Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders: Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged PhysicianAlcott, William A. (William Andrus)
Science
Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders: Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician
Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)
Medicine -- Anecdotes
Three months in the school-house found him worse than ever before. He
had attempted to board himself, to subsist on a very few ounces of
"Graham wafers" at each meal, and to be an hour in masticating it. As an
occasional compensation for this, however, a sort of _treating
resolution_, he allowed himself to pick up the crusts and other
fragments left about the school-house by his pupils, and when he had
collected quite a pile of these, to indulge his appetite with them, _ad
libitum_. Nor was this all. He erred in other particulars, perhaps in
many.
He came to my house a fourth time, but my situation was such that I
could not well receive him. He staid only a day or two, but his
residence with us was long enough to enable me to mark the progress of
his case, and to deplore what I feared must be the final issue. From me
he went to a friend in an adjoining State; not, however, till he had
alluded to certain errors of his recent life that he had not yet
devulged, even to his best friend. "Doctor," said he, "there are some
things that I have not yet told you about."
To me, also, it belongs, at this point of Gray's lamentable history, to
make confession of great and glaring error. To have received the young
man to my house, and to have devoted myself to the work of endeavoring
again to raise him, would, most undoubtedly, have been a sacrifice to
which few people in my circumstances would have thought themselves
called. Yet, difficult as it was, the sacrifice might have been made.
Had he been my only brother, I should, doubtless, have received him. The
Saviour of mankind, in my circumstances, would probably have taken him
in. Was I not his follower? And was I not bound to do what I believed he
would do, in similar circumstances?
His more distant friend, but more consistent Christian brother, opened
wide his doors for his reception, and did the best he could for him. It
was his intention, at first, to employ him, as I now think he ought to
have been employed long before; viz., on a small farm. In this point of
view this friend's house was particularly favorable. Yet there were
offsets to this advantage. One thing in particular, cast a shade upon
our efforts in his behalf. It was about April 1st, and the house and
farm had an eastern aspect, and the easterly winds, which at that season
so much prevailed, were very strong and surcharged with vapor at a low
temperature. For a few days after his arrival he was worse than ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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