USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 24
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His language, in bold contrast to his figure, was by that very comparison heightened in its magniloquence; we mean his medi- cal diction, for other he rarely indulged in, because language about common affairs was too small for his large utterance. His were lofty words, and demanded a lofty subject ; and that his profession was, and admitted an amazing technical grandiloquence. Pro- fessor Pillbox, M.D., was exactly one yard, one foot and ten inches-low. The Professor's horse, on the contrary, was re- markably high, large and spirited. When, therefore, the Pro- fessor was seated on his saddle, and safely ensconced between two hugeous leathern cartouch-boxes made for bottles, barks, lint, forceps, &c., and above all, for the pills and powders, and the like
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cartridges, for his principal execution, he seemed not dissimilar to a monkey-shaped excrescence growing to the back of the steed ! ' Now his modus loquendi was truly gigantic! and not only did he always spout forth the hardest technicalities, but even these laden with additimentalities and elongated elaborifications of sesqui- pedalia : which last he would freely have bought of us if not for silver, yet for trade and in exchange for what he always styled his "medicamentums !"
Poultices, with Professor Pillbox, were always cataplasms-and the patient who had only barked his shins, was always greatly ' terrified on hearing that "there was manifest symptomatic mani- festations through the outer exterior epidermis of his having in- fracted the tibia !"-for the poor wretch at once gave over his legs as ruined after that awful sentence on them! Doses of salts were never mixed with water and swallowed in our Professor's prac- tice, but he "prepared an aquatical solution of the sulphate of magnesia, and then-exhibited it!"-i. e. made the patient look at it before he drank. In this way the disagreeable taste was properly increased, and so, to speak in style, the "medicamentum seemed to act with still greater potential efficacity:"-for in- deed, some robustious stomachs out there that would never have budged at the plain dose, were pretty well stirred by "an aquatical solution !"-proving the virtue of words.
Our friend never bled a man-he only "opened a vein!"-nor did he ever feel a pulse without parading a huge silver watch, and seemingly, with the care-worn and ominous brow of Jupiter, (in Virgil,) to be counting the motions of the second hand :- a curious contrast to Death with an hour-glass! although to some nervous patients nearly as frightful.
One of our neighbour women, who was often ailing, used to send for Aunt Kitty to tell her what the Doctor means; whence Aunt Kitty came to be regarded as "high larn'd as the little doctur hisself," and was elsewhere in demand as "the little doctur's intarpretur :" but she always resisted persuasions "to set up docterin" herself, telling the folks "one old woman was enough in the Purchase."
An honest woodsman went once with a severe tooth-ache to Spiceburgh, when the Professor, after a long examination of the
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patient's mouth, declared with a very solemn little phiz that, "an operation in dental surgery seemed necessary in order to extract two of the principal molares!"-At which the affrighted sufferer said, "he was in powerful pain, and didn't kere to let the Doctur pull out a couple of his darn'd rottin back teeth-but he'd rather bear the tooth-ache a hull year nor have the dental suggery or the principal mol'lerees ither done on his mouth." 2
The Professor did not rely on symptoms in the morbid body itself: for instance, he rested not satisfied with the inspection of the tongue, which he always had protuded instead of vulgarly put-out of the mouth; but he wisely kept two keen eyes on the - watch for external symptoms, being well disposed to that way of judging, which determines, if a saddle is under the bed, that the person in the bed is sick, or dead, from eating the horse. Hence, on the present occasion, he came at once to a very infal- lible judgment of the case, wholly by external symptoms; for on hearing an infantile cry, which had commenced just an hour before his arrival, and broken out at intervals since, he instantly concluded, and without feeling any body's pulse, or inspecting . any body's tongue, or asking a question, but with a very grand and imposing air, said-"that the lady was as well as could be expected !" But he learned, however, a very useful piece of knowledge, viz .- that there is at least another thing beside time and tide that waits for nobody.
Still, it was quite edifying to witness the anxious bustling, and to hear the learned remarks of our dwarf Esculapius ; who among other things, was constrained to acknowledge that-"unassisted nature had yet mighteous potential efficacity of her own intrinsic internal force, and that she sometimes required only the co- elaborate aid of a skillful practitioner to conduct to a felicitary tendency her wonderful designs!" Hence "he would only order now the exhibition of a few grains of his soporific sleep-producing powder, to induce a state of somnorific quiescence !! "-because he was decidedly of opinion that "with proper care and no misfor- tunate reactions, the lady would without dubiety become con- valescent in the ordinary time !!! "
2 Finally, one tooth was pulled, the other broken off-and half and half, as all Steam doctoring does-cures one and kills another!
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And, would you believe it, dear reader ?- all came to pass precisely as he predicted !- and stranger yet to tell, without the aid of the soporific powder! For that, by a blameable negligence, Mr. C. himself, who was charged with-the exhibition, never mixed !! But then to atone and for fear some living creature might accidentally swallow the exhibition all at once, and so sleep too long, we very considerately the next day put the whole paper of somnorific quiescence into the fire.
In the morning after a very early breakfast, Professor Pillbox, having received the usual fee for his invaluable aid in enlivening the western solitudes, leaped with amazing agility on his moun- tainous horse; which he, indeed, styled "a quadrupedal convey- ancer ;" and was quickly peering over his cartouch-boxes on the way to Spiceburgh.
But reader !- beware of calling this mighty little personage a quack: for he had, if not a diploma from a college, a regular license from the State!3 Oh! the potential efficacity of a true Republican legislature! What can it not achieve? By a mere vote, or a legal wish and volition, it can out of nothing-yes, ex-nihilo !- or next to nothing create any and every man a lawyer -a physician !- a teacher! or even a Jack-ass !! And these creations all become the greatest of their sorts !- greater even
3 The progress of Indiana within a hundred years has been marked in no way more than in the changed standards of the medical profession. It is now required of the regular medical practitioner that he shall have had a high school course, two years of collegiate training, and he must hold a certificate of training from a reputable medical school of accepted stand- ing. He must, in addition to these requirements, undergo an extensive and rigid examination by a State Medical Board. But it is still true in Indiana, under the Constitution of 1851, that the only qualification required for membership in the legal profession is the same as that required of the shyster and the quack in Hall's day,-the same as that now required of the saloon-keeper,-"a good moral character." Repeated attempts have been made to amend the Constitution in this respect, but the "lawyers' amendment" has always failed, owing to the indifference of the voters and the extreme difficulty of amending the Constitution. A favorable vote of the majority of all the electorate is required. Since there is in the Constitution of the State no restriction on the Legislature with reference to the requirements for the medical profession, quackery has been success- fully attacked by legal enactments.
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than the very legislators that first made them !- streams getting higher than their fountain!
No, no, reader, our Professor, like others of the kind, had so great an abhorrence of quackery, that he would not allow Josey Jackson, his landlord, to keep a single duck! And two years after the Hon. J. Glenville's services ended, when Profes- sor Pillbox himself was sent to the House, he had influence suffi- cient to procure by a unanimous vote the passage of the follow- ing resolution, and which remained in full force when we left the Purchase :- viz.
"Resolved :- that no quacks but those that are licensed, shall recover the amount of their medical fees by law."
Vide Journals of the House, VI. Fol. p. 95.
CHAPTER XXX.
"Instant in season and out of season."
THE future historian of the Western church may learn, from this chapter, that the company of believers of which Mr. Hilsbury was a bishop, whenever about three or four such can be found, form an ecclesiastical court, with spiritual jurisdiction over a given district. A court of this kind was constituted this autumn in Glenville at the episcopal residence. The smallest legitimate number of clergy composed it, and every reverend gentleman was honoured with an office :- Mr. Hilsbury was made President, Mr. Shrub, of Timberopolis, Clerk, and Mr. Merry (a bishop, in transitu), Treasurer. And thus was shown, after all, the prac- ticability of Locke's celebrated Fundamental Constitution of Carolina, found impracticable in Sayle's province,-the offices and dignities requiring every man in the colony.
Mr. Welden, Sen., and some other excellent old woodsmen, had seats as lay delegates. These, however, managed only the secular business of the Assembly; for instance, such as to bring in a pitcher of water, keep a small fire alive on the hearth, and. contribute each twenty-five cents cash to the sub-treasury. Far- ther east, I am told, lay delegates are even more useful, volun-
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teering to let down bars, open gates and the like, between the lodgings of the clergy and the chapel where the court is in ses- sion. Normally, it is said, the lay and clerical delegates are on equal footing in the House, both having a right to talk either sense or nonsense as long as they see fit; and yet, in practice, the lay members are not considered as on a par with the clerical ones. For instance, in debates, discussions and so forth, the commoners are never called-brother, except collectively under the appellation, brethren; and even then prime reference is in- tended to the clergy. But the commoners are termed variously, as "the worthy person or member"-"the good old man that has just spoken"-"Esquire Cleverly"-"Lawyer Counselton," &c., &c .: yet mostly they are all spoken to and about as plain- "Mister."
In my wanderings I have, indeed, stumbled into assemblies of their sort composed of Misters and Brothers, where qualified lay gentlemen chose freely to exercise their privileges, and where "the person" or "the worthy old man" has so spoken and argued a subject as to lead the assembly to adopt measures much more common-sense-like and democratical than some, and especially the "younger brethren" at first contemplated. Nay, an acute and eloquent Mister occasionally would be seen to demolish a rash brother; or in our parlance out there-to use him up. Hence, being myself a reformed democrat, this admixture of Misters and Brothers in ecclesiastical Houses, did upon the whole then strike me as the best and very best form of religious associations for our republican institutions; and then it occurred that if the lay delegates would always qualify themselves properly and use judiciously and boldly all their ecclesiastical privileges, that both State and Church would even be more benefited than ever by these true republican bodies.1
We beg leave now to introduce more especially to the reader,
1 The clergy of such bodies do earnestly insist on all this in their lay delegates, both for religious, and secular and state reasons; and, it may be- added, that when the reader ascertains what ecclesiastical bodies have done most for civil liberty and universal freedom, he can venture to guess at the body in our text,-Hall's note.
The ecclesiastical court here referred to was that of the Wabash Pres- bytery constituted in Rev. Isaac Reed's cabin in 1822 or 1823 by Reed, Bush, and Hall. Here "Mr. Merry" plays the part of Hall .- J. A. W.
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the President of the Court, the Rt. Rev. Brother Bishop Hilsbury. Besides being pastor of the Welden Parish, he was missionary bishop over a vast diocese, through which he was ever riding, preaching, lecturing, praying and catechising, and beyond which he often made excursions, to bestow gratuitous and extra labour on the Macedonians-i.e. wilderness folks that had no bishop to care for them. His public discourses averaged, therefore, one a day, to say nothing of baptisms, visits to sick, funeral services, cum multis aliis : and the miles he rode were about one hundred each week, or somewhere near five thousand annually !- indeed, like other laborious missionaries in the West, he lived on horse- back. And when at home, a few days each month, he retired not to his study, as he fain would have done, but he betook himself to his cornfield : and not rarely he wielded an axe in his clearing or deadening-working, in short, not like "a nigger," but a galley slave. Negroes, under kind and judicious masters, work only little more than half of every day; a western bishop works all day and part of the night. Brother Hilsbury was in many perils -in the wilderness-in the flood-and among false brethren; we subjoin a specimen of each sort: and
Firstly-we are to discourse of the Wilderness. Part of an unsettled forest was once to be crossed by him to reach a new settlement where he had engaged to bestow some extra clerical labour. The path was nearly impassable; and at sunset he was alone in the wilds, and more than fourteen miles from the in- tended place. About dark, he came to a deserted Indian hovel, where he resolved to "put up," rather than "camp-out" or travel in the dark; and accordingly he dismounted, stripped his horse and secured him by halter and bridle; and then had barely time to get under the shelter of the half-roofless shantee, before a tempest, long gathering its pitchy blackness, burst around in floods of rain and flashes of keen fire with its appalling thunder. By the glare, however, of the lightning, a rude clap-board bed- stead was discerned fastened to a side of the hut, and on this fixture, after feeling with the end of his whip if any chance snake was coiled in that nest, our primitive bishop laid his saddle and , other gears; and then on and surrounded by these, passed that dreary night as comfortably as-possible; and hungry, wet, and
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melancholy. Having thus spoken briefly to our first head, we pass to the consideration of the second thing proposed, which was
Peril by Flood. Here, by way of preface, it may be remarked, that reverend gentlemen intended for New Purchase bishoprics, ought unto all their Christian gifts and graces to add-the art of swimming. For want of this, Bishop H. was in jeopardy oft of his life. Indeed, considering his inability to swim, he was, my dear brethren, a little rash; for in his company we have several times come to creeks broad and muddy with "back-water" from a neighbouring river, where the speaker, although a swimmer, refused to enter; but our bishop either having more faith or more courage, would, spite of all remonstrances, plunge in, horse foremost, venturing on till the turbid waves reached his saddle skirts and the tail-(of his horse)-began to float! And that being symptomatic of a swimming head-nay, of a whole body -our friend would return but still reluctant : and we would then proceed up the stream till beyond the influence of the back water.
At the time of his perilous-peril, Mr. H. was in company with the Rev. Mr. Widdersarch, who also could not swim. A large creek was raging with its swollen waters across their way, ren- dering it necessary to cross or return; unless like Æsop's wise man they should wait the subsidence of the flood. But that might be a long time yet, the waters still rising; and beside it was absolutely necessary to go on-as it always is when people are going anywhere, especially a western minister, who usually, after riding many long miles, and fording and swimming many dan- gerous creeks, to keep with punctuality a gratutious appointment, finds at the preaching cabin a large congregation of -six : viz. the man and his wife, with three little children and a help. For, of course this thimbleful of folks would be too disappointed, if the minister came not! And hence, valuable men feel bound to be punctual out there, always at the risk of their health, and not rarely their very lives.2
2 These pages bring out very vividly the perils of the early wilderness life and the sacrifices which the early Christian ministers on the forest frontier had to undergo, and the courage and devotion with which they met the dangers confronting them.
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The discussion in the present emergency soon ended by the plunging of both brethren into the water; deeper, indeed, than had been presumed! How deep was difficult to say, the horses for some reason or other beginning to swim immediately on en- tering the creek-perhaps, however, unlike Dick, they could not resist a bloated stream till the water went over their backs! Every thing proper and customary was done with the ministerial legs to keep the limbs dry; yet at the first souse those important ap- pendages were unpacked, all their capabilities being required to hold on the riders-and nothing was now visible above the turbid waters save two snorting horse heads, followed by two human heads and busts.
And now the saddle-bags of Mr. Widdersarch, not being rightly secured to the stirrup-leathers, floated off the saddle, and like hard ridden demagogues, went down with the stream; upon which the owner not only made a very desperate and very unsuc- cessful effort to arrest the articles, but was, alas! by that very effort himself soused headlong into the boiling waters! How, Mr. Widdersarch could never tell, yet at the moment of his fall- (like Palinurus grasping part of a helm in a fall from another poop)-he felt and clutched with drowning energy, the floating tail of his horse !- and holding to that he was carried safely till his feet rested on the bottom. During all this Mr. Hilsbury was in advance; but while he heard the fall and the cry of his friend, he could render no assistance, having the greatest difficulty to retain even his own seat; and by the time he had reached the opposite bank in safety, his friend could stand on the earth with his head above water; seeing then the saddle bags whirling in an eddy, Mr. H. hurried with a long pole to a point whence it was thought the leathery apparatus could be arrested. In his eager- ness to hook the bags he leaned over the bank, that treacherous bank gave way, and our excellent bishop himself was now strug- gling for life in the whirlpool !
He was a man more than six feet high; yet in vain did he try to stand on the bottom of this maelstrom, and hold up his head in the world !- until driven violently against the bank he managed with coolness certainly, if not presence of mind, to clutch in one hand some roots in its side and with the other and his feet to
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stick to its mud, till Mr. Widdersach, now landed, hastened to his assistance. In the meantime, the saddle-wallets despairing of all rescue had taken fresh start for some other port; but our involuntary baptists running with poles to the next headland, were there successful with their baitless bobbing, and had the satisfaction of rescuing, and maybe from a watery grave, the well-soaked conveniences! And so ends our second lesson.
The last trial was one of equanimity and patience-more diffi- cult to endure, however, than the other sorts. Our friend, as has been intimated, was forced to work literally with his own hands. On one occasion he was ploughing ; when, to save his feet from in- jury, he had encased or buried them in a pair of ungainly cow- hide shoes, with exterior seams, like those of a hose (viz; a leather fire-engine), such as no primitive apostle ever wore, and most modern eastern parsons certainly never saw. They had, indeed, been made at our tannery by a volunteer shoe-maker (such as a legislature will create some of these days, when it is determined by them that every man may be his own shoemaker,) so that they looked for all the world as if they were vegetables and had grown on a shoe-tree! Morever, our clerical plough- man, like Cincinnatus, had on no toga, and was in the state boys call, barelegged, or to speak with modesty and taste, his limbs were destitute of hose (or hoses.)
Now, in this "fix," will any man of broadcloth and French calf-skin, conjecture that our Rector's outer man exhibited signs of worldly pride? And yet, my dear brethren, the keen eyes of a parishioner saw pride in those shoes !
"Impossible! unless it was deemed a pharisaical humility, or a papistical penance."
. No, no! but on the contrary, the penance was not deemed severe enough: for this Christian mister on finding his bishop thus ploughing, reported through the whole diocese that-
"Mr. Hilsbury was a most powerful proud man, as he actially ketch'd him a ploughing with-his shoes on !"-
I conclude, therefore, this discourse by asking you, dear breth- ren, what would have happened if the Rt. Rev. Bishop Hilsbury had in preaching sported a white handkerchief and black silk gloves? or, horrible dictu (i. e. tell it not in .Gath) had he worn
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ruffles ? Be assured we had some rough and hard Christians out there who would have deemed him an emissary of Satan, and one that deserved burning on a log-heap!
Permit me next to introduce the clerk of the court-Bishop Shrub. Of this gentleman we shall merely say, that if a pro- found and an extensive acquaintance with all the important and various subjects of ecclesiastical learning, together with uncom- mon research in most other kinds; if the command of elegant style in writing, and the power of rich and copious elocution in preaching; if a pious and a conscientious mind, an ardent zeal in the service of his Master, and incessant labours for the good of men; if the most engaging and winning manners in conver- sation; if all these and similar excellences, possess charms, then would the reader have rejoiced to know Bishop Shrub, and would have classed and cherished him among the most highly estimated friends.
As Mr. Merry will speak for himself in this chapter, the reader may say what he thinks of this person after reading his Buckeye Sermon, delivered at Forster's Mill.
Among the dogmata of the New Purchase Council, it was ordained that Brothers Shrub and Merry should perform a mis- sionary tour of some weeks between 41º and 42º N. latitude, and in a region destitute of any spiritual instruction ; a region indeed almost destitute, it proved, of inhabitants too, the thin "sprinkle" having, in all probability sought a place free from all trammels, political as well as ecclesiastical. The brethren took neither purse nor scrip, and expected no present reward farther than the pleasure of doing good; and yet they laboured as if in expecta- tion of being at the end of the tour, thrown into a modern.3 bishop's see-not of glass, but of silver and gold and other clink- ing evils.' Having myself long desired to visit the country now laid out as missionary ground, I begged permission to join the , party; + which request being cheerfully granted, away we started as-missionaries-hem! See then, reader, "how we apples swim !"
During the excursion, three discourses were delivered daily,
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3 A' real rite-dity church and state bishop.
+ "Merry" was Hall. The author here, as in other places, speaks in a way to lead to disguise.
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the ministers alternately preaching, and the time being usually IO o'clock, A.M., 2 o'clock, P.M., and 5 o'clock in the evening. In proceeding up the river (the Big Gravelly) appointments were left for our return, and also sent on before us, by any chance person found going towards the polar circle. Nor even did any one show reluctance to bear the message; although on overtaking once a woodsman, and begging him to name some place where we could preach next day, at 10 o'clock, he replied :-
"Well, most sartinly, I'll give out preachin for any feller-crit- turs whatsever-and Forster's saw-mill is jist about the best place in all these parts-but I sorter 'taint no use no how much, as folks in them diggins isn't powerful gospel greedy." And then, excusing himself from hearing Bishop Shrub that same evening, he rode suddenly down an abrupt bank of the river, and plunged into water, barely admitting his large horse to go over without swimming, yet he faithfully made the appointment for his "feller- critturs" at the mill, although of our neighbour himself we never saw more.
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