Forty Years In The Wilderness Of Pills And Powders Part 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the end of three months he ventured abroad more than before; and as it was now near the middle of October, he consented to put on woollen stockings. But he made one change at this time which I had not intended.

He returned to the use of one of his former greasy and worse than useless ointments. In the course of the month, however, in spite of the foul external application, his leg was entirely healed; and the swelling considerably abated. In short, at the close of the year he had entirely recovered.

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

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

CHAPTER LI.

SUDDEN CHANGES IN OLD AGE.

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

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

The more she increased her extra stimulants, the more she added to her troubles, and the greater was her necessity for additional stimulus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet, _with_ this conviction, and strong faith in addition, all becomes comparatively easy.

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

FOOTNOTES:

[G] This error has been met and refuted in the happiest manner, by the late lamented Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, in his little work, ent.i.tled, "Hints for the Preservation of Health." Also, by Dr. Alcott's new work, "The Laws of Health."

CHAPTER LII.

AN OPIUM EATER.

Almost at the next door from me was an opium eater. He, like the female whose case was described in the preceding chapter, was not far from three score and ten, and was of industrious and, in many respects, temperate habits. And yet he was one of the most inveterate and abandoned voluntary slaves to the drug opium I have ever seen. He had used it largely thirty years.

His case is the more singular from the fact that he became enslaved to it so very early. To use opium or laudanum at the present day, I grant is no uncommon occurrence. We may often find six, eight, or ten opium takers in a single towns.h.i.+p, if not a single village, or even a single neighborhood; and the number is rapidly increasing. Opium has not that offensive appearance to many that tobacco has, and a much larger amount of stimulus may be kept in a very small s.p.a.ce, perhaps in the very corner of the smallest pocket.

Another circ.u.mstance which rendered the case of my opium-taking neighbor somewhat striking, was his usual good health. I say, here, _usual_, for there were exceptions which will appear presently. Yet though he was nearly threescore and ten, this man had, while under the influence of his accustomed stimulus, as much elasticity and nearly as much strength as most men of thirty.

How could this happen, you will naturally ask, if opium is such a deadly narcotic as some medical men proclaim it to be? How can a person, male or female, begin its use at forty and continue it to seventy years of age, and yet be, for the most part, strong and healthy?

In the first place, we must remember the force of habit. We have seen how it is with alcoholic drinks and tobacco. I might tell you how it is with a.r.s.enic, which is beginning to be taken, it is said, by men and horses, both in the old world and the new. I might even give you the story of Mithridates, king of Pontus, who is said to have so accustomed himself to hemlock,--the most deadly poison of his time,--that in any ordinary dose, it would not affect him injuriously, or, at least, would not do so immediately.

We must remember, in the second place, the active, industrious habits of this patient--of which, however, I have already spoken. He who is always or almost always in the open air, is less likely to suffer from the use of extra stimulants, and the penalty when it _does_ fall on his head, is much more likely to be deferred, than in the case of the sedentary and inactive. He was so hardy and withal so bold, that in the summer season he sometimes slept in the open air, under a tree.

But, thirdly, he was descended from a very long-lived race or family.

His father died at the age of ninety-seven. At the time of his decease he had been the progenitor of nineteen children, one hundred and five grandchildren, one hundred and fifty-five great grandchildren, and four of the fifth generation,--a posterity amounting in all, to two hundred and eighty-three. And what is most marvellous, nearly all of them were at that very moment living. In truth, he had several sons and daughters already between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. There was one of the brotherhood, whom I had seen, nearly eighty, and yet as active and elastic as the opium eater of seventy.

One thing more: The latter, as we have seen, was a man of excellent habits in respect to nearly every thing but opium. He drank no ardent spirits, nor much coffee and tea; he used very little tobacco, and he ate in great moderation. He was an early riser and was in general cheerful. In short, but for his opium taking, he would have enjoyed a green old age.

I have said he was usually healthy. When he was out of opium and could not obtain any, I have seen him sit and writhe in the most intense apparent anguish till the arrival of the accustomed stimulus, when the transformation would be as sudden as it was striking. In fifteen minutes, instead of writhing and groaning and almost dying, he might be found talking, laughing, and telling stories most merrily, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of all around him.

But he had troubles more abiding than this; at least, occasionally.

After taking his opium for a long time, such a degree of costiveness would sometimes supervene, as seemed almost to defy the combined powers of both nature and art. In these circ.u.mstances, of course, the aid of the physician was usually invoked. It was on one of these occasions that I first became fully acquainted with his habits and tendencies.

Once, when thus called to his bedside, I began to think he was not very far from the end of his career. The wheels of life seemed so completely obstructed, that I doubted whether they would ever start again. He himself declared, most positively and I doubt not in sincerity that he must die. But he lived on many years longer. He died at about seventy-five years of age--more than twenty years younger than his venerable and more temperate father.

From this distinguished opium eater, and from his family, I learned two things: First, that Solomon was right when he spoke of the certainty of punishment, even though long deferred. Secondly, the certainty of the visitation, so to call it, of human transgression upon subsequent generations no less than on the individual transgressor. The fourth generation from the patriarch of ninety-seven was puny and feeble--exceedingly so; the fifth and sixth not only puny and feeble, but absolutely sickly, not to say dwarfish.

Did I say I learned these important truths from this source? Not at all.

I mean only, that I received from it a new confirmation of what I had fully believed long before, and concerning which, till compelled, most men--even some thinking men--appear to me not a little sceptical. They seem to think it reflects dishonor on our Maker. How this is, we shall perhaps see more fully in another place. Let it suffice, for the present, to say that the fact itself is fully established, whatever may be the deductions or its consequences.

CHAPTER LIII.

COFFEE, AND THE LAME KNEE.