William Alcott - Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders

On the evening of the third day I came to the house of the friends with whom I was desirous of stopping not only for the Sabbath's sake, which was now at hand, but to rest and recruit. The next morning I was quite sick, and my friends were alarmed. It was proposed to send for a physician; but against this I uttered my protest, and the plan was accordingly abandoned.

The next purpose of my kind friends was to bring on a perspiration. They were accustomed in these cases to aim at sweating. This is indeed a violence to nature; but they knew no better. The mistress of the house was one of those self-assured women who cannot brook any interference or submit willingly to any modification of their favorite plans. Otherwise I should even then have preferred a gentle perspiration, longer continued. Yet on the whole, for the sake of peace, I submitted to my fate, and went through the fiery furnace which was prepared for me. More than even this I might say. I was cooler, much cooler, when I got through the fire than when I was in the midst of it!

In three days I was, in a good measure, restored. I was, it is true, left very weak, but was free from fever. My strength rapidly returned; and on the fifth day I was able to set out for home, where in due time I safely arrived.

During this excursion I learned one good lesson, if no more. This was, the danger of going day after day with wet feet. A vigorous person may go with wet or damp feet a little while, in the early part of the day, when in full strength, with comparative safety; but towards evening, when the vital forces are at ebb tide, or at least are ebbing, it is unsafe. The feeble especially should guard themselves in this direction; nor should those who may perchance at some future time be feeble, despise the suggestion.

One important resolution was also made. This was never to use violent efforts to induce perspiration. Such a course of treatment I saw clearly, as I thought, must be contrary to the intentions of nature; and time and further observation and experiment have confirmed me in this opinion. There may of course be exceptions to the truth of such a general inference; but I am sure they cannot be very numerous. What though the forcing plan seems to have succeeded quite happily in my own case? So it has in thousands of others. So might a treatment still more irrational. Mankind are tough, and will frequently live on for a considerable time in spite of treatment which is manifestly wrong, and even without any treatment at all.

Five or six miles from the place of my nativity a family resided whom I shall call by the name of Port. Among the ancestry of this family, time out of mind, there had been more, or fewer of what are usually called natural bone setters. They were known far and near; and no effort short of miraculous would have been sufficient to shake the confidence which ignorance and credulity had reposed in them.

One or two of these natural bone setters were now in the middle stage of life, and in the full zenith of their glory. The name of the most prominent was Joseph. He was a man of some acquired as well as inherited knowledge; but he was indolent, coarse, vulgar, and at times profane. Had it not been for his family rank and his own skill as a surgeon, of which he really had a tolerable share, he would have been no more than at best a common man, and occasionally would have passed for little more than a common blackguard.

I was in a shop one day conversing with Capt. R., when Dr. Port came in. "Capt. R., how are you?" was the first compliment. "Very well," said the captain, "except a lame foot." "I see you have one foot wrapped up," said Dr. Port; "what is the matter with it?" – "I cut it with an axe, the other day," said he, "very badly." – "On the upper part of the foot?" said the doctor. "Yes, directly on the instep," said Capt. R. "Is it doing well?" – "Not very well," he replied; "and I came into town to-day partly to see and converse with you about it." – "Well, then, undo it and let me have a look at it."

Wrapper after wrapper was now taken from the lame foot, till Dr. Port began to scowl. "You keep it too warm," said he. "A wound of this sort should be kept cool, if you don't wish to have it inflame. A slight wrapping is all that is needful." They came at length to the wound. "It does not look very badly," said Dr. Port; "but you must keep it cool. And then," added he with an oath, the very thought of which to this day almost makes me shudder, "You must keep your nasty, abominable ointments away from it. Remember one thing, Capt. R., whenever you have a new flesh wound, all you can possibly do with any hope of advantage is to bring the divided edges of the parts together and keep them there, and nature will take care of the rest."

"Would you, then, do nothing at all but bind it up and keep it still?" said Capt. R. "Nothing at all," said he, "unless it should inflame; and then a little water applied to it is as good as any thing." – "But is there nothing of a healing nature I can use?" said the captain. "I have told you already," said he, with another strange oath, "that you don't want any thing healing on the outside, if you had a cart-load of medicaments. All wounds, when they heal at all, heal from the bottom; and of course all your external applications are useless, except so far as is necessary to protect the parts from fresh injury and keep them from the air."

The crowd around looked as if they were amazed; but it was Dr. Port who said it, and therefore it must be swallowed. I was somewhat surprised with the rest. And I have not a doubt that what he said was to most of them an invaluable lecture. For myself, as a student of man , it was just what I needed. It set me to thinking. It was a lesson which I could never forget if I were to live a thousand years.

It was a lesson, moreover, which I have repeated almost a thousand times, in circumstances not dissimilar. Indeed, I believe this very occurrence did much to turn my attention to the medical profession. I saw at once it was a rational thing; a matter of plain common sense; a thing of principle; and not on the one hand a bundle of mysteries, nor on the other a mere humbug.

Dr. Port long ago paid the debt of nature; but not till he had made his mark on the age he lived in. If, indeed, he died as the fool dieth, – and thus it was said he did die, – he was at least a means of teaching others to live right. He did great good by his frequent wise precepts, as well as not a little harm by his sometimes immoral example. For myself, I honor him because he was my teacher on a point of great practical importance, and because he was to thousands of over-credulous people a light and a benefactor.

Although I had not at this time any very serious thoughts of becoming a physician and surgeon, yet I certainly inclined in that direction. My great poverty was the chief difficulty that lay in my way; but this difficulty at that time seemed insurmountable. Besides, I was wedded to my father's farm, and I did not see how the banns could very well be sundered.

I was, at length, twenty-two years of age. I had about fifty dollars in my pocket, besides a few books. But what would this do towards giving me a liberal education? And yet, to an education in the schools, of some sort, either as a means to a profession, or as affording facilities for obtaining knowledge or communicating it to others, I certainly did aspire. But I seemed compelled for the present to plod on in the old way.

There had been, but recently, a gold fever – not, it is true, of California, but of Carolina. The young men of the North, shrewd, intelligent, active, and ambitious Yankees, had flocked by hundreds, if not by thousands, from New England to the Southern States, to sell tin ware and clocks, especially the former. The trade at first had been very lucrative. Though many had been made poor by it, yet many more had been made rich. I do not say how honorably the trade had been conducted. To sell tin lanterns, worth fifty cents each, for silver, at fifty dollars, and tin toddy sticks, worth a New York shilling, for twelve dollars, did not in the final result redound much to our New England credit. Though it brought us gold, it did not permanently enrich us.