A friendly letter of counsel and advice to consumptives and other invalids : also, prescriptions, with special directions for the cure of chills and fever / by S.S. Fitch.

  • Fitch, Samuel Sheldon, 1801-1876.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A friendly letter of counsel and advice to consumptives and other invalids : also, prescriptions, with special directions for the cure of chills and fever / by S.S. Fitch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    and became deeply interested in them, for I thought the arguments there used displayed more sound common-sense than I had ever seen before on that subject. The reading of the work kindled anew the flames of hope which had almost died within me ; and I determined to write to you, and, if encouraged, to submit my case to you. In the month of March or April of this year, I wrote to you, and received an encouraging reply. I then resolved to place myself under your care; and, not being able to visit you at that time, wrote you a detailed statement of the symptoms of my case, in answer to which you sent me a box of your medi- cines, together with a shoulder-brace and supporter, and an inhaling-tube for the purpose of expanding the lungs and filling them with air. Accompanying these was a letter containing directions for my guidance in the use of the medicines. From the time I commenced the use of these remedies, I commenced to gain flesh, and to feel as I had not done for years. The shoulder-brace and supporter I found every thing you indicated to me they would be. Prior to their use, after a day's writing I would feel so exhausted and weak as to unfit me totally for any kind of out-door service. After using them, I ascertained that I could perform the same amount of writing with one-half the fatigue and exhaustion which formerly accompanied me from my place of business. I have now been seven months under your care, and can assure you that during that time my health has been gradually but steadily improving ; and I am now in better health, can endure more fatigue, take more exercise, and enjoy life generally, better than I have been permitted to be or to do for many years. I know that, with a syrstem which has been so completely enfeebled and prostrated as mine has been, great care and caution will always be necessary auxiliaries to good health ; but with the use of your remedies, both medicinal and mechanical, and a perfect trust in that good and ever kind Providence which has thus far blessed the use of them to my good, I can look forward to the future, if not with pos- itive hope, at least with cheerfulness and contentment. I would not, on any account, be without jrour shoulder-brace and abdominal supporter, and your medicines.—I continue to use them, although there is no actual necessity for my doing so. Leaving you the permission to use this letter, or any part of it, in any way which may subserve your purposes, I am, my dear sir, very truly yours, Wm. Howell Bangs. [It was after Mr. Bangs had been some three months under my treatment, that I first saw him, and had an opportunity of examining his lungs. I found that both were tuberculated, and that one had been ulcerated, but was then healing. His disease was clearly true Tubercular Consumption, which must inevitably have gone steadily on to a fatal termination, if it had not been arrested by- timely remedies.] A REMARKABLE CASE OF CONSUMPTION. Case II.—Letter from C. De Revere, Esq., of Tarrytown, N. Y. Tarbttown, N. T., March 10, 1S54. Dr. S. S. Fitch : Dear Sir,—I feel it to be a duty I owe to yourself and the community, to- make a public acknowledgment of the fact that, under your treatment, by the blessing of God, I have been restored to comfortable health, after going down to the very borders of the grave with true pulmonary consumption. As I am informed by physicians, it is nearly or quite impossible to deter- mine, with absolute certainty, that any individual now in health ever had true consumption ; that although consumption may be curable, still the fact of such cure can only be established by a post-mortem examination of the lungs. This may in most cases be true, but it is not in my case as the circumstances which I will relate conclusively show. 3