e sign I have mentioned, fastened
up at the door of that aforesaid shop in Court Street, but by a host of
advertisements in the public papers; and in other cities as well as
Boston. You may find them in almost every public house, post-office,
railroad depot, and grocery in New England; or, as I might perhaps say,
in the whole Union.

I once had a child severely sick, at a season of the year when not only
the Asiatic cholera prevailed, but also the cholera morbus. She was
teething at the time, which was doubtless one cause of her illness,--to
which however, as I suppose, other causes may have been added. In any
event, she was in a very bad condition, and required the wisest and most
careful medical attention. There was also a young woman in the house who
was ill in the same way, but not so ill as the child.

At that time my residence was very near the metropolis, though, as I
have already told you, Mrs. Kidder's cordial could be had almost
everywhere. Having occasion to go to town, I fell in with an old friend
who kindly inquired after the health of my family. When I had told him,
he boldly and with true Yankee impertinence, asked what I had done for
my family patients; to which I replied, with a frankness and simplicity
which was fully equal to his boldness, "Nothing, as yet." "Do you mean
to do nothing?" said he, with some surprise. I told him that I did not
know what I might do in future, but that I saw no necessity of using any
active medication at present. "Are you not aware," I added, "that
physicians seldom take their own medicines or give them to their
families?"

"I know very well," said he, "that physicians theorize a good deal about
these matters; but after all, experience is the best school-master.
Should you lose that little girl of yours, simply because you are
anxious to carry out a theory, will you not be likely to regret it? As
yet you have lost no children, and therefore, though much older than
myself, you have not had all the experience which has fallen to my lot;
and experience is the best school-master."

"True," I answered, "I am not too old to learn from that experience,
which, in a certain sense, is the basis of all just knowledge,
especially in medicine. What you call my theory, or at least all the
theory I have, is grounded on this same experience; not, indeed, that of
one man in one neighborhood, nor, indeed, in one nation. I have looked
the world over."

"And you have come to the very wi