my physician never said that I was poisoned by the corrosive sublimate, probably for the two following reasons: 1, I never made the inquiry. 2, He would probably have ascribed the disease to taking cold rather than to the mercury, had I inquired. I do not believe I took cold, however. How it came to affect me so unfavorably I never knew with certainty; but that it was the medicine that did the mischief I never for one moment doubted. I suppose it was absorbed; but of the manner of its introduction to the system I am less certain than of the fact itself.
But besides the absorption of the corrosive sublimate into the system, and its consequences – a terrible caution to those who are wont to apply salves, ointments, washes, etc., to the surface of the body unauthorized – I learned another highly important lesson from this circumstance. Active medicines, as I saw more plainly than ever before, are as a sword with two edges. If they do not cut in the right direction, they are almost sure to cut in the wrong.
I must not close, however, without telling you a little more about the treatment of my disease. After I had left my school and had arrived at home, a solution of sugar of lead was ordered in the very coldest water. With this, through the intervention of layers of linen cloth, I was directed to keep my head constantly moistened. Its object, doubtless, was to check the inflammation, which had become exceedingly violent. Why the sugar of lead itself was not absorbed, thus adding poison to poison, is to me inconceivable. Perhaps it was so; and yet, such was the force of my constitution, feeble though it was, that I recovered in spite of both poisons. Or, what is more probable, perhaps the lead, if absorbed at all, did not produce its effects till the effects of the corrosive sublimate were on the wane; so that the living system was only necessitated to war with one poison at a time. Mankind are made to live, at least till they are worn out; and it is not always easy to poison a person to death, if we would. In other words, human nature is tough.
Now I do not know, by the way, that any one but myself ever suspected, even for one moment, that this attack of erysipelas was caused by the corrosive sublimate. But could I avoid such a conclusion? Was it a hasty or forced one? Judge, then, whether it was not perfectly natural that I should be led by such an unfortunate adventure to turn my attention more than ever to the subject of preserving and promoting health.
For if our family physician – cautious and judicious as in general he was – had been the unintentional cause of a severe attack from a violent and dangerous disease, which had come very near destroying my life, what blunders might not be expected from the less careful and cautious man, especially the beginner in medicine? And if medical men, old and young, scientific as well as unscientific, make occasional blunders, how much more frequently the mass of mankind, who, in their supposed knowledge of their own constitutions and those of their families, are frequently found dosing and drugging themselves and others?
I do not mean to say that in the incipiency of my observations and inquiries my mind was mature enough – well educated enough, I mean – to pursue exactly the foregoing train of thought; but there was certainly a tendency that way, as will be seen more fully in the next chapter. The spell at least was broken, and I saw plainly that if "died by the visitation of God" never means any thing, it generally does not. And as it turned out that the further I pushed my inquiries the more I found that diseases were caused by transgression of physical and moral law, and hence not uncontrollable, why should it not be so, still farther on, in the great world of facts which I had not yet penetrated?
CHAPTER XIV
STUDYING MEDICINE
My thoughts were now directed with considerable earnestness and seriousness, to the study of medicine. It is true that I was already in the twenty-fourth year of my age, and that the statute law of the State in which I was a resident required three years of study before receiving a license to practise medicine and surgery, and I should hence be in my twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year before I could enter actively and responsibly upon the duties of my profession, which would be rather late in life. Besides, I had become quite enamored of another profession, much better adapted to my slender pecuniary means than the study of a new one.
However, I revolved the subject in my mind, till at length, as I thought, I saw my path clearly. It was my undoubted duty to pursue the study of medicine. Still, there were difficulties which to any but men of decision of character were not easily got removed. Shall I tell you how they were gradually and successfully overcome?
Our family physician had an old skeleton, and a small volume of anatomy by Cheselden, as well as a somewhat more extended British work on anatomy and physiology; all these he kindly offered to lend me. Then he would permit me to study with him, or at least occasionally recite to him, which would answer the letter of the law. Then, again, I could, during the winter of each year of study except the last, teach school, and thus add to my pecuniary means of support. And lastly, my father would board me whenever I was not teaching, and on as long a credit as I desired. Were not, then, all my difficulties practically overcome, at least prospectively?
It was early in the spring of the year 1822 that I carried to my father's house an old dirty skeleton and some musty books, and commenced the study of medicine and surgery, or at least of those studies which are deemed a necessary preparation. It was rather dry business at first, but I soon became very much interested in the study of physiology, and made considerable progress. My connection with our physician proved to be merely nominal, as I seldom found him ready to hear a recitation. Besides, my course of study was rather desultory, not to say irregular.
In the autumn of 1824, having occasion to teach school at such a distance as rendered it almost impracticable for me to continue my former connection as a student, I made arrangements for studying with another physician on terms not unlike those in the former case. My new teacher, however, occasionally heard me recite, especially in what is properly called the practice of medicine and in surgery. His instructions, though very infrequent, were of service to me.
In 1825 I became a boarder in his family, where I remained about a year. Here I had an opportunity to consult and even study the various standard authors in the several departments which are usually regarded as belonging to a course of medical study. So that if I was not in due time properly qualified to "practise medicine and surgery in this or any other country," the fault was chiefly my own.
However, in the spring of 1825, after I had attended a five months' course of lectures in one of the most famous medical colleges of the Northern States, I was regularly examined and duly licensed. How well qualified I was supposed to be, did not exactly appear. It was marvellous that I succeeded at all, for I had labored much on the farm during the three years, taught school every winter and two summers, had two or three seasons of sickness, besides a severe attack of influenza (this, you know, is not regarded as a disease by many) while attending lectures, which confined me a week or more. And yet one of my fellow students, who was present at the examination, laughed at my studied accuracy!
One word about my thesis, or dissertation. It was customary at the college where I heard lectures – as it probably is at all others of the kind – to require each candidate for medical license to read before the board, prior to his examination, an original dissertation on some topic connected with his professional studies. The topic I selected was pulmonary consumption; especially, the means of preventing it. It was, as may be conjectured, a slight departure from the ordinary routine, but was characteristic of the writer's mind, prevention being then, as it still is, and probably always will be, with him a favorite idea. I go so far, even, as to insist that it should be the favorite idea of every medical man, from the beginning to the end of his career. "The best part of the medical art is the art of avoiding pain," was the motto for many years of the Boston Medical Intelligencer; and it embraced a most important truth. When will it be fully and practically received?
But I must recapitulate a little; or rather, I must go back and give the reader a few chapters of incidents which occurred while I was a student under Dr. W., my second and principal teacher. I will however study brevity
