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A DREA
WHICH
Was not all a Dream.
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By CHAS. H. HAESELER, M.D.
JOURNAL STEAM PRESS.-POTTSVILLE, PA.

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A Dream
79613
WHICH
WAS NOT ALL A DREAM.
READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF HOMEOPATHY, IN THE ACADEMY OF
MUSIC, PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 6TH, 1871,
BY CHARLES H. HAESELER, M. D.
AUTHOR OF "ACROSS THE ATLANTIC," &c.
POTTSVILLE, PA.,
BANNAN & RAMSEY, PUBLISHERS.
1871.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,
By BANNAN & RAMSEY,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
JOURNAL PRESS:-BANNAN & RAMSEY.
POTTVILLE, PA.

CANTO I.
F all the varied medicines,
Which doctors often gie,
Were sunk remorselessly unto
The bottom of the sea,
'Twould all the better for mankind,
Aud-worse for fishes be."
'Twas thus the poet, once upon a time,
Indited words-perchance a little vexed-
Writ then in prose, re-written now in rhyme,
To serve the useful purpose of our text.
Old Rip Van Winkle had a great-grandson,
Who, when his dad awoke, must needs go on
With the old family slumber for a while,
According to the true Van Winkle style.
He was a doctor, like his famous sire,
Who recently drew forth the keen satire
A Dream which
Of that delightful Autocrat, whose tomės
Afford some prime amusement for our Ho(1)mes.
I will not linger o'er the way, 'twas done,
That M. D. seemed to slip from sire to son ;
But when the former settled down in sleep,
The latter felt in duty bound to keep
The business going of the leech and cup,
With thrifty hopes of patients' settling up.
All that was needed was through two short years
To lend some "Faculty" attentive ears,
Who thereupon pronounce him quite au fait
To bleed and physic in the "regular” way;
Or, better yet, being hurried, he could stop
At some collegiate diploma shop,
Which for a trifling bribe would gladly yield
The traffic parchment, ready signed and sealed.
His father's office and the med'cine case,
With every jar and gallipot in place,
Was then at his command, and even so
Was the great bottle of Elixir Pro,
Which, for the old hereditary qualm,
Was still, as formerly, the sovereign balm.
He had, what all novitiate doctor folks
For common have-full time to crack his jokes,
And tell the people in a dolorous mood:
"The public health is lamentably good."
was not all a Dream.
But by and by things took a better phase,
When sickness in its multifarious ways
Among the townsfolk did at length appear,
And shed a ray of hope on his career.
Nor was it long ere his professional wheels
Ran smoothly in the groove and at the heels
Of other doctors who had gone before,
In jog-trot orthodox, from times of yore.
The usual certainty and aim precise
Was plainly visible in his advice;
For Rheumatism some salt was given first,
And then some acid, to allay the thirst;
Then cod-fish oil, with the ingenious hope
Of washing out the system with soft soa]».
And if the patient had a fever, why,
To starve it out was just the thing to try.
Assisted by those gentle adjuvants,
Sweet sudorifics, mild expectorants,
Gentle cathartics, (castor-oil, you know,)
Genial emetics, which with health o'erflow;
These failing, then, to bring your man around,
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Quant. suff. of brandy straight will do it, I'll be bound.
But not to weary you with long detail,
How he in "practice" did succeed or fail;
How diagnose, how prognose and prescribe—
This youngest sprig of the Van Winkle tribe-
A Dream which
We'll bring you straight to that important time,
('Twas in his manhood's and professional prime,)
When his old father, who had somewhere lain
For thirty years asleep, woke up again.
This wonderful occurrence-need we say ?-
Became the great sensation of the day;
For quite a spell, (as we were lately told
By Dr. Holmes,) this marvelous sleeper's hold
Upon the public faith was so profound
That of the doctors far and wide around
Not one had aught to do but, wondering, wait,
Or work out problems on his empty slate,
Until, we are informed, some six or seven
Had been percussed, bled, purged and sent to heaven;
Among whom was the Squire, and Deacon, too,—
Whose loss at once broke the enchantment through;
For nothing more doth stir up people's "boil"
Than thoughts of shuffling off their mortal coil :
Hence consultations in the usual way,
With Doctors Rip Van Winkle, Green and Gray
Were re-established, during one of which
Young Doctor Rip o'erheard the following speech:
"You must have slumbered most amazing sound;
But sleep once more till thirty years come round,
You'll find the lancet in its honored place,
Leeches and blisters rescued from disgrace ;
Your drugs redeemed from fashion's passing scorn,
And counted safe to give to babes unborn."
was not all a Dream.
Now, though the Doctor uttering words so wise-
'Twas Doctor Gray-most likely did surmise
An idiosyncrasy in the family keeping,
(This Rip Van Winkle privilege for sleeping)
Yet no one of the family could indulge—
What's now first deemed expedient to divulge—
In more than one long slumber in his time;
And so the words fell dead on old Rip's ear ;
But Rip the younger, seized with thoughts sublime,
Resolved upon the spot to disappear.
So taking first a lingering, long and slow,
And gurgling draught of the Elixir Pro.,
He, like his ancestors who went before,
Then sallied forth, and soon was seen no more.
Along perplexing and mysterious way,
Where none but of Van Winkle tribe may stray,
At length he trod that soporific ground
Where sire and great-grandsire, in sleep profound,
Had passed their better moiety of life,
To 'scape the torments of a scolding wife.
It was a cosey, unfrequented bower,
Mid shading foliage of perennial flower,
Whose anesthetic exhalations steep
The passive brain in overwhelming sleep,
Like some bewitching chloroform, as 'twere,
Breathed by this herbage on the neighboring air.
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8
A Dream which
Well, here with his sartorius muscles crossed,
For a brief spell in meditation lost,
Rip sat him on the ground, then dropping prone,
He parried here and there a poignant stone;
He tied a handkerchief around his head,
To serve him a musquito-bar instead,
Then muttered: "Now I lay me down to sleep,"
Wound up devoutly with: "My soul to keep ;"
Then voices in the air from far and nigh
Appeared to sing this curious lullaby :-
"If all the varied medicines
Which doctors often gie
Were sunk remorselessly unto
The bottom of the sea,
'Twould all the better for mankind,
And-worse for fishes be."-
Then with his body on terrestrial sod
His spirit soared into the land of nod.

was not all a Dream.
9

CANTO II.
LAMENTABLE loss to man it seems,
That Mr. Irving did not note the dreams
Which Rip Van Winkle, senior, mayhap,
Experienced during his protracted nap;
For dreamers oft into the future glance,
And tell of things to happen in advance;
If Cæsar had believed his dreaming wife,
It haply might have saved poor Cæsar's life;
With dreams the sapient Socrates appears,
And moves his fond disciples unto tears;
Through dreams the prophet Daniel could presume
To tell the King of Babylon his doom.
Now, therefore, as our hero had a dream,
Of wonderful proportions too, we deem
It right and proper to narrate it here,
In every tittle as it did appear.
10
A Dream which
Whatever thoughts weigh heaviest on the mind
Among the record of the wakeful day,
Are apt to leave some traces of their kind
Which to our nightly dreams their shape convey;
The day's adventures pass in swift review,
While fancy paints embellishments thereto.
Thus Rip whose constant meditations ran,
By day, upon the last Eureka plan
Of battling with disease, now dreamt of naught
But hospitals, with death and sickness fraught.
And while he lingered slowly through the trance
A grim procession passed athwart his glance;
Of babes with measles, bellyaches and croup,
And cough, distinguish'd by th' accompanying whoop.
Some in the train whose teeth were sadly gnawing
In tender gums, while others needed drawing.
Big heads and trunks with thin and shrunken limbs
Stalked gravely toward the land of cherubim
Like young Macbeths, with wild and tragic stare,
Eschewing nauseous doses in the air.
Then followed, cheerless and disconsolate
In aspect, and with feeble, tottering gait-
Feeble with drugs their gentle frames environ,
And tottering beneath the weight of iron-
A host of women; in conclusion then,
A gaunt, dyspeptic, coughing train of men;
Bleary with Bitters that should cure all ills,
Pale livered, from the scourge of Mandrake Pills;
was not all a Dream.
Or hob-nail livered, whose possessors take
A dram too freely, for the stomach's sake.
And as the ghostly throng did file apace
The dreamer thought he heard each separate case
Pronounced distinctly in a voice of gloom,
And also what had wrought their several doom.
As thus: "My death is not from natural ills,
But caused by Cox's Compound Syrup of Squills:"
Or thus: "To croup my system did incline,
And now I'm off with Antimonial Wine;
Or thus: "They gave me Ipecacuanha,
Followed by frequent, generous draughts of manna-
Not heavenly manna, but with senna mixed,
And now my business is completely fixed."
Or thus: "I had a stitch; but oh my eyes!
They made it worse with stings of Spanish flies."
One lady as she passed with doleful look,
Exclaimed: "Too many Golden Pills I took !"
A man cried out: "My presence here I owe
Plantation Bitterness and that of woe;
I should have known to take it a mistake,
Because the quack who gave it was a Drake."
Another had the gravel, but perhaps
His death was consequent on Schiedam Schnapps.
And thus each history, as by they flounced,
Like Coroner's verdict was in brief announced.
Then all was vacant, and the dreamer lay
In quiet slumber many a night and day.
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A Dream which
At length he dreamed again, and what his eyes
And ears now witnessed filled him with surprise.
He saw himself once more as student pass
Within the precincts of a college class;
The college building was of marble white,
And very large in length and breadth and height;
Massive in structure, of proportions fine,
And of chaste architectural design.
The amphitheatres within its walls
Were roomy, airy, comfortable halls,
Whose seats, for students, had a gen'rous lack
Of hard material, and rectang'lar back;
But with soft springs they well upholstered were,
And damask covered, like a parlor chair.
Around the building an extensive grove,
In which the students could at leisure rove,
(As rove around their hive th' industrious bees,)
And drink in oxygen from neighboring trees.
Fountains and arbors scattered through the park,
Th' extremities of pleasant rambles mark,
While numerous cottages throughout the ground
With quaint irregularity around,
Gave cheery lodging to the college boys,
As frequent shelter for their social joys.
Of the Professors entering in the corps
Of Faculty there were at least a score;
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was not all a Dream.
And one professor held a guardian rule
In every cottage-twenty to the school.
Five years did constitute the student's term,
During which time, (his privilege to confirm,)
There was imposed upon him a severe
Examination every quarter year.
It was an institution on a scale
Unequalled in the world, and could not fail
To fill-through excellence exemplified—
Columbia's freeborn hearts with honest pride.
It was a Nation's University, ordained
Through public contribution, and maintained.
None could its portals enter to be taught
By dint of favor or advancement bought;
But solely through proficiency of mind,
With natural capacity combined,
And moral worth; to all of this degree
The University stood open free.
Contiguous to the College, in the park,
Beneath the melody of thrush, and lark,
And robin, with their early matin song,
And jay, and blue-bird, twittering all day long;
'Neath genial sunshine that doth warm and please,
And mellow moonlight glimmering through the trees,
Rose the majestic hospital in view-
Asylum for disease of every hue-
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A Dream which
Where sober Experience confirmation lent
Instructions clinical, to circumvent
Those aberrations of the flesh and bone
To which, alas! humanity is prone.
And here the dreamer, pleasingly unnerved
At the sublime perfection he observed,
Shook with spasmodic twitchings, while his face
To seemingly approving smiles gave place.
'Twas the hour of clinic, and from bed to bed
The anxious class moved on with muffled tread,
And that decorum which the place affords,
Drinking with reverent look their teacher's words.
Sisters of Mercy glided to and fro,
Their noiseless ministrations to bestow,
Blessing the sick with-let us name it such--
The Homœopathic charm of woman's touch.
The kind Professor had a cheering word
Wherever suff'rer drooped from hope deferred.
He did not hem! and haw! and shake his head
Portentously, nor scare the patients dead,
With frightful diagnoses, as to say:
"This is a case of Hydrophobia!"
Or: "Gentlemen, you here before you see
Progressive locomotor ataxie!"
Or: "Gentlemen, be pleased to step around
And make your ears familiar with the sound
was not all a Dream.
So audible in this poor fellows chest,
And of his malady the absolute test:
Hepatization! bless my soul, how dull!
A vomica, or two! of matter full!
Observe the subclavicular space depressed--
The bronchial rale-and breathing how distressed!
'Tis Phthisis pulmonalis, without doubt-
For which, alas, our science can do naught!"
Then stepping to the bedside of the next,
With Gallic shrug, half wise and all perplexed,
"What have we here? sore breast, good woman? ha!
Malignant carcinoma, I decla-are!
Although most likely it again would sprout,
The only thing to do is-cut it out!"
It was not words like these, nor such a sight
Our dreaming hero witnessed with delight;
But with mild tones and sympathetic mien
The doctor of his vision sought to glean
All th' accessories that an ailment make-
The very details of each pain and ache;
Noted each symptom that was manifest,
With time and situation to attest;
Took sex, and age, and temperament in view,
Even social passions, and religions too ;
Let naught escape his keen and searching glance
That could the prospect of his case advance.
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A Dream which
Then pondering over the analysis,
Comparing this with various remedies,
He soon resolved on giving what would sure
Dislodge the sickness, and effect a cure.
From bed to bed, from ward to ward he passed,
And every invalid, from first to last,
In due event of time new life imbibed,
Through every remedy that was prescribed.
And then our dreaming Doctor saw again—
What much astonished his unsettled brain
A group of students, strangely occupied;
On various animals various drugs they tried ;
Gave these in divers quantity and form,
And studied thereof the effects abnorm,
From the least waywardness of pulse and breath,
To every shade and agony of death.
Dissected then the dead, and ascertained
What injuries the inner parts sustained.
Even some, who with these provings not content,
Did boldly on themselves experiment;
Took medicines of divers strength and kind,
To know their action thoroughly defined.
All changes of the skin, in colors clear
And accurate, were imitated here;
was not all a Dream.
All physical defections photographed;
The countenance that either wept or laughed
Or, morbidly distorted lines displayed,
Was upon canvas definitely portrayed.
Thus every student was familiar made
With medical effects of every grade,
By constant intercourse with eyes and ears,
Through the long epoch of five well-spent years;
By dint of which-and yet some needful tact,
As scientific expert most exact,
Morbid conditions he could analyze-
Totality of symptoms, which comprise
A diagnosis true, then recognize
The potent antidote without delay,
In his benign materia medica.
After a spell, to admiration given,
Rip's cogitations once again were driven
In reckless riot through the hazy past,
With what he saw endeavoring to contrast;
Then gradually subsided into quite
Oblivious slumber, wherein all was night.
How long he tarried in this dormant state
My muse doth not require me to relate;
But after such restorative time of rest,
He dreamed again, of science still possessed.
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A Dream which
A host of doctors in convention grand
Had met, from near and far of all the land,
The cities great and rural hamlets small,
From Maine to Texas, and Alaska, all
Their honored representatives had sent,
To hold this scientific parliament.
Here men o'er death in solemn judgment sate,
And held the ills of flesh in high debate ;
Propounded queries, disentangled laws;
Divulged new theories of effect and cause;
Talked of diseases that to Rip were new,
And of the treatment apropos thereto.
In troth, our hero was perplexed, to find
Himself in lore of physic far behind ;
Ailments for which his time had known no cure
Were classified among those safe, and sure
Of management, as it was here averred,
With remedies whereof he ne'er had heard;
Whilst one great sentiment unanimous
Avowed was this, that to be prosperous
In doctoring the ills of man or child,
The agents used should evermore be mild.
The number of these sapient men was great-
Assembled in the proudest hall of state-
Their discourse, dignified and most profound,
Did dwell on new discoveries, and abound
In scientific wisdom, to the end
Mankind in health and happiness to befriend.
was not all a Dream.
Recital of experience, and debate
On yet unsettled dogmas did create
At times a cheery seasoning of fun,
With opportunities to crack a pun.
Thus interchange of thought, meeting of eyes,
Greeting of palm and palm, bound with new ties-
As friendship ever those to thought inclined
Clasps in one bond-the brotherhood of mind.
Of citizens a goodly multitude,
Respectively attentive, and imbued
With eagerness to learn, in audience sate
To hear the assembled doctors in debate.
A great event, this Congress, once a year,
In public estimation-that was clear
And plainly to be seen-whose proud behests
Decisions, maxims, scientific tests
Were taken in good faith, and carried weight,
To the remotest borders of the State ;—
A cherished child of this proud land and free,
The AMERICAN INSTITUTE of HOMEOPATHY.
The dreaming Rip, amazed at what he saw,
Felt from the scene reluctant to withdraw;
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20
A Dream which
And glancing up the beautiful facade
Of the Society's classic hall, displayed
Distinctly, "A. D. 1900" there
Met in sharp outlines his bewildered stare.
"Hello!" quoth he, "that's thirty years ahead!
Why, that's the very time when old Gray said
To my old Governor, who seemed much bored,
Bleeding and all that sort o' thing restored
Would be! It struck me then as very queer,
The world should thus progress towards the rear.
He might as well have said that railroads and
Magnetic telegraphs, by sea and land,
Would be abolished, and that men once more
Would take to lumbering stage-coach, as of yore."
After thus muttering, Rip at once proceeded
To write his dream in form-that I might read it;
Addressed it then, then to the Post conveyed,
Then back returned whence he had briefly strayed,
Laid himself down once more upon the ground,
To pass away the time in sleep profound,
Until the twentieth century shall come 'round.
Thus to this short, somnambulistic trance
We are indebted for these sheets advance;
Whilst still, from day to day, from year to year,
This lullaby keeps ringing in Rip's ear:
was not all a Dream.
21
"If all the varied medicines
Which doctors often gie
Were sunk remorsely unto
The bottom of the sea,
"Twould all the better for mankind,
And-worse for fishes be."
PHILADELPHIA, June 6th, 1871.
JOURNAL PRESS. -BANNAN & RAMSEY.
POTTSVILLE, PA.
C. H. H.

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