rdly a half-hour, by night or
day, could pass, in which he was not required to swallow some very
active or in other words poisonous medicinal agent or other. For though
I was even then greatly opposed, in _theory_, to the exhibition of much
medicine in disease, yet in _practice_ I could not free myself wholly
from the idea that my prospects of affording aid, or rather of giving
nature a chance of saving a patient, was nearly in proportion to the
amount I could force into him of opium, calomel, nitrate of silver,
carbonate of ammonia, etc.

It was, in short, enough to kill a Samson or a Hercules; and I repeat
that I verily fear that it did kill in the present instance; not,
however, immediately. For several days and nights we watched over him,
heating his brain, in our over-kindness, to a violent delirium on the
one hand, or to a stupor almost like the sleep of death on the other.

Not satisfied with our own murderous efforts, we at length applied for
medical counsel. My predecessor was not so far off as to be quite beyond
our reach, and was in due time on the spot. He, good man, sanctioned the
deeds already done, and only made through the force of their
prepossessions, an addition to the dark catalogue of demons which
already assailed if they did not actually possess him.

For the first time in my medical career, I suffered, here, from a loss
of the confidence of my employers. A very mean man, who could gain
notoriety in no other way, undertook to insinuate that I did not
understand well my profession; and this story for a short time made an
impression. However, there was soon a reaction in my favor, so that
nothing was lost in the end. More than even this might be said--that I
rose higher, as the result of the report.

Mr. M. at length began to decline. Nature, though strongly entrenched in
her citadel, and loth to "give up the ship," began to succumb to the
powers of disease and the load of medicine; and he gradually descended
to the tomb. His whole sickness was of little more than a week's
duration.

I was present at the funeral, but I could scarcely hold up my head, or
look any person in the face. To my perturbed imagination every one who
was but "three feet high" was ready to point at me the finger of scorn,
and say, "You have killed that man." The heavens themselves seemed
covered with thick darkness, and the green earth with sackcloth and
ashes. "Never again," I said to myself a thousand times, "can I bear u