CHAPTER XLVII.

DAUGHTERS DESTROYING THEIR MOTHER.

There are, of course, many ways of destroying or killing people. To kill, with malice aforethought, though sometimes done, is a much less frequent occurrence than killing in the heat of passion, or by carelessness; by leading into bad habits, or by the injudicious use of medicine.

Then, again, there is such a thing as killing by omitting to keep alive. Thus we have sins of omission as well as of commission. If I leave a man in a mill-pond and suffer him to drown, or if I suffer him to take a dose of arsenic or Prussic acid, when I might, with the utmost ease, or even with considerable difficulty, prevent it,--is it not, in a practical sense, to destroy or kill him?

It is certainly within the wide range of human possibility, that a daughter may, without bludgeon or pistol, and even without poison, kill her mother. And it is quite notorious and a plain matter of fact that many a mother kills her own children. It could be demonstrated that thousands, if not tens of thousands of children are destroyed every year by their own mothers; as truly so as if they had received at their hands a quantity of arsenic. Why, then, may not children sometimes kill their parents?

I have known people, in very many instances, kill, in trying to save. I have even known the medical man do this, as may be seen by turning back to Chapter XXX. Then, too, I have known the attendants of the sick, though among their dearest friends, sometimes kill in this very way. In truth, such killing is not uncommon.

One of the most painful instances of this last kind of killing came under my own immediate observation, and was in the range of my own practice.

I was visiting a sick woman, whose only property lay in three or four lovely and loving children. Two of these, who were full-grown daughters, resided in her house and took care of her. She was severely afflicted with typhoid dysentery. Her daughters in turn watched over her, both by day and night, and would not suffer her to be left in the care of anybody else for a single minute. And, in general, their faithfulness was above all praise.

One day, however, disliking the appearances of a part of my medicine, they mutually agreed to throw it into the fire; and the deed was done. They had supposed it to be calomel, as it had the color and general appearance of that drug, and to calomel they had a most inveterate and irreconcilable hatred. It was a hatred, however, which whether well or ill founded, very extensively prevails.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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