Out-Door and Camp-Life for Women : Part 1

Doctor and Patient
by S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.

(Page 7 of 10)

A good many years ago I wrote a short paper, meant to capture popular attention, under the title of "Camp Cure." I have reason to think that it was of use, but I have been led to regret that I did not see when it was written that what I therein urged as desirable for men was not also in a measure attainable by many women. I wish now to correct my error of omission, and to show not only that in our climate camp-life in some shape can be readily had, but also what are its joys and what its peculiar advantages.

My inclination to write anew on this subject is made stronger by two illustrations which recur to my mind, and which show how valuable may be an entire out-door life, and how free from risks even for the invalid. The lessons of the great war were not lost upon some of us, who remember the ease with which recoveries were made in tents, but single cases convince more than any statement of these large and generalized remembrances.

I knew a sick and very nervous woman who had failed in many hands to regain health of mind. I had been able to restore to her all she needed in the way of blood and tissue, but she remained, as before, almost helplessly nervous. Wealth made all resources easy, and yet I had been unable to help her. At last I said to her, "If you were a man I think I could cure you." I then told her how in that case I would ask a man to live. "I will do anything you desire," she said, and this was what she did. With an intelligent companion, she secured two well-known, trusty guides, and pitched her camp by the lonely waters of a Western lake in May, as soon as the weather allowed of the venture. With two good wall-tents for sleeping-and sitting-rooms, with a log hut for her men a hundred yards away and connected by a wire telephone, she began to make her experiment.

A little stove warmed her sitting-room at need, and once a fortnight a man went to the nearest town and brought her books. Letters she avoided, and her family agreed to notify her at once of any real occasion for her presence. Even newspapers were shut out, and thus she began her new life. Her men shot birds and deer, and the lake gave her black bass, and with these and well-chosen canned vegetables and other stores she did well enough as to food. The changing seasons brought her strange varieties of flowers, and she and her friend took industriously to botany, and puzzled out their problems unaided save by books. Very soon rowing, fishing, and, at last, shooting were added to her resources. Before August came she could walk for miles with a light gun, and could stand for hours in wait for a deer. Then she learned to swim, and found also refined pleasure in what I call word-sketching, as to which I shall by and by speak. Photography was a further gain, taken up at my suggestion. In a word, she led a man's life until the snow fell in the fall and she came back to report, a thoroughly well woman.

A more notable case was that of a New England lady, who was sentenced to die of consumption by at least two competent physicians. Her husband, himself a doctor, made for her exactly the same effort at relief which was made in the case I have detailed, except that when snow fell he had built a warm log cabin, and actually spent the winter in the woods, teaching her to live out in the air and to walk on snow-shoes. She has survived at least one of her doctors, and is, I believe, to this day a wholesome and vigorous wife and mother.

What large wealth did to help in these two cases may be managed with much smaller means. All through the White Mountains, in summer, you may see people, a whole family often, with a wagon, going from place to place, pitching their tents, eating at farm-houses or hotels, or managing to cook at less cost the food they buy. Our sea-coast presents like chances. With a good tent or two, which costs little, you may go to unoccupied beaches, or by inlet or creek, and live for little. I very often counsel young people to hire a safe open or decked boat, and, with a good tent, to live in the sounds along the Jersey coast, going hither and thither, and camping where it is pleasant, for, with our easy freedom as to land, none object.

When once a woman - and I speak now of the healthy - has faced and overcome her dread of sun and mosquitoes, the life becomes delightful. The Adirondacks, the Alleghanies, and the Virginia mountains afford like chances, for which, as these are in a measure remote, there must be a somewhat more costly organization. I knew well a physician who every summer deserted his house and pitched tents on an island not over three miles from home, and there spent the summer with his family, so that there are many ways of doing the same thing.

As to the question of expense, there is no need to say much. All over our sparsely-inhabited land places wild enough are within easy reach, and the journey to reach them need not be long. Beyond this, tent-life is, of course, less costly than the hotel or boarding-house, in which such numbers of people swelter through their summers. As to food, it is often needful to be within reach of farm-houses or hotels, and all kind of modifications of the life I advise are possible.

As to inconveniences, they are, of course, many, but, with a little ingenuity, it is easy to make tent-life comfortable, and none need dread them. Any book on camp-life will tell how to meet or avoid them, and to such treatises I beg to refer the reader who wishes to experiment on this delightful mode of gypsying.

The class of persons who find it easy to reach the most charming sites and to secure the help of competent guides is, as I have said in another place, increasing rapidly. The desire also for such a life is also healthfully growing, so that this peculiarly American mode of getting an outing is becoming more and more familiar. It leads to our young folks indulging in all sorts of strengthening pursuits. It takes them away from less profitable places, and the good it does need not be confined to the boys. Young women may swim, fish, and row like their brothers, but the life has gains and possibilities, as to which I would like to say something more. In a well-ordered camp you may be sure of good food and fair cooking. To sleep and live in the air is an insurance against what we call taking cold. Where nature makes the atmospheric changes, they are always more gradual and kindly than those we make at any season when we go from street to house or house to street.

About the Author

Silas Weir Mitchell was an American physician and writer. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania in that city, and received the degree of M.D. at Jefferson Medical College in 1850. During the Civil War he had charge of nervous injuries and maladies at Turners Lane Hospital, Philadelphia, and at the close of the war became a specialist in neurology.