n various occupations,--farming, road building, butchering, etc., etc.
Of a sudden, young G., now about twenty years of age, was brought home
sick, and I was sent for late at night--a very common time for calling
the doctor--to come and see him.

I found him exceedingly weak and sick, with strong tendencies to
putridity. What could be the cause? There was no prevailing or epidemic
disease abroad at the time, either where he had been laboring, or within
my own jurisdiction; nor could I, at first, find out any cause which was
adequate to the production of such effects as were before me.

I prescribed for the young man, as well as I could; but it was all to no
purpose. Some unknown influence, local or general, seemed to hang like
an incubus about him, and to depress, in particular, his nervous system.
In short, the symptoms were such as portended swift destruction, if not
immediate. I could but predict the worst. And the worst soon came. He
sunk, in a few days, to an untimely grave. I say _untimely_ with
peculiar emphasis; for he had hitherto been regarded as particularly
robust and healthy.

His remains were scarcely entombed when several members of his father's
family were attacked in a similar way. Another young man in the
neighborhood, who had been employed at the same place with the deceased,
and who had returned at the same time, also sickened, and with nearly
the same symptoms. And then, in a few days more, the father and mother
of the latter began to droop, and to fall into the same train of
diseased tendencies with the rest. Of these, too, I had the charge.

My hands were now fully occupied, and so was my head. Anxious as most
young men are, in similar circumstances, not only to save their
patients, but their reputation, and though the distance at which they
resided was considerable, I visited both families twice a day, and
usually remained with one of them during the night. I was afraid to
trust them with others.

Physically this constant charge was too much for me, and ought not to
have been attempted. No physician should watch with his patients, by
night or by day,--above all by night--any more than a general should
place himself in the front of his army, during the heat of battle. His
life is too precious to be jeoparded beyond the necessities involved in
his profession.

But while my hands were occupied, my mind was racked exceedingly with
constant inquiry into the cause of this terrible disease,--for s