The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981 Page: 313
502 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Lamar's Texas Journal
that death seemed to be upon me; I took [a] cup of Tea, and late in the
evening proceeded to Mr Joseph Dust's; 77 where I lay for 6 days with a
burning fever taking tartar Calomel & other medicine all the while
until I became almost helpless.
I ... tried Tartar at night, like to have died under the operation.
The next morning swallowed a heavy dose of blue masses78 and rhu-
barb & aloes.79 This left me nerveless. My stomach was injured by the
Tartar, have not been able to digest any thing since; dyspectic as the
devil; but the fever seems to have left me & I am now trying the
Quinine.80
I found Mr. Dust an open independent man with a good show of in-
telligence, who imparted to me much useful & interesting information.
He treated me with the politeness & kindness of a gentleman; and on
expressing my determination to make an effort to proceed on my
Journey, he promptly tendered me the loan of his Jersey waggons1 to
carry me to another Stand about 28 miles, which I with gratitude ac-
cepted. One of his negroes rode my mare, and [a] Mexican hired by
Dust drove the waggon whilst I lay stretched in the bottom burning
with the fever. About 3 oclk we reached Mr McClainss2 my destined
point. I asked the driver what I should pay him for his trouble; he re-
plied nothing; but as he had been very attentive to me in sickness I
gaive him 2 dollars[,] a pr of martingales & a spur.
77Joseph Durst came to Texas with his brothers in the early 18oos by way of Natchi-
toches, Louisiana. Durst's German parents spelled their name "Darst," and his son James
entered Durst's name on the 1837 Nacogdoches County tax rolls as Joseph "Dust." Thus
Lamar should be forgiven for this particular misspelling. Durst became alcalde in Nacog-
doches in 1826, served on the Committee of Safety and Correspondence in 1835, and was
active in Indian affairs in the early years of the Republic. Roach, History of Cherokee
County, 16-19; Webb, Carroll, and Branda (eds.), Handbook of Texas, I, 527.
78"Blue masses" was also known as massa hydrargyt i, or mercury mass (obsolete), and as
"blue pills." Blakiston's New Gould Medical Dictionary . . . (2nd ed.; New York, 1956),
166; Hogan, Texas Republic, 232.
79The dried juice of the leaves of the Aloe Perryi was used as a cathartic and tonic.
Hogan cites the account book of Dr. James H. Starr of Nacogdoches for the year 1841.
Among other things, Starr prescribed "rhubarb, calomel . . .'Blue Mass,' aloes, blue pills
... quinine . . . 'Cream Tart'. . . . Blakiston's Medical Dictionary, 49; Hogan, Texas
Republic, 232.
80This paragraph in the original diary appeared after Lamar's description of the land
from Attoyac Bayou to Nacogdoches. (See also note 55.)
81lThis was a long, four-wheeled cart with rough plank seats. Because the cart sat di-
rectly on the axle, riders could not "pass over the smallest stone without being painfully
sensitive of it." Harvardiana, vol. IV, no. VI (Mar., 1838), 210o.
82Daniel McLean, a North Carolinian, came to Texas first in 1814 as a member of the313
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981, periodical, 1980/1981; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101225/m1/361/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.