My case grew more and more serious every day. A Plain gin was
recommended; I took it. Then gin and molasses; I took that also. Then
gin and onions; I added the onions, and took all three. I detected no
particular result, however, except that I had acquired a breath like a
buzzard's.
I found I had to travel for my health. I went to Lake Bigler with my
reportorial comrade, Wilson. It is gratifying to me to reflect that we
traveled in considerable style; we went in the Pioneer coach, and my
friend took all his baggage with him, consisting of two excellent silk
handkerchiefs and a daguerreotype of his grandmother. We sailed and
hunted and fished and danced all day, and I doctored my cough all night.
By managing in this way, I made out to improve every hour in the
twenty-four. But my disease continued to grow worse.
A sheet-bath was recommended. I had never refused a remedy yet, and it
seemed poor policy to commence then; therefore I determined to take a
sheet-bath, notwithstanding I had no idea what sort of arrangement it
was. It was administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty.
My breast and back were bared, and a sheet (there appeared to be a
thousand yards of it) soaked in ice-water, was wound around me until I
resembled a swab for a Columbiad.
It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh,
it makes him start with sudden violence, and gasp for breath just as men
do in the death-agony.
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