far as
physical inheritance is concerned, is not unlike that of the family just
described. "There were giants in the earth in those days," hence appears
to be applicable to the world since the flood, as well as to that which
was before it.

CHAPTER XCIII.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN PATIENT.

Not many years since, I received a letter from a family in a retired
village of the Green Mountains, begging me to visit one of their number,
a young woman about twenty-seven years of age. She was a farmer's
daughter, and had been, in early life, employed as is customary in such
families in that region; but, for a few years past had been employed, a
considerable portion of the time, in teaching in the district or public
schools. It is probable she exchanged the employments of home for the
labors of the pedagogue, on account of increasing ill health (though of
this I am not quite certain), since nothing is more common or more
hazardous. The daughters of our agriculturalists, who inherit, as she
did, a scrofulous constitution, and who appear to be tolerably healthy
while they remain at home, almost always break down within a few years
after leaving the broom and duster.

But whatever may have been the first cause or causes of her diseased
condition, it is probable there had been both action and reaction. She
was now, at the time I received her most piteous petition, quite ill,
and had been so for a considerable time. However, in order to come at
the case and the results, it may be as well to make a few extracts from
the letters of her friends and herself. For, though they were not
accustomed to such descriptions of a case as a medical man would be apt
to give, yet, for popular perusal, they are, after all, the more useful.

My first extract will be made from a long letter written by her brother.

"The first attack of what we suppose to be her present disease, was a
year ago last spring, and was believed to be the result of taking
severe colds repeatedly, while teaching school among the mountains of
New Hampshire, and which ended in what Dr. K. (their family physician)
called inflammation of the lungs, and was treated accordingly. There was
much cough and expectoration of mucus. Though she partially recovered,
so as to be able to teach again the ensuing summer, yet her cough was
somewhat troublesome till autumn, when health seemed again to smile upon
her.

"Late in the fall, however, she had a very severe attack of
diarrhoea