State Library of NSW
[Page 121]
of these frightful curious afflictions, that there is no complete cure, but by [indecipherable] & that these belts which I suppose you can get in the Colony, are impracticable. No medical man recommended the belt to me. My wife bought me one & I was at once & continue relieved of pain. My medical friends one & all now say, Oh yes! it is no doubt an admirable thing! but it is absurd of any man to speak of his health for who "can certainty how long he has to live?" On the 9th of August the day before we started for Scotland Barbara & I went down to [indecipherable] to spend a day with poor dear Salting. Tho' he had previously been in bad spirits in consequence of Nicholsons mishap which he thought wd. estrange his old friend more or less, on that day he was in high glee. I thought I had never seen him happier or to better advantage. On the 14th of the following month he was dead! About a week before that day while at Birmingham having some affliction of the bowels & fearing cholera, he took some chalk & opium files. He never got over their effect of them & after the obstruction had resisted all the remedies that the medical men could devise on the 13th inflammation set in & on the evening of the 14th he expired [indecipherable] calm, collected & prepared. I was summoned by telegram on the evening of the 13th & arrived after traveling all night at 8 on the following morning just 5 minutes after my poor friend had breathed his last. Few men have been so
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