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CHAPTER XXVII.

Reflections on disease-Leprosy-Consumption-EpilepsySingular cures for it-An Irish wake-Remarks on dying persons-Tales of superstition-Irish mourning-cry.

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THE Comparative merits of a state of high and low civilization is a question which has been often discussed: I shall not enter into it; I shall only mention one advantage of the latter, which counterbalances many advantages of the former; I mean its greater freedom from disease: of health may be truly, what is fancifully said of liberty, that

"It makes the gloomy face of nature gay,

Gives beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day."

When disease stretches the sons of affluence, listless and wakeful, on their couches of down, health gives peaceful slumbers and pleasing dreams to the rude inhabitant of the mountain on his bed of straw.

To enumerate the diseases of civilization would be a task as wearisome as disgusting: I shall say all that is necessary on the subject when I mention that, according to Doctor Cullen's Nosology, they amount to thirteen hundred and eighty-seven; the single class of nervous diseases furnishes six hundred and twelve of that number: so tremendous are the evils which gluttony, sensuality, pride, avarice and ambition, have inflicted upon man. The diseases of these mountains are few in number, and are mostly fevers, consumptions, cutaneous eruptions, and convulsions.

Nothing can be more simple than the general treatment of those fevers: the patient is left entirely to nature, which seldom fails to restore him: he swallows no medicine; he takes no nourishment, because he has no desire for it; he drinks plenty of cold water, because he has an ardent longing for it: when the disease proves fatal, it is almost always in consequence of the interference of some person pretending to medical skill: a sweat, as it is called, is the remedy most commonly recommended, which is attempted to be forced out in some preposterous manner: the poor patient then dies, as the rich one often does, not of the disease, but of the doctor.

Diseases, like fashions, change: the cutaneous eruptions of these mountains are the lingering remains of the leprosy, a disorder now happily almost unknown; how much it prevailed in the middle ages may be conceived, when I mention that there were nineteen thousand hospitals, for lepers only, in Christendom: Lewis the eighth, king of France, in the thirteenth century, bequeathed legacies to two thousand leprous hospitals in his own kingdom. Consumptions are very prevalent, not only in these mountains, but among all ranks and descriptions of people in every part of Ireland; I hardly know a family that has not lost a member by this afflicting disorder; the most promising and beautiful member, it mournfully relates. It is the nature of man, while he undervalues what he possesses, to exaggerate the value of what he has lost: but consumption, in reality, is most apt to attack young people of the sanguine temperament, of great liveliness of imagination, and, if it does not find them beautiful, it almost ever makes them so I can hardly conceive a

more interesting object than a lovely young woman, decked with the enchantress flowers of this disorder, like an unconscious victim moving to her own early funeral and when I gaze on her aërial form, on the deep hectic of her cheek, and the soft blue of her transparent veins, through which the blood scarcely circulates, she seems an angel of whom the earth is unworthy, and who is about to return to her native skies.

It was my fortune once to see a very young lady die of this disorder: she was perfectly aware of her approaching dissolution, and perfectly resigned; yet she had some reasons to wish to live, for she loved, and the object for whom she had renounced all her friends was at her side; she consoled him, comforted him, and (as he was afterwards told) gave up her last breath in ejaculations for him: I remember the scene as if it were yesterday, for it made a strong impression

on me.

I should attribute the prevalence of consumption in Ireland as much to the variableness of its climate, as to the dampness of its soil: women are more subject to it than men, as well from their going more lightly clad, as from the greater delicacy of their organization. It is the law in England, that every person must be buried in woollen: there never was a law to compel the living to wear flannel, yet it would be a more useful one.

I have said above, that convulsive diseases are common in these mountains: as there is nothing that I know of, in the climate or soil, to occasion them, they may be, perhaps, in some degree owing to the intemperate use of ardent spirits: I have seen, however, many

cases of epilepsy in young persons of both sexes, which could not be attributed to this cause.

Epilepsy is a disorder about which all nations have entertained extraordinary opinions: it was in ancient times called morbus sacer, and persons affected with it were supposed to be inspired: the extravagance of its writhings and contortions might very naturally excite such an idea in a superstitious people, the more particularly as they were very similar to those of an oracle in the act of prophecy: it has at times a strong tendency to injure the faculties, and sometimes leads to downright idiotism; yet there are instances where it has had a directly opposite effect, and where it appears, in common with many other diseases, to have quickened, rather than slackened, the mental powers: Julius Cæsar, a man, perhaps, of the greatest talents that ever existed, was subject to frequent fits of it; and Buonaparte is said to be liable to attacks of catalepsy, which is only one of its modifications.

The greatest men, indeed, I have little doubt, will be generally found among the delicate and sickly: nature is fond of equality, and where she gives bodily weakness she gives mental strength: but even supposing mental strength to be equal in the healthy and sickly, the temperance and sobriety which the latter is obliged to practise give him infinite advantages over the former: temperance and sobriety elevate man to the Deity; gluttony and drunkenness degrade him to the brute.

A number of singular medicines are in vogue here for the cure of the disorder I have been speaking of: rain water, collected from the lettered cavities of a tombstone, drank at midnight; the moss that grows

in a dead man's skull swallowed fasting; rubbing the face and neck with a dead or a hanged man's hand, are a few of them: doubtless they are often effectual in stopping the nervous movements, by inspiring the mind with horror, awe, and dread.

On the same principle I should account for the efficacy of the grand medicine, which is never had recourse to except on desperate occasions, and when every other has failed. The epileptic is brought with great solemnity before the priest, who prays over him, and then throws round his neck an amulet, or little silken bag, containing a slip of paper, on which is written the following verse from the first chapter of the gospel of St. John: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." This remedy is in almost equal repute with the low Protestant and Catholic: they may differ a little, indeed, with regard to its source, for while the latter piously ascribes it to God, the former most generally attributes it to the devil. This he more naturally does, because, if he avail himself of the charm, he renounces his religion, for it ceases to operate the instant he enters a church door, and (horribile dictu) the convulsions immediately return.

I was called down a few days ago to the low country, to see the son of a Catholic in easy circumstances, on whom the charm had been tried, and was found wanting: by the time I got to him, he was under the influence of a more potent spell, and all human assistance was unavailing: the casual sight of him, however, imposed on me the necessity of attending his wake and funeral.

An Irish wake has been often described, and often

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