CHAPTER XIII.
The "Fev-Nag."--Conflicting Theories.--"Oxergin and Hydergin."--Teazle's Rationale.--The Scourge of the West.--Sile Bates, and his Condition.--Squire Longbow and Jim Buzzard.--Puddleford Prostrate.--Various Practitioners.--"The Billerous Duck."--Pioneer Martyrs.--Wave over Wave.
During my first fall's residence at Puddleford, I frequently heard acharacter spoken of, who seemed to be full as famous in the annals of theplace as Squire Longbow himself. He was called by a great variety of names,and very seldom alluded to with respect. He was termed the "Fev-Nag," the"Ag-an-Fev," the "Shakin' Ager," the "Shakes," and a great variety of otherhard names were visited upon him.
That he was the greatest scourge Puddleford had to contend with, no onedenied. Who he really was, what he was, where born, and for what purpose,was a question. Dobbs had one theory, Short another, and Teazle stillanother. Dr. Dobbs said "that his appearance must be accounted for in thiswise--that the marshes were all covered with water in the spring, that thesun began to grow so all-fir'd hot 'long 'bout July and August, that itcream'd over the water with a green scum, and rotted the grass, and thisall got stewed inter a morning fog, that rose up and elated itself amongthe Ox-er-gin and Hy-der-gin, and pizened everybody it touched."
Dr. Dobbs delivered this opinion at the public house, in a very oracularstyle. I noticed several Puddlefordians in his presence at the time, andbefore he closed, their jaws dropped, and their gaping mouths and expandedeyes were fixed upon him with wonder.
Dr. Teazle declared that "Dobbs didn't know anything about it. He said theager was buried up in the airth, and that when the sile was turned up, itgot loose, and folks breath'd it into their lungs, and from the lungs itwent into the liver, and from the liver it went to the kidneys, and thesecretions got fuzzled up, and the bile turn'd black, and the blood didn'trun, and it set everybody's inards all a-tremblin'."
Without attempting the origin of the ague and fever, it was, and always hasbeen, the scourge of the West. It is the foe that the West has ever had tocontend with. It delays improvement, saps constitutions, shatters the wholeman, and lays the foundation for innumerable diseases that follow andfinish the work for the grave. It is not only ague and fever that soseriously prostrates the pioneer, but the whole family of intermittent andremittent fevers, all results of the same cause, press in to destroy.Perhaps no one evil is so much dreaded. Labor, privation, poverty, arenothing in comparison. It is, of course, fought in a great variety of ways,and the remedies are as numerous as they are ridiculous. A physician who isreally skilful in the treatment of these diseases is, of course, on theroad to wealth, but skilful physicians were not frequent in Puddleford, asthe reader has probably discovered.
I recollect that, during the months of September and October, subsequentlyto my arrival, all Puddleford was "down," to use the expression of thecountry; and if the reader will bear with me, and pledge himself not toaccuse me of trifling with so serious a subject, I will endeavor todescribe Puddleford "in distress."
I will premise by saying that it is expected that persons who are on theirfeet during these visitations, give up their time and means to those whoare not. There is a nobleness of soul in a western community in thisrespect that does honor to human nature. A village is one greatfamily--every member must be provided for--old grudges are, for the time,buried.
I have now a very vivid remembrance of seeing Sile Bates, one brightOctober morning, walking through the main street of Puddleford, at the paceof a funeral procession, his old winter overcoat on, and a faded shawl tiedabout his cheeks. Sile informed me "that he believed the ager was comin'on-ter him--that he had a spell on't the day before, and the day beforethat--that he had been a-stewin' up things to break the fits, and clean outhis constitution, but it stuck to him like death on-ter a nigger"--he said"his woman and two boys were shakin' like all possess't, and he raillybelieved if somebody didn't stop it, the log-cabin would tumble down roundtheir ears." He said "there warn't nobody to do nuthin' 'bout house, andthat all the neighbors were worse off than he was."
Sile was a melancholy object indeed. And in all conscience, reader, did youever behold so solemn, woe-begone a thing on the round earth, as a manundergoing the full merits of ague and fever? Sile sat down on a barrel andcommenced gaping and stretching, and now and then dropped a remarkexpressive of his condition. He finally began to chatter, and the more hechattered, the more ferocious he waxed. He swore "that if he ever got well,he'd burn his house, sell his traps, 'bandon his land, pile his family intohis cart, hitch on his oxen, and drive 'em, and drive 'em to the northpole, where there warn't no ager, he knew. One minit," he said, "he wasa-freezin', and then he was a-burnin', and then he was a-sweatin' to death,and then he had a well day, and that didn't 'mount to nothin', for thecritter was only gettin' strength to jump on him agin the next." Sile atlast exhausted himself, and getting upon his feet, went off muttering andshaking towards his house.
The next man I met was Squire Longbow. The Squire was moving slower, ifpossible, than Bates. His face looked as if it had been just turned out ofyellow oak, and his eyes were as yellow as his face. As the Squire neversurrendered to anything, I found him not disposed to surrender to ague andfever. He said "he'd only had a little brush, but he'd knock it out on-himin a day or two. He was jist goin' out to scrape some elder bark _up_, toact as an emetic, as Aunt Sonora said if he scraped it _down_, it wouldhave t'other effect--and that would kill it as dead as a door-nail."
I soon overhauled Jim Buzzard, lying half asleep in the bottom of hiscanoe, brushing off flies with an oak branch. Jim, too, was a case, but itrequired something more than sickness to disturb his equilibrium. Jim said"he warn't sick, but he felt the awfulest tired any dog ever did--he wasthe all-thunderest cold, t'other day, _he_ ever was in hotweather--somethin' 'nother came on ter him all of a suddint, and set hisknees all goin', and his jaws a quiv'rin', and so he li'd down inter thesun, but the more he li'd, the more he kept on a shakin', and then thatare all went off agin, and he'd be darned to gracious if he didn't thinkhe'd burn up--and so he just jumped inter the river, and cool'd off--and,now he feel'd jist so agin--and so he'd got where the sun could strike hima little harder this time. What shall a feller do?" at last inquired Jim.
"Take medicine," said I.
"Not by a jug-full," said Jim. "Them are doctors don't get any of theirstuff down my throat. If I can't stand it as long as the ager, then I'llgive in. Let-er-shake if it warnts to--it works harder than I do, and willget tir'd byme-by. Have you a little plug by-yer jest now, as I haven't hada chew sin' morning, as it may help a feller some?" Jim took the tobacco,rolled over in his canoe, gave a grunt, and composed himself for sleep.
This portrait of Buzzard would not be ludicrous, if it was not true.Whether Socrates or Plato, or any other heathen philosopher, has everattempted to define this kind of happiness, is more than I can say. Infact, reader, I do not believe that there was one real Jim Buzzard in thewhole Grecian republic.
But why speak of individual cases? Nearly all Puddleford wasprostrate--man, woman, and child. There were a few exceptions, and the aidof those few was nothing compared to the great demand of the sick. It wasprovidential that the nature of the disease admitted of one well day,because there was an opportunity to "exchange works," and the sick ofto-day could assist the sick of to-morrow, and so _vice versa_.
I looked through the sick families, and found the patients in allconditions. One lady had "just broke the ager on-ter her by sax-fax tea,mix'd with Colombo." Another "had been a-tryin' eli-cum-paine and pop'larbark, but it didn't lie good on her stomach, and made her enymost crazy."Another woman was "so as to be crawlin'"--another was "getting quitepeert"--another "couldn't keep anything down, she felt so qualmly"--anothersaid, "the disease was runnin' her right inter the black janders, and thenshe _was_ gone"--another had "run clear of yesterday's chill, and was nowgoin' to weather it;" and so on, through scores of cases.
It is worthy of note, the popular opinion o
f the character of this disease.Although Puddleford had been afflicted with it for years, yet it was nobetter understood by the mass of community than it was at first. I havealready given the opinion of Dobbs and Teazle of the _causes_ of the ague;but as Dobbs and Teazle held entirely different theories, Puddleford wasnot much enlightened by their wisdom. (If some friend will inform me whenand where any community was ever enlightened by the _united_ opinion of itsphysicians, I will publish it in my next work.) Aunt Sonora had a theorywhich was a little old, but it was hers, and she had a right to it. Shesaid "nobody on airth could live with a stomach full of bile, and when theshakin' ager come on, you'd jest got-ter go to work and get off all thebile--bile _was_ the ager, and physicians might talk to her till she wasgray 'bout well folks having bile--she know'd better--twarn't no suchthing."
Now Aunt Sonora practised upon this theory, and the excellent old ladyadministered a cart-load of boneset every season--blows to elevate thebile, and the leaf as a tonic. However erroneous her theory might havebeen, I am bound to say that her practice was about as successful as thatof the regular physician.
Mr. Beagle declared "that the ager was in the blood, and the patient mustfirst get rid of all his bad blood, and then the ager would go along withit." Swipes said "it was all in the stomach." Dobbs said "the billerousduck chok'd up with the mash fogs, and the secretions went every which way,and the liver got as hard as sole-leather, and the patient becom' sick, andthe ager set in, and then the fever, and the hull system got-er goin'wrong, and if it warn't stopped, natur'd give out, and the man would die."Teazle said "it com'd from the plough'd earth, and got inter the air, andjist so long as folks breath'd agery air, jist so long they'd have theager." Turtle said "the whole tribe on 'em, men-doctors and women-doctors,were blockheads, and the surest way to get rid of the ager, was to let itrun, and when it had run itself out, it would stop, and not 'afore."
Here, then, was Puddleford at the mercy of a dozen theories, and yet menand women recovered, when the season had run its course, and were tolerablysure of health, until another year brought around another instalment ofmiasma.
How many crops of men have been swept off by the malaria of every newwestern country, I will not attempt to calculate! How many, few personshave ever attempted! This item very seldom goes into the cost ofcolonization. Pioneers are martyrs in a sublime sense, and it is over theirbones that school-houses, churches, colleges, learning, and refinement arefinally planted. But the death of a pioneer is a matter of no moment inour country--it is almost as trifling a thing as the death of a soldier inan Indian fight. There is no glory to be won on any such field. Onegeneration rides over another, like waves over waves, and "no suchmiserable interrogatory," as Where has it gone? or How did it go? is put;but What did it do?--What has it left behind?
Any one who has long been a resident in the West, must have noticed theoperation of climate upon the constitution. The man from the New Englandmountains, with sinews of steel, soon finds himself flagging amid westernmiasma, and a kind of stupidity creeps over him, that it is impossible toshake off. The system grows torpid, the energies die, indifference takespossession, and thus he vegetates--he does not live.
And, dear reader, it does not lighten the gloom of the picture to findDobbs, and Teazle, and Short, quarrelling over the remains of some departedone, endeavoring to delude the public into something themselves have noconception of, about the manner in which he or she went out of the world.Not that all the physicians are Dobbses or Teazles, but these sketches arewritten away out on the rim of society, the rim of western society, wherethe townships are not yet all organized, and a sacred regard to truthcompels me to record facts as they exist.