I have been trying to find time to write to you for some days but there is so much to be done I cannot do half I wish to.
(6MR 346.1)
Adelia and the children have been examined today. The doctor pronounces Adelia sick. We shall have their written prescriptions this week, then you can know more in regard to them. I think Dr. Jackson gave an accurate account of the disposition and organization of our children. He pronounces Willie’s head to be one of the best that has ever come under his observation. He gave a good description of Edson’s character and peculiarities. He enjoined upon him outdoor exercise and not much study. I think this examination will be worth everything to Edson.—Letter 6, 1864, p. 1. (To Brother and Sister Lockwood, September, 1864.)
(6MR 346.2)
Dr. Jackson’s Reports Description of Willie C. White’s Character
This boy is of the nervous-bilious constitution and gets his peculiarities almost entirely from his father or from his father’s mother’s side. He is of good stock and good blood—he is “thorough bred.” He has got a woman’s temperament and will be kind loving and courteous. He has an excellent head, and will make a kind, good, true man. He will always make friends wherever he goes. He has a fine physical build throughout, with the exception of his bowels which are too large. He is of scrofulous habit and decidedly pre-disposed to enlargement of mesenteric glands, and is in danger, under bad habits of living, of having them so increase in size as to break down his nutritive capacity. He should live upon the simplest food, making fruit an essential or staple of his ailment. He should not be pushed in school, but be permitted to learn largely from out of door things or inductively, cultivating his special senses rather than his abstract capacity for learning until he is twelve or fifteen year of age. If he is cared for with proper heed and propriety, there is no reason why he may not live, but he is liable to diseases of the glandular system, and bad habits of living (indicated by gross food and the use of stimulants and spices) would, in the long run, be very prejudicial to his health.
(6MR 346.3)
He has a very fine organization. His bone and brain, muscle and sinew and blood are all of fine quality. If he can be reared to manhood, he will take rank as a lover of whatever is good and true in any community where he may be. He naturally takes to the right and true. Of his own accord he would sustain loving relations to those of his own age or more advanced in years.
(6MR 347.1)
His education we could hardly speak of at present until he is older. That needs to be decided by what he will, in years to come, exhibit. He should eat but twice a day have his body kept clean, be brought up to industrious habits, and taught to regularity in their exhibition.
(6MR 347.2)
(Signed) James C. Jackson, M.D.
(6MR 347)
Our home
(6MR 347)
Dansville, N. Y.,
(6MR 347)
September 14, 1864.
(6MR 347)
Adelia Patten Reports on Her Examinations by Dr. Jackson
We passed examination a day or two ago. As my turn came he set me a chair and said “My dear you are sick, aren’t you?”
(6MR 347.3)
Brother White gave him a little sketch of our graham life during the past summer and of what my cares and labors had been. He said that I had evidently overworked that I must make a decided change, and take a rest or it would tell seriously by and by. He gave advice etc. And said when I got thoroughly initialed to their style of living, if I took proper exercise and rest I would enjoy better health than ever before. I have their system, about one half of it practically learned.—Adelia Patten to Sister Lockwood, September 15, 1864.
(6MR 347.4)