CHAPTER LXXXIX.

DESTRUCTION BY SCROFULA.

Much is said in these days about scrofula, and much indeed should be said about it; for it has become a most frequent, not to say fatal, disease. For, if few die of it, immediately, it leads to, or renders more severe, numerous other diseases, which are more directly fatal. In truth, a scrofulous constitution not only prepares us for many other diseases, but renders them, when they assail us, much more severe than they otherwise would have been. Colds, fevers, and consumption, in particular, are not only more frequent in scrofulous people than in others, but also more intense or severe, as well as less manageable by medical skill.

This disease itself, though often inherited, may, on the one hand, be greatly aggravated by improper treatment; or, by a proper course of living, may, on the other hand, be postponed many years, if not indefinitely. Living much in the open air, cheerfulness of mind, plain food and drink, and a proper regard to the skin, will do a vast deal towards arresting its progress, and in some instances will wholly prevent its doing us any harm. For though five millions of the inhabitants of the United States were probably born with a tendency to this formidable disease, and the same proportion--if not a greater--of each generation to come will be likely to have the same tendency, I do not believe it to be indispensably necessary that one-half of this number should die, as now they do, of consumption. I have not a doubt that two-thirds of them might, by proper management, be made to last many years, and some of them to what is usually called old age.

It has been my lot to have a very great number of scrofulous patients, daring the last twenty-five years, from almost every part of the United States. One of the worst cases I ever had was that of Mrs. ----, of New Hampshire. Her history, prior to the period when she came to me, is very briefly as follows.

She was born of parents, who, at the time of her birth, were very near their dotage; in consequence of which, as it was believed, she held her existence by a very feeble tenure. At two and a half years of age, she was nearly destroyed by dysentery, or by the medicine given to arrest her disease, or by both. In addition to this and almost before she recovered, she had an attack of scarlet fever, which was very severe, and which was also probably treated freely by medicine. By this time there is no doubt that scrofula, at first slightly inherited, had become pretty well riveted on a constitution already but poorly prepared to endure it.

In her seventeenth year, she was afflicted with a troublesome eruption, which was cured, or at least checked, by a wash of sugar of lead. (See