any confessions to be made in which I have a
personal concern and responsibility, and, as you may perhaps conclude,
no small share of downright culpability.

CHAPTER XI.

PHYSICKING OFF FEVER.

The eyes of my mind having just begun to be opened to the impotence of a
mere routine of medication as a _substitute for nature_, rather than _as
an aid to her enfeebled efforts_, I was prepared to make a wise use of
other facts that came before me, especially those in which I had a
personal concern and interest. Here is one of this description.

On the morning of March 12, 1821, during the very period when I was
watching over my sick friend, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, I
took from the post-office a letter with a black seal. It contained the
distressing intelligence of the death of a much-valued sister and her
husband, both of whom, but a few months before, I had left in apparently
perfect health.

On a careful inquiry into the particulars, both by letter and, after my
return, in other ways, I learned that the Connecticut River fever, as it
was then and there called, having carried off several persons who were
residing in the same house with my brother, the survivors were advised
to do something to prevent the germination and development of such seeds
of the disease as were supposed to be in their bodies and ready to burst
forth into action. I do not know that any medical man encouraged this
notion, the offspring of ignorance and superstition; but my brother and
his wife had somehow or other imbibed it, and they governed themselves
accordingly.

Both of them took medicine--moderate cathartics--till they thought they
had physicked off the disease; and all seemed, for a time, to be well,
except that they complained still of great weakness and debility. It was
not long, however, before they were both taken with the disease and
perished; my brother in a very short time, and my sister more slowly.

My sister, on being taken ill, had been removed to the house of her
mother, in the hope that a change of air might do something for her; but
all in vain. My mother and a few other friends who were with them as
assistants sickened, but they all ultimately recovered. They, however,
took no medicine by way of prevention.

Now I do not presume to say, that my young friends were destroyed solely
by medicine, for the assertion would be unwarranted. I only state the
facts, and tell you what my convictions then were, and