CHAPTER LXI.

ALMOST RAISING THE DEAD.

So many people regarded it, and therefore I use the phrase as a title for my chapter. I have heard of families of children so large that it was not easy to find names for them all. My chapters of confession are short, but very numerous, and I already begin to find it difficult to procure titles that are _apropos_.

Mary Benham was the second daughter, in an obscure and indigent family that resided only a little distance from my house, just beyond the limits of what might properly be called the village. I do not know much of her early history, except that she was precocious in mind, and scrofulous and feeble in body.

The first time I ever heard any thing about her, was one night at a prayer-meeting. Mr. Brown, the minister, took occasion to observe, at the close of the meeting, in my hearing, that he must go to Mr. Benham's and see Mary, for she was very ill, and it was thought would not live through the night.

She survived, however, as she had done many times before, and as she did many times afterward, in similar circumstances. More than once Mr. Brown had been sent for--though sometimes other friends were called, as Mr. Brown lived more than a mile distant--to be with her and pray with her, in what were supposed to be her last moments. But there was still a good deal of tenacity of life; and she continued to live, notwithstanding all her expectations and those of her friends.

It appeared, on inquiry, that her nervous system was very much disordered, and also her digestive machinery. She was also taking, from day to day, a large amount of active medicine. Still no one appeared to doubt the propriety of such a course of treatment, in the case of a person so very sick as she was; for how, it was asked, could she live without it?

In one or two instances I was sent for; not, indeed, as her physician, but as a substitute for the more distant or the absent minister. At these visits I learned something, incidentally, of her true physical condition. I found her case a very bad one, and yet, as I believed, made much worse by an injudicious use of medicine.

Yet what could I do in the premises? I had not been asked to prescribe for her, nor even to give counsel as a supernumerary or consulting physician. Dr. M. paid her his weekly and semi-weekly visits, and doubtless supposed all the wisdom of the world added to his own would hardly improve her condition. I was, of course, by all the rules of medical etiquette, and even by the common law of politeness, obliged to bite my lips in silence. One thing, indeed, I ventured to do, which was to send her a small tract or two, in some of the departments of hygiene or health.

Soon after this her physician died; and died, too, by his own confession, publicly made, of stomach disease,--at least, in part. He was a man of gigantic body and great natural physical force. His digestive apparatus was particularly powerful, and it had been both unwisely cultivated and developed in early life, and unwisely and wickedly managed afterward. For an example of the latter, he would, while abroad among his patients, sometimes go without his dinner, and then, on his return to his family and just as he was going to bed, atone for past neglect by eating enough for a whole day, and of the most solid and perhaps indigestible food. In this and other abusive ways he had been suicidal.

But he was now gone to his final account, and on whose arm could Mary lean for medical advice? Her parents were too poor to pay a physician's bill. What had been paid to her former medical attendant--which, indeed was but a mere pittance--was by authority of the town. Mary felt all the delicacy she should have felt, in her circumstances, and perhaps more, for she refused for some time to ask for farther aid, preferring to groan her way alone.

One evening, when I was present on a moral errand, she spoke of the great benefit she had derived from the perusal of the little books I had sent her, and modestly observed that, deprived as she was by the wise dispensation of Providence, of her old friend and physician, she had sometimes dared to wish she could occasionally consult me. I told her I hoped she would not hesitate a moment to send for me, whenever she desired, for if in a situation to comply with her requests, I would always do so immediately. She was about to speak of her poverty, when I begged her not to think of that. The only condition I should impose, I told her, was that she should do her very best to follow, implicitly, my directions. With this condition she did not hesitate to promise a full and joyful compliance.

From that time forth I saw her frequently, since I well knew that even voluntary visits would be welcome. I found she had become convinced of the necessity of breathing pure air, and of ventilating her room every day. Nor did she neglect, as much as formerly, the great laws of cleanliness. Yet, alas! in this respect, the hard hand of necessity was upon her. She could not do all she wished. However, she could apply water to her person daily, if she could not to her clothing and bedding; so that, on the whole, she did not greatly suffer. Her mother did what she could, but she was old and decrepit.

She had also made another advance. She had contrived to obtain, I hardly know from what source, but probably from the hands of kind friends, a small amount of good fruit to use daily, with one or more of her meals. This excluded a part or portion of that kind of food which was more stimulating and doubtful.

But the greatest difficulty we had to encounter was to shake off the enormous load of narcotic medicine which had been so long prescribed for her that she seemed unable to live without it. Morphine, in particular, she had come to use in quantities which would have destroyed a person who was unaccustomed to its influence, and in frequently repeated doses. I told her she might as well die in one way as another; that the morphine, though it afforded a little temporary relief, was wearing out her vital energies at a most rapid rate, and that the safest, and, in the end, the easiest way for her was, to abandon it entirely. She followed my advice, and made the attempt.

I have forgotten how long a time it required to effect a complete emancipation from her slavery to drugs; but the process was a gradual one, and occupied at least several months. In the end, however, though not without considerable suffering, she was perfectly free, not only from her slavery to morphine, but to all other drugs. All this time, moreover, she was as _well_, to say the least, as before; perhaps, on the whole, a little better.

I now set myself, in good earnest, to the work of improving her physical habits. The laws of ventilation and cleanliness, to which her attention, as I have already intimated, had become directed, were still more carefully heeded. She was required to retire early and rise early, and to keep her mind occupied, though never to the point of fatigue, while awake. Her habits with regard to food and drink were changed very materially. The influence of the mind on the condition of the body was also explained to her, and the influence of temperature. In short, she was brought, as fast as possible, to the knowledge of physical law in its application to her circumstances, and encouraged to obey it.

The recuperative powers of nature, even in unfavorable circumstances, were soon apparent. This greatly increased her docility and inspired her with faith and hope. The greatest trouble was in regard to muscular exercise. Much of this was needed; and yet how could it be obtained? She could not walk, and yet, in her indigence, she had no means of conveyance, except at the occasional invitation of some friend.

But this even had its good tendencies. To take her up, as we would have taken a child, set her in a carriage and let her ride half a mile or a mile, was obviously of great service to her. She was far less fatigued by it than was expected; her subsequent sleep was far better; nor did any remote evil effects follow. This greatly increased her courage, and raised the hopes of her friends.

She was at length able to be placed in the railroad cars, and with the aid of coaches, at embarking and disembarking, to travel about a good deal, to the distance of ten, twelve, or twenty miles; and all this with favorable effects. Her recovery, at no distant day, began to be regarded, by the most sceptical, as quite probable.

My removal, a hundred miles or so from the village, just at this time, was, however, a misfortune to her. In one of her excursions, she received and accepted an invitation to spend a few months with a distant relative, where she came under the influence of one of the phases of modern quackery, by means of which her progress to the promised land of health was very considerably retarded. She even sickened, but afterward recovered.

Sometime after this, as I subsequently learned, she partially regained her good condition of steady progress, and returned to her father's house. Finding herself, at length, able to do something for her support, she entered into the service of a neighboring family, at first with little compensation except her board, but subsequently at half pay or more. Her domestic duties were such as only taxed her system to a degree which she was able to endure without any injury.

It was in this condition, that, after two or three years of absence, I found her and rejoiced with her. For, though she could no more be said to be restored to perfect health, than a vessel could be considered perfectly sound that is full of shot holes, yet her condition was far enough from being desperate, and was even comparatively excellent. I left her once more with the tear of gratitude to God on her cheek, and again, for many long years, neither saw her nor heard from her.

At our next interview she brought with her a gentleman whom she introduced to me as her husband. The meeting was to me wholly unexpected, but most happy. She lived in this relation, but without progeny, a few years more, and then sank in a decline, to rise no more till the sound of the last trumpet.

Of the particulars of her decline and death, I have never heard a word. Her scrofulous temperament and tendencies rendered her liable to numerous diseases of greater or less severity and danger, to some of which she probably fell a victim. It is, however, by no means impossible that her numerous cares and anxieties--for she was naturally very sensitive--may have hastened her exit.

If I have any misgivings in connection with this protracted, but very interesting case, and consequently any confessions to make, it is with reference to the point faintly alluded to in a preceding paragraph. While I honor, as much as any man, the marriage relation,--for it is in accordance with God's own intention, and is the first institution of high Heaven for human benefit and happiness,--I must freely confess that in the present fallen condition of our race, it occasionally happens that an individual is found unfit for the discharge of its various duties, as well as for the endurance of some of its peculiar responsibilities. Such, as I believe, among others, was Mary Benham.