child's eye swelled, and for a few days looked very badly; but after the lapse of about two weeks the little fellow seemed to be quite well; and so far as his eyes and brain are concerned, I believe he has been well to this time, a period of almost half a century.
Although we resided at a considerable distance from the village, and from any practising physician, there was near by a very aged and superannuated man, who had once been a medical practitioner. Our curiosity had been so much excited by the wonderful escape of the little boy from impending destruction, that we called on the venerable doctor and asked him whether it was possible for a knife to penetrate so far into the head without injuring the brain and producing some degree of inflammation. From Dr. C. we received a good deal of valuable information concerning the structure of the eye, the shape of the cavity in which it is placed, the structure and character of the brain, etc.
This was a great treat to me, I assure you. It added not a little to the interest which was imparted by his instructions when he showed us, from the relics of better days, some of the bones of the skull, especially those of the frontal region, in which the eye is situated. Of course the sight of a death's head, as we were inclined to call it, was at first frightful to us; but it was a feeling which in part soon passed away. It was a feeling, most certainly, which in me was not abiding at all. Indeed, as the title to the chapter would seem to imply, I received in this dispensation of Providence and its accompaniments my first medical lesson; though without the remotest thought, at the time, of any such thing. I was only indulging in a curiosity which was instinctive and intense, without dreaming of future consequences.
CHAPTER III.
THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE.
Two years after this, an aged man, a distant relation, came to reside in my father's family for a short time, and brought with him a small electrical machine. He was a person of some intelligence, had travelled much, and had been an officer in the army of the American Revolution. On the whole, he was just such a man as would be likely to become a favorite with children. He was, moreover, fully imbued with the expectation of being able to cure diseases by means of electricity; which in our neighborhood, at the least, was quite a novel, not to say a heterodox idea.
Curiosity alone had no small share of influence in bringing my mind to the study of electricity; but a general desire to understand the subject was greatly strengthened by the hope of being able to apply this wonderful agent in the cure of disease. One of the most interesting phases of Christianity is that the love and practice of healing the bodily maladies of mankind are almost always seen in the foreground of the New Testament representations of our Saviour's doings; and it is no wonder that a youth who reverences his Bible, and has a little benevolence, should entertain feelings like those above mentioned.
The owner of the machine had brought with him a book on the subject of curing by electricity. It was a volume of several hundred pages, and was written by T. Gale, of Northern New York. It had in it much that was mere theory, in a highly bombastic style; but it also professed to give with accuracy the details of many remarkable cures, in various forms and stages, of several difficult diseases; and some of these details I knew to be realities. One or two cases at or near Ballston Springs were those of persons of whom I had some knowledge; and one of them was a relative. This last circumstance, no doubt, had great influence on my mind.
As I had in those days some leisure for reading, and possessed very few books, I read—and not only read but studied—Dr. Gale's work from beginning to end. It is scarcely too much to say, that I read it till I knew it almost "by heart;" and my heart assented to it. I believed a new dispensation was at hand to bless the world of mankind; and what benevolence I had, began to be directed in this particular channel. I do not mean to say, that at twelve years of age I began to be a physician, for I do not now recollect that either our aged friend or myself ever had a patient during the whole year he remained with us.
Eight or ten subsequent years at the plough and hoe, and the absence of book, electrical machine, and owner, did much towards obliterating the impressions on this subject I had received. Still, I have no doubt that the affair as a whole had a tendency to lead my thoughts towards the study and practice of medicine, and even to inspire confidence in electricity as a curative agent. In other and fewer words, it was, as I believe, a part of my medical education.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MEASLES AND POURING DOWN RUM.
When I was about fourteen years of age, an event occurred which left a stronger impression on my mind than any of the foregoing; and hence in all probability did more to give my mind a medical bias and tendency.
It was in the month of August. My father, assisted by two or three of his neighbors, was mowing a swamp meadow. It was an unusually wet season, and the water in many places was several inches deep—in some few instances so deep that we were obliged to go continually with wet feet. To meet, and as it was by most people supposed to remove the danger of contracting disease, a bottle of rum was occasionally resorted to by the mowers, and offered to me; but at first I steadfastly refused it.
At length, however, I began to droop. A feverish feeling and great languor came over me, and I was hardly able to walk. I was not then aware, nor were my friends, that I had been exposed to the contagion of measles, and therefore was not expecting it. I spoke of my ill health, but was consoled with the answer that I should soon get over it. But no; I grew worse, very fast. "Turn down the rum," said one of the mowers, "if you mean to work." But I hesitated. I was not fond of rum at any time, and just now I felt a stronger disinclination to it than ever before. "Turn down the rum," was repeated by the mowers, from time to time, with increased emphasis.
At length wearied with their importunity; and, not over-willing to be the butt of their mirth and ridicule, I went to the spring, where the bottle of rum was kept, and, unperceived by any one, emptied a large portion of its contents on the ground. The mental agitation of temporary excitement dispelled in part my sufferings, and I proceeded once more to my work.
In a very short time my noisy alcoholic prescribers went to the spring to pour rum down their own throats. "What," said they, with much surprise, "has become of the rum?" "Have you drank it?" said they, turning to me. "Not a drop of it," I said. "But it is almost all gone," they said; "and it is a great mystery what has become of it." "The mystery is easily cleared up," I said; "you told me to turn it down, and I have done so."—"Told you to turn it down!" said one of them, the most noisy one; "I told you to drink it."—"No," said I, "you told me to turn it down; and I have poured it down—my part of it—at the foot of the stump. If you have forgotten your direction to turn it down, I appeal to two competent witnesses."
The joke passed off much better than I expected. For myself, however, I grew worse rapidly, and was soon sent home. My mother put me into bed, applied a bottle of hot water to my feet, and gave me hot drinks most liberally, and among the rest some "hot toddy." Her object was to sweat away a supposed attack of fever. Had she known it was measles that assailed me, or had she even suspected it, she would almost as soon have cut off her right hand as apply the sweating process. She would,
