Oberlin Dec 9 1839
My dear Sir
I want to present to you some cases for your opinion as a medical man.
A little more than a year since, two young ladies came to this Institution, for aught [?] appears, in perfect health. Their previous habits, as to diet, had been such as are common in the best families in the villages around us. They had been accustomed to a good supply and variety of nourishing food, and to tea and coffee, of course. When they came here, they were equally of course, put on a very different regimen, - a diet very scanty, not nutritious - meat three times a week, but often unpotables [?] - dinner frequently nothing but bread pudding, potatoes and bread, - supper, bread with a little milk to moisten, eaten with a fork, and always at supper, & dinner, and very commonly at breakfast, cold water, bread coffee or weak chocolate sometimes in the morning. No variety, either at the same or different week. Under this regimen, one of the two young ladies showed what were thought symptoms of a lung affection - had frequent cough, and every one thought was going into consumption. She would very often go without food, because she could relish nothing, sometimes for 36 hours, and it is even said more. The omission of a single meal or two [a] week was very common with her. She did not merely absent herself from table, but went without any thing, not from principle [?] but because she could not eat anything that was to be had. It now appears that she often at that time had a full, heavy pain in the stomach. She left here about the first of July, having been in the Institution six or seven months - board this last four months somewhat though not much better than before; her own habits about the same. Not long after her return to her father's, in Elyria, she sickened, and after a painful illness died of
thegastritis. without any sign of a long affection. During her sickness, she suffered greatly, from what she could define only as a "dreadful feeling" in the region of the stomach and bowels.This was the case of Miss Chaney. Miss Hamlin, daughter of Judge Hamlin, also of Elyria, came here, and went away, with Miss Chaney. During the first four or five months, if not the whole, of her stay here, she suffered a constant diarrhea, which she could not account for, except from the diet, which was the same as Miss Chaney's, and a third of [...] - diet, you may be sure. I have no information, as to her habit of body, after the first four months. They were diligent and faithful in study, but by no means excessive in their application. Miss H. was seized, & died, also of gastritis, soon after leaving here; was taken, I believe, the first or second week after she left. Of course, when these young ladies went home, they returned to the diet they had previously been accustomed to. Miss Hamlin's disorder was so [?] violent, that nothing, either medicine or food, could be kept in her stomach, and she was sustained by injections, if I am not mistaken, a part of the time. She died before Miss Chaney. Another, she sat at the same table with them, died at her home in Michigan, as Dr. Dewitt of Elyria, on inquiry was satisfied, of the same disease.
Now my question is, had the diet, or dietetic habits of these young ladies, while here, anything to do with their sickness & death? Or perhaps the change from our scanty and meager diet to that of their homes, could that have affected them in this manner? I have heard it said, that a mill-pond in the neighborhood was the cause of an unhealthy place. [?] Besides, this could not have affected Miss Atherton, the third who died at Flint river, Mich. Stagnant water may undoubtedly produce fever, but do they produce gastritis? I am extremely anxious to obtain your answer to these questions, not of course for public use< but my own satisfaction, and that of a few others directly around me.
A young man also died here about the first of March last, by the name of Chaney. He has put himself on an allowance of ten ounces of food a day, for some time. He pined [?] away and died. A post mortem examination showed of the the lobes of his lungs hepatized, I believe completely. It was called death by consumption. Was it not rather death by starvation? Would not that be the proper name? Would not his reduced diet, produces a very direct diminished circulation, and diminished circulation produced the hepatization of the lung, if I may use such a word? I cannot of course, detail all these cases in full to you, but I think you will be able to judge of them from what I have said.
[pen change]
Your profession is scanted here by Dr. Jennings and Mrs Finney. They would make the people believe that disease is a recruiting [?] and repairing process, and the sicker a man is the better. They almost make it a sin to call in doctors for help when one is sick. Dr. Jennings insists that disease is a friend and not an enemy, and that physicians, in using means to check it. are destroying life in quantities. They are perfectly confident that they are right; and I should not be surprised if they should inculcate it as a religious duty, that no man is to "go to the doctor", or use medicine. The people drink in the doctrine to some extent; others eschew it. Some have Dr. Jennings by their bed side, I know not for what reason, until they are dead sick; then call in a doctor that uses medicine, to stop the recruiting and repairing process. This is the newest extravagance at Oberlin.
[handwriting change]
My dear Uncle, Husband as you'[sic] see has made out quite a letter. We wish very much to know soon your judgment in the cases mentioned. You have probably heard of what has befallen us. We [take?] it quite goodnaturedly & look forward to some quiet [home?] in New England ere long as a resting place. I am very glad I have come to Ohio & especially to Oberlin. I hope to see a little more of the state before I leave. Oberlin is a queer place. If any lady has any principles to settle, any experiments to try, or any new doctrines to promulgate, I would advise a residence here. What will be the end of the Institution is written in heaven only, but we conjecture that unless they go over professedly & entirely, as well has really & sincerely in heart, to to the Methodists, they will soon have little of a college & theological seminary. We are both looked upon as too wicked to be accused or harbored in any quarter belonging to the Institution people. We hope however to get some family disconnected with the Institution to receive us into their house for a few months. We hope before leaving to go to Milan & pass a Sabbath with Mr. Judson & then may be able to call on you either going or returning. If you see the Cleveland Observers from Nov 6 & onward you will get a fair statement of the doings of the Trustees with their reasons & Mr. C's defense. He is still using his pen on that subject.
Yours truly,
Eunice Cowles.[Both Ann Eliza Chaney and Angeline Hamlin were third-year students from Elyria, Ohio and in the young ladies' course at Oberlin Collegiate Institute, according to the 1839-1840 Oberlin catalogue. Adonijah Atherton was a preparatory student at Oberlin according to the 1841-1842 Oberlin catalog. I couldn't find a listing for the young man who died in March of 1838; perhaps he wasn't an Oberlin student.
Dr. Joseph Caldwell came to Huron, Ohio in the spring of 1833, and he continued practicing medicine there until his death on June 13, 1866. Eunice Caldwell was born on February 4, 1811, in Ipswich, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Captain John Caldwell and Eunice Stanwood Caldwell. Her father, a sailor, drowned in the Kennebec River in 1835. She attended Ipswich Female Seminary from 1828 to 1829, where she met and began a lasting friendship with Mary Lyon, a teacher and an assistant to Zilpah P. Grant, the school's principal, from 1828 to 1839. She graduated from Ipswich in 1829 and was a teacher there from 1830-1835. She served as the first principal of Wheaton Female Seminary (later Wheaton College) in Norton, Massachusetts in 1836. She left her position at Wheaton for Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, where she was Associate Principal from 1837-1838. She married the Reverend John Phelps Cowles in 1838 and followed him to Oberlin College, where he was professor of Hebrew. (Perhaps John was the one who started this letter, and Eunice was the one who finished it.) In 1844 the Cowles returned to reopen Ipswich Female Seminary which they ran until it closed in 1876. The Cowles had three daughters. Eunice died at the age of ninety-two on September 10, 1903 in Ipswich, Massachusetts.]