Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1854-01-12

Treatment Of Consumption.

nary diseases.
The politicians teach us how to treat
a disease, think. They do not try to con-
vert the opposing party. They are content il
they can keep it in the minority-sure that il
will tire, in time, of its want of power, change
sides, or disappear. The patient who troubles
himself least about his disease, Tor leaves il
entirely with his doctor,) but who persever-
ingly outvotes it by the high condition of the
other parts of his system, is the likeliest to
recover,-an it is of this high condition, alone,
that have anything to say. Of twenty who
may be sleepless with cough and weakened
with the raising Of blood, no two, perhaps,
are subjects for precisely the same medical
treatment, or diseased in precisely the same
locality-though they are called consump-
tives.' Our friends the physicians are better
geographers than we, as to where the healing
is wanted-though they strangely confine
themselves TO the specific ailment, taking it
for granted that the patient keeps the rest of
his body in proper training for recovery. 1t
is medical etiquette, believe, to refrain from
any very particular inquiry into this. But
few sick men are wise or firm-minded enough
| TO be safely trusted with their own general
condition and for one, came very near dy-
ing-not of my disease, but Of what my doctor
took for granted.
To leave generalities, however, and come to
the personal experience which you ask for.
Iwent to the Tropics as last hope to cure
chronic cough and blood-raising which had
brought me to the borders Of the grave. /
found climate in which it is hard to be un-
happy about anything-charming to live at all
easy to die. At least, those who were sure
of dying, and did die-and in whose insepara-
bic company thought was social and joyous
to the last. The atmosphere of that Eden-lat-
itude, is but pain-stilling opiate, while the
Equator might be called kitchen-range for a
Sardanapalus, and the Antilles are but tables
loaded with luxuries. The Caribbean Sea is
the Kingdom of the Present Moment The
Past and the Future are its Arctic and Antarc-
tic-unthought of, except by desperate explor-
ers. Hither are sent invalids, with weakened
resolution, to make pilgrimage with prescrip-
tion and prudence You may see by the book
| have just published, (Health-trip to the
TroPics,) with what complete forgetfulness Of
care or caution made one of an invalid COM
pany for months. Was anybody agoing to be
shut up in bedroom with such nights out of
doors! Was anybody going to be dull and abb
stinent with such merry people or French
breakfast or tempting dinner on the table!
/ reached home in July, thoroughly prostra-
ted, and in the opinion Of one or two physi-
clans, hopeless case. Coughing almost the
whole of every night, and raising blood as fast
as my system could make it, / had no rest and
no strength. fingered through the summer,
and, as the autumn came on, and the winter
was to be faced, sat down and took fair
look at the probabilities. With details uf this
troubled council of war, will not detain you !;
but, after an unfinching determination,
came to the conclusion that was, myself, the
careless and indOlent neutralizer of the medi-
cines which had failed to cure me-that one
wrong morsel of food or one days partially
neglected exercise might put back weeks
healing-and that, by slight omissions of at
tention, occasional breaking of regimen, and
much too effeminate habits, was untrue to
the trust which Gray, my friend and physi-
clan, had made the ground of his prescriptions
And to a minutely persevering change in these
comparative trifes, owe, believe, my res
toration to health. There was not a day of
the succeeding winter, however cold or wet,
in which did not ride eight or ten miles on
horseback. With five or six men, was for
the most of the remaining hours of the day;
out of doors, laboring at the roads and clear
ings of my present home. The cottage of
Idlewild was then unbuilt, and the neighbor.
ing farmhouse where we boarded was, Of
course, indifferently warmed but, by suffer
ing no state of the thermometer to interrupt
the morning cold bath, and the previous fric-
ton with fesh-brushes, which makes the wa
comparatively independent Of the temperature
in doors, as my horse and axe made me ihde-
pendent of it when out of DOORS With proper
clothing to resist cold or wet, / found, Ito my
surprlse) that there was no such thing as dis
agreeable weather to be felt in the saddle; and,
when drive in wagon or carriage would
have intolerably irritated my cough, could
be all day in the woods with an axe, my lungs
as quiet as child's.
With all this-and looking like the ruddiest
specimen Of health in the country round about
Il am still, troubled occasionally with my
sleep-robber of cough; and, in Boston, the
other day, on breathing that essence of pep
per and icicles which they call their East
Wind was seized with the old hemorrhage
of the lungs and bled myself weak again.
But rallied Immediately on returning to this
Highland air, and well once more-as well,
that is to say, as is consistent with desirable
nervous susceptibility. The kiss of the deli
cious South Wind of to-day would be half lost
upon the cheek Of perfect health.
fear cannot sufficiently convey to you my
sense Of the Importance of horse to an inva-
lid. In my well-weighed opinion, ten miles
day in the saddle would cure more desperate
cases, particularly Of consumption, than all
the changes Of climate and all the medicine in
tho vUnrld II ia ti0urnns oxorciso xv;tho,,4 &,