Chapter XIII.) She was married at twenty-one; and though stinted in her

growth, so as to be almost a dwarf, she seemed, at first, to be tolerably healthy. But in the course of a year she suffered from various complaints, to which scrofulous and otherwise debilitated females are subject in early conjugal life, for which she was treated--as I suppose very injudiciously--with active medicine, especially calomel.

And now, as if to render what was already bad enough a great deal worse, she made use of a certain patent medicine, which had been greatly lauded in the public papers. She was also persuaded to make use of a more stimulating diet than before; which was doubtless to her great disadvantage, in such a feeble condition. Her diet, though it should have been _nourishing,_ should have been _less stimulating_ than usual, and not more so.

Falling in with the famous Sylvester Graham, who was lecturing near her at the time, she was overpersuaded to change her habits very suddenly, especially her dietetic habits. From a highly seasoned diet, she was at once transferred to a very plain one, to which was added cold bathing and abundant exercise in the open air. This change, though it caused great emaciation, appeared to restore her health entirely. Her appetite and general strength were such that she thought it almost impossible she could ever be sick again.

But now a heavy domestic affliction befell her, which again very much reduced her; and, as she was wont to say afterward, "killed her." What it was, however, I was never informed. Being greatly depressed, she undoubtedly confined herself to the house too much, and in one instance when she ventured out, she unluckily exposed herself to a damp east wind, which appeared to give her cold. To remove this, and for other purposes, she fasted rigidly, for several days.

It was at this time that she came, in part, under my care. But she was already so much diseased in mind and body, and so ignorant of any just principles of hygiene, as to be greatly liable to be led about by the fancy or whim of this friend or that--sometimes by Mr. Graham and others, who only relied on Nature; and at others, by those who went to the opposite extreme. I could do little for her to any valuable purpose, and was glad to send her to the elder Dr. Jackson, of Boston. Not, however, till I had given her to understand, in general, that aside from her scrofulous tendencies, I did not know what ailed her; and that, so far as I could understand her case, her safest course was to avoid medicine and depend almost wholly on a careful obedience to God's laws, physical and moral, especially to his laws of hygiene. I had not then fully learned how much she had been abused, in early life, by unnecessary dosing and drugging.

Dr. Jackson told her it was evident there was something in her case very much out of the way; but he would be honest with her, and confess that he did not know what it was. He proposed to have Dr. Putnam see her, and another physician at Lowell. He insisted, however, on a more nutritious diet.

The last suggestion was heeded for awhile, but evidently to her disadvantage. Under the impression that in order to obtain more nutriment she must do so, she suddenly returned to the free use of flesh, butter, eggs, milk, etc., which, for a long time, till now, she had refused. This course brought upon her much acidity of the stomach. She returned once more to the plain diet, and by avoiding extremes and letting alone medicine, according to the general tenor of my directions, she partly recovered, and seemed destined to still higher advance towards the land of health and life.

But here, again, domestic trials, like a flood, came upon her, and brought her into great mental anxiety and embarrassment, as well as into that weak and vacillating condition which had once before existed, and which I have already described. To-day she would use her well-balanced, plain diet; to-morrow, perhaps, resort to the starvation system, for a few days. Then, in the fear of suffering from that, she would resort again, for a few days, to luxurious living.

Now, too, she would adhere to and follow this physician, now that, and next, none at all; or, perchance, follow some quack. I was not in a situation to exert much influence over her, or it is possible she might still have been saved. She would, indeed, adhere to my general plan, when all else that promised more seemed to fail, and perhaps would have been more persevering, but for her friends. They wanted to have the "prophet" do "some great thing," and cure her as by magic or miracle.

In saying these things, it is far enough from being my intention to be reproachful. She was not educated to a knowledge of herself; and she was by no means, at the present time, what she had been in her best days. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she acted like a wayward child; though it is greatly to be regretted, since, in her circumstances, it probably cut off every chance of her recovery.

In the spring, two or three years after her first change of diet, a cough with which she had occasionally been troubled before, came on with renewed violence, and never after wholly left her. She remained in this condition till the opening of the next year, when her cough made still farther advances, and was attended with hectic fever. She died in the month of May following.

A post mortem examination was made, which determined the case to have been what Dr. Jackson and myself and many others supposed, a case of scrofula or struma; though it was certainly attended with many curious and rather anomalous symptoms. Though there were no ulcers in the lungs, they were found full of tubercles; and so were the mesenteric glands, and the lining membrane of the alimentary canal. It was even said by the principal individual concerned in the examination, that her whole body was but a mass of disease. For myself, I was necessarily absent at the time, and therefore have no facts of my own to present.

I never had a case, either before or since, in which my hands were so completely tied as in this. The patient probably had as much confidence in me as in anybody; and yet she would not long follow me implicitly and strictly, without yielding to the whims of her friends or her enemies, and halving the practice with some physician or quack, either known or unknown. Under the care of some good, common-sense physician, and with full faith in him on the part of all concerned, I am still of opinion, as I always have been, that she might have recovered and lived many years, and, perhaps, been able to do a vast amount of good.