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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    Disease first began to develop itself in my lungs in 1842, by a cough, and the usual attending symptoms of decline in strength and flesh, pain about the region of the chest, through the shoulders, and under the shoulder-blades. The dis- ease continued slowly, but steadily and obstinately, to progress. The best med- ical advice and assistance I could get appeared to oppose no check to it. By the year 1845 I had become very feeble, coughed much, expectorated largely, with all the ordinary indications of diseased and wasting lungs. During the last- named year, a new feature presented itself: a large abscess gathered in the left side and broke, discharging a great quantity of thick matter, resembling very much that which I coughed up. This discharge continued until I called on you in 1847. It proved to proceed from a cavity in the lungs. Ulcerous and tuberculous cheesy matter was discharged ; but what showed conclusively that the opening was into the substance of the lungs was, that the air passed out from the lungs through the abscess. I could, and did frequently, blow out a lighted candle by placing it before the opening, and making a sudden effort at expiration. Here was positive proof that extensive ulceration, involving the substance of the lungs, was going on. All my symptoms indicated consumption—cough, expectoration, great debility and emaciation, distress for breath, hectic fever, night-sweats, &c. My friends and my physicians regarded me as certainly doomed to the grave, by the disease which was on me, as though I had been already in my coffin. This was my apparently hopeless condition when, in January, 1847. I most fortunately applied to you. I did so with very little hope of relief. You your- self did not express a very confident hope that you could rescue me from the grasp of a disease so firmly fastened, but still encouraged me by saying that you thought it possible I might be cured if I adopted and faithfully pursued your treatment. I did so, and with gratitude to God for his blessing upon the means you employed, and with gratitude to you for your skill and kindness in treating me, I can say that I have been in the enjoyment of good health for the last foui or five years. I pursue my ordinary business, have no cough, no pain, have my usual flesh, and nearly my usual strength. I do not suppose that I am as strong as I would be with lungs that had never been diseased. The front lobe of the left lung is nearly all gone. My case may appear almost incredible to those who regard seated consump- tion as incurable. But if the skeptical will write or call on me at Tarrytown, N. Y., I can, I think, convince them that at least one such case has been cured by your admirable treatment. With the sincere wish that others similarly afflicted may apply to you and find relief, I am most gratefully yours, Cornelius De Beveke. [Mr. De Severe now (1857) resides at Sing Sing, N. Y., in the enjoyment of good health.] ADVANCED HEREDITARY CONSUMPTION CURED. Case III.—Narrative of Rev. Rodolphus Bard. _ Eavknna, Ohio, October, 1S50. Dr. S. S. Fitch : Dear Sir,—In looking over the history of the last two years of my life, I am filled with gratitude to God for his great goodness in so far restoring my health, and giving me back to my family, after all hope had fled, and they could only look at me as already entering the grave. It has ever been to me a self-evident truth that the all-wise Creator always works by means, and it gives me great- pleasure, my dear sir, to say that your remedies for the cure of consumption were the means, the only means, of my recovery, as will more fully appear by the following statement of my case. First, my family nearly all consumptive—my mother, brother, and also a large number of other relatives, died of consumption. From my childhood my constitution was slender, and for the last twenty-five years regarded by all my