medicine
I am gri[e]ved to find you so poorly, and the more as you were
seized too soon (humanly speaking) after
Bath Water.
I pray God to give you strength to go thro your important labours,
and to give you in abundance the comforts of his spirit.
– Patty and Sally but
poorly.
I would sympathize with you on the rough treatment you experienced
from the Calomel* but I
believe the preparation was judicious.
May God give his blessing to the
Water!
A thousand thanks for the large
Cargo of Miserable.14 This
is not the only good thing that is traduced by a bad name. We all
like it much, and I doubt not I shall soon prefer it. I already
find it sits much lighter on the Stomach
The stings of my conscience get the better of all impediments
to writing, and
while I am constantly eating you at breakfast, and
drinking you at dinner
I can no longer rest under the load of ingratitude of not
cordially thanking you for the affectionate interest you take in
my health by your kind present of
Arrow Root*
– I must just observe by the way that it would have been more
speedy as well as safe had both been directed to me at
Mr. Adorns’s Wine Street Bristol.
Being to day under the disqualifying dominion of
Calomel*, I can only
write a hasty line on the principal topics of your little
/but/ kind letter.
As far as two sickly human beings can venture to
determine, P. and I hope to appear to you
at
Brampton Park by the middle of
May;
but
the precarious state of
my eldest Sister adds to our uncertainty,
tho she is much /better/
I was much grieved to hear that dear
Miss Sparrow had had an Attack.
I cannot forbear of asking you (because I promised I would do so)
whether you have heard of a
Mr. Stewart
a Scotch Clergyman who is said to have done wonders in
consumption
cases,* and to whom patients are flocking from all
quarters. I am told he quite restored a daughter of the late
Duke of Northumberland* who was supposed to be past cure.
His Mode of treatment is quite new, and as it should seem,
quite rash. Instead of starving he feeds his
patients, allows them meat and all nourishing things. The reason
he assigns for this is, that whatever increase of fever it
promotes, is counterbalanced by food giving strength to
resist the fever.
Pray remember that I should be the last person to
advise your going to
Scotland
to consult this Clerical Empyric, but a promise was extorted from
me by some Scotch Women of fashion, that I woud mention it. Every
one feels so much for you that if prayers and cordial good wishes
could restore your dear invalid, his sufferings would be removed.
But
I am well aware that there is an Almighty, All merciful Being,
who loves him better than any friends, or even than his fond
Mother and who never willingly afflicts his children, but who
sometimes manifests more love in afflicting them than in a
dispensation which to our short sighted views woud seem more
grievous.
He can make sickness a blessing both to the sufferer and
to his friends.
