Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1854-01-07
,,TIlE ART OF RESTORING HEALTH.

In the last of the Home journal is a letter
from n. p Wills in answer to another from fres-
byterian Clergyman of consumptiye habit, who has
tried travelling at thessouth without any essential
benefit, who lives in home but moderately warm,
with carefully adjusted temperature and thor
ough yentlation reInainin without doors most OF
the time, with regular exercise, and IN favorable
weather taking in the course of the day,Na brisk
walk of half mile. With all this care he does not
get well, and enquiries what method Mr.. Willis has
pursued that he is no longer to be classed among
the consumptives.
The answer lays down admirable method for
the recovery of health in those cases where there is
yet in the constitution sufficient strength to build
upon that we copy it entire. We must remember,
however, that the writer has possibly made too lit
tie allowance for the effect of change OF air IN re-
moving from the sea coast to region beyond the
Highlands:
1.-THE politicians teach us how to treat disease,
think. They do not try to e0nrert the opposing
party. They content if they can Keep ~ IN Me
in0rity-sure that it will tire, III tme OF It's want
of power, change Sides disappear. The patient
who troubles himself least about his disease, or who
leaves entirely to his DOCTOR but who pcrseyclng
ly Outrotes it by the high condition of the OTHER ors
of his SYSTEM is the keest to recover-and 1T 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, per-
haps arc subjects for precisely the same medical
treatment or diseased in precisely the locality
though all called 'consumptivcs.' Our friends,
the physicians, better geographers than we, as
to where the healing is wanted-thouSh they strange
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 particu
lar inquiry into this. But, few sick men are wise,
or frl-mnded enough to be safely trusted with their
own general condition; and |, for one, came very
near dying-not Of my disease, but of what my doc
tors took for granted.
TO leave generalities, however, and come to the
personal experience which you ask for:
| went to the Tropics last hope to cure
chronic cough and blood-raisng which had brought
mo to the borders of the grave. | found climate
in which it is hard to be unhappy about anything
charming to live at al-easy to die Cat least those
who were of dying, and did dic-and in whose
inscparable company thought was-were Social
and Joyous to the last) The atmosphere of that
Eden-atitude however, is but pain-stlling opiatc
while the equator might be called kitchen-range
for Sartanapalus and the Antilles but tables
loaded with luxures. The Caribbean Sea is the
kingdom of the present moment The past and the
future are its Arctic and Antarctic-unthought Of
except by desperate explorers Iither are sent in
valids, with weakened resolution, to make Pilgrim
age with prescription and prudence You may see
by the book have just published, Qeath-trip to
the Tropics) with what complete forgetfulness of
care or caution made one of an invalid company
for months. Was anybody going to be shut up in
bedroom with such nights out of doors? Was any
body going to be dull and abstinent with such mer-
ry people, and French breakfast or tempting din
ner the table?
reached home in July, thoroughly Frustrated,
and in the opinion of one or two physicians, hope
less Coughing almost the whole of every
night, and raising blood fast my system would
make it. had no rest and no strength. / fingered
through the summer, and, as the autumn came on,
and the winter to be faced, sat down and took
a far look at the probabilities. With the details of
this troubled council of war, l will not detain YOU
but after unflnching determination came to
the conclusion that was, myself the careless and
intloent ncutraliZcr of the medicines which had
failed to cure me-tiat one wrong morscl of food
days partially elected exercise might put back
a weeks hcaling-and that, by slight omissions of
attention, occasional breaking of regimen, and much
too etfeminate habits, l was untrue to the trust
which Gray, my friend and physician, had made the
ground of his prescriptions. And to infinitely
persevering change in these comparative trihes, |
owe believe my restoration to health There was
not day of the succeeding winter. however cold
wet, in which did not ride eight ten miles, on |
horseback With five or six men, 1 was for most |
of the remaining hours of the day. out of DOORS Ia
boring at the roads and ceanngs of my present |
home The cottage of Ilewid was then uuG;,ilt |
and the neighboring farm house, where boarded,
was, OF course, indiffercnty warmed; but by suf- |
ering state of the thermometer to interrupt the
morning cold bath, and the previous friction with
which makes the water agreeable as
n summer, soon became comparatively independ-
mt of the temperature an doors, as my horse and
Ike made me independent of it out of DOORS With
proper clothing to resist cod wet found (to my
urprisc) that there was no such thing dsagreea-
Die weather to be felt in the saddle; and when a
lrive i'll wagon or carriage would have ntolerably
rritated my cough, could be all day in the woods
With an axe my lungs quiet chd's
With all this-and looking like the ruddicst spec-
neh of health in the country round about am
till you will be coInforted to hear troubled occa
ionally with my slcep-robber of cough; and in
Boston, the other day, on breathing the essence of
copper and iccles which they call their "cast
vinds,' seized with the old hemorrhage of
he lungs and bled myself weak again. But raj
led immediately on returning to this Highland air,
nd well once more-as WELL that is to say as is
consistent with desirable nervous susceptibility The
ss of the delicious south wind of to-day (Novem-
er 3) would be half lost upon the check of perfect
lealth.
1 fear I cannot sufficiently convey to you my
ense of the Importance of q horse, to invalid In
ny wel-weighed opinion, ten miles day in the
addle would cure more desperate cases, particular
Y of consumpton,) than all the changes of climate
nd all the medicines in the world. It is vigorous
xercise without fatigue. The peculiar motion eff
lngs, on the wntriest day. The torpid liver and
thcr internal organs are more shaken up and vivi-
ed by the trot of q mile than by week of feeble
alking. The horse (and you should own and love
inn is company enough and not too much. Your
pirits are irresistbly enlivened by the change of
lovement and the control of the animal Your
ense of strength and activity, Gin which lies half
ne selt-confidcnce as to getting we'll which the doc
'r thinks so importantly is plus one horse. With
he difference from walking, to pulling upon the
'rces OF the spine and consequently upon the BRAIN
is recommended by the. best English physicians as
luch the preferable exercise for of intellectual
ursuits. And last q think not east,) the lungs
onsciousness of inhabitng larger space-by hay
n q nCrQ r1fh ar