Page:In Memoriam. Matthew Fontaine Maury.djvu/23

 he took an excursion to Niagara, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis, having accepted an invitation to address the State Agricultural Society of Missouri, at its Annual Fair. Here his reception was most enthusiastic; but he was already so much exhausted, that he could not read his valuable address in an audible tone. After spending some two weeks in Missouri, he returned to Virginia to meet an appointment to address the Seaboard Agricultural Society, on the 23d of October, at Norfolk. The condition of his health admonished him not to undertake this task, and he immediately returned home, reaching the Institute on 23d of the month. His condition was exceedingly distressing, and even alarming. Constant gastric pain and nausea, occasional hematemesis, feeble pulse, much depression of mind, cool extremities, and an anxious expression of countenance. He received at once the professional attention of the two medical officers of the Institute, and the treatment was attended with varying success for two or three weeks. Then the symptoms seemed to yield entirely to the remedial agents; but still any deviation from the blandest diet would reproduce the symptoms, necessitating a rigid adherence to the simplest regimen.

About the middle of December, he had the