Part 10
Roots which are annual, should be collected before they shoot out their stalks, or flowers; biennial roots, in the harvest of the first, or spring of the second year; perennial roots, either in spring, before the sap begins to mount, or in harvest, after it has returned. Those which are worm eaten, except some resinous roots, or which are decayed, are to be rejected; the others are immediately to be cleaned, with a brush and cold water, letting them lie in it as short a time as possible; the fibres and little roots, when not essential, are to be cut away. Roots which consist principally of fibres, and have but a small top, may be immediately dried, if they are juicy, and not aromatic; this may be done by heat, not 100 degrees of Fahrenheit; but, if aromatic, by simply exposing and turning them frequently in a current of dry air; if they are thick and strong, they should be split or cut into slices, and strung upon thread; if covered with a rough bark, they may be peeled fresh, then dried. Such as lose their virtues by drying, or are directed to be preserved in a fresh state, are to be kept buried in dry sand.
No very general rule can be given for the collection of herbs and leaves--some of them acquiring activity by age, and others, as the mucilaginous leaves, from the same cause, losing the properties for which they are efficient. Aromatics are to be gathered after the flower buds are formed; annuals, not aromatic, when they are about to flower, or when in flower; biennials, before they shoot, and perennials, before they flower, especially if their fibres become woody; they are to be gathered in dry weather, after the dew is off them, or in the evening, before it falls, and are to be freed from decayed, withered, or foreign leaves; they are usually tied in bundles, and hung up in a shady, warm, and airy place, or spread upon the floor, and frequently turned; if very juicy, they are laid upon a sieve, and dried by a gentle degree of artificial warmth, by the stove.
Sprouts are collected before the buds open, and stalks are gathered in autumn.
Barks and woods are collected when the most active part of the vegetable are concentrated in them, which occurs in spring and in autumn; spring is preferred for resinous barks, and autumn for others, which are not resinous, but rather gummy. Barks should be taken from young trees. Among the resinous woods, the heaviest, which sink in water, are selected; the alburnum is to be rejected.
Flowers are collected in dry weather, before noon, but after the dew is off, either when they are just about to open, or immediately after they have opened; of some, the petals only are preserved, and the colorless claws are even cut away; of others, whose calyx is odorous, the whole flower is kept. Flowers which are too small to be pulled singly, are dried with part of the stalk, and are called heads, or tops. Flowers and herbs are to be dried by the gentle heat of a stove, or common fire, in such quantities at a time, that the process may be finished as quickly as possible--for by this means their powers are best preserved, the test of which is the perfect preservation of their natural color; when they lose their color and smell, they are unfit for use.
Seeds and fruits, unless when otherwise directed, are to be gathered when ripe, but before they fell spontaneously. Some pulpy fruits are freed from their core, and seeds are strung on thread, and dried artificially; they are, in general, best preserved in their natural coverings, although some, as the colacynth, are peeled, and others, as the tamarind, preserved fresh. Many of these are apt to spoil, or become rancid; and as they are then no longer fit for medical use, no very large quantity of them should be collected at a time.
The proper drying of vegetable substances, is of the greatest importance. It is often directed to be done in the shade, and slowly, that the volatile and active particles may not be dissipated by too great heat. But this is an error; for they always lose infinitely more by slow than by quick drying. When, on account of the color, they cannot be exposed to the sun, and the warmth of the atmosphere is insufficient, they should be dried by an artificial warmth, less than 100 degrees of Fahrenheit, and well exposed to a current of air. When perfectly dry and friable, they have little smell, but after being kept some time, they attract moisture from the air, and regain their proper odor.
The boxes and drawers in which vegetable matters are kept, should not impart to them any smell or taste; and more certainly to avoid this, they should be lined with paper. Such as are volatile, of a delicate texture, or subject to suffer from insects, must be kept in well-covered glasses. Fruits and oily seeds, which are apt to become rancid, must be kept in a cool and dry, and by no means in a warm or moist place. Oily seeds, odorous plants, and those containing volatile principles, should be collected fresh every year; others, whose properties are more permanent and not subject to decay, will keep for several years. Vegetables collected in a moist and rainy season are, in general, more watery, and apt to spoil; in a dry season, they contain more oily and resinous particles, and keep much better.
MISCELLANY.
TYPHOID FEVER.
THIS disease, which has prevailed extensively at the west, is treated under a variety of names--such as nervous, putrid, gastrionic, brain fever, &c.; while the people of this vicinity, designate it by the name of slow fever, which, in my opinion, is about as descriptive of the disease as any above mentioned. It is most prevalent during the winter and spring. Patients are variously affected during the first stages of the disease. Some are taken with a chill, while others are not conscious of any such sensations, but merely complain of loss of strength and appetite; others complain of pain in their head and back. I have seen some take to their beds, and declare that nothing was the matter with them, and would insist on the correctness of their absurd opinions for several days. The pulse soon becomes small and frequent, the skin hot and dry, while insufferable thirst continually torments the sufferer. Patients frequently manifest a strong propensity to sing, while laboring under it, yet they seldom complain of pain, though delirium be constantly present, and the bowels morbidly sensitive to firm pressure. I have seen patients die without complaining of pain, and yet, on making post mortem examination, satisfactory evidence was furnished that inflammation of the brain, the lungs, and the mucuous membrane of the bowels, were present. These inflammations, therefore, constitute some of the complications of this disease, while a lack of sensibility, points to an obtunded condition of the nervous system. Ordinarily, for four or five days, the disease does not assume an aggravated appearance, during which time the fever has a remitting form; but shortly after this, if the patient is not relieved, the fever becomes continued; and now begin to rise gradually all the worst symptoms of typhoid fever; the tongue, which at first was white, or of a yellowish brown color, now becomes black, dry in the centre, and cracked; the patient soon falls into a deep coma, and delirium is almost constantly present. Twitching of the muscles of the face, subsultus-tendinum, and floccillation, are symptoms which generally attend this disease.
BATHING.
Somebody has said, that God gives shower baths to every thing that will stay out doors. A very significant hint, this, to human bipeds; it seems very strange that we are such dull scholars, in this world. We see the fevered earth parch, and burn, and fail of its fruits, till the refreshing rain comes down and cures it; and we never once think, when our blood boils, our flesh burns, and our skin parches with fever, that the same blessed medicine that is poured out on the earth, will heal us; or, if men get a little theoretical faith of this kind, they lose it as soon as they become sick. Early superstition, of all kinds, generally come upon men with peculiar force, when they are weakened and confused by illness.
There is no more invigorating process for preserving health, after the inhaling of pure air, than the daily use of the cold bath. The bath is not useful alone because it removes impurities from the skin; but the fresh, sparkling water, has an absolute life in it, which we receive. And this is the reason why the bath is so much more useful, when the water is just drawn from the fountain, than when it is suffered to stand, and lose its living, or electrical properties.
The best time to take a bath is in the morning, when we rise. No one should take a cold bath, as if he were lazily doing an unpleasant duty; and no one can do it long. Beginners with the bath, should observe the following directions: Bathe the head and face first; bathe the rest of the body thoroughly and quickly; then use much friction--first with a towel, and then with the hand, or a soft brush; this should be continued until the subject is in a glow.
Some people think there are so many difficulties in the way of bathing, that they cannot overcome them, and they believe they must, perforce, be like the dirty representative to an eastern legislature, who boasted that he had not bathed for fifteen years! Let us look at these difficulties, and we shall find that “where there is a will there is a way.” Anybody, that is anybody, can surely get a bowl of water, and a sponge, or towel; with these, he can take a thorough washing, and, if he has any energy, he can rub the body in a glow with a brush, a hand towel, or the hand.
There is no preventive of colds equal to this simple process, repeated every morning. It makes a man feel clean, bright, and respectable. The use of warm baths, except in particular cases of illness, is mischievous; they weaken the skin, and expose the person who takes them, to attacks of colds and influenza. Still, the occasional use of warm baths for cleaning the skin, is better than to allow the skin to be dirty. Shower baths are useful in cases where there is high health, or general inflammation; where there is full reactive power they are safe, and not otherwise; where they induce a chill, they are very hurtful. The indiscriminate recommendation of the shower bath, is always an evidence of very partial knowledge. The sponge bath is probably more universally beneficial, and is safer than any other bath.
HERB TEA.
Mr. N. had been married but a few weeks, and his bride was a lovely and accomplished lady. Her health was perfect; she had never known, by personal experience, what sickness is, and they were looking forward to the future with the most sanguine expectations of happiness. But disappointment is written upon all earthly hopes, and Mr. N. was not to be an exception from the general rule. His wife was suddenly taken with cholera. The family physician was called in, and did what he could to arrest the disease. But she continued to grow worse, and a council of doctors was called, to consult measures for her relief.
Mrs. N. had requested that a friend of hers, who had long been employed in nursing and doctoring those who had confidence in her--a lady of great talent and education in the art of curing with roots and herbs--to call in and see her. As this lady approached the house, and saw the carriages of the physicians, she became alarmed for the safety of her friend; but when she entered the house, the silence and sadness that reigned in that once happy mansion, sent a chill to her heart. Soon the doctors came out, one by one, and silently left the house. Mr. N. did not inquire their opinion of the condition of his wife--he could read it in their looks. After all had gone but the attending physician, Mr. N. and the nurse, Mrs. T., entered the room, where the patient lay, apparently in the last stage of the disease. The doctor rose from his seat beside the bed; as Mr. N. advanced and inquired, “Is there no hope?” he could hardly command his voice to tell that afflicted man, that his wife must die; and his gushing tears spoke his sympathy with the sufferer.
Mrs. T. looked for a moment upon the unconscious form of her friend, then, turning to the doctor, said,
“Tell me, my dear sir, can you do nothing more for this woman?”
He shook his head, and then turned away.
“Then you are willing,” she continued, “I should do what I can to make her more comfortable while she lives?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. N.
“Certainly,” repeated the doctor. “If you can do anything for her comfort, do it, for she cannot stay with us long.”
As he said this, he left the house, and Mrs. T. applied herself to her task. She directed the friends to get some hot water, bricks, &c., while she sent a boy for some herbs; she wrote a note, and requested him to carry it to the man with whom she had been living. He soon returned with the articles. What she gave the patient to drink, we do not know; but we soon saw its effects. The cold sweat was wiped from her limbs--bottles of hot water were placed around her--a plaster was applied to her stomach, and, in a short time, she sank into a sweet sleep, which continued an hour or two, when she awoke, and began to vomit. The friends were now much alarmed, and thought she must certainly die. But the joyful expression of Mrs. T.’s countenance, told them that she, at least, had no fears of a fatal result.
Through the day and night, the nurse continued her exertions for her friend; and the next morning, when the kind and sympathizing doctor came in to look at the corpse, he was very much surprised to find his patient sitting up in bed, eating a bowl of porridge!
Turning to the nurse, he asked, “What did you give this woman?”
“_Herb tea, sir!_” she answered, in a tone of voice which forbade further questioning.
Mrs. N. still lives, and, when her children are sick, she gives them HERB TEA!
PREJUDICE.
AS far as I can ascertain, the present season (1857-8,) has been a remarkable healthy one, in this portion of the west. But scientifically, every few days, some poor sufferer is consigned to the grave--but not until nature has disputed, most resolutely, every inch of ground, and at last has been compelled to yield to King Calomel! It is only a few days since, a child of ten or twelve years old was laid away, with a part of the lower portion of its face already fallen off, and appearances indicating that a large part of the rest would soon have followed, had not death terminated its sufferings in mercy, and spared its friends the anguish of beholding the farther devastations of this most potent “remedy.” In such instances, the outraged feelings of surviving friends, are usually quieted with the assurance that “it is the Lord’s will;” and so these works of iniquity are saddled upon the Supreme Arbiter of events, and He is made the scape-goat of one of the most wicked systems that ever cursed the world.
I am sometimes perfectly confounded by the blind bigotry which possesses the minds of those men, whose business it is to administer to the wants of suffering humanity. It does seem as though they thought more of conforming to the opinions of certain authors, and following the prescribed rules of a Medical Association, than they do of the lives of their patients. In their opposition, especially to reform in medical practice, some of them hesitate not to endanger the life of a fellow-being, if, by so doing, they can bring obloquy upon that system to which they are opposed.
These are hard sayings; but I am compelled to believe them, for it is but a short time since one of the poison-dealers tried to persuade a patient of mine to eat unripe peaches, only two days after he had reported him as in a very dangerous situation, with bilious fever. This same man, was prescribing for a slight ailment in a stout individual, who was still able to be about town and attend to his business. This person ate some of the same kind of fruit, and thought that it injured him. He told his physician what he had done, who broke out with an oath, and told him he wondered it had not killed him. This shows the estimation in which he held the fruit, which he had told my patient would do him good. Comments, upon such an act, are unnecessary, or upon a profession which feels itself obliged to treat with contempt, every thing not paying homage to its mandates--no matter how much it may promise to add to the welfare of mankind, if it cannot trace its origin within the walls of a legalized inclosure.
Of all men, the physician should be a liberal-minded man--ever anxious to learn all that will enable him to be of benefit to his suffering fellow-creatures. He should never conclude that he has nothing more to know, or that he can find all knowledge in any one system, or theory, of practice; he should ever be ready to learn, from every body. He who expects to find out all that can be known, in one train of reasoning, or round of study, is like a man traveling upon a circle, who thinks, because he can travel all his life-time upon that circle, he can consequently visit every place that the length of his life will permit him to visit. After a while, some one--who has learned that, in order to extend his knowledge, he must strike out a path diverging from that one, so long traveled--starts out accordingly in a new direction, and finds an extent of knowledge and research, of which he never before dreamed.
Our traveler, who thinks that the old path will lead him to all that he can ever know, comes around to the new road. He stops, and asks, “Who made this new track? Was it the man who marked out the one that I am in?”
“No!” says one; “the path which you are in, tells the same old story; this new path is a better way. Discoveries have been made in it, far more valuable than in the one in which you are, and they have been made by one who does not believe that your old way is perfect.”
Now see self-confidence, bigotry, and ignorance, encircling the lips of scorn. “Fools!” says he, and he goes, muttering vengeance on the “poor deluded fanatics!”
But this state of things cannot always remain. The light of truth is shining, and is destined to dispel the clouds of mystery, which have so long covered the pathway to the grave, of millions of our fellow-men. Men of intellect, science, and humanity, are engaged in this good cause, and, so sure as “truth is mighty,” it must prevail. In order, however, to the accomplishment of this desired event, physicians must be men of principle, and adhere firmly to that which they know to be right. In the practice of some, there is too much disposition to accommodate the taste and prejudice of the patient, even at his expense. I was talking with a physician not long since, who advocated the practice of making medicine to suit the taste of the patient. Instead of accommodating his desire too much, in a matter about which he cannot be a judge, the physician should take that course which will be most likely to cure him speedily, though the remedy be not quite so palatable; there should be no tampering with his whims, to the prolonging of his disease.
This principle cannot be too deeply impressed upon the mind of every one, while he is receiving his medical education; for the triumph of our cause, and the rescuing of suffering humanity from the iron grasp of medical tyranny, depend upon the integrity of our practitioners, and their strict adherence to the true principles of practice. In the name of Humanity, let us not fall into the same vortex of quackery, which characterizes the practice against which we war!
RHEUMATISM--ITS CAUSES.
A PECULIAR acid, in rheumatic complaints, is now generally admitted to secrete, or accumulate, in the system; and, though this acid is found to pervade the entire body, yet this form of disease has been thought to be rather a local complaint--that the joints, or parts affected, are particularly in fault, and the remedies used are to be of a local, and external character; or, if general, are particularly to act on the seat of the pain.
The more we study the human frame, and become familiar with the organism of the human body, the more convinced we are that, whenever one organ or function of the system is deranged, all others feel its effects. In rheumatism, therefore, we have always discovered that the stomach and liver are diseased; these notions we have had very well substantiated by many. The internal irritation, renders the nutritive energy of certain parts at the periphery, (namely, the fibrous sheaths and covering of the muscles,) feeble, and their power of resisting external causes of disease, deficient. When cold and damp, therefore, are applied to the skin, the blood is driven thence toward the parts most ready, from their want of organic energy, to retain it, and least able to resist its flow. Those parts are the tissues which have been most violently employed--the tissues connected with the organs of voluntary motion, and the fibrous tissues of the muscles and joints. In some persons, these tissues are congenitally weak, the hereditary predisposition exists, and there is morbid sympathy always existing between them and the centre of nutrition. The laboring man who keeps his stomach and liver in a constant state of irritation, with spirituous drinks--who uses his voluntary muscles hard and long every day, and is exposed to all kinds of weather, is the most eligible, and the most frequent victim of rheumatism; for in him the condition of the stomach, the limbs, and the exciting cause, meet in all their strength. Hence, in places where perry and cider abound, the peasantry are especially subject to rheumatism.
Why the rheumatism seizes one joint or set of muscles, more than another, we know not, positively; but we do know, that more or less digestive derangements are present at the time. I never saw a rheumatic attack, in which such derangements were not present, previously to its commencement. How often does it happen that a patient, racked with pain is instantly relieved by a copious vomiting of bile, or by a common diarrhœa.
We come to the conclusion, then, that rheumatism is not a mere inflammatory pain of the sheaths of the muscles, but has its origin in some digestive irritation--exhibited by a certain kind and amount of fibrous inflammation, and this may be caused by the circulation of this acid blood, in its passage through the minute cappillaries of the joints and tendons, since nothing but the white and thin blood can pass through the circulation of the tendons and ligaments. Perhaps this blood may be almost entirely of an acid character; it has no red particles, and may lack those qualities which render it subservient to nutrition and assimilation.
If this view of the subject is correct, we readily perceive how the bleeding, cupping, leeching, and blistering processes, tend directly to weaken the energy of the organs, and render them more liable to distension and congestion.
A peculiar odor also arises from the patient, which I have thought quite symptomatic of the disease, while the evacuations are thin, dark, watery, and extremely offensive. The eruption on the skin I have observed, but am not able to say whether or not it is present in all cases; I have never been able to see it in negroes, neither do I know whether it is perceptible at all in such subjects, but I am inclined to the opinion that it is not. The eruption, as I have observed, is various in appearance. It consists of small, rosy blotches, of a roundish, or lenticular shape, scarcely, if at all, raised above the general surface of the skin on which they appear.