[50] JENNY LAWRENCE thing too for a cold or coff; jest take about a pint o' molasses and bile it down with a teacup of vinegar and a hunk o' butter as big as a hen's egg, and stir in about a half a teacup full of pepper sass, and eat it down hot jest afore bedtime—and take a strip o' flannil, and rub some hog's lard on't, though goose ile's about as good, and pin it round yer throte right off; and I send likewise a bag o' hops; you must dip it in bilin' vinegar, and lay it on yer chist when you go to bed, and keep a dippin' on't as fast as it begins to cool, and jest afore you git into bed, soke yer feet in bilin hot water with some red peppers in it; now don't forgit nothin' I've proscribed. O reverend sir, I do declare, It drives me a'most to frenzy, To think o' you a lyin there Down sick with influenzy.54 But it is Miriam's battle against tuberculosis that was vividly rendered in her letters. The account is both informative and saddening, because in the 1840s there was no understanding of the cause or cure of the disease. When Miriam first began to complain of a persistent cough associated with a strange bump on her jaw bone, she had to rely on common sense and experimentation to relieve the slow deterioration of her body. In April 1847 she wrote her husband, The day after you went it was very much swollen—& painful. We had lately heard that the marrow of hog's jaw is very good for such things. Mary [sister] was very desirous I should try it. So I did—& I think it helped it. There is a lump on the other side of my neck now. I am using the marrow every night & it is going down. I suspect it has come in consequence of coughing. That same month she had a violent reaction to a medicine prescribed by a Dr. Thomas in Whitesboro, and told William that "Dr Thomas gave me some medicine that contained antimoney—though I did not know it—& it made me so dreadfully sick that I didn't care whether I lived or died. I only took one dose of it—I never was so sick in my life!'55 Another doctor prescribed blistering. I have been under the doctor's care for the swelling on my neck. It became very large & sore just after I came here, & William called in Dr Brooks, who prescribed a blister—which I applied immediately. It is now healing—& I think the swelling is somewhat diminished.56 64 Bedott Papers, 63. 55M. Whitcher to William Whitcher, April 18,1847. 56 M. Whitcher to sister, April 20,1847.