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The assault on Sumner strengthened the Republican party, and secured his re-election to the Senate; but it produced nervous irritation of the brain and spinal cord, a disorder which can only be cured under favorable conditions, and even then is likely to return if the patient is exposed to a severe mental strain.
Sumner's cure by Dr. Brown-Sequard was considered a remarkable one, and has a place in the history of medicine.
The effect of bromide and ergot was then unknown, and the doctor made such good use of his cauterizing-iron that on one occasion, at least, Sumner declared that he could not endure it any longer.
Neither could he tell positively whether it was this treatment or the baths which he afterwards took at Aixles-Bains that finally cured him. His own calm temperament and firmness of mind may have contributed to this as much as Dr. Brown-Sequard.
When Sumner returned to Boston, early in 1860, all his friends went to Dr. S. G. Howe to know if he was really cured, and Howe said: “He is a well man, but he will never be able to make another two hours speech.”
Yet Sumner trained himself and tested his strength so carefully that in the following spring he delivered his oration on the barbarism of slavery, more than an hour in length, before the Senate; and in 1863 he made a speech three hours in length,
1905. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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