ocket, and
without the smallest formality, I proceeded to separate the mangled
thumb at the joint.

It was a very painful process, and as I now fully believe, quite an
unnecessary one. But young men are not apt to see things in the same
light with those who have had experience. They are not half as ready to
rely on nature. They are inclined to think art will do every thing;
nature, almost nothing. They frequently love to use the lancet, the
knife, the scalpel, and the trephine. Of this fondness, however, I knew
comparatively little. In the present instance, I simply saw it to be a
doubtful, and as I thought, a hopeless case to attempt to save the
thumb; and therefore, without much reflection, I removed it.

Now I shall never cease to feel a pang, whenever memory calls up this
hasty act, as long as I live. Were life to be protracted to a thousand
years, I should always reproach myself for it. And yet I am not aware
that either the young man himself or his friends ever respected me the
less for it. And so far was I from suffering in the eyes of society at
large, I verily believe I was a gainer by it. But I respected myself
less on account of it. I respect myself less to-day. I am fully
conscious I was too hasty,--that had I waited a little, I might have
been a means of saving his hand without much deformity. Nature, in such
cases, left to herself, will work all but miracles, especially in the
young, and in those who have a sound constitution.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

MILK, AS A REMEDY IN FEVERS.

Early in my practice as a physician I had a patient, a little girl, who,
after having been sick for many weeks with a fever, seemed at length to
become stationary. She was not weak or sick enough to die, and yet she
seemed not strong enough to recover. Her vitality was almost exhausted,
and yet Nature was loth to give up.

On this young patient, during her long sickness, I had tried a thousand
things, to see if I could not give Nature a "start;" but all to no
purpose. The wheels would not move. She would either vomit up every
thing I gave her, or it would pass away as into a reservoir, unchanged.
There appeared to be, I repeat, no vital action in the system.

To check the vomiting or prevent it, I had tried various measures, both
external and internal. I had used warm applications to her stomach, both
dry and moist. I had tried frictions of the skin and fomentations of the
abdomen, both simple and medicated. Electricity I