t, but might, very probably, turn the
edge of the sword against the very citadel of life itself. But from the
extreme of explaining every thing, in sick families where I was called,
I had passed over to that of explaining nothing. Truth here, as
elsewhere, usually lies midway between extremes.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

POISONING WITH STRAMONIUM.

One of my patients was subject to repeated attacks of rheumatism. He was
by no means a man of good and temperate habits, and never had been so.
And even his rheumatic attacks, though they were now frequently excited
by taking cold, or by a sudden strain, as well as by many other causes
of no considerable magnitude, often had both a foundation or
predisposition in his former and later intemperance.

Let me here say, most distinctly and unequivocally, even at the risk of
being charged with repetition, that a large proportion of even these
casual or apparently accidental attacks of rheumatism, neuralgia, sick
headache, etc., etc., with which our world--the fashionable part of it,
at least--is half filled, instead of springing out of the ground, or
coming upon us by the special appointment of high Heaven, have their
origin in the intemperance, excess, or licentiousness of somebody. The
cause may lie many years back, and may be almost forgotten; nay, it may
be found in a preceding generation rather than the present. But it lies
somewhere in the range of human agency. "Almighty man," as the poet has
well said, "decrees it." Solomon never uttered a more palpable truth
than when he said: "Because sentence against an evil work is not
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set
in them to do evil."

My rheumatic friend sent for me one day, to come and see him in great
haste, for, as the messenger said, he could not long continue in such
suffering. I found him in the greatest distress, and after making the
usual temporary applications, I gave him what I had never given him
before--a pretty full dose of tincture of stramonium. It had, in due
time, its accustomed effect, and I left him, rather prematurely, to
visit another patient in a somewhat distant part of the town, intending,
however, to see him again in the evening.

But I had not been absent more than an hour, before I was sent for in
post-haste. As soon as possible I hastened to the spot. I found my
patient in a state somewhat peculiar and not easily described. He was
evidently affected by the stram