Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-10-07
Feelings of a Yellow Fever Pa
1ient.

1fent.
The Ne,o Orleans Bulletin say the follow
ing was written by yellow fever patient
on the fifth day after being taken sick. The
labor of writing it caused a relapse, which
came very near costing his life: eo ~
The writer of this has had glimpse OF
Purgatory, and the way it came to pass
was this: Tuesday morning. yellow
Jack" o-called, introduced himself un-
tremendously and at once proceeded to
break every bone in this poor subjects
body. He was left helpless and prostrated
Now appeared an army of little devils, who
commenced prowling, prodding and dig
glng To satisfy themselves that not bone
was left unbroken. But in spite of all the
devils, the skull remained unbroken. They
made detail to keep continually beating Y
the subject on the top of the head and
downward toward the neck. Then they
had kind of Greek fire, which at regular
intervals they poured down the spine of
the subject.
10 Having arranged all these preliminaries,
they, of course, thought they had him dead.
Now they commenced curious game: all
would whirl around, then stop all of sud-
den and play with some strange devices,
that were not cards nor dice yet some
thing of the sort. The subject watched this
game with intense interest, so much so that
he almost forgot his broken bones and un-
hinged joints. Thus, his mind and his
spirits and the game went spinning along
together till about dark, when a servant
entered and asked if the subject was sick
He rather thought he was.
A delegation of neighbors now crowded
around the bed to learn how the sick man
felt. He endeavored briefly to convey some
idea of his feelings. One of those present
asked if he would take preparation to
check the fever. He answered he might,
w aoln o,,,;
nine. No, it was a homeopathic remedy.
Well, the subject had no objection. Soon
after a physician made his appearance
looked rather serious, gave his Instructions,
and told the subject to quench his thirst
with almost any decent drink. Now he
happened to be always thirsty, tried citrate
of magnesia for a while, but soon grew dis
gusted with it, then tried lemonade, but
with no better success. The novel idea
struck him to try pure cold water, and it
turned out to be exactly the thing.
The physician continued his visits, and
would announce from day to day, with a
curious air, that the patient was better. In
the meantime, when not interrupted the
subject and the spirits and the curious
game played by the latter, went swimming
along together as much so as on the first
day, but gradually the host grew smaller !;
some of the spirits seemed to have urgent
business elsewhere, others Jagged, and all
that ran around grew more and more care
less. But just in exact proportion the
subject grew more and more powerfully
weak =" Thursday morning he was all
powerfully weak; the spirits had all left
but two, one rested on each eyelid. With
kick and snort the subject flung back
the bed cover, landed on the floor, and said,
" / amt dead yet"
With the assistance of nurse of whose
existence the subject now became aware,
he found his way back to bed again. Fri
day morning he found himself so power
fully weak that he did not feel able to raise
a finger. The doctor came and looked
rather more pleasant than usual; said that
everybody had expected the subject to die,
but. confined he, "You are not going to
die; you'll be out in few days"
"A brilliant idea struck the subject, and
summoning all his strength, he raised
himself on his launches, and told the doc
tor he would like to have something to eat.
The doctor suggested that the subject
might drink cup of coffee with boiled
milk. Would a duck swim? The coffee
was well made and drank, and the patient
gained strength enough to attempt to write
this. which he managed to do by eight hours
hard work, lying on his back, and holding
his pencil in one hand and his paper in the
other. And the patient still lives.