The great sulphur cure brought to the test : and workings of the new curative machine proposed for human lungs and windpipes / Robert Pairman ; preface by J. Christison.

  • Pairman, Robert
Date:
1868
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The great sulphur cure brought to the test : and workings of the new curative machine proposed for human lungs and windpipes / Robert Pairman ; preface by J. Christison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    himself, he gulped dowa several mouthfuls with the gi'eatest ease! told me that the pain was almost if not entirely gone ! and imme- diately added, * Away, gudewife, and prepare some food ; I'm tremen- dous hungry !' I then told him to keep quiet in bed, and I would call at night to repeat the operation. On calling at night and looking into the bed, the bird had flown ; he was engaged in his office, sort- ing some letters ! I then asked his wife if his swallowing powers had managed a little arrow-root, or anything similar, since my last visit. Arrow-root! he had enjoyed two good hearty meals; one of them a minced collops dinner as usual. [Note.—Rev. Sir, in case you think me writing a sensation novel, please call at the office when that way, and ascertain for yourself that all this is strictly true. Were I writing a novel, I would never think of anything so extravagant.] Next morning he was so decidedly better, I did not think it neces- sary to repeat the operation ; told him all he would need was care and a dose of medicine. Even the size of the swelling had much de- clined, the internal irritation which had occasioned it being nearly removed. The weather being frosty at the time, and intensely cold, most unfortunately I carelessly neglected charging him to keep within doors; probably for the same reason as one might neglect to charge a fractured limb newly bandaged up, on no account to get up and dance a reel! This was all on Saturday morning. The next sight I saw of him was on that same evening, just at six o'clock, while beginning to get dark. On coming up from the ' Cadger Brig,' and walking fast to keep myself in heat (the night being bitterly and intensely cold), the Government gig goes whirring past me; and unless there was some great ocular delusion, to my great horror and amazement who was within it, but somebody (well wrapped up indeed, as the night and an open running blister obi the throat required) as like my patient himself as could possibly be I In vain did I hold up my fist, and shake it in his face in a threatening manner, as the most eloquent and telling mode of crying, ' Madman ! do you mean to kill yourself ?' Her Majesty's mail was not to be interrupted by any such foolish menaces. Nor is this the worst. That was defiance to frosty air the second. Unaware of the danger, and conscientiously desirous to do his duty to Government, he had, unknown to me, risked the same exploit in the morning between five and six. Observe, Reverend Sir, the asto- nishing nature of this exploit. On Friday at noon, an inflamed or ulcerated windpipe or pharynx, of two months' duration, had come to the climax already described. In exactly seventeen hours thereafter he begins his usual open-air occupation at five o'clock on a cold frosty morning, because (as he afterwards told me by way of apology) he thought he was almost completely better ! a feat of daring, though con- scientious, performance of duty, compared to which such paltry tricks as eating fire, or swallowing a huge naked sword (that used to make us stare so much of old) are perfect baubles. The fact that he ever thought of such a thing, says a great deal in favour of calling the Spray-producer a magical machine ; and the additional fact of his coming home alive, shows that human windpipes may not be such