Year: 1867

1aEAGhls


The New Orleans Bulletin says the
following was written by a Yellow
Fever patient on the fifth day after
being taken sick. The labor of wri-
ting it..caused relapse, which came
very near costing his life


The writer of this has had glimpse
of purgatory, and the way it came to
pass was this Tuesday morning,
yellow Jack, so called, introduced
himself uuceremoniously and at once
proceeded to break every bone in this
poor subjects body. He was left
helpless and Frustrated. Now ap~
peared an army of little devils, who
commenced prowliug, prodding and
digging to satisfy themselves that not
bone was left unbroken. But in
spite of all the devils the skull rc~
mained uubroken, They made de.
tail to keep continually beating the
subject on the top of the head and
downward toword the neck. Then
they had kind of Greek fire, which,
at regular intervals, they poured down
the spine of the subject.


Having arranged all these prelimi,
naries, they of course thought they
had him dead Now they commenced
a curious game all would whirl
around, then stop all of sudden and
play with some strange devices, that
were not cards or dice, yet some of
the sort. The subject watched this
game with intense interest, so much
so that he almost forgot his broken
bones and unhinged 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 cndeavorod to
briefly convey some idea of his feel
ings. One of those present asked if he
would take a preparation to check the
fever, He answered he might, pro-
vided it was neither calomel nor quiz
nine. No, it was a homeopathic rem
edy. Well, the subject had no OBJ
lection. Soon after physician made
his appearance, looked rather serious,
gave his instructions, and told the
subject to quench his thirst with al
most any decent drink. Now he hap
pened to be always thirsty, tried ci-
trate Of magnesia for awhile but soon
grew disguised with it, then tried lem
ouade, but with no better success,
The novel idea struck him to try pure
cold water, and it turned out to be ex-
actly the thing,


The physician continued his visits
and would announce from day to day
with curious air, that the patient
was better. Iu the meantime, wher
not interrupted, the subject and the
curious game played by the latter
went swimming along together a:
much so as on the first day, but grad.
ualIy the host grew smaller; some oi
the spirits seemed to have urgent bu
siness elsewhere, others Jagged, ant
all that ran around grew more anC
more careless. But just in exac


proportion, the subject grew more aut


more powerful weak" Thursday


morning he was all powerfully weak


the spirits had all left but two, ont
rested on each eyelid. With a kicl


and snort the subject flung back thu
bed cover, landed on the floor, anc


said, II amt dead yet"


With the assistance of nurse, o
whose existence the subject now be
came aware, he found his way back tt
bed again. Friday morning he founl


himself SO powerfully weak that h
did not feel able to raise finger
The doctor came and looked rathe
, more pleasant than usual said tha
everybody had expected the subjec


to die, but. continued he, "You ar
not going to die; you'll be out in
, few days


A brilliant idea struck the subject
and sommoning all his strength, b
raised himself on his launches, an,


told the doctor he would like to hay


something TO cat. The doctor sug


gested that the subject might drink
cup of coffee with boiled milk
G Would duck swim? The coffee wa
! we'll made and drank, and the patien
!, gained strength enough to attempt t
e write this, which he managed to d
/ by eight hours hard work, lying o
n his back, and holding his pencil i
t one hand aud his paper in the other
j. And the patient still lives.