Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
January 31, 1833
In the morning, dreary, cloudy sky; no rain, but strong wind. At seven thirty, 2 1/3°R [37.3°F, 2.9°C]. Yesterday Mr. Say gave me a copy of essays a letter from Mr. Edward Clibborn regarding cholera in Cincinnati, an excerpt of which reads as follows:
In addition to the usual course of practice here, which was antispasmodic, generally, by using violent stimulants, such as brandy, opium, ether, camphor, etc. to keep up the system, while calomel in quantity was used to affect the liver; —I understand that ammonia and spirits of turpentine have both been used with decided advantage. I may say from what I saw of the disease, and the nature of the blood and the change it has undergone, and the effects produced on the nervous system, that ether and ammonia respired, and turpentine in large and calomel in small doses will surely effect a cure. Though I have no objection to these materials being inhibited in every way, particularly the turpentine by friction on the back; nor do I see why nitrous oxide gas should not be used instead of ether, when it can be obtained (all these with the exception of the nitrous oxide have been of use), yet let nobody neglect the premonitory symptoms; but at once give up or take calomel and get as warm as possible and breathe an alkaline atmosphere. To this I attribute the sudden and universal stop of the disease in this place (Cincinnati); at once the wind came round S.W., and came loaded with smoke, and with all the other indications of the Indian summer, then, and not till then, the pestilence abated, and that so suddenly, that the doctors were puzzled; the well felt sick with sore eyes, but the cholarine patients got better very fast.
That the atmosphere during Indian summer is loaded not only with carbonaceous matter but [also] with vegetable alkali is evident by the pungency of the air, and to this I attribute the change here stated.
As the alkalis have all the same chemical effect on the blood, which in cholera becomes acid and black, I see not why the animal alkali, if I may use the expression, should not be used, when we also know that it is a specific for the acidi fication of the blood, when people are bit with rattlesnakes, and all other kinds of reptiles.
Here it must be noted that with the appearance in autumn of the so-called Indian summer–with its warm, dreary, somewhat foggy or misty atmosphere—the cholera in Cincinnati, where it had been very severe, suddenly vanished completely. Pittsburgh and other towns with a dense coal-vapor atmosphere were completely spared from this dreadful sickness.
Today I obtained information on the various distances of places from New Harmony, according to which it is 16 miles from here to Mount Vernon, 42 miles to Shawneetown, 21 miles to Albion, 50 miles to Vincennes, 28 miles to Evansville on the Ohio, 28 miles to Princeton. Apart from Equality, which is 50 miles away, there are no other towns in the vicinity. Because of this seclusion, it is understandable why correspondence is so slow here. I received a letter from New York in fourteen to sixteen days. Chests take much longer. The mail arrives and departs once a week. At that time we also receive newspapers.
At twelve noon, temperature of 5°R [43.3°F, 6.3°C]; calm, dry weather. During the afternoon we rowed toward Fox Island on the right bank of the Wabash and found that this beautiful river was rising to an extraordinary degree. Large piles of reddish foam floated along the banks and in the current, and some of the sandbars were already inundated. In a few days now the steamships will be able to sail past Harmony. We had no luck on our hunting expedition; I wounded a duck that flew away in weakened condition and could not be found. Five diving geese swam before me and I fired into them, but they were too far away.
In the evening Mr. Lesueur paid me a visit. We talked especially about the natural history of fishes, a field in which he has done much work, and about the method of stuffing fish. He immediately pastes the fins with paper, then lets the fish dry for twenty-four hours (not in the sun), so that the scales no longer drop off. He leaves the eyes in, and for smooth-skinned, eel-like fish he makes a round opening in the mouth and draws the body through this opening.