238 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



POEM 



On Important Subjects. 



All Account of My Heart-Trouble. 



REV. L. L. LANGSTEOTH. 



(Concluded from page 175.) 



When 75 years old, the blind piles, of 

 which my physician spoke in my youth, 

 became only too apparent. I suffered so 

 much that I seldom went aboad, and 

 spent most of my time in a reclining 

 position ; and I was able to get home 

 from my last attendance at church only 

 by planting my hands and knees on the 

 bottom of the carriage. 



While thus suffering, my friend Dr. 

 G. W. Keeley, of Oxford, O., urged me 

 to put myself under the care of Dr. 

 Prezinger, of Greenville, O., who had 

 been very successful in curing persons 

 similarly afflicted. At first I declined to 

 be treated, saying I was too old to be 

 cured, and believed it better, not to 

 leave well enough alone (for there was 

 no "well enough" about my case), but 

 to leave bad enough alone. Interviews 

 with parties at Oxford, however, who 

 had been entirely cured by him, changed 

 this decision. 



An examination, made by the doctor 

 in the presence of Dr. Keeley, showed 

 that I was suffering severely from bleed- 

 ing ulcers and numerous piles, one of 

 which had been extruding for nearly a 

 year. On the doctor assuring me that 

 he could effect a radical cure, I placed 

 myself under his care. No cutting, 

 burning, or clamping operation was 

 performed ; and I received only one 

 treatment a month. I suffered no pain 

 worthy of mention. 



My family physician had before this 

 assured me that my melancholy came 

 mainly from a diseased state of the 

 rectum ; but he failed to cure me. Be- 

 fore I was fully relieved by Dr. Prezin- 

 ger, 1 fell again into my usual morbid 

 condition, and did not see him for about 

 two years. 



While under treatment I conversed 

 with many of his patients, and for the 

 first time became aware of the intimate 

 connection between melancholia and 

 rectal disease. I believe that, without a 

 single exception, all with whom I con- 

 versed, admitted that they were suffer- 

 ers from mental depression. 



Some confessed even to suicidal incli- 

 nations. I remember one in particular 



who said,. " I often thought of taking 

 my life, and was deterred only by appre- 

 hensions of what would become of my 

 dear wife and our poor little children !" 



How often we hear it said, that reihj- 

 ion is a leading cause of so much melan- 

 choly and insanity ! I firmly believe 

 that, where one person is made insane 

 by perverted religious views, many are 

 kept sane by the consoling hopes of the 

 gospel of Christ. If a man has no be- 

 lief in a loving Father, and no fear of 

 "that dread bourne from which no 

 traveler returns," why should he wish to 

 live on, when to live is only to be 

 wretched ? Why should he not believe 

 with Hume, that suicide is only "the 

 diversion of the current of a little red 

 fluid '?" Very often no motive is strong 

 enough to prevent a man from taking 

 his life ; but consideration for those 

 who depend upon him for support, and 

 the horror of leaving to family and 

 friends a suicidal legacy. 



Removing from Oxford to Dayton, and 

 recovering again, I sought further treat- 

 ment, and seemed at last to be almost 

 if not completely cured. I had better 

 health, and for a longer period than I 

 could remember to have ever enjoyed in 

 all my previous life ; and for the first 

 time in many years I strongly hoped 

 that I should have no return of my 

 former troubles. But after an interval 

 of a year and a half, the old symptoms 

 returned. I fought them again in every 

 way that I could, but, as usual, the bat- 

 tle was not won. Clouds and darkness 

 settled upon me so that I could say, in 

 the words of the 88th Psalm, " My soul 

 is full of trouble; I am counted with 

 them that go down into the pit : I am as 

 a man that hath no strength. Thou 

 hast laid me in the lowest pit ; in dark- 

 ness, in the deeps. Thou hast put mine 

 acquaintance far from me; I am shut 

 up and I cannot come forth." 



Previous to this last attack I always 

 expected, even when most exuberant, 

 that, sooner or later, I should again fall 

 under the power of the old disease. 

 Many of my readers will naturally think 

 that such an expectation, suspended 

 over my head like the sword of Da- 

 mocles, must inevitably have caused me 

 constant and distressing apprehensions ; 

 but, instead of this, scarcely any fear of 

 the future distressed me. I could almost 

 always say, " Sufficient unto the day is 

 the evil thereof," and 1 was very much 

 like a playful child. Go to it an say, 

 " Dear little child, this is a very sorrow- 

 ful world ! How can you, then, be so 

 light-hearted when so many trials are in 



