A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 77: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

14 3 A QUEER RACE. fess that he was ill would not only have touched his pride and made his boastings look rather ridiculous, but would have gone far to falsify his predictions. So he pretended that his illness was a mere passing indisposi- tion—‘‘ a bit of a headache ”’—made light of his swollen thumb, and insisted on getting up and helping to prepare breakfast. But the strongest will cannot long bear up under severe local pain and the all-pervading agonics of fever, and it was not long before Bolsover confessed himself beaten, and took to his bed. , «‘T never thought I should beill,” he murmured, ‘ but it won’t be much. I shall be well in a day or two, | know I shall. You were right, Mr. Erle. I shonldn’t have meddled with them rats, hang ’em! I don’t care how soon we get out of this ship. ‘There’s a curse on her; that’s what it is. ‘There’s a curse on her.” ‘om must have been very bad to own himseif in the wrong. It was an evil sign, and made me almost despair of his recovery. 1 had lately read a second time, in some instances a third time, the medical books in the captain’s cabin, and the knowledge thus acquired, and my own observation, had given me certain ideas as to the treatment of yellow fever, which I now proceeded to put into practice. Med- icine having produced no effect in previous cases, I de- termined to try something else. One of the most characteristic symptoms of the malady is intense heat, the patient’s temperature being often as high as one hundred and seven degrees. I presumed, though I did not know for certain, that this was owing to an arrest of perspiration. ‘The main point, therefore, was to make my patient sweat; so I rolled him in a wet sheet, then put a pile of blankets on the top of him, and mike him drink about a gallon of hot water. I kept him in the pack for hours, and when [ unpacked him, washed hin all over with salt water. ‘This operation I repeated several times in succession, and always when the fever got worse and his skin became hot and dry. I do not pre- sume to say that I cured Bolsover, for the illness ran its course; but, at any rate, he recovered, and that is what none of the others did. The fever mav, however, have been of a milder type than theirs, and it is of course quite (E(oylpallice JOO SS