  During the ten years that I have practiced medicine in the neighborhood of the Cumberland Tablelands, I have often heard it said that the people on the mountains never had consumption. Occasionally a traveling newspaper correspondent from the North found his way down through the Cumberlands, and wrote back filled with admiration for their grandeur, their climate, their healthfulness, and almost invariably stated that consumption was never known upon these mountains, excepting brought there by some person foreign to the soil, who, if he came soon enough, usually recovered. Similar information came to me in such a variety of ways and number of instances, that I determined some four years ago, when the attempt to get a State Board of Health organized was first discussed by a few medical men of our State, that I would make an investigation of this matter. These observations have extended over that whole time, and have been made with great care and as much accuracy as possible, and to my own astonishment and delight, I have become convinced that pulmonary consumption does not exist among the people native and resident to the Tablelands of the Cumberland Mountains. In the performance of the work which has enabled me to arrive at this conclusion, I have had the generous assistance of more than twenty physicians, who have been many years in practice in the vicinity of these mountains. Their knowledge of the diseases which had occurred there extended over a, period of more than forty years. Some of these physicians have reported the knowledge of the occurrence of deaths from consumption on the Tablelands, but when carefully inquired into they have invariably found that the person dying was not a native of the mountains, but, a sojourner in search of health. In answer to the question: "How many cases of pulmonary consumption have you known to occur on Walden's Ridge, among the people native to the mountains?" eleven physicians say, "Not one." All of these have been engaged in practice there more than three years, four of them more than ten years, one of them more than twenty, and one of them more than forty years. All the physicians of whom inquiries have been made are now residents, or have been, of the valleys contiguous to Walden's Ridge, and know the mountain people well. Four other physicians in answer to the same question say, that they have known from one to four cases, numbering eleven in all, but had not ascertained whether five of them were born and raised on the mountains or not. The names and place of death of all these cases were given, and I have traced their history and found that but three of them were "natives," or had lived there more than five years, and that one of these was 57 years of age when she died, and had suffered from cancer for three years before her death. The two others died within six months after returning home from long service in the army, where both contracted their disease. All these investigations have been made with more particular reference to that part of the Cumberlands known as Walden's Ridge than to the mountains as a whole. This ridge is of equal elevation and of very similar character to the main Cumberland range in the southern part of Tennessee, northwest Georgia, and northwest Alabama, and what is true of this particular part of the great Cumberland table is, in the main, true of the remainder. Sequatchee Valley lies between Walden's Ridge and what is commonly known in that neighborhood as the Cumberland Mountains, and separates it from the main range for a distance of about one hundred miles, from the Tennessee River below Chattanooga to Grassy Cove, well up toward the center line of the State. Grassy Cove is a small basin valley, which was described to me there as a "sag in the mountains," just above the Sequatchee Valley proper. It is here that the Sequatchee River rises, and flowing under the belt of hills which unites the ridge and the main range, for two miles or more, rises again at the head of Sequatchee Valley. Above Grassy Cove the mountains unite and hold their union firmly on their way north as far as our State reaches. Topographically considered as a whole, the Cumberland range has its southern terminus in Alabama, and its northern in Pennsylvania. It is almost wholly composed of coal-bearing rocks, resting on Devonian strata, which are visible in many places in the valleys. But a small portion of the Cumberland lies above a plane of 2,000 feet. Walden's Ridge and Lookout Mountain vary in height from 2,000 to 2,500 feet. North of Grassy Cove, after the ridges are united, the variation from 2,000 feet is but little throughout the remainder of the State, and the general character of the table changes but little. The great and important difference is in the climate, the winters being much more severe in these mountains in the northern part of the State than in the southern, and the summers much more liable to sudden changes of weather. Scott, Fentress, and Morgan counties comprise this portion of the table, and these have not been included in my examination, excepting as to general features. In all our southern country, and I may say in our whole country, there is no other large extent of elevated territory which offers mankind a pleasant living place, a comfortable climate--none too cold or too hot--and productive lands. We have east of the upper waters of the great Tennessee River, in our State, and in North Carolina and Georgia, the great Blue Ridge range of mountains, known as the Unaka, or Smoky, Chilhowee, Great and Little Frog, Nantahala, etc., all belonging to the same family of hills. This chain has the same general course as the Cumberlands. It is a much bolder range of mountains, but it is vastly less inhabitable, productive, or convenient of access. The winters there are severely cold, and the nights in summer are too cold and damp for health and comfort, as I know by personal experience of two summers on Nantahala River. But the trout fishing is beyond comparison, and that is one inducement of great value for a stout consumptive who is a good fellow. These mountains are much more broken up into branches, peaks, and spurs than the Cumberlands. They afford no table terrritory of any extent. There are some excellent places there for hot summer visits--Ashville, Warm Springs, Franklin, and others. The Cumberland Mountains, as a whole, are flat, in broad level spaces, broken only by the "divides," or "gulfs," as they are called by the inhabitants, where the streams flow out into the valleys. Walden's Ridge, of which we come now to speak particularly, is the best located of any part of the Cumberlands as a place for living. From the separation of this ridge from the main range of Grassy Cove to its southern terminus at the Tennessee River, it maintains a remarkably uniform character in every particular. From it access to commerce is easy, having the Tennessee River and the new (now building) Cincinnati Southern Railroad skirting its entire length on the east. It rises very abruptly from both the Tennessee and Sequatchee Valleys, being from 1,200 to 1,500 feet higher than the valleys on each side. Looking from below, on the Tennessee Valley side, the whole extent of the ridge appears securely walled in at the top by a continuous perpendicular wall of sandstone, from 100 to 200 feet high; and from the Sequatchee side the appearance is very similar, excepting that the wall is not so continuous, and of less height. The top of the ridge is one level stretch of plain, broken only by the "gulfs" before mentioned and an occasional prominent sandstone wall or bowlder. The width on top is, I should judge, 6 or 7 miles. The soil is of uniform character, light, sandy, and less productive for the ordinary crops of the Tennessee farmer than the soil of the lowlands. The grape, apple, and potato grow to perfection, better than in the valleys, and are all never failing crops; so with rye and buckwheat. Corn grows well, very well in selected spots, and where the land is made rich by cultivation. The grasses are rich and luxuriant, even in the wild forests, and when cultivated, the appearance is that of the rich farms of the Ohio or Connecticut Rivers, only here they are green and growing the greater part of the year; so much so that sheep, and in the mild winters the young cattle, live by the wild grasses of the forests the whole year. The great stock raisers of the Sequatchee and Tennessee Valleys make this the summer pasture for their cattle, and drive them to their own farms and barns or to market in winter. The whole Cumberland table, with the exception of that small part which is under cultivation, is one great free, open pasture for all the cattle of the valleys. Thousands of cattle graze there whose owners never pay a dollar for pasturage or own an acre of the range, though, as a rule, most of the well-to-do stock farmers in the valleys own more or less mountain lands. These lands have, until quite recently, been begging purchasers at from 12½ to 25 cents per acre in large tracts of 10,000 acres and upward, and perhaps the same could be said of the present time, leaving out choice tracts and easily accessible places, which are held at from 50 cents to $2 per acre, wooded virgin lands. The forest growth of Walden's Ridge is almost entirely oak and chestnut. Hickory, perhaps, comes next in frequency, and pine after. There is but little undergrowth, and where the forests have never been molested there are but few small trees. This is due to the annual fires which occur every autumn, or some time in winter, almost without exception, and overrun the whole ridge. It does not rage like a prairie fire. Its progress is usually slow, the material consumed being only the dry forest leaves and grasses. The one thing essential to its progress is these dry leaves, hence it cannot march into the clearings. Nearly all the small shrubs are killed by these fires, otherwise they are harmless, and are greatly valued by the stock men for the help they render in the growth of the wild grasses. The free circulation of air through these great unbroken forests is certainly much facilitated by these fires, since they destroy every year what would soon become impediments. The destruction of this undergrowth leaves the woods open, and the lands are mainly so level that a carriage may be driven for miles, regardless of roads, through the forests in every direction. The shrubs about the fields and places where the forests have been interrupted by civilization and other causes are blackberry, huckleberry, raspberry, sumac, and their usual neighbors, with the azalia, laurel, and rhododendron on the slopes and in the shade of the cliffs. The kinds of wild grasses, I regret to say, I have not noted, and the same of the rich and varied display of wild flowers. The whole ridge is well supplied with clean, soft running water, even in the driest of the season. There are no marshes, swamps, or bogs, no still water--not even a "puddle" for long--for the soil is of such a character, that surface water quickly filters away into the sands and mingles with the streams in the gulfs. Springs of mineral water are abundant everywhere. Probably there is not a square mile of Walden's Ridge which does not furnish chalybeate water abundantly. Sulphur springs with Epsom salts in combination are nearly as common. The entire extent of Walden's Ridge is underlaid with veins of coal, and iron ore is plentiful, especially in the foot hills. The coal and iron are successfully mined in many places on the eastern slope; on the western they are nearly untouched for the want of transportation. I find that the impression prevails that the minerals of the Cumberlands are largely controlled by land agents and speculators. This is only true as applied to a very small part of the whole, not more than 1 per cent. The mineral ownership remains with the lands almost entirely. The prevailing winds on Walden's Ridge are from the southwest; northers and northeasters are of rare occurrence. One old lady who had resided there for forty years, in answer to my query upon this subject, said: "Nine days out of ten, the year round, I can smell Alabama in the air." This was the usual testimony of the residents. Winds of great velocity never occur there. In summer there is always an evening breeze, commencing at 4 to 6 o'clock, and continuing until after sunrise the next morning. In times of rain, clouds hang low over the ridge occasionally, but they never have fogs there. The range of the thermometer is less on the Tablelands than in the adjacent valleys. I have had access to the carefully taken observations of the Lookout Mountain Educational Institute, such published accounts as have been made by Professor Safford, State Geologist, Mr. Killebrew, the thorough and painstaking private record of Captain John P. Long, of Chattanooga, and many more of less length of time. From all these I deduce the fact that the summer days are seven or eight degrees cooler on the mountains than in the Tennessee Valley at Chattanooga, and five or six degrees cooler than in the Sequatchee Valley, as far up as Dunlay and Pikeville. The nights on the table are cooler than in the lower lands by several more degrees than the days; how much I have thus far not been able to state. The late fall months, the winter, and early spring are not so much colder than the valleys as the summer months, the difference between the average temperature of the mountains and valleys being at that time four or five degrees less than in the summer. There is no record of so hot a day ever having occurred on the Cumberladd Mountains as to cause mercury to run so high as 95° F., or so cold a day as to cause it to run so low as 10° below zero. In the average winter the ground rarely freezes to a greater depth than 2 or 3 inches, and it remains frozen but a few days at a time. Ice has been known to form 8 inches thick, but in ordinary winters, 3 or 4 is the maximum. Snow falls every winter, more or less, and sometimes remains for a week. Old people have a remembrance of a foot of snow which lasted for a week. Walden's Ridge has a total population of a little more than 4,000, scattered over 600 square miles of surface. The number of dwellings is about 800. Ninety per cent. of these are log houses; 70 per cent. of them are without glass windows; light being furnished through the doorways, always open in the daytime, the shuttered window openings, and the open spaces between the logs of the walls. Less than 2 per cent. of these houses have plastered walls or ceilings, and less than 5 per cent. have ceiled walls or ceilings. About 20 per cent. of them are fairly well chinked with clay between the logs, the remainder being but indifferently built in that particular. Fully 90 per cent. of these abodes admit of free access of air at all times of day and night, through the floors beneath as well as the walls and roof above. It is the custom of the people to guard against the coldest of days and nights by hanging bed clothes against the walls, and many good housewives have a supply of tidy drapery which they keep alone for this purpose. Wood, always at hand, is the only fuel in use. The whole heating apparatus consists in one large open fireplace, built of stone, communicating with a large chimney outside the house at one end, and frequently scarcely as high as the one story building which supports it. This chimney is constructed in such a manner as to be a great ventilator of the whole room, quite sufficient, it would be thought, if there were no other means of ventilation. It is usually made of stone at the base, and that part above the fire is of sticks laid upon one another, cobhouse fashion, and plastered over inside and between with similar clay as that with which the house walls are chinked. Very few of these houses are more than one story high. They are all covered with long split oak shingles--the people there call them "boards"--rifted from the trunks of selected trees. There is no sheathing on the roof beneath these shingles. They are nailed down upon the flat hewn poles running across the rafters, at convenient distances. Looking up through the many openings in the roof in one of these house, one would think that this would be but poor protection against rain, but they rarely leak. Not one family in fifty is provided with a cooking stove. They bake their bread in flat iron kettles, with iron covers, covered with hot coals and ashes. These they call ovens. The meat is fried, with only the exception of when accompanied by "turnip greens." The question, "What is the principal food of the people who live on these mountains?" has been asked by me several hundred times. The almost invariable answer has been, "Corn bread, bacon, and coffee." Occasionally biscuits and game have been mentioned in the answers. All food is eaten hot. Coffee is usually an accompaniment of all three meals, and is drunk without cream and often without sugar. Some families eat beef and mutton for one or two of the colder months in the year on rare occasions, though beef is commonly considered "onfit to go upon," as I was told upon several occasions, and mutton sustains less reputation. Chickens are used for food while they are young and tender enough to fry, on occasions of quarterly meetings, visits of "kinfolks" or the "preachers" and the traveling doctors. Fat young lambs are plenty in many settlements from March to October, and can be had at fifty cents each, but I could not learn that one was ever eaten. A large majority of the adult population use tobacco in some shape--the men by chewing or smoking, the women by smoking or dipping snuff. They never have dyspepsia, nor do they ever get flesh, after they pass out of childhood, though nearly all the children are ruddy in appearance, and well rounded with fat. One physical type prevails among the people in middle life, and carries along into old age but little change; and old age is common there. Nearly every house has its old man or old woman, or both. Everybody, father and mother, and frequently grandfather and grandmother, is still on hand, looking as brisk and moving about as lively as the newer generations. After they pass their forty years, they never seem to grow any older for the next twenty or thirty, and the grandfathers and grandmothers can scarcely be selected, by comparison, from their own children and grandchildren. The men are taller than the average, and the women, relatively, taller than the men. They are all thin featured, bright eyed, long haired, sharp looking people, with every appearance of strength and power of endurance. I think the men who live on Walden's Ridge can safely challenge the world as walkers--aborigines and all; and unless the challenge should be accepted by their own women folks, I feel quite sure they would "win the boots." They go everywhere on foot, and never seem to tire. Nearly all the people of the Tablelands are employed in the pursuits of agriculture. Very few of them seem to be hard workers. The men are all great lovers of the forest sports, much given to the good, reliable, old fashioned long rifles. The women and children are much employed in out door occupations, and live a great portion of their time in the open air. The clothing of all classes is scanty. The use of woolen fabrics for underwear has not yet been introduced, and coarse cotton domestic is the universal shirting, and cotton jeans, or cotton and wool mixed, constitute the staple for outer wearing apparel. The men wear shoes throughout the year much more commonly than boots. They never wear gloves, mittens, scarfs, or overcoats, and they scorn umbrellas. Probably this whole 4,000 people do not possess two dozen umbrellas or twice as many overcoats. The women go about home with bare feet a great part of the summer. They never wear corsets or other lacing. I have learned by careful inquiry that very few of the people of the Ridge have ever had the diseases of childhood. Scarlet fever I could hear of in but two places, and I suppose that not one person in fifty has had it. Whooping cough and measles have occurred but rarely, and the large majority have not yet experienced the realities of either. Very few people there have ever been vaccinated, nor has smallpox ever prevailed. Typhoid, typhus, and intermittent fevers are unknown. In the great rage of typhoid fever which took place ten or twelve years ago in the Tennessee and Sequatchee Valleys, not a single case occurred on the Mountains, as I have been informed by physicians who were engaged in practice in the neighborhood at the time. Diphtheria has never found a victim there; so of croup. Nobody has nasal catarrh there, and a cough or a cold is exceedingly rare. I have said that these observations refer more particularly to Walden's Ridge than to the Cumberland Tablelands in our State as a whole. This ridge was chosen by me for this examination, mainly for the reason of its convenience, but partly owing to its being more generally settled than any other equal portion of the table which lies in Tennessee. Lookout Mountain is not as well located; it is on the wrong side of the Tennessee River, and but a few acres of it belong in this State. Sand Mountain is altogether out of the State, but it is perhaps nearer like Walden's Ridge in its physical features than Lookout. That part of the Cumberlands west of Sequatchee Valley is Walden's Ridge in duplicate, excepting that it is further west, and nearer the Middle Tennessee basin. There are some small towns, villages of miners, and summer resorts there, which interferes with that evenness of the distribution of population which Walden's Ridge has, rendering it more liable to visitations of epidemic and contagious diseases. The tablelands north of the center line of the State, above Grassy Cove, are very similar to Walden's Ridge, as far up as Kentucky, with the exception before mentioned--that of climate--it being from one to ten degrees colder in winter. This whole Cumberland Table is no small country. It comprises territory enough to make a good sized State. At present, it is almost one great wilderness, in many particulars as unknown as the Black Hills. It is coming into the world now, and will be well known in a few years. The great city of Cincinnati has determined to build a railroad through the very center of this great table in the north part of the State, connecting with Chattanooga in the southern part. This road is nearly bored through, and in another year or two the Cumberland Tablelands in Tennessee will be much heard of at home and abroad. It seems to me this country has merits. It is located in the latitude of mild climate; not so far south as to be scorched by the hot summer sun, or visited by the great life destroying epidemics; not so far north as to meet the severe and lengthened winters. Climate, we know, is a fixture; it has a government; it has rules; the weather may change, but climate does not; it is a permanent out-door affair, and what is true of to-day was true centuries ago, and will be true forever, in the measure of any practical scope, at least. The people of the world are beginning to know that the greatest destroyer of human life has its remedy in climate. Mr. Lombard, in his famous exhibit in relation to the prevalence of consumption among the people of different occupations, circumstances of life, and place of dwelling, gives the lowest number of deaths from this cause to those who live in the open air. He found the people who lived most in the open air, as would be readily conjectured, in the mild latitudes, not in the countries of hot sands or cold snows. [The above article, in regard to which we have noticed frequent allusions in many of our exchanges, all erroneously attributing it to Dr. Wright, of Tennessee, and for which we have received repeated requests quite recently, was read by the lamented Dr. E.M. Wight at the 43d annual meeting of the Tennessee State Medical Society, held at Nashville, April 4, 5, and 6, 1876. Its distinguished and talented author will long be remembered as one of the most active, earnest, and zealous members of the State Society. At this meeting he also read a very admirable paper on "The Microscopic Appearance of the Blood in Syphilis," and prepared the report of the Committee on State Board of Health, to which report may be ascribed the honor of securing the necessary legislation organizing the Board. A true, upright, honest man, an earnest, devoted and zealous physician, universally esteemed and beloved by all who knew him; himself the subject of tuberculosis, dying in the prime of a brilliant manhood. He had but few equals in the glorious profession he honored and loved so well. From a careful reading of his paper, we find that he describes a large area of territory, free, absolutely free, from subsoil moisture, a climate mild and equable, a soil capable of producing nearly everything necessary for the comfortable maintenance of human life, surroundings that tempt, nay, compel the greatest possible amount of open air life. His description is exceedingly accurate of a plain, primitive, simple-minded people with but few wants, many of the virtues and few of the vices of humanity. With their surroundings, soil, climate, residence, and mode of living, need we be surprised that "there is a people," or a land "free from consumption"?--ED.]--Southern Practitioner. |
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