Shifted By The Winds

by Ginny Dye

  “Certainly,” Carrie said with a grin. “I love being right sometimes.” Her smile faded. “But I still don’t know what to do. You were right about the need to graduate from medical school if I want to be a doctor.”

  “What if you became a different kind of doctor?” Matthew asked.

  Carrie cocked her head, a quick question lighting her eyes. “Go on,” she invited.

  “Have you heard of the Homeopathic Medical College of Philadelphia?”

  Carrie frowned. “I barely even know the term. I certainly didn’t know there was another medical school here in Philadelphia.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Matthew said easily. “Homeopathy is becoming very popular in the United States, but the more popular it becomes, the more the traditional medical field fights it.”

  “Why?” Janie asked.

  “I suspect it’s because they don’t want competition,” Matthew replied wryly. “The American Institute of Homeopathy was founded by homeopathic physicians from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston in 1844. It was actually the first medical organization in the United States.”

  “I had no idea,” Carrie murmured.

  “It was created to promote standardization of the practice and teaching of homeopathy. Anyway, the regular doctors were not thrilled with this development, so they founded the American Medical Association three years later. Their charter contains very specific language against homeopathy, and all its members are forbidden to consult with homeopathic physicians.”

  “Why?” Janie asked again. “I don’t understand.”

  “Because homeopathy doesn’t support their beliefs in drugs and practices like bloodletting,” Carrie answered.

  Matthew raised his eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t know anything about homeopathy.”

  “I don’t, but I am gaining a very clear understanding of how conventional medicine works,” Carrie said flatly. “They’re against anything that doesn’t conform to their accepted standard of doing things.”

  “Which is your specialty,” Matthew teased.

  “Evidently,” Carrie sighed. “I’ve decided being a square peg is a wonderful thing. I lost my vision for a while, but it has returned.”

  “Because of Biddy?” Janie guessed.

  Florence stuck her head out the door. “Are the three of you just going to talk in the dark all night, or are you going to come in and eat some dinner?”

  Janie hesitated. She didn’t want to interrupt their conversation, but Matthew’s eager look toward the house told her he was hungry. “We’re coming,” she responded. She turned to Carrie when Florence’s head popped back inside. “Can we finish talking later?”

  Carrie looked puzzled. “You don’t think this is dinner conversation? Surely our housemates will be interested in this.”

  “I don’t know,” Janie said slowly, trying to figure out what she was feeling. “Elizabeth and Alice both have a physician for a father. I imagine they have heard a lot of negative things about homeopathy.”

  Carrie thought for a long moment before she nodded. “I think you’re right. I don’t mind disagreeing with someone, but I prefer to have some idea of what I’m talking about before I do.”

  Janie nodded with relief. “I say we just enjoy a meal of baked chicken and apple pie.”

  Carrie’s eyes widened. “Apple pie? That smell really is coming from our house? I thought surely it was from Mrs. Bueller’s house next door. She bakes all the time.”

  “Alice has two pies waiting inside for us,” Matthew said wistfully, his eyes large and pleading.

  Carrie and Janie looked at each other and burst into laughter. Linking their arms around each other’s waists, they entered the house.

  Carrie leaned her head against the windowsill, relishing the feel of the cool breeze on her body. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the refreshing flow became a brutal blast of cold air against tightly closed windows, but she was enjoying the respite from the heat and very happy fall was on the way. The air drifting in carried the aroma of baking, flowers and industrial smoke. While it wasn’t necessarily distasteful, it made her long for the fresh air on the plantation. She fought against the wave of homesickness that tried to take her again. It was her decision to come to Philadelphia, and she didn’t want to waste her time here wishing for what she had willingly left behind. Biddy’s story had helped her to understand that. She was not surprised when Janie quietly opened the door and stuck her head in tentatively. “I’m awake,” she said quietly.

  Janie joined her on the window seat. “I have a reason to be up late now that Matthew is in town. I thought you would be asleep.”

  “My body wants to sleep,” Carrie said wearily, “but my mind doesn’t seem willing to shut down.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Carrie rolled her eyes. “A better question would be, what am I not thinking about? My mind seems to be swirling in circles. Just when I think I may come close to figuring everything out, it dances out of reach and swirls in another direction.”

  Janie nodded and took hold of her hand. “What is bothering you most?”

  Carrie felt a surge of comfort. “This is just like our late night talks during the war. You were the only thing that kept me going most of the time.”

  “We did that for each other,” Janie replied before she pushed back her hair and looked out the window unseeingly. “It seems like we have quite a dilemma,” she said with a heavy sigh.

  “Like what do we do about medical school?” Carrie asked flatly. “Yes, I’d say that is a dilemma.”

  Janie stared at her. “Are you thinking about leaving?”

  Carrie searched for words. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I honestly can’t decide what I’m thinking, but I did some reading when I came up from dinner.”

  “About homeopathy?” Janie guessed.

  “It’s in one of the books Aunt Abby gave me years ago,” Carrie answered. “I didn’t even realize I had it until I went searching for answers to my questions.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “I learned a lot, but the crux of the matter is that homeopathy reflects my beliefs and experiences much more than conventional medicine,” Carrie said quietly.

  Janie waited for a moment before she prompted her. “But…?”

  “But I also know the need for surgery at times, and I’ve seen some aspects of conventional medicine work wonders,” Carrie said promptly. “That’s my problem. There are many things I’m learning right now that I don’t feel good about, but it seems silly to throw it all away because I don’t agree with all of it.”

  “Tell me what you learned,” Janie invited.

  Carrie settled back against the cushions and organized her thoughts. “Most homeopaths were former conventional doctors, what they call allopaths, who abandoned conventional medicine because they found homeopathy to be more successful in battling cholera, typhus, yellow fever, diphtheria and influenza—just for starters.”

  Janie whistled. “Then why is it so looked down upon?”

  Carrie frowned. “Homeopathy was founded by Samuel Hahnemann, a German doctor who was also a respected chemist. Evidently, he was forced to move several times during his life because the local German apothecaries objected to the fact that he created his own medicines rather than use theirs.”

  Janie absorbed that for a moment. “It all came down to money,” she said with disgust.

  “From what I can tell,” Carrie agreed. “Though I suppose it was a mix of money and male pride. The doctors of the day didn’t take kindly to homeopaths saying they had found a better way of doing things. Doctors were rather revered figures.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand exactly what it is,” Janie murmured.

  “I’m just beginning to figure it out,” Carrie replied. “It’s not that easy to explain.” She paused a moment. “I’ll do my best. Homeopathy is based on a single law of therapeutics called the Law of Similars. Basically, this law says that a substance th
at can cause the symptoms of a disease can also cure it.” She reached for the book she had been reading, turned up the oil on her lantern, and opened to a page she had marked. “‘Homeo’ means similar. ‘Pathos’ means disease, or suffering.”

  “Similar disease, or similar suffering,” Janie said thoughtfully.

  “Yes. From what I can tell, the reason homeopaths run into trouble with skeptics revolves around how the remedies are prepared. Obviously, many of the substances that can cause the symptoms of the disease are dangerous. Administering them becomes quite a challenge.”

  “I would imagine,” Janie said wryly, her eyes bright with curiosity.

  Carrie smiled. “Dr. Hahnemann tried different things until he learned how to dilute his medicines. First, he would take the substance of a plant or mineral and steep it in alcohol. He called it the mother tincture. He would take that and add a tiny amount to a mixture of distilled water and ethyl alcohol. Once he had it diluted, he shook it vigorously. He called the shaking process succussion. He discovered succussion enhanced the effects of the dilution,” Carrie said excitedly, warming to her topic. “He would take that tincture, add it to another mixture of distilled water and alcohol, and then succuss it again. He learned that doing that would lessen any potential negative side effects.”

  Janie absorbed what she had said. “It doesn’t sound that different from what Old Sarah taught you,” she finally concluded.

  “Exactly!”

  “Does it work?” Janie asked bluntly. “I’ve seen Old Sarah’s remedies work, but what about these?”

  “I wondered the same thing,” Carrie admitted. She and Janie might ultimately end up disagreeing, but at least they were able to talk about it. “The whole thing is so fascinating,” she said as she flipped through pages to find what she was looking for. “Dr. Hahnemann was viewed as little more than a quack until 1812. He was living in Leipzig, Germany when Napoleon was driven from his country. The battles to reclaim their country resulted in eighty thousand dead, with another eighty thousand wounded, but it also created a typhus outbreak.” She took a quick breath as her excitement grew. “Every physician in Germany was pressed into service. Dr. Hahnemann arrived with twenty-six different homeopathic medicines that he believed would work. He achieved remarkable results.” Carrie’s eyes flashed. “Of the one hundred eighty typhus patients he treated, only two died.”

  “Two?” Janie echoed. “That’s astounding.”

  Carrie nodded her head vigorously. “I know!” She flipped pages quickly. “Listen to this. Homeopathy has been used with a high degree of success in both the treatment and prevention of cholera.” She smiled when Janie leaned closer. “We know cholera killed more than ten thousand people in London in 1854. What we’ve never been taught is that patients were much more likely to survive if they were treated by homeopathy rather than with conventional medicine.”

  “How much more likely?” Janie demanded.

  Carrie grinned. “The death rate for those treated homeopathically was only nine percent, compared to…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Compared to over fifty-nine percent of those treated conventionally.”

  Janie stared at her. “That’s a huge difference.”

  “I know!”

  “Why aren’t we taught this?” Janie asked angrily.

  “I’m just as disgusted as you are,” Carrie replied. “The results were so embarrassing to the Medical Council of England that they tried to suppress the information by omitting it from their report to Parliament. Fortunately, one of the members of Parliament had been saved by homeopathic treatment during the epidemic so he demanded the full records be obtained. The Medical Council did it, but they made sure the homeopathic figures were in a different report, and they also made sure it was not easily obtainable.”

  “So it works,” Janie said flatly.

  “All my research says it does.”

  “And your experience says it does.”

  Carrie nodded. “Yes. This is so very similar to the solutions Sarah taught me how to make. Why use drugs that can cause harm when you can use natural things that will cure?”

  “Are drugs really harmful?” Janie pressed.

  Carrie grimaced. “I believe most of them are, but I’ve got so much to learn. I’m going to keep reading, and I’m also going to make an appointment to meet with someone at the Homeopathic College. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Yes,” Janie said after only a moment’s hesitation.

  Carrie understood. They were on the verge of turning their worlds completely upside down.

  Chapter Nine

  It was late in the afternoon before Moses finally headed back to the house. Work would continue until it was too dark to see, but he had promised he would bring John out into the fields with him for the last two hours. He smiled as he thought of his son’s eagerness to be with him every moment. The feeling was definitely mutual.

  John and Patches were as well known on the plantation as he was. Moses felt a flash of pride as he thought of his little boy’s easy confidence, but gratitude was his primary emotion. It was too easy to dredge up the memories of his own childhood. He had already felt the lash before his fifth birthday. He couldn’t remember what he had done wrong, but he still had vivid memories of the bite of the whip into his tender back. He had seen his father beaten many times, and he had toiled for hours under the brutal sun picking worms from the tobacco. He shuddered as visions exploded in his head of Sadie screaming during the beating that left her crippled.

  He shook his head and took a deep breath as he forced his thoughts back to the present. The past was over. Knowing his son would never have to repeat his experiences meant more than words could ever say. It made every hardship during the war worth it. The pain fled as pride in his contribution swelled his chest.

  Amber appeared in the distance, walking down the road with All My Heart. The setting sun created a halo effect that glimmered around them like a curtain of gold. Just the sight of them made Moses smile. The bay filly had quickly accepted the halter and just as quickly learned how to lead, but there was hardly a need. The two adored each other. All My Heart would follow Amber anywhere. When the little girl left at night to go home, the filly would hang her head over the wooden railing and whinny pitifully for her to return. Amber usually walked backward, waving and calling to All My Heart until she disappeared around the bend.

  “Hello, Moses!” Amber called, waving excitedly.

  “Hello, Amber. Where are you and that filly headed off to?”

  Amber’s eyes danced with excitement. “Robert told me I could take her down to the river today. All My Heart has never seen it. I can hardly wait to show her!”

  Moses laughed. “You be careful down there.”

  Amber nodded gravely, though her expression said she was not the least bit concerned. “I will, Moses.” Her face broke into a wide grin. “See you later!”

  Moses watched them for a moment and then continued on to the house. He wasn’t going to eat dinner until his day was done, but he knew his mama would have cookies and lemonade waiting for him. Just the thought made his stomach growl with anticipation. He chuckled and nudged his horse into a canter, suddenly eager to be home.

  Rose was waiting on the porch for Moses when he rode up. When he raised a brow, she nodded toward the barn. “You have a very impatient son. He already has Patches bridled and saddled.”

  “By himself?” Moses asked with surprise. John was big for his age, but that would be a tough challenge for him.

  Rose shook her head. “Amber helped him, but only with the bridle. He stood on a box and put the saddle on all by himself.”

  Moses grinned with unconcealed pride. “That’s my boy!”

  Rose waited until Moses tied his horse and settled into a chair on the porch before she turned to him. “I have an idea.”

  Moses took a long drink of lemonade and stuffed a large oatmeal cookie in his mouth before he looked at her. “What?” he mumbled around his cookie.<
br />
  Annie appeared behind him, shaking her head. “I know I taught you better than to be talkin’ when your mouth be full. You spit crumbs on this clean porch, and you’ll be the one cleaning it up.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Moses said meekly, winking at Rose as he tried to swallow the rest of his mouthful.

  Annie glared at him, a smile lurking on her lips, before she turned to Rose. “So you be wantin’ that picnic or not?”

  Rose hid her frown. She had wanted to surprise Moses with her idea. Pushing down her disappointment, she turned to him. “That will be up to Moses.” His look invited her to continue. “School starts tomorrow…”

  “Yes.”

  “And there is almost a full moon tonight…” Rose murmured slowly.

  Annie shook her head again and made a clucking noise before she opened the screen door. “Once you get around to tellin’ him what you want to do, you let me know. I ain’t got enough time to listen while you creep your way toward it like a scared fish roaming around a baited hook.” The screen door slammed behind her.

  Rose grinned as Annie’s footsteps faded into the distance. Her strategy had worked. Patience was not one of her mother-in-law’s strong points. She turned to Moses eagerly now that she no longer had an audience. “I would like to take you for a moonlight ride tonight,” she said. “Annie is going to watch the kids, and she is fixing a picnic for us to take.” She hesitated, hating the fact that she felt the need to, but she knew the demands of harvest time. “I know you’re probably tired after a long day…”

  “I’m never too tired for an invitation like that,” Moses said promptly, his dark eyes boring into hers. “Is there going to be a blanket with that picnic?”

  Rose met his eyes squarely, a smile of delight dancing across her lips. “Why, Mr. Samuels, I do believe there will be.”

  Moses grinned as he stuffed two more cookies into his pockets, drained his glass, and stood. “John and I will be back as soon as we can.” He leaned down to give her a warm kiss and then moved swiftly toward the barn. “Make sure Mama puts more cookies in that picnic,” he called over his shoulder.