Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/376

344 down. The climate at last proved too much even for his iron frame, and he had a very severe illness; how severe it was maybe gathered from the following letter:

, May 3, 1868.

"

"I have been in the greatest trouble since I last wrote. You may remember Richard was very ill with a pain in the side. At last he took to incessant paroxysms of screaming, and seemed to be dying, and I knew not what to do. Fortunately a doctor came from Rio on the eighth day of his illness. I sent at once to him, and he kindly took up his quarters in our house. On hearing my account, and examining Richard, he said he did not know if he could save him, but would do his best. He put twelve leeches on, and cupped him on the right breast, lanced him in thirty-eight places, and put on a powerful blister on the whole of that side. He lost an immense deal of black clotted blood. It would be impossible to detail all we have gone through. This is the tenth day the doctor has had him in hand, and the seventeenth of his illness. Suffice it to say that the remedies have been legion, and there has been something to do every quarter of an hour day and night. For three days the doctor was uncertain if he could live. The disease is one that grows upon you unconsciously, and you only know it when it knocks you down. It was congestion of the liver, combined with inflammation of the lung, where they join. The agony was fearful, and poor Richard could not move hand or foot, nor speak, swallow, or breathe