HOW THE REVEREND JOHN BARNARD'S SCARLET FEVER WAS CURED BY ABSENT TREATMENT IN 1693

The Rev. John Barnard of Marblehead, Massachusetts, an 18th century Puritan, is little known except to those who have read his autobiography. President Stiles of Yale wrote to Barnard on October 3, 1767: "with great pleasure I have read your life again and again. It has proved a feast to me." Mr. Barnard's fascinating description of how he was cured of scarlet fever follows: . . . In June, 1693, in my twelfth year, Sir Francis Wheeler, with his fleet, which had in vain made an attempt upon Martinico, came to Boston, and brought with him a violent and malignant distemper, called the scarlet fever, by which he lost many hundreds of his men. The distemper soon spread in Boston, of which many persons died, and that within two or three days of their being taken ill. It pleased God I was seized with it, and through the rampancy of the fever, and a violent pain at my heart, which rendered every breath I drew to be as though a sword had pierced me, I was so bad that life was despaired of. On the third night, (I think) it seemed to me that a certain woman, wife of a doctor, who used to supply my father's family with plasters upon occasion, came and brought me some small dark colored pills, and directed me to put one in my mouth, and hold it there till it grew mellow, then squeeze it flat betwixt my thumb and finger and apply it to my right nipple; it would soak in and before I had used them all so, I should be well.