CHAPTER LV.

BLEEDING AT THE LUNGS.

Having occasion to go to the metropolis, one day, I took the most expeditious public conveyance which the times and the season afforded. It was January, 1832. Railroad cars were not so much in vogue that I could step into one of them, and, unless in case of accident, be there in four or five hours, as I now could. It required something like twenty-four hours to perform the journey I proposed, especially in the winter.

We started at three o'clock in the morning. It had recently snowed, the snow was deep, and the path was not well broken. Of course it was not daylight when we set out, and as it was cloudy, it proved, as is not unfrequent in such cases, to be the darkest time in the whole twenty-four hours. However, we did as well as we could--driver, horses, passengers, and all.

Our company consisted of seven males and two females. The coach was small, and we filled it to the brim. The weather was by no means very cold for the season; at least, it was not extreme. There was a sound of rain,--the January thaw, perhaps, as we are wont to call it,--but as yet, fortunately for us, the storm had not begun.

We had proceeded about ten miles, and the day had not yet dawned, when, in passing around the point of a hill and winding our way among the deep drifts, our driver and his charge missed the path, and we were precipitated down a steep bank. The horses stopped immediately. Every effort was made to rescue us from the stage-coach, which was lying on its side, deeply embedded in the snow. I was so situated at the first moment after the overturn, that most of the affrighted passengers made use of me as a stepping-stone in their endeavors to reach the door above, which was either opened or broken. At last we were all fairly outside of the coach; no one appeared to be seriously injured.

As we were at a considerable distance from any dwelling-house, and as the stage-coach was somewhat broken, and the harnesses torn, it required a full hour to put things to rights, so as to enable us to proceed. Meanwhile, though the weather was not very cold, it was quite chilly. Some of the passengers stood still or sat still; others walked about. The day had broken when we renewed our journey.

The sleighing here was better than at the place where we started. At the next stage-office we exchanged our coach for a huge sleigh, which was not only more commodious than the coach, but more easily drawn over the ground, especially for a short time.

About noon it began to rain. Soon the travelling became worse again, and our progress was slow and tedious. To me, the tediousness of the journey was increased by a lame shoulder--the effect either of the overturn, or of being used as a stair when the passengers made their sudden exit, or of both. No bones were broken, nor joints dislocated; though there were several considerable bruises.

Our other troubles were not yet over. In the midst of a violent rain, and at a considerable distance from any public house, our sleigh broke down, and we were obliged to send for a wagon. In making the exchange, moreover, we were more or less exposed to the storm. I for one became considerably wet, and did not get perfectly dry till we reached the metropolis.

We arrived at evening at a large thoroughfare, forty miles or more from our point of destination, when, after procuring a comfortable supper and a good sleigh, with a new relay of horses, we set out to perform the remainder of our journey. This was fortunate and very expeditious. We reached our place of destination just before midnight, having travelled the last forty-two miles in little more than four hours. This was almost equal to railroad speed; but it was good sleighing, and we had with us, in the sleigh, the United States mail, which imposed on the driver a necessity of being as expeditious as the nature of the case would admit. For even then, we had been twenty-one hours in making our passage.

I soon discovered that I had taken a severe cold during the journey; nor do I believe my opium itself would have saved me. My only medicine was a warm bed, into which I threw myself as soon as possible. In the morning I repaired as early as I could to a boarding-house, in which a friend to whom I had previously written, had made ready a place for me.

I was at first quite ill; but in the hope that a few days of rest would restore me, I was not particularly anxious about myself, though some of my friends were so. Several individuals called to inquire after my health--nearly every one of whom pressed me to take medicine.

The second day after my arrival I began to expectorate a little blood. Those who were familiarly acquainted with my consumptive tendencies became greatly alarmed. They thought me not only presumptuous, because I took nothing, but absolutely and carelessly ungrateful. And as I refused to dose myself, they pressed me to send for a physician.

Yielding, at length, to their importunity, they called one of the oldest and best physicians in the metropolis. He was an eccentric man, but he had the full confidence of the better sort of people, and richly deserved it; and I knew I should not be advised by him hastily. He was acquainted with my peculiar views, at least in part. Besides, I should not be obliged to follow his counsel implicitly. I should still be my own physician. My disease had not, at least thus far, impaired my intellect or taken out of my hands my free agency.

The doctor remained with me half an hour or so, during which time I made him acquainted, as perfectly as I could, with my whole case. My good friends, many of them, sat around waiting almost with impatience, to hear him bid them or me to do some great thing--for great men though some of them were, they were not great in matters pertaining to health and disease. They were born, several of them, in the eighteenth century.

At length the time for prescription and departure had arrived, and my good brother and father of the lancet rose very deliberately, and said with great gravity, "You will be obliged to stay in your room a few days, and keep both your body and mind as quiet as possible. For the most part, it will be well to maintain a recumbent position. For food, use a little water gruel. In following this course, I think you will very soon find yourself convalescent." Then, with a sort of stiff bow, that every one who knew him could pardon in so excellent a man, he said, "Good-morning, sir,--Good-morning, gentlemen;" and was making the best of his way to the door of the chamber. "Will it not be needful for you to call again?" I said to him. "I shall be most happy to call," said he, "should it be necessary; but I doubt very much whether my advice will be any farther required."

My friends were very much astonished that he did not prescribe active medicine. "What can it mean?" they asked again and again. For myself, too, I must confess that I was not a little disappointed. Not that I had any considerable attachment to pills and pill boxes,--such a confidence had gone by long before, as you know,--but I verily thought my particular tendencies to pulmonary consumption demanded a little tincture of digitalis, or something in the shape of strong medicine.

But the physician knew my theories, better than he knew the power of that habit whose chains, in this respect, he had long ago escaped. For I learned afterwards, much better than I then knew, that so feeble was his faith in medicine, at least in all ordinary cases, that whenever the intelligence of his patients would at all warrant it, he prescribed, as he had for me, just nothing at all, but left every thing to be done by Nature and good common-sense attendants. This was, in fact, just what he attempted to do here. He doubtless supposed my friends were nearly as well informed in the matter as I was; and that I was as fully emancipated in practice as I was in theory.

"How much drugging and dosing might be saved," I said to myself, when I came to reflect properly on the subject, "if mankind were duly trained to place a proper reliance on Nature and Nature's laws, instead of fastening all their faith on the mere exhibition of some mystic powder or pill or tincture--or, at best, a few drops of some irritant or poison. It is their ignorance that makes their physicians' and apothecaries' bills so heavy, and the grave-digger's calling so good and so certain."

It is hardly necessary for me to say that I followed the advice which had been so wisely given, and which, after all, was but the echo of my own judgment, when that judgment was freely exercised. My friends were not satisfied at first; but when they saw that I was slowly recovering, they submitted with as good a grace as they could. The fact was that they had no court of appeal. They had selected a man who was at the head of his profession, and whose voice, in the medical world, and as a medical man, wherever he was known, was law. Had some young man given such "old woman's" advice, as they would most certainly have regarded it, they would have appealed to a higher court.

No man ever did better, when placed in similar circumstances, with the aid of medicine, than I did without it. In two weeks, at farthest, I was as well as I had been at any time in ten years or even twenty. What more or greater could I have asked? What more could my friends have expected? What more could have been possible? Could Hippocrates or Galen have done more?