hands of the robber, as God guarded the tree of life in Paradise with a flaming sword. Fill her life with all holiest blessings, enlarge her heart by a generous teaching, and expand her affections into a larger life by a generous sympathy, and the maternal heart gives back to her child by the laws of maternity, all the blessings it has received, with as generous a return as she receives the blessings of her owu being from the hand of the invisible Creator. It is true, that woman always displays in her nature a deeper and truer devotion than mau ; that feature in the religious system of some nations which requires or permiis the female to burn herself on the funeral pile of her dead husband, shows it forth in au indis- putable manuer. To suppose this the work of a blind idolatry is sheer nonsense ; it has a deeper and a purer foundation. Man never burns himself on the funeral pile of a wife—such an act won Id amaze tho world; but THE FUNERAL PILE. 241 woman alone has the abiding faith, the deep devotion to lay such a gift on the altar of her affections. It is plainly the result of that overpowering love-element that per- vades her being, and actuates her most deeply in the maternal life. She represents most fully that love-ele- ment that pervades and animates the universe ; were it not so, we should not see so many instances of devotion to the object of her affections, that braves death and defies all peril. Wheu the deep sea of her love is roused, there is no offer- ing within her reach that she will not lay on the altar with an air of triumph. The Christian philosophy has this idea embodied in its system in a very impressive manner. The Being that redeemed the race from sin and death, was wholly female ; the male element was excluded from the origin of his being ; he was the seed of the woman, quickened by the Holy Spirit; and most devoutly do I believe, that if a man is to have such a redemption, the being to be offered for such a sacrifice must have such an origin ; and yet that idea is but the counterpart of the sacrifice on the funeral pile ; woman will go to any point to secure the happi- ness of the man, and she fearlessly mounts the fiery car, and her spirit rides on fire and flames into the presence of the invisible Jehovah. God is love. The strength and power of this element in her nature must be brought into full and perfect play in perpetuating and educating of the race. The stern and selfish nature of man cannot understand at present the strength of the law of maternity, and its freedom and beauty is restrained and crippled, and the race is dwarfed and shrivelled by the breath of selfish- ness. Fifteen years' experience among mothers has left one truth most deeply engraven on my heart: that among them an element of love and devotion is seen at work. that nowhere else presents itself in human character or conduct. 11 142 SCENES IU CITY PRACTICE. SCENES IN CITY PRACTICE. DEATH'S QUARTETTE IN A GARRET ; DELIRIUM TREMENS. " Ye little know how many feel this very moment death And all the sad variety of pain." The physician who can retrace an experience of twenty- five years during an ordinary practice in a large city and its suburbs, must enjoy a singularly placid temperament if he avoid an occasional emotion of joy or sadness, that he desires to share with some one who can smile or sigh with him over the many ludicrous and sad scenes he has been called to witness during his ministrations to the whimsical and the afflicted. It is certain, however, that some of our number will draw near to the close of a long life, and show but little emotion as they leaf over the checkered volume of their experience. We have often endeavored to arouse the sympathies of men, who, it would seem from their social position, could scarce have failed to experience " The gentle power whose bosom heaves the sigh f When memory paints the scene of deep distress." But the tear spontaneous would not crystallize the eye, nor could we always believe that mere self-control suppressed an emotion that seemed due to the subject, had it presented itself to a sympathetic heart. The surgical and operating corps of our profession, have so long been accustomed to hear the quiet self-congratulations of the public, that " it is DEATH'S QUARTETTE IN A GARRET. 243 providentially provided," in especial reference to the suffer- er's safety, that we shall lose our finer feelings, together with that useless commodity, a surgeon's humanity, that I trust I shall be pardoned for endeavoring to repudiate the compliment, at the expense of some professional credit for nerve, and perhaps a little comfort to the reader, who may not thank me for disturbing his nerves when sipping his brandy and water, with unpleasant images of cloven skulls au-1 broken limbs. It is somewhat singular, but 'tis true, that while the same delightful beverage can warm the heart and expand the affections with such refined sentiments, the tem- perate surgeon is often destined to hear hinltelf compli- mented for his want of sympathy by the very person who may require his services for a broken head incurred by a "little imprudence" iu the use of the inspiring nectar; a wife or mother's broken heart is unworthy of the generous creature's notice ; but it illustrates a frequent phenomenon that we often witness, and tends to the cultivation of a pro- per self-abasement for our want of refinement and benevo- lence. How far we shall be tolerated by our fairer readers for the introduction of some scenes that may shock their sensi- tive nerves, will depend very much upon their vanity and selfishness. Every day's observation teaches us that the distinctions are very slight in the degree of intellect and self-respect between those who are accustomed to give way to their appetites, whether for extravagant display in dress and furniture, or gambling, druukenness, and other vices. Neither the fine lady, who would scorn to be seen under the influence of wine, yet loads her body and her house with extravagant clothes and furniture, at the expense of her husband's happiness ans. It was to one of the interior counties of our State. It was so late in the season that the river comma- iication was closed, and I feared to intrust it to the port PARENTAL LOVE. 265 office, as I knew it contained her last wishes for her child. I had of course to communicate her death to her father, and I therefore chose to preserve it till his arrival. I announced the event with as much sympathy as I could feel for one whose parental character was to me inexplicable. I dated the letter at my own residence, and begged the postmaster to transmit it immediately to her father, on its receipt. All the necessary arrangements were made for preserv- ing the body till his arrival ; but I would not allow its removal from the humble abode. I was determined that he should know the whole truth ; I thought it would soften lis feelings towards the poor child. The kind woman who had aided them in their little housekeeping, had promised the dying mother that she would take personal charge of the child, till her grandfather should arrive. She took her to her own humble apartments, with such provision as my knowledge of her late deprivations suggested me to procure for her comfort. All else was given in charge to the under- taker. On the fifth day, late in the evening, on entering my office, I found a man of about fifty years of age, plainly dressed in black, with one of those countenances that admil of no particular definition ; the features were immovable and hard, and the whole countenance wore rather an anxious expression ; the hair was profuse and grizzled. He arost from the chair in which he was seated, and inquiringly sa..i "This is Dr. ----?" I auswered affirmatively. "I received a letter from you in relation to my daughter." This was said in the most perfectly business manner, and without the removal of his small black eye for even aD instant, or the slightest emotion. I must have looked my astonishment, for he immediately added, "A sad business, a sad business, my dear sir." I did not reply for a moment, and he added, " Well, well, sir, I will not detain you ; the corpse is here, I suppose ?' 12 266 SCENES IN CITY PRACTICE. I answered him simply negatively, and resuming ray cloak, I told him I would accompany him to the late abode of hit daughter I felt glad that the corpse had not been removed. I thought that if not now, it would some day do his moral nature a service to see to what condition his unfeeling nature had brought her. Her late abode was but two squares from my own, and I confess that I looked in won- der at his face as I motioned him to ascend the wretched steps ; not a muscle changed. I followed him. Our knock was answered by the watcher of the corpse. Motioning him to enter, I took from my pocket the letter she had written, and as I handed it to him, remarked, " These are your daughter's last words : I will not intrude upon you, sir, but will await you at my office till ten o'clock, when I have a patient to see." It was then eight. I bowed and retired. In less than a quarter of an hour he returned, and with- out any other allusion to the event, thanked me for ray attentions, as he refused the chair I offered him, requested me to direct him to the present abode of his grandchild, and to the shop of the undertaker, " as he wished to settle the Account and have all ready for an early start in the morning, as he designed to take thi corpse with him," adding, " You will please to make c t- your bill, sir." I was speechless : he was an anomaly. I stood still, and measured him with my eyes ; he cast his own for a moment on the floor, and replied, " My business habits, I fear, shock you, sir. I have been all my life in a hurry ; 1 have never bad time to think. I owe you an apwi'ogy, sir, and I hope you will pardon me." I thought of the poor child and her future fate, and I must say, hypocritically for once iu my adult life, I took the hand of a man I despised, as I asked him mildly if his daughter had not requested to be buried by the side of her husband. THK CLOSING SCENE. 261 "No, sir," replied he, sharply ; "his name was not men- tioned in the letter : very properly, sir, very properly. I had no respect for him, sir, none whatever ; nor should I have acceded to such a request had she made it. I intend to take the body with me, sir, and will not trouble you further. Good evening, sir ; I am much obliged to you, and will send in the morning for your bill." I gave him the directions to find his grandchild, and the undertaker. I thought over the matter, and determined not to oppose him, because I wanted him to love his poor little delicate grandchild, if possible. He sent in the morning for my bill; but I had prepared an answer that I hoped would benefit him without aggravating his feelings towards her. I told him, in a note, that I deemed such a privilege a sacred one, not to be soiled by a pecuniary return. I said other thingi to him, which I will not repeat. Near spring, I received a kind and almost an affectionate letter, announcing the ^eath of his grandchild. She had greatly subdued his nature by her lovely character ; but her leeble frame had received a shock which she could not sus- tain. I was glad to hear of her death ; it was not desira ble for her to live, with such memories clouding her early youth. One evening, in the month of June following these events, I set out about eight o'clock from the bank of the Great Western Canal, on a rude country wagon, by the side of a good-natured farmer, I had hired for the purpose, to fulfil a sacred promise. I had kept the memory of her to whom it was made near my heart, and as I approached the little church of-----, I felt as though her spirit beamed kindly on me. I had provided the necessary certificate, and with the aid of the sexton, who, I had learned, resided near by, we deposited our sacred tr msure within the porch. I avoided all allusion to the peculiar circumstances of the case to my companions, merely say, -ig I was carrying out the wishes of 268 SCENES IN CIYY PRACTICE the dead ; and leaving my name with the sexton and a uote for the father of my late patient, I begged him to see it placed in his hands. The note alluded to the virtues of his child, her trials, and her devotion to her husband in life, and reminded him of the certainty of our equality in death. I added, that what man could not divide in life, he should not wish to separate in death. I learned that the remains of her husband were interred next day by the side of the daughter and her child ; and I received but lately the assurance that the poor father admitted, before his death, that money was not the chief good. CONSUMPTION 269 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. CONSUMPTION. "Fire, that's closest kept, burns most of all."—Shae. The month of May had set in—tender grass and sweet- scented flowers sprang from earth's warming bosom. Life seemed young everywhere. How could a grave be dug in gay-mantled May ? Ask Church-yard, whose tear-nour- ished grouud hath robed itself with spring-time flowers— ask of it, if the old and young are not welcomed to it, as though in some sequestered bower ! Ask if, midst Nature's plenitude, man's desolation be not most ripe ? Ask old Church-bell, as " toll," " toll," its iron tongue doth vibrate through ear to heart, searing the loved marks of former days, ask, if it doth not teach bud and blossom below, that they do early fade ! Doth not the spring wind, with its fragrant breath, tell of its escape from winter's tomb, and bear upon it evidence of another life begun ! Then weep not, ye who bury loved ones midst early shrub and flower, when every breath-wind bears a new life-welcome. Night had closed in ; the day's labor was over. Slipper aud arm-chair were fast solacing the body with gentle, half- dozing forgetful ness, stealing away all thought of self and others. With a sudden start I leaped up at the sound of my bell. A stranger needed my instant atteution at L----, some miles distant. The messenger was the hotel-keepe 270 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. himself. He was a small man—small in every way. Small head, small body, small legs—his very clothes were too Bmall for him. His mode of conversing was alike small— hints more than speech came from him. "Ah, doctor," he cried, as he hopped into my office, " wanted instanter—extraordinary man—awful sick—will die—have none other—must come—carriage at the door— soon be there." I knew the raau, and without a word, encasing my feet and back in their appropriate vestments, I followed him to his wagon. The stars were shining brightly, but the air seemed sharp after ray luxurious arm-chair. The little man was in the body of his horse. He was a pantomime of the animal and vehicle together—such gri- maces—such sharp twitchings—such easy-let-down actions, were never seeu before. The road was hilly, and here and there lay through marshy woodland, or dark high forest patches ; the little man drove as well in the dark as the light—sometimes half out the wagon, at others, standing nimbly up, but never speaking uor stopping pace. I wished I was back in my old arm-chair ; my mind wus almost made up to topple him over, as he leaned half-body out. Never so much before did I feel that my profession was a mere business—it was nothing else, to be so hauled over rut and stone, down and up hill by such a frag- ment of humanity ! We were now clear of all signs of habitation. The wind had become gusty, and the stars shone less brightly, as the clouds lay scattered here and there over the heavens. I felt nervous and chilly—I knew not why ; and I even wished the curious homun cuius beside me would talk or even whistle. At length he began : " Forgot to tell about him—dreadful stern man—like a pirate—gentleman pirate—speaks like a savage—perfect skeleton, and won't die 1 No, sir, says he won't." " What is his disease ?" I inquired. CONSUMPTION. 871 " Has all," answered the little blackbird ; " is mad— grits his teeth—strikes his chest—very strong—pitched me like a ball—just asked if his lungs were gone 1 Be careful, sir, desperate fierce man—ordered our doctor out the room —steady there." The horse claimed his attention, and again he seemed in his very bowels. At length the light of the top of the hotel appeared, and in a few minutes we arrived at the steps. Death surely could not be at work here ! there was the sound of music and laughter—a maddening waltz was playing, and the young were very happy and merry. With his quick step the little keeper led on to the sick man's room. I knocked gently at the door. A deep voice bade me enter. Upon a sofa, wrapped in a rich brocade dressing-gown, lay the figure of a man of almost colossal stature. By his side a table stood, holding a carcel-lamp, with its shade casting its powerful light upon a book, which apparently he had been reading. Every feature of his wasted face was distinctly shown. It was the utter wreck of great manly beauty. The dark curling hair fell lightly over his white massive forehead, as though it belonged to vigorous manhood. The eyes, now deep sunken in their hollow orbits, were of a hazel-black, and still full of pride and power. The teeth were exquisitely beautiful and white—how often seen in those doomed to die from lung dis- ease !—whilst the firm, but now thin lips, were slightly parted, and were red, as though mocking with health ; the wide-opened nostrils moved with every breath. At a glance I read the fatal disorder that was fast preying on this noble- lookiug creature. With an impatient wave of the hand he motioned the host to the door, who seemed eager to quit his presence ; and then, with a faint smile, he pointed me 5o a chair. " Doctor, I have sent for you thus untimely, that you may give me something to ease me—my strength has failed 972 8CENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTI01C iie strangely. " That is," he continued hastily, " I do not feel so well as I ought." The few words he uttered seemed an effort; he was evi dently averse to be thought ill. I asked him how long he had been sick. For an iustant a faint flush passed over his wan cheek, and with an abruptness rendered startling by his singularly deep voice, he said, "I have merely sent for you, sir, to give me some strengthening remedy—I do not care to enter into any detail." Gently but firmly I iuformed him, that unless I knew something relative *o the hi' tory of his disorder, and was illowed to make such physual examination as I deemed lecessary, I could not prescribe. He appeared excited by my avswer, and was about to reply, when he put his hand sud^nly over his heart, compressing his lips tightly upon his closed teeth. His whole frame shook with the violence of the hearts palpitation ; and his face, that had become suddenly suffused, grew ashy pale. A bottle of ammonia standing on the table, I poured a few drops into some water, and handed it to him. He gave me a look, and then mechanically took the glass and drank the contents. Recovering in a few minutes, he said in a low toue : "Doctor, forgive me—I am at times very hasty, and I fear very self-willed," he added, faintly smiling. " You have demanded nothing more than what is right. You may examine my chest," he continued wiih reluctance ; " you are the first man that has ever done so—perhaps you will be the last. You will find all right there ; only my nervous iystem has given way." With what self-taught delusion did he still endeavor to hide the truth from himself and me ! Nothing of sound lung structure remained ; and, as from time to time he spoke, the voice entered into my very ear, as I laid my head on his broad chest. What a frame—yet not an ounce •f fat was left—all had gone ; the mere skin-covered CONSUMPTION. 2T8 skeleton remained, of what must have been a specimen of the finest manly beauty. His poor heart labored in his tired breast, like some frightened bird trying for escape 1 His fate was inevitable—he merely lived by the will As I resumed my seat, he placed his dark eyes on my face. The sweat stood in large beads upon his forehead and upper lip—a strong commotion was going on within. At 'ength, in a voice whose tones resembled those of a fine bass, he said, with an ill attempt to appear indifferent, " Well, sir, what have you found ; or rather what is left to be found ? Come—speak plainly ; I know not why, but I now wish to have an opinion. Feel my pulse—you see it is very calm." It was beating violently irregular, and was very rapid ! I gently informed him that disease had long, or else very rapidly invaded his chest, destroying his lungs in the most remarkable manner. He hastily interrupted me. " Stop," he exclaimed, " never mind about the amount of damage—there must be enough left to keep life upon—try your skill—it and my will must win—by heavens 1 I will not die! Why man, soldiers have been shot in the chest, and their lungs drowned in blood—yet accounts tell that some have lived. Pshaw 1 go to your work, and I promise you my part shall not be lacking. You see," said he, vehe- mently, whilst the sweat rolled from his forehead and plashed on his arm, as he suddenly raised himself, and stood to his full height upon the floor—"you see what strength 1'/ have. Does this look like dying for want of lung-air? Why, man"—he could say no more ; a violent fit of cough- ing caused him to sink panting on the sofa. He knew, but dreaded to hear that he was a victim to that dread disease consumption. How many have thus dreaded and fallen 1 Alas 1 how many have revelled in that singular condition of hope, so falsely attendant in his funeral train 1 Taking from my case a powerful stimulant, I gave it to 12* 274 E8 IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. drank it greedily, and lapsing back upon his cushions, he lay with half-closed lids, whose long lashes fringed his pale cheeks. In the course of a few minutes he appeared refreshed, and drawing as deep a breath as he could, he said : " Doctor, the remedy does me good—I feel it coursing through my veins, like slender streams of heat—why man, I tell you I feel better thau I have done for weeks. Give me some more, and I will yet live to laugh at your grave face. I could almost eat, and that I have not done much for weeks ; my tongue and throat have been so sore." After some time I gained his consent to try to sleep—he was afraid of suffocating, and he said, his thoughts were so wild as he would lose himself, that he would start up, and fear he might go mad. At length he slept; but what a struggle, now that the influence of the brain was calmed. I had promised to remain by his side that night. When- ever he awoke from his troubled slumber, I gave him some refreshing drink, and to my astonishment he uttered his gratitude in the mildest manner. I could scarcely believe that it was the same proud and almost fierce man I had seen at first. Towards day his garments became drenched, and his cheek grew more wan, whilst his dark hair dripped with the heavy sweat that was fast flooding life away. When morning dawned, I retired for a few hours' rest On my return to his chamber, 1 found him on the sofa as first I had seen him. He exteuded his emaciated hand, and, with a smile whose power was extraordinary, he thanked me for my care. " Between your skill, doctor," said he, " and my deter mination, the enemy might be held down a long time." The day wore on. To my surprise he really seemed bet- ter than the day previous. His conversation, at first some- what reservtd, became more free aud earnest; and as night closed in, he appeared to regard me almost affectionately CONSUMPTION. 275 Occasional faint turns occurred during the day, but upon the whole, he thought he felt better than he had done for weeks. Yet there was scarce lung enough to have sup- ported an iufant. Still, this once powerful man lived.on— moved at times with a surprising strength, and spoke almost without a pant. When the sun was nigh down, he placed himself at the window. A few clouds portended a coming storm, as their irregular outlines were lighted up by the last rays. As I looked upon him from the book I had been reading, a tear trembled upon his long lashes, and gently fell upon his chest. Soft feelings were busy in the heart of this usually stern man, making him a child again. A shudder shook his frame as he gazed upon the disappearing disk of the sun. Was he thinking he might never see it more ! " It has gone," said he, speaking to himself. " The friend ot my childhood—the gladdening sun of my morning-life— has left me for a long night. Oh, God 1 may its rays glad- den my poor mother when I am gone." Turning to me, he called me to his side ; " Doctor," said he, " when the sun goes down, there seems something taken away from me—the funeral pile lights on my cheek, till every fibre of my frame glows beneath its consuming fire ; and, alas ! the heavy morning sweats are not as dew to me—the? waste and chill me to my very marrow. From my early child days have I watched that great bright sun, and bathed myself in its light. I saw how tree and flower alike grew strong beneath its generous rays, and I learned to look upon him as a great life-giver. It has left me, and I feel my heart-strength hai set with it—damps already rise, and earth soon will be hi. in the grave of night. Give me some drink, and for the firai time in my life I will tell to another the history of th* wreck that remains ol me." He continued— "There are moments in all men's lives that a change •eems new-born in their characters, be it for weal or Ol J76 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. Some accept the impulse, and try their bark upon the new r.ea. A port full of promise is the reward to some, whilst others are wrecked most miserably I To me there is no future in this world left; whilst in the world to come, those clouds that so fast darken the just now reddened heavens, are not darker than the doubts that surround the horizon of my future being. Yet, most singular, as my body, fibre by fibre drops away, leaving bare that called 'spirit/ I find growing apace within me that which createth a need to believe in a future—a very soul-necessity that it must be I " I say, doctor," he continued, striking his breast, " that this very inward waste—this utter unfitness of my dissolv- ing body to be the scene of my spirit's action, has done more to teach me of the imperishableness of that true self—the true I—than all the sermons and readings could have done There was a time when such teaching could not have weight; then, this body seemed a fitting residence for what I then termed will, but am now convinced is soul. Not a nerve, not a muscle, that was disobedient. The muscular sense was so perfect, that I felt satisfied that that termed soul was its mere embodied requisitions. In other words, soul seemed to me the perfect unition of the senses 1 " As a child, I was large and well formed. As years advanced, and these doctrines took hold, I did everything to perfect the body, that this unit—this sonl—should become as perfect as possible. My father died whilst I was in my fifteenth year. He had been a vigorous man, and only at times complained that his energies were weakening. A. Blight cough set in, which he attributed to accidental cold ; when of a sudden a vessel burst, and before his physician could arrive he was a corpse. His death made a powerful impression on me. The physiciau sa'd he had heraorrbage from the lungs, which he had long considered the seat of tuberculous disorder. C 0 N S L" M t T 1 0 N . 977 " From that momeiu T imbibed the most powerful dread lest my fate should be sealed like my father's. I obtained books—read them attentively—studied the disease in its every phase—its prevention, and its appropriate reme- dies. Climates were studied, as to their natural disorders and their antagonistic disposition, and as to the effect on persons resorting to them when afflicted with this dread scourge. Mankind were classified relative to their habits and social positions. In a word, I became learned about others, but morbidly avoided thinking of self—fear alone pervaded me. Yet I grew into uncommon manly develop ment, and health seemed impregnable. But now, how changed. See these withered hands, once proud in almost giant strength 1 Great God 1 hath not the wretched disease anatomized flesh from bone 1 Give me some drink—the recollection of my former days maddens me. " Do not interrupt me," he went on, as I begged him not to excite himself by unprofitable memories ; " I have begun to empty my surcharged brain—let me proceed. What is a day more or less ?" he bitterly exclaimed. Then, apparently reverting to his former feelings, he said—" It is everything in a battle for life—a change might take place in this melting lung, and with my nerve force I might live for months, per- haps for years. Could it not be, doctor ? I feel less pain, and am strengthened by your remedies. Try it, sir, and by neaven I'll aid you by every effort of obedience. I am young yet. I must not die—I will not die I" The last few words were uttered so vehemently, and were %j expressive of the mingled despair and hope that rioted hrough his brain, that I felt deeply pained as I answered bim. For a while he seemed more exhausted than I had yet seen him. I wished him to lie down ; but, motioning me to be quiet, he pointed to his draught. In a few minutes after taking it, he went on in a more quiet voice— " By my father's will, I inherited a fortune. The income 278 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. was far beyond my wants. The usual course of study was pursued by me—pleasure was ready to greet me at every step; but, alas ! the dread of that fate—the fate of the con- sumptive—haunted me everywhere. Nothing was enjoyed to its full—I dreaded excess in all things. As I before said, I became acquainted with the disease in its every shape. I searched in hospital and prison—midst rich and poor, and in every climate, to gain a personal knowledge of it. It became, I fear, a monomania. At last the reality settled itself within me—not with cough or pain, but with a certain sensation after expiration, as though a portion of * breath still oozed from the lung. Then the pulsation of my heart became sensible to me, and as I laid my head on my pillow, I could scarcely sleep for the rustling beat that entered my ear. In vain I tried not to hear it—to laugh at my conceit—the sound was ever there ; and I then observed there was a preference to lie od one side to the other. Sometimes I would be aroused from my sleep by a choking catching of the breath, with my heart beating violently, but soon subsiding, and leaving for a minute or two a stifling sensation in my chest, as though the lungs would burst if I breathed hard. These attacks were not frequent, generally ended with a slight moisture starting over me, and perhaps I would sleep on calmly, but unre- freshed on waking. I did not dare to mention it—not even to my mother; it might pass over, and why make her miserable ? Yet at times I would find her eye resting anxiously on me, und as quickly withdrawn if I met her gaze. " During one of my excursions I met with one so pure, so gentle, and beautiful, that life assumed a new interest. Self for a time was forgotten—I existed in her being. Again my step was buoyant, my spirits almost seemed joyous, whilst my mother's eye grew bright again. My every sense was filled—I was a man igair CONSUMPTION. 279 " One day, Juliette aud myself were enjoying a sail in a small pleasure-boat, when of a sudden the wind changed, and ere we could return a cold drizzling rain set in. I took off mr coat, and insisted on placing it over her shoulders, whnst I by rowing could keep myself warm. I was drenched through, but felt happy and gay as she was by my side. That night I awoke with a sharp pain in my chest, and was 6urning with fever. For awhile the perspi- ration streamed off me in the agony of my re-awakened forebodings ; but it soon dried up, and my skin again became parched, whilst every breath was painful. Inflammation of the lungs had attacked me. In a fortnight I was greatly relieved. My flesh had wasted, and my counteuance told the commotion of my poind. The heart again sounded in my ear as I lay on my pillow. " Then came upon me the bitterest self-repi-oaches. I would not, I could not marry the being I so tenderly loved. My manner became pre-occupied when near her, and at length I was morbidly sensitive even to her name ; not that I loved her less—for God knows that my heart was wrapped in her. No, no ; I could not make her the mother of children doomed to die by an inheritance 1 I spoke of friendship to her ; yes, friendship, when I was a self-immolated sacrifice to ray love ! We parted. Her young heart seemed crushed. I could not explain my fearful apprehensions. She thought me insincere—my God, when I suffered equally I See, here is a copy of a note I addressed to her containing a ring :— "' Dear Juliette, " ' In the olden time, when the romance of life was in its evergreen, and reality clothed with chivalric vestment, a ring was held sacred. It told by its circlet, how the begin- ning and end should be alike one—a symbol of unity, fore- shadowing golden days. 11 became a rich legacy of maternal affection and paternal pride—the talisman of kingly power 280 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. —a token of knightly pledge—and the gift of one fond heart to another. Within its magic circle flowed the warm blood ol maidenly faith, whilst upon it sat the brightness of man'd ansullied troth. In later days, man's occupation [changed from the poetry of life to its necessities, and com- moner feelings grew rank in the garden of the heart—the ring no longer was sacred to memory, but became an orna- ment of vanity—a merchandise alike for king and peasant, and a worthless exchange of an idle fancy. But between us, dear Juliette, let it be redeemed from i»j sunken state. Wear it ever without change, till change take place—let it be the silent token of my constant thought and unswerving love. As in the olden time, let it be emblematic of one-ness. When colder feeling usurps the seat of affection, wear it not, but return it, that it too may teach how the happiness of other days has passed away—the something real of a bright vision faded for ever. " ' George----.' " Time passed on. Regret was now added to dread. My frame soon told the tale of my agony. The night air now distressed me, and a cough, at first dry and irritative, nevei left me. The pulse, at first irregular, at last became regu- larly quickened—flashing heat and chilly tremor vied with each other, i" only appeared when my cheek was flushed! One day my mother took my hand—the palm was hot like fire—she pressed it to her eyes, and bathed it silently with her tears. Then commenced the dewy sweats, and exhausted mornings, with capricious appetite. My clothes were now too large over my chest. Day by day I gradually wasted, and my breath grew short on slight exertion. One evening something salt welled up into my throat, and, with a slight cough, bright blood fell upon the cloth before me. I rose, locked my door, and bled alone! Not even my mother dis- covered it. I was paler, but I said I had not slept well. CONSUMPTION. 381 " For a time the loss of blood gave me relief; but soon the languor increased ; my flesh wasted, and the pulse hur- ried on, but with less strength. Then the chills became more severe, though the fever lasted not so long ; but the florrid sweats increased. I do not think the oppression was now so great, although my breath was shorter—life and lung were accommodating each other 1 but the pain in my shoulder became greater—I called it rheumatism! To my sur- prise, I became more cheerful—hope seemed to hold out a saviug hand. I began to think there was a limit to my dis- ease. But this lasted not long. My cheek burned with a deeper red, although my blood grew daily paler. Too well I knew that life's load was lightening ; yet my will strug gled against conviction. " Now, doctor, you have my history. I am arrested here on my way to Juliette's home. I have written to her, to say that I will soon be with her, and that all shall be explained. Will she doubt me, when she sees the wreck that regret and disease have left ? Will she refuse her for- giveness when the dreadful secret is disclosed ?" He ceased speaking, and appeared much fatigued. Still was he calculating on time and strength, when it was impos- sible that two more days would be his ! Besides, the mor- row promised to be a day of storm ; heavy clouds obscured the heavens, the wind was very high, and rain would soon fall in torrents. A little fire was made in the hearth, as the night grew more inclement. The sofa was drawn upj and in a few minutes he fell asleep. He slept almost like a child, so easy were his breathings, although short. The fire-light alone brightened the chamber, whilst the storm without appeared fast increasing. But the inmates of the hotel cared not for the night j sounds of music occa- sionally struck my ear, as I half-dozed by the side of the sick man. Surely, a great hotel is a heartless pla^e ; ;.t hath oone of the sanctity of home life I 282 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. The rain pelted the jarring window-frames—the storm whistled, and died moaning away. The sick man seemed happy—the changing sounds lulled him to sleep. A smile played over his mouth. Were the angels whispering to him as in childhood they do? His thin white hand gently raised, and his arm motioned as though embracing some one, and "Juliette, loved one," breathed from his lips. A peal of thunder, like the roar of artillery, shook the house. With a faint cry he awoke. Fright was depicted in every feature. " Ah, heaven! is that you, doctor ? Then it is not real." I took the poor sufferer's hand, as he laid his head upon my shoulder. The once proud strong man sobbed—his heart seemed broken. " Dreams are only mine," he at length said. " I stood with her at the altar—my arm was around her waist, and the first pure kiss seemed lingering on my lips—when of a sudden the earth rent open, and I was left alone, struggling in a sea of blood 1 I feel it here," he continued, placing his haud over his heaving breast; it is of no use, I must die— die, unblessed and unheard." For a while I thought the end was nigh come. How the cold sweat poured from his broad forehead ! Scarce a breath he drew, unless convulsive gaspings could be so called. The fire-light was nearly out—the stump-ends of the logs welled and sang like a death bell. I felt very weak—the storm alone seemed strong, as with plashing rain and fierce blast it howled on. I could not leave him. He la/ hah off the sofa, drooping and panting on my chest. The fire- light grew less and less. I called aloud to some one pas- sing the door; but he heard it not, and went, humming a merry tune, by 1 Then came over me that bitterness of heart, so often the companion of our professional life. 1 mentally cursed the gay man, and thought how close, hand CONSUMPTION. 283 to hand, sported life near death. God help the traveller who sickens in these great gatherings of men 1 At length he rallied, and placing him upon his cushions, I gave him a restorative—lamp-light never seemed more like a friend. Pointing to me to be seated, he said in a half whisper— " Doctor, how long can this last ? Tell me—I must know." I was glad at the question, for there might be many things yet to be done by him ; and friends drink eagerly the hap- penings of the closing scene—a message—a mere " God's blessing," are deeply prized, when breathed by the loved dying. Ha'.e we not all felt it? But a sad task it is to allot the hour of death to the yet young. " My dear friend," I answered, " if you have anything to prepare—any writiugs, or message, or peace to make—' Bhould be soon done ; for I fear by this time to-morrow the burthen will have been laid down." " So soon," he cried, starting up ; "it cannot be—it must not be. I will live—I cannot give it up yet." I begged him to quiet himself, and to attend to what he could before he slept. " Sleep—sleep 1 my God 1 what, sleep, when my very soul is awake ? What, with every hour numbered, to waste a single one on sleep, when the body's want has ceased ? No, no ; no more sleep for me. Hush, waste not words ; my will is as strong as ever, though the muscles have wea- kened. It is the hour I have so long dreaded—so fought against; and yet I must most miserably perish, robbed of heart blood, with scarce a fragraent left uncontaminated within my chest." He shuddered ; his old feelings were agaiu rioting within. By degrees he became calm, and as I comraenced, he seized my hand, pressed it fervently, and interrupted me. 41 Call me George. Have you not been a brother to me ? —to me, a perfect stranger, whose wayward and rebellious feelings have caused nothing but trouble and pain to you. 284 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. Call me George. No mother is here to call me thus. You have been all to me." I told him that all physicians did daily do as I had doDe. " Yes," he exclaimed, " their mission is a high one—yet so little prized, how little even thought of 1 Even I lid not appreciate their mighty value, till now, when too late to do aught but thank and God bless them—to ask forgiveness —when often I have passed them by, as though belonging to the common herd of men, ignorant of their sacrifices, their unseen humanity, and their Christianizing heart-influ- ences ! But, doctor, my poor mother will cherish you—her prayers will mingle your name with mine. She will never cease to remember the death-friend of her only child. When I am gone, doctor, tell her how dear she was to me—tell her how the cradle has never left my heart, with her soft lullaby and mother-prayer—that now, even now, when the damps of death chill my wasted blood, my heart still feels warmed by the strong memory of her affection for her dar- ling boy. Will you promise ?" I did so through my tears. For a while he seemed com- muning with himself—the expression of his countenance was sacred. " Summon my servant," he suddenly exclaimed, " and bid him take horse, and ride like the wind to B----. Let him tell her, Juliette, to come quick to me, that all may yet be explained—for my sake. He was overcome, and panted like a sheep. " Now, doctor, fan the flame ; let it not go out till I have seen her by my side ; and then, world's care will be over." He slumbered heavily during the night—the storm had abated, and his servant had left regardless of the weather. The morning broke bright as Hope itself—the early bud and blossoms were weeping dewy tears of light Here and CONSUMPTION. 285 there some *,orn-off branch, with scattered flower-leaves, lay on the earth, soon to be crushed and withered, whilst others grew happily on. Such is life ! George was evidently weaker than the night before, but he was composed. He constantly looked at his watch. His whole aim seemed in trying to be prepared for the expected arrival. Twelve o'clock passed, aud he was very languid. I began to fear he could not last till the meeting. He avoided taking the stimulants as frequently as before ; De was nursing for his last trial. The sun was nigh set, when suddenly he cried, " She comes—she comes !" I listened, but could discover no sound. His ear was more acute, for in a minute the roll of a carriage rapidly driven broke on my ear. "Quick," he cried, leaning on his elbow, "give me the drink—more ;" and he drank double the usual allow- ance. I went into the passage—the servant was rapidly escorting a young lady. Putting out my hand silently I led her into the chamber, followed by her father. With out-stretched arms the dying man half raised from the sofa, as his loved one sank amidst an agony of his soba into his embrace. No one moved for some time. Our tears flowed like rain.............. , At length, gently raising her from his breast, we placed her by his side. Her silken hair fell over his pillow, as she bent her ear to catch his voice. I had never before seen such beauty. Alas I for heart-canker 1 " Can you now forgive me, dear Juliette ?" he faintly asked. " Do you not read the fatal secret that dashed the cup of joy from our lips 1 Was this wretched body a fit mete for thine ?" " Oh, speak not thus to me, George. It was not the body I loved—thy spirit mated mine. See, upon this hand I have ever worn the ring ; am I not thy spirit* hride ?" " Oh, Juliette," said the now happy man, "you are mors 286 SCENES IN SOUTHERN PRACTICE. than bride to me !—thou art knowledge 1—since through thee I began.to learn a future life !" " Did you, dear George ?" she said—" could you believe that within us, which rides from earth heavenward upon thought, could partake of the perishable nature of matter, which, ever changing, teaches destructibleness ? Matter belougeth to earth—spirit hath but one affinity, and that is for its Maker, to whom it may render the account of its working whilst in the prison-house of the flesh !" A bright glow centered on the wan cheek of her listener —the fervor of received truth beamed from his eyes ! " Speak to me, Juliette—speak thus again," he gasped out. " The ills of my manhood are passing away. I feel chasing through every fibre of my brain the bright intelli- gence so lately learned. It must be true. God's will be done ! Oh, let me feel your hands, so full of human warmth —fresh from the hearth of your pure heart. Oh, how differ- ent from other heat! Tell me, doctor, how far cold am I ?" He stretched out his arm towards me. He was like ice to the elbow. " I know—I know—Death's frosts are stealing over me ; yet I feel your warm hands, Juliette, and your breath seems genial to my cold cheek. More drink. My sight loses you, dearest. It is of no use—I fail—I die. Bless—mother— Juliette." All was over. Again it is May—the churchyard is green again. Two tombs lie together. One seems but freshly made, for the grass is trodden down by its side, and a few withered bios- Boms, like those full blooming over the other, lie scattered around. On this new tomb is inscribed, " Juliette." HISTORY OF FORT LEI. 281 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. It hat' been said of the American, and we fear with too much truth, that he has little attachment to his native place. The allurements of wealth aud the love of change seem to engulf so much his attention, that he appears to reverence scarcely even that spot of earth that may be hallowed by the most tender associations. Without attempting to defend our countrymen, or to eulogize their enterprise or their bravery, we propose simply to contribute a few facts in relation to this beautiful and romantic suburb, with which we have been made familiar since our infancy, by those who were personally eugaged in them during the exciting period of the Revolution. The spot is associated with the memory of a being we most revered on earth—one to whose lips falsehood was unknown. We shall, however, commence twenty-five years anterior to that period, in order to trace its earlier history. The site of Fort Lee is not generally known to those who visit the place on excursions. Many suppose it to have been situated directly on the river, on the table-land upheld by the Palisades, as that glorious and stupendous bulwark of vertical rock is called that stretches some thirty miles up the noble Hudson. This is an error. There were two large cannon stationed there, upon a raised platform of earth, which is now distinctly visible in its outline, some three hundred feet from the Bluff, as the first great rock »s called, that caps the ascent immediately behind the hotel 988 HISTORY OF FORT LEE. There was also a smaJl fort there called Fort Constitution, irounting three or for*, guns. These cannon were placed there to annoy the shipping, and to prevent them from ascending the river—the prospective importance of which, as a channel of communication with West Point and the Canadas, General Washington could not fail to perceive. A chevaux de frise, of considerable strength, had been con- structed of chains, and sunken posts, and timber, for the purpose of obstructing the navigation ; and this extended across the river from the shore directly beneath the batte- ries, to that in front of Fort Washington, on the other, or city side of the river. There were likewise two cannon a couple of miles further up the river. These defences were erected some time before Fort Lee. The prophetic eye of Washington, after the victory of the English on Long Island, seeing that the war could only be continued, with such miserable r^'litary stores and appointments as we possessed, by alternately retreating and fighting the enemy, selected the first great natural position for a fort that offered on the Jersey side. Brigadier-General Mercer was accordingly directed to occupy the position of Fort Lee, with the militia and such troops as could be gathered. It was named after General Lee, then in com- mand of a detachment of the army. Fort Lee was com menced on the 12th of September, 1776, and was situated on the western side of the road that leads up the h;ll from the steamboat landing, about three hundred feet behind the Palisade rocks which skirt the river. Its southern bastion is situated directly behind the Episcopal Church. It was about a quarter of an acre in extent, and was surrounded by an embankment, still traceable, though nearly obliterated by the plough. Some four hundred acres—comprising the sites of these two forts and the whole of the village proper, now above and below them, together with the landing and the hill OB HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 289 which the hotel stands—were purchased, about twenty years before the revolution, by Stephen Bourdette, who, in connection with William Bayard, had received from the King a grant of a large tract of land, comprising Weehaw- ken and Hoboken. The house is still standing at Weehaw- ken Hill, in which he lived. He was the great-uncle of the writer. He purchased the land at Fort Lee from an old slave who had been made a free man by his master, and lived in solitude by fishing and trapping the animals that abounded in the vast forest aoout that place. The father of Stephen, Etienne Bourdette, was the son of a French gentleman who had left his native country many years before the Edict of Nantes caused the exodus of the Huguenots, and settled in one of the West India islands as a planter ; thus early, showing the indomitable family hatred of religious tyranny, that cannot permit other men to be their conscience-keepers. Etienne had been sent to New York by his father, to obtain an education, about eighty years before the war, or one hundred and sixty years ago. Stephen Bourdette, finding that the habits of his father, whose wife was then dead, and himself of a contemplative and religious character, led him to make constant excursions from the city (where he lived in Pine street, and cultivated land) to the beautiful region of which we write—purchased the entire place, and erected a spacious stone house for hiu. directly in front of the old farm-house, now standing on the left of the brook which skirts the road, on the west end of the house now occupied by Robert Annette, proprietor of the hotel and landing This exceedingly valuable and com- manding situation, we may here remark as an illustration of the primitive habits of those days, was given to an old man for constructing a few hundred yards of wall, to hold up the old road leading from Mr. Bourdette's house to the cow-pasture on the top of the hill. It is now richly worth 13 290 Hi SI OR Y OT PORT LIB. $100,000, and comprises the entire water front of the v illage. The stone house occupied by Etienne Bourdette, was the only one then standing on the place, and for uearly a mile north aud south of it. It was the head-quarters of Wash- ington ; and after the death of Etienne, was left to his son Peter, and his wife, who had been living at Hackensack, and came to take charge of their father in his extreme old age ; he died there, aged eighty years. Peter Bourdette, with his excellent wife, a woman gifted with a noble soul and a most energetic and commanding character, came to the place about fifteen years before the war, and soon made it the abode of great comfort and hospitality. There the miserable and the afflicted always found a comforter, and were never turned empty away. There was no end to the requirements of hospitality, as such a thing as a hotel was unknown until within the memory of the writer. The social and gentlemanly farmer rarely visited the city, and delighted in learning the current news from the wayfarer. It was the custom of those days, for the farmer to have around him a number of slaves, and the master was always at leisure for a friendly chat. Although wild and mountainous, the land was very productive, and there was always abundance of food for the hungry man and his horse. If a gentleman, he was invited to the table ; if not, the kitchen was ample, and the servants as fond of news as their master. Some idea may be formed of the wildness of the place, a hundred years ago, from the necessity of inclosing the sheep at night, in order to keep them from being devoured by the wolves, The mother of the writer, long after the Evolution, was standing with a sister in the garden, when a great bear came down from the forest on the hill, and scrambling on a cake of ice, was shot some few miles from the north of the city. The carcass was sold in Washington Market, which was often called by the country people, from IISTOB ->F FORT LBI. 29) £hat circumstance, tha " Bear Market." The same sister, now living, reported the discovery of a large wildcat, hh she returned from picking berries. It was shot by a brother the same day, and found to be a very fierce creature. The rattle-snake abounded The writer met with one, a few years since, that was killed and preserved shortly after the Revolution. Foxes were a great pest, and were hunted aud trapped to some profit by the negroes. It may be supposed, that very few social aud educational opportunities were offered to the family of the farmer of such a wild region as existed ten miles from the city of New York a hundred years ago. Indeed there was not a house visible ; but boats and horses were plenty, and there were lithe limbs and strong arms to govern them. Both boys and girls owned their horses, and a ride over the hills, of ten miles, was a trifle to a revolutionary mother ; or an early breakfast in New York, after a row in a little egg- shell, starting before day-break over the waters of that noble river, waiting like a beautiful bride or a young mother, to bear her children on her ample bosom to some dear old familiar face in the city. We have before us, at this moment, the richly clasped and griffin-footed little wal- nut chest, that a great-aunt, who reached her eightieth year, served the tea from. It contained a compartment for tea, aL.4 by its side the old and quaiut little silver spoons. They were the gift of a lover. The sister of this lady, the great-grandmother of the writer, was a devout Episcopalian, and illuminated with her pencil, with which she was skillful, a panel, with some scrip- tural device, over the clergyn?aD1s pew in the old Church du St. Esprit, which still stood, a£ well as the old family man- sion, within the memory of the writer, in Pine street. The great-grandfather on the maternal grandmother's side—a Hollander—left his farm, where Hanover square now is, to reside at Hackensack, in New Jersey ; and it was to visit 192 DISTORT OF FORT LEE the relatives who remained in the city that the excursions from Fort Lee were made. A few curious books in natural history and botany, which w*>re gathered up after the plundering of the old house at Fort Lee, still remain, and attest the intellectual habits aud taste that governed Etienne in the choice of his abode. Ho was eminently religious. When the lightning would paint its notes upon the thunder cloud, and the storm-anthem would throw the graud diapason upon the ear, as it rever- berated from the rocky organ of the Palisades—when the last notes would rumble away in the distance of the noble river—the old man would bare his aged head, and walk forth in the midst of the storm. The mother of the writer. who would attempt to detain him, always received the reply ; " Be still, my child, and listen to the voice of God !" The rock has often been pointed out to me on which he would sit : and when the hollow murmur of the thunder could be faintly heard in the distance, a fine old sonorous voice might Se heavd. sometimes in French, but oftener in English, chant- ing the Episcopal service : "We praise Thee, 0 God 1" The man of fourscore years, the son and the grandson of ninety- four and ninety-five, and she from whose lips—but lately closed, and to whom we owe life—we write, of eighty five, owed that early life-force that led them so far beyond the allotted years of man, to the pure atmosphere of this roman- tic spot ; and two of the last generation, of sixty and seventy, still look upon the rising sun uear the spot where they first saw its light. A hundred years has been attained by a neighbor, and eighty aud ninety are frequent amongst the inhabitants. The toils of city life, and the cunning devices of man to cut short its brittle thread, will not permit many of their descendants to reach so distant a goal. But the son had his trials. Etienne, the father, died several years before the war, and the place was given bj BISTORT OP PORT LEE. 20* tin senior brother, who resided at Weehawken, and was always called by the English of the paternal name, i. e., Stephen, to his brother Peter, the grandfather of the writer. He, with his eldest son (also Peter), his excellent wife, Rachel Bush, and the mother of the writer, then seven years of age, and three other children, passed through the stormy period of the Revolution at their lovely mountain home. One day, early in November of 1776, with some of the younger children, my mother was summoned unexpectedly from school, in the English Neighborhood, as that large and beautiful portion of farming country which lies between Fort Lee and Hackensack is called ; and as she came in sight of the winding road that leads down the mountain to the river and the old farmhouse, hundreds of tents appeared on ^he high ground that commands the river. General Washington had issued his orders to General Mercer to summon all the available troops and erect a fort there, as early es the 6th of September, so as to command the river, in case Colonel Magaw should be obliged to retreat, and cross with the army from Fort Washington, then threatened by the British General Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and Gen. Kniphausen, whose designs on that place were now palpable. Fort Lee was also intended as a depot for troops, in case a reinforcement should be necessary for the defence of that fort; but how they were to be transported the writer could never understand, as there were no flat-boats, and the river is nearly two miles across, forbidding the use of floats. This post must have been first occupied between the 1st and 10th of November ; for the troops were there, and it was the 13th, when the illustrious Father of our Country first appeared at the old farm-house. It was a period of great gloom to our country , for our means of payment prevented anything like permanent enlistment, and Washington was 294 HISTORY OF FORT LEE sadly disappointed at the impossibility of obstructing the river by chevaux de frise. As early as October 6th, thre* British vessels had passed the fort, receiving but little damage from cue batteries on the heights ; and it was evi- dent that reinforcements of men for the British army could not be prevented passing up the river ; and thus the army at Fort Washington, under the brave Magaw, with all their munitions, could be more easily cut off by greatly superior numbers. Washington was the object of childish adoration by my mother, and her brother, a youth of sixteen, was a great favorite. On more than one occasion, he rowed to the city at midnight, and brought papers and intelligence of the anticipated movements of the army who threatened Fort Washington. The illustrious chief would retire to his room, and after perusing the papers, he would walk up to the fort and inspect, through his glass, the movements at Fort Wash- ington, on the city side of the river. The site of that fort our readers will recognize by the flag-staff directly behind the great telegraph masts, where the wires cross the river. It is about eleven miles from the City Hall, and on the highest ground visible. One night, when my brave uncle was approaching the shore, after one of his night visits to the city to get the news for the General, and to convey some provisions to her poor friends from his excellent mother, who never forgot the needy, the wind prevented his signal from being heard by the sentinels who guarded the shore, and supposing an enemy to be approaching, a rifle ball cut his oai in two pieces As he had but one left, he managed his boat with it as well as he could, and landed, at great risk of being shot, about a mile down the river, and made his way home on foot. On this occasion, the chief stood by while his mother ripped up the lining of his great coat, and receiving the papers, complimented him warmly for his bravery. So HISTORY OF rORT LEE. 295 attached was he to Washington that he was continually importuning his mother to permit him to receive an appoint- ment near the beloved chief ; but she pointed to my mother and her still younger children, and asked him who would protect them if his father was shot, for his republicanism rendered hira a marked man, and her sagacity assured her that in the event of the evacuation of Fort Lee, their situa- tion between the two armies would be almost desperate. As it proved entirely impossible to prevent the English from ascending the river by ckevaux de frise, and as they had landed in full force on the Sound, it was very evident that they had the means of speedily cutting off all communi- cation with the city and the country north of the creek, which, with Harlem river, bound, the island of New York on its northern side. This creek on the Hudson is situated about three miles north of Fort Washington, then com- manded by the brave Col. Magaw. This post it was resolved to hold at all hazards. Congress passed a resolu- tion on the 11th of October, to incur any possible expense to obstruct the river ; and as Fort Washington and the batteries of the Palisades were to aid this plan in its most essential and destructive features, there was a prospect of stirring times about the old house. The " Fort Field," as the grandchildren always called it since the war, was divided into streets, called after the most noted streets of the city. Broadway, Pearl street, &c, were chalked on pieces of bark, and tacked to posts. The streets were made by lines of tents, and many of th? soldiers had constructed huts of stone, with fire-places, and doors opening to the south. Within the circuit of one of these, but four years since, we assembled a large family party—my mother giving us, with great spirit, and a per- fect recollection, many incidents of the war. We drank from a well, now inclosed and quite perfect, which had been constructed by the soldiers, and looked out fiom our rocky 296 HISTORY OF FORT LEE. seats under a beautiful pine tree, over the glorious river, as it stretches away in its glistening course to the ocean. Oue of the huts, of unusual dimensions, fronting south, was devoted to the use of Geueral Greene, and near it the great Chief met in council with the officers, when it was concluded to evacuate the fort. Here had been the slaughter-house, there, the powder- house, and here, the commissary's tent. On October 28th, the battle of White Plains took place, which was so nearly equal in its results as to give our countrymen some encouragement; but our miserable appli- ances, and the determination of Gen. Howe to possess the command of the whole of New York Island, iuduced him to approach Fort Washington. He directed Gen. Kniphausen to cross the creek, and occupy the north-western end of the island, between Fort Washington and King's Bridge. Gen. Howe soon joined him, and Washington saw that Fort Washington would be the immediate object of attack. As Gen. Howe approached King's Bridge to cross the creek, three ships of war again passed up the river, notwith- standing the chevaux de frise and firing batteries. This was answered from the ships, and a ball cut off the tops of several trees just beyond the house, and ploughed up a con- siderable space in the road. It moved the hearty mirth of a favorite black servant, who was ascending the hill, and she shouted out at each fire, in great glee, " At 'em again, blue jacket 1" (alluding to the dress of our soldiers) and it was long a by-word amongst the black servants of the family. Gen. Washington now took measures to aid Magaw, in the event of attack, by transporting troops across the river ; though I could never learn that there were any boats of consequence there, or any means of con- structing them. Such was the force with which the British were assembled under Kniphausen, on the north, who had five thousand men. HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 297 besides an unknown number south, under Lords Coruwallis and Percy, and Lieut. Stirling, that Washington sent dis- cretionary orders to General Greene to direct Magaw to evacuate the fort and cross the river, should he judge it expedient; but the brave Magaw was high in spirits with his two thousand, all told, against at least ten 1 On the 13th, General Howe summoned him to surrender. Geueral Washington was then at Hackensack, aud he immediately returned, and late at night was crossing the river, my brave uncle delighted with an oar, to give Magaw the necessary instructions, when they met Generals Putnam and Greene, who were returning from a visit to that post, in order to make arrangements for reinforcement, if necessary. The British General resolved upon carrying the place by storm. The event is matter of history, though few know how awful a carnage occurred within ten miles of the spot where we write. The brave Col. Rawlings left six hundred of the enemy dead on the north side of the fort alone, and there were two hundred slain on the southern and eastern approaches to the fort. The accounts give little satisfac- tion, as it regards the loss of the Americans, though it could not have been at the utmost over three hundred, as there were but two thousand regular troops in the fort, and the prisoners were stated by Gen. Howe at two thousand six hundred—a discrepancy which must have originated in esti- mating those only who were reguarly enlisted, without volunteers or recruits irregularly obtained. My uncle, who was on the ground after the battle, informed me that dozens of men lay dead, their bodies in heaps, so close was the attack on the northern side, under Rawlings. But this was the precipitous part. On the other sides, the ascent is but slight, and the overwhelming numbers and perfect military equipments of the enemy, will account for the victory. When the attack was at the highest, General Washington 13* 298 HISTORY OF FORT LEE. sent a boat over to request Magaw, if possible, to hold out till night, when he would send a reinforcement. He remained with my uncle on the Palisade rocks skirting the river, inspecting the movements of the belligerents; and when the flag was struck, hauding his glass to his young companion, with looks of greatest dejection, he exclaimed: " Look, my boy, look ! All is over. Alas 1 my poor country 1" Descending the heights, Gen. Washington made immediate arrangements to evacuate Fort Lee, which was by no means as strong as Fort Washington, and the General saw the British would immediately invest it. Accordingly, Cornwallis, with six thousand men, crossed at Dobb's Ferry for that purpose, and advanced by a forced march. It would have been madness to attempt to fight such a force ; therefore the garrison moved off on the 18th of November, compelled to abandon their canuon, tents, and military stores. The impossibility of obtainiug wagons was the cause of this sacrifice. My grandmother and the children were obliged to flee to the English Neighborhood, two miles off, so as to escape the immediate consequences of the free plunder that they knew was to come—my grandfather and his son remain- ing, to collect, if possible, any property that might be spared. What valuables and money they possessed were buried, and they soon had occasion to summon all their fortitude. Some thousands of Hessians and mercenary soldiers devas- tated the place. A perfect saturnalia now commenced. A barrel of whiskey and another of sugar were rolled out of the cellar, and thrown into a rain water cask standing at one corner of the house, in the court-yard. My good grand- mother's dairy-room yielded its aid, and a puncheon of milk punch was made, and stirred with a rail. My grandfather begged a British officer to try and preserve at least a single pail of milk for his children's evening meal. Overcome with HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 299 sympathy at the nature of the request, he was too much excited to carry out his benevolent intentions judiciously. Approaching a Hessian soldier, who was coming up the cellar steps with a flat vessel of milk (called a " keeler " in dairy phrase) on his head, he struck him slightly on the back with the flat side of his sword. The cowardly crea- ture jumped aside at his officer's frown, the bottom of the old vessel broke, and he became in a moment a personifica- tion of pleuty—literally flowing with milk. There was a shout of laughter, in which my grandfather was too much of a Frenchman not to join. When the punch was prepared, my grandfather was impu- dently requested to drink the King's health, by those wretched creatures, the Hessian soldiers. They were using their shoes by way of drinking-cups ! Several British officers were present, and it is but doing them justice to say that they seemed to sympathize with the inhabitants. One of them immediately stepped up to my grandfather, and advised him to go through with the formality only, as the soldiers continued loudly to call for him. There were hundreds of soldiers present. He said he feared it would be the cause of personal danger to him, if he refused ; but he had stern Huguenot blood in him, and replied that if he drank at all, he would say what he pleased. They immedi- ately made way for hira to approach the puncheon ; and the officers, who well knew his boldness, surrounded him com- pletely. Uncovering his head, and dipping his hand into the liquor, which he only pretended to drink, he bowed to the name he was about to utterl rather than to the officers, and exclaimed in his clearest tones, throwing a Frenchman's kiss over the mountain where he had that morning taken leave of his beloved and great friend, " The health of General Washington ! Confusion to King George, and destruction to his hireling Hessians !" It was well for him that the officers were attached to him, or he would have 300 HISTORY OF FORT LEE. been cut to pieces by the infuriated soldiers. Why he was not killed by some of them when their officers were absent, is to me a wonder ; for his fearless utterance was always exasperating. At the end of ten days, the British troops had evacuated the place, and were proceeding towards Newark, under Cornwallis. Washington had crossed the Passaic, on his way to New Brunswick ; and my grandfather and his son went in pursuit of the family, to bring them back to their ruined household. My mother and the other children were brought over, and they were about being sent supperless to such beds as could be prepared for them out of the torn frag- ments, which the infuriated soldiery had not entirely destroyed, when my good grandmother appeared, coming down the hill on an old wood sled, drawn by a beau- tiful horse, the only living animal they now possessed, driven by a black man. All the cattle and other horses were of course carried off by the British troops ; and she had herself driven over this horse to the English Neighbor- hood, when the family fled from the old house, with a bag of flour and a few pounds of butter, and secreted him in the cellar of an old deserted house I have often seen. Here he remained for three days, without food or drink, and would have died but for the kindness of a British officer, who was attached to my grandfather, and to whom she communicated the hiding-place of her beautiful pet. He kindly went over, and fed him and gave him drink, during those three days, when the British had extended themselves from Fort Lee, and were foraging the southern portion of the English Neighborhood, where she, of course, could not venture to go. Hearing their mother below stairs, the children were clamorous for food ; for they had not eaten since morning The poor Uttle creatures were fain to content themselves with a raw turnip till some cakes could be hastily made for HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 301 them. The wholesome milk and the pet cows—each one having its name and its owner—were all gone ; and had it not been for the providence of a mother who combined all the affection of the woman with the firmness of a most determined man, they might have well-nigh starved to death ; for. as we have already said, there was no other house near, and the people for miles were robbed of all their food and cat tie. ■' Bless God for all his mercies ! Here you are, aud here are we all together ; and here is food, too," said this excel- lent woman to her husband. " I feared your tongue would cost you your life." She little knew how nearly true her anticipations had proved. My mother, who was but seven years of age, and her sister, mounted the old sled, and begged a turnip to appease their hunger. She had found her doll and her pet cat near the wood-pile, and seated herself on a log, perfectly happy, eating her turnip. " This is hard to bear," said my grandmother ; " but God will yet prosper our cause, if we follow the counsels of Washington." " Yes," said her husband ; and they now know my senti- ments," adding an expletive in French, which his feelings will pardon. " What's that ?" said she. " Some more imprudence, I dare say." A few days after, my uncle told her the story of the punch and the toast, to which she jocosely replied, looking nevertheless proudly at her husband : " Pity it is your father had not a little Dutch blood in bim. These Frenchmen are always half crazy. Thank God, my son, your father was not killed before your eyes 1" The family were now in still greater danger than before, for they were entirely unprotected, as the entire American army were west of the Hackensack, and what was worse, 802 HISTORY OF FORT LEE the country was continually ravaged by tories and robbers. What money and valuables they possessed were buried, and lay grandfather abstracted from time to time only enough to procure bread for his family during the winter. It was useless to purchase many cattle, for he could not be sure of preserving them over a single night. The family managed to subsist during this hard winter ; but it was necessary for my uncle to visit the city, often at great risk of life, to pro- cure food ; aud when I last saw him, at ninety years of age, firm and erect, with the voice and will of a lion, his immense features and grey hair adding great dignity to his appear- ance, I could not but think that the sage was right when he said, " Difficulty is good for man." An event occurred shortly after the evacuation of Fort Lee, which I have often felt would have graced the page of history, although it never probably occurred to its chief actor that it was worth recording ; for he never seemed to think it of much moment. Gen. Kniphausen continued in command of the fort and the division of the army on the northern part of the island of New York. But a few days elapsed after the family had returned, when they were alarmed by the rude midnight summons of a British officer, followed by several soldiers, and a demand that my grand- father should immediately cross the river to the fort. They were all dreadfully alarmed ; but the officer assured them he would be permitted to return before day, as Gen. Knip- hausen merely required some information, which would insure his safe return. This was equal to an assurance that he would be sent to one of the city prisons, as the family knew he would communicate nothing to the enemy, and that he had greatly exasperated the Hessians by tbe toast. It had now obtained general currency, and every one sup- posed him a doomed man. My uncle most earnestly begged to be permitted to accompany his father, but was not allowed. He was hurried off to the fort, none supposing HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 80S they would again see him in weeks or months, if ever. On his arrival at the fort, he was immediately introduced to Gen. Kniphausen, who treated him very courteously, offering wine and refreshment. The General soon commenced the conversa- tion by alluding to the trouble my grandfather had already uudergone, and made some remarks on the unequal nature of the contest. My grandfather replied that when a whole nation were of one mind, and a country as extensive as America, he could scarcely believe it possible to subjugate them without years of sacrifice and expenditure. Gen. Kniphausen smiled, and asked if the recent results showed much determination on the part of the Americans. My grandfather had it on his tongue to refer him to Col. Raw- lings and the northern bastion of the fort, within the enclo- sure of which they were then sitting ; but prudence pre- vailed, aud he was silent. Gen. Kniphausen was not a rude man, and made no further effort to prolong the conversa- tion ; but drawing from his pocket a heavy purse of gold, he threw it upon the table, and assured my grandfather that he would be pleased to extend to his family, in his present dangerous position on the lines, the aid and protection of a guard, and that he would be happy in return to receive some necessary information about the future movements of the array ; that as Gen. Washington had been his guest, he must possess more knowledge of the plan of action than any other person ; ending with the assurance that he would be pleased to possess his personal friendship, and in return he would supply his more immediate pecuniary necessities, pointing to the purse. My grandfather felt as though every drop of blood in his body had mounted to his face. He immediately arose, and walking towards the further entrance of the tent, replied : " Permit me, Gen. Kniphausen, to draw this conversation to a close ; and excuse me for the remark, that if you insist upon its further continuance, I cannot but feel it will be discreditable to both of us. I 304 HISTORY OF FORI LEE. have already been too long here ; but what could a man, seized at midnight, surrounded by a helpless family do, but yield to superior force ? I am ready to accompany your soldiers to your prison, for I suppose that is to be my fate?" " That is not the way, Mr. Bourdette," replied General Kniphausen. " I have no such intentiou. But you are a bold man thus to trifle with your family. I will return you to them for the present, but cannot always promise to be so lenient " General Kniphausen," replied my grandfather, " it may save you and my helpless family further trouble should the chance of war again bring Gen. Washington under my roof, if I inform you that I am not advised of his intended movements. They will doubtless be dictated by the emer- gencies brought about by your superior numbers and appointments ; but I trust in God for my poor country, they will result in good. Good night, General. I am cer- tainly indebted to you for your clemency, and hope you will save yourself and me any future trouble of a character like the present." " Good night, Mr. Bourdette. You are a bold man ; and if your countrymen were all like you, we would have harder duty before us." My grandfather reached home in safety, and was awaited by the whole family, who had not slept since his depar- ture. But my pen betrays me, and I must close this tribute to the memory of the past. The family underwent many vicis- situdes during the subsequent six years of the war, which the reader will find recorded in another part of this volume. The old house was rebuilt shortly after the war, and its roof- tree a second time became grey with moss whilst it covered the venerable heads of its owners, and they recounted to their grandchildren the scenes tbey had witnessed, and again HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 305 made it the abode of comfort and hospitality. Often, as in my schoolboy days, I have sought the old mansion through the forest of Weehawken, and could see the venerable pair seated on the porch, and hear the echo of the woodman's axe and the tinkling of the cow-bell, I have thought, even in my early youth, that a life thus spent, and nearing its close, was far more congenial with nature and true dignity of charac- ter, than all the applause of popularity or the fawning syco- phancy of luxury and fashion. 406 SCENES IN PRACTICE. SCENES IN PRACTICE. THE FOUR IMPELLING POWERS TO EVIL—INTEMPERANCE, AMBITION, ANIMAL PASSION, AMD TDK LOTE OF MONET—ILLUSTRATION OF THE LATTER BT AN AWFUL TRAGHDT. A few years since, whilst visiting a country town to attend to an operation, my professional advice was sought by a man whose extraordinary countenance impressed me, in a greater degree than I ever remember to have been by any individual in the lower walks of life. I subsequently found that the occasion of his visit was to avail himself of my opinion as professional testimony, to assist in clearing up some points which went to implicate him in one of the most deliberate and awful murders in the whole catalogue of crime, ancient or modern. I took pains to ascertain the facts, and listened to nearly all the evidence during the first trial of two men, his son-in-law and nephew, who were exe- cuted as the murderers ; the first trial was then progress- ing in the village where my patient lived. Ambition, intemperance, the morbid state of sexual passion, and the love of money, I take to be the four greatest impelling powers to crime ; and my legal friends must forgive me if I consider their efforts to defend a criminal they know to be guilty, often prove them particularly liable to the former and the latter vices ; for such we have always considered the four. The love of money, however, as it is the meanest and rilest of human vices, is usually fostered to its most disgust- THE FOUR IMPELLING POWERS TO EVIL 307 ing developments by the more cowardly—whether lawyer, physician, merchant or murderer. The weak-minded of our clerical frieuds, usually nourish the vices of ambition and sensuality. The study of human motive in its action on temperament and organism, has ever been to us, the most fascinating pursuit ; and it will be observed that the mere medical and surgical relations of patient and physician, are always of secondary consequence in the sketches we present our readers. We shall now endeavor to place before the reader the chief characters implicated in the tragedy we are about to recount, and in the order of relation they seemed to us to occupy, from its inception in the love of money, to its fearful consummation in three murders and the execution of two of the murderers ; how far a third was implicated, we will leave the reader to determine ; and whether the love of money does not require the cautions of the moralist and the best efforts of the essayist, as well as any other crime. No vice enables a man so effectually to play upon the weaknesses of his fellows ; especially when the devotee has accumulated enough of the powerful lever to control the weak and needy. The patient who sought my chamber before I had yet arisen from my bed, was a man of about fifty years, of me- dium height, remarkably well knit together, and plainly clad in black ; he was a small farmer living at W----. The lower part of his features showed no peculiar trait, ex- cept peuuriousness, denoted by thin and bloodless lips, and compressed nostrils. The extraordinary traits of character that enabled him to occupy a relation to the tragedy, we will leave the reader to determine, were shown in the eyes and forehead. The eyes were small, grey, and very near together ; the eyebrows near but distinct, and neither luxu- riant nor otherwise ; forehead of medium height and narrow ; cheek bones not prominent; head small, and by no means flat, and not, as our phrenologists always say in villains, 308 SCENES IN PRACTICE. destitute of veneration. It was to the utter woodenness of the face, and the immobility of the eyes my attention was drawn ; the latter might, for all their expressiveness, have been made of glass, and the lids glued to them for the greater part of the time during which he was in my room : he looked as though no other passion but avarice found a dwelling-place in his soul. He was married, and had a family ; his domestic relations were neither marked by severity nor affection : indeed he was a wooden man, locking up his purposes within his own soul. The purpose for which he sought me was in reality a foolish one ; though he doubtless thought my evidence, being a stranger, and therefore supposed to be unprejudiced, might avail him if he could secure my private ear, and oper- ate upou me with a small bribe. But let the story be developed as it occurred : we will only request the reader to remember the personal appear- ance of our patient. The small hamlet in which he lived, was the place of abode of a family consisting of a brother, near his own age, a very good-natured man, possessing some wealth in money and a farm, his wife and two small children ; an old bache- lor, who was also comfortably off in wealth, as boarder ; a young woman as " help," and a boy of some twelve years, also a servant, composed the rest of this family. Much attachment existed between the family and this bachelor, and it was generally supposed that in the event of the death of either, the survivor would inherit the wealth of the deceased. This prospective arrangement we must so far anticipate as to say, was supposed by all the neighbors to be a source of great jealousy and heart-burning between the brothers, viz. my patient and the head of the family. Of course the bachelor was not viewed with favor by my patient, whose visits to the household were few, but fre- quent and hypocritical enough to ascertain what money wag AN AWFUL TRAGEOY. 309 on hand, and to judge where it aud the will, if any existed, were kept. A 6on-in-law of my patient, and a nephew—the former a man of family, a good-natured, blue-eyed creature of some thirty years ; the latter a small, good-looking, inoffensive, though lively and jocose youth of twenty-two—lived near him, and were entirely under his influence. The reader has now all the actors, and the victims before him ; all are sufficiently characterized ; the only marked man being my patient. One morning, the whole hamlet were alarmed by the dis- covery that the brother and his wife, the bachelor and the servant boy, were found murdered by blows from a hatchet: the wife being in bed with half a candle in her hand; the boy up stairs in bed ; the husband and the bachelor on the road a few rods from the house, and the body of one, I do not remember which, thrown into a hole in the road. The hired girl was not to be found, but the two children were alive and unharmed—in a truckle-bed under auother higher bedstead ; directly against which a door opened, so as to obscure it from view. The boy, we may here say, though dreadfully wounded, eventually recovered—an idiot. Some money and papers were found, which it subsequently appeared were only a part of what were in the house : why any were left did not appear. From the moment of the dis- covery by the neighbors, a chain of circumstantial evidence commenced, criminating the two unfortunate young men, or the son-in-law and the nephew of the hardened man who consulted me, and who managed, whether guilty or not, to escape punishment, and to attain the most extraordinary influence over two human beings I have ever imagined possible. The first circumstance that arrested the attention of the neighbors, was the manner in which the son-in law received the intelligence of the murder. He was ploughing, and on 810 SCENES IN PRACTICE. the announcement that the whole family had been murdered, he uttered a mere exclamation of surprise—and finished the furrow! The nephew managed to appear somewhat horror- struck, and my patient also appeared a little shocked. They all assembled at the house where the tragedy had been enacted, and the jury proceeded to investigate the dark affair. Part of the candle was found, as we have already said, clutched in the hand of the murdered woman : all of them had been killed by blows from a hatchet, and hOi death-blow had been at once fatal. Whether she fell asleep with that bit of candle in her hand, or whether it had been placed there by the murderer to deceive, will never be known ; but the other half of the candle, or what wai assumed to be such, because it was evidently recently divided, was found in a lantern near the place where the bachelor and the husband were found murdered. This was at a certain large hole in the road, for the filling up of which, the son-in-law had been negotiating with the mur- dered man, as he was road-master of that town. It was alleged, moreover, that he had been seen late on the evening of the murder, with another man, riding towards the house ; and tracks where a horse had been tied near by, having a very peculiarly marked shoe on one foot, were dis- covered ; the smith who shod the horse, testified it to belong to the son-in-law. What testimony was developed to induce suspicion of the nephew at that time, I have for- gotten, but both were imprisoned and indicted. Two trials were had ; and on the first, neither was con- victed, but on the second, it was proved that money had been paid by the son-in-law immediately after the murder, which was identified, from its peculiar character, to have been paid to the murdered brother of my patient, for pro- visions sold to a merchant. Both the son-in-law and nephew were sworn to as having been seen riding towards the house late at night: there was some other very extraordinary THE INVESTIGATION 311 testimony respecting a letter, either as having been actually sent on the next day, and either preserved by the person, or found undestroyed among the effects of the son-in-law, announcing some event—what I cannot say—connected with the murder and not known to have occurred till some time after- ward, proving conclusively that he must have been privy to it. One circumstance, and one only, arrested my attention as powerfully militating against him on the trial. Such was his inoffensive appearance, that till the moment I witnessed it, 1 believed he would be proved innocent. It is one that could only produce its full impression on the mind of an anatomist : to a lawyer it would be of no consequeuce. He had been allowed to sit among the members of the bar beside his counsel, and had taken a position of apparent ease, with one leg over the other, and his arm hanging over the back of the chair. A slight shade of paleness only overspread his face, and no one could suspect him, a young man, a father, and dwelling peacefully in a quiet hamlet, to be a murderer. When the blacksmith was brought forward, and swore that the tracks made by the prisoner's horse, where he had been tied to the fence, near the scene of the murder, had been identified as only possible to have been made by the peculiar shoe he had fitted to the animal, the prisoner convulsively contorted the arm that was hanging over the back of his chair, and actually turned the palm upwards ; and immediately twice snapped his thumb and finger together, as is common with vulgar people when expressing indifference. I imagined the tumultous move- ments of the poor heart, as he got the unexpected and terrible warning of his doom. His father sat by, and perceptibly lost the color that healthy toil and innocence had allowed to mantle the furrows of his aged cheek. My heart ached for him. I looked to my patient with eager interest: not a movement betrayed the least quickening of his pulse, nor a breath of sympathy or alarm for his son-in 312 SCENES IN PRACTICE. law, his nephew, or himself. Knowing the opinion of the lawyers with regard to his guilt, and with my previous opportunity to judge of his moral nature by his face, my interest became powerfully excited in the result of the trial. I would willingly have prolonged my stay, but my patient recovered, and my duties called me home. Both the younger men were convicted of murder, but my patient escaped. 1 but recently learned the following points in the history of the case ; they have convinced me of the correctness of my first impression as to who planned the murder. Other medical eyes than my own were upon my patient; and his extraordinary influence over the doomed men, was the subject of much wonder. The anticipation that the pri soners would make a full confession, was destined to be disappointed. My informant being a resident of the town and a medical man, had opportunities of ascertaining the facts, which he communicated to me. I have drawn my own conclusions from them. One of the gentlemen who defended the prisoners, was a young man of very prepossessing exterior and most respect- ably connected. His business had been of little pecuniary value up to the period of his being retained for this case. So far as my ability to judge of the countenance extended, I should have supposed him very easily influenced by a wicked and designing man. Both he and my patient had free intercourse with the two prisoners, and it was observed by all who possessed any feeling for persons under such awful circumstances, that they maintained the utmost calm- ness and indifference : this was evidently kept up by the daily visits of my patient, whose influence over them seemed absolute. The young lawyer also was a eonstant visitor, and maintained before them a calm and indifferent exterior. It was known from their deportment and conversation, that they confidently anticipated a pardon ; to the last moment MAGNETIC POWER OF A DESIGNING MAN. 313 of their lives this idea was evidently kept in full* excite- ment ; and here lies the point which has always excited my astonishment. Whatever part my patient had in the planning of this awful murder may never be known ; but his astonishing influence over these two wretched men as well as over the young lawyer, has always amazed me, and classified him with the most remarkable men I ever saw or imagined. Here we find two young men, one a married man and a father, never suspected of crime or known to be cruel, implicated by a series of circumstances of such irresistible power, as to cause a jury of their neighbors to condemn them to death, maintaining the utmost calmness to the last hour of their existence ; the father-in-law of one and uncle of the other, apparently unconcerned and almost indifferent, visiting them daily with his lawyer ; the wife and her little children and his father, seeking the condemned father and husband and son ; the day of execution rapidly approach- ing, and indifference and unconcern the only expression visible on the face of this wonderful man ; wrhen he was to inherit the property of the murdered family,* and seemed, so far as the object and his countenance and deportment went, the only one capable of committing the murder I The day before the execution, all confidently anticipated a solution of the mystery ; but the usual visits were paid to the prisoners, including, I believe, those of a friendly clergy- man, the same stolid apathy was visible on my patient's face, the same cheerfulness on those of the prisoners. All the sad arrangements had been made, the sound of the hammer in the erection of the gallows had rung in their ears ; they ate and drank and retired to rest as usual, uttering no sound of confession, and apparently easy aud unconcerned. All who had looked upon their almost boyish faces, were astonished: how could such hearts and such * I believe, however, he did not Inherit, because of the escape of the two children. 14 314 SCENES IN PRACTICE. brains hold out and see the approach of such a doom without a sign ? The morning came ; the last meeting with wife and chil- dren had occurred ; all went their sorrowful way to the little cottage which had once sheltered in innocence, one whose name it was now a disgrace to bear. The aged father remained, with the old wagon that had once carried his light-hearted boy to school or the hay-field. For what was it kept in waiting now ? Great God 1 why did not the feeble desolate heart stand still and release the poor old man ? The last prayer was said ; the habiliments of death were upon them ; the arms were pinioned ; the last minute had arrived 1 Who passes the fatal summons to the con- demned ? Not the sheriff: he was at the cell-door ; but my patient 1 In a tone of jocularity he summons them, " Come, come ;" and is accompanied oby the young lawyer 1 No unusual excitement was visible on the faces of the con- demned : they are evidently expecting a pardon 1 Had they been assured of it ? See how closely the lawyer and the hard-hearted father-in-law stand near the ear of each prisoner ! The whole party step on to the fatal platform ; they whisper with unmoved faces to the prisoners, and look knowingly at each other ; there is a slight misgiving visible on the faces of the condemned. The vast assembly sway like the wind-moved forest. A moment—the cap is drawn, the signal is given ; the lawyer and the unmoved, iron-faced patient step back, and confession is for ever impossible I On the farm of the poor old father is a tomb that covers the remains of the unfortunate young men. They say he wished to be buried there ; and I know not, but I hope ere this his wish has been gratified. His two poor little grandchildren may gather wild flowers there ; for flowers, like love for a child, will bloom even on the grave of a murderer. My patient, I hope, will live till he is fit to die ; he could not die without repentance. He gathered up the property MONEY, NOT THE CHIEF GOOD. 31ft he possessed and departed for the West. His neighbors looked at him and shuddered as they passed ; and the two little children, who escaped their intended doom, and the graves of the murdered brother and his wife, and the kind old bachelor, were too near him ; the vacant face of the idiot boy, too, would now and then flit before him ; all were too near him ; but there was something still nearer : even he was uncomfortable. The young lawyer also removed. Men talked about him ; he was not acceptable in the social circle ; his first great lesson might be too suggestive of the next step in life, and what might that not be ? Reader, beware of money 1 It is not the chief good: the love of God and man is better S16 ON CROUf. ON CROUP. WHAT IS CROUP? ITS SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT. Few subjects present great* interest to the American mother, than that sudden and violent inflammation of the delicate lining membrane of the wind-pipe in children, termed Croup. The extraordinary vicissitudes of our climate, with the known frequency of its occurrence near the ocean, and the surprising carelessness, and universal ignorance on the subject of dress, together with the prevalence of that deplorable method of heating our city houses with furnaces, aud thus des- troyingthe constitution, gives no hope of the decrease of this terrible disease. Nevertheless, although far too common for the comfort of the parent's mind, it is by no means as fre- quent as those miserable parasites, the numerous quacks, both allopathic, homeopathic, and hydropathic, would have them believe. Many a slight catarrh, that a little warmth and care would remove, is made the subject of a domestic alarm and self-glorification by one of these harpies ; aud the poor infant is drenched with emetics and slops, and parboiled with a warm bath, till exhausted nature comes to its relief, and it falls asleep from sheer exhaustion, and thus escapes its tormentor for a short time. But, alas ! the poor little crea- ture is now pronounced " subject to croup," and it must be carefully watched ; it would never do to let it go with one medical bout. The mother keeps a bright look-out for a " bark or a crow," and is constantly summoning the doctor. 0 N CROUP. 317 We are very far from wishing to foster carelessness—heaven knows that the American city mother is often careless enough—but it sickens us to see the daily misery endured by the poor, timid, young creature, who is victimized by some of these harpies. The first point to which we would direct the reader's attention, is the fact, that croup, properly so called, belongs exclusively to the wind-pipe, or that portion of it that lies between the top of that projecting bone, or rather cartilage, that is so plainly visible in men in the middle of the neck, and all that part of the wind-pipe below it down to the breast-bone. It is a sudden inflammation of the delicate lining membrane of the wind-pipe, produced by exposing the child to cold and damp air when perspiring more or less sensibly, or when going from a warm room into the cold air. The blood is driven from the skin by the cold air, and rushes to that lining membrane, and clogs up all its little blood- vessels ; thus closing up the wind-pipe, and producing spas- modic inspiration, and a sudden and harsh cough, like the hoarse crowing of a young cock. Generally speaking, this inflammation begins high up near the apparatus of the voice, or what we call the larynx, or the part that incloses the vocal chords ; it then travels downwards below the wind- pipe, where it is single and in the neck, and often runs on till it gets into the two branches that go off like the tines of a pitchfork, one to each lung, called the Bronchia. In bad cases, i. e., where the child is pre-disposed from peculiarity of constitution, or in those which are badly treated or neglected, a false membrane is formed around the inner part of the wind-pipe, partially stopping it up, and looking, when coughed up, or taken out of the dead body, very much like a boiled stick of macaroni. As we shall have frequent occasion to speak of the formation of mem- branes and would avoid leading our readers astray, we take occasion to remark that the membrane formed in cronp, S18 ON CROUP. never becomes regularly organized by blood-vessels, Ac, as in some other diseases of longer continuance, where newly organized parts are necessary to form a wall round an abscess, and thus to stop the issue of the matter into parts where it would cause inflammation and death, as in the belly, for instance ; or when nature forms a little sack around a splinter of glass, or a leaden ball, that will remain for many years in the body. This croup membrane is not organized ; it does not grow from and fast to the natural lining membrane that belongs to the wind-pipe, but it is rather a mere mould, formed by the exudation of lymph from the small blood-vessels of the natural membrane, and merely sticks to it; so that if the child could live long enough without its presence causing suffocation, it might gradually decay, and be coughed up piecemeal. There is a predomin- ance of the white or albuminous tissues in children. This is albuminous, but not organized. For these desperate cases, the operation of opening the wind-pipe has been proposed, so as to let the air enter below the obstruction, and thus preserve life till nature and medi- cine might have a longer chance. Although it has been successful, and may be resorted to in desperate cases with propriety, it does not depend upon any fixed principle, and is therefore unphilosophical; because we can never ascertain the extent of this false membrane. It may exist far below the opening, which can only be made at the lowest in an infant a little below the middle of the neck, and it may therefore be found quite useless. We have ourselves been thus mortified, the case proving fatal after the operation. It was performed on the fifth day as a desperate remedy, in a case very much mismanaged by a quack, and at the request of the late Dr. Churchill, of this city, who was called in at that late period. We have given it this pro- minent mention, because it is frequently talked of by the young surgeon as a reliable resort, and may therefore bin- ON CROUP. 319 der the adoption of those powerful medical means which are not only justifiable, but imperative, in a desperate case. There is an inflammatory affection of the larynx, as we call it, i. e, the highest part of the wind-pipe, in which the apparatus of the voice exists, originating also mostly from atmospheric causes ; though sometimes from inhaling acrid fumes, aud from that dreadful disease, syphilis. This is, for obvious reasons, far more frequeut amougst grown persons, In its distinct form, it is almost unkuown among children ; and yet the croup, we think, far oftener begins high up in the wind-pipe than low down ; still, as it goes almost always rapidly downwards, and spends its chief force there, it would seem to prefer, as it were, the wind-pipe proper. Why these two diseases should differ so widely in the selection of such different ages, aud each one evince such an evident predilec- tion for its little space of the same continuous lining mem- brane of the wind-pipe, is indeed remarkable. This predilec- tion is probably the result of changes in the organization, necessary to the proper performance of the functions of the wind-pipe at the respective periods, as yet unknown to us. Dr. Watson, of London, remarks—" The interval that lies between the periods of weaning and puberty, is the time during which croup is chiefly to be apprehended. Compar- atively few cases of it occur during the first year of infantile j life There are more in the second year than any other, f This is, in all probability, connected with the change that ensues with regard to diet, upon the child being weaned. Dr. Cheyne, whose experience of croup was very extensive, says, the younger children are when weaned, the more liable they usually are to this malady. From the second year onward, the number of children affected with croup gradually decreases. Of ninety-one cases reported by Irwin, ouly one was after the tenth year." General Washington is said to 320 ON GROUP. have died of croup ; his case, however, was probably com- plicated with general effusion throughout the mucous mem- Drane of the lungs. We have never seen the disease beyond the fifth year in this city. Croup usually, but not always, begins with the symptoms of a common cold. Sometimes it comes on without any symptom calculated to attract attention. Usually, the child sneezes and coughs. Dr. Cheyne remarks, " hoarseness in very young children does not usually attend a common cold." It should, therefore, arrest the mother's attention when it exists, as it is an almost invariable attendant of the commencement ( and always of the progress ) of croup. When the disease is engrafted upon or grows out of a pro- tracted cold, some premonitory fever accompauies it ; the child is flushed, hot, and restless, and often starts out of its sleep with a cry, twisting its head round and round on its pillow in a peculiarly distressful way. The peculiarity of the inspiration, and the sudden, clanging, dog-like barking, and sometimes metallic ringing sound of the expiration or cough, is never to be forgotten. Then, again, comes the peculiar drawing in of the air, like the piston of a pump partly dry, and letting in the air to the partial vacuum below. Some call it, as we have before said, the crowing inspiration. There is no swelling in the throat, as of the tonsils in quinsy sore throat, and no difficulty of swallowing. This is enough to distinguish it from that disease, than which it is far more unmanageable and dangerous. The progress of the disease is well characterized by Dr. Watson. He alludes in our extract to those cases which are attended with the formation of the membrane we have spoken of ; but whether distinctly formed or not, the child when it dies, does so from the lodgment of mucus which it cannot cough up :—" As the obstruction to the passage of air increases, the blood ceases to receive its proper quantity of oxygen, the skin grows dusky, the pulse feeble and irreg- 0 N C R 0 U P . 321 ular, and the feet and legs cold. The cough alsc ceases to be loud and clanging ; it becomes husky, and inaudible at a short distance, and the voice sinks to a whisper ; the head is thrown back ; the nostrils dilate widely, and are in per- petual motion ; the face is paie and livid, and sometimes bloated ; the pupils often expand. In such cases death usually follows." A remarkable fact connected with croup is, the frequency of its occurrence at night. The child often goes to bed with no symptom whatever of the disease, and the first alarm of the mother is caused by the loud barking cough. Dr. Coudie remarks, and we can testify to his accuracy from frequent observation, that cases presenting this pecu- liarity are not of the grave character of such as form more slowly ; they are scarce ever accompanied with the forma- tion of the false membrane. When the disease is to prove fatal, it often does so within two days, and is rarely protracted over five. Notwithstanding what we have said, when speaking of the value of a good case of croup to a quack, especially if it belong to a nervous mother addicted to " pathies"—the dis- ease is assuredly very apt to recur. And indeed, why should it not 1 One attack does not, like measles, or small-pox, or mumps, either add anything to the system, or take anythiug from it, necessary for its future immunity ; on the contrary, the susceptibility and the influence of the natural causes, cold and dampness, remain the same, gradually decreasing as years advance. All we meant by our caution applies to the quack. The humane and reliable physician will always give the mother full caution and instruction ; and we hope this article is sufficiently instructive on the symptons, and cautionary, to give no absurd reliance on domestic practice ; the disease is too awful and frequent, and causes too much anguish under the best of treatment, to excuse any careless- ness on the part of one who ventures to attempt public 14* 322 ON CROUP. instruction. We have earnestly endeavored to make this volume a powerful aid to humanity and true science, as well as a scourge to quackery. Empirics will always be found living in a glass house, aud are equally transparent to all who rightly use their eyes and cars. The true physician carries his character in his face ; and when he opens his mouth, he cannot be mistaken, unless by some conceited fool who has his head filled with his own notions and " pathies." Some people absurdly suppose croup contagious, because it will sometimes attack two children in the same family, or several in the same neighborhood, at the same time ; but remember, the pre-disposition from natural constitution is generally the same in one family, and the character of the weather that generally causes the disease is, in the same neighborhood, of course the same. Dr. Allison, who wrote and observed with great accuracy, says it is particularly common with the children of washerwomen in Edinburgh. Mauy of them, as with us, dry their clothes in their small underground apartments, where their children sleep. What is still more conclusive, he has also observed that the disease is very frequent on Saturday night, " the only day on which it is customary for the lower orders in Edinburgh to wash their houses." The better classes in New York seem anxious to cultivate the disease, by leaving the child's chest exposed, and over-heating their apartments with that terrible engine of death, the furnace. The fatality of this disease will always depend in a greater degree than most others upon its early treatment ; but how vigorous, and of what character that treatment is to be, ought always to depend upon the constitution of the child ; but, unfortunately, it is usually characterized either by the prejudices of the physician, or the importunities of the mother. *Lt is truly grateful to the benevolent and humane, that for once, popular and routine treatment may on croup. 323 really be said, even in domestic hands, to produce more good than harm. With us in New York, and we believe throughout America, some preparation of that blessed root, ipecacuanha, for surely it is " a good gift of God "—is usu- ally kept on hand by city mothers, and given, mostly with good effect, in colds. The simple syrup, in connection with the warm-bath, are remedies of sufficient power fur most cases, and we have no doubt they have saved many an infanfs life. The preparation called " Cox's Hive Syrup," is, however, quite another affair, and is fortunately not quite so popular. It contains tartar emetic, and is, therefore, far more active, and often very irritating to the intestines. The frequent use of this powerful medicine was most admirably hit off by Dr. Shearman, iu that inimitably humorous article in No. 6 of the Scalpel, entitled " Tartar Emetic; an excellent Sweating, Nauseatiug, and Vomiting Article for----the Profession."—" Whatever be the matter respecting which you are totally uncertain, tartar emetic is the remedy. The child must be put into warm water, and take a dose of tartar emetic. It will either make the child better or worse, or change the symptoms decidedly. The uncertainty or the child will be removed, and the disagreeable uncertainty terminated." But Cox's hive syrup and anti- mouial wine, we hope are getting out of fashion. In two or three years more we hope to settle them. Inasmuch, therefore, as every mother is likely to try the remedy first, she had better do it during the very onset ol the suspected attack. The symptoms of a common cold, will be her guide ; and the dose for an infant of the simple syrup, usually half a teaspoouful, to be repeated in half or three quarters of an hour, if it does not produce vomiting, or at least put the infant comfortably and sweetly asleep. After this trial of a second dose and warm covering, she will find a warm bath of five or ten minutes a remedy of 324 on croup. great power. We do not think she should exceed these measures, without the advice of her family physician. Whether he is to be sent fer or not, will depend very much upon the mother's observation of a previous attack, or upon her nervous temperament. We are far from advising her to tamper with her child, and think if she have confidence in her physician, she should summon him ; if not, discharge him as quickly as possible. So widely different is the estimate of medicines in this complaint in London and New York, that the sagacious Watson never speaks of ipecacuanha 1 The lamented Beck, of whom it may truly be said, a more elegant scholar and a more correct observer never adorned the New York profes- sion, held it in exalted estimation, and every practical man here will cordially assent to his estimate of its curative power. But this difference is easily understood. The adoption of a remedy even as well tested as ipecacuanha, was unlikely with the English practitioner, who had been accustomed to look with reverence upon tartar emetic—iu the skillful hands of their hospital physicians, who for the most part, are men of great acumen. For the same reason, bleeding and calomel are included prominently in Dr. Watson's list of remedies. With us, at this day, bleeding is greatly restricted, and we hope will con- tinue so : leech ng should exclusively take its place in chil- dren ; it is far more difficult to estimate the heart's action in a little struggling child by the pulse ; nay, we boldly assert it is impossible : feeling the pulse in them is nonsense, aud reflects deserved ridicule on those who do it. There is no necessity to open a vein in a child's arm unless immediate suffocation is impending : leeches may with the greatest propriety be substituted in almost every case. The number for a child should be most carefully adapted to its size and the general strength of constitution, for the effect will be found quite as powerful as a general bleeding from the arm ON GROUP. 325 in an adult. No rule can be given as to the number ; from two leeches at the first year, to five, increasing one for every year, if the leeches are large, will draw quite as much as the case requires, in almost any instance ; indeed, if the emetic have been first tried, and the warm bath, or either separately, the leeches may prove a more active remedy than the physician expected ; they must, therefore, be carefully proportioned to a thoughtful estimate, and by no means used by the mother. The leeches should never be placed upon the neck with the view of drawing the blood directly from the affected part: we have known more than one child bled to death in this city by so doing ; every breath it draws fills the veins already turgid from the disease, and the leech bites cannot be stopped by pressure with cobweb or sponge used as a compress, because there is no bone to compress it against in the neck. Applied to the upper pa-t of the breast-bone, from one to two inches from the disease, they produce far better effect, drawing the blood sufficiently near the part to exhaust the inflamed membrane, and allowing a firm com- pression to be made on each separate bite directly against the bone. We have been called upon in a case where the bleeding could only be stopped by passing a needle from one side the little wound to the other, and twi&ting a piece of fine silk under it: cutting off the surplus of the needle with plyers; this hint should always be remembered by the young surgeon, as it is perfectly reliable. Of the use of calomel, we can only say that we heartily and entirely disapprove of it in every case not actually des- perate ; if the disease has lasted over four or five days, and is one of those where the membraneous formation is known to exist, it may be used with some prospect of benefit; but not otherwise : the remedies enumerated, if judiciously used, will prevent the necessity of so questionable a measure in •very case of the commencement of croup. Blisters are a 326 ON CROUP. harsh and questionable remedy—we would never use them Mustard plasters made by enclosing a paste of half mustard and half flour, moistened with vinegar, between old and well worn muslin cloths, are an excellent and safe substitute. They act in a few minutes, and may be often renewed on the same spot, at half hours' interval. Were we speaking of quinsy sore throat, and inflammation of the tonsils, we should describe a peculiar spasmodic affection of the highest part of the wind-pipe, known as false croup—a disease, how- ever, often fatal and intimately connected with croup, en described in this article. THE MOTHER 327 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. »■■ MOTHER—HER CHARACTER—THB PESTILENCE—A COUNTRY CONSULTATION—A TALH Of SEDUCTION—THE SINS OF PARENTS VISITED UPON THE CHILDREN—THE DBSKRTKD ONE—THB ATONEMENT. " The finger of God pressed rudely on the heartstrings of the seducer, and they shrivelled and charred under his burning touch." Now, my dear reader, will you be so good as to tell me what this world was made for ? What are we to learu from this " economy of sin and misery ?" What, from those long- drawn sighs and sounds of woe ? those tears and heart- breakiugs that fill the earth ? Why does rum exist ? Why does sin deface the race, and fill the earth with mourning ? Is it because our good mother fell by apple-eating ; or is it a necessary constitution of things ! You tell us about the solids and gases which compose the body ; how they elect one another ; and how the chick gets his heart in motion, and the blood to circulating ; how the beard is of great use, and very masculine, aud was only allowed to man ; that woman is almost an angel; and yet how many bitter draughts and curses does she drink ? I see now the fragile form of that pale one who sat aud sewed upon her bench, and coughed her handkerchief full of blood, and then died, with no one to love her ; and beside her I see the proud form of that other glorious being who was wronged and left with a dear babe in her arms : the fire gleams from her speaking eye, as she tears open her dress, aud shows her ach'ng 328 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. breasts to her hard-hearted mistress, full distended with that life-tide, that carries with it the young mother's soul to the soul of her new-born infant 1 O what a proud and holy thing is a mother's heart ? that first gush of love, that new and brilliant light that floods her soul, and makes it swell with angelic emotions when she folds in her arms the first ripe fruits of her maternal elements ? Do you ever see a mother without emotion ? if you do, you are the last of sin- ners, and deserve no forgiveness nor peace when your brow is cold and your eye glazed. A mother, true and exalted, is the holiest being that walks the earth ; she knows no self; but on her child she lavishes the burning flame of that newly kindled love, just lighted in her soul, and burning more and more intensely as she approaches the tomb. Did you ever see a young mother die, and with pale lips ask you, "Why her child did not cry?" "if it was asleep?"' and you could not muster manhood to tell her it was dead ? Then your heart has not drunk the bitterest cup of all. ***** When you tell us about galvanism, and muscles, and the air we breathe, why not tell us why so many wrongs are heaped on the mother's heart ? why she drinks so many bitter draughts ? why this holiest fountain is polluted with the bitterest dregs ? why she quaffs so many cups of sorrow, and the moon beams so lovingly its soft and holy light among the clouds and the stars ; the sun shines out in the vault of heaven, and yet thousands of mothers mourn over the child of their love, and drink till death the cup of hate ? The quick intuitions of the spirit teach us by analogy ; and when we walk out under the clear old sky, we see the wheeling worlds sparkling in the deep blue vault of heaven. Why has God made all those countless orbs, and scattered them through the limitless fields of unmea- sured space ? Analogy tells us, that they must be the abodes of human spirits—nurseries of the human race. The highest fact observed on our own planet, is, that it is CHARACTER OF THE TRUE MOTHER. 329 the abode of man : the grand workshop of nature, where human spirits are individualized, is the most probable truth we can imagine in all those distant worlds. All over their vast fields, mothers are ushering the race into being, are mourning, loving, dying. Unnumbered myriads of mothers' hearts, each moment, palpitate with that new delight, and chant that heavenly song— K Hush my babe, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed, Heavenly blessings without number Gently- falling on Uiy head." Do you think women are treated in those planets as we treat ours ? Is the seducer permitted to hate the being he has ruined ? And do all women curse an erring sister ? and help trample her too confiding heart in the dust ? Hold on now. I am not going to write a lecture on woman's rights ; only going to ask a few plain questions, which any true man would like to answer. Do you think they are oppressed and wronged by labor too severe for their starved bodies, and driven to destruction to feed their children ? Are they deceived by flattery ? Is the dignity of their souls destroyed by an American education ? Are they kept as mere appendages, and decorated in plumes and tawdry tinsel, like so many parrots, to look at 1 An incident will bring more clearly before the mind the ideas that I wish to present. After a week's absence in a distant city, I returned to my home, late at night, and when the family greeting had passed, necessity hurried me off to attend the wife and child of a wealthy neighbor. Doctor ■----had been called in my absence, and wished me for counsel, as the uother and her youngest child were very ill with dysentery. One death had occurred in the neighbor- hood, in the practice of an old and prudent physician, and this was deemed sufficient cause to call a consultation 330 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. When shown into the sick-room, I found the mother alone and quite comfortable. Her strength was yet good, although the dysenteric movements occurred at the short intervals of every half hour ; this, together with a high state of mental excitement, .precluded all rest. Finding no tenderness of the abdomen, and a quick and cheerful eye, my prognosis was prompt that she would certainly recover. In another room lay a suffering child ; its mouth was dry and parched, its bowels sore to the touch, and badly bloated ; the discharges attended with a violent tenesmus, which wrung the little sufferer with anguish ; and his dull and leaden eye told the tale that his little frame must yield to the fatal enemy that had fastened on his vitals. As my credit was at stake, an old and very grave man was, at my suggestion, added to the consultation, from a neighboring village, to guard our reputation from the usual visitation of gossiping slander that always follows a fatal result in the country. He examined the child duly, and gave it "as his opinion that the symptoms resembled those of Ipecac 1 The fatal inflammation had already progressed very far, and no one could doubt that a large space of the small intestines was laboring under fatal ulceration, and how Ipecac could be supposed to range with such symptoms was not quite so clear. But death was ahead of the doctors, aud the little sufferer passed quickly away to a better world. Now commenced one of those tragical scenes, that often occur in country practice, and most deeply evince a necessity of a system of popular instruction for the people, to acquaint them with the laws of health, and the only safe road to cure in all curable cases. Another child had died in the neighborhood, and it was time the doctor was changed again ; it was plain enough to the people, that we did not know much. The neighbors had decided on a change, and my friend asked me if I could advise him who to send for, MEDICAL HEROICS. 831 and I recommended the inventor of the "Chingvang" pills, informing him that he was a much wiser man than myself, and that the wife would get well without either of us. He came, and readily detected the fact that he was in luck, his patient and fees were both safe ; and I was floored of coarse. He invited me politely, as in duty bound, to call " when convenient," which I did ; aud things went on swimmingly tor two days, when suddenly the scale turned ; two other children were taken, vomiting both bile and blood, and manifesting, from the first, fatal symptoms. My friend was now in trouble ; aud, on one of my friendly visits, on entering the apartment, his eye caught mine, aud spoke as only the eye can speak, " my credit is gone too, the chil- dren will both die." The mother was slowly recovering, and as the children grew rapidly worse, the council of the neigh- borhood decided to call further aid. Auother regular was called, and being one of the heroes, he advised (it is solemn truth, my dear reader) one hundred grains of calomel as a cathartic 1 His reason was, that iu a similar case he had given it and the child recovered. His medical brother thought it a little too heroic, and consented to his giving fifty grains, which was done ! Fresh blood in copious quan- tities, followed the operation, and the pains became more severe, and the little victim of disease and the doctor slipped from his suffering into the grave. One sick one remained, and it was high time that a new change occurred. A shrewd and simple old quack was curing cancers in the neighbor- hood, and sent word to the family that he could certainly cure the remaining child ; that after cleansing the bowels with pills made of butternut bark, aloes, camphor, aud cay- enne pepper, he would feed the little fellow with tea made of "twist root," that would stop the discharges iu a few hours. It may seem strange, but this trial was submitted to, and the wily old fool was called into the august presence 062, SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. of three or four M.D.'s and a score of other counsellors \ Such is the way we are obliged to proceed in the West, or we are called inhuman ; we are obliged to remain and see that the patient is not killed outright. He gave his pills, and as in the other case, fresh blood followed the raking of the pills over that inflamed and sensitive membrane which lines the bowels ; the child screamed with torture, and was only relieved from his horrible agony by enemas of morphine they were obliged to give. The twist root was duly admin- istered ; but its good effect was prevented by the anodynes, and the old cancer-killer escaped with a feather in his cap ; alleging that the child was killed by the morphine given in his absence. You may wish to know the virtues of "twist root," and what it is ; but I can only say, that it is probably nobody's business what it is, only it is an Indian remedy whose virtues would not be appreciated by the learned. By this time, another child in the neighborhood had fallen sick, and luckily passed, at the earliest appearance of disease, into the hands of the first physician called ; he used only mucilages and opiates, syrup of marshmallow, and the little patient finally recovered. But I set out to speak of the providence of God in per- mitting this economy of sin and misery. I will, therefore, glance back through a space of fifteeu years, and show you a singular picture presented in the life of this father and mother, that may serve to illustrate the mysterious where- fore. She was beautiful; a form well moulded by health, with good address, coupled with a subtle black eye, with a musical voice, and much benevolence in her smile, made her an agreeable companion, and a patient in whom one would feel a deep and lively interest. Time had drawn a veil before her heart, and a shadow had dimmed that lustrous eye ; but the common beholder would never know it; the demon had gone in there and concealed himself. She was A PERFIDIOUS LETTER 333 educated by a pious father ; a man of noble nature and of strong religious hopes ; he had many daughters, and this one, in an especial manner, was the darling of his earliest hopes, of all his prayers and heavenward aspirations. He had carefully educated her, and designed to bestow her iu marriage on some true disciple of the cross, who should pass untainted through this selfish world, and labor in the name of the blessed Redeemer, for the millious who perish for the bread of life. The parental heart is a wonderful mirror, aud the good old man had dreamed of seeing his daughter, the noble com panion of the sainted Harriet Newel and Mrs. Judson ; and her husband treading in the same noble path that was trod- den by the husbands of these great-souled women ; but his heart was doomed to a sore disappointment, and Providence had designed for her a different life. The heart of the proud Eugenia had been wooed and won by an industrious youug mechanic ; their vows had been again and again repeated. Her faith seemed fixed as fate itself. Happy in his expectations, he had sought occupation in a neighboring village, to replenish his purse, and furnish means of subsis- tence in anticipation of their nuptials. His feet were swift to trace the path to the post-office, to receive, from time to time, from the hand of his faithful and devoted girl, her repeated assurances of love and affection. One day he had been excited by strange emotions, his heart beat too fast, and a painfuL foreboding warned him of coming ill. He eagerly grasped from the hand of the clerk a letter, on which was that familiar handwriting, that so often had told the tale of love ; it produced coldness in his hands, and a sweat came on his brow, and fear and faintness seemed to seize him ; he opened Lt and read his fate. The letter con- tained various charges, among which was that of licentious- ness, and a refusal, from the pious and saintly Eugenia, to fulfill her promises. Sh) affirmed, with great calmness, that 334 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. she could never be happy with a man whose feet had gono to the house of her " whose steps take hold on hell.'' Guiltless of the crime, in a fit of indignation he tore the false letter into a thousand pieces, and retired to his shop, and took up a file and began rasping a piece of steel ; every stroke seemed to cross his heart, and his grief grew more bitter as reflection enabled him to trace in that bitter letter the work of an enemy's hand. His first thought was to fly to her presence, and reproach her with her perfidy ; but soon a feeling of indignation prevented him. Alternating thus between hope and fear, time rushed on, and the next mail brought him a line from the hand of his faithful mother, that Eugenia was married to young E----. The shock was severe ; it fell like a hot thunderbolt on his heart, and he resolved never again to have faith in woman. Truth is stranger than fiction, for the most exalted imagination cannot conceive what a false heart will per- petrate. Young E. was tall and handsome, at least the ladies thought so ; his^black eye was always sparkling, and his face was wreathed in smiles ; he drove a dashing pair of greys, with plated harness ; aud prospectively he was rich, as his old father had made him his heir. Intemperance had converted the old man into a maniac ; his head was often, as he supposed, surrounded by crows and vultures, and mornings always found toads and snakes in his boots. The rum delirium was doing its work. Young E. saw with regret his father's drunkenness, but he viewed with delight the broad fields, covered with short-horned Durhams. A few miles distant lived a poor, but warm-hearted family ; the father's hard toil had not been blest like bis neighbor's, aud the mother, with the meek heart of a Christian, had diligently endeavored to meet her share of the small list of wants, by her own toil ; a lovely and clear daughter had unfolded into womanhood, and like the gentle VALUE OF A POOR Man's CHILD, 335 fawn she kept close to her mother's side, till necessity drove her into the cold world to labor for clothes and bread. Her form was slight, and a softly blushing cheek, and mild blue eyes, with flaxen locks, made up the stock of beauty of this artless and innocent rustic. She was pure as a dew-drop pendent from a rose-leaf. The dashing young farmer who drove the grey horses, soon succeeded in winning the heart of this artless creature ; he seduced and deserted her, and she was about to become a mother ; and it was thus I became acquainted with the story. The distracted father sought redress in prosecution ; but how cold and heartless is the law 1 a verdict of three hundred dollars was brought against the fiend, while he vindicated his virtue by bringing into court two other heartless scoundrels, to swear that the child might be theirs ! To make the cup bitter as hell to the poor, shrinking, friendless, betrayed one, money had been furnished them to proffer their blasphemous lie before the very face of heaven, and the lacerated heart of this dear heart-broken child. In three weeks from the court which declared him the father of the child of Miss L., the rich young rake stood beside the marriage altar with Eugeuia ; the happy, chosen husband of her who had broken her vows with the mechanic on a charge of libertinism, anonymously made by this fiend iu human shape, and of which he was as guiltless as the new-born babe who owed its existence to his rival. Time sped on, and brought with it changes iu fortune to all concerned. The proud and soulless Eugenia, sat by her window, looking over the broad domain that she had married. The future was full of promise to the happy mother, and the wealth aud splendor by which she was surrounded, seemed a solace for every grief; but alas ! time is full of tricks, and laughs at human wisdom. This grey- headed old mocker, one day in the midst of sunshine aud flowers, brought into her neighborhood the deluded young 336 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. artisan. His character had been assailed, and himself wheedled and fooled by a coquette ; and as the law has a kind of mathematical righteousness, that now and then relaxes its sternness to accommodate the craft, and mete out equal justice, he instituted a prosecution for breach of promise against the wife of the happy young man who had won his gay, accomplished, but fickle Eugenia. The rage of the old ladies rose on him, in one storm of vengeance. What! sue a woman for a breach of promise, " when there was just as good fish in the sea as had ever been caught;" and so thought the young plaintiff, for after haviug his fun, and exciting due attention to all the facts in the case, he withdrew the suit, to make way for the accouchment. " True love never runs smooth." But our poor stricken mourner, where was she ? About the time of the above- named occurrence, one night, mid the storm and the tem- pest, a carriage stopped at the door of the old log dwelling where dwelt the poor and the lowly. A few of the neighboring women were there, dressed with their clean aprons and best fixings—they looked very knowing. The poor mother sat aside, with her clean cap on to be sure ; but to the eye of the most careless physician, the deep lines of sorrow could be traced on her cheek, that gave warning of the canker within. The torments of the damned have no terrors to a sensitive female like such an ordeal. The wretch who betrays her goes acquit; but on her head is heaped the accumulated scorn of every tongue, and the heart of her own sex, that should surround her with every emblem of protection, is steeled against her, and in most cases, if she receive any sympathy, it is from the sterner sex. I blush to say it; but woman is false to her own sex in an hour of such deep and bitter need. The poor bleeding sacrifice on the altar of treachery, sat weeping alone and in agony ; a mother's anguish was upon her; she might die in the fearful struggle, but the whole deadly draught must be THE mother's DESTROYING ANOEL. 337 swallowed alone ; no smile to cheer her—her mother could not smile, and save the kind words and soothing tones of the humble physician, the victim heard no cheering voice. On her marble brow stood the sweat like drops of blood ; a few hours elapsed, and the sun broke in the east; its clear beams shot through the balmy air, and kissed the rain-drops from bough and leaf. All nature, the earth, the grass, the flowers, animals and man gave signs of gladness. In the low log dwelling, skirted by a beech wDod, where the robins sung at sunrise, could have been seen the poor mother and her young daughter, now herself alas, a mother 1 the doc- tor and the women were gone ; all was quiet. Behind some dingy curtains, with her infant folded to that bosom that now covered a betrayed and broken heart, lay the pale young mother ; the little downy cheek of her child rested on hers ; its warm breath rose over her face ; its tiny cry startled her heart, and she looked in its little sleepless face, and wondered if it was indeed hers ; her heart spoke in her bosom " it is yours," and when no eye but His who sees all things saw her, she raised the innocent, her "destroying angel" to her lips and kissed it. That bright ray of light that angels never feel—a mother's love—had gone into her heart. She loved her infant in spite of the world, and straining it to her breaking heart, she was compelled to be true to nature, though man, and nature, and friends were false. That creeping idea—Miss----is a mother—went from tongue to tongue, and from ear to ear until the fatal tale crept into the ear—the very heart of Eugenia, who, in about three months, was to drink a cup less full of bliss. A woman's heart is a mystery ; it is an instrument of matchless music, when played upon by skillful hands ; but the rude operator, the lying genius, draws nothing but painful discord from its sparkling depths. " I wonder," said Eugenia, to herself, as she picked up a piece of velvet cloth she was shap- 15 338 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. ing into a strange form, much like a little cloak, " I wondei who that child looks like." A strange emotion in her soul gave her sudden pain, and she burst into a flood of tears: her woman's heart had guessed, what busy tongues were report- ing, that it resembled its father, and that she could see its resemblance to her husband. The proud Eugenia, the wife of a rich young husband, swallowed the bitter thought ; and though in the solitude of her chamber her brilliant black eyes were often wet with tears, none suspected her heart- cankei She too had played false, and been sued for a broken promise, a perjured vow. These two false beings had mingled their lives together, to produce a lie ; for of such treachery, truth, purity, sincerity, cannot be born. Every element of our own being is transmitted to our offspring; and iu the subtle faithlessness of a daughter, or the inbred vice of the son, we see too clearly the moral crook- edness of the father, and the squirming vipers that so often nestled in the bosom of the mother. Every act of our lives is absorbed into our being, and somewhere in our eternal career, it will be given forth, stamping on the child a mark that defaces him for life. Let us pass over some sixteen years of such music as humanity yields our profession On a bright sunny morning, a messenger called at my door, and requested me to attend a family sick with chills and fever. All were sick but the mother ; the old miller, three sons, and two girls ; and at this point of my narra- tive, I would drop some reflections on miasma, but that moral miasma that infests the human heart is more directly connected with the incidents which I am relating. Mrs. T. requested me on my return from the miller's family, to call on another that lived off from the main road, near the brink of the stream. Nothing like sublime scenery exists in this region of Ohio ; here some rude freaks of nature had im- parted a slight interest to the country. The stream had on either side rude bluffs, covered with timber, with narrow THE DRUVKARD's HOME AND FAMILY. 339 valleys, with groups of sycamores. The stream moved across these narrow flats, and at some points left a space covered with trees, while the opposite shore rose abruptly from the stream. I passed from the main road through a narrow neck of woodland, and as I turned across a green meadow, I saw on the farther side, near the river, under the shade of some butternuts and sycamores, what I had been told was a human dwelling. The good woman, whose heart was full of humanity, had warned me of what I should meet, and begged me not to turn back, but to see the inside of that human dwelling. A rude old hut made of logs stood before me ; some bits of board were nailed across the window hole, from which hung a few old rags ; the door hung on wooden hinges ; I opened it by a wooden latch, and stepped in ; a window hole was also cut on the opposite side ; rags filled the squares where no glass had been for years, not a light of glass in either window. In one corner stood a rude old bedstead, with elm bark for a cord ; a coarse straw tick lay on it, over which was throwu half a cartload of old rags; nothing resembling a sheet or quilt could be seen ; the cupboard, a rude structure, had on it three or four plates, a tin cup and basin, a tea-cup or two, and some old spoons, and a few old knives and forks. This habitation for humanity had no chimney, only some stone jambs, without any hearth ; and on the log which crossed at that point, sat three children, with their feet in the ashes, covered with rags aud filth. A lad of fourteen was shaking with a chill, his eye was black and searching ; a slim bony frame ; aud not a word could I elicit from him ; a silent melancholy languor marked all his acts. The two others were younger, one a white tow- headed urchin, with blue eyes, and no breeches. The mother sat on an old stool, with a pipe in her mouth ; her hair hung matted over her shoulders ; it had once been parted ; her form was fragile, her eye a light blue, with ap 840 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. open and generous face, but obscured with filth ; the bony fingers of one hand clenched the stump of a pipe, the othei was folded across her chest. She smiled as I opened the door, and gave me the only chair in the dwelling ; a wooden frame, covered with rags. She seated herself and went on smoking, gazing meantime into a few embers, that flickered against the jambs. Not a broom or mop could be seen, the floor had scarcely ever been washed. The table—but what use had these poor wretches for a table, for they had nothing to eat? The father, in a drunken frolic, had attacked a young man with a stone, and smashed iu his skull, and was lying in jail awaiting justice. I was glad he was gone, a human face, disfigured with rum, in the midst of such a group, would have belied the doctrine of Sweden borg—that hell is a state, and not a place. Reader, you see, in that broken-hearted, mildewed, blasted, loathsome-thing on the stool, the young and inno- cent Miss L.; she that was so, before the foul and snaky demon had entered her dwelling and crushed her in his coil. Cut off from all human' sympathy, she had married a drunkard ; she carried with her to his home, the drunkard's hell, the child you saw her kissing sixteen years ago. The poor lad had never known human joy, or human sympathy, or human love ; the delight of the human devil, who ruled this group of wretches, was to beat and kick him, and his poor mother had often shared the same fate in his defence. His origin was constantly before him ; abused, despised, hated, and oppressed, he revolved his dark fate eternally in his mind. He knew who his father was, though brutally forsaken ; a ray of light sometimes shot into his heart; " My father is the wealthiest man in the county ; shall I always live thus ? what have I done, that he thus deserts me ? He aspires to political honors ; who knows but I toe may yet go to Congress ?" All the year long, this human thing, created a litth RETRIBUTION. 341 lower than the angels, watched over these children ; she fed them when she could, and smoked to drown her anguish. The mother's heart is a sacred sanctuary ; the brightest diamonds of the human soul sparkle iu it. I would guard it with a " flaming sword," as God guarded the tree of life. How is this, my dear reader, I ask again ? Can you tell me how is it, why, in this laud of light and Christian benevolence, the seduced one is doomed by the public curse, while the seducer marries into the best families ? Will you tell me Rum does much of this ; the neck of Rum shall be broken ; but the rich rake did the cruelest part of the hellish deed : shall not his neck be broken ? Return with me to the afflicted Eugenia. I took her infant in the little walnut box, and carried it to her bedside. I knew how proud she was, how unfeeling she had beeu ; I saw her heart break with anguish, and I forgave her freely, and wept with her, for she had a mother's heart, and her grief was a great one. The last child, a boy of sixteen, was now seized with the fatal disorder. Five doctors came together on Sunday, aud they did not quarrel, for the frequent deaths had quieted their usual meanuess, and they were humbled by the pestilence that walked unseen, and laughed their skill to scorn. The father came to me and said with a broken accent, " Cannot that lad be saved ? I canuot lose him, I cannot have him die." To whom, indeed, should he give his riches if he died ? To his first born ? I said firmly, " I fear I cannot save him ; if my brethren can do anything, I shall not oppose them, but do not torture him with medi cines ; opium and mucilages may save him." I looked into the father's eye, it was full of misery ; no human eye sheds a clear light when the soul has drank up a deliberate wrong •gainst a fellow-being, aud it never will till God withdraws 342 SKETCHES OF WESTERN PRACTICE. his fiat : the face is the index to the soul, and shows its meanest and its loftiest attributes. I said to him, "There are many children worse than fatherless ; feed and console them." His lip quivered, for before his mind's eye stalked the ragged, bony, abused, forsaken boy that I saw in the cabin of the drunkard ; and the mother's haggard form was beside him. I had seen them but a week before, the child a withered outcast, the mother a blasted wreck. His father's every lineament was there. Two days after, the form of the last son passed to the narrow house, and lay beside the others. The invisible finger of God had pressed rudely upon the heart-strings of the seducer and deserter, and they shrivelled and cracked under his burning touch. He that forsook his child, and broke the heart of its mother, was himself forsaken, and felt the stroke of the invisible avenger. My soul refused tc pity him. He was cursed with gold 11 CN HOOPING COUGH. 843 ON HOOPING COUGH. WHAT IS HOOPING COOQH ? HAS MEDICINE ANT POWER OVER IT? In a former article we considered the subject of croup, or that rapid inflammation of the wind-pipe, characterized by sudden and violent fits of coughing, and coming on at a few hours' notice, and perhaps invariably from atmospheric causes. We have now to consider a disease of a much more obscure and unmanageable character, and one that has been productive of no less anxiety, not only from its distressing and persistent nature, but from the quackery of those who are relied on to treat it. Whilst we are perfectly satisfied of the causes of croup, and know that judicious treatment will often cut short the attack and save life, we can by no means say the same of hooping cough ; for we unhesitatingly avow, that we not only do not know in what it originates, but that there is no medicine with which we are acquainted, that will have any regular and curative effect upon it. Hooping cough may occur at all periods of infant or adult life, and at all seasons of the year ; although experience proves it to be far less common during the two or three first months of infancy. It is unquestionably an infectious dis- ease ; although we may not be able to trace the first case occurring in a family or a village—nay, although (and we ourselves have not a doubt of it) the first case may occur from atmospheric or other causes unknown to us, and with- out any communication with one who has the disease—still this case will undoubtedly communicate the disease io an 344 ON HOOPING COUGH. immense proportion of all the children, or even adults, who have not had it, and are brought iuto the same apartment with the subject who has it. We consider all speculations as regards the nature of the poison, whatever it may be, that causes the disease, to be worse than useless ; because they occupy time and observation, that may be more pro- fitably bestowed on the symptoms and consequences ; or, in other words, those other and secondary diseases of the lungs and head, which the violent fits of coughing so often produce. The disease commences with the ordinary symptoms of a common catarrh or cold, and it is often said by mothers, that " it turns into hooping cough." They say the same of measles and for the selfsame reason, or because it also begins with the symptoms of cold. Now, physicians often call this an absurd conclusion, because colds are not contagious, and measles and hooping cough are. Let the reader reflect for one moment upon the immense universality with which both measles and hooping cough appear over whole regions of country, and the absurdity of supposing that all its subjects could have had communication with local centres where the disease existed, and he will see at once that the mother is probably often perfectly correct in her conclusions ; indeed, we often cannot trace it to any source of contagion, for the good and sufficient reason, that there has really been no exposure. This is of no importance as it regards the fact of its infectious character, however it may otherwise be produced. Yery certain it is, that those children who have never had it, and in whom it is desirable to defer its occur- rence, either from the existence of winter, or the debility of the child, had better not be taken where it exists, for the chances are almost certain they will take it. After the child has Been exposed eight or ten days, or a fortnight (and we have even known three weeks to elapse), it will, after having coughed more or less during this time, ON HOOPING COUGH. 345 begin to hoop. This hooping noise is produced by the urgent necessity the child has to draw iu or inspire air, after a great number of coughs, all, as it were outward—or in other words, all attended with expiration. The hoop is undoubtedly produced by reason of the opening or glottis, and also the little branches of the windpipe (or, as we call its two great branches and its innumerable divisions, the bronchiae and their tubes), being more or less filled with mucus ; and thus the entrance of the air is rendered extremely difficult, aud the great opening of the windpipe is affected with spasmodic closure, from the irritation of its nerves by the want of circulation in the blood-vessels. Now let us explain this spasm of the " glottis," as we call it. Where the child cannot, in consequence of the violence of the cough, draw iu any fresh air, the blood becomes tempo- rarily poisoned for want of oxygen, and the consequent accu- mulation of carbonic acid ; and that becomes a powerful irritant to the opening of the windpipe, and causes it to close with spasmodic force. The same condition in this important opening will occur, in a less degree, on entering a small unventilated room where there is much carbonic acid > gas, either from a charcoal or anthracite fire, or a great number of people ; it causes much of the coughing in assem- bly rooms, concert rooms, aud churches—to frequenting which habitually, so many persons owe their ill health. That the contagion of hooping cough is of a very subtle character, receives very extraordinary confirmation from the fact, that it may be commuuicated to a child within its mother's womb ; this is also a proof that it first poisons the blood, for it can only reach the child through the mother's blood. Dr. Watson, of London, upon more than one occa- sion, has observed the child to hoop almost the instant it was brought into the world ; he cites the special case of the child of one of his hospital nurses. The subject of contagion is a very curious one. The only point we feel 15* 346 ON HOOPING COUGH. inclined to notice about it, is one that we have been accus- tomed to view as an original observation of our own, pub- lished some seven years since in our " Treatise on Diseases of the Sexual System," in reference to syphilis communi- cated to the child from the father, through the mother's blood ; and since very extensively claimed by others. It is this : that these diseases, in whatever kind of poison they originate, whether atmospheric, vegetable or animal, must require another entity, equally distinct, and both capable of being described, did we know what they are, in order to join with it and the two together, to produce the palpable disease, viz.—hooping cough, measles, small-pox, syphilis or what not. I consider this sufficiently proved by the fact, that some persons seem to be insusceptible of one or other of these infectious or contagious diseases, as is repeatedly observed by every practical man ; the only possible solution of which phenomenon must be, that the individual who is thus proved to be insusceptible of the particular disease, does not furnish the other item necessary to its production This is a curious fact, and so far as we know, first mentioneo in the work alluded to. When the system has once been infected with hooping cough, it very rarely occurs again ; the person, for the most part, enjoying an immunity ever after. This is not always true of any infectious disease, however ; for we have seen measles, hooping cough, mumps, scarlet fever, and small-pox —every one of them taken the second time. The small- pox has appeared in this city, on a number of persons wIig were much pitted from previous attack. It is not singular, that in proportion as the mucus whicl is thrown off in the paroxysms of coughing, is thin and scanty, the cough should be more violent ; when it is thicl. and abundant, the air contained in the cells and bronchia tubes of the lungs, acts more readily upon the mucus, wid forces it out iu the violent expiration of the cough. During ON HOOPING COUGH. 347 the fit of coughing, the little creature will instinctively fix its legs and catch hold of a table, the chimney-piece or its mother's gown, with the view of fixing its arras so as to bring their upper muscles, which are also attached to the ribs and collar-bone, in use, as temporary aids to assist in raising the ribs at the earliest possible moment, so that a supply of air may enter. Sometimes it becomes black in the face before this occurs ; all the cough being outwards, as it were, and no inspiration being possible : it is this, by pre- venting the return of blood from the head through the great jugular veins, sometimes causes dropsy of the head, and even apoplexy. The blood accumulates, and either throws out its watery part from the delicate vessels of the mem- branes of the brain, or else some larger vessel bursts, and the blood is effused under the skull. This is not, however, comraou ; aud strange to say, without these violent conse- quences, the hooping cough is not usually a dangerous disease. Its period of duration is from six weeks to three months. It is usually most enduring and violent in winter and changeable weather ; for this reason mothers should be ex- tremely careful to avoid exposing a delicate child iu the fall mouths, or in variable weatner. The idea that as the child must have the disease at some time, the season is of no conse- quence, is therefore very wrong. A delicate child may recover in the summer, who would inevitably die of either the head symptoms or inflammation of the lungs iu winter. Teething, from the determination of blood to the head during that process—I now mean the earliest or first teeth- ing—is a very dangerous complication. Convulsions often occur at that time ; scrofulous children are also often vic- tims to head and lung complications in hooping cough : indeed, all feeble children during their first two years, are far more seriously affected by it. Inflammation of the lungs and bronchitis, are its frequent 348 ON HOOPING COUGH. attendants, and these complaints often demaud treatment, if the simple disease does not; both these affections greatly increase the fever and general distress, and it is on their account that the child requires to be watched by a conscien- tious, but not a meddlesome physician. The mother who insists upon the constant administration of physic, is not only a fool, but she may have to charge her child's death to that folly. It will not be expected, in an article of a purely rational and cautionary character, addressed to the common sense of our readers, that we should go into the detail of these conse- quences of hooping cough and their treatment. Such a course would give a very poor idea of our estimate of their intellect, because they cannot be accurate judges of the derangements of the living force, and how far it can go to constitute disease requiring treatment. With regard to the propriety of any course of treatment designed, as physicians often absurdly say, " to cut short the disease," we emphati- cally assert all such pretensions to be absurd. It is evideut enough, that every infectious and febrile disease, originating from a specific poison, must have its regular period of dura- tion—i. e., it cannot be thrown out of the system, until it has exhausted its force upon it. When we have thus , expressed ourselves, it is plain enough that any set method of treatment can find no favor in our eyes. Indeed we see no reason for mentioning any one medicine as more valuable than another ; or, indeed, any internal treatment whatever in the complaint. Nothing can be more amusing, than to hear some theoretical gentlemen, who boast of their "great experience," talk over their old see-saw practice of Sal Tartar and Cochineal, Ipecac, &c, &c. The younger and heroic gentlemen, who must be doing something, go in for Prussic Acid and other Samsons of the materia medica, such as Calomel and Tartar Emetic ; but it is all a mere matter of money-getting. No medical treatment ON HOOPING COUGH. 349 whatever for the simple and uncomplicated disease, but a most jealous and religious attention to absolute warmth of dress, flannels to the skin, and thick shoes and woollen stockings, if the child walks—should be the parent's sole duty. The atmosphere of the room should never be below 70° in winter, and in the summer all drafts of air, and the evening air, should be avoided. Gentle and repeated fric- tions with the hand of the mother, over the chest and spine, will always do good. The child should never be stripped entirely when washed ; only portions at a time should be rubbed with a little alcohol and water. Milk, eggs, and a little broth of mutton or beef, should form the diet. All syrups and other trash, derange the stomach and injure the child's capacity to recover from the paroxysms of coughing. The disease, under this treatment, will wear itself out in six weeks or three months, and that is the whole of the matter. So long as the child recovers readily from the paroxysms, it needs no physician. When other and more serious distress exists, that mother is either destitute of feeling, or stupid with ignorance, who does not call in an honest and intellec- tual medical man. 860 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. RECOLLECTIONS OF CITY PRACTICE. BY A SEXAGENARIAN. No thought comes o'er the spirit with more subduing influence, than that which assures us we outlive the warmth of early friendships. Often, when I gather a few of the Autumn leaves, as they rustle by my footsteps in the old forest path, where I love to revive the memories of the past, I trace in their fading outline the hopes and aspirations of earlier life. But yesterday they danced in the sunbeam, whose rays had warmed them into being : now they have fulfilled the end of their existence, and as they are driven about by the chill autumnal wind, they remind me of the erratic course of my professional life, now long past its noon, and give me an expressive warning, that I, too, shall be soon called on to pay back my own contingent to that great laboratory, where all the old and familiar forms are remoulded ; but where, thank God, hope originates from despair. Yet there are some scenes I can never forget: their im- pression is ever and anon renewed, as I retrace the course of my youthful life. Like that magic ink to which the poor prisoner gives expression by the warmth of his own heart, and then by the feeble light that glimmers through his pri- son bars, endeavors to trace the characters that tell him he is still loved, though lost to the friend that traced them, I gladly seize at times on the slightest vibration of some RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 351 trembling heart-tone, that tells me of buried joys, and dwell with fondness upon the kind words of friendship, the dear old familiar face, "the eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone." I love to linger over these leaflets of memory, and pore over them as they take fitful form by the little warmth of sympathy that is yet left me, after sixty years' collision with a rude world. I retrace their dim outline through my own prison bars—for what are we all but prisoners to our bodies, our passion and our absurd aspirations ! Great God ! when I look back on my eventful life, methinks it is some dream of a former and partially-recalled existence, flitting like the mere ghost of memory amidst the ruins of blighted affections and crushed aspirations. And yet my professional habits still cling to me. With so long experience in comparing my own weaknesses with those of my fellows, I am far from selfish. I even yet enjoy a melancholy satisfaction in hastening to relieve the sufferings of the poor of my neighborhood, though I know that my reward will be very small ; or, what is far more frequent, that I shall be paid with ingratitude, if not slan- der. Sometimes, there are bright spots in my horizon, and I think myself more than repaid by a new shirt or a couple of handkerchiefs—the gift of some poor but grateful sew- ing girl. I treasure a few of these little presents with peculiar care ; but there is one---- * * * * Let me relate the history of her who gave it; it may serve to warn some unhappy creature from trifling with the affections of the innocent. I commenced practice, as you have often heard me say, in P----, nearly forty years since. My good mother—and oh ! how tenderly I loved her—managed, with the wreck of her little fortune, to give me the best education that my erratic habits and the then celebrated University of P---- would afford, and soon after I graduated, a rapid consump- tion took her away from us She left me, with an only 352 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. sister, to test my abilities in procuring a subsistence for both. My father had been dead since my infancy, and being the only male protector, I was not unacquainted with the requirements of domestic life. My poor father, after a failure in business, had managed, by a forced parsimony and over-exertions in a commercial agency, that probably cost him his life, to bequeath us a small house, in which my sister and I managed to subsist, by a continuance of the same severe restrictions in our expenditure, that we were obliged to submit to during our earlier years. As soon as we recovered from the desolating feeling of our mother's death, my sister and I made our plans for the grand battle with the hungry wolf. Our house afforded ample room for two gentlemen lodgers, who were contented to take their quiet morning and evening meals with us. They soon removed any remnant of the absurd professional pride I had begun to cultivate, by the deference and respect they showed my gentle sister, and their high estimation of my medical opinion. So sincere were they, that I soon felt their influ- ence in my small practice ; scarce a day elapsed, that some patient did not help my pocket and the professional dignity of my quiet office, by a consultation. Before the close of the year, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of restoring the younger of my mercantile friends, an only son, to the arms of a mother, after a long attack of typhus fever. She came on from a distant town to assist my sister and myself in nursing him. I was much attached to him. So highly- toned and gentlemanly a young man I had never beforo met with. When I willingly assumed those duties of a nurse, that I would not permit his delicate mother nor my sister to attend to, he used to take my hand and kiss it with all the tender- ness of a lover, as he would apologize for the trouble he gave me. One day, he begged me particularly not to lav RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 353 the letters I brought from the post-office, on the parlor table, as his mother had noticed that he received some with great regularity, in a delicate hand. He seemed very pen- sive when he made the request, and told me, with some impressiveness, he would have occasion, at some future time, for a further exercise of my friendship. On several occa- sions after this, on the receipt of these letters, which 1 reg- ularly brought him, I observed traces of tears. I did not obtrude my sympathy upon him, though God knows I had learned to feel deeply for him. Cut off by my poverty and morbid pride, from the society of my equals, and treated with the customary tender mercies of my seniors, I felt the value of my friend's kindness and courtesy. He was yet feeble, and had been barely able to sit at breakfast for two mornings, when, to our great surprise, he assured me he was obliged to go to a town in a distant part of the State, to attend to some special commercial business, which he only could transact; as he occupied the position of confidential clerk in a commercial house in the city, and although I was much surprised at the suddenness of this announcement, on the quiet assertion that the business could be attended to by no other, I yielded to his assurance of its necessity, and saw him on board the steamboat, with much anxiety and many cautions. The promised letter soon arrived, announcing his safe arrival and the assurance that he would again be " home " in a few days. I had noticed with pain and apprehension, my sister's sub- dued quiet, when our lodger left us, and was, I hardly know why, uneasy and jealous at the tenderness with which his mother took leave of her, and assured her she should ever consider her as her own child, and me as her son. I was, moreover much impressed with the singular design of a very costly bracelet she fastened on my sister's arm as she left us ; four hearts set in brilliants on an azure ground, surrounded with a delicate border of gold, on which these words were 354 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN engraved—" A mother's love for her child : once there w;>s three : let me dream they are still here." She had lost her other two children a few years before. The gift and the sentiment were sufficiently delicate, and certainly it was worthy of my dear sister as well as of the giver, whose life was purity itself; but somehow it made me very thoughtful, and when a couple of weeks more had elapsed, and our lodger did not return, aud my sister seemed more subdued, and showed, to my apprehensive and jealous eye, that she suffered, I determined to call on the firm where my friend was employed, and ascertain when he would arrive. I was certainly both surprised and shocked to see him, the mere ghost of a man, occupying his accustomed position at the desk, in the private room of his employers. His embarrassment was evident, and after a hasty inquiry of his health, I was about retiring, when he hurriedly closed the door and begged me to be seated. I soon saw from his manner, that he was about to make a communication trying to his feelings, and as I had a tender regard for him, I begged him not to distress himself, adding, that although friendship would seem to demand that I Bhould share his troubles, that I had perhaps better not become the possessor of his secret, and that my sister and I would always be glad to receive him, if we could do so with propriety. " Your sister ! my friend—my brother ; it was she and her love for my mother, who prevented my seeking your counsel and your roof on my return ; indeed, had you not called, I should never have dared address you again." I now begged him to explain, as my sister's sadness and the connection of his trouble with her name, gave me a right to know what it was. He continued: " You remember my request about secreting those letters from my mother. You must have noticed my distress upon several occasions after I had received one." I answered him that I had, and bad RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 355 been very anxious for his evident grief; but that I sup- posed they related to some tender secret I had no right to inquire into, if unsolicited to receive it. " Oh, my friend, my brother ! but I have no right to call you by that hallowed name ; you are noble : you are above an act of such damning villainy. When I confess to you my crime, what will your sister say ?" " In the name of heaven, my poor friend, let me know your grief, aud I will aid you if possible. You are not, I trust in God, involved in pecuniary trouble with your firm ; are you a defaulter ?—have you gambled ? Tell me all." " Oh, worse, worse 1 I am a murderer ! I have broken two hearts, and filled one grave. Help me, ray friend, to repair the dreadful wrong I have done to her who is as innocent as heaven. Go with me to-night, and I will add the measure of your contempt for one who is not fit to address you longer. When you see her, you will know what a wretch you harbored under your roof, and how bold in my villainy I must have been, to venture to obtrude myself on the presence of your dear sister." My temper prompted me to reply to him sternly, but prudence and pride prevented ; for I only suspected my sister's affections to be slightly engaged to this bad though fascinating man, aud my mother's spirit within me revolted at so vile a contamination of her blood. His melancholy face, yet pale from his dreadful sickness, had assumed an expression of intense abstraction ; with knit brow, half- closed eyes and compressed lips, he seemed looking into the future for the approach of his merited punishment. I felt for him ; such is my nature. Our interview had lasted nearly to the business hour, and as he was in no condition to face his employers, I took leave of him, telling him I would await his commands after dark in the evening. He gave me' the number of his lodgings, and assured me he would be deeply grateful for m) 356 RECOLLECTIONS OP A SEXAGENARIAN. professional aid ; my sympathy for his crime he would not ask. He need not have added the latter expression, for I never had any for the sin he had committed. I was detained at home in my office that evening, having lingered rather longer than usual over my tea, whilst observ- ing my sister's deportment on learning that our lodger had taken other apartments. I had observed quite enough for the obliteration of my hopes of happiness, for I felt that I never could consent to her union with a man for whom I could feel no respect. She was evidently attached to him ; there are a thousand ways in which the physician can judge of such things, that other men know nothing of ; whilst others think we are obtuse to all the more delicate apprecia- tions of feeling, we only seem to ignore them, because the occasion for their exercise is so frequent, that they are cal- culated to detract from the proper discharge of our more immediate duties. I merely told her, that the necessity of protecting a female relative, had made it necessary for him to take other apartments. I need have said no more to convey to her the entire affair. She perceived my embar- rassment, and, with a woman's instinct, read the whole ; she, too, had observed the letters, and now her estimate of their character was evidently confirmed. Poor girl! I noticed her paleness, her trembling voice, and the unusual strength of the tea she swallowed ; and whilst I mentally cursed the destroyer of her happiness, I mercifully spared her my presence. I could not question her on the subject, for my dear sister and I rather understood each other's sym- pathy by intuition, than by expression. No words of sisterly or brotherly endearment ever passed between us, and so sin- gular and reserved had been our habits, that our lips had never met in that holy kiss of brother's and sister's love, since the time when our poor mother folded our infant arms together, when she would bid us good night, and leave us in our little bed, to that sweet sleep she never allowed herself RECOL LECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 357 till midnight ; for she—alas ! my angel mother!—was occupied with the needle, to eke out our subsistence. * * Leaving my poor sister, I sought the apartments where our lodger had taken his unfortunate victim, under an assumed name, as his wife. They were barely decent lodg- ings, in the outskirts of the city, selected not for meanness —for he was naturally extravagant—but in order to avoid observation. Iuquiring for Mr. Dullagher, I was introduced into a front room on the second floor ; whilst waiting, I heard my former lodger's voice and the words, " Don't be alarmed, dearest ; he is a gentleman in every respect." He entered almost immediately, and led the way into the cham- ber where the poor young creature lay. I was prepared to see an interesting person, for I knew bis extraordinary admiration of female beauty ; but my ideas were far short of the reality. A woman may have features of faultless beauty ; she may resemble a Venus or an Eve of the statuary, but marble cannot look at you ; its dead and soulless eye cannot reflect the speaking glance, telling of cherished hope and blighted affection ; it cannot, like the living one, speak the bursting heart, whilst it looks tenderly, and with forgiving glance upon its destroyer, and seems to beg you to spare him rather than to pity her. Such a mournful and sweet face met my gaze, as I took the hand of my patient, whilst her destroyer leaned his pale forehead against the wall and audibly sobbed. I had never before seen so lovely a face. On my entrance, as I extended ray hand to her, she neither wept nor looked ashamed of her position. She greeted me in silence; a moment elapsed, and as the sobs of her lover fell upon her ear, she turned eagerly towards him, whilst the very fountain of iove seemed overflowing her woman's soul, as she rose up and extended her beautiful white arms to him I thought of Mary at the tomb of the Saviour. Nor do I believe that he would have reproved her, had he stood before her in my place. 358 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. " Why do you weep, Frederick ? I love you, and you used to say you asked no more of heaven. Our purposed marriage, too, ought surely to satisfy you that you have done me no wrong. I will now consent to it, whenever you please ; for now I believe it will comfort you, if I should have to leave you." '' Oh, talk not so, my love—my life! You shall not die ! I was drunk with ridiculous, vulgar ambition. Oh, mon- strous ! to think that I could have refused you the wretched consolation of a name tarnished with dishonorable baseness ; that I could see her only friend—her mother— droop away under the disgrace of the gentle creature she had nourished through long years of chilling poverty, and see her drop into the grave a poor wilted and forsaken thing, and leave her dear child alone ! Oh God, pity me ! for I need it. What can wash me clear of this crime ?" His eloquent self-condemnation was too just to fail in exciting her tears ; she had joined them with his, for he had now sunk upon his knees at her bedside. She had raised herself in bed; and as her loosened and beautiful black hair fell in a large mass over her eyes, it reminded me of the wing of the death angel. Nothing is so expressive as the lustre of the human eye, relieved by a mass of black hair ; and nothing so mournful, when we remember its effect in life, to see it drooping over those windows of the soul when they are closed in death. I withdrew into the front room, for I confess I had need of a moment's quiet, to compose myself. I had yet made no inquiry into the medical character of the case ; and although I neither knew nor anticipated why their gloomy forebod- ings should be realized, I know not why my own prognosis should have been a melancholy one. It may have been the consciousness of the great importance I have always attached to the influence of a happy state of the emotions, at so interesting a crisis of a woman's life—it may have been her RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 359 evident delicacy—I know not why it was; but from the moment my eye rested on that black tress of her hair, it was associated with her death pall. I returned to the bedside, and her satisfactory answers to my questions convinced me, that she was destined to pass her first great trial in a few days. I took ray leave, with such cheering words of encouragement as ever spring to the lips of the physician, who will not consent to chill the warmth of his soul by the blighting influence of selfishness, promising to call frequently. The unfortunate young man walked forth with me ; his nerves were sadly shaken, and I begged him to retire ; but he said he had much to tell me. In a few words he informed me, that his illness had been caused by reckless exposure to typhus on board an emigrant ship, in conse- quence of the importunity of her poor mother, that he would do her child the melancholy justice of marriage, when she saw the result of her confidence in his intentions. He had deceived us all in her place of abode ; for she lived in a small town near the city of my residence—so near, indeed, that he often made it the terminus of an afternoon's drive. It was on one of these pleasure excursions, that her angelic beauty attracted his gaze, as he rode through the village. Strange to say, iu a few days, although educated with strict propriety, she allowed him to address her, under pretence of inquiring the way, as she was returning with some colored prints to a book-store, the owner of which employed her mother to color them ; and as she was the ouly other member of the family, the duty of returning them fell upon her. Such was the address of this fascinating young man, that the poor mother fell into the snare, and allowed him to address her daughter. There were times, he told me, in which he would gladly have married her ; but on his enthu- siastic description of her, his friends ridiculed him, and he 360 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. finally steeled his heart, until the attack of illness that made us acquainted with his mother. During that attack, the letters he received from poor Ellen, 60 subdued his spirit by their tenderness, that he resolved to hasten to her the moment his recovery would allow, and make her his wife The day on which, after his illness, he announced his sudden departure on the pretended commercial business, he received a letter, iuforming him of the greatly-increased illness of Ellen's mother, who had been for some months in a declin- ing state, in consequence of the melancholy condition and disgrace of her daughter. He arrived only in time to receive her last sigh, and to promise marriage and protec- tion to her he had so deeply injured. The poor girl's grief was terrible. As soon as her mother was buried, as she did not wish to remain in the village, she left their little cottage, under the protection of a trusty neighbor, who had been her mother's nurse and schoolmate, and came with her lover to the city. He informed me it was his design to ask my professional advice immediately, but he feared to expose himself to me, for he knew my esti- mation of his crime. He was now thoroughly subdued by grief and apprehen- sion for the dear girl he had so terribly injured ; he con- jured me to save her, by every term of endearment. I told him that I knew no reason why she should not recover from her confinement, like any other woman ; that a fatal event was very rare ; but, considering the unhappy influences of mental distress upon a delicate organism, where there was no experience, and evidently very gloomy apprehension of the result, that he should immediately grant her all the quiet that would follow from a marriage. He assented instantly; nor would he leave me until we together called upon a friend of mine, whose kind and excellent heart and soothing words had brought comfort to many a dying and friendless creature, whose death-bed I was destined to attend. Our RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 361 compact was a mutual one, and we freely commanded each other's services night and day. The marriage was appointed for next morning, before the business hour ; and the young man seemed to derive comfort from the arrangement. 1 bade him good night, and promised to be with him at eight o'clock. My sister was in waiting for me, and seemed more pensive than usual. Although I was extremely anxious to know the actual state of her attachment to this unfortunate young man, I knew it had not been openly professed ; I thought it best, therefore, to let the influence of a separation have its silent effect, and to divert her, as soon as possible, by a visit to your city—during which I had, if you remember, the pleasure of forming your acquaintance. I therefore bade her good night, and retired to dream of man's injus tiee. At eight o'clock T was with them. My clerical friend arrived at the moment, and we found our couple in the humble parlor, quietly awaiting our arrival. Ellen looked very lovely, and the groom full of devotion and tenderness. A sweet bouquet bloomed upon the little table, and I noticed that the bride had been engaged embroidering a pretty design on a handkerchief that lay on the same table ; it was only partly finished, aud she had evidently laid it down on our arrival. Every thing about the room, and herself, including her dress of deep mourning for her mother, was in perfect and beautiful order. On my expres- sing surprise at her industry at so early an hour, her lover observed that he never rode out to her little cottage, how- ever early, without finding her at her needle or in her little gardeu. Dear child ! I often think of her sweet face and melting eyes, and that first association of the dark lock of her hair, that fell over them when I first saw her—alas ! how ominous it was. After a short interview, our friend proceeded with the ceremony in the present of myself and our remainiug 16 362 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. lodger, who had been intrusted with the secret, and who was the only person to whom the groom felt willing to tell it. He was a quiet, well-disposed, and gentlemanly man, with no very strong emotions of any kind ; one of those excellent persons who slide easily through the world, and are sure of great esteem whilst living, and "a very respecta- ble funeral." My good friend, the clergyman, though a model of excellence, was not oppressed with that delicate appreciation of the sorrows of a woman's heart, that would have prevented him, if he had possessed it, approaching that altar of the soul that is ever sacred to the true physician. Accordingly, in bis extemporaneous prayer; he was making rapid approaches towards that unfortunate woman of the Bible, who was the ::cbject of those touching remarks of the Saviour. Fortunately l stood next him, and if his reve- rend elbow suffered by the manner in which the abductor muscles of my thumb and finger tried to approximate with that important joint between them, I can only say, I meant no disrespect for the cloth or the occasion—but a holy sym- pathy for her who had elicited the evidently sincere inten- tion. My friend filled up the hiatus in his prayer, as well as might be expected on so awkward an occasion ; he subse- quently begged me never to allude to the circumstance, for the good man deemed it nothing short of sacrilege. I excused myself, on the ground of doctors being exceptions to all rules ; but I am fain to say, I never regretted my promptness in applying the bit to his reverence's tongue, by way of the nerves of his elbow ; and think I shall take the precaution to drill my clerical helpmate on a similar occa- sion, before his services are required. A few days only intervened, before I was summoned to attend my patient in her first great trial. I had seen her daily during the interval, and found her so quiet and com- paratively happy, that I anticipated no trouble : nor was there any. Her husband waited on her with the greatest RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 363 devotion and tenderness, and was so greatly agitated and depressed during the labor, that I was finally obliged tc request my patient to entreat his absence. Never have I witnessed such relief as his countenance expressed, when I led him to the bedside to behold his wife—her face beaming with a mother's love for her first-born. I have often told my artist friends, that if they would ever know the pencil's highest aim, they must witness the change from the speech- less agony of child-birth, to that radiant soul-felt joy that steals over the young mother's face, " when she feels for the first time her first-born's breath." The face of my young patient was more beautiful than heaven. That smile ! Oh, it must have been reflected from some angel's face, who came to call her away from her husband and child ; it was, like all other things so beautiful and bright, soon to fade for ever from earth. Let me hasten to the close ; for oh 1 how near it was. No unpleasant symptom appeared till the third day, and even then, the slight febrile symptoms that prepare the pure fountain of nourishment for the child, did not excite my apprehension. All was still well, when, on the fourth day, a violent chill succeeded an unfortunate and uncontrollable burst of grief, at a prolonged view of her poor mother's picture—the work of a young artist who had been sheltered in their humble abode. The nurse told me, that it was of near an hour's duration, and it bad not yielded to her very judicious measures, when I arrived. The bus. band had been hastily summoned from his counting-house, and ran frantically to ray office. I was fortunately at home, and in a few minutes at my patient's bedside. What mea- sures occurred to me were instantly put in practice, and I an once personally summoned a near friend, for I am natu- rally desponding in such cases, and all my gloomy first im- pressions were revived. Why prolong the sad narrative ? All that three of us could do—for we had summoned a very eminent professional 364 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN brother—was done. On the seventh day, it was evident the scene would soon be over. I can now relate it calmly, for 'tis more than thirty years since, and my own griefs have quieted me. It often happens, that a mother dying of those fatal fevers that follow child-birth, becomes insensible to maternal love ; but my young patient was an exception. During the inter- vals of her pain, she manifested the fondest attachment to her child. She barely allowed its occasional removal rrom her side, to give it food. Once, during my presence at her bedside, she placed her hand upon her breasts, from which the milk had quite disappeared, and looking mournfully at her infant, could not control her tears. Poor baby, thought I, it is well for him that he does not realize the difference ; for he wil' never receive his nourishment from that source. Upon rtmarking that he fed well, and all might yet end happily, she took my hand, and pressing it to her lips, she said, "You comforter; but never—no, Doctor ; I am sinking ; I feel it in my freedom from pain." 7Twas, indeed, a fatal symptom. " I leave you and him"— placing her hand upon her husband's head, who could not control his emotion—" I go to join her. Be kind to him ; he loved me always—yes, from the first moment. I feel it." He uttered an imprecation on himself; she instantly checked him, with more energy than I thought she yet possessed. " Never, Frederick, my love ; use such a terri- ble expression. Be always calm—calm—calm— !" She was exhausted by the exertion, and gasped for breath. "Be calm; your passious are your only fault; your heart is good. Doctor, he is good. Remember the Saviour ; he was calm, and oh, how pure was his love for all ! Doctor, will you— may I now, without selfishness, ask a boon of you, who are all goodness ? Do you know what he thinks of you ?— how he loves you ? Next to me, Doctor, and his mother ; next to us." I replied, that her slightest wish, could I know RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. 365 It, would be sacred to me. " Then, Doctor, when I am gone, take him and my dear child back to your roof and your heart. His mother never knew me, thank God ! I could not have looked at her." He cried out in his agony, " She would have loved you, my angel, my darling ; she would have worshipped you, but she would have despised me. Oh, God ! I am glad she knows not my baseness." The dying wife placed her hand on his mouth. " Doctor, you have a sister : will she love it ? Frederick has told me me was like a sister to him. and how she once valued a mother's love. Doctor, will you love it for your mother's sake and for my sake ? Take this little gift" (handing me the handkerchief she was at work upon the morning of her wedding ; you shall see it some day, my dear Doctor), "and when you look at it, remember the giver's prayer, and love my child." I received the gift, and placed it near my heart. My tears blinded me ; I felt the sacredness of the promise, and bowed my head as I told her her wish should ever be as near to me as the memory of the giver. Her husband's looks assured me of his sufferings and his gratitude. Believing that she was not yet near her end by a few hours, I knew that one thing remained for me to do, to make her departure happy ; and that was, the presence of woman ; she who was " last at his cross, and earliest at her Saviour's grave." I resolved, that however it would harrow her feelings, I would bring my dear sister to her, and let her receive the sacred gift of the child from the hands of the dyiBg mother. I pressed her thin cold hand to my lips, and hastened to mv home, leaving her alone with her suffering and now tearless partner. On my way, my knowledge of my sister's affection for the fascinating man, who had caused all this misery, made me hesitate ; but I knew her noble nature, and that she had cultivated self-control till it made me revere her above all other woman. I resolved she should 366 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXAGENARIAN. know all ; that she should, with a woman's instinct, form her own ideas of the husband's attachment to his dying wife, and ever after be able to estimate correctly his real worth as a man. Bidding her hastily make her toilet, I placed her in my carriage, and for the first time iu my adult life, addressed her with deep and expressed feeling ; for, as I said before, we had hitherto known each other by intuition — not expression. " My dear sister," said I, " you are about to experience a severe trial. The wife of a dear friend is dying, and I wish you to receive from her hand an unpro tected infant. I have already promised her you will, but she knows not of your coming." She turned pale, and I knew at once she had, with a woman's instinct, connected the whole subject with the absence of our lodger, and what I had told her of the necessity of its protection to a relative. In a moment, however, she answered me : " Go on, brother ; I have now but one wish—to please you." I understood her meaning, and that she knew all. Pressing her for the first time to my heart, I observed she trembled, but instantly controlled herself, imputing it to the chill air. On our arrival, it was necessary to introduce her to the bed-side. Our patient was still conscious, but dying. The husband bowed his head and spoke not. Approaching the poor dying young creature, I said : " Yv»u begged me to receive your child, and asked me if my sister would love it. My mother's spirit whispered me, let my other child answer, I have therefore brought my sister to you " My sister kissed her now pale lips ; I raised the arm of the dying mother aud placed it about her neck. She slightly drew the weeping girl to her, aud distinctly said, " Bless you, my dear—bless you ;" then, with much effort, Bhe continued, " I never had a sister, but my dear mother would have been happier with you—oh ! far happier. She loved her poor child, and will bless you for your kindness RECOLLECTIONS Of A SEXAGENARIAN. 367 You will iove my child ; I know it, or you would not have come." My sister kissed her again and again. " Bless you, dear—bless you. Where is he ? Where is Frederick ?'? " Here, dearest," groaned the poor husband, " here. Yet —Oh God ! caust thou not even yet----?" He was tearless ; his countenance showed the fearful agony of his soul. He placed his baud upon her heart, in doubt, for her eyes were now closed, and she seemed to have ceased breathing. Suddenly she opened them with evident intelli- gence, and fixed them steadily on the ceiling. I caught that peculiar look of the dying, I had several times before seen, when all on earth is passing away, and they seem to see into another state of existence. We stepped aside from her face, fearful of distracting her gaze from him at that sacred moment. To my great joy—for my heart ached for him—I heard the words distiuctly uttered, " Dearest— Frederick—mother—" * * All was over ; poor Ellen was at rest. Speechless with grief, we stood silent for some minutes. I closed those lovely eyes, and smoothed back that dark tress of hair that had excited my gloomy forebodings ; it was, indeed, her death pall. The poor husband was stupe- fied ; we did not leave him for some hours. And when my dear sister wrapped the little motherless child in her shawl, and took it to the carriage, I blessed God that she was left me, and that I had escaped the awful crime that had so humbled the soul of the unhappy young man, who had thus early filled two graves with the victims of his passion. After the last sad rites, he followed his motherless child to my house. A subdued and changed man is now my friend and brother. When years had chastened his spirit, and he had placed his dear mother by the side of his wife, I was perfectly willing to entrust my sister to his tender care. I reflected upon my own passionate nature, and that probably 368 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEXA6ENARIAN I had only escaped the same unhappiness by the force of a medical education forbidding that awful crime by every appeal to my manhood, and pardoned him fully. Suffering had changed him. You know how I love him. You know his noble heart. God has given him wealth, and how many have been made glad by his bounty. Do you remember his beautiful boy ?—his child—our child. Oh, may God save him till this weary heart is at rest! Man is born to cherish some living creature, and I can never love * * again. The preceding narrative is the written relation of scenes, • occurring in the practice of a dear friend in another city. Were it possible for the reader to listen to the events as detailed from the lips of our friend---when the shutters are closed, and the sofa wheeled round he would regret as keenly as the Editor does, the necessity of our acting as his amanuensis. All our entreaties have never been able to overcome his modesty and induce him to write ; we have vainly tried to catch the inspiration of his voice and manner, but, we fear, in vain. The cvnclusion of the sketch will explain to the astute reader the sacredness of his relation to the memory of the dead—and the living characters and the delicacy of our task. To the readers this explanation is necessary; the publication of this volume having brought the Editor to confession. SCARLET FEVER 869 SCARLET FEVER. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF ITS DREADFUL FATALITY—HAS MKDICIHE AST CONTHOC OVER IT? "The simpler variety of scarlatina is only fatal through the officiousneas of the doctor."—Sydenham. The existence of an atmospheric and infectious disease, depending upon unknown causes, of a very fatal character, attacking almost exclusively those in the very morning of life, is but too well adapted to enlist the sympathies of our hearts, to insure a right use of the head in the investiga- tion" of the symptoms it produces, and its awfully fatal char- acter. As these are all the means we possess in determin- ing the serious questions we propose to consider, it behooves us to be quite sure that we properly awaken the reasoning faculty of the general reader, and whilst we present him with no hypotheses to gratify pride of opinion, supply him with enough of such admitted facts as will insure an intelli- gent appreciation of the true merits of the question of its treatment, respecting which, it grieves ns to say, there is a great variety of opinion in our profession. Indeed, we are well aware that this, as well as many other subjects chosen for popular instruction, have already subjected us to the aspersions of such as do not wish any disturbance of the public mind aud their own quiet consciences. The radical reformer and the alarmist are great thorns in the sides of our medical bourgeoisie.. The medical colleges and the 16* 570 SCARLET FEVRR. academy (!) may serve their purpose yet a little while, but the public mind is too much excited, and the desolate hearth- stone appeals too sensibly to the affections of the parent to allow this question any longer rest. It is far too serious, and our avowed object to aid the public to distinguish between the quack, with his collegiate shield of sheep's skin, and his century-beaten mill-horse track of medical rou- tine of practice is now too well understood to allow us a longer respite. There are two points in the history of this disease which most impressively arrest the attention of the physician, and they must be made to appeal with equal force to the general reader, even before we give the characteristic appearances and symptoms of the disease ; for on them depends the jus- tice of our strictures on the routine treatment of the day. It grieves us to be obliged to press them earnestly upon the attention, because we are aware they will excite the sad- dest memories in many a bereaved heart. These points are well settled, and somewhat familiar even to the popular mind, and we now intend to attempt their application. The first is, that in some seasons and districts, the disease shows itself from the very commencement, in a very mild form ; mothers calling it the " scarlet rash," and " scarla- tina ;" this latter being the name used by physicians to express the general disease itself and not the degree or type. Scarlet rash, alludes of course to the redness of the skin ; and scarlatina indicates, as parents suppose, a very simple affection quite different from scarlet fever, which they are apt to associate exclusively with the swollen and ulcerated throat that so often marks the fatal character of the higher type of the disease. This is entirely erroneous, and may lead to indifference and death. The disease beiug infectious, and generally attacking all the younger members of the family who have not had it, often affords sad oppor- tunities to prove that it originates always from one kind of SCARLET FE YER. poison whatever it maybe: one child will have so slight an attack, perhaps a mere redness of the skin, and no throat affection at all, that he will not even consent to go to bed; whilst another will be attacked as early as the second day in the most virulent manner, with all the throat symptoms, and in a few days—even two or three—will, if subjected to the usual purgative, pass into a typhoid state,from which no stimulation can arouse him, and death by suffocation will rapidly close the scene. We have placed this admitted fact first, because it has everything to do with the remarks we shall have to make on the treatment of the disease, and our perhaps somewhat singular introduction. With regard to the manner of its origin, we have simply to say, we know nothing about it, any more than of measles or hooping cough ; still there is here also a fact, that in our own humble view, positively proves it to be of constant re-origina- tion iu various parts of the country, notwithstanding its also proved infectious character. It is continually appear- ing, like the measles, in places hundreds of miles apart, where there is known to have been no intercourse whatever between the children, or the parents ; we mention the latter, because though adults rarely take it, in commercial life there is much travelling, and small pox it is proved may be even carried iu a letter thousands of miles. The sphere of infec- tion in scarlet fever, there is good reason to suppose, does not extend beyond the sick room, or the exhalations of the affected person : it cannot be carried far by the clothing of a visitor ; the open air is known to dissipate it. There is nothing unreasonable or improbable in the idea, that a disease, originating entirely in atmospheric or deranged electric influences, may become so concentrated by receiving Borne new and essential element for its propagation from the system in which it is first hatched, as to become highly infectious to other systems brought within the influence of the exhalations of the sick ; indeed, ai may be said <£ 372 SCARLET FEVER. small-pox and its more terribly contagious synonym, they must both have been thus concocted at their first appearance on earth : there must be two elements in them: and yet, in truth, we know neither the primary essential nature of scarlet fever nor its subsequent additions ; if we did, we might be able to treat it with more certainty. Let us, therefore, attend to its symptoms aud see what we can deduce from them in regard to its treatment. Simple scarlatina, when severe enough to produce any symptoms sufficiently marked to attract notice, appears as a faint diffused redness of the skin, sometimes so slight as scarcely to exceed the hue of a healthy child's cheek; there may be slight chills, and sometimes shivering ; popsibly a little nausea — rarely vomiting in these mild cases. The eruption appears usually on the second or third day. You may always remark, that the later the eruption, the worse the attack ; of course all physicians of experience and most mothers, know, that if no eruption appear, or if it come very late, and only partially, the attack of any cutaneous complaint will be more serious ; the eruption, as we sup- pose, is nature's own method of throwing the poison or its influence out of the body. The disease may be distinguished from measles, which often prevails not only in a noticeable degree at the same seasons, but actually approximates in appearance to the eruption, in many cases, of mild scarlatina—firstly, by the watery eyes, the sneezing and cough of measles ; and sec- ondly, by the usual appearance of the eruption. The measles are more of a raspberry color—scarlatina, of that of a boiled lobster. The eruption of measles is generally in patches, more or less approximating the shape of a half circle, feeling rough under the finger, with patches of healthy skin between them. The scarlatina eruption is like a diffused blush, smooth to the touch, and merging into the general lobster 6hell eruption all over the skin. They both SCARLET FEVER. 373 begin on the face, and extend downwards. The eruption of measles begins almost always on the fourth day after the first appearance of the watery eyes and the hoarse cough, after which it begins to fade. The eruption of scarlet fever, on the contrary, has no definite period of duration, some- times appearing as late as the fourth or fifth, and disappear- ing by the eighth day ; this is its most usual course, but it is to the frequent derangement of this symptom that we look, as to the dial plate of the disease ; just as it behaves, just so will the throat be affected; it will escape entirely, be verj slightly affected, or pass to a malignant state. From the fourth day, in most cases, the eruption becomes fainter, and the external or scarf skin (for the reader will remember the skin has three distinct layers) begins to scale off or desquamate, as we say; it comes off the body and face just like scales of bran, only of a finer texture, and by the seventh day, the patient presents a much better and smoother surface. Sometimes the thicker cuticle of the hands and feet will come off entire, like a glove or sock. All the symptoms of the mild variety of the disease, most easily distinguished by the general observer, will be found to show themselves on the skin, and he is apt to suppose that the danger ends with its scaling off, or exfoliation, but he will soon see that the real danger is just then about to commence ; in these mild cases, dropsy and debility often destroy life where the fever excited no apprehension. First, however, of the second, or that appalling variety that strikes such terror to the parent's heart. This originates, as we have said, from the same poison; we have ample evidence, from the fact, that even when the first case in a family proves to be a malignant and fatal one, attended with all the worst throat symptoms, the child actually dying of suffocation as early as the fourth or fifth day, a brother or sister, or several of them, may take the mildest form and recover: and the reverse of this is just as often seen. This 374 SCARLET FEVER. extraordinary difference in the result is closely connected with the second impressive fact we alluded to in our intro- duction. It may be owing to some different organization of the skin, inappreciable by us, or the absence or presence of some element or balance of the living power in that individ- ual child, essential to the propagation of the severer form of the disease, in its malignant form, or sometimes its total failure to attack the body. On such hypotheses it is idle to speculate; but other and graver reflections arrest the atten- tion when we witness the routine treatment of these evidently dissimilar constitutions, and compare it with the often terrible results. That man who possesses even the meanest reflecting power, may well ask himself the question, how do I know when five or six children of similar bodily confirmation, but always of different constitutional power, are all subjected, on the first appearance of the symptoms, to the action of a purgative, and perhaps a violent one; how do I know that I shall not so prostrate one or more of them, that the sys- tem will not have power enough left it to throw out the eruption, and the throat may receive all the brunt of the disease 1 We have known jalap and calomel, and salts and jenna to be given in this city, and that by respectable phy- sicians, as a standard prescription, to a whole family ! and more than one instance in which three and four consecutive deaths have followed ! The action of a purgative medicine is well known to reduce the action of the heart, and lessen the eruption ! nay, if the imprudent rontinist were asked why he gave it, he could only say that such was his inten- tion. Now, let us ask ourselves the question, what is the fever that precedes the redness of the skin ? Is it not increased action of the heart ? Is it not more than an hypothesis, is it not almost certain, that this increased action is meant by nature to throw the poison, whatever it be, out of the body SCARLET FEVER. 375 by means of this very redness and scaling of the skin ? What are measles, small pox and plague ? Let us see what aid we can derive in proving this, by investigating the malignant variety of scarlet fever; only called malignant because the disease spends its force on the throat, often suf- focating the child to death ; we repeat, it comes from the same poison; never forget this, and then you will know how monstrous is the meddlesome ignorance of the routine prac- titioner. In this description of malignant scarlatina, we prefer presenting the observation of one of the most acute physi- cians of Europe, notwithstanding, we have been witness repeatedly to all the symptoms he enumerates ; indeed, there is not a physician of any experience who has not seen them again and again, in the dreadful epidemic visitations of the disease in this city:—his remarks will show that others as well as ourself share the opinion of the miserable results of routine treatment. In scarlatina maligna, the rash is apt to come out late and imperfectly, and sometimes not at all ; and instead of being bright and florid, to present a bluish or livid tint; sometimes it suddenly recedes, and then perhaps appears again; and occasionally it is diversified by purple spots. Only see how palpably nature shows she is struggling with her too feeble heart against a dreadfully depressing cause ! Redness, you will remember, is caused by the blood being rapidly propelled through the lungs by a strong heart, causing sufficient absorption of oxygen from the inhaled air; purple blotches show a want of this oxygen, or a predominance of carbon in the veins, which return the blood from the skin after it has performed its functions of exhalation of carbon aud a supply of material for growth. When the patient begins to complain of soreness of the throat, and you look into the mouth and find the tonsils and throat of a dark red color, and especially if the eruption •8 not well out on the skin, look out for trouble. Such is 376 SCARLET FEVBR. often the violence of the depressing cause in some cases, that the patient begins to sink or become typhoid on the very first day this redness of the throat commences! Death often occurs as early as the fourth day. Says Dr. Watson I—" Over this variety of the disease medicine has but little control." Add this expression to the acknowledged axiom of the great Sydenham at the head of this article, and then tell me, reader, if it is not time that some one had the independence to declare the truth, and protect the lives of hundreds of children in this city frofn the appalling conse- quences of diploma'd ignorance! The symptoms of the throat affection are so well known to physicians, and treatment avails so little, that we shall pass them entirely by, and hasten to the consequences of the disease upon other parts of the system. One of the results of the excessive swelling about the neck, is pressure upon the great jugular veins which return the blood from the head. This causes congestion or fulness of the brain, and often delirium, ending in a rupture of some vessel within the skull, and consequent apoplexy. We have often, also, seen every symptom of dropsy of the brain. This is of slower accession, and allows a little more time for the action of remedies, for in the secondary symptoms there is far more certainty in their use. The offensive and poisonous discharge from the ulcera- tions of the throat pass into the bowels, for the patient has no strength to expectorate, and produces diarrhoea. The windpipe itself has often been attacked with ulceration, and the child suffocated in a spasmodic attack of coughing. If the child is delicate or scrofulous, and should survive the attack, the reader will readily comprehend additional debility should follow ; this will locate in one or more parts of the system. Swellings of the glands in the neck, of the eye-lids, and of the lips and nostrils and joints, are common consequences. Ulcerations of the SCARLET FEVER. 811 ear and nose, and ulcers on various parts of the body, may also follow. The most common result, however, is dropsy ; it usually shows itself beneath the skin, causing swelling of the limbs, and occasionally dropsy of the cavity of the belly. This symptom, Dr. Watson remarks, is most frequent in mild cases ; we have no doubt of it from our own observation. This affection is an excessively obstinate and persistent one, and the impertinent and officious interposition of the physi- cian often renders it utterly incurable. Warmth and nutritious food, with gentle frictions to the skin, are the only proper domestic remedies ; the humane and careful use of specific stimuli to the skin and kidneys, is admissible by the careful physician only ; no remedy can be conscien- tiously used by a parent. Dropsy is said to be almost inva- riably the consequence of too early exposure to cold, and usually comes on by the twentieth day ; after the fourth week there is little danger of it, the equilibrium of the cir culation being by that time restored, and the new cuticle consolidated. People beyond the period of adolescence are rarely afflicted with it, nor are they, indeed, by any means as liable to scarlet fever ; few cases occur after 16 years. Dr. Watson remarks, that if asked for how long a time a person was capable of communicating the disease to another, he would always answer, "that he did not know." If he had lived here, be might know to a day, if he would believe some of our oracular brethren ; there is one order of them who never fail to answer every question asked of them, however absurdly impossible to suppose the knowledge attainable. Apartments will undoubtedly retain the infec- tion for weeks, as we know by personal observation ; but it is soon dissipated from the clothes of a person who has been near the sick. What we have said with regard to the treatment of this often formidable disease, originates in no captious desire tc 378 SCARLET FEVER. find fault with our brethren. We conceive all, and more than we have said, to be richly merited by a large majority of the practitioners throughout our country. The insane desire of nine-tenths of those who employ a physician, to have "something done," has caused many a parent's heart to bleed. No medical man who respects himself will ever yield to such ignorant presumption. Instances have occurred in this city, in several cases under our own observation, of two, three, and four deaths in a single family, all of which had been subjected to severe medication ; and one of Dur citizens, heart-broken at the loss of four daughters, felt justly called on to give his views to the public on hearing fche alleged fatal treatment contradicted by the physician. To our personal knowledge, they all had active mercurial purgatives, and several of them were very freely leeched ! and yet this very man insolently claims the highest position m the medical profession in this city. Verily, if the chil- dren of his brethren were subjected to his treatment, we would require no society for the relief of their beggared offspring when they themselves were dead. From what we have noticed in twenty years' observation and conversation with thinking as well as heroic practition- ers, it is our solemn conviction that no treatment whatever for the milder variety, and no active medicine for the severer form, should be used. Absolute and unvarying warmth in bed to the full extent of comfort, ice to the head in cases of delirium supervening in the latter stages, and brandy and ammonia to keep up the force of the circulation if the pulse flags, and to keep out the eruption, are preeminently wise and necessary measures, never to be neglected by the physician. These are not medicines ; they are pure and simple agents, whose action is understood as plainly as that of fire aud water Ice constricts the blood-vessels within the membranes of the bran, by its application in a bladder outside : and brandy and ammonia are as pure natural stimuli as heat. There is SCARLET FETER. 319 no speculation about these agents, we know their power. As to the conditions that require them, that is another mat- ter. Iu the present aspect of the diploma market and col- legiate produce, we advise every parent to watch the natural indications of debility. Dullness of the eye, frequent sigh- ing, and general prostration of the limbs, are not to be mis- taken ; they mean debility. If no pain iu the head exist, the re nedies had better be tried by the physician. It will not do to wait ; a day may decide the matter fatally. Dr. Watson considers laxative medicine and bleeding advisable. If the former be used, it must be extremely gentle, and watched with jealous care. We can scarcely conceive the lancet otherwise than dangerous iu any case, and certainly have never ventured its application. In cases of great oppression of the brain, leeches have been used with benefit. It is barely a supposable possibility ; if applied at all, they should be placed on the back of the neck. We have used for ulceration of the throat, one drachm of the chlorate of potass to a pint of water as a drink ; a teaspoonful being slowly swallowed occasionally ; it cer- tainly improves for the time, and sometimes permanently, both the ulcers and the foul tongue. Gargling it is quite useless, as it cannot reach the disease if thus used. Blisters we consider to be totally inadmissible. Caustic to the throat has proved beneficial in our hands ; but it requires to be carefully used, and re-applied soon. Dr. Schneeman, a German physician, has lately recom- mended the novel treatment of rubbing the pores of the skin from head to foot—actually every square inch of the body—with the rind of fat pork, so as completely to fill them. It is alleged to be absolutely omnipotent treatment. We have not known it tried here. It is certainly contrary to every pre-conceived idea of the functions of the skin as an exhalant or eliminator of the poison of the disease. 380 SCARLET FEVER. Belladonna has been alleged to be so positive a prophy- lactic, or preventive of the disease, as to render its attack almost impossible. We should certainly esteem ourself more than culpable, did we advance any opinion calculated to pre- vent the realization of so great a boon to poor humanity. For ourselves, we can most conscientiously assert, we have fouud it entirely inert, if we may judge from limited trials in family practice in past years. Yet so many high authorities assert its claim as almost a specific preventive, that we give the formula for its preparation, with the earnest hope that our conclusions will prove incorrect from too limited experience. Two grains of the fresh extract may be dissolved in an ounce of water, and two drops be given to a child of one year old, daily for ten days ; an additional ilrop for every year additional of age : not more than twelve drops should be given in a day to any one. We consider warmth to be so great a curative measure, that we again enforce it with all the impressiveness its importance demands. " Lin is warm, death is cold." 1HE LAST DAY OF COLLEGE LIFE. 38 J SCENES IN WESTERN PRACTICE. THE LAST DAT OF A COLLRQE LIFE—SCHOOL TEACHING-TOE END OF A HYPOCRITE—HIS *,ARLY HISTORY—HIS TWO SONS—HIS WIFE AND FAMILY—DOMESTIC FELICITY—THE BROKEN VOW—THE BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER—SUICIDE—THE WESTERN VAMPYRB—-THE DAUGHTER AND HER TWO IRISH BABIES. " A dark and melancholy work on a lightsome ground." Every thing has its last. The last words of great men— of all men, are commonly remembered. The rolling year has its last day, and man's eye glances for the last time on the earth, his home, the faces of the loved ones, and dies. The last farewell has sad words within it, and few human hearts that have beat long enough to suffer, but have been pierced with the tones of a last word, a last sigh, a last grasp of the hand—glance of the eye, that flashed from the soul its sorrow at parting. Why is the last of all things so universally mournful, and syrabolled only by sighs and tears} This element in human nature seems to culminate at last in the idea that all things will have an end, and the earth and sun fail, and the race be summoned to a last reckoning, to a final account, in presence of their great last Judge, and from His lips the last eternal word shall be spoken ; and here human belief seems reversed, and the next condition is taken to be endless, that shall have no last, no star, no end. The beginning, the birth of all thiugs, is joyous. It is the other pole of the last ; and joy beams as eternally in the eyes of the one, as sadness lives in the coming of the other. A new flower, a new tree, a new plant, a new resi- 382 SCENES IN WESTERN PR ACT I OR. deuce, a new friend, a new child, a new thought, are all heralded with songs and thanksgiving ; the birth or begin- ning of all things has in it delight; the stars sang together at the birth of the world, and the heavenly host sang their celestial anthems over the plains of Bethlehem at the birth of Christ. Every mother sings her sweetest song over the birth of her first child, and the gayest flowers, and the brightest hues, and the softest down are selected to adorn and crown the advent of a new spirit into the earth. But when that spirit takes its departure, and breathes its last sigh, the mother no longer hunts for adornments, but sombre hues and mournful tones become her spirit. The law of the universe seems to be a system of con- trasts, in which light is better known from its relation to darkness, and joy is made sweeter from its relation to sor- row ; the beauties and adornments of summer are shown in more lively colors from a contrast with the leafless, cold dirge of dying winter. We admire man in the greatness of his strength, in the pride of his beauty ; but it is not till we see him bowed with age, covered with sin, and marred with wrong, that he elicits our best thoughts, our holiest sympa- thies. Man, in the pride and splendor of perfect obedience, could never have commanded the sympathies of love ; bnt man in his anguish and despair, broken by crime, and over- whelmed with sorrow, elicited the spark from the celestial life that made Mary the mother of Jesus, and covered the world with a radiance of glory. Sin is terrible when con- trasted with holiness ; but the everlasting splendor that beams from purity is brighter when glaring by the side of the dark orb of sin. Bacon has well observed that, " If you listen to the harp of David, you shali hear as many hearse-like airs as carols ; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon." Prosperity is not without many fears and distrusts, and THE LAST DAY OF COLLEGE LIFE. 38b adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-work and embroidery, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work on a lightsome ground. " Cer- tainly, virtue is like precious odors, the more precious when incensed or crushed ; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. Indeed, to carry out this thought to its boldest conclusions, is sin and imper- fection in this world an accident, the oversight of a woman in conflict with an appetite 1 But is it not rather a neces- sary law of things, a stupendous system of reflected and contrasted images, the deformity and hatefulness of the one, mirroring more brightly to our souls the beauty and glory of the other ? The best elements of our manhood are struck into being in conflict with meanness and treachery, and the rack and the dungeon are often capable of giving to our spirits their brightest glow and intensest fire. A fallen man redeemed, comprehends more perfectly the heat of the fires through which he has passed, and the glories of his high estate, than one created on a level with him in goodness, without hav- ing labored to reach that state of perfection. The universe seems to have this law of contrast within it, and our earth, as she revolves through the cycles of her mighty destiny, har all the vicissitudes of cold and heat, sunshine and rain summer and winter. Some parts of the earth seem doomed to perpetual frost, ice, and sterility, where the sturdy Norse- man beholds in the conflict of elements the god Thor smit- ing the Jotuns with the rod of his power ; while other regions are blooming with constant heat, and corrupting the air with her rotting beauty ; her vegetation blooms but to die, or to feed a life that is hardly worth the air that sus- tains it. Well, reader, we must leave these reflections for your thoughts to work upon, and return to our college life. This 384 SCENES IN WESTERN' PRACTICE. "train of thought is fit, you will say, when yon read the tale that follows it. It was the last day of the last session of a medical col- lege, that had been raised in the forest and grew like the oak in size and strength, and flourished in its manly beauty, but was now about to die. Its life had braved the toils of twenty years, its founders were grey-haired or dead, and, like them, its last day had come. Its professors had uttered their last word of advice with trembling lips; and the stu- dent, flushed with new life aud new hope, was about passing into the world to work out a name and a history. Not a leaf dies but has its history ; not a flower blooms but can tell its tale ; not an insect flits through its day life, but has had its trials ; the sun shone on it, and the rain, cold and pitiless, killed him, and to-morrow his shining head and gilded wing is found on the withered stalk where he sung his last song. It was on the stone steps of the old time-honored temple that I was standing with a fellow-student, contriving how we should return to our homes, when our almost empty treasury contained barely enough to carry but one a distance of three hundred miles. The clouds had curtained all the heavens, and the winds were keen as the knife ; the white fleecy snow seemed merry with its death-life, and was float- ing from place to place, piling a drift here, and sailing in a white cloud there. We stood waiting for a " birth of Pro- vidence," for neither could dream what was to be done in our singular strait. While conning over our lot, not know- ing nor caring much what a day brought forth, a stranger, wrapped in an antique drab overcoat—the capes, numerous and ample, covering him to his waist, and the skirts trailing in the snow—approached us and inquired for R----, saying that his cousin had notified him that such a person was at that place, and he wished to engage a teacher for two months, to supply the place of a young man who was SCHOOL TEACHING. 385 obliged to quit, to care for a sick father and sister. A bargain was struck on the instant, aud drawing from my pocket the sum of six dollars, all the wealth I possessed, and handing it to my friend, I pressed his hand, and we parted. The face of the stranger was a curious compound of the droll, the devilish, and the odd. We toiled our way through the vast drifted heaps of snow that covered the face of the country, aud concealed every thing from view, but houses, barns and haystacks. We found his home amid the rude hills of old Herkimer, and his cheerful blue-eyed wife wel- comed us to as happy a home as wealth and goodness, and fun and frolic could devise. My friend belonged to the race of gimlets that swarm up from old Connecticut, and, like other thousands, he had waudered from home, and carved out a fortune for himself by trading horses and laying stone walls among the farmers in that primitive regiou. Ten years had elapsed, aud he had risen by industry from a laborer to be owner of the soil and one of the sovereigns. A rude but manly heart beat under his old drab coat and red shirt. The next morning found me in an old school-house, on the very top of a high mountain ridge, surrounded by as unlovely a group of rude, coarse boys, relieved by a few more decent girls, as ever cursed the heart of a schoolmaster. Snow was six feet deep, aud above that was piled in vast ridges by the howling winds that swept nightly over the bleak summits of these barren hills. This rude group of human calves left a deep impression on my mind. The country had been settled many years, and civilization had worked inces- santly for humanity, through the church and the school- house ; but humanity had no more to hope from more than a dozen of these young men, than from a group of Saki Indians. Their heads were round, necks thick, shoulders broad, bodies short, and their minds more dull than the per- ception* of some dogs. Scarce a winter ever passed here 17 386 SCENES IN WESTERN PRACTICE. without a field-fight between the boys and teacher. An old Vermontei who lived near the school, informed me, that during the last ten years he had been hired by the district six times to take charge of the school, and cast out the devils that infested the boys, at the end of the supple hickory. Only a week had passed, before I crossed the track of a plot to seize and flog me, which was only pre- vented by a sudden irruption upon the leaders, with a valor- ous application of the lash, by the aid of which I worked them up in such pitiful specimens of disobedience, as set the whole town into a laugh at the boys. In numerous places at the East, iu the oldest settled counties, I have observed these same animal tendencies in the rising generation, so marked and singular, that no observer of nature could fail to ask the cause of this rapid deterioration in our race of men. The rudeness of the paren- tal life in clearing up and subduing a new country, seems to embody itself iu the children, and drag them headlong towards the scale of the brute. Another cause, more potent than all, which underlies the characters I have described is, that these children are the offspring of the lowest forms of uneducated young men and women, who have married in the Eastern towns aud villages, and fled, with poverty aud ignorance, into a new region, to find bread and a home in the forest, where ignorance finds freedom and conten- tion. No attentive observer of the progress of our race, can fail to see that our country towns, and villages, aud cities, have iu their population a vast multitude of these uucouth, shapeless, and stupid specimens of unblest humanity. The vast hordes of young men and women who enter married life, spurred on by passion, yet besotted iu ignorance, as uncultivated as the savage, cannot fail to leave a posterity mentally degraded, physically imperfect, and monstrous in morality. The examination of some thousands of convicts THE END OF A HYPOCRITE. 387 in the various prisons of our States, clearly points to tho above causes as prolific in results. A permanent and successful elevation of our race, can only be obtained by a rigid application of hereditary laws, and they must be so applied as to leave these specimens of crime, insanity, and disease, to perish with those who pos- sess them. That the existing generation modifies vastly the succeeding generations, is a settled principle. Laws which allow the sickly, the insane, the ignorant, the drunken, and imbruted of our race, to multiply their deformed and vicious imperfections, only strike at the best interests of humanity, and put far off the hope of the permanent progress of our species. We must leave the reader with these reflections, and return to the thread of our narrative. I had been summoned, in my turn, to watch with the father aud sister of the teacher whose place I had taken, and the impressions of these night vigils are indelibly engraveu on my memory. The home was a low farm-house, surrounded by a fine orchard, and a thrifty grove of young maples completely environed the house. It was a lovely spot, aud nature seemed striving to mock the possessor with its peaceful aud enduring beauties. My young friend showed me into the sick-room. The father, an old man, with gray locks and sunken cheeks, lay on a bed by the east window, that opened into the maple grove : a large tumor deformed the side of his neck ; his eye was dull and sorrowful; his ill-formed yellow brow covered in part by his long gray hair ; his extremities were paralytic, and he was at this moment under the influeuce of nux vomica, which acted at periods of from fifteen to thirty minutes, and caused a sudden contraction of the muscles of the limbs, which drew them suddenly up towards his body, then, by a convulsive movement, they extended to their full length with great violence, throwing his {:ttendants from the bed, 388 SCENES IN WESTERN PRACTICE. who were endeavoring to render the movements of hia limbs less violent and painful*. The medicine acted on no part of the system but the paralyzed extremities, aud a post mortem examination showed the spinal cord in the lumbar region almost totally absorbed or destroyed by dis- ease, the sheath which envelopes it barely remaining. This medicine iu its action on the braiu transmitted motion across the diseased spine, while the will had ceased to move his limbs. He languished a few weeks and expired, aud we consigned him to a grave in the yard, under tne shade of the maple trees, a few feet from his house. His wife was already buried in the same place, aud a daughter, of whom we shall speak as we pass. Our friend for whom we had performed the last sad rite, was born in Rhode Island, aud grew up to manhood beneath the paternal roof, but could not set out in life till, like many others, he had perpetrated some act of perfidy, and planted deep in his soul the seeds of sin. He had wooed and won the affections of the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and, much to the chagrin and sorrow of her parents, before the time appointed for their nuptials, she had become a mother. He fled into Con- necticut, and remained the space of eight mouths, and finally returned to his native place. He had visited his child, and bound up the young lady's- broken heart by renewing his bro- ken promises^ and, while professing to be making ready for the nuptial ceremony, he fled to the interior of New York, and purchased a forest farm, aud married the daughter of a wealthy farmer. The betrayed and abandoned young woman, whom he had left, had become the mother of a second son. He grappled manfully with the toils of life, and in a few years had cleared off the forest and provided him with a home and a shelter. His wife, a short, stout, black-eyed woman, sometimes proved, by a timely turmoil, her element of individuality. Their first child was a son, and grew up DOMESTIC FELICITY 389 a surly, stubborn, immovable thing. When mauhood was reached, he was a worthless dolt; his nature had become fixed, and he seemed to dry down into a mass of petrified wilfulness. Life between the parents was a glorious contrast, with power which commanded obedience on the one side, and female wit and sagacity on the other, which eluded all restraint and overthrew all reliance, and rendered life a valiant battle for the victory. Somehow, these encounters always ended in a parley over the young lady left in New England and her two darling sons. The perfidy and wick- edness of her husband had become known to the wife, and she seemed, in her furious moods, to regard herself as the heaven-appointed avenger of injured innocence. The hus- band could never assert his rights or allude to duty, but he was pointed to the betrayed sister and deserted children. Sometimes he was bantered about her good looks, and at others he was invited to bring the boys home, as company for the others, and to aid him on the farm. Incessant sor- row harassed the life of the young farmer, and as age approached, he fell into fits of melancholy, aud took to his bed. His tormentor never allowed him to rest, but was equal to any task, and rendered her kindness as terrible as her anger. When these fits of sorrow came over him, and, like Job, he was cursing the day that gave him birth, his watch- ful spouse would often call medical aid from a distance and the first notice of his kind wife's attention, would be the presence of the doctor in the room of the heart-sick wretch. Her kindness and assiduity at such times were unbounded, and, to the eye of the stranger, she was the most devoted and tender of wives. On one of these visits of the unsuspecting physician, he rose from the bed, where he had taken refuge from her anger, to be seated by the fire, when the good woman threw a mantle over his shoul- 390 SCENES IN WESTERN PRACTICE. ders, kindly requesting " My dear" not to expose his feeble health. The strong man writhed and resisted under the torture of this burning lash, till life seemed a concentrated curse, full of judgments. In one of these stormy seas, when the waves ran high, they vowed eternal separation, and called on Heaven to slay them with his thunder if they broke the vow. Xantippe reminded her wretched spouse, that he would give out in less than three months, and receive the curse. And so it proved. They had become calm, like two tigers after a fast, and retired to rest as usual. The laws of nature, suspended for a time, came suddenly to a focus, and broke in deafening violence over the heads of the cul- prits, in a dreadful peal of thunder, and the quick-minded wife leaped, screaming for mercy, into the middle of the room. This birth of Providence kept peace in the bouse for some months. Their next child was a daughter, and on no human face did I ever see horror, anguish, and despair so palpably written. She was, when I saw her, a mother, and seemed in every feature of her face and character, to proclaim that she was born of her father's despair. She was a sad, silent, sorrowful, uncomplaining beisg, that seemed to have no emotions but her sorrows and her miseries. Heaven at last seemed to relent in its persecutions of the unhappy man, and his second daughter, a bright beauti- ful, aud lovely child, became the idol of his life. He carried her with him to the field, and made her his companion in his walks and his rides. The child seemed to understand by instinct the sorrow of the old man's heart; the sorrows, and sufferings, and tears, and repentance seemed centered in this angelic and lovely child. She seemed indeed born of his regrets. He bestowed on her all the riches of his heart, and educated her for a teacher. She grew up as lovely in her womanhood as in infancy, and was still the THE BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER. 391 solace of her father's care ; an angel of mercy intervening between the sword of justice and the furies. It may be a mystery how so lovely a child could succeed to one so ugly and unhappy ; but the mystery will vanish, when we remember that "mind, like the Spirit of God, moulds the universe into its own image." Chastened and softened by sorrow, and purified by repentance, the change in his children followed the changes in his own miud. But the desolate father had only reared this lovely being to point a keener dagger to his own bleed- ing heart. She had spent many summers in teaching, and at last formed an attachment for a young man, whom they regarded as inferior to her in acquirements, and both the parents opposed the wishes of the child. She struggled; through a long summer, with her attachment aud her duty, aud finally dismissed her school, and resolved to follow the bent of her love. She procured a horse of her father, and started on horseback to a neighboring village, eight miles distant to procure her wedding garments. Her road lay along a gay and rapid stream ; the road was steep, and led over hills, and through valleys, and its banks were skirted with pine forests, and often iu its course formed beautiful eddies as it turned against the bank. She tied her horse in the shade, descended to the stream, aud glided beneath its crystal waves, and found her bridal couch on a bed of pebbles. Her little dog had followed her, and stayed all night by the horse ; his low, howling moau attracted James Brown from his work in the field near by ; he drew from the stream the body of her whom he had hoped to wed ! When the friends came in search of the body, they found him seated on the sand beside the corpse, a miserable maniac. The young people, from o distance of ten miles, came together iu vast multitudes, to shed the tear of affec- tion over the sad fate of the lovely and accomplished Harriet Nichols. The stroke from the hand of the invisible 392 SCENES IN WESTERN PRACTICE. avenger crushed her mother's rebellious spirit, and in a few months, both were laid in the quiet shade of the young maples. The old man's cup was not yet full; the bitterest drops were at the bottom. A younger sister, scarce less lovely than Harriet, who had baptized her love in a watery death sank into a melancholy mood, and paled at last before the withering breath of consumption. While her father lay confined by his accumulating evils, she came down upon her last bed by his side ; and her cheek grew pale, and her lipi thin, and her eyes grew bright as an angel's eyes ; while the hollow cough and the hectic flush, revealed the fire that burned to ashes the shell which held her bright young spirit. The females of the neighborhood came in, and their sym- pathy—which is always right, if it had intelligence to guide it—insisted on sending for a notable botanic. Ignorance lighted the funeral pile over the body of the poor victim, when the creature came. He was one of that swarm of vampires, that was the first fruits of the tribe of rooters that swarmed through the State of New York, under the paternal teaching of T----and B----. He was, like the multitude whom he deluded, utterly ignorant of the human organization, and above all tb ws which controlled its vital forces. There was no staying iiL hand ; the sympathy of the females of the place was omnipotent, and their Paracelsus went to work. " Heat is life, and pepper is heat, aud lobelia is pepper," rightly applied ; he cleansed the stomach, and then poured down his life-giving doses of pepper, and ginger, and bayberry bark, and three days sufficed to blow out the little glimmering taper of life. The hectic on her cheek grew brighter, her tongue grew dryer, her eye was the eye of a spirit, and at the hour of sunset, her breath grew shorter and shorter ; she looked out on the trees,, turned her face to the setting sun, and lay still and cold for ever THE BOTANIC VAMPIRE. 39S Pardon me this incident, for I could not let it pass with- out alluding to the multitude of awful cases I have since witnessed of a similar nature. Quackery is ever the hand- maid of ignorance, and I have never been in a community as a physician, where ignorance did not or could not repeat this horrid scene. The poor girl had enjoyed, for some weeks, the kind care of one of the most judicious physicians, and to his had been added the advice of Prof. De L----; and nothing remained from the first, but to smoothe her pas- sage to a quiet grave. With here and there an exception, American women are easily deceived, and seek, instinctively, men on a level with them in ignorance, to tune the most complicated of instruments. Our medical colleges swarm with wretches unfit for any intelligent profession ; and, added to this vast supply from the regulars, is a rapidly increasing swarm from the eclectic schools, and this stream is swelled by a smaller, but more ignorant tribe from the Homoeopathic colleges, all swarm- ing like a band of locusts over the country, preying upon the ignorance, feeding the credulity, and taxing the empiri- cism of the masses, and especially the females. While the corpse of the daughter was awaiting interment, the old man, wearied of life, and tired of its struggle and of himself, sank slowly to the grave. The miserable, sorrowing, and wretched daughter, to whom I liave alluded, was now left alone, with two brothers, as mistress of the house. She had married an Irishman, who had left her with two children, sons, to the charity of her father During his last^ day, he turned his eyes often on the dead body of the daughter, and then on the two boys left by their father, and, finally, calling to his bedside his youngest son, he commended to his care his helpless sister and the two lads ; and in his broken slumbers he muttered the name of " Mary," the girl he had abandoned in his hour 11* 394 SCENES IN WESTERN PRACTICE. of strength and prosperity. The embers of life one by one went out, and at last he drew a long sigh, pronounced again the name of " Mary," and gave up the ghost. In two days we deposited the bodies of the father and daughter t under the trees with the mother and sister. It was spring ; the graves were filled with water, into which we dropped the coffins, and the gravel rattled on the lids. You have before you, reader, a plain narrative of facts. My friend who wore the drab coat, an acute observer, who introduced me to this f;imily, contended absurdly, as I then thought, that the children of these parents represented every moral and intellectual change through which the parents had passed. That such is the law of all reproduc- tion among human beings, is certain, I think. It is mind that moulds the universe, and it is no less mind that moulds and shapes the new being in the embryo state. In this we have a solution of the rapid degeneracy of our men and women of the present generation. The mothers during gestation, are loaded with toil and drudgery ; they have no vitality left to bestow on the child before birth, and obser- vation seems to indicate, that the brain of the male suffers more than his body, while the body of the female suffers more than the brain. The female brain, as a whole, is supe- rior to that of the male in form and fibre. A mother, with a family of six or twelve children, is the veriest slave on the earth, aud from day to day, for twenty or thirty years, her energies are over-taxed, till she has no vitality for the daughter, nor brain for the son ; it is all consumed in toil, and watching, and anxiety. A race of men will never be born in America, till this load of care and slavish toil is removed from the raothers who rear the race ; the slave and the brute, in gestation, have more care and attention than our northern mothers. No angel in Pandemonium was so hideous as archangel fallen ; so the mother I have described, a thoroughly perverted being, lived only to curse BAGGING THE GAME. 395 and hate the traitor to God and nature whom she had married. Her instincts told her his baseness, and, in spite of herself, her woman's nature, which loves, in its upright state, nothing that is not pure, hated and reviled the wretch who had betrayed his friend, and forsaken his children. Step by step, the unerring laws of the human heart worked out a full and fearful cup of most bitter woe for his lips to taste, and drop by drop, did he drain it to the dregs. God works not by passing wonders, but in ever- lasting laws ; and as our minds are reared, thought by thought, and our moral nature by affection added to affec- tion, so must we rear the race to goodness and greatness. A LAUGHABLE SCENE-BAGGING THE GAME. If it were not for the relief of the feelings by scenes of mirthfulness, few would be able to endure our profession. Diseases of the mind, though often affording exhibitions of a character far from ludicrous, now and then assume a most diverting aspect, and the physician is often put to it to meet the protean phases " of the mind diseased." Never have I seen it in a more ludicrous aspect than once witnessed in the case of a spoiled and wayward patient, who was so fortu- nate as to be exceedingly rich and very ignorant. He was a miserable homunculus, with a villainous intellectual development, almost acephalous (his head indeed very much resembled a frog's), and the end of a cocoa-nut, with its three black spots was almost as intellectual as his face. He had a very wretched-looking little wife, aud two children, 396 A LAUGHABLE SCENE. about a match for their parents ; all spoiled, sensual, pas- sionate and vulgar. These people, nevertheless, had a great reverence for me, and I was obliged by the necessities of a youthful practi- tioner to attend them, keeping a tight rein over their vaga- ries when occasion required. They quarrelled awfully, and often came to blows and scratches. One evening I was summoned to the lady's bedside in great haste ; she had as usual an attack of hysterics, in no way alleviated by the refrigerating influence of her potations ; for they had lately had a high time of it, and both were intoxicated when I arrived. Crimination and recrimination went high, and I began to be tired of the scene. A fortunate, thought struck me. They had been at their usual game of scratching ; both of their faces showed the activity of the diversion. There had been a death from erysipelas at the next door, and as they knew the deceased most intimately, they were very much alarmed, when, with the view of carrying out my bright thought, I looked very anxious, and told the lady that the scratches looked very like erysipelas. I knew they would be at their customary diversion as soon as my back was turned, and I was resolved to prevent it, and get a good night's rest. Accordingly I affected the deepest regret at the omission in the case of the dead friend, of a practice I had formerly known of great efficacy iu erysipelas, and informed them I was resolved when she died, that if another case occurred, I would by no means fail to try it. , It consisted in continually fumigating the surface of the body with burned Indian meal, and covering the face with a mask to exclude the light. Their alarm was so thoroughly excited, that they gladly yielded to my suggestion, inquiring, with really distressing solicitude, if it was not too late. Assuring them I would do'my best, I sent out for a couple of large salt sacks, and procured two of the prettiest look- ing masks I could get at Woodworth's ; two chairs were UAGGING THE GAME. 397 then placed in the sacks, and a pudding pan full of Indian meal under each chair, an opening being cut in each bag at the side to admit of the introduction of a hot brick, to pro- duce the fumes from the meal. Placing the beautiful couple with the greatest gravity, one in each sack at a respectful distance, and back to back, with the view of avoiding any fomentation of their bad passions by facilities for eyeing each other (and somewhat fearing, in truth, too close inspec- tion of my own countenauce, for I found it hard work to contain myself), I tied the sacks loosely around their necks, and the masks behind their ears, and left them under the care of an Irish servant girl, and the diversion of their own eloquence. I departed iu triumph, having fairly bagged my game, aud telling them I anticipated an immediate call, which would detain me all night in the upper part of the city. I kept them so for the best part of two days, assur- ing them whenever I allowed an interval of a few hours for sleep, that it would be necessary to resume the fumigations on the least return of their anger, for it invariably produced an exceedingly alarming appearance in the scratches, aud they should begin to cicatrize before the remedy was discon- tinued. The result was most fortunate, and by cultivating their good graces, I obtained such an ascendency over their feeble intellects, that I had only to threaten the bagging process to keep their hands off each other for several yes.?s after 898 EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEI. EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE SECOND ARTICLE. It may be thought, and perhaps justly, that when the events that connected this lovely and romantic spot with the history of our country had transpired, the future story of the solitary family that inhabited it, can afford little of interest to the reader; and yet if there be any value in the example of industry and self-reliance, or anything noble in truth or integrity when blended with the ready sympathy of hearts o'erflowing with love to their fellows, and hands open to relieve distress wherever found, their history cannot be without interest. It has ever been the custom of the writer, to study man in his individual character, rather than in his more extended relations with masses of his fellows ; whatever interest he may secure to these pages, will depend entirely on such a comparatively humble sphere of observa- tion ; and, as his professional habits exclude him entirely from political and public life, he hopes the reader will tolerate a slight tribute to the memory of those from whom he inherited all of truth or affection that may be found in his rude character. Beattie, in his " Minstrel," may almost be supposed to have visited their glorious forest home, and to have gathered his inspiration from the frowning palisades, when he wrote • " There, rocks on rocks, piled as by magic spell, Here scorched with lightning, there with ivy green, Fenced from the north and west this savage dell. IARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. B99 Oft did the cliffs reverberate the sound Of parting fragments tumbling from on high ; And from the summit of that craggy mound, The perching eaglet oft was heard to cry, Or on resounding wing3 to shoot athwart the sky." As you ascend the road leading to the English Neighbor- hood, up the gorge that separates the palisades from the road, there may yet be seen a vast rock which was severed by lightning, and for half a century bore the signet of the awful element that tore it assunder. I have looked on it with childish awe, as my mother described the fearful scene when it occurred. Thunder storms are here of awful gran- deur. I have often heard the grand legato of the storm anthem as it rolled away in the distance of the river, and 6een the blinding flash of the lightning followed by the startling staccato thunder-clap as it was echoed back from the mountain wall. In the middle of the night, when all around was still as the sepulchre, the heart would leap, as the sleeper was startled by the "partiug fragment tumbling from on high," as it was severed by the silently working moss of centuries, and fell thundering to the shore below, where ages before its huge kindred had gathered themselves to their graves. They lie about in vast masses, as though torn asunder by an earthquake. Indeed, philosophers tell us iu their books, that the whole of the southern defile of the river is volcanic, and that it was originally a vast lake, liber- ated by a mighty convulsion of nature from its northern prison, where it had been confined by the rocky barrier for thousands of years. The perching eagle sits in solitary grandeur on the cliff, or " sails across the sky and o'er the rolling deep," watching its prey below, or screaming forth its note exultant as it approaches its mate w7ith its quivering victim, in her rocky nest. There they yet dwell, a solitary pair, for they tolerato no interlopers, far beneath the branching limbs of the ♦ 00 EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. gnarled cedars that o'erhang that portion of the cliff and obscure their nest from view. I have now in my possession a noble bald-head, shot by some creature who certainly must have been created for a butcher, whose progeuitors found their home, probably for centuries, in the great cliff. No longer ago than last summer, when lying, musing on my childhood, reclining on that rock where the immortal father of our country stood with my uncle inrpecting the progress of the battle of Fort Washington, one of his de- scendants sailed majestically over me so near that I could see his very eyes. The events related in a former article had transpired in tho month of November, 1776; and at the close of the campaign, when the successes of the British had left them nothing more to desire in that quarter—both Forts Washington aud Lee, and all the contiguous country and city being in their hands—several vessels were ordered up the river by Lord Howe to bring the troops to the southern division of the British army, for further operations in that section of our country. After the memorable scene and my grandfather's toast iu the courtyard of his ruiued house, and his midnight seizure by Gen. Kniphausen, and bold aud defiant conduct at Fort Washington, it may appear extra- ordinary to the reader, to find my patriotic and determined grandmother escorted on board one of his Majesty's ships by several of the British officers to attend a ball ! Such, however, was the solitude of their mountain home, and so great the reverence these really fine men bore to her lofty and determined character, and their admiration of her social and enthusiastic husband, that it would have been rude to have refused their polite attention. Captain Wethcrel, who had so kindly secreted and fed her beautiful pet in the old cellar in the English Neighborhood, waited on my grand- mother with a card of invitation; it was accepted; and as it was to be a grand affair, a messenger was despatched to EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 401 the city for high-heeled shoes, and the grand old hooped satin skirt, just now revived from its half century's sleep. My grandfather politely declined the invitation, because it would evidently have been less appropriate for a rebel male to have been seen on board of his majesty's ship than a woman ; who, however determined her spirit, as a descen- dant of mother Eve, may not be supposed to have been equally capable of resisting the festive scene. The barge, canopied, carpeted, and superbly cushioned, arrived at dusk to convey her to the ship, and the high-spirited Dutch woman was handed on board by a red-coated officer of that king, to whose utter confusion and discomfiture her French rebel husband had a few days previous drank that memorable toast. The ship was lying in the river opposite Manhattan- ville. The ball went off superbly ; my grandmother meet- ing several friends from the city side, and some from Hoboken ; her own mountain eyrie being the utmost confine of northern Jersey civilization. The bear, the wolf, and the wild-cat looked down from the rocky heights upon the only cultivated spot, " That spread its mildest beauty to the southern sun." The most courtly honors were shown her by the gallant English officers, and presents of confectionery thoughtfully placed in the barge by the gentlemen for the children. She was escorted home by several of the officers, and after the expression of their evidently heartfelt desire that the war would soon be amicably adjusted, they took their leave at midnight and went on board to sail, next day, for their new scene of action. The " adjustment" came, about as " amicably " as it ever will when power is to be wrenched from despotic rulers in Church or State. We had occasion to speak of the wild animals that abounded at Fort Lee : the bear that gave origin to the 402 EARLY HISTORY OF FORT L F. E . original name of Washington Market, was shortly after wards followed by another of the black-coated brethren ; he made his appearance during peach time, and with char- acteristic good taste, mounted a peach tree that had been blown over by the wind, but was full of luscious fruit ; here he was leisurely regaling himself, when the keen eye of a frequent visitor, a female relative from the city, detected him ; quick as thought she loaded the family rifle, and at the first shot brought him down 1 Think of that, ye deli- cate young ladies reclining on velvet ottomans and shutting out the light of heaven by heavy curtains lest it spoil your beauty ! A brave act which would have immortalized this glorious woman, remains to be chronicled. Noma Day was a woman worthy-of the relationship of that family where she found friendship and a frequent home. When the accursed monster Cunningham (who subsequently met that well-deserved fate at Tyburn he had inflicted upon so many defenceless American prisoners, in the rear of the old reservoir in Chambers street,* where, with the aid of a negro executioner, he hung dozens of our countrymen at midnight), when this fiend of hell presided over one of the ?ity prisons—the identical building now occupied as the Hall of Records in the Park—this noble-hearted woman tvas accustomed to importune the British officer in com- mand, for permits to go into the prisons with food for her unfortunate countrymen. One day she presented herself at the door of the old jail, and showing her permit, demanded admission. A wretched hireling jailor under Cunningham, rode through the stone hall, which then went directly through the building, and calling her by some outrageously insulting epithet, he attempted to ride over her; she stepped adroitly aside, and with such an arm as would have made a knight in armor look well to his movements, she * Its site is now occupied by large marble buildings EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE 403 drew an immense carving knife, she always wore concealed under her dress, and with a single blow, directed at the thigh of the myrmidon—she missed him and drove it to the very handle between the ribs of the horse ! his rider escaped by a miracle, having received but a slight wound in the thigh. Noma and her slave passed by the falling animal, and dis- tributed her food to the suffering prisoners—unmolested by the fiend Cunningham, who was probably, as was usual with him, drunk in his room ; on her return, the horse was lying dead on the porch. She continued to fulfill her benevo- lent mission during the entire perio<' of British rule in the city, and undoubtedly saved a great cumber of lives. How few of our citizens are aw»re of the horrors that were enacted in Chambers street J Certainly several hun- dred of our wretched people were *>here immolated directly under the eyes of British author'ty. The only excuse I could ever find for my good g/&>?dmother for going to that ball, was her excellent heart ; rhe knew that the officers with whom she was accustomed '.o converse, were compelled to discharge a duty hateful to their feelings as men, and only tolerated because of ';lc blinding results of a false education, received at the Jiands of hireling sycophants, under the despotic rule of v. monarchical and priestly hier- archy. I believe that all ivro live away from the tyrannical influence of Church and fctatc, and have systems healthfully organized, or a proper Wlance of mind and body, must be social and republican ir their ideas. The British friends of my grandparents we/r only warped by education : they were good men, manr cf them fathers ; and more than once have I heard this ^oble woman say, that she has seen the' tears fall from their eyes when discoursing on the "unhappy difficulties" bctwvfn the two countries. The real goodness of humanity is the same under a red coat with gold buttons, o* .vhoi»esr>u» .ustticoat. month." left the lovely spot and the pcor old 404 EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. ruined house to its owners, who were now, after a sever* winter, endeavoring to gain from the soil what little aid it might yield in supporting their young family. They had ventured in the spring, after the evacuation of the place, to replace their stolen cattle, and were obliged to depend con- siderably on the fish they obtained from the noble river for their food ; all the sheep and fowls were swept off by the marauding troops, and meat was a rarity ; they were glad to gather the fragments of the salt meat the soldiers had thrown out of the cellar and wantonly hacked with their swords and bayonets. One fine April morning, when her husband had gone to the mill to procure flour, my grandmother perceived a well- defined and extensive ripple rapidly approaching the little bay some hundreds or so of rods across, and whose waves almost kissed her roses and white lilies as they overhung its waters at the foot of the garden wall ; it was so per- fectly calm all over the vast river, that she knew from her keen and practised eye, that the ripple was caused by fish seeking the shore, either in pursuit of food, or to avoid their native enemies of the deep water. The drawing of the seine (a long and narrow net floated by corks on its upper border, and sunk by bullets on its lower one) was practised by blacks. Fastening one end to the shore, and taking the net in a boat, they would row out, and making a large circuit, inclose the fish that might chance to be within its embrace, and gradually drawing in the circle sweep them on the shore. Such an operation would sometimes secure them very fine striped bass, and occasionally one of huge size : this was a great treat for the family, and very necessary to their subsistence. There was no man but a black slave about the premises. My grandmother summoned him from the field where he was ploughing, and in a few minutes they had planted the net almost on the very spot where she had been handed EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 405 into the barge with her high heels and white satin hooped skirt, by the king's officer 1 Now she was dressed in her republican costume of linsey-woolsey petticoat, and stout leather shoes ; most likely clambering into the fish boat with very little aid from the slave ; he was to row and she " to pay out net," holding or resisting the pull caused by the " bellying of the net," as well and as long as she could ; till it was all out, if possible, and if not strong enough, being content with what she could manage. She used to relate with much satisfaction, that she braced hei feet against the seat and held on till her hands were blistered, and paid out the whole net. They soon reached the shore, having succeeded in inclos- ing a large part of the ripple. On beholding their prize, as the silvery scales began to reflect the sunlight, they were surprised to find them shad ! this fish rarely seeking the shore in so large a river as the Hudson, and only in other rivers when they go to spawn. They were doubtless driven in by porpoises ; they counted out six hundred and odd I My grandmother could now talk to her visitor about bear shooting without losing caste ; the exploit was indeed quite as great, and considerably more laborious. An event occurred during the spring of this year, that greatly impressed my grandmother with (what she always believed in) a superintending Providence. It was known to many persons employed in country trade in the city, that a thriving farmer lived up the river, in such seclusion as rendered it likely he was almost defenceless, and that he probably had wealth was surmised, from his house haviug been the temporary abode of Washington. An expedition was planned to rob, and probably murder him. Four des- peradoes ascended the river in a small boat, and arriving after midnight, one of them mounted the rude pile of legs and timber that served as a dock, to make fast their boat. It was low tide, and his companh is observing he did not 406 EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. speak for some minutes, called out his name ; he gave no answer. Another then ascended the dock, and soon announced to his companions that the man was dead ! The cause of his sudden death was never known, as his body was thrown into the water ere they arrived at the city to avoid investigation. Nor would the event ever have been known, but for the dying confession of one of the accom- plices. He stated the part of the narrative we have given, and confessed that the just judgment of God had overtaken them with the terrible warning, and prevented an awful crime, for they instantly placed the body in the boat aud departed for the city. My grandfather's escape was a narrow one, for he had been obliged to spend nearly all the money he had saved, after the destruction of his house and the loss of his cattle, to replace the latter, and to purchase food for his children ; the old tea-kettle of half-joes having been dug up from under the potatoes in the corner of the cellar, and exhausted weeks before the robbers arrived. It is probable his ina- bility to gratify their demands might have cost him his life. Years elapsed ; our country triumphed ; order and plenty were restored to the old homestead ; General Washington's arm-chair and the punchbowl from which he drank, sat in state in the high old room, and my grandmother wrote and re-wrote for her friends, the receipt for the Indian cakes, he took to Virginia. The children shouted to hear the magic echo from the old flat rock and the bluff, where the wolves and the foxes yet barked, and the horrid rattlesnake and copperhead sunned themselves audaciously. The garden, filled with roses, pinks, and white lilies, burdened the air with perfume ; often as I have approached the shore in my childhood, rowed up from the eity in some little market boat, and drinking in eagerly the enthusiastic account of the last camp-meeting by honest Sam and John Moore, graced EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE. 401 by the contented smile of dear old black Jenny, with her well-remembered " ha ye ever," and her gentlemanly son Caesar (next to my grandmother ray worshipped oracles), I have distinctly scented the perfume of the lovely old gar- den, and my heart leaped for joy as I saw the venerable woman, followed down the garden-walk by a favorite grand child, as she levelled her spy-glass to see who was coming. But sorrow slept in the waves over which our little shallop danced so merrily, and tears that rivalled their ?altness welled up from those dear eyes ths.t welcomed us so kindly. Let the story of the watery deaths be lost with those who felt them so keenly. Time has nearly effaced their memory, and if the waves swallowed up the loved ones, they have restored smiles and gladness to thousands who have drank health from this enchanting spot ; of all our city suburbs the most romantic and delightful. From the geological structure of the place and its freedom from marshes, it is the most congenial to infancy. I have seen the infant carried on board the steamboat, on a pillow, so near the point of death that it refused nourishment for days, and the very day after its arrival the mother's heart has answered the smile of returning health. I scarcely remem ber the death of an infant of native birth during a life acquaintance with the place. If the necessary accommoda- tions could be had, thousands of infants might be saved, who now languish and die in the city from the exhausting influ- ence of teething during the heats of our trying summers. rBE IKQ. TH{ BEST AM CHEAPEST LIME OF Popular 12mos. Published. In this popular series are included most of the choicest productions of the human mind. This series forms the most attrac- tive library ever offered to the AMERICAN PUBLIC. Each volume neatly bound in EXTRA cloth, with gift back, and ornamen- tal side and back ink stamping. PRICE 50 CENTS PEE VOLUME. BY MAIL POSTPAID. Remit by Postal Note or Postage Stamps. POLLARD & MOSS, I»TJI3 LISHERS, 37 Barclay St, and 42 Park Place, New York. Allan Quatermain; or, A Frown- ing City. By H. Rider Haggard. "Allan Quatermain has apparently received the heet work of which the writer is capable, and it stands forth a well-wrought, artistic and powerful novel." King Solomon's Mines. By H. Rider Haggard. She. A History of Adventtue. By H. Rider Haggard. East Lynne. A novel. By Mrs. Henry Wood. Complete. Large type. The best edition. A Modern Circe. A Sensational Novel. By the "Duchess." Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel De Foe. 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We have not in a long time read aught that is more apt to moisten the eyes than the chapter devoted to the simple story of ' Mary Shea.' "—Buffalo Courier. POLLARD & MOSS, Publishers, 37 Barclay St. & 42 Park Place, N. Y. The P. & M. 12mos. 50 Cts. Per Volume Postpaid. Ada Arundel; fir, The Secret Corri- dor. By O. W. M. Reynolds. This is an excellent description of life in Old England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The story is well told, the descriptions graphic and pleasing, and could the denizens of palaces have foreseen that the day would come when all their , follies and vices would be given to the world in all their glaring deformity, they might have acted differently. Olivia; or, The Maid of Honor. By G. W. M. Reynolds. This story will exactly hit the fancy of num- erous readers. It has intricacy of plot; charac- ters familiar and interesting. Reynolds being himself of noble birth, had an intimate acquaint- ance with the living aristocracy, and means of knowing the history of the past. LikeMirabeau he has unveiled their secret loves and hates relentlessly. Hardscrabble; or, The Fall of Chicago. By Major Richardson. As a romance of the river and the woodland, the like of this Indian romance cannot be found. To all Western people, and especially all natives of the Lake City, should read this narrative of the early days of those parts, when the redskin's warwhoop rang on the spot where now echoes the locomotive's whistle, when the beat of the paddle alone disturbed the silence of the Great Lake, now churned and foaming beneath the steamboat wheels. The characters may be recognized by many, who can claim them as ancestors. Miser'* Will; or, The Doom of the Poisoner. By G. W. M. Reynolds. A strange and startling story of the fierce and tender emotions of man. It would be recognized as Reynolds' alone if his name was absent from its title page. We may ransack libraries for years without meeting with a volume that so completely takes our reason prisoner and hurries us along with such bated breath from first to last. The Beggar of Nimcs. A novel of ex- citing interest. By Alexandre Dumas. Portrays vividly a triangular life-duel between a man strong in fiendish cunning, a youth strong in his honest purity, and u third strong in his noble heart. The Creole Wife; or, Secret Register of the Prelect of Police. By Alex- andre Dumas. The assaults youth, beauty and innocence has to sustain are warmly aud vividly exposed in this elegantly written novel. Only in the same author's own works can be found its equal. Out of the Streets. By Charles Gayler. A most powerful novel depicting, through the medium of « wonderfully interesting story, a series of real life scenes in New York. Unveiled; or. Scenes in the Practice of a New York Surgeon. By Edward H. Dixon, M. D. It is now some twenty years ago since the first edition of this work was published; it was then received by the Press throughout the Country with universal commendations. Among other opinions was that of Horace Greeley, that it was an entirely new experiment "to convey in- struction by the tragedy, comedy and strategy of literature; and was seldom, if ever, snrpassed by the romance writer or the novelist." Yet it painted scenes transpiring beneath roofs in every part of the city. Thackeray's Ra41ads and Poems, Profusely illustrated. The text from the latest revised edition, complete and unabridged. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By R. L. Stevenson. Riving stone; or, The Young Ranger Hussar. By Prof. J. II. Ingrabam. Not in the least inferior to the best Revolu- tionary romances, and extremely creditable to its author. Captain Kyd; or. The Wizard of the Sea. By Prof. J. H. Ingraham. Abounding in interest as a romance; but even better worth reading for its accurate record of the actual life of this famous buccaneer. Rob- ert Kyd and his exploits fill a large space in the maritime annals or his time, ana almost every inlet and island on the West Indian and Ameri- can coast have handed down blood-curdling le- gends of his dark deeds and treasure hidings. Ingraham has sifted the imaginary from the real and given us a symmetrical character, neither extenuating his crimes nor making them blacker than they really were. Kate Penrose; or, Life and its Les- sons. By >jrs. Hubbeck. An exquisitely written sweet story, told with great pathos, in which an intimate acquaintance with the human heart is revealed. Jessie Cameron. A Highland story. By Lady Rachel Butler. There are to be found in this, the best and finest descriptions of Scottish scenery since Scott's works, as well as the truest portraits in the entire range of modern pictures. There are in it thoughts that create thoughts, something which is not a belonging of the insipid fictions somewhat in vogue. The Count's Niece; or, The Veteran of Marengo. By Paul Preston. An historical tale of the Napoleonic Empire. Penalty of Fate; or, The One Thing Needful. By Miss M. E. Braddon. POLLARD & MOSS, Publishers, 37 Barclay St. & 42 Park Place, N. Y. The P. & M. 12mos. 50 Cts. Per Volume Postpaid. Doctor Jacob. A novel. By M. Bertham Edwards. The Life of Nelson. By Robert Southey, with illustrations by Birket Foster. Classic Tales. By MariaEdgeworth. With a biographical sketch by Grace A. Oliver. ^5 y Marriage. A Domestic Novel. ''There is a fascination in the pages of this hook that, once opened and begun, will not per- mit it to be laid aside till the last page is finished, and the reading of it pays for the time, too."— Cincinnati Times. Love's Madness; or, The Tarantu- la's Sting. A romance of baffled plot and wasted passion. By Mathilde Blind, author of " George Eliot" (Famous Women Series). "Miss Mathilde Blind's ' Love's Madness' is rightly called a romance. The story is tragedy of the most sensational kind. Miss Blind has apparently attempted to portray the power of carnal passion and themoral destruction wrought by a woman who is very beautiful, hysterical and totally depraved. So far as the characters are concerned the story is a study of the moral weak- ness of men of all classes. The inspired artist, the man devoted to beer and science, and the old nobleman trained in the luxuries and sins of his order, alike sacrifice their honor, their pride, and all that is decent in them to the beauty of an ignorant, ambitions, and Capri peasant girl, who goes about seeking whom she may devour in order to gain wealth and notoriety. She does not seek far, for victims flock to her altar of un- righteousness, and sacrifice there all truth and every virtue." The Rose Garden* A Love Story. By Frances M. Peard. "The plot of 'The Rose Garden' turns directly on the married life of a vivacious, warm- hearted, but unstable French woman, who, after risking the loss of one lover by boldly telling the truth, and refusing him her hand when he still pressed the offer, because her heart could not go with it, succumbs to deceit in her eagerness to secure another suitor, whom she loves no better, but who promises a more brilliant destiny. Her character is contrasted with that of her cousin, as truly French as herself, but unswerving in her devotion to perfect truth, and who carries in her heart theweightof an unrequited love."— Atlantic Monthly. Unawares; or, The Notary's Plot. A novel. By Frances M. Peard. " It is seldom that any publishing house is so fortunate as to issue in succession two such charming stories as 'The Rose Garden' and 'Unawares'; the author is possessed of a most delicate cultured taste, and weaves a delightful web of fleecy fancies, full of rare beauty and sunny touches. There is a wonderful skill in delineation, a purity of language, a freshness and beauty of description, which fairly wins enthus- iastic admiration, and places the volume among the very best of its class."—Baltimore Gazette. The squire'*Daughter; or, The Mys- tery of Thorpe Regis. By Misa Peard. "A story of very peculiar power; fresh, bright, and entertaining. Yon cannot read a page with- out feeling you are under the influence of an artist of undoubted skill." The Crime of Chance. By Miss Peard. " The story is English, and has some account of poachers and gypsies, and uses a little waif from their resorts as an instrumeutin Philip'srecovery. His character is studied psychologically in the vein and force Hawthorne showed in the 'Scarlet Letter.'and his posthumous novel. The descrip- tion of life and scenery is pleasing, there is no straining after effect, and the tale has the merit' of strong and absorbing interest in its perusal, and deserves nothing but the highest praise." Trench's Wives; or, The Carrington Mystery. By the Family Lawyer. " It is interwoven with brilliant conversations and brief narratives. Some of these latter—no- tably the story of the two doctors of Bath—are admirable. The style of the author is peculiar, but charming. The book ought to be very pop- ular-" Child's History of England. ByChas. Dickens. Beautiful large type edition. Irving's Sketch-Rook. The sketch- book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. By Wash- ington Irving. The finest pieces of original fic- titious writings that this country has produced. Christmas Tales. From "Household Words " and other sources. ByChas. Dickens. JULES VERNE'S WORKS. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The marvellous and exciting adventures of Pierre Aronna, Conseil, his servant, and Ned Land, a Canadian harpooner. By Jules Verne. The Fur Country; or 70° North Lat- itude. By Jules Verne. Five Wcek§ in a Balloon. By J. Verne. A book of extraordinary adventures, journeys, and discoveries in Africa by three Englishmen. The Mysterious Island. Containing Dropped From the Clouds, Abandoned, and The Secret of the Island. By Jules Verne. The Tour of the W orld in 80 Days. By Jules Verne. Since the time of the elder Dumas, France has produced no such fecund or original a genius aa Jules Verne. He has turned science into averi- table fairy-land, and extracted such romance from hard facte as it would tax the ingenuity of ordinary mortal even to conceive possible. The '• Tour of the World " has become familiartothe public on the stage as well as in type. No lees thrilling staple of this work. Reynolds never weakens his pictures by omitting any incident or fact. The Marchioness; or, A Marriage by Will. By Octave Fenillet. Edith Dayton. A Novel. By J. Gordon' Bartlett. POLLARD & MOSS, Publishers, 37 Barclay St. to 42 Park Place, N. Y, The P. & IE. 12mos. 50 Cts. Per Volume Postpaid. Rebels and Tories; or, The Blood of the Mohawk. By J. F. Cooper. This lamented author, in this Revolutionary romance, achieved a rare combination of history and imagination, which is the best of his writ- ings, and equal toother American books of the class. Inventive variety was never displayed in greater profusion than throughout this tale. The writer manages, like a magician, the storm of emotions—intense, changeful, terrible yet free from repulsive horror—which we see in the vil- lain of the story. The color is thrown artisti- cally over the work, and the contrasts of light and shade are almost too splendidly given. Saddle and Sabre. By Hawley Smart. Harry Lorrequer. By Charles Lever. Considered to be his best Military Romance. Satire and Satirists. By James Hannay. The Widow Bedott Papers. By Frances M. Whitcher. This is the book over which your grandmothers langhed till they cried, and it is just as funny to-day as it ever was. The VIcount de Sennonics. By Alex- andrd Dumas. 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John Barlow's Ward; This book is as full of learning as if written byMacaulcy; as full of fiery embers of passion as if ByTon's gray goose-quill had flashed through its pages; while it is as heart-satisfying, as a love story, asif either Bulwer or Disraeli had ex- pended on it all their genins. Reveries of an Old Maid, with Impor- tant Hints to Young Men. A humorous and satirical work, as laughable as a new Joe Miller, redoubled in laughable qualities by forty-eight hilarious pictures be- decking its 188 pages. The antique spinster, in these graphic pages reveals "all thoughts, all feelings, all desires " that move the heart of that most estimable, but much maligned species, "the old maid." Every bachelor should buy this book, and every old maid will. The lan- guage is unusually clever and mirth-provoking, and creates one unintermittent roar. But it Is so spirited that there is no fear of any reader being wearied by such a long feast of never- ceasing merriment. Rory O'More. A National romance. By Samuel Lover. No Thoronghfare. By Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. POLLARD & MOSS, Publishers, 37 Barclay St. to 42 Park Place. N. Y. J The P. & M. 12mos. 50 Cts. Per Volume Postpaid!; Clare's Fantasy; or, A Cry in the Night. A Novel. By Mary Cruger. Of rare merit and engrossing interest. One of the most touching and captivating of fictions. Joaquin, the Ciaude Duval of Cal- ifornia; or. The Marauder of the Mines. Everybody has seen, heard, or read about this great malefactor; but this is the only book that tells all about him from his birth to hia death. Mr. Meeson's Willo By H. Rider Haggard. The writings of this wonderful man burst upon the world like lightning from a cloudless sky. The Shadow of John Wallace. A Novel. J'.y I-,. Clarkson. Stranger than Fiction. By Kenneth Lee. A sensational novel of startling interest. Thiodolf: The Icelander. By B;.ron de La Motte Fouque. This is a most excellent illustration of the early historical novel. It is based on real his- torical details—tinged, of course, with romantic coloring—and presents a curious and interesting picture of the striking contrast between the lux- urious Byzantine court and the rough and self- denying Northmen in the tenth century. That this si < <■;■ furnished Sir Walter Scott with the inspirit; ion of some of his works—especially "Count Robert of Paris"—there can be no doubt. The author, Fouque, considered " Thi- odolf " to be his most successful work. Cleopatra. An interesting Egyptian ro mance. By H. Eider Haggard. This is by far the most finished production, which has come from the pen of this popular writer, and both in plot and detail is so absorb- ing that when once begun, it is difficult for the reader to lay'it aside before finishing it. An Arabian tale. By William With notes, critical and explana- Vathek. Beckford tory. Delaware Dick; or, The Cruise of the Wasp. Sea scenery has never been so well depicted. The terrible fight of vessels in this book is stated to be a master-piece of vigorous writing, aud a model in the way of truth and bright colors to the tamer producers of ocean tales. The reader will gain much by this " Cruise." The History and Poetry of Finger Rings By Charles Edwards. With a pre- • face by Richard Henry Stoddard. A compan-1 ion volume to " Romantic Love and Personal- Beauty." "Finger Rings" does not seem a subject largCy enough to write about at much length, and ye there arc those who will rave "in a fine frenzy', about the little band of gold that clasps a lady V* finger, with which, it may be, is inwoven th-.. ! story of one, yea, of two human lives, for ther. '• < are "engagement rings" and " marriage rings,'] , and that little circlet of gold tells of the Spring' time of youth and early love, and of wedded life- with the world of hapniness (or, alas, of misery 0 j which it brings. The ring, too, may be used, n only as a pledge of love, but also of friendshi of honor and fidelity, of loyalty to kings, and - peace among those who once were enemies, but now by this token pledge themselves to be hence': forth friends. Rings are among the most ancicii • ornaments worn on the human hand. They a: