Rockbridge Alum Springs: Letter from Randolph Harrison, October 2, 1885
Randolph Harrison, a Commissioner for the Virginia Department of Agriculture in 1885, wrote to his brother, Dr. George Byrd Harrison, who graduated from the University of Virginia medical school in 1879 and was treasurer of the Washington Gynecological and Obstetrician Society.
Letters to Dr. George Byrd Harrison, 1885, Accession #12106, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
Ampthill, Cumbd Co
Oct 2nd, ‘85
My dear Brother
Made a rapid retreat from the springs because I was very sick up there and apprehended being caught in a sort of “impasse.” The place was to be closed on 1st (yesterday.) – and I thought there was big chance of my being too sick to be moved – so struck out for Richmond – and having improved on the way, struck out hitherwards. …
… You ask what is the matter with me. I’ve had a dysentery of a peculiar kind for 6 or 8 weeks, and it is so obstinate that Crenshaw sent me to the Alum for it. I was getting better of it there, apparently, when all at once I was taken with fever – whether malarial (as we doctors are wont to say when at fault in making [ ] diagnosis) or from some other cause which it It would take too much time to theorize about. Anyway it took all the starch out of me, and I imagine that it [unclear] of a typhoidal character. The res. phys. Dr Chancellor had gone away, and there was no Dr there to advise with. I had planned to go by Clifton Fge. but some kind friends coming to [Rd?] induced me to come with them; and I got through much better than I expected.…
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